Ben Avuyah

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Sunday, June 19, 2005

Orthodoxy Removal Kit….. Batteries not included

Well, dear reader, you have shown courage thus far. Yes, you have made it past the title of this here essay, in sheer disregard of our laws not to read, hear, discuss, or consider heresy in any of it various forms.

Not to overstep my boundaries, but I can only assume, that one attracted to the title above is at least interested to the level of, shall we say, ‘accident gawking curiosity’, as to how such a task can be performed.

Well relax, its not at all like that proboscis defying metallic lobotomy claw that Schwartzenneger rams up his shnoz, in the movie, “Total Recall”, to yank a golf ball sized homing device out of his noggin.

Orthodoxy is far too subtly interwoven in your brain for anything like that!

But I must warn you….

Beware !!

Reading any further is in strict violation of our prescribed code of law…

Well, did you hear that?

No, no…. not what’s written on the page, I’m talking about what just happened in your head when you read that last sentence.

If you, like me, went to any one of the major yeshivas, then you definitely just activated your early warning system.

Listen closely, it’s in there, they don’t let you leave Yeshiva unless it’s intact and fully functional.

Here’s mine kicking in, have a listen…


Yetzer Tov quivering in fear: “No It…. Is…. Heresy !!!! Mustn’t speaks it, Mustn’t hears it Mustn’t believes it…Golem ! Golem !”

Yetzer Hara hissing and pointing his finger: “Yessss ! Tell the foolish hobbitses the truth …”

All right, all right. I have watched the lord of the rings too many times, and what the hell do I know, maybe your Yetzer hara sounds like Vincent Price, or Dennis Rodman, or George Bush. It doesn't matter who's doing the voice over, the sentiment is the same.

Now, hang in there, dear reader, I know you are scared, going up against your Yetzer Tov and all.

And you've probably got a bunch of Uncle Moishe songs bouncing around your head,advising you what to do right now, I can practicaly hear you humming the tune.

But just pause for moment of thought and remember that if you don’t believe in religion then actually you don’t believe in either Yetzer. People without organized religion come to accept a value system that depends on morality, rationality, logic, and the common good. Not some archaic pair of dueling…

Yetzer Tov looking vapid and perplexed : “ What’s ….What’s logic, precious?…..What’s logic?"

Yetzer Hara brushing one long greasy strand of hair from his eyes: “Foolish, Filthy Hobbitses, keep tricksy logicses to yourselfs”!

Me : “Yes. Of course ! That’s it ! You don’t represent good and evil. How could I not have seen this before" !

I mean, Wow….Even all these thousands of years later you can’t deny the genius of it. Calling base wants and needs, though they are required for survival and reproduction, “evil”. And calling conscious mediation of desires “good”, though it is simply a necessity for a functioning society; was a clever ruse used by all religions.

Think about it… You ensnare the unfortunate believer to forever perseverate over his misfortunes in a battle that instinct dooms him to lose.

As in all things, the truth sets me free, both my core wants and needs, and the mediation of them by higher centers in my brain make me who I am…..the two Yetzers are nothing more than a ceremonial mask; a flimsy garment, religiously bestowed upon the pre existing machinery of my mind.


Now that we have temporarily deactivated your brain bound burglar alarm, it is time to descend to deeper territory: forbidden plains that have waited for you; until now unexplored.

After all… our religion forbids this venture.

How much praise and credibility can you bestow on an idea whose core elements state: You must never consider my validity or delve into the nature of whether or not belief in me is justified?

How much pride can you swell your chest with, when you say you believe completely, in something you fear to intellectually challenge even within the private confines of your own mind ?

If you are like me, dear reader, you cannot turn back now.

The dark cave into which I am about to take you will not be an easy journey, so take heart, gird your loins, pack an extra sandwich, and prepare yourself for the worst. Your weapons will be of no use to you here, only cool reason, deftly employed will take you successfully through to the other side.

