Monday, April 14, 2008

Great post from Marty Bluke

About half a year ago, I picked up a book at shul, called Jewish Women Speak on Jewish Matters. Inside this book was the linked article. When I read it, I had the cynical thoughts along the lines of the following blog entry by Marty Bluke. Since he presents it in a much better way than I can, please, read it here.

2 comments:

concernedjewgirl said...

Surprisingly enough…I agree 100%.

I agree that Aish is saying what they themselves don’t believe. I also agree with one of the commenter that said that in America the Haraidi Society is a little looser then in Israel. I agree with that as well. I have good friends of mine that grew up in very frum homes that do have degrees in: Medicine (pediatrician to be specific), PhD’s in Chemistry, Biology, Psychology, Masters in Education, and Masters in Speech pathology, marketing and so on. On the other hand, most of the girls ran into opposition with some saying that they won’t find a good shidduch because of their choices. The opposition for the most part was wrong, these girls did find their basheret’s but the writer of this particular blog is correct, they are a minority an exception. Some girls are now venturing to be dentists, or dental hygienists.

-suitepotato- said...

As I said over there, and thank you much for the article notice, the solution is to stay at arm's length and raise your kids as baalei teshuva from the start. Straddle the line between off the derech and way past on the derech. When asked, point to the kiruv statements that brought you in and say, "but rabbi (so and so) said this was a good way. It must be so then, right?"

What allows hypocrisy to flourish in religion is an unwillingness to confront it with the appropriate response which is not (self-)righteous indignation, but to use their own statements and positions against them. Evil and garden variety wrong take too much effort to undo with brute force. Subverting them with their own energies is always much better.

I may study at Aish's website, but I am not going to raise my son or daughter to be chained to a narrow set of ways that the Torah does not demand of them. If you go by their logic, then the temple could only have been built by non-Jews as working with your hands instead of studying all day is just not proper.