Tuesday, October 31, 2006

"Group Think"

(Picture courtesy of Circus.bendall.de)

"It's all about "group think" today. Truth is irrelevant and despised – on a group level – and while many individuals may indeed seek it, they are discouraged and insulted if the dare expose that to others. "

An interesting conversation started over in the Circus Tent.

3 Comments:

At October 31, 2006 at 10:32:00 AM EST, Anonymous Anonymous said...

That's a great tent pic!

 
At October 31, 2006 at 8:19:00 PM EST, Blogger der ewige Jude said...

I do not hold with Tzig that "open-mindedness does generally lead to less frumkeit, while the more restrictive, regimented, and legislated Judaism being sold by the establishment does have a considerably higher rate of success." It seems from my own experience, coming from a secular, scientific, background, that it is entirely possible to be rational and questioning and still be frum, I think that a classic example of this would be the Rambam. Where the difficulty comes in is with Tzig's opinion #3 "Yiddishkeit is all gray, with small black & white areas." It is fine to question and probe, but in the end one must choose either white or black. As Rabbenu said: there is either doing or not doing. This in the end is a case of emunah, you either question and still believe, or you question and no longer can believe, as happened with the Kotzker. But you cannot live in the gray world of sort of believing some of the time, this is submitting to despair, it adds to the power of the sitra achra. And from the viewpoint of despair it can seem that the truth is discouraged or not appreciated.

 
At November 1, 2006 at 11:01:00 AM EST, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Der,

By Yiddishkeit being grey I mean that there are large grey areas in hashkofa, halacha, and how Yiddishkeit defines what is acceptable & unacceptable...

 

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