Back and More Pissed Off Then Ever

Yes, I am back.  Hold your applause till after my entire post please.

So recently I have read some postings by a new blogger who calls himself “Mainstream Jew“.  This is he has proved in one very quick night to be completely false since he specifically said, there is no creator who is receiving your prayers”.  No matter if someone is Orthodox, Haredi, Reform, Conservative or any other sect the majority of Jews believe there is a G-d in heaven.  How to observe his laws is in question, but the actual existence of G-d? Mainstream Jews believe in Him. If you don’t believe in Him? Then don’t call yourself Jewish, because while you are to me (assuming you have a Jewish mother), technically to the world you are an atheist.

Second I he is just like DK, SJ, OTD and everyone else like them who hates religious correct Judaism.  We must be tolerant of their views, but ours? If they make Jews look crazy we must stop.  This is exactly what happened in Germany at the beginning of the Reform movement.  “Shut down Orthodoxy! (a term they came up with and as my friend Factual Basis points out should be a racist slur) Close their mikvahs! Close the kosher slaughterhouses! We Jews are just like the rest of you! Don’t pay attention to the freaks!”  It’s really crazy the double standards that we are subject to.  I’m honestly considering changing the name of the blog to double standards because most of posts point them out between them and us.

What evidence is there that he/she/it would want you to pray to him for three hours on a Saturday (and how do we know its actually Saturday and not Tuesday).

How long has it been since you have been to Shul MSJ?  My shabbat davening is 2 hours MAX and that’s on a bad weekend.  Next, personally I try and go to shul every single day of the week.  It’s not just saturday, the reason most people go then is because they don’t have work because of the shabbat.  The shabbaton is the 7th day of the week, hence Saturday.  Why not Sunday? Because its not.  The Jews for thousands of years had shabbaton on a Saturday because that’s the day G-d told us was the 7th day.  If its any other day how would they get the millions of Jews all to change the day? How? Wouldn’t there be sects that had it on the old day, that were left over from the old guard?

Which trasitions very nicely into my next point.

What evidence is there that the Torah is his rule and guidebook?

Because he told us.  Yes he told at least 1 million Jews that this is his rule.  This wasnt the 1990’s where someone could have pulled off the special effects or dupted everyone into “hearing” G-d’s voice.  And how to I know it happened? Because my father who was told by his father by his father by his father and so on and so on back to my relative who was at Mount Sinai.  There is someone I know who can literally trace their passing down of the Torah all the way back to Moses (not that he is related, but that he has an accurate line straight from the source of teaching the torah).  I’m waiting for the famous “but there is no archeological evidence” actually there is someone that perfectly correlates with some stuff on the book of prophets.  What about the Torah itself you ask?  Well if you know anything about archeology, you know the famous line “a lack of evidence is not an evidence of lack”.  Just because we haven’t found it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.  All the stuff that has been found does not contradict (in fact most of it supports) stories in the torah.

Whats amazing is yet another double standard.  Everyone agrees there was a Hammurabi code of law.  This is based on very limited finds on the code itself.  However there is no debate as to its existence and place in history.  But the torah? Well it requires us to do something so we must apply a different standard!

The torah was given to our ancestors by G-d himself.  They were there.  The same way we know there was a Civil War, or a Roman Empire, or anything else we didn’t personally live through.  We have history both from first hand accounts and from finds.  While the exodus from egypt has yeilded limited finds its not surprising if you actually think about it.  No one knows their exact route, plus there haven’t been extensive tries to find results, and it’s the desert so digs are very hard especially when one doesnt know even a general 5 mile area to look.

As for your comment about woman equality? You have no idea how I feel on the matter, but of course all orthodox Jews are the same right? I will address my views on woman in Judaism in a post in the near future.

Yes, I’m back and better than ever.  I will keep fighting off these attacks on our people, you do your part and keep reading

So These Are the Arguments of the “Intellectuals”

Many times we have heard people who hate hassidic, yeshivish, and in general more religous people, argue that these groups are not “intellectual” and the only books they look at are the gemara so they obviously know nothing about a scholarly argument.

On that note I would like to point out what some people I have been arguing with have said after I wrecked them in an intellectual argument.

Half Sours:

You sir, are liar, liar pants on fire. And everyone knows it now. Another kiruvnik discredited. My work here is done.

DK:

Cheerer, have you considered dating a militant feminist? Because your whole, “That’s not funny!” refrain would go over quite well with those women.

