sub forum for imamothers losing their emunah

↑ Tamiri

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 2:47 pm

ora_43 wrote:

friedasima, people don't oppose you for your philosophy, but for the arrogant and aggressive way you promote it.

You could talk about your own beliefs without dismissing everything else - an "everything else" that has a lot of support in Jewish philosophy - as "bubbe maises" or "childlike." You might get a lot farther that way.

Ora, "Jewish Philosophy" as portrayed on Imamother is vastly different than the Jewish Philosophy we were taught way back when. I don't think Philosophy has changed, but people's capability of absorbing it has, and it seems as though it's been "dumbed down" to suit the masses. I think that's what FS is trying to say. It's also taken on a decidedly xtian flavor here and there. The "don't judge" business. The loving, forgiving G-d theme we hear about recurringly. The mantras. The submissive wife. Things have changed in the past generation or two.

↑ amother ↓

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 2:55 pm

[quote="marina

Quote:

So on my end, I married to someone who thought he wanted to live a frum married lifestyle. But now that he's in it, he's miserable and wants to take off. He says the easiest solution for everyone is to get hit by lightening. While I love him and am trying desperately to make this work for us, I personally would also prefer he get hit by lightening than abandon us. Even if I could handle the abandonment, I think my kids would grow up a lot healthier with a father who died than with a father who ran away from them

and this post made me very sad. Your husband is suicidal and... you agree with him? You'd rather see him dead than leave judaism? I really have no words for that.[/quote]

My husband is not suicidal. In his mind, his two options are to stay with family and yiddishkeit, or to run away from everything. Since both will be unfulfilling and difficult, he half-jokingly says it would be easier to get hit by lightening. He's half-serious because while he's not suicidal, he also doesn't value his life so much. Which of course is tragic. So what's my response? I am very proactive in trying to help us to create a happier life for him within family life. I can't control his level of fulfillment with yiddishkeit. But I can try to help him feel more fulfilled with family life. He is actually very appreciative for my supportiveness and standing by him.

However, when considering a worst case scenario actually playing itself out, yes I'd rather him dead. Not because the worst case scenario involves him leaving judaism...but because it involves him leaving his family also. It involves my children saying "Where's daddy?" and me responding "I'm sorry honey, but he's off in Timbuktu trying to find himself. Hopefully he'll get in touch with us in a few years after he's figured himself out". And yes, I'd rather any person dead than have them shatter by children's hearts into a thousand pieces, leaving me to try to pick up whatever pieces are left.

Thankfully he's not near that point, and hopefully he never will be. But it's still a very painful situation for me to be in, and I became emotional reading this thread.

↑ PinkFridge ↓

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 3:23 pm

Tamiri wrote:

ora_43 wrote:

Don't judge - Al tadin es chavercha ad shetagia limkomo is chopped liver? Being dan lecaf zechus? Or do you mean being non-judgmental as in the being so open-minded your brains fall out sense? Then I guess I can hear you.

The loving, forgiving G-d theme - guess you don't hold by the hester panim and that we're not the omniscient ones themese either.

Mantras - maybe not the best word. Neither is affirmation. But mussar gedolim often engaged in repeating thoughts they wanted to internalize. And I like that my first reaction might be a life-affirming "mantra". It's good for my blood pressure and helps assure that I'll look at whatever the situation is with a healthy perspective.

The submissive wife - ok, you got me there. I know what works for me. My husband and I don't lead enchanted, elegant lives, but we live a pretty darn good life together. I'm blessed to know a lot of good men, married to strong women. I won't try the "guns (halacha) don't kill people, people (bad actors) kill people" line because I truly understand that it is just a line. I have to give a pass to this one and only hope that most people encounter such good in their lives that they haven't been burned by the issues you could bring up.

↑ shalhevet ↓

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 3:34 pm

amother wrote:

op here

your right. I asked my husband just now to go get me a shiur from the library and he is getting it for me tonight on his way home. its a series of shiurim on emunah and I think I will start listening to it.

also pinkfridge- do you have a link for rabbi reismans shiur?