Now I can’t promise what it is you will experience when you first ask yourself what it is you believe and far more importantly…. Why you believe it.

You see, all faith is defined as believing without any substantiating proof, and to find out why you have come to believe in orthodoxy you will face for the first time an idea that has been placed very deeply amongst the sulci and gyri of your mind, an idea that, drawing strenghth for the coming battle, is fully prepared to hang on for dear life.

Your belief, is of course, a meme.

A Meme, for those unfortunate yeshiva bochurs who have not tasted the fruits of knowledge outside the daled amos of their shtenders, is an idea that can replicate itself from generation to generation and from person to person. This meme is almost always implanted in early life, before you have the tools to properly hold it up against the light and see it for what it truly is….a virus of the most devilish sort.

It is very old, as old as our religion itself. Perhaps the basic meme that makes up the backbone of religious thought is older still. It harkens from an age when primitive man walked the earth in fear of thunder and lightning gods, and sought to appease them through belief and service.

This dark and befouled arachnid that clings to the very tissues of your mind with its spindly legs sunk deep into your gray matter, has preserved itself from time immemorial. So don’t think it hasn’t learned how to defend itself over the years. It is as savvy an enemy as you have ever encountered and it is now fully aware that you have broached its perimeter defenses. It feels you tenuously testing you’re weight on the first sticky strand of webbing. It draws close to your conscious awareness now, possibly for the fist time in your life, and prepares to pounce. Don’t expect it to pull any punches with its survival on the line.

Well, no, dear reader, no……

I can’t tell you exactly how your confrontation will go, clearly you and I, have led very separate and different lives; this must be your own battle. You must pull your own equivalent of sting from bejeweled scabbard and herald a battle cry that is all your own.

But if this can be for you a light in dark places, I will show you how the war was waged when it was my hour to face my own demons.

One Friday night in the dim light of my living room after all had bid their goodnights, I sat alone and thought upon the nature of faith. When the only noise around me was the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece, I asked myself why in the world I could possibly believe in an intricate set of dogma and minutia without so much as a hint of rationale behind it all. As I peered as deeply into the fibers of religious belief as I dared, I did not find an intellectual answer at all.

Indeed, to my surprise, the first response that my mind presented was a confrontation with a selected group of decisive experiences from my early life. I squared off, toe to toe, with these memories of choices I had made in the past. They were conclusions I had come to, regarding religion, that were so loaded with emotion that the feelings carried over in a form sufficiently potent to leave me misty eyed, and lost, in a bitter sweat, reverie.

I am fourteen now.... and am being given a ride by my beloved Rabbi to the grocery store near by. He is talking with his wife. It is a conversation about an old friend and former Yeshiva student of theirs. Someone who had clearly been close to both of them.
He turns to his wife careful to keep his eyes periodically on the road. “Yes its true….Moshe went…off the Derech.”
His wife’s face is a picture of well-constrained shock and grief.
This memory is so clear to me, I can smell the challah from the shopping bags and see the red trimmed upholstery of the rickety station wagon.

“And his children….”

The Rabbi leaves the question to trail off into silence

“Why would someone do something that could cause so much pain and heartache to those closest to them ?”, I wonder to myself.

I vow, solemnly, that this will never be my fate. I will never leave the cherished truths that have defined my people from the days our forefather’s….Never.


Revisiting the strength of youthful conviction is almost enough to throw me, but I persist. Why, I ask all these years later, challenging my younger thoughts. Why, am I so sure in my teenage exuberance.

Could I be correct ?

No. The truth here is in societal pressure. I am sure that I am afraid to disappoint, afraid to incur the anger and judgment of authority, and certain that the safety that orthodoxy guaranties in other peoples eyes is enough for me to believe in for now.

None of these fanciful thoughts hold up to the scrutiny of my older and more skeptical mind.

I search once again for the reason why I believe so strongly in orthodoxy and again instead of a reason I come up with an emotion-laden memory. It appears evasion is the tactic of defense for this virus of the mind.

