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Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Pick Your Rabbi

I'm too tired to do a full roundup at the moment, but this post by LamedZayin is simply one that can't be passed up. Excerpts: [emphasis mine]
We all need to be a little more mature about this. There's simply no way to synthesize all of Orthodox Judaism into one big happy family...

Why is this so difficult? It's because we frum Jews have been socialized against making independent religious decisions. The mantra of Orthodoxy today is "Ask Your Local Orthodox Rabbi." And while that's usually a good idea, it's gotten to the point where we are afraid to take any positions ourselves...

Choice is scary to the frum. It's much easier to abdicate this need to choose by pretending there aren't any disagreements in the first place.
Read the whole thing.

I think this ties in perfectly with a series continued by DAG from yesterday, The Problem With Charedim. If instead of people judging one another by certain differences in certain psak, people would actually respect the opinions of different groups, we would be far, far better off.

6 comments:

  1. I would add the fact that Jews of all stripes, from charedi to Reform, seem to be obsessed with labeling. The best thing one of my teachers at Yeshiva of Flatbush taught us was that when ever anyone asked him what kind of Jew he was, (i.e. Modern Orthodox, Charedi, etc.), he would also say: "none of the above. I'm just a Jew trying his best to follow the Torah." I don't know why so many Jews are afraid to say that and leave it that way. Choose a local shul and Rabbi where you feel comfortable and leave it at that. Why do we need "movements" and central authorities? I suppose it might make it easier to arrange beit dins and establish schools. But we all know every large Jewish community has dueling beit dins and its individual donors and rich benefactors who create the day schools and kollels. I guess we Jews are such a small community in the world, that we want to think we're always part of some greater thing. Well, we are, but it's the Jewish people. Every other division/group is a joke in comparison. So ultimately, I agree that we just need to find our place, and accept other Jews choices. At least those other Jews are choosing to live and identify themselves as Jews. I wonder how many Reform Jews have left the fold entirely by correctly saying, "hey those Orthodox Jews don't consider me a Jew anyway, so why bother?"

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  2. Good links, I was just surfing around for something a little provocative.

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  3. Jake - Good points/questions. My cousins in Israel used to say that I wore the kippa I did (do - black srugi) to avoid being part of either the charedi or dati leumi communities (or to be part of both). To some extent, they were right - I didn't like being labeled.

    Prag - Heh.

    Y'all are welcome, thank LZ and DAG.

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