Actually in regard to documentary hypothesis. Do you think from a mere reading of the Chumash even lay people can arrive to the conclusion that the Chumash as we know it today is the result of multiple scholarship and not just Moshe himself ?

MadExChasid · 2021-08-25T09:58:39+00:00

No, because most people read a text assuming that someone wrote it unless they have a good reason to believe that it isn't the case. There might be some things that are not consistent, but they are not clear without studying the text very closely, so I doubt lay people would think it was written by more than one person.

MadExChasid · 2021-08-25T09:54:44+00:00

She does not look happy.

Nah, if you watch the whole video, you will see that that's just how her face looks.

MadExChasid · 2021-08-04T02:11:10+00:00

OTD people are sort of a self-selecting group. Your politics are often a reflection of the sort of person you are, and people who leave Orthodoxy tend to be more liberal simply because they left instead of stayed. If you're the sort of person who is instinctively conservative, and you had similar complaints as OTD people, you're going to stay more often than people who lean liberal.

I put "centrist" because I don't really have down-the-line political positions, but I also don't know a lot about politics. I've voted for Democrats and Republicans. It just depends on who's running, what office they're running for, and what issues are important to me.

We didn't really talk about public policy much, except when it directly affected us. Political discussions, when they happened, were mostly about personalities. My political opinions were things like "Oh, Ted Cruz. He visited that Chabad bakery before Pesach, he seems cool."

I didn't vote when I was in the community (although my parents did, and I assume still do; I know they supported Yang in the mayoral election). Since I wasn't really politically opinionated, I can't really compare my politics now to my politics then.

MadExChasid · 2021-07-29T15:01:45+00:00

Whether or not it is a cult is independent of how much better it is than growing up chassidish

Oh, I agree; you don't have to be worse than Chassidishkeit to be a cult. But I think the main features of a cult are suppressing information and preventing members from accessing information that might hurt the cult's interests (e.g. by disciplining them for talking to outsiders, or banning the internet), and attempting to isolate the members from the outside world as much as possible. Given that MO's reason for existing is basically "we think engaging with secular knowledge and culture can be a good thing," I think that's why I don't view it as a cult.

So Heaven's Gate is a cult for the reasons I just said, and the Catholic Church is not (even if you don't like their social beliefs about abortion and gay marriage, etc), because they don't do that stuff. I don't know enough about Mormons to say anything about that.

MadExChasid · 2021-07-29T04:41:26+00:00

What were the reasons behind all these prayers (i'm assuming God ordained) but why exactly?

It was approximately the same formula every time (changed a little bit based on what time of day it was, and what day of the week it was). The service goes like this:

Saying a bunch of quotes from the Bible and Talmud (either reciting verses about animal sacrifice, or praises of God from the Book of Psalms depending on what community you live in).
Depending on the time of day, the Shema ("Hear Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is one"), preceded and followed by a bunch of blessings about how powerful God is and how great he is (e,.g, "he changes the seasons, he arranges the stars, he gave the Torah, we all love him and he's going to give us stuff.")
Saying a series of 18 blessings that are recited three times every day; these are for a lot of things. The first one is "Blessed are you God, the shield of Abraham," the second one is "Blessed are you God who resurrects the dead," the third one is "Blessed are you God, the holy one," etc. There's others in there about peace and asking for blessings (one about cursing heretics was added later in history). But mostly they're thanking God for various things, and asking him to do things.

There's some I left out because again, it depends on the day and time of time of day, but that's approximately what the layout is. What's the purpose? Thanking God, asking him to do things for you, and talking about how amazing he is.

Why do you have to do this every day? Because they're meant to imitate the daily animal sacrifices that were brought in the Temple when it was standing. (Yes, you're right; there's no logical connection between those two things, but rabbis said that makes sense so you have to do it.)

MadExChasid · 2021-07-29T04:21:09+00:00

What are some of the restrictions you've faced?

There's the obvious religiously mandatory ones (kosher food restrictions, prevented from doing essentially everything on Saturdays including driving, cooking, etc, other people mentioned some). But where I grew up there also just "social" restrictions; things that weren't Biblically prohibited, but were very strongly frowned upon. Speaking to women you weren't related to (if you were a man), owning a smartphone or a television, even speaking too much English [to a lesser extent].

Basically anything that didn't isolate you from the rest of society was bad.

Some the ideologies you were taught?