I still want a place to talk to others like me and hash things over with. and to NOT BE JUDGED. I want to use the word foolish about something that I feel is foolish and not be banged over the head and told I have no emunas chachomim or no faith if I could dare think something in the torah is not perfect. see cause thats how I really feel and im tired of pretending that I dont feel that way.

im not sure you can really understand though because you have alot of faith in the torah and today's rabbonim. actually if you dont mind me asking- why is it that you have so much faith? where did you get it from? is it emunah peshuta or did you work on it? (anyone else can answer also)

OK, I"ll try and answer, but I hope I don't come across as condescending, because that's not my intention at all - but really to help. I also had to think about the answer, because I hadn't thought about it in that way before.

I didn't grow up with emuna pshuta or anything like that. Also, don't think I have such great emuna - seriously, I have plenty of times when it's hard for me.

I think the difference between me and you or others here is not that I am better or with more potential for emuna than you. I bet you could have just as much or more than me. Most women I know in my community seem to be on higher levels of emuna than me (or maybe that's how they come across - who knows what goes on in someone's heart? But many are Sephardi and even if they didn't grow up frum, they grew up with emuna pshuta).

I think we have to be proactive to read and hear Torah that will strengthen our emuna. Of course there are other theories out there, but there's a reason it's assur to read/hear apikorsus, because it weakens us. If we want to strengthen our emuna in this age of anyone's opinions plastered all over the internet or printed up for all to read, we have to reject things that will just leave us with questions. That is not being dumb or unintelligent - because I believe the Torah has answers anyway - it is just looking after our neshomos.

Another thing that helps me is that I don't believe the purpose of this world is for us to enjoy ourselves and eat pizza in the sun all day. I believe Hashem created this world and I believe He created our neshomos and we all have a reason to be here. Actually I get chizzuk by looking at history because I see life was always difficult and I believe that's how it's supposed to be (not that we should look for difficulties, of course we should try and change them if it's possible). I just think that's how Hashem wants the world to run and it's for our ultimate good. So that makes it easier for me to accept when tragedies happen - I believe there's a purpose, even though I can't understand it. There are still things I find it very hard to accept - say, if a young mother dies and leaves little children as orphans - but I can at least find some comfort that there must be some purpose to it.

Maybe this is a little of what FS means - Hashem didn't say everything would be hunky-dory. He said if we don't keep His mitzvos we would get galus with all the sorrow that entails. But that doesn't contradict His mercy and goodness. It means what we perceive as bad here is still Hashem's mercy, for our ultimate good in the Next World.

↑ freidasima ↓

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 4:35 pm

Ora, so I'm arrogant and aggressive, what can you do. My personality.
I'm not looking to convince, to convert or to do kiruv. Not my thing. But everything I said, including "bubbeh maises" and "narishkeit" and other such phrases that seem to bother you aren't mine. They are the exact same phrases (only they say it in Hebrew, Arabic or other languages) that the Rambam, Ramban, and a host of other Jewish philosophers use to describe the childlike (also their word, just like childish) beliefs of the "masses" who prefer to believe what Tamiri called so correctly the "dumbed down" version of yiddishkeit and belief.

So, get mad at them, not at me. I just didn't bring precise quotes but that's exactly what most of them thought of people who espoused the philosophies being bandied around here.

Are they really a minority? Not exactly. Actually not at all. There were times that they were the vast majority of opinions. So what happened?

Catastrophe happened. Disasters happened. And rabbis realized that if they continued to write the unvarnished truth Jews would leave yiddishkeit for Xtianity. Simply because there at least there was a simple equation. Not a nice one, not a truthful one but the masses want a simple equation.

