Thursday, January 12, 2012

Understanding The Orthodox Jewish Community

See two things are going on

- with the OTD crisis, orthodox jews are going through a seismic shift that's on the level of when polytheism lost favor in Europe to Christianity.

- Orthodox Jews are going through a Brain Drain. A Brain Drain is what political science calls when someone from the third world gets educated in the west and they don't wanna go back because it sucks.

Sad part is if orthodoxy would just give people a freaken break here and there with the halachas for this halachas for that halachas halachas for everything then none of this would be happening.

25 comments:

jewish philosopher said...

A brain drain? Have you read Hella Winston's book The Unchosen? The people she describes there as drop outs don't seem to be the most highly gifted. Personally, I say: good riddance to worthless trash.

That's why Jews are genetically smarter: the dummies drop out, smart people join.

SJ said...

All the famous jews who did big things are the ones who weren't religious, like Albert Einstein.

Anonymous said...

Hey JP, I assume that you are calling Alan Dershowitz stupid. If so call me when you become a professor at Harvard Law.

jewish philosopher said...

Among today's dropouts, I mean post 1960, I haven't seen any Einsteins.

SJ said...

two points-

After leaving something like Orthdox Judaism it probably takes some time to get your bearings.

Second is Orthodox Judaism don't give big secular educations perhaps in violations of state laws, especially in enclaves where English isn't taught, so people who exercise their rights to leave has a bigger path ahead of them.

jewish philosopher said...

I think these are flimsy excuses. Can anyone identify one person who was raised orthodox, left orthodoxy after 1960 and today has a job, a spouse and a child from that spouse?

The fact is that drop outs are not merely failures as Jews - they're just failures.

A Darwinist might say this is an example of natural selection - the worst elements leave the Jewish community, the best gentile elements join it and this improves the total gene pool.

SJ said...

>> who was raised orthodox, left orthodoxy after 1960 and today has a job, a spouse and a child from that spouse?


Abandoning Eden. ROFL

jewish philosopher said...

She doesn't have a child. ROFLMAO!!!

jewish philosopher said...

Seriously, I believe that, sadly for them and sadly for their immediate families, drop outs have serious personality disorders and are in the shallow end of the gene pool. Instead of "brain drain", maybe "garbage dump".

SJ said...

When you come from a culture that doesn't believe in secular education, don't accuse others of being stupid.

jewish philosopher said...

We believe in Torah education. Studying what God said is a lot more important than studying what God created.

Just look at the Daf Yomi program where thousands of Jewish men review the Talmud every seven years. Can you imagine a gentile Encyclopedia Brittanica Page a Day program involving millions of adult men?

SJ said...

I'm not impressed with "Talmud." You make up crap and call yourselves smart for learning it and following it. XD

Difference is, math, science, and the humanities are real and practical.

jewish philosopher said...

The Torah is totally awesome

http://jewishphilosopher.blogspot.com/2006/12/truth-of-judaism.html

evolution is some made up crap

http://jewishphilosopher.blogspot.com/2008/03/evolution-science-hijacked-by-atheism.html

jewish philosopher said...

But anyway, I'll let the drop outs continue with their miserable loser lives.

SJ said...

I believe in the Torah, I don't believe in evolution. Human history only goes back roughly 5,000 years and mutations seem to me to be almost invariably harmful or inconsequential. To say life spawns from mutations seems to me to be silly.

It's the rabbinic add ons that I have a problem with.

However, for someone to disregard the beauty and practicality of secular education is foolish and a recipe for disaster on multiple levels.

Anyways If life as an orthdox jew is so great JP, why so much OTDness and orthopraxy? Only you are having such an awesome life after being fired from work a few years ago and being kicked out of a career training program?

jewish philosopher said...

Why people drop out, I explain here.

http://jewishphilosopher.blogspot.com/2008/07/jewish-skeptics-and-sex.html

And about losing a job, I think that probably happens at some point to EVERYONE WHO WORKS, which excludes most drop outs.

SJ said...

Maybe apart of the reason why OTDers do indeed leave is because they want to date. I don't see why you have to stigmatize the group and say that it's just base sex that they want. Every human being wants sex as a biological fact of life, maybe OTDers just want to date.

And maybe OTDers leave because they do indeed want to be educated and work instead of being trained in nothing but Talmud.

jewish philosopher said...

There's one guy I've met (on the Internet) who may have left for career reasons. But I think it's generally sex, as I explain.

http://jewishphilosopher.blogspot.com/2008/07/jewish-skeptics-and-sex.html

SJ said...

What you mean is, being able to date normally. I don't think it's factually accurate or ethical for you to paint OTDers as being simpily animalistic with their sex drives.

jewish philosopher said...

Whenever a man and a woman socialize or are alone together without being in a long term, publicly committed relationship, they are being incredibly cruel, selfish and irresponsible in terms of the fate of any children who may be conceived as a result.

SJ said...

If God wants to incarnate a neshama down to Earth, it'll get sent to Earth no matter what any human being does or doesn't do.

Lilia said...

Why do only marriage and having kids equal success? There are seven billion people on this planet, and we can't afford to have everyone reproduce.

I left decades ago at 16 and never looked back. It had nothing to do with sex. As far back as I can remember, I knew the Orthodox thing was not for me. I'm not a very rules oriented person, and I don't like regimentation. The truth is, I was not an Orthodox kid. Having Orthodox parents doesn't make one Orthodox. In my head and in my heart, I was never one of them. At 16, I finally stopped going through any of the motions, but my life was a wreck because I had lost my childhood and adolescence and suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder directly attributable to my involuntary experience in a community that was never for me. To this day, it feels like I felt those first 16 years of my life doing a prison sentence.

I don't want kids. The entire idea of childhood is ruined for me. But I do help those in need in this bad economy by doing a lot of volunteer and charity work. While I've occasionally dated, I've spent most of these last decades celibate, and often I'm more happy not being in a relationship. Not marrying also means my family will be spared the hurt of the very likely chance I would marry a non-Jew. I just don't want to deal with the headache either way. So much for JP's nonsense. I just wanted my freedom--emotional, spiritual, physical, and artistic. I'm a performer now, and for women with vocal talent, that whole notion that you can sing only in front of women is soul-crushing. Please don't put any more talented kids through that. I sing for everyone, men and women, now. I'm also a practicing pagan. God wouldn't have given me a beautiful singing voice to hide it from half the planet.

SJ said...

You sound like a good person, Lilia. I totally hear your desire for individuality.

It would still seem to me that being married with kids is an eventual part of the human lifecycle.

I have to wonder, how is paganism any more rational than orthodoxy? O.o

Lilia said...

The Earth cannot afford to have everyone have kids at this point. And for some freedom lovers like me, marriage and kids just aren't what we want. Plenty of people throughout history have lived meaningful lives and contributed to their societies without getting married or having kids. No one path is right for everyone.

I don't want marriage or children, and it would be unfair to a potential spouse or child to pretend otherwise.

Paganism works for me. In my case, it's mostly about finding spirituality in nature, understanding the divine as both immanent and transcendent--and non-judgmental. Within paganism, there are many paths, and the more rule-oriented ones aren't for me either. Just because this path works for me doesn't mean it is right for other people. What is rational is the notion that "cookie cutter" religion and/or spirituality ignore the individual, even crush the individual with demands to conform.

Anonymous said...

I do. I have two beautiful kids, a college degree, and a living spouse who isn't Jewish....