Hey Hesh,
Huge fan here and I have a question that’s been bothering me ever since I started reading your blog. I’m sure that if anyone can answer the following question you can. I’ve noticed that Orthodox Jews tend to be very right wing politically, while the more liberal streams of Judaism tend to be liberal. I always figured that if Orthodox Jews were upholding the Torah which preaches peace and tolerance, then they would be more liberal than their fellow Jews who are not necessarily Torah based. Why don’t you ever speak of the Jewish requirement of tikun olam or social justice for that matter. If one were to merely read anything put out by any of the major orthodox groups it wreaks of intolerance and I know the Torah can’t preaching such things, can it?
Curious liberal Jew.
Dear Curious Liberal Jew,
I have no idea how the Torah was hijacked by the liberals, but let me set something straight here, Judaism is not compatible with Liberalism. Judaism demands that you adhere to the entire religion, not just one facet that may preach some sort of peace or tikkun olam. Besides, in general, Tikkun Olam could also mean some pretty nasty times for those who go against the words of Hashem. Remember Pinchas from a couple weeks ago, that fellow was doing some hardcore tikkun olam and I bet you those Libs would be calling up the ACLU if that happened in modern times.
What about all those Jews who feel it better to take care of the goyim rather than the Jews, there are parents who cannot afford yeshiva tuition and these phonies care about some random third world folks in Africa. Why the F are you people walking with folks who have Aids, any Torah observant Jew worth his weight in kishke knows that Aids is a kapara for being gay. Supporting the gays, forcing ethics upon kasharus, treating women equally, supporting goyishe organizations that are assur and a whole slew of other regular liberal Jewish activities that are done in the name of Tikkun Olam are actually the opposite. Why don’t they try putting on tefillin, dressing tzniusly, giving tzedaka to Yidden and eating kosher before doing things which are clearly against the Torah?
It boggles my mind how left wing Jews can have the chutzpah to equate their apikorsusdike activities with Torah, I have no idea when going to shul on shabbos became better than keeping shabbos, but that’s what happened when the Conservative movement decided that suburbia gave a heter to drive on shabbos – only to shul of course. Do any of these Tikkun Olam commies even keep the sheva mitzvos? I think not, I think we have a bunch of intermarried Jewish wannabes running around thinking that they can pick and choose what they want and call it Judaism.
I hope that cleared some things up, basically I could have summed it up with telling you about Torah being an all encompassing way of life that doesn’t meet standard liberal ideals. We vote right wing because the right believes in morals and the left believes in a free for all. Left wingers tend to lead empty lives that they need to fill with falsehoods, while orthodox and right wing folks are working towards a greater good that aligns with God.
Find tikkun olam on 4torah.com
Until very recently, the phrase Tikkun Olam NEVER referred to Liberal causes.
This is verified by the Wikipedia article on Tikkun Olam.
To be directed to that article, just click on my name.
There comes a point where satire becomes completely indistinguishable from what you’re satirizing. You arrived there with this column.
To me, it was obviously satire and I enjoyed it. But I’m sure there are others breathing a sigh of relief that Heshy finally came around to see the light.
That’s called Poe’s law: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe's_Law
The best satire tends to be the least obvious. Subtle subversion is sublime.
All satire aside, there is not 1 single example of tolerance in the entire TaNach. If we are supposed to learn how to live from the Torah, that one was obviously left out on purpose. The only close example is when King Saul let some of Amalek live, and he was punished severely for it. The whole notion of tolerance is a Xtian idea, not a Jewish one. The “live and let live” mentality is a post-Holocaust tail between the legs phenomenon. We are so scared of being like the Nazis that we did a 180 and now approve of, if not fight for the right to do anything we want. That is clearly anti-Torah.
Tolerance is anti-Torah? Are you nuts?
The Torah teaches to love your neighbor as yourself. That is the essence of tolerance. It also says to walk in God’s ways – something the Talmud understands to mean being tolerant of others, even those who cause us pain. “He is merciful upon all his creatures.”
Perhaps you mean that tolerance of EVIL people is not a Torah concept. Fine. Who disagrees with that? Even the most modern thinker wouldn’t disagree – they just might have a different definition of evil.