I am fourteen again.... I know this......for it is a familiar and cherished memory. I am breaking ground curfew to stare up at the stars in the open field near the dormitory late at night. There is construction at a nearby building and I have perched my self on the hood a bulldozer to stay off the cold wet ground. The air is crisp and atmosphere dry, and they reveal to me a sky be-speckled with stars beyond imagination. I push my glasses a little closer to my eyes and believe that I can make out the faint aspect of the milky way arching gracefully from horizon to horizon. I sense for the first time out of shiur and mussar classes, that this is no accident, there is a force behind this, and behind my life as well. I swear not to forget this moment.


This is a difficult memory for me even now, because so much of it seems true.
But I remind myself that appreciation of the beautiful universe in which we live does not part and parcel justify a god who arrived in a cloud of fury and vengeance to hand out torahs and sheitels to all who would listen and subjugate themselves to his will.
I may not have all the answers as to why we are here and how it all started, but I know I will start my search from even ground; Accepting nothing on authority of ancient custom or creed, and moving carefully forward where rationale and science point the way.


And so it goes on, my reader, the religion meme, is very good at shielding itself from direct examination. It lives in a box covered with many mirrors; each startling you with your own reflection from a period of your life during which you were totally in the sway of religious thought. It prompts you to realize that this is who you are and who you have always been.

But do not give in, dear reader, you have come to far to fail at the end.

For, in realizing the tactic of the meme, you have in fact rescued yourself from it’s clutches. Remind it that you are familiar with your past naiveté and are not convinced by it no matter how strong the emotions attached to these memories are. Strengthen yourself, that no images of disappointed relatives or friends will dissuade you from pursuing your intellectual journey to find the truth of your beliefs.

Remember, faith is being asked of you.

You are commanded to believe in entire genre of non-empirical thought with absolutely no evidence.

Past incidents that demonstrate that you once believed, or that illustrate the pain to your family if you fail to continue to believe, are insufficient justification for living your life according to rules that have no reason.

Confront the meme directly, stand before the confusing surface of it’s multiple diversions and ask, what is inherently true about orthodox Judaism that it demands my belief ?

Open the box of mirrors, dear reader..…. but do not despair when you find it is empty. You’re neither the first nor the last to be taken by this great demon of inner thoughts.


Sadly, the title to this little piece is misleading for you can no more remove the orthodoxy meme than you can remove the first thirty years of your life. But, take heart, having a clear idea of where your religious thought patterns really come from will give you the ultimate power in making the decisions in your life. And in time, although never completely expunged, they will cease to be a frequent part of your daily thoughts. Then you can relax and enjoy a life that isn’t hassled……

Yetzer Tov confused and vacuous : What’s…What’s relax, precious ?….What’s relax?….get to the Beis medrish and Daven, Precious…

(As you can see I have not yet fully rid myself of certain aspects of Judaism either.)

Yetzer Hara sporting characteristic, eviler then death, sardonic grin: “Yes, Fat, Fat, filthy hobbit, stay on the computer, lazy hobbit, eat more chipses, filthy hobbit….yessss….eat more chipses and dips…”

Me crunching on chips: “Good grief….Sigh.”


Yetzer Tov: “Golem” !

Yetzer Hara : “Golem” !

19 Comments:

At 5:37 AM, Blogger Chana said...

That was incredibly interesting, and the Gollum/ hobbitses ideas so amusing! The problem you mention of emotion-laden memories versus rationalistic faith seems to be one addressed in various sects in different ways- I connected to your Rebbetzin's "well-contained expression of shock, etc." While I do disagree with the premise, which is that Orthodoxy is nothing more than a meme, I think what you say is true for the majority of the very "frum"/ ultra-orthodox, for example, perhaps those frequenting Cross-currents and the like. As you mention, leading an examined life is very difficult, and when one decides to be true with oneself, things can become very complicated...

 
At 6:19 AM, Blogger Ben Avuyah said...

