A user on Reddit (the social news site to which I owe the majority of this blog’s hits) had this to say about my take on the world:

The content (so far) makes me sad on two counts: one, I was in Yeshiva for a not insignificant time, and a number of my best friends are in Yeshiva, and I’m proud of my association with Yeshiva, and we all wholeheartedly agree with you on the points I’ve so far read (except that you missed a few things about tzniut that I’ll come back to). It hurts me deeply that this is what people associate Yeshiva with, because it absolutely does not have to be like that, and it wasn’t like that in Europe (at least Lithuania).

Two, is that you identify as “a heretical post-yeshivish hack”, I have no problem with “hack” (as in writer, I assume), I have no idea what post-Yeshivish means, and I can’t tell whether you’re using “heretical” satirically, as a joke, or seriously. But mi’ma’nafsach: if it’s a joke, you shouldn’t joke about yourself like that (if it’s heretical, then ok, I guess), but if it’s literal, then it saddens me deeply that a few concerns with the conduct of the Yeshivish world would so unnecessarily put somebody off Yiddishkeit.

(Apologies for commenting here and not on the blog, but you haven’t enabled comments on the tznius post, and once I’m commenting on one here . . . (plus, it all seems consistent with my point).)

Anyway, back to the main points, I’ve heard that Rav Gifter criticised the American Bochrim for not being able to speak proper English, or proper Hebrew, or proper Yiddish, and just speaking their own incoherent pidgin. And that was then . . . But there is YU, where graduates (I know nothing about students) seem to be very well spoken, and there’s my tradition (which I have every reason to believe is completely authentic), where derech eretz and normalcy are stressed above all things. And there are numerous stories of Lithuanian Yeshivas where it was the same.

And as for tzniut, firstly, I don’t think men’s hirhurim is the main issue, for reasons you mentioned. The middah of tznius is important in its own right! Furthermore, there is virtually (or possibly literally) no mention of the technical details of dress until quite recently. In the Maharal’s three or four chapters on “Nesiv haTznius”, I believe only one even addresses clothes at all.

Never mind that tznius has little to do with clothes, it’s not even all about sex(uality). It is about an attitude to the world, and recognising boundaries, and not crossing them when it’s not appropriate. The way people fixate on what other people wear is a complete perversion of what tznius is about, and is itself a lack of tznius. (And the car story sounds insane).

In short, don’t blame the Yeshiva world (although I understand that Yeshivish has become a description in itself), for the people perverting what Yeshiva (and Torah!) stands for. And you should visit a more welcoming version sometime. it’s a wonderful experience 🙂

Edit: Other than that, keep writing, but try to focus on positive things, it will be better for you and the olam.

Ok, so let me first level with you here: I’m not really a heretic, and I don’t consider myself one. My use of the term is more of a satirical, tongue-in-cheek reference to the sort of crap I had to endure in my yeshivish past, where my ability to articulate my thoughts in quasi intelligent-sounding English was viewed as a distinctly “goyishe” talent that had no place amongst genuine frum Jews. I’m sorry that the term disturbs you, but being treated like an evil secular mole even as I sat over my gemara has that sort of effect on my nouns of choice.

It is often said that one must not judge a religion by its adherents, but I respectfully–albeit passionately–disagree.

Sure, it’s easy to excuse the offensive behavior of a religious Jew by contending that he or she was just a “bad element” of an otherwise pleasant and beautiful whole, but it gets a whole lot harder to magic away the bad stuff when it becomes clear that the people you dismiss as “rabble” are in fact acting at the behest of a rabbinical figure.

In my experience, this rabbinical figure (often a rebbi or rosh yeshiva) either outright encourages the behavior of his students or simply looks the other way…with an indulgent smile on his face. When the card-carrying class clown chose to imitate the way in which I daven (pronouncing the cholam as oh) in front of the entire yeshiva, my rebbi at the time did not just condone it, but laughed uproariously. Now, this same rebbi could have easily quoted various well-known sayings of our Sages regarding the humiliation of a fellow Jew in public, but that wasn’t what he chose to do.

Religion, when divorced from the humans that actually practice it, is almost always a wonderful sounding thing. Spiritual connections, strong community ties, promotion of scholarship and monetary/social accountability are only some of the precepts of the Torah that an ideal Jewish community should embrace. What we often find in its stead is very different indeed. If we wish to judge this religion, we must examine the behavior of those that sit and study its tenets in our batei midrashos. To ignore the yeshiva world in one’s consideration of Judaism is like ignoring the papacy in one’s consideration of Catholicism.

Which brings us neatly back to the issue of tznius. As I mentioned earlier, tznius is supposed to be a very Jewish kind of middah. It encompasses both men and women, and involves maintaining a healthy self-esteem, promoting emotional rather than strictly sexual ties between the sexes and overall walking the earth with a healthy degree of humility and deference to one’s peers. As I said, it’s all in the attitude.

What I meant to point out by underscoring the male fantasizing aspect of the thing we now call “tznius” was the absurdity of rendering such sexualization of women as the womens’ fault. It is indeed the men who are adjured not to stray after their eyes and hearts and to avoid reducing women to sex objects; as such, it is wrong to then place the lion’s share of the religious guilt-trip squarely on the womens’ shoulders.

Of course tznius means a lot more than simple testosterone regulation; it is meant to be a lifestyle and a self-image. It was only my intention to point out how distant we now are to this obvious truth. When the so-called “elite” amongst us cannot perceive the true spirit of the Torah for what it is, they do not deserve the crown that they have fashioned for themselves.

…

Wow, so that came out somewhat overwrought, didn’t it? I really did want this blog to be lightly humorous, you know.

Ok, so why does it take the Neturei Karta so long to read the Megilla on Purim?

Answer: Because they also have to bang every time the word “medinah” appears.