As a human being living in today’s world, one has no excuse not to be tolerant. Being a religious Jew does not preclude that. In a time that the presence of God is not clear as it was in the times of the prophets, you cannot tell someone living within an honest, moral framework, that their opinions are EVIL. You can believe all you want that the ideas are evil. And maybe one day we’ll have a prophet who will guide everyone to the truth. But until then, no honest, good person can be blamed for having ideas which you call evil. And as such there is no excuse not to be tolerant to such an individual.
Throw in a bit more yeshivish, and this could be a high school mussar shmooze.
And on a more serious note: When any of you tikkun olam commies gives half as much tzedaka as us right wing child killers, then we’ll talk. Meanwhile, we’re the ones who keep the torah PLUS the ones who care about poor people.
Sorry, giving tzedaka so kids can go to yeshiva ktana and men can sit around “learning” instead of attempting to earn a living is not charity. People who are poor on purpose divert charity from real needs.
Nice try. Even our regular poor people tzedaka is at least double what is given in your community.
Voting for rich people to pay taxes doesn’t count as your tzedaka. HTH.
Maybe not, but when it contributes to a society where people are less needy, then the effect is there.
Oh, and stop dodging your taxes.
Liberal Jews could never hang with the Emes of tikkun olam because as it’s written in Aleinu: “Tikkun olam b’malkut Shaddai” – repairing the world under the sovereignty of G-d. I don’t think Hashem wants Jews marching for gay marriage or Palestinians on their”mitzvah” day. But that’s their way of effing up — I mean fixing the world.
Also there is no word in Hebrew for “tolerance”
I don’t think Hashem wants Jews marching for gay marriage or Palestinians on their”mitzvah” day.
Have you received any other flashes of insight lately, O mighty Navi?
But that’s their way of effing up — I mean fixing the world.
Are you against all political activism, or only when liberals do it? Do you think that sitting around studying a book helps “fix” the world more than holding protests or marches?
Also there is no word in Hebrew for “tolerance”
Before Ben-Yehuda, there was no Hebrew word for cardiologist. That doesn’t mean Jews wouldn’t go to one if they needed surgery.
One does not have to be a prophet to know that the Torah would not appreciate actively expressing support for the gay community. In fact one would have to be an idiot to think otherwise – much the same as one would have to be an idiot to think that the Torah would appreciate actively expressing support for a celebration of chillul Shabbos.
Before Ben-Yehuda, there was no Hebrew word for cardiologist. That doesn’t mean Jews wouldn’t go to one if they needed surgery.
The difference is, cardiologists weren’t around three thousand years ago. Tolerance was.
Technically everyone who is shomer Shabbos and does as many of the taryag mitzvos as we can do without the beis hamikdash is doing tikkun oylom.
I think you need to distinguish between being politically liberal (or maybe socially liberal) and being a liberal Jew. I am by no means a liberal Jew and that’s why i dont want the gov’t to say anything about how gays should live or about “a women’s place”. You can align yourself with a liberal political opinion on the grounds of not wanting government to tell me how to be a Jew either.
Well said, and I think it explains the popularity of liberal politicians in frum communities.
Any aged Jew here should remember the times of government-sanctioned discrimination against their own kind.
One of the main reasons most orthodox Jews don’t go for liberalism progressivism, or whatever you want to call it is because it’s , uh, what do you call it, what’s that word I’m looking for? Ah yes-BULLSHIT!
Funny, that’s how a lot of liberals, Jews and otherwise, feel about lots of elements of Orthodox Judaism. Weird.
Friar, a legitimate position, certainly.
I have yet to meet the liberal , Heeb or other, willing to admit that there is even the slightest possibility that there is any possibility whatsoever that a position other than their own could be legitimate.They have become the thought police, the arbiters of acceptable speech. Just the other day an athletes life was ruined, a lifetime of training flushed down the toilet because of a tweet perceived as racially insensitive (some female Greek).
I’ll be your first, then. I accept that reasonable people can disagree. There are plenty of issues on which I either haven’t made up my mind or which I can see multiple sides to.
Take the Olympian you mentioned. I think her comment was stupid and insensitive (who jokes about West Nile virus?), and yes, arguably bordered on racist. Were I in a positon to do so, would I have banned her from competing entirely? I don’t think so, though I do think some sort of disciplinary action was appropriate, given her high profile and the current political climate in Greece. Athletes are role models and I think it’s reasonable to be thinking about how this woman’s views might influence others. That’s not to say she should be locked up for being an idiot, but I don’t think it should be shrugged off, either.
Athletes are role models ==if you look up to them==. You do; when I look at an athlete, I’m sizing up an asset for the next corvee.
