Has anyone heard of Our Place?
Just learned about it recently... although, the specific 'at risk' program that I heard about is not called that, nor does it have a name, nor can it be found anywhere online apparently.
Apparently it is a place for teens who are close to going off the derech due to drugs. And apparently going off the derech is attributed mainly to drugs. When I asked for more information, the individual was rather reluctant and even slightly embarrassed to be discussing this. This individual insisted that the biggest problem the Jewish community is facing is losing their teens to drugs and essentially causing them to leave the derech. I asked if there were other ways in which they are losing people. Other than drugs, yanno? And this individual was adamant that the one and only biggest plague they are facing is the drugs.
I was just exhuasted to the core trying to explain that some people don't need to lose their faculties to lose their way. That they may actually seek another way of life due to using their intelligence and wanting to ensure they have free will. But alas, it was to no avail and it was like talking to a wall. Since I didn't want to lose anymore hair than I already had by speaking to this individual, I let it drop.
I am flabberghasted. Truly I am. What a well kept secret it seems the Jewish community would like to keep under wraps. Granted, there was that one article I was able to find on the net, but these other 'programs' go under the radar and are not published or made known. I asked how the teens find these programs and the individual stated that the schools refer them. Interesting.
I asked what they do at these gatherings and was told that they pretty much allow them to be themselves. No judging allowed. Therapists are on hand to help any of them if they so choose. Jewish therapists, of course. They do karaoke, watch tv, chit-chat, eat nash, whatever. Fascinating, huh?
A shame that these young people needed to go on drugs before the community would allow them a non judgmental space just to be themselves.
ReplyDeleteA Problem With Orthodox Judaism.
ReplyDeleteI think whether on the derech or off the derech make little difference.
People choose their beliefs based on non rational motives.
(1) Some people sincerely study OJ and critically evaluate it and accept it. (I have come to suspect that the Ari'zal was correct that Talmud is the tree of knowledge of good and evil that adam was commanded not to eat. It gives power to perfectly evil people to seem perfectly righteous. (2) Some people like Rebbi Nachman will study Orthodox Judaism and decide they disagree with some aspects of it and try to redirect it into a direction more in accord with their mystic views. Both of these approaches can be considered honest.
(3) But a lot of people misunderstand Orthodox Judaism and stress trivial issues, ignore or downplay significant ones, or garble concepts. (Sometimes this happens by people just absorbing the general philosophies that are in the air and then apply them to Torah. In fact the actual value system of most OJ is very much based on Freud.) This is a common thing in history where powerful thoughts conquer. It was only one generation after Hobbes that even Bishops could not understand each other anymore except in the language of social contracts and the self that he had invented. There is no where in the Orthodox world that I ever saw that actually thought in Talmudic terms and concepts except at the Mir. The rest of the Orthodox world talked the language of Nietzsche and his followers (values and commitments and life styles and the work ethic.)
Orthodox Judaism can be a route to power, prestige, and privilege. Not only will some people adhere to the religion for cynical reasons, they will become entrenched at its very center.
So the fact of a person being observant says nothing about their moral character at all. It can be from honest motives or dishonest ones. And the more perfectly honest one is the more perfectly honest he will seem. The problem with Orthodox Judaism is that it seems to be factory for taking normal emotionally healthy people and turning them into unhealthy sick people. First OJ seems to have little to no effect to improve people’s character. It seems to detract from character.
And OJ will never be intellectually defensible as long as it rejects evolution no more than a math class that teaches 1+2=4. It can never be morally defensible as long as it advocates going through the world and asking the gentiles if they accept the seven mitzvoth plus slavery plus a yearly tribute or be killed. (That is the halacha as stated in the Torah and Rambam-hilchot melachim) Now if we understand Torah to be re-- definable based on reason then I have no problem with Torah. But as long as self correction is denied then it is not defensible.
In fact I was thinking that it would be a good idea to take the program of the rambam and make an institution that learns Tenach, Mishna Torah of the Rambam, Plato and Aristotle and natural science.