DK after someone questioned his making holocaust jokes in the context of the Heeb Magazine Contest for fake holocaust stories

Liz: No matter how you want to spin it, Holocaust “jokes” are not funny.

DK:  Then don’t laugh.

And of course DK’s response to my argument based on his making a satirical posting about the OU giving a haskgacha to Zyklon B

Me: I will not be told that I “didn’t think” from someone who marginalizes the holocaust.

DK: I will not have one of my best satires marginalized by someone who connects issues that are not interrelated.

These are the people who claim there that frummies are “anti-intellectual”.

These are the people who are trying to stop kiruv.

These are the people who say religious people are stopping the advancement of the Jewish People

These are the people we fight for future of our people.

Don’t ever forget it.

Freedom of Religion (for those who agree with him)

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution reads as follows,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

Apparently according to Kvetcher when the amendment says “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” it meant only the stuff that he finds sensible.  DK, despite the fact that you find chalov yisroel products “inferior” and have “inflated costs” (which there is substantial proof to back up that claim), it does not mean that people should be allowed to make that part of their religious observance.

He claims that it is

a terrible thing for the U.S. government to be subsidizing these idle haredim who are so “pious” they can’t trust gentile farmers to be delivering cows milk.

but then in the same breath claims that

Maybe the Agudath Israel should teach its people the value of work, and stop “educating” the government on how to treat their degenerate constituency with ever-greater coddling and “sensitivity.”

If these people are not trusting non-Jews for their milk then it must be Jews making the milk.  Is that not good enough work for you?  I see, they should spend their days in front of a computer insulting people who merely express their religion differently then him, because that is good honest American work.

Moreover, just because they have different views in this case it makes them degenerates? Excuse me?  How dare you call them that merely because they believe something you don’t.  Its not like they didn’t go about this the right way.  Do you have any proof that they did something illegal or inappropriate to get the government to agree to this prevision for chalav yisroel?

This is a dangerous line to cross people.  At what point do we draw the line because we find something silly or too stringent?  Soon those “silly Jews” with their “silly specific ways of killing cows” or their “silly rules of kosher”.  While DK may be ok with this i would say all orthodox Jews (not just the silly ones with the hats) would have a problem with this.

Yet again I am forced to ask.  Merely because they want to do something different religiously then DK , and ask for governmental allowance the same as anyone else with a different religious belief, that gives them a “dark heart”?  Taking it a little far are we?  But thats our good friend David Kelsey, always on the forefront of hating other Jews.

Attacking Those Who are Different

Many people are prone to attacking various Jewish traditions as “stupid” “superstitious” or “ridiculousness”.  One of these traditions (which I would like to put on the record I myself do not do) is called Capparot.  The basic idea is that one takes a chicken, waves it over their own head (not by the feet as many suspect but gently but the stomach), and it helps remove their sins.  But rather then let it be at that (there are far worse traditions for people to attack in Judaism) people like DK attack this tradition (albeit not as the main focus of the posting) as if it also involves killing a human baby.

Let me be clear.  I do not support what Face did, but using Jewish traditions such as this to make mainstream Judaism seem crazy and out of date is part of DK’s MO and that’s what bothers me.

In order to put this in perspective I am posting the famous study of the Nacirema.  For those of you who are aware of this study I ask that you not “ruin” it for everyone else who has not.  Just in case all comments will be held in moderation this week to prevent people from trying to ruin the effect of the article.

Professor Linton first brought the ritual of the Nacirema to the attention of anthropologists twenty years ago, but the culture
of this people is still very poorly understood. They are a North American group living in the territory between the Canadian Creel the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico, and the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles. Little is known of their origin, although tradition states that they came from the east….

Nacirema culture is characterized by a highly developed market economy which as evolved in a rich natural habitat. While much of the people’s time is devoted to economic pursuits, a large part of the fruits of these labors and a considerable portion
of the day are spent in ritual activity. The focus of this activity is the human body, the appearance and health of which loom as a dominant concern in the ethos of the people. While such a concern is certainly not unusual, its ceremonial aspects and associated philosophy are unique.

The fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is
to debility and disease. Incarcerated in such a body, man’s only hope is to avert these characteristics through the use of the
powerful influences of ritual and ceremony. Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose. The more
powerful individuals in the society have several shrines in their houses and, in fact, the opulence of a house is often referred to
in terms of the number of such ritual centers it possesses. Most houses are of wattle and daub construction, but the shrine rooms of the more wealthy are walled with stone. Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine walls.  While each family has at least one such shrine, the rituals associated with it are not family ceremonies but are private and
secret. The rites are normally only discussed with children, and then only during the period when they are being initiated into these mysteries. I was able, however, to establish sufficient rapport with the natives to examine these shrines and to have the rituals described to me.

