DOES HALACHA EQUAL SELF CONTROL?

One of Orthodox Judaism's favorite lines is that following all of their nonsense imbues self control in a person.





The answer to that is this:





There are useful forms of self control and useless forms of self control.




1) Getting up for work, getting your exercise, having a good diet, and not getting pissed off easily are examples of useful forms of self control. On the other hand, wearing a silly hat on your head all day, keeping Shabbat as strict as it is, separating meat and cheese all the time, are all useless forms of self control.


2) Orthodox Judaism gets very ugly when there's a kid in the family who does not want to be religious. Orthodox Judaism can be DISASTROUS to families if there is a kid who does not want to toe the line i.e. fiddler on the roof was just a mild movie version of what can go on.


3) Orthodox Judaism -without- American influences. In Israel, Orthodox Jews can be quite violent to women who don't want to sit in back of the bus or lesser religious jews or even to different kinds of religious jews. Self control my ass.