"What's NOT Going To Work Is..."

Akiva commenting on What Do You Think? Are The Comments Poison? :

One of the early complaints about Chassidut was the revealing of secrets. There's a story (if I remember correctly, writing this quickly at the end of my workday) of the Maggid of Mezrich, Rebbe Menachem Mendel his talmid, and the Baal HaTanya his talmid. They were walking down the road when a piece of paper with Chassidut was blown down the street by the wind. The (future) Rebbe Menachem Mendel picked it up and started to become very upset that such holy secrets were blowing down the street like garbage. The (future) Baal HaTanya comforted him saying with a story of the king being willing to sacrifice his most precious jewels to save the life of his child.

Judaism has been a religion of thinking, analysis, delving deep into G-d's words, teachings, direction, and secrets. Nor did Judaism shy away from questions of creation, the world and nature. Judaism did not debate how many angels could stand on the head of a pin, nor demand that man's interpretation of the words of Genesis mean that the Earth could not be moving in space (though relatively speaking what's moving can be debated).

Further, it deals remarkably with human nature. Business rules take into account how people feel and react to money, men-women rules take into account how adults can react to each other and human desires, community rules their people context. (Note a halacha of Purim allowed the reading of the Megillah to be moved to the nearest town market day - so people would MOVE the holiday to meet their business-life needs.)

Judaism has not been afraid of questions, of challenges, for the TRUTH does not fear lies. The Jewish people have been challenged BY FORCE throughout the ages, crushed by those who would shove their lies down our throats. But never have any foreign ideas been able to stand against the LIGHT of Torah.

Suddenly, in an age when our youth are QUESTIONING - a holy tradition of Judaism - a portion of our religious society has become fundamentalists in the nature of other religions. They would insist on learning only PSHAT, and anyone who varies one iota from the words of pshat is a heretic. In the nature of the Amish, they run from the tools rather than learning - and more important teaching the generation - how to use them to strengthen themselves and share the light of Torah. In the words of Rabbi Horowitz, they would raise the whole generation to be gedolim and tzaddikim, rather than mench'im and "just" good Jews.

There are those Jews who are questioning and even challenging Judaism. We have literally thousands of years of such challenges and the wisest and holies of men's answers to give them. What's NOT going to work is to say "SHUT UP", "SIT DOWN", "GO AWAY", or to stick our fingers in our ears and go "NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA".

So 'A Simple Jew' can shut down comments and just lecture to us. Of course, the EFFECTIVE teachers are those who interact with their students. He can tell those who question and challenge to JUST SHUT UP. It won't work, it won't help that person and it won't help Judaism - but it will make us feel better being able to pretend that there aren't such challenges. (And sometimes, if it's just pure vitriol, that may be appropriate.) Or he can give us a place to carry on a conversation, even occasionally an uncomfortable one.

I, for one, do not believe that Judaism is only for monks in a monastery. No, I don't ask him to tolerate someone who's only vomiting insults. But I am not afraid of the CONVERSATION - nor do I believe anyone with a solid grasp on Torah and Judaism should be.