You likewise feel that Hollywood figures are “role models”; I agree with Alfred Hitchcock that they are “cattle”.
Talk to you later, I’ve got a casting couch entrant with whom to discuss her future showbiz career…..
Sherut- I don’t look up to athletes or actors (or agents, for that matter). But after teaching elementary students for five years I can assure you that they do. If they see a sports star being a racist twit and getting away with it, that doesn’t exactly model very good lessons about not being a racist twit, now does it?
Public figures are people, obviously. And people are fallible. But I do think that the behavior of people in the public eye matters. How much and in which contexts, I think is up for discussion.
>> But after teaching elementary students for five years I can assure you that they do
Read as: “In five years of being paid to do it – not even once have I actually influenced a young person’s impression of athletes”
Now we know why advertising copy writers are well-paid, and you are poorly paid…. the differential is a correct objective appraisal of who’s getting their appointed task ==accomplished==.
Nice try. My job is to teach kids to read and write, not counter-teach athletes or celebrities making twits of themselves in the public eye. School’s primary purpose is to train kids in academic (and to a degree social) skills, but it most certainly is not supposed to be a cure-all antidote to cultural morons.
the differential is a correct objective appraisal of who’s getting their appointed task
Really now? I must have missed that clause in my contract.
How about getting back to the point, which is that young people are influenced by visible cultural icons? I think that as a result of this actors/athletes/politicians bear some responsibility for what they put into the public sphere. You seem to think it’s everyone else’s problem except the people acting like idiots.
Point well taken.
Contrary to the premise of the letter, there are in fact many liberal Orthodox Jews, especially but not exclusively among the Modern Orthodox. Nearly every liberal cause is potentially compatible with the Torah. There are also quite a few conservative non-Orthodox Jews; the Jews in the “neoconservative” movement, for example, are all non-Orthodox as far as I can tell. Though tikkun olam has unfortunately become a synonym for liberal-leaning activism, there are some activist issues that liberals and conservatives alike, and the Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike, should be able to cooperate on. For example, millions of people around the world are literally slaves, working for no pay at threat of violence. AJWS already features quite a bit of Orthodox and non-Orthodox cooperation regarding humanitarian efforts to improve the lives of poor and oppressed non-Jews.
>>> AJWS
The world puts them in the same category as the folks who handle serpents to serve Jesus.
Forget the we’re-gonna-be-the-next-Mother-Theresa-respected-and-admired-by-the-world fantasies. That dog ain’t gonna hunt, as they say in Ramat-ha-Golan
The Israeli Americans are laughing at you behind your back.
Minor correction: “snake handling” is a practice among a very small group of Pentecostals largely confined to the Appalachian hill country (aka “hillbillies”). In Mark, there is a statement that those who have been given special powers by God will be identifiable by their ability to perform miraculous things, such as healing the sick etc. . Included (somewhat bizarrely) in this list is being able to “take up serpants” without being harmed.
Over 100 years ago, some hillbilly preacher decided that he would impress his audience by handling poisonous snakes in their presence, thus proving that he was one of those to whom God had given special powers. Needless to say, others who were also one can shy of a six-pack decided to follow suit. There are still a few small groups of “snake handlers” in hill country that do this. They don’t think they are “serving” Jesus. On the contrary, they think Jesus is serving them by letting them exhibit their God-protected status. Interestingly, they very rarely actually do get bitten.
Thanks for correction. Hope to see you soon. Please enjoy http://www.catholic.co.il The Catholics who speak the same language Jesus did. I’ve dated several. They run low maintenance, compared to a typical JAP.
Umm..I thought Jesus spoke Aramaic? Wasn’t Hebrew already a dead language 2,000 years ago?
In any event, my Hebrew is only fair-to-middling. I AM low maintenance though. I even cut the lawn myself. 🙂
In ancient Jewish books, the phrase “Tikkun Olam” NEVER means Liberal causes, which is the way Reform Jews [mis]interpret it today.
“Tikkun Olam” is a term co-opted in the 1950’s as a Jewish way to term social action, and has been abused in the years following. In other words, let’s just stop using it altogether. (The term is Kabbalistic, anyway, and not all Jews accept the Kabbala.)
That said, there is plenty of room for justice as it relates to the modern world found in the Torah and Rabbinic traditions. Read up on your Raja”j.
(Rabbi Jill Jacobs)