"Grappling with the Enlightenment"? I don't see much grappling or enlightenment here. This guy is clearly deeply depressed. He hates his religion, hates his family, hates his community, hates the world, hates himself. Reminds me of a different guy we like to talk about on our blog. Too bad he didn't live in a time when therapy existed.
Chas veshalom im not judging, just like I wouldn't judge any severely depressed person. Just that we shouldn't expect major historical, sociological, ideological, religious insights from this guy.
Don't you think the fact that he was intimately familiar with the upper echelons of Hassidic culture give him the right to have such statements (he ultimately became a Rebbe, and a major "player" in the belz court) , although I agree he may have written this at a low point in his personal life
Sure, anybody familiar with any culture can make statements about that culture. But I would take this litany of hatred and despair more as an indication of the writer's own mental issues than any sort of sociological insight. Like any OTD guy who writes disparagingly about the Torah and Judaism, but this person, who is clearly suffering deeply, is just orders of magnitude worse.
You are missing the point here, he had a unique view from the "top", not your average OTD bochur, as for his disparagement of the culture he grew up in, I think criticism and acceptance are the only way a person/culture can move forward, here is the difference between my world view and that of say Nathan, I would like our culture to continue being the foundation of Torah that it is while accepting the valid criticisms of it. The reason the enlightenment was so powerful at taking people OTD was precisely because Orthodoxy had calcified and no longer gave a large chunk of it's adherents meaning. We have a few more generations but I see many my age from various communities (In town and oot, American and Israeli) with this feeling. Shoin.
I understand what you are saying. I just don't think that this torrent of loathing, spite, disgust, and clear anti-Torah sentiment expressed here falls under any normal definition of "criticism". Like, Dawkin's criticism of religion is *way* tamer than this.
"Grappling with the Enlightenment"? I don't see much grappling or enlightenment here. This guy is clearly deeply depressed. He hates his religion, hates his family, hates his community, hates the world, hates himself. Reminds me of a different guy we like to talk about on our blog. Too bad he didn't live in a time when therapy existed.
I cannot judge those that have peered into the abyss, but thats just me
Chas veshalom im not judging, just like I wouldn't judge any severely depressed person. Just that we shouldn't expect major historical, sociological, ideological, religious insights from this guy.
Don't you think the fact that he was intimately familiar with the upper echelons of Hassidic culture give him the right to have such statements (he ultimately became a Rebbe, and a major "player" in the belz court) , although I agree he may have written this at a low point in his personal life
Sure, anybody familiar with any culture can make statements about that culture. But I would take this litany of hatred and despair more as an indication of the writer's own mental issues than any sort of sociological insight. Like any OTD guy who writes disparagingly about the Torah and Judaism, but this person, who is clearly suffering deeply, is just orders of magnitude worse.
You are missing the point here, he had a unique view from the "top", not your average OTD bochur, as for his disparagement of the culture he grew up in, I think criticism and acceptance are the only way a person/culture can move forward, here is the difference between my world view and that of say Nathan, I would like our culture to continue being the foundation of Torah that it is while accepting the valid criticisms of it. The reason the enlightenment was so powerful at taking people OTD was precisely because Orthodoxy had calcified and no longer gave a large chunk of it's adherents meaning. We have a few more generations but I see many my age from various communities (In town and oot, American and Israeli) with this feeling. Shoin.
Ironically, the insulated Chassidim stood up very, very well to the enlightenment compared to their more enlightened brethren.
I understand what you are saying. I just don't think that this torrent of loathing, spite, disgust, and clear anti-Torah sentiment expressed here falls under any normal definition of "criticism". Like, Dawkin's criticism of religion is *way* tamer than this.