Monday, September 24, 2007
Growing up in Monsey
Shalom Auslander is a kid from Monsey who ran away from G-d. He sees G-d as many of us do, one who punishes and kills, but most of us try and appease him instead of running away. He chose the way of Yonah, but G-d hasn't sent the whale yet. It seems from him that what we say about the soul not allowing one to rest is true. See how tormented, and even obsessed, he is about being born to a frum family, and what he was taught in Cheyder in Monsey, it plagues him mercilessly and allows him no rest. I wonder if he'd been taught a bit differently, namely that G-d is not all about punishment and death, if he'd have turned out differently and even have made a positive difference to the Jewish community.
I Thank CE for sending me the link to his book of memoirs.
Hirshel, I am truly disappointed in your write up...
ReplyDeletesorry to disappoint you, especially since you were the one that sent me the link!!!!!
ReplyDeleteHirshel: "He sees G-d as many of us do, one who punishes and kills, but most of us try and appease him instead of running away."
ReplyDeleteCE: Huh? Speak for yourself, kid.
Hirshel: "He chose the way of Yonah, but G-d hasn't sent the whale yet."
Me: Now I'm really getting annoyed.
I don't speak for myself, nor for you. I relay what I hear and read from others, namely that we do things so that G-d doesn't punish us.
ReplyDelete#1: In that case, "as many of us do" should be completely deleted from the post.
ReplyDelete#2: Yonah Hanavi had quite a different perspective than this author, don't you think?
I know that, but only based on the Chassidic/Drush Teitsh. al pi pshat it seems like Yonah didn't believe G-d could find him until he sent the storm. That's the way it's taught in Chadorim.
ReplyDelete#1: I don't even think that’s true - I'm pretty sure that all frum schools teach meforshim
ReplyDelete#2: You say it as fact, and not as if it was some "cheder yingel's" perspective - and since you say that you don't subscribe to this view, why would you state it as such?
Tzemach is getting slapped by Rabbi Beilin on reshimu... zol es derleingen in kop.
ReplyDeleteHow could you be sure? ask your kid and then get back to me. Also, lots has changed in the last decade alone, so they might have recently started teaching the Mefrshim too. I don't remember being taught the Meforash that Yonah didn't want to go so that people of Nineveh wouldn't do Tshuvah.
ReplyDeleteWe're close to the same age, and I NEVER was taught Yonah the way you descibe it in your post. Neither were any of my children. But that's not even the point - the point is: You stated it as if it's your opinion here. Why?
ReplyDeleteI will have you know that Sefer Yonah has always been a personal favorite of mine, so...
I don't trust this guy...he's peddling a book, I imagine a somewhat mediocre one by playing the role of victim. Other than beating up on his teachers and community he has I would conjecture little to offer the world. There have been many more recent astute and interesting novels about Orthodox life.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that this seems to resinate so much with you Hirshel. I take it that you empathise with his struggle - are you saying that your chinuch ws similar to this fellow's? Do you want to talk about it?
ReplyDeleteyou mean resonate. resinate, I think would have something to do with resin, the material used to make plastic bags.
ReplyDeleteI would need to know which cheder he went to in order to compare educations.
do you have a couch I can stretch out on? do you accept insurance?
I don't charge at all. And we can use your couch here in the Circus Tent.
ReplyDeleteWhy are people so angry?
ReplyDeleteGuravitzer
ReplyDeleteI don't see your comments on Reshimu
you were forgiven Erev Yom Kippur
seems like אימת הדין has worn off. look at the increase in comments.
ReplyDeleteIs this guy demented... or does he, pardoxically, have true Yiras Shomayim????
ReplyDeleteThree hours from milk to meat?
ReplyDeleteI wasn't forgiven, he asked for my identity.
ReplyDeleteI thought I heard him say veal, not meat. Maybe he's a Yekker.
ReplyDeleteGuravitzer
ReplyDeleteI think that you shouldn't give him your identity.
In Reshimu he can find out for your IP addreess an idea of your location
He could, as could I found out his identity. It's a matter of honoring someone's stated feelings on the subject. You can read back comments on mentalblog to see our back and forth on the subject.
ReplyDeleteDon't take a risk
ReplyDeleteLook at Rabbi Beilin suffering
With all due respect, I think that Mr. Sholom Auslander is missing the whole point. I don’t think it necessarily has to do with what he was taught in Monsey, since many people, I fear, have a similar, negative view of the Creator as a pursuer who set up a crooked trap for mankind. I think, rather, we should look at it somewhat differently.
ReplyDeleteIf someone explained to you how to operate a very complex, highly tuned sports car, and told you that if you drove it at 100 miles per hour off a cliff, you would crash to a fiery death, you would not accuse him of setting up a crooked trap for you. You would thank him for providing you with useful information.
The sort of consequences described in Parshas Haazinu, for example, should be viewed in much the same light. The Creator showed us tremendous mercy by revealing to us the exact operating instructions for Jewish society, which is surely as finely tuned and as complex as any sports car. He explained to us the consequences that would follow operating the system in an erroneous manner.
One might complain about the way the world is set up, and one might imagine that we would be better off living on the Big Rock Candy Mountain, as it were, but Kabbalah explains, I think, why the world is necessarily the way it is, and we can Thank Hashem! that he provided us with the operating manual for His world.
Think of the hundreds of tribes, nations, city-states, kingdoms, and principalities that arose and vanished in the various parts of the world where Jews have lived over the centuries, and you will see that having an authorized instruction manual, even if we don’t follow it perfectly, does indeed make a difference. A positive difference.
Hirshel,
ReplyDelete"I wonder if he'd been taught a bit differently, namely that G-d is not all about punishment and death"
רעדסט שטותים. You know very well that schools in Monsey, as anywhere else, teach that G-d is not all about punishment. But we also have to know that G-d punishes those that sin. And this guy seems to do plenty of that, so אראפ מיט די הויזען און הייב אהן שמייסען.
MOST SCHOOLS STOPPED shmeisen a few years ago, so I doubt he'd have his pants pulled down now anyway. But the point is that the emphasis is placed on the punishment and the avoidance of it. Very little emphasis is placed on the idea that a Yid has a Neshomoh and that he's one of the chosen. Obviously Sholom is slanted towards the negative, that's why he saw it all as being negative.
ReplyDeleteNothing on the protests in Shikun Chabad over Simchas Beis Hashueva?
ReplyDeleteshtusim vahavolim.
ReplyDeleteShalom Auslander went to HIROC, which is as far from a cheder as you can get. To give you a hint - my wife went there.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that bit of info. Does that school still exist? I don't think I've heard of it.
ReplyDeleteIf he went to such a school what's he complaining about? It's not like he had such a rought time.
I should've seen that from his "non-Cheder" English.
It's now called ASHAR, but is rumored to be closing down to lack of clientele.
ReplyDeleteASHAR I have heard of. Which makes me wonder: what in the world is Shalom complaining about?!
ReplyDeleteHow the mighty have fallen. It used to be that an apikoiresl was an above-average, eloquent, educated and enlightened snake with a sharp two pronged tongue and a mass of knowledge. But in this pathetic generation even apikorsim aren't worth the air they are breathing - it's they only excel in their mediocrity ...
ReplyDelete