Thank you for your comments, Chana, I appreciate them, and I certainly agree with you that an introspective life is a difficult one. One of the points I try to make is that it is also a forbidden one.

Welcome to the slippery slope.

 
At 11:46 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Slippery slope? Unless I misread you it appears you are already at the bottom! Great writing though. However ask yourself this: Do you really believe its entirely your reason which is fighting your emotions? Could it not be your emotions fighting your emotions?

 
At 2:11 PM, Blogger Ben Avuyah said...

Hi Godol,
Thanks for commenting, I can't argue with that, both sides are emotional to me. But one side is based on what I've been told, and one side is based on what makes sense...

 
At 3:10 PM, Blogger Shifra said...

Good writing, hard reading.

I agree that both sides are emotional but I also think that to some extent both sides make sense and make no sense.

Maybe Torah is a security blanket to a lot of Jews but without it life seems
so meaningless.

I think it's hard to be close to God when he is so far away from us. These are desperate times.

 
At 7:55 PM, Blogger Ben Avuyah said...

Hi shifra,
Thank you for commenting, I understand you all to well when you say that life without torah seems meaningless. During the first few days that I truly realized that it was all a lie, I felt despair and had to ask myself a lot of questions like...what am I doing here, and, is there really no one recording the good and bad moments of my life, and is this all chance, and, does that mean that all my loved ones who have passed are not in heaven but just gone ? and, does that mean all I have is just this life and then I am gone forever ?

Yes, it is truly staggering and believing in a diety is far more comforting (at least when he is happy deity), but believing in the torah, not becuase it makes sense, but because you really want it to be true, has a name.

It's called a wish.

We are not living in desperate times, cheer up, we are living in great times. Humankind is comming into it's own for the first time in recorded history and taking responsibility for it's own actions. This is light years ahead of blaming things on god and the devil.
Take heart and be an optimist, shifra, I see good things in the future.

 
At 7:13 AM, Blogger Shifra said...

Actually I am an optimist. I have a very happy life, and I have much hope for my future and the future of the world.

Believing this is all there is though is depressing.

All this "coming into our own" leaves me quite flat frankly.
If today's world society is considered to be "taking responsibilty" it is only be comparision to the past two generations.
Look at the Native Americans who lived in this county for centuries without spoiling any of it, then we get off the boats and trash the place.
Accountability my eye!
In this country we worship the god of money and our human sacrifices are the people suffering the world over who we refuse to help or choose to invade.

This world is a lie, our values are wacked and God is hiding from us. If I have no faith that there is more than this, I have nothing.

Wow, where did that all come from?!

 
At 11:10 AM, Blogger M-n said...

"Look at the Native Americans who lived in this county for centuries without spoiling any of it, then we get off the boats and trash the place."

That's a total myth. The Siberian Americans, like all humans, reshaped their environment to their own liking. It's only propaganda that they were so gentle with nature.

 
At 7:37 PM, Blogger Ben Avuyah said...

Shifra,
Can't argue that the world doesn't have problems...becuase your right, it certainly does.
But do you see that realizing that there is no one else besides us to fix them is a step forward ? I mean, waiting around for several millenia, for a god of which there is no evidence of, to step in and make it right, seems a far worse plan.

Also Mis-Nagid has a point, I don't know much about native american's nuances with nature, but scalping doesn't sound very sympatico. I guess we will never know what they would of done had we given them bulldozers and cement. Here's a guess...Casinos ? Hows that for praying to the money god.

But that is too harsh, I don't mean to take away from your point which is that we live in a problematic world. But saying that god must be there becuase if not, I am unhappy, or life isn't fun, or doesn't seem worth it... is something called appeal to consequences. In other words, I don't like where that answer leaves us...but remember the truth doesn't have to be nice or fair. It has the ultimate luxury of just being correct.

 
At 4:15 AM, Blogger Shifra said...