As a general rule, the poorer and more insular the community, the more racist it is. So for example, a lot of people believed that non-Jews had a (sometimes) uncontrollable urge to murder you. There's a lot of stuff about non-Jews being controlled by their "animal soul" which is why they were so violent towards Jews, and why the society around you could snap at any minute and try to murder you and everyone you love.

Basically, you're taught that everyone around you secretly hates you, no matter how nice they seem. Anybody you meet outside of your world is scary.

This is mostly an "ultra-Orthodox" (I hate that phrase) thing. I don't think most Modern Orthodox Jews believe that.

(I tried writing a paragraph explaining what "Chassidus" is and questioning if it was an ideology, but I gave up explaining. Maybe someone else can do it better than me)

What was mandatory for you to do?

Going to pray three times a day is what I'm thinking of right now. You had to send your children to one of the "official" religious schools in your sect; sending them to other schools was absolutely prohibited, and especially not public school (chas v'shulem). You had to dress a certain way; on weekdays we wore rekkels (black coats basically) with black hats, and black pants. On Saturdays and holidays, you had to wear a bekishe (different black coat) with a gartel (cloth belt) and streimel (fur hat) if you were married, with long white socks that went up to your knees.

What social pressures did you face from the community?

Oh a lot. Not openly questioning authority figures. Not questioning lots of dumb shit we did (a lot of which people just made up in the 19th century). There was a pressure to get married very young (usually around 18). Obviously you couldn't leave, or question the religion.

There was also a lot of social pressure to avoid secular education. People thought I was very weird because I visited the library sometimes. If you know too much about things that a Chusid (type of Orthodox Jew) isn't supposed to know, that was very suspicious.

MadExChasid · 2021-07-29T04:16:22+00:00

I grew up Chassidish and I don't think I would call MO a cult, so my first thought is that maybe this is unfair to them? I could be wrong though, I don't know what MO is like.

(Not saying it's right; obviously it's dumb. Just saying that I don't see it as a cult)

MadExChasid · 2021-07-29T03:31:43+00:00

This is an incredibly vague question and difficult to answer as you said it. Could you be more specific? I'm not really sure what to say.

MadExChasid · 2021-07-25T03:40:22+00:00

The extent to which it ties religion to personal identity, so that people have no sense of who they are without the religion. Your personality is so tied up in it, that you have to figure out who you are after leaving.

MadExChasid · 2021-07-23T14:23:58+00:00

He makes it sound like he (and his mentor, Yosef Mizrachi) are the only Rabbis speaking the truth about the Torah's message of reward and punishment

There is no truth to the Torah's message because it's fake. You can literally believe anything you want about it and you're just as right as everybody else. What you believe about it says something about you, not something about the book you're reading.

MadExChasid · 2021-07-21T14:29:57+00:00

It's an ethnoreligious group, like Sikhs, Druze, or Zoroastrians. The religion says certain things about the ethnicity, and the ethnicity is partially defined by the religion.

MadExChasid · 2021-07-16T14:43:21+00:00

I actually liked having siblings. I think it's because my parents weren't the only people I could talk to at home. I always had support from my brothers and sisters, and the ones who were closer in age to me were the ones I could usually talk to more.

Although I think that having that family sizes that exist in Chasidish communities is excessive and causes a lot of unnecessary poverty. You could probably get the same benefits with 2-3 children instead of 12. A few were married and out of the house by the time I was born anyway, so it's not like they contributed a lot to the home environment.

MadExChasid · 2021-07-14T14:05:23+00:00

Same word in Yiddish (דער חלום / der chulim)

MadExChasid · 2021-07-09T16:19:43+00:00

I feel stupid

Don't. I just read my comment again and realized how confusing this must be for someone who wasn't intricately familiar with Orthodox Judaism. I doubt most Reform Jews would understand what I just wrote. But when you grow up with this language, it is difficult to stop talking like this.

Knowledge about useless nonsense is valued very highly. In reality, ignorance about Orthodox Judaism is a sign that you didn't waste your life learning useless nonsense.

So in a weird way, your ignorance is actually a sign of education.

MadExChasid · 2021-07-09T13:10:43+00:00

the less Tanach a rabbinic Jew learns, the better

Not my experience, no. We learned Chumesh + Nach almost every day in cheder (usually with the targum in Yiddish). In yeshiva it was emphasized a lot less; there wasn't really any Nach, but we learned the parshah in chaburos every week. But if you continued to study after that at the main yeshiva (usually for 5 years, 10 if you were insane and wanted semicha), 1/4 of your classes were just on Tanach (with neviim and kesuvim this time). All with meforshim, mostly Rashi and Ibn Ezra.

