".
. . Life and death I have put before you, and blessing and
curse. And
you should choose life so that you and your
descendants will live"
(Devorim 30:19).
Is it wrong to add: "Don't choose
death"?
Is it an unwarranted, or intolerable, restriction of
someone's freedom if rabbonim say to him: "This reading
material is
deadly for your soul. Keep away."?
Are rabbonim expected to just
"mind their own business"
(which is truly in part the spiritual
health of Klal
Yisroel) and not speak out when they see people
who
sincerely seek the truth and wish to expand and deepen their
knowledge and understanding of Torah, and innocently try to
realize
their ambitions by studying "books [that] are in
opposition to our
Torah" (HaRav Shechter and HaRav
Kamenetsky) and in fact "do terrible
offense to our hallowed
tradition, and distort and undermine the
Torah's clear
truths," as the Novominsker Rebbe wrote?
Is there
anything wrong with this? On the contrary, if the
rabbonim see things
this way is it not a terrible crime for
them not to warn the
innocent? If Slifkin has a right —
granted to him by modern
society — to express his ideas
be they what they may, certainly
those who see those ideas as
distortions have no less of a right to
express their views in
reaction. By their own evaluation, and in the
view of anyone
who follows them, they even have a clear obligation to
proclaim their assessment to anyone who might be exposed to
those
ideas that are "in opposition to our Torah" but were
definitely not
perceived as such before the rabbonim made
their views
known.
Many books include ideas mentioned by Slifkin, but only his
were condemned. Why? Because of "the impudent and audacious
spirit
of throwing off the yoke (prikas ol) of the
mesorah
miSinai and our sages (rabboseinu
hakedoshim) who are its
bearers (maggidehoh),"
that is not found in those
others.
Are the rabbonim asking or telling us to stop thinking? Do
they wish us to be intellectual wimps who cannot and do not
evaluate
critically what they hear?
What an absurd suggestion! If we close
down our minds we will
not even be able to understand the Torah that
they transmit
to us daily, not to mention the holy words of our Sages
of
previous generations back to Sinai. No intellectually honest
person could say that our rabbonim do not want us to think!
The
often-heard response that pronouncements such as this one
are anti-
intellectual betray a desire to ridicule us and our
rabbonim, not a
serious charge.
Free, serious and deep inquiry is our goal,
constantly
pursued. But — yes there is a "but" — it must
be
within the spirit of Torah and not in the spirit of the
secular
world which is deeply, unremittingly hostile to
Torah.
As one
observer of the modern scene wrote, "rarely have we
faced a culture
more antithetical to the values of Judaism,
not superficially but at
its very roots." Superficially it
appears friendly, and certainly
compatible. But at its roots
the hostility is very strong.
When
we faced the Greeks in the time of the Maccabim, the
issues were
clear and in the open. They said, "Write on the
ox horn that you have
no part in the G-d of Israel." You
cannot get more direct than that.
They did not let us learn
Torah and do mitzvos. The violated our
money and our
daughters and our Sanctuary.
Now they leave our
daughters alone (except for once-in-a-
while attempts in the State of
Israel). They shower us with
wealth. They allow us to learn and to do
mitzvos with
hiddurim that were undreamed of by earlier
generations.
Yet the spirit of the Western world, in its media,
in its
science, in its art, in its politics, is a challenge to the
authentic Torah spirit from the floor to the rafters.
Just pick
up a Mesillas Yeshorim and consider the
catalogue of things
that the Ramchal lists as inimical to the
very first step of the Path
of the Righteous (Chapter 5), and
it is clear that modern society has
raised the difficulty of
overcoming them to new heights: 1] Dealing
with distractions
and necessities of the world; 2] Laughter and
ridicule; 3]
Pressures of an evil society.
The mass of modern
media and communication make the
temptations of excess in the first
area stronger than they
ever were, even as it has increased greatly
the amount of
information that we really have to deal with. The
amount of
comedy and ridicule has increased tremendously compared to
any previous period, even as its prestige has grown, making
it
harder to dismiss. Finally, society is so intrusive, even
as it is
free, that it exerts tremendous pressure to conform
to its
increasingly decadent values.
These are each individually powerful
challenges, and their
wearing-down effects are accruing. But note
that in each case
their is nothing overtly coercive about the
hostility. The
media appear friendly. Society appears open. The ideas
appear
tolerant.
It is hard to know who is for us and who is
against us. Our
rabbonim do not reject modern society wholesale, but
they
draw lines for us: This is ok. Stay away from that.
Whoever
wants to, is free to go it alone. He or she can
plunge in to the
treacherous waters of the modern world
alone, and try to reach the
truth heroically alone. It is a
big task for an individual.
The
rest of us will take shelter under the banner of
gedolei
Yisroel. As in the generation of Chanukah, so
too in our
generation — the gedolei veziknei
hador cry out to us
all: Mi laSheim eilai!
Whoever wants to reach Hashem should
join them!
