Thursday, April 14, 2011
Coming Soon: Advice for Closet Orthopraxers
Over the past few years I have received a number of emails from people asking for help and advice, mostly from OPers stuck in the closet. I received one last week from Israel. I also know a few closet OPers who wouldn't dream of asking me advice, but I'm going to give it to them anyway. Why are people asking me for advice? Because none of the usual channels are helpful. These people are not going to be impressed by an Aish Seminar, nor do they care for the Science and Torah reconciliation stuff, they're not stupid, they're just looking for practical advice. So stay tuned.
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22 comments:
Aren't you always complaining about your existential angst and about how you've been miserable since becoming a skeptic? Didn't you create this blog allegedly for the purpose of finding "a new way," but you haven't yet found it and instead you just spend all your time ranting against OJ instead? This is in sharp contrast to the comments on various blogs in the last few days from several Orthopraxers who are at peace with themselves, are happy, and have a constructive approach to their situation that doesn't make them see it as necessary and beneficial to tear down everything and everyone around them.
It seems to me that you're not yet in a good position to give practical advice to Orthopraxers. I don't think that advising people to loudly and constantly yell at everyone that OJ is bogus is going to be helpful for them, even if you yourself somehow find it therapeutic or otherwise pleasurable/ meaningful. Better to first figure out for yourself how to come to terms with your situation in a positive way.
True, I'm not 100% there yet, but I'm way further along than the people I know. I dont live in mortal fear of being unmasked.
My advice is to join any left wing orthodox academic community where everyone is OP, but get very upset when the rabbi mistranslates something during a drasha or the ba'al koreh misses a dagesh.
"I dont live in mortal fear of being unmasked."
Interesting, so what you are suggesting is that we "come out" in some way to our family, peers, Rabbis - and that removes much of th angst. The other angst - of conflicting life (belief and prax) is minor compared to the familial and social angst.
I hear
"I'm way further along than the people I know. I dont live in mortal fear of being unmasked."
How does that make you "way further"? You obviously live in a unique community - very LWMO - and have a very understanding wife. So for you, "coming out" was not especially/ at all harmful, and as a result of "coming out" you don't suffer from angst of being "hidden." But for most OPs, any discomfort about being "hidden" is going to be vastly outweighed by how much they are going to suffer in their community and in their shalom bayit by "coming out."
And what do you recommend to the guy running the "Orthoprax Rabbi" blog, or the guy in the Ami article? That they give up their jobs? How exactly are they better off if they are unemployed?
XGH I've been reading your blog for a while and I've never received a clear picture on your view on some very basic questions:
1) Is Orthodoxy a better way of life than Reform or secularism? (Sometimes you say it's false and immoral, sometimes you say it's harmless and better.)
2) Should one try to convert ma'aminim into skeptics?
I think that first you have to answer those. Also, your advice to OPer's may not be relevant to OPer's who feel differently from you about these things (aside from OPer's who have different circumstances from you, as pointed out above).
What is the "Orthoprax Rabbi" blog?
1) Of course not. But there is a good chance it is a better way of life for you if that's the community you were acculturated into. And if you have a happy marriage and kids, then should you screw that up because your theological beliefs have changed?
2) Of course not. You'll just end up coming across as an ass hole. If you really feel that you need to change someone's mind about something specific it's better to show them that their way of thinking isn't even normative from within.
It really helps to separate how you relate to people's core faith versus their ignorance and frummy affectations. Always respect the former, resist the latter when necessary.
"This is in sharp contrast to the comments on various blogs in the last few days from several Orthopraxers who are at peace with themselves, are happy, and have a constructive approach to their situation that doesn't make them see it as necessary and beneficial to tear down everything and everyone around them."
Being at peace with yourself is compatible with being frustruated by being a member of an unthinking society.
BSD said...
What is the "Orthoprax Rabbi" blog?
http://theorthopraxrabbi.wordpress.com
Being at peace with yourself is compatible with being frustruated by being a member of an unthinking society.
But it's not healthy to be constantly angered by your society and spending all your time putting them down. An OP who is doing that is not yet ready to advise others on how to be cope with being OP. He'll probably just be advising them to out themselves so that he can feel vindicated, or as part of his grudge against Orthodox society - not because it's genuinely in their best interests.
Well, in the absence of weekly meetings I am curious what XGH has to say.
Incidentally, are you orthoprax and do you have any advice?
But there is a good chance it is a better way of life for you if that's the community you were acculturated into. And if you have a happy marriage and kids, then should you screw that up because your theological beliefs have changed?
Ari, what you're saying makes sense, but I don't think that it's the view of XGH.
BSD -
http://www.justfuckinggoogleit.com/
What I would like XGH to do in this forthcoming advice column, is tell budding OPers how to idealize Orthodoxy, which is different from making believe it is true. Without some idealization sitting in shul, doing mitzvot is torture. If you are taken in by the production it all goes down easier.
A recent example I encountered was watching the TV miniseries Downton Abbey. This seven part telenovela has been a worldwide success. I knew from the start none of it was true. As with Jane Austin, the series hides how this great wealth was acquired. Neither the plot nor the characters showed real complexity. But because of the acting and the production values I became really involved. When the 7th part was over and almost nothing was resolved, I was beside myself...how can they make me wait another year? I mean what will be with Lady Mary, and the second daughter the machshaifa? So many loose ends.
When the acting is outstanding and the production first rate, entering a world different from ours is a joy, an opportunity to enlarge our own space. Why then is a torah world made to appear as such a bitter pill?
Because you can't easily change the channel.
And you know it will end eventually. No one wants to go to an eternal Broadway show. Even Nicholas Nickleby was only 11 hours or so.
I, as the the outside viewer can indeed change the channel, and know it will end, if not next season then the season after. (Actually Upstaris, Downstairs went through five seasons and now has risen from the dead for a sixth. The Sopranos ran for six seasons.Susan Lucci played the evil Erica Cane on All My Children for 41 years. But that was a soap opera with different standards.)
My point was that I and millions of others are easily drawn-into the aristocratic world of Downton Abbey. That world despite its class structure, gross unfairness and endless snobbery worked, and was supported even by those working downstairs as maids and butlers etc. And looked at in isolation was a thing of beauty and nobility. The people working upstaris in the torah world, the aristocracy governing Orthodoxy, the rabbis and gevirim are net- net better, more that the European aristocrats post Napolean, and yet wherever you look the magic they were once able to create is falling apart.
Very difficult to give advice how to wing- it in Orthodoxy if the society is not admired.
well, there used to be an expression "it's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there".
"My advice is to join any left wing orthodox academic community where everyone is OP, but get very upset when the rabbi mistranslates something during a drasha or the ba'al koreh misses a dagesh."
I love those folks (even as an OPer). Anyway, can we get a list of those communities? We need to know where to consider living.
I think it is easier to live in Israel as an orthopraxer than abroad. Why? Because in the diaspora your beliefs go hand in hand with identification with your community, being part of the "in-group" as opposed to the outsiders.
In Israel it is easier to be part of the very large group of traditionally observant Jews (mesorati/MO/Dati Leumi) of many stripes, who don't get under your skin about what you actually do or don't believe. You're being part of the "in group" (which IMHO is the whole point of being OP) is not contingent on a particular dogma. So coming out of the closet is not an issue, since you're still "loyal" to the group. My closer friends and relatives (including my wife and rabbi son in law) know of my ideas and I have no problem.
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