"So basically, this is my reason for being Orthoprax. The OJ community (and to a lesser extent Conservative and Reform), pays attention to spirituality, morality, community and all those spiritual type things."
I knew it was lame when I wrote it, but I rarely go back and edit. I like my writing to be spontaneous and true to what I was thinking at the time. If I'm having lame thoughts, then that's what gets written.
ej commented:
"'ll be frank...WADR I think you lack the poetic-romantic impulses to convey such feelings and thoughts, and you do not have any definite ideas what is the spirituality you want or seek."
"I do feel if XGH could roll his eyes and wax poetic on the virtues of yiddishkeit, say like Rav Kook, he would gladly swoon away."
LOL, very true. But I'm an engineer, skeptic, Modern Orthodox, Rationalist INTP type of guy, swooning is just not my bag. However that does not mean I'm incapable of feeling it, I'm just incapable of expressing it. I have had some very intense transcendental moments, though not recently.
ej also writes:
"What I am being pushy about is having two standards, a mehadrin epistemology for Orthodox people, and a hodge podge utilitarian laundry list for not acting on the skepticism."
Firstly, I don't think my epistemology is 'mehadrin', it's just plain common sense. Secondly, does one need to have a well constructed philosophy to be utilitarian? I think the point of being utilitarian is to be pragmatic and practical. If OP works because of reason a,b, j and q, then it works. It doesn't need some grand scheme to justify it (though admittedly that would be nice, and was my holy grail for a while).
"What I am being pushy about is having two standards, a mehadrin epistemology for Orthodox people, and a hodge podge utilitarian laundry list for not acting on the skepticism."
Firstly, I don't think my epistemology is 'mehadrin', it's just plain common sense. Secondly, does one need to have a well constructed philosophy to be utilitarian? I think the point of being utilitarian is to be pragmatic and practical. If OP works because of reason a,b, j and q, then it works. It doesn't need some grand scheme to justify it (though admittedly that would be nice, and was my holy grail for a while).
And what about the new language? I'm looking. The words are easy to find (just read Reform or Reconstructionist theology), it's the feeling behind the words that's hard.
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I think his point is that your epistemology lacks space for other ways of attaining knowledge. A broader epistemology would see the social coherence of a religious life itself as a way of understanding the world other and apart from the scientific and technocratic.
No, that's not his point. And anyways, there are no other reliable ways of attaining knoewledge.
>Firstly, I don't think my epistemology is 'mehadrin', it's just plain common sense.
Of course it is. Your battle targets OJ specifically. You do not go after manifistations of anti-positivism in the general society. Frankly, the political correct left (gay rights movement, far left feminism, civil rights movement, radical environmentalism, etc.) is full of anti-scientific epistemologies that are no more robust than what you find in OJ - but you attack OJ as if it is an island of irrationality in a sea of common sense. It is not honest or fair and EJ just called you on it. Even if you are right about OJ, signaling out and not framing the issue in broader philosophical terms betrays bias - not objectivity.
So becasue he does not go after EVERY SINGLE movement/religion/philosophy that may or may not contain some sort of irrationality (sorry to use that word) he cant critique OJ??!?
We are all bias, to some degree. He is most familiar with OJ - critique away baby!
I agree with the previous commenter - critiquing OJ does not imply other groups are free from similar problems.
tesyaa, i need to email you something, can you email me at ksilloyavin@gmail.com?
ksil, I'll email you tonight.
XGH - what is your email address? I have a link you might find interesting.
Thanks.
> Your battle targets OJ specifically. You do not go after manifistations of anti-positivism in the general society.
LOL. OK, I hereby extend my critique of OJ to all fundamentalist religions, crackpots and other non sensible people and movements.
"XGH - what is your email address? I have a link you might find interesting."
godolhador at gmail.com
Orthopraxy is connected to the idea that we have no reason to accept the Ptolemaic picture that the spheres and stars form a dome around the universe, and beyond that is heaven. Common sense today accepts the Copernican picture that the stars do not revolve around the earth, we are not the center of the universe and there is no place up in the sky correctly designated as heaven. As a result, describing getting closer to God in terms of up- down, higher-lower metaphors became more difficult. When we think of God we no longer point with confidence in a particular direction.
There are two well known responses. One is to internalize God, so that though God doesn’t exist outside the self, He can be found by going deeper and deeper inwards. Jewish Renewal, Arthur Green, Zalman Schecter etc. think that the language of kaballah is the correct model for this inward journey. I don’t see XGH, going Jew-Bu, meditation, Zohar, openness to Eastern religions etc. The other idea is to talk more of present- future rather than higher-lower, thinking of mitzvos as ways of bringing about some desirable future. Here God is seen primarily as acting in history, and we have a special responsibility to help bring about the end of history, the Messianic age. The popular versions are Lubavitch and the Gush settlers. They both feel for different reasons they are doing God’s will in special ways, thereby bringing about the end of history and the coming of a complete redemption. This also is not to XGH’s taste as far as I know.
XGH refuses to believe reason requires us to do mitzvot because the system as a whole is rational, and then to make things vivid talk as if it was given by God. That’s a good part of the fight with the intellifundies. Yet he feels a need to be shomer mitzvot because of its benefits. When you justify Orthodoxy by its benefits, you also justify secular Jewish behavior, where the benefits point away from Torah.
Another possible response is to be frum out of love for the world created by mitzvot, even when the net benefits are marginal. When you love something outside you, to a point of internalizing it, the subject –object dichotomy disappears. It is no longer why should I, an independent consumer of religion, choose Orthodoxy. It becomes, I live an Orthodox life because this is who I am, and I have no reason to change. Being observant when there is a a deep love of the Orthodox culture, the Torah and Israel is a reason, and even a good reason for Orthopraxy.
EJ, I like that last sentence. Trouble is, some of us are less in love with OJ culture than we used to be. If we could keep the modesty, community warmth and good middos and somehow get rid of the racism, insularity, conformity, materialism and judgmentalism, that would be helpful... But I think if those aspects disappeared, Orthodoxy would cease to exist. Seriously.
Tesyaa, I would just point out that in a modern orthodox community (versus a balck hat yeshivish charedi type), it is possible to get these benefits without some of the drawbacks you mention.
EJ -
I think you miss on two points.
First of all, if you see TMS and concept of an engaged god as bunk [I think I am channeling XGH here], then all the nice abstract moral ambition that the OJ community has or at least how it thinks of itself, becomes worthless. Instead, the community has to stand on its actual values as lived.
Second, you down play the praxy aspect of OP. At the end of it, OJ communities are imperfect but have some nice things about them. However, if you want to be part of one, you need to been seen as conforming to the rules.
Again, if you see TMS and concept of an engaged god as bunk, all the religious ritual and use of halachah to justify behavior is hollow. So the only reason to pretend to do it with kavanah is to keep the communal affiliation.
There are many who find the orthodox jews with whom they grew up or in whose shuls they davened to be utterly abhorrent people - spoiled, whiny about what the world owes them for being frum, narrow minded, racist, materialistic etc. And who wants to be part of a community like that? Perhaps more to the point, who wants their children to grow up to be like that?
someone should write a guide book for non-believers "How to survive in the OJ world"
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