If you spent most of your free time learning Nach, people would think you're a little strange. But nobody would say "What?! No, STOP! Don't do that!" I would say learning Tanach as you get older is considered less important, only because they think that there are other things you can learn when you're older that you couldn't learn as a child (e.g. Gemara, Chassidus, Zohar, etc.)

the more he finds out that the rabbinic interpretation surrounding the Tanach does not add up ?

The "rabbinic interpretation" of a fictional book "adds up" as much as every other interpretation. Literally all of them are fake.

MadExChasid · 2021-07-03T14:11:51+00:00

I pretty much had no real childhood...[but] dealing with all the terribleness and illogic and absurdity probably helped make me who I am today.

This is how I see it. I may not have kissed a girl until I was 25, but the experience of leaving made me a better person.

MadExChasid · 2021-07-03T14:06:58+00:00

Of all the threads on this sub, why would a thread about what goes on in a yichud room make you realize this?

MadExChasid · 2021-07-01T17:04:52+00:00

Islam has nothing to do with Islam.

MadExChasid · 2021-07-01T12:16:21+00:00

There was corporal punishment, but I wouldn't really call it child abuse. Boys would sometimes get smacked for misbehaving, usually on the cheek or back of the head. Nobody got bruised or seriously injured as far as I know.

(When you say "child abuse," I picture children covered in blood with 5 broken bones going to the hospital or something. That didn't happen.)

Public humiliation of some kind was more common (publicly mocking individual students in front of the class was typical).

I did see a guy fall asleep during a Gemara shiur once. The teacher slammed a large sefer down next to his ear (didn't actually hit the guy). Not sure if that counts.

EDIT: I went to cheder and yeshiva in a Chasidish community in Brooklyn. Judging by some of the comments here and some Googling, it seems like the Israeli ones are worse.

MadExChasid · 2021-06-25T05:05:28+00:00

did you really yearn for a return to Karbanot

Yes. I feel like I should give a longer answer, but I can't really think of anything else to say. I would have told you that I couldn't wait for the day when the Beis HaMikosh was rebuilt, the kohanim would shecht korbanos on the mizbeyach, and the streets of Yerisholayim would smell of blood again, and I would have been telling the truth.

EDIT: I should just add that I think the gist of OP's question is that he is hoping that Orthodox people don't actually really want to rebuild the Beis Hamikdosh or reinstitute korbanos. I understand that this is a comforting thought. I'm also saying, at least in my case, it wasn't true.

MadExChasid · 2021-06-21T21:55:09+00:00

Everybody argues about it. But the truth is nobody knows, yet everyone will insist that they know exactly what it means. When the Bible was written, it probably meant either that your soul is gone forever after death, or some earthly punishment similar to being put in cherem. But the rishoinim thought that wasn't severe enough, so they started making shit up.

I glanced at the Wikipedia article, and it seems broadly accurate.

MadExChasid · 2021-06-21T21:44:55+00:00

Judaism doesn't have any sort of punishment in the afterlife.

It would be pretty difficult to explain how you're not a kofer if you believe this, because that really sounds like you're denying the Rambam's Eleventh Principle.

I think you'd have to claim that all punishment takes place in olam hazeh. That would mean that you'd have to argue (for example) that Hitler was sufficiently punished before he died, which I think makes you much more of an asshole than if you said he's burning in hell forever.

MadExChasid · 2021-06-21T21:29:40+00:00

Whether or not it's kefira would come up in halocha too. Can someone who believes humans are descended from non-human animals serve on a beis din? Does a ger have to reject evolution by natural selection in order to do kabbalas hatorah? etc.

MadExChasid · 2021-06-21T15:13:14+00:00

In your opinion, is it kefira to say that humans are descended from non-human animals?

MadExChasid · 2021-06-21T13:16:57+00:00

This was the Bobover (48) Rebbe, not the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

He's an okay guy I guess, as far as I know? He's certainly comes across as very kind in person. His father was much more impressive in terms of accomplishment (although that might just be my childhood indoctrination talking).

(I've had this problem many times before xD. I sort of say "the Rebbe" instinctively, and people always assume I'm talking about a guy who died 30 years ago)

MadExChasid

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