balmofgilead

From a friend:

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum" -Noam Chomsky

In some ways, this fits Orthodox Judaism to a T. 

I'm still reading The Demon-Haunted World, and just now I read "But the tools of skepticism are generally unavailable to the citizens of our society. They're hardly ever mentioned in the schools, even in the presentation of science, its most ardent practitioner..."

The mention of schools + science + skepticism sparked something interesting in me. As I mentioned in my last entry, in 1998 I was reading Awake My Glory.  But in 1996 I was reading The Psychology of The Psychic and looking for Skeptic magazine at the library (I kept seeing references to it in the catalog but never found it.)  I was reading and looking for those because of a project assigned in science class: read a science fiction book and then write a report about why the "fiction" part is/must be fictional.  (As usual, I read more than I needed to for the report, yet had a really tough time coming up with the requisite three or four or whatever pages.)  I read about how Harry Houdini conducted experiments to test other magicians' work.  I read a paragraph that can be read to anyone as their personalized horoscope and often met with "wow, that's spot-on!"  I read about telekinesis and aura photography in books that believed it was valuable (okay, I guess I got a bit sidetracked.)

And yet this skepticism and application of the scientific method didn't carry over into my critical (or maybe "not so critical") evaluation of things like Judaism or Awake My Glory.

Moreover - in that same seventh grade science class, an interesting incident occurred.  On a test, we were given a little story about someone applying the scientific method to some theory she had about plant growth.  The directions said to find and correct all the things she was doing wrong.  The opening lines were something like "Rochel was given a small corn plant.  She measured the plant and it was 2 mm."  When the teacher handed back our tests, she told us she was surprised that so many of us had missed a major part of that question.  Two millimeters couldn't be the right size for a corn plant; Rochel must have measured wrong, and we should have noted that. 

But to us, information was presented as fact, thus it must be fact.  The story said someone obtained a measurement of 2 mm, so that must be what it is. It seemed off, but we weren't there, so we have no option other than to take it as written.

I think that really reflects the mentality imparted by the Orthodox world - or at least my Orthodox world - about history (and religious issues) in general. There's that (famous?) midrash that Moses was 10 cubits (roughly equivalent to 15 feet) tall.  Many people believe that and take it literally, even though, like a corn plant being 2 mm, it doesn't mesh with what we know about the species.  An authority says it, and we weren't there, so what other choice do we have?    I was fed so many wacky things as bald simple fact and I took them as such because I was a kid and they were adults and even if things didn't mesh with my current observations of the current world, it's not like I could easily prove or disprove them.

(I was also told as a kid that Darwinian evolution had been disproven by science, which led to an embarrassing conversation followed by lots of googling in my freshman year of college.)

I'm still feeling worn out from being at the polls all day yesterday.  I think I won't work as an election judge for the general election. 

In my mind tonight feels like Friday night since it's Rosh Hashanah.  I am not marking it in any way, really, though my mother is at the neighbors' for dinner and will be going out for meals and attending shul for the next few days. 

For some reason the seriousness of it - it *is* called the day of judgment - looms far larger in my head than the happy, fluffy, apples-and-honey aspect. It was always impressed upon me that getting rid of sins and wiping the slate clean is more complicated than the symbolic tossing of breadcrumbs into the water - there is no free lunch in Orthodox Judaism. In school the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah were marked by people begging each other's forgiveness for anything they'd done and lots and lots of review about the steps to repent for sins. The whole thing was inextricably linked to Yom Kippur, which is marked by fasting and trying to atone for sins and praying that God would accept us even though we're not good enough.  I used to buy into it, but I think I connected to the guilt and worry more than the "wow, now the slate is clear! we made it!" aspect. 

I can't dump the fire and brimstone and keep the apples and honey.  My mind doesn't work that way.  If yours does - or if you've never been exposed to the fire and brimstone - I'm sorry for raining on your parade.  I hope you (and everyone, I suppose) have a good year. 

I realized recently that when I think about other religions (or more specifically, when I thought about other religions as someone who was deeply invested in Judaism), I didn't see them as variations on a theme (i.e. the theme that Judaism's a part of--religion).  I saw them as entirely opposite, the flip side, archenemies. Such that if there were a similarity gradient it would have gone "Jewish, secular/irreligious, people who are into other religions to varying degrees," with more religious followers of other religions being farther away from me.

That's kind of sad.

---

And for our random moment of comic relief...
( or see the comment here )

I'm not sure what's changed, lately--my perspective, or the political world--but it seems that things have been looking up quite a bit.

Interesting things have been happening in Kansas.
NYTimes op-ed from last year (found that when I was trying to find out what John Danforth is all about)

It's also heartwarming to realize or remember that there are religious people who have what I consider "good" values. Hating or at least fearing people because they're religious was getting tiresome. (All of this coincides nicely with my plans to hear Jim Wallis speak tonight, too.)

**I think hate has a negative effect on the hater as well as the 'hatee' (to coin a term). But I still have a hard time not hating, sometimes.

What a cool guy. I heard part of an interview with him on TV tonight. He's an evangelical Christian who "actively eschews political labels, but his advocacy tends to focus on issues of peace and social justice." It bugs me a bit to realize that I have some strong hatred for religious people in general because of the religious = right-wing conservative = bad bit. In truth it's not their religion (or religiousness) I hate, it's some of the values that they espouse.

If my brain were less mushy I'd link this to the concept of having a sense of communion with the world somehow. When religion (or political consultants who convince religious people that God's top issues are preventing gay marriage and abortion) divides people, it interferes with that.

I'm having one of those "everything I say or write feels like it's phrased poorly" days.

They express it better than I can:

Let’s jump across time and space to a class room somewhere in Queens. One of the more precocious and/or obnoxious students comments to the rabbi that what the class has just learned is stupid. With the subject being divine writ, stupidity isn’t exactly an option. The rabbi, like the good, slightly nervous, slightly confident, slightly educated product of the chinuch* system he is, reflexively offers the only doctrine he knows: “It’s not stupid, you just don’t understand”. Ahhhh, yeshiva.
--from an article on bangitout.com (emphasis mine)

*education

Some of this rings true for me, too.

( explanation of some terms: )