In the case of God I don't see how a person could ever have that kind of confidence to know for certain that he doesn't exist to the point that "being right" alone would be a comfort to such a limited tiny existance.

As for the Indians, I think the damage they did to this countries resources cannot be compared to it's later occupants.

 
At 6:36 AM, Blogger Ben Avuyah said...

Correct on both points shifra !
We can't compare the indians to ourselves. We have done far worse, although they never had the temptations of our destructive technologies.
It is also correct that being rational and seeking the truth are tiny comforts in comparison to the dazzling rewards dangled in front of us by organized religion. I won't challenge that, they are offering a very comforting image, it is their speciality.

 
At 2:26 AM, Blogger The Hedyot said...

I related very much to this post, especially the constant inner dialogue between the competing voices.

 
At 5:59 AM, Blogger Ben Avuyah said...

Hi Hedyot,
Thank you for your comment,
I bet a lot of religious people can relate to this. I am curious if someone who was raised completely secularly would know what we are talking about. My gut tells me everyone suffers through some form of decision making process, but a secular person probably doesn't label one aspect as good and one as evil.

 
At 2:08 PM, Blogger Ben Avuyah said...

Hi david,

Ahhh, My first detractor,

>I was kinda disappointed to find an argument that was basically "I studied too much gemara, skipped the basics, so I might as well just not believe." That's a cop-out, no?

I don’t recall making that argument, actually my point was that there is a paucity of good reasons to believe in religion and that the reason why most people do believe is out of emotional need.

>first of all I find it hard to believe that anybody would lose faith or something, after reading your musings.

Well those were part of the thoughts that started me searching for the truth, so that’s one person…

>Second of all, as I'm sure you know, it says in Pirkei Avot that we should know how to answer a heretic. How am I gonna know how to answer you if I don't hear what you have to say?

Good point, and not coincidentally a major flaw in our religious system. We are forbidden to study heresy, but must know how to answer one….”How am I gonna know how to answer you if I don’t hear what you have to say.”

Sounds like a question for the rabbi, to me it’s just another fallacy in our man made religion.

 
At 2:46 PM, Blogger David Pincus said...

Hey Ben,

Okay. Let's say you take this meme concept. I don't wuite understand what you're trying to prove with that. Let's say everyone's meme is programmed from their experience when they were little. I wasn't particularly observant when I was younger, but I became more observant throughout college. None of the memories I had when I was growing up included me being married to a girl who wears a sheitel. That wasn't in my frame of reference at all. I think I learned what a sheitel was when I was 15 and learned that it was more than a custom at 19 or something. My wife is a baalas teshuvah who certainly didn't think she'd be doing any of those things.
Anyway, according to that, maybe you didn't escape your meme. (I'm not sure how it's pronounced, btw), maybe your meme wasn't programmed as you thought it was. Maybe you had some bad experiences when you were younger and that left you with a meme that said you'd stop believing when you got older and your meme is too powerful for you to refuse it. I'm not saying that's definitely what happened, but it seems to me going one way with that argument is just as valid as going the other way.

And how exactly are you searching for the truth? Where are you looking? Following Madonna? going to Tibet?

You know what. At what point would you say you stop believing? Do you believe the Torah? The Mishnah? The Gemara?
I mean it sounds to me like you have a lot of problems with what some of the gedolim say. Fine. Me too. There's a lot of gedolim that have been and in a sense, people must pick and choose. I don't think that's a flaw with Judaism. In a religion like Judaism, there's hundred, thousands of decisions you have to make, and for me, I know that I'm never gonna be able to learn gemara like a yeshiva bochur. I got into learning gemara of my own interest, too little, too late. I readily admit there's a flaw somewhere in the yeshiva system. So, I study philosophy issues a lot, which include heresy and bordering materials. The Rambam says one should spend 1/3 of their time studying Jewish philosophy issues. I try to. So, study hersey. Hopefully it'll strengthen your faith. Apparently it hasn't though.