So they dumbed it down. And from the time of the inquisition onwards you see fewer and fewer rabbonim stating what I had written here until it almost disappears. Beacause they were afraid that yiddishkeit would disappear. And so generations were taught what was necessary to keep yiddishkeit alive, but not necessarily what was the unvarnished truth. Just the fact that people start quoting Ashrei here is a good example. Ashrei is what a MAN wrote, not G-d. We have basically only one document straight from G-d and only one word was uttered by him. Anochi. After that we all dropped dead or in a dead faint. The rest was said by Moshe from G-ds words so that we would stop dying after each word. And basically the ten commandments are among the few direct words we have. And if you read the rest? The G-d of the "Old Testament" you should pardon the Xtian way of saying it is very very different than the chanun verachum stuff that people are spouting generations later. Many many many generations later.

What happened? What changed? G-d? No man. The concepts changed, and were changed by man otherwise people couldn't go on with that belief. Too scary, Times change. Too much disaster and not knowing how to cope with it.

Do you really think that in olden days when everyone lost children, and saw murder and pillage and natural and unnatural disaster as part of everyday life people asked "How can G-d do such terrible things we have been so good?" No, it's only our modern day life where we are so spoiled that we ask that. Sorry if you don't like my phrasing, maybe because it's in English. But if you read the people I mentioned they use the same language. Maybe from them you would accept the arrogance and aggression that THEY use. Because the words, the phrases and the exact from the hip way of saying it....isn't mine but theirs.

Sorry charlie. Read the sources. Then get mad at them.

↑ PinkFridge ↓

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 4:42 pm

[quote="freidasima"]Ora, so I'm arrogant and aggressive, what can you do. My personality.
I'm not looking to convince, to convert or to do kiruv. Not my thing. But everything I said, including "bubbeh maises" and "narishkeit" and other such phrases that seem to bother you aren't mine. They are the exact same phrases (only they say it in Hebrew, Arabic or other languages) that the Rambam, Ramban, and a host of other Jewish philosophers use to describe the childlike (also their word, just like childish) beliefs of the "masses" who prefer to believe what Tamiri called so correctly the "dumbed down" version of yiddishkeit and belief.

So, get mad at them, not at me. I just didn't bring precise quotes but that's exactly what most of them thought of people who espoused the philosophies being bandied around here.

Are they really a minority? Not exactly. Actually not at all. There were times that they were the vast majority of opinions. So what happened?

Catastrophe happened. Disasters happened. And rabbis realized that if they continued to write the unvarnished truth Jews would leave yiddishkeit for Xtianity. Simply because there at least there was a simple equation. Not a nice one, not a truthful one but the masses want a simple equation.

So they dumbed it down.]

So let's leave Churban Bayis Sheini aside. There were no tzaros till the Inquisition?

Not dissing the Rambam and Ramban, but I can't subscribe to such a Judaism. (And don't see some of the latter day thinkers I quoted dismissing them so easily either; I'm curious about where I could find this inside.) I can subscribe to a Judaism where we are angry, bitter, scared, wondering what Hashem's plan is for us because the world has turned upside down so sorry, I have my doubts, but I can't subscribe to one that says that such ikrim are puerile.

Holy delayed reaction, Batladies! Are we about to reprise the teshuva shiur discussion?

↑ Besiyata Dishmaya ↓

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 7:50 pm

amother wrote:

marina wrote:

Quote:

For those who really care to improve their emunah, there's a segulah: to say the 13 Ikrim (Ani Mamins) of the Rambam daily.

Yep, that's what I'm going to go do just now, say the 13 ikarim over and over again until I get it.

op here

thats why I want a sub forum

I'm a different amother from this thread, who was against a closed forum, and I still think that even with posts like this, this thread as a whole went very nicely. There will always be a few posts that some of us won't appreciate, but it's still worth it. There are imamothers who are extremely knowledgeable and wise, some have very worthwhile things to say and have really thought these issues through. And there are some that aren't so I ignore those posts.

I clearly wrote: For those who really care to improve their emunah, which obviously does not include self-proclaimed "intellectuals" and "know-it-alls" like you and the above who would rather cling to your false beliefs and doubts than do anything positive about it.

Btw it was none other than the Rambam himself (who wrote these 13 Ikrim) who was the author of Morah Nevuchim, a philosophical sefer which clarifies questