Expunging the Kool Aid

"Drinking the Kool Aid" is a popular metaphor for someone who simply accepts something wholeheartedly without thinking critically about it.  The origin of the metaphor comes from the People's Temple incident in Guyana, where over 900 people committed suicide by drinking Flavor-Aid mixed with cyanide at the behest of Jim Jones, the cult's leader.

Interestingly, at one time I was a Kool-Aid drinker as well.  In my late teens, I went through a period of about a year where I started accepting everything without question.  Young earth creationism?  Check.  The absolute historicity of every midrash?  check.  The notion that Jewish philosophy, culture and practice (with the exception of things like sacrifices and the like) have been unchanged since Sinai?  Check.  The notion that everything in the Gemara is Torah MiSinai?  Check.  Belief in an unbroken and completely intact and unchanged oral tradition passed down from generation to generation to generation?  Check.  And on and on.

Most people who go from Kool-Aid drinker to critical thinker (note that I did NOT say skeptic) arrive at the Kool-Aid stage in one of two ways:  a) they're born into it or b) they become ba'alei teshuva and just want to believe everything about their new-found spirituality.  I didn't take either of those paths.   I was not born frum -- I became frum (with my mother) at about age ten.  During high school, I was a skeptic (even if I wasn't a critical thinker).  Yet, about the time I turned eighteen, I began to drink the Kool-Aid.  A Rav Avigdor Miller book could often be found in my hands.  I could be found discussing and defending Judaism's objections to evolution, natural history, cosmology and the like.  I studied and regurgitated all the fallacious arguments, bad facts and mistaken notions.  I was never much of an evangelist, but if anyone wanted to discuss it, I was there to discuss and defend.

To this day, I can't tell you why I began drinking the Kool Aid.  While I tried to (and to some extent, succeeded) in internalizing it on an intellectual level, I did not "frum out," as the saying goes.  While I sometimes wore a hat/jacket, I by no means made it a requirement.  I sometimes missed davening.  I wasn't found learning every minute of the day that wasn't otherwise occupied, and so on.  But I did accept, without much critical thought, much of the anti-scientific dogma of the subculture that I was immersed in.

At some point, however, I began thinking critically.  I began to look at and evaluate arguments.  I learned to evaluate and weigh evidence.  I began to learn to spot things such as logical fallacies, poor reasoning and just plain silliness.  I began to consider not only the dogma of Orthodox Judaism, but the context in which that dogma was created.  I began to question and probe into the things I was taught, and discover whether the knowledge I had accumulated over the years (and the observations that I made with my own senses) affirmed, contradicted or were silent about those teachings.  

Over the years, as I began thinking more and more, I began adjusting my beliefs.  I reasoned out a version of old earth creationism that was consistent with both B'raishis (IMHO) and with contemporary scientific thought (again, IMHO).  I began exploring history not solely through writings that were made hundreds (or thousands) of years after the fact, but began to consider history through both historical and contemporaneous accounts.  I began to understand that not everything that is purported to be sacred writ *must* be viewed in the absolute, but also has to be put into its proper historical and cultural context.  I began to view our Sages not as simply great figures who grew up in a societal, political and emotional vacuum who were immune to the outside world, but as people who, as great as they were, were at least partly a product of the times, places and cultures in which they lived.  

It’s been a long journey -- one that is still ongoing and, with God’s help, will go on as long as I live.  I’ve slowly begun to make a change to my learning habits -- I’m still learning Torah, but I’ve also begun learning *about* the Torah -- something that was lacking in my previous education and, I would not be surprised to find, is missing in a lot of people’s education.  I’ve begun to pay more attention to not only Tanach, Mishna, Gemara and the like, but also the historical and cultural background upon which they were created.  I’ve come to look at not only learning the halacha, but viewing that halacha as a product of a halachic process that caused it to come into being.  I believe that the Torah has to be more than what is simply printed on the page -- it also has to include how the page came to be -- and in the vast, vast majority of cases, the story of how that page came to be is far, far more complicated than “God said it to Moshe on Sinai.”


I know that there are some who are reading this who would say that what I am engaging in is dangerous and forbidden.  They would like to tell me that such things may lead one away from whatever “pure” hashkafah that they are espousing.  They may try to tell me that context and background are unimportant or, worse, irrelevant.  They may believe that our great leaders and sages grew up in a “social vacuum,” unaffected by their time, place and culture and that their halachic, philosophic and other opinions are absolutely true across all times, places and cultures.  They may believe that if Chazal, Rashi, the Rambam, Rabbeinu Asher, the Vilna Gaon or any other “sage of the canon” says something that it must be true and that any critical thought about their statements is tantamount to a slap in the face of those great sages.  They equate critical argument with impertinence, respectful disagreement with insolence and a contrary opinion with disrespect.

I disagree.  I believe one can have the utmost respect for someone and yet disagree with them.  I believe that it’s possible that things that have been said and accepted in the past may no longer be applicable to our current times, places and cultures.  I’m not saying that halacha has to change because of that, mind you, but it should be recognized that such changes and obsolescence* has taken place.  A necessary corollary of this is that I’ve come to believe that not everything that a sage says is necessarily sacrosanct.  Like anything else, it has to be evaluated in terms of its message, historical context and the like.  In short, I no longer take anything as irrefutable dogma simply on someone’s say so.  That’s is not all to say that there are no irrefutable dogmas, universal truths or articles of faith -- but it is important to be able to make a distinction between a true article of faith, a halachic ruling that may or may not apply to our current situation, a midrash which may or may not be historically true, or a simple, personal observation of a sage.  Lumping them all together as inviolate “Torah” does a great disservice to both the Torah and to those sages.  But to be able to do make these distinctions, you need to begin to think critically about what you’re learning.  You need to learn not to blindly accept everything within the canon as absolute truth.  In short, to do this, you need to stop drinking the Kool Aid -- and that's what I've been doing.  I've spent a long time expunging the Kool Aid that I built up in my system over the years -- and I believe that I am, today, a healthier person and a better Jew for it.

The Wolf

* I don’t mean “obsolescence” in terms of “should be discarded” but in terms of not currently applicable.  In this context, the halacha of egla arufa, for example, would be termed as “obsolete,” but I am not, God forbid, suggesting that it be excised from the Torah or no longer studied.  Likewise, it should be (and widely is) recognized that the reasons behind the institution of the second day of Yom Tov are obsolete... but again, I am not advocating changing the halacha to eliminate that second day.

LaLaLaLaLaLa I'm Sticking My Hands In My Ears And I Don't Hear You!!

An interesting discussion has come up in the YWN Coffeeroom regarding women learning Gemara and other such subjects. In stating why women shouldn't learn Gemara, one poster quoted the Torah Temimah*:

Girls do not have the intellectual stability and are, therefore, unable to make profound inquries with a sharp mind and appreciate the depth of the Torah. It is possible thay by using their own minds, they will transgress the Torah.

Other, similar quotes were brought as well. One woman responded that the quotes:

were from a time when women did not go to Yeshivah, and basically knew nothing except possibly how to daven from a siddur. They learned the laws of Taharas Hamishpacha, how to kasher meat, bensch licht and take hafrasha when they would bake challah, but other than that, learning was done only by males.

To this, the response was:

The quoted meforshim are 100% Toras Emes. As true today, as the day it was written.

I sometimes find it completely amazing that otherwise intelligent human beings are unable to perceive the context in which a statement is made and assume that it applies at all times, in all places, in all cultures and in all circumstances. They think that rabbanim make statements in a vacuum, completely uninfluenced by their surroundings or their personal biases.** The very possibility that a rabbi suggested that a woman might be unable to make "profound inquiries" because in that place and time women were, by and large, uneducated, is not even a remote possibility.

Of course, like all people, these people may sometimes be confronted by reality. They may find it necessary one day (perhaps for the purpose of earning a livelihood, or for some other reason) to venture out of their own daled amos and they may run across a woman with a brain cell or two. They may even find that women have the ability to be every bit as smart as (and smarter than) men. They may find that there are women lawyers (for example) who can formulate a complicated question and who can follow a complex topic. They may find female doctors who can analyze data from multiple sources and come to a logical, reasoned conclusion. They may even find (assuming that they are willing to talk to a woman long enough to allow her to string a few sentences together) that the reality today is simply not as the Torah Temimah saw it in his day. So, what does he do then? How can he reconcile the apparent reality with the words of the Torah Temimah, which he sees as eternally true in all times and all places?

He (figuratively, of course) closes his eyes, sticks his fingers in his ears and yells "La La La La La La I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!) at the top of his lungs. In this way, the eternity and truthfulness of the Torah (as he sees it) is preserved.

How sad.

The Wolf

Related Posts:
Orthodox Jews And Ferengi: Two Of A Kind? (re: women being excluded from learning)
Parody Or Touch Of Reality (re: women being excluded from learning)
Admas Kodesh Hu (It Is Holy Land) (re: mothers excluded from a learning camp's campgrounds)





* NB: I haven't checked the source inside.
** Rabbis have personal biases??!! Perish the thought!

Attack of the Torah-Learning Zombies

I came across an interesting Imamother post regarding what to expect when Moshiach comes. The thread is titled "PSA from Eliyahu HaNavi." It was originally posted before Succos.

Gmar tov to all yidden everywhere!

As promised I am letting you know a day before that mashiach is coming this motzai Shabbos (ohr l'yud gimmel Tishrei). Please be aware of the following:

1. Please report to airports straight after havdalla. Planes will be waiting. You can leave your sukkos and freezers full of YT food behind.

2. Please ensure your dress conforms to halacha. Any doubts should be checked with your LOR.

3. Our customs officials in EY will now check your baggage for strict adherence to ratzon Hashem. Please do not embarrass yourselves or them by bringing secular literature, equipment for using media not in accordance with ratzon Hashem, computers etc. Those who had heterim for using certain equipment for parnassa reasons - the heterim are no longer valid, since you will be living directly from Hashem's bounty, with your work done by non-Jews and therefore will have no need for parnassa.

4. Each family will be allotted a small apartment in line with their needs. These are Israeli sized, so please do not bring excess baggage. Please do not bring more than the minimum necessary amount of clothing for each person. No electric/ electronic gadgets (as mentioned you will have non-Jewish help).

5. Each family will be allotted their apartment in their chelek (portion) according to their original shevet (tribe). Please do not embarrass anyone, including yourselves, by requesting a particular location or neighbours. Please be aware that your neighbours will include original family members who may have been living in any country previously - many already lived in Israel, or are from the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia, South America etc. We are sure that your ahavas Yisroel knows no bounds and you will enjoy their company.

6. All boys will be enrolled in Talmudei Torah teaching only Torah. We are sure that you are aware that those rabbonim who allowed secular studies in the past did so only for parnassa reasons. Now that this no longer applies all boys will learn Torah exclusively.

7. All Jews will spend their time learning Torah and in avodas Hashem.

8. All food will be with the kedusha of EY and its accompanying mitzvos and spiritual benefits. This means no food will be imported from outside EY. Please do not bring any as personal baggage either.

Shavua tov and bruchim habaim!

While the post is certainly cute, original and entertaining, it also (perhaps inadvertently) reveals some interesting ideas that she has.

For starters, I wonder if she thinks there is any room for individual creativity outside the realm of Torah learning in the days of Moshiach. Take me, for example. One of my hobbies is photography. However, it would seem from her post that digital photography is out. After all, without a computer (prohibited by point 3), there is really very little that I can do. Even if you maintain that pictures of flowers, insects, animals, etc. are a waste of time, there are still enough legitimate uses for photography (pictures of gedolim, family pictures, snapshots, etc.) that I would think that it should be permitted -- and without amateurs and hobbyists, you rarely end up with professionals.

Of course, photography is not the only example I can think of. Music (composition, performance, etc.), writing, etc. are also hobbies that use modern equipment which would probably be prohibited in her vision of Moshiach's days.

As bad as that sounds, I think that there is even a deeper level to her idea of when Moshiach comes... the idea that creativity and individuality themselves are a bad thing. In her world, it seems that all men will learn Torah all the time and have time for nothing else. After all, to her, nothing else has intrinsic value. Secular literature -- verbotten. Practical learning -- who needs it? The non-Jews will do all our work for us anyway.* Creativity? Heck, who needs to waste time with things like writing, art, music, poetry, etc.?

In short, it seems that in her vision, we're all to just become drones who have no desire except to learn Torah every day all day, with nary an outside interest. We'll simply become "zombies" with the desire to do anything other than learn Torah simply sucked out of us.

Ultimately, I find it interesting that this is the vision of Moshiach's times that she has. Now, I don't want to say that her opinion is wrong; I don't know for a fact that it is (nor do I think anyone will know until it happens). However, I'd like to think that the same Creator who created us with a diverse set of skills, talents and desires will want us to continue using them in the future. I'd like to think that a photograph of the beauty of nature will lead one to a further appreciation of the wonders of Creation and a greater appreaciation of its Creator. I shudder to think of a world where I wasn't allowed to take a day and go out and shoot some flowers or insects or beautiful landscapes because I simply lost the interest in doing anything else. I can't imagine a world where God grants us the wonderful gift of creativity and being forbidden to use it except in one narrow area. In short, I can't see how it is that God wants us to become Torah learning zombies.

Does that mean that I think that Torah learning won't increase or be a major factor in life in the days of Moshiach? No, not at all. In fact, you can argue that the incredible growth in Torah learning in the last twenty years or so is a step in the right direction toward the coming of Moshiach. But I just don't see it as being the only thing in life -- even in Moshiach's days.

The Wolf

Hat tip: OnionSoupMix

* Just as an aside, the idea of having a group of people who do all the work and another group that simply benefits from it eeriely brings to my mind the words "Morlocks" and "Eloi."