So let me share part of the reason I bought into this "man-made religion". Upon reaching college, it was my first exposure to "the outside world". I didn't like it. I didn't get the point of drunken frat parties, or having 8 hour video game marathons, or having college girlfriends. I don't know if that's necesarilly a religious issue. It's a moral issue, which is strongly corelated with religious issues. So, I backed away from it. I found something that I liked doing, I found out that Jews have a mission in this world, to be Metaken the Olam. To perfect ourselves. And if some of the things seem to extreme for me right now, I don't do them. If I don't think I'll ever reach a certain level, fine. As long as I know I'm trying and trying hard, I'm satisfied with myself. I'm really happy like this. I feel like my life has purpose. I have all the proof I need. To me, the Jewish people, with our history, is a proof that we must've been chosen for something.
But if you're looking for 100% proof of God's existence, I don't know where you're ever gonna find it. For me, I believed more, and I want to bring happiness to peoples' lives, provide them with answers. Or try to. After that, for me, everything just fell into place.
Let me know how your search is going.

 
At 3:28 PM, Blogger Ben Avuyah said...

Sounds like you have a lot going on, David…

If you want a clearer Idea of what a meme is look it up on Wickipedia, they have a good definition there.

My search for truth, as you mentioned, is based in rational thought as detailed in my post, “In search of a Rational God”

I wish you luck finding what you are looking for…

 
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At 1:56 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

i think at a certain point in this world things go beyond the impirical. There is a mystical aspect to life and living and this world too. It's not all so cut and dry, as you say, in terms of everything so rational. We just don't live in such a clean,sterile world. Life is messier than that, no? Also, I am observant and hope to always be, but i have always struggled, and still struggle with many questions. It's part of the wrestling. It's part of being religious for me. And I very much view this world as up to us, in terms of making progress, making a difference...tikkunim. I'm certainly not waiting around for God to step up to the plate. That is not what religion is about for me. Frankly, that sounds a bit immature, infantile perception of what a god or religion is, no?

I loved the dialogue between the yetzers. I guess somewhere inside we are all arrested in terms of certain primitive inner voices. Also, I see a value to jewish life and jewish ritual apart from religion, because that is who i am. this is my story. i wasn't born chineese. i wasn't born ethiopian. I wasn't born christian or muslim. so as a jew i find meaning in many of our rituals because this is who we are. who i am and what our tradition is.

another thing, i think not recognizing development of toshb"ap as a great jewish intellectual/academic achievement is a great oversight--regardless of decision to practice or not.

Also, why is it all or nothing--so binary? you could do the boutique judaica thing and just pick the traditions/teachings that resonate for you without worrying about the rabbi and rebbetzin looking over your shoulder and judging you. I guess it's just too emotionally painful to remember those dialogues and know the anguish you(one) cause loved ones by leaving. It's hard....I feel for you.

MAIN POINT, though, after reading a number of your entries tonight (i just found you a few hours ago and could not stop reading!but now it's the middle of the night and must get some much needed sleep) SO MAIN POINT IS: YOU REALLY OUGHT TO PUBLISH YOUR WRITING! YOU ARE A WRITER! AN AMAZING WRITER! BOTH FICTION AND NON-FICTION~SOMETHING SPECIAL!!! Perhaps contact Tova Mirvis, published novelist on this religious/judaism commentary stuff, diff calibre than your writing or thinking, but still, it could be a start. I WANT TO SEE YOU IN PRINT!!! (but come to think of it, how will I know it is you Ben Avuyah?) which dovetails into me telling you how i found you! I love aggadata and i love the stories of elisha ben avuyah and rabbi meier and rabbi akiva....all of them! and that is how i found you. little did i realize when i found you via google......so,curious: are you a compulsive torah learner even after you have departed-rejected traditional jewish life, as elisha ben avuya--who was so drawn to it his whole life, till the end. so sad! what a torn human being.

ok, lyla tov :) and best of luck in everything--bakol mikol kol....whatever path you take and wherever life takes you~

 
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