I've seen a number of Blogs out there that exist mostly to take Orthodox Judaism or rather Orthodox Society to task.
I'm wondering out-loud, if the Orthodox community - from left through center to right - were more self-critical, more open, more honest, and less defensive, less prone to rationalization, and less in denial - would that de-fang these critical blogs?
In other words, because, we, the Orthodox are so quick to defend, rationalize and/or go into denial over every little thing, are we unintentionally fuelling our critics? Is the law of "unintended consequences" feeding the feeding frenzy?
Maybe if we disarmed ourselves we might disarm our critics?
I guess it would be naïve to think that everyone will simply fold-up their tents and go away, but maybe the volume could be lowered quite a bit
Just thinking out loud
Shalom
RRW
3 comments:
There will always be people out there who love to hate Orthodox Judaism.
But it's a lot easier to be critical when prominent PR bagmen justify theft and corruption, deny that child and spousal abuse exist and then turn around and talk about the moral superiority of Orthodoxy.
That's precisely the point. If we, the committed Orthodox, developed a method by which we police ourselves, in a manner that is respectful of Torah, calling out those that deserved to be chastised in a manner that does not attak the whole, will it not only this answer the vicious critics but also correct some of these problems? of will it be for nought anyways? Perhaps, even if it had limited effect, should we do it anyways?
Rabbi Ben Hecht
Rabbi Hecht,
Here in galus our identification on any level is voluntary. How exactly would a community police itself without resorting to the same tactics (rumors, threats...)the bad apples use, and could this be effective anyway? In fact, most communities themselves are loosely organized at best.
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