On the alleged collapse of Haredism
Channel 10 news has come under a
lot of fire recently (mainly from Haredi media figures) for airing a
series of video segments entitled “Haredim: Disintegration”, in which
their Haredi affairs correspondent (yup, that’s a thing, and rightly so)
Avishai Ben Chaim lays out his contention that Haredi society is in the
midst of a great collapse. In the first episode of the series the
controversial claim is made that 1 in every 10 people who are in the
Haredi education system at age 15 are leaving the fold later in life.
This figure has been challenged on statistical grounds and the usual kind of debate has followed.
There
is some confusion over what is meant by becoming not Haredi (it seems
that it includes people who remain observant, so that would kind of
include me). After the second episode
aired, the Channel 10 anchor even mentioned a previous series they had
aired which covered how demographic trends in Israel very much favor the
Haredim. Some Haredi media figures have complained bitterly that Ben-Haim completely misunderstands what Haredi life is actually like, while some have congratulated him for saying what everyone’s been thinking for years.
I don’t really know what to make of the actual
numbers and don’t find it particularly interesting, but I live in a
Haredi neighborhood and have many Haredi friends, and my feeling from
the ground is that the general trends that Ben Haim is talking about are
very strong, and spreading. There is a great deal of jadedness among
young people here. In addition to the people actually leaving
observance, there are many others seriously questioning their Haredi
beliefs and way of life.
There is also much talk about a shadowy group
of people referred to as “החרדים האנוסים”, “the Haredi Marranos”,
meaning people who continue to live a completely Haredi lifestyle
outwardly, but have lost any belief in God and Judaism. This is all
actually happening and is significant, whatever the exact numbers. I
think that the collapse of the Haredi world is inevitable as it faces
Historical forces much more powerful than even it’s own high and
much-fortified walls.
Haredism is essentially a reactionary over-correction.
When the ghetto walls started coming down in the 18th
century, traditional Judaism rightly recognized an existential threat.
So it developed an intensely anti-modern ideology. But I mean more than
this. The aspect of modernity that so frightened and disgusted the
rabbis of the time, the thing that got such a primal rise out of the
religious establishment, is the modern tendency toward relativism. They
saw the world moving towards a society where anything goes, to an
ideology that claims that there is no objective reality to transcendent
non-physical things, no absolute standards for goodness or beauty, no
moral difference between cultures, and no actual ultimate meaning and
purpose to anything.
To counter this an ultra-Orthodox culture
developed, where everything is thrown into stark relief as either black
or white. Where absolutely all aspects of life, from the most exalted
religious duties to the most mundane trivialities of daily existence, is
either done the right way or the wrong way. A world of
hyper-absolutism, demanding (at least in theory) a total commitment of
one’s time and efforts. This culture has been quite successful, with
some stops and starts, and has reached it’s crowning glory in the past
30 years or so, as it has cemented it’s place as the gold standard for
what observant Judaism should look like.
Humans (I firmly believe) need to have
purpose. They need to feel that it is possible to get closer to truth
and transcendence. Frankly, we need this more than anything. So the
Haredi mindset holds great charm for people who are looking to find
something worth dedicating themselves to. It certainly held great charm
for me when I was in my 18-21 years old reckless-idealistic phase.
But there is a downside to all this. Beyond
the fact that the lifestyle has become increasingly non-functional
financially, the Haredi mindset is extremely vulnerable to outside
influences. It presents a world where not only everything is absolute,
but where all these absolutes are known with complete certainty to (at
the very least) certain leaders. The prototypical Haredi has a picture
of reality that is simply obviously false. He disdains science and
thinks that it doesn’t have anything of interest to teach him. He thinks
that the outside world is completely and totally evil and unpleasant.
He thinks that all people who disagree with any of the numerous and
highly specific tenets of his weltanschauung do so either out of malice,
or usually (he is graciously willing to concede) out of sheer stupidity
or ignorance. Now it is possible that the actual prototypical Haredi
doesn’t actually exist, (he does, I’ve met him, but for the sake of
argument…) and any actual individual varies from this to at least some
degree but the stereotype is useful for showing the general trends. The
properly Haredi mindset tends to collapse completely the moment any
degree of honest doubt enters the equation.
The Internet has brought about a situation
where a very significant proportion of the young people in the community
simply know for a fact that the version of reality that they are given
by their respected elders is at the very least shockingly simplistic, if
not outright false.
Most people of course just find a way to live with
it without disrupting their lives too much (this is always true of
humans), but some don’t, and even among the apathetic majority the
discontent continues to fester. The world just isn’t so simple and stark
as it was portrayed to me by my Haredi mentors (most of whom are
wonderful, kind and intelligent people, just blindly committed to a set
of unexamined premises). This whole philosophy developed as a reaction
to something else, it has not developed on its own merits. It is
therefore really just a historical fad. An “ism”. This kind of thing
does not survive well in the free marketplace of ideas, which is why
said marketplace was kept so un-free for all these years. That has now
changed. Irrevocably. The Internet is in, and once it is in you cannot
get it out no matter how valiantly you try. It’s over.
The thing is that the great danger which
Haredism was reacting to has not gone away. Not by a long shot. It is
currently playing itself out, fascinatingly, on the great stage of the
west’s war of ideas. We see every basic concept being challenged as just
a figment of our imaginations, just a social construct. Cultural relativism is now the norm among the West’s intellectual elites (with potentially grave consequences for Israel).
So how does observant Jewry (at all levels of observance) counter this
now? The “Ultra” approach worked for a while but it won’t anymore, and
the problem is there is no ready alternative available. The mild
American version of Haredism is really just parasitic on the Israeli
version, and has it’s own fatal weaknesses. But I get ahead of myself.
This is a topic for a different post.
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/on-the-alleged-collapse-of-charedism/
I WROTE THIS IN 2007:
The Haredi Rabbis want us to believe that secularism is creeping into our lives, therefore they must ban the Internet and all forms of communicating outside the ghettos we live in....
READ IT ALL:
http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2007/02/catholic-haredis-we-do-have-catholic.html
AND I WROTE THIS IN 2005:
From The UOJ Archives-Saturday, July 30, 2005 B.C. (Before Convention) Posted on the original site:unorthodoxjew.blogspot.com
The Enemy Within-Part Two-The Evolution of Right Wing Fanaticism
There are four separate catagories of movements that constitute right wing Judaism in the U.S.A.
1- Yeshivishism
2-Chassidishism
3-Agudah/Lobbyism/Government Activism.
4-Boro Parkism/Flatbushism
I WROTE THIS IN 2007:
The Haredi Rabbis want us to believe that secularism is creeping into our lives, therefore they must ban the Internet and all forms of communicating outside the ghettos we live in....
READ IT ALL:
http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2007/02/catholic-haredis-we-do-have-catholic.html
AND I WROTE THIS IN 2005:
The Enemy Within - Part Two - The Evolution of Right Wing Fanatacism
The Enemy Within-Part Two-The Evolution of Right Wing Fanaticism
There are four separate catagories of movements that constitute right wing Judaism in the U.S.A.
1- Yeshivishism
2-Chassidishism
3-Agudah/Lobbyism/Government Activism.
4-Boro Parkism/Flatbushism