The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is built into the wall. In this chest are kept the many charms and magical potions without which no native believes he could live. These preparations are secured from a variety of specialized practitioners. The most powerful of these are the medicine men, whose assistance must be rewarded with substantial gifts.  However, the medicine men do not provide the curative potions for their clients, but decide what the ingredients should be and then write them down in an ancient and secret language. This writing is understood only by the medicine men and by the herbalists who, for another gift, provide the required charm.

The charm is not disposed of after it has served its purpose, but is placed in the charmbox of the household shrine. As these
magical materials are specific for certain ills, and the real or imagined maladies of the people are many, the charm-box is usually full to overflowing. The magical packets are so numerous that people forget what their purposes were and fear to use them again. While the natives are very vague on this point, we can only assume that the idea in retaining all the old magical materials is that their presence in the charm-box, before which the body rituals are conducted, will in some way protect the worshipper.

Beneath the charm-box is a small font. Each day every member of the family, in succession, enters the shrine room, bows
his head before the charm-box, mingles different sorts of holy water in the font, and proceeds with a brief rite of ablution.
The holy waters are secured from the Water Temple of the community, where the priests conduct elaborate ceremonies to
make the liquid ritually pure.

In the hierarchy of magical practitioners, and below the medicine men in prestige, are specialists whose designation is best translated “holy-mouth-men.” The Nacirema have an almost pathological horror of and fascination with the mouth, the condition of which is believed to have a supernatural influence on all social relationships. Were it not for the rituals of the
mouth, they believe that their teeth would fall out, their gums bleed, their jaws shrink, their friends desert them, and their lovers
reject them. They also believe that a strong relationship exists between oral and moral characteristics. For example, there is a ritual ablution of the mouth for children which is supposed to improve their moral fiber.

The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth-rite. Despite the fact that these people are so punctilious about care of the mouth, this rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated stranger as revolting. It was reported to me that the ritual consists of inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth, along with certain magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly formalized series of gestures.

In addition to the private mouth-rite, the people seek out a holy-mouth-man once or twice a year. These practitioners
have an impressive set of paraphernalia, consisting of a variety of augers, awls, probes, and prods. The use of these objects in the exorcism of the evils of the mouth involves almost unbelievable ritual torture of the client. The holy-mouth-man open the clients mouth and, using the above mentioned tools, enlarges any holes which decay may have created in the teeth. Magical materials are put into these holes. If there age no naturally occurring holes in the teeth, large sections of one or more teeth are gouged out so that the supernatural substance can be applied. In the client’s view, the purpose of these ministrations is to arrest decay and to draw friends. The extremely sacred and traditional character of the rite is evident in the fact that the natives return to the holy–mouth-men year after year, despite the fact  that their teeth continue to decay.

It is to be hoped that, when a thorough  study of the Nacirema is made, there will  be careful inquiry into the personality  structure of these people. One has but to  watch the gleam in the eye of a holy-  mouth-man, as he jabs an awl into an  exposed nerve, to suspect that a certain  amount of sadism is involved. If this can be  established, a very interesting pattern  emerges, for most of the population shows  definite masochistic tendencies. It was to  these that Professor Linton referred in discussing a distinctive part of the daily  body ritual which is performed only by  men. This part of the rite involves scraping  and lacerating the surface of the face with a  sharp instrument. Special women’s rites are  performed only four times during each  lunar month, but what they lack in  frequency is made up in barbarity. As part  of this ceremony, women bake their heads  in small ovens for about an hour. The  theoretically interesting point is that what  seems to be a preponderantly masochistic  people have developed sadistic specialists.

The medicine men have an imposing  temple, or latipso, in every community of  any size. The more elaborate ceremonies  required to treat very sick patients can only  be performed at this temple. These ceremonies involve not only the thaumaturge  but a permanent group of vestal maidens  who move sedately about the temple  chambers in distinctive costume and head-  dress.

The latipso ceremonies are so harsh that  it is phenomenal that a fair proportion of  the really sick natives who enter the temple The concept of culture  ever recover. Small children whose indoctrination is still incomplete have been  known to resist attempts to take them to  the temple because “that is where you go to  die.” Despite this fact, sick adults are not  only willing but eager to undergo the  protracted ritual purification, if they can  afford to do so. No matter how ill the  supplicant or how grave the emergency, the  guardians of many temples will not admit a  client if he cannot give a rich gift to the  custodian. Even after one has gained admission and survived the ceremonies, the  guardians will not permit the neophyte to  leave until he makes still another gift.

The supplicant entering the temple is  first stripped of all his or her clothes. In  everyday life the Nacirema avoids exposure  of his body and its natural functions.  Bathing and excretory acts are performed  only in the secrecy of the household shrine,  where they are ritualized as part of the  body-rites. Psychological shock results  from the fact that body secrecy is suddenly  lost upon entry into the latipso. A man,  whose own wife has never seen him in an  excretory act, suddenly finds himself naked  and assisted by a vestal maiden while he  performs his natural functions into a sacred  vessel. This sort of ceremonial treatment is  necessitated by the fact that the excreta are  used by a diviner to ascertain the course  and nature of the client’s sickness. Female  clients, on the other hand, find their naked  bodies are subjected to the scrutiny,  manipulation and prodding of the medicine  men.

Few supplicants in the temple are well  enough to do anything but lie on their  hard  beds. The daily ceremonies, like the rites of  the holy-mouth-men, involve discomfort  and torture. With ritual precision, the  vestals awaken their miserable charges each  dawn and roll them about on their beds of  pain while performing ablutions, in the  formal movements of which the maidens are highly trained. At other times they  insert magic wands in the supplicant’s  mouth or force him to eat substances which  are supposed to be healing. From time to  time the medicine men come to their clients  and jab magically treated needles into their  flesh. The fact that these temple ceremonies  may not cure, and may even kill the  neophyte, in no way decreases the people’s  faith in the medicine men.

There remains one other kind of  practitioner, known as a “listener.” This  witchdoctor has the power to exorcise the  devils that lodge in the heads of people who  have been bewitched. The Nacirema  believe that parents bewitch their own  children. Mothers are particularly suspected of putting a curse on children while  teaching them the secret body rituals. The  counter-magic of the witchdoctor is unusual in its lack of ritual. The patient simply tells the “listener” all his troubles and  fears, beginning with the earliest difficulties  he can remember. The memory displayed  by the Nacirerna in these exorcism sessions  is truly remarkable. It is not uncommon for  the patient to bemoan the rejection he felt  upon being weaned as a babe, and a few  individuals even see their troubles going  back to the traumatic effects of their own  birth.

In conclusion, mention must be made of  certain practices which have their base in  native esthetics but which depend upon the  pervasive aversion to the natural body and  its functions. There are ritual fasts to make  fat people thin and ceremonial feasts to  make thin people fat. Still other rites are  used to make women’s breasts larger if they  are small, and smaller if they are large.  General dissatisfaction with breast shape is symbolized in the fact that the ideal form is virtually outside the range of human   variation. A few women afflicted with almost inhuman hyper-mamrnary development are so idolized that they make a   handsome living by simply going from village to village and permitting the natives to stare at them for a fee.

Reference has already been made to the   fact that excretory functions are ritualized,   routinized, and relegated to secrecy. Natural reproductive functions are similarly distorted. Intercourse is taboo as a topic and scheduled as an act. Efforts are made to   avoid pregnancy by the use of magical   materials or by limiting intercourse to certain phases of the moon. Conception is   actually very infrequent. When pregnant, women dress so as to hide their condition.  Parturition takes place in secret, without   friends or relatives to assist, and the majority of women do not nurse their infants.

Our review of the ritual life of the Nacirema has certainly shown them to be a   magic-ridden people. It is hard to un-   derstand how they have managed to exist   so long under the burdens which they have   imposed upon themselves. But even such   exotic customs as these take on real   meaning when they are viewed with the insight provided by Malinowski when he   wrote:

“Looking from far and above, from our  high places of safety in the developed civilization, it is easy to see all the crudity and irrelevance of magic. But without its power and guidance early man could not   have mastered his practical difficulties as he has done, nor could man have advanced to the higher stages of civilization.”

What is your reaction to this strange culture’s behaviors?  Stranger then what is done in Judaism? About the same? Discuss…

I Feel So Stupid

I have always been told that Orthodox Judaism is the sect of Judaism that refuses to allow people with different beliefs have their own say.  I have been told time and again by SJ and his whole group of friends that other movements allow opposition and treat dissension with respect.  Even OTD has this viewpoint about orthodoxy.  Well, since Conservative Judaism is so open and willing to hear other opinions I was shocked to read the following in the bible criticism section of Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary published by The Rabbinical Assembly of The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism,

Many of us naively assume that the Torah that we use today is an exact copy of one original text, but there are many versions of the text of the Torah.

It goes on to talk about different version of the translations of the Torah, not the original hebrew version mind you.  The argument made in this section is that since there are different translations it can be the same book.  Huh?  There are different translations of Beowulf, Don Quixote and various other ancient documents but no one doubts their accuracy to the original text. Whatever.  Moving on.

Beyond that I feel so stupid! I have been so naive!  It’s so nice of the Conservative movement to point this out.  Never-mind the fact that a bible sitting in the pews of a Synagogue has a section with bible critism, I am all for talking about the issues people have but to have a whole section in the book itself? Just plain silly.  The constitutions people carry around don’t have a section ripping the founding fathers for letting slavery stay or having gun ownership as a right, nor is the standard Shakespeare sold with criticisms of his work.  Those are sold in special volumes unto themselves, NOT in the standard print edition.

What really annoys me is that it doesn’t say “some believe” or even “there are some who think that” the Torah is the same.  But rather it is naive to believe otherwise!  How dare I, based on an unbroken chain since the giving of the Torah, KNOW that the Torah is virtually the same document (there is some issue with some LETTERS, just letters, not words, and certainly not content).

This is typical of people who are not as religious as others.  They scream for the rooftops “how dare you try and force me to believe what your believe!? Its my right to believe what I want!“, but then when I believe something different? I’m naive or stupid or any number of insults.

Its very common…”You can believe whatever you want, as long as it’s what I believe.”

UPDATE: It seems that I was mistaken over DK on this, so I have removed his name above.  See, unlike some other bloggers (SJ) I am willing to admit when I may have made a mistaken.

RE: Two Mosholim Part One

A blogger (who has changed his name over and over again because he keeps changing his mind about how he feels about Observant Judaism) recently wrote a post that offers two examples and asks what we (the reader) would do.  Disclaimer: the examples are obviously written in such a way to beg a specific answer.  When doing so he distorts things, makes things into facts that are theories, and ignores things that have been proved, as I will show.  Lets just do the first one today:

Your friend tells you that a super natural being exists. You check up on that, and it turns out nobody has ever seen this being, or has any good evidence that the being exists. The whole thing seems to be entirely fantasy.

Obviously I (in this example) haven’t done a good job checking up on it.  Not only is there a document that is attested to be true at the time by over 2 million people, but this book has an unbroken chain since that time with little to no questioning of differences in the existing text since (besides additions).  It is little to no different from when we are told there was a civil war, or a holy roman empire or even a holocaust…eye witness testimony.  Somehow the Torah is no longer an eyewitness testimony! If we find a Native American document from the exact same time talking about an event no one will question that accuracy of it.

THAT answer is just for starters…but lets more on

When you tell your friend this, he has a conniption fit, and tells you that nobody has ever proven that this being does not exist either.

That is an argument made by people who don’t really believe in G-d and merely want to believe in G-d.  No rational G-d fearing Jew who is worth his weight in gold actually uses that argument.

You think your friend is nuts. But then your friend tell you that not only does this being exist, but it wrote a book, and he shows you the book. You look at the book, and it looks like a typical collection of far fetched miracle tales, and out of date laws and moral values, very similar to many other ancient books.

Except for a great number of distinctions. 1) This is the ONLY book that claims that G-d appeared to more than 1 person at a time, certainly the only one that claims a revelation to 2 million people.  2) I love how liberals all believe that moral values can be out of date.  If they are moral values they should be a constant 3) This “typical collection of far fetched miracles” is only typical because all the other major western religions based their stories off of ours.  Its not typical if everyone stole our version!

Certainly there’s nothing about the book which would make you think a super natural being wrote it.

This is a HUGE fight to be had but let me take a stab at one example.  According to World Wildlife Fund report mentioned in Discovery magazine more than 1,068 new species have been discovered since 1997.  Imagine how many have been discovered since the giving of the Torah over 2,500 years ago.  Especially since at that time we had not discovered 98% of the world including entire continents.

In the Torah it specifically lists by name all the animals that have split hooves but don’t chew their cud, and chew their cud but don’t have split hooves.  BY NAME.  If you are a human and are writing a book you aren’t stupid enough to mention then by name! You give the rule and move on! Don’t be stupid enough, especially with 98% of the world undiscovered, to give specific names!  And yet, since the giving of the Torah not one, NOT ONE animal has been discovered beyond the list given in the Torah that has one and not the other. That is way beyond coincidence or good luck.  That’s divine.

In fact the book itself doesn’t even claim that.

Wrong.  Just flat out wrong.  Over and over it says “the rules that I have given you” the book that “I wrote”.  Anyone you speak to who knows anything will tell you that it isn’t talking about Moshe (especially when it says this book that i gave to Moses.)  Or maybe he had multiple personalities.

Anyways, you take the book to your local university for fact checking and it turns out half the book is completely impossible and much of it is plain wrong.

I recall when people say killing 6 million people is impossible.  I remember that West Point doesn’t study any of the Israeli military victories in their military history class because its impossible to win those wars.  I could go on but I wont.  The very idea behind a miracle is that it’s impossible.  And just plain wrong?  I don’t see any sources for this..try listing one and we can go from there.

Also, linguistic scholars show you that the book was written in different dialects corresponding to different time periods, and they also point out numerous contradictions, omissions, and obvious signs of tampering.

If you are talking about Tanach then yeah of course they were written at different times! It says that!  Omissions? All of a sudden there is a missing book? Like some kind of Oral Torah that would explain the omissions?  Again we agree.  Obvious signs of tampering? See above while I wait for a source that says there is tampering because there is no one I ever heard who says that, even the people who doubt the Torah

You tell this to your friend but he absolutely insists that a super natural being wrote almost every word of it, and anyone who says otherwise just doesn’t know what they are talking about. You think your friend is really nuts. Then he tells you that you must adhere to all the laws in the book, including some very strange ones, and if you don’t, the super natural being will punish you in some way. What do you do?

Well if someone told this to me, i would argue the same way I have, and then he would come up with some made up excuse like “that’s not good enough” and walk away.  Additionally i never claim anyone who believes otherwise “doesn’t know what they are talking about”.  I merely disagree with them.  Can’t you live with someone else disagreeing with you?

What do I do? Look at the facts and realize that the Torah is true and anyone who has done the research would realize it too.  But if he wants to live in state of denial? It’s his life.

The Single Greatest Problem?

Jewish Atheist has decided that he has pinpointed the greatest problem in Orthodox Jewish communities,

It’s because the communities engage in social shunning of anybody who doesn’t fit in…Orthodox Jews have gotten so terrified of exposing their children to anyone who they deem a bad role model that they just kick out everybody who’s not perfect (by their standards.) And they do it to kids, too. In many right-wing communities, if you talk to girls on a Saturday night, you might as well be a crack dealer. They’ll treat you the same way.

This is the biggest problem?  I can probably think of at least 5 more important problems that need to be dealt with.  But since it has been brought up, I will address it.

First of all, I don’t see lot of shunning that you speak of.  It is far from a rampant problem in the Orthodox community because usually when the parents find out they just cover it up because they are so embarrassed.

Second of all, the shunning and sheltering of their children are two totally issues.  Yes while parents do shelter their kids in order to protect them, its not because they feel they will be shunned, but because they don’t want their kids doing it!

Third of all, lets say that the fact that people leaving Orthodoxy is a major problem and it is based on the fact that they are sheltering their kids, what is JA’s solution?

Let them have beliefs that aren’t 100% Orthodox.

Excuse me? So its not the things that we are protecting them from that are wrong, rather it is us for being mad when the kids misbehave?  So kids in certain communities who have a tendency to do drugs or join gangs they kill people…we should let them do a little bit of it?  Its fine if they aren’t 100% law observant!

Show the kids that there are alternatives in life.

Introduce them to drugs! Show them the awesome effects that crack and violence can have on a community.

I do agree that we cannot shun people who act differently, we cannot take the drastic actions that JA calls for.  In fact, the whole kiruv movement, and really the Torah in general, teaches us that our goal isn’t to shun these people but rather to teach them the right way to act.  Sunning someone doesn’t get them to stop doing it, it merely blocks them access to the people who can convince them to change their lives.

However, to change our lives and permit some actions that are wrong or to even allow for the possiblity that its ok not to keep halacha is not ok.  We cannot compromise our beliefs merely because society disagrees with us.  It is at times like these that we must be extra viligent to protect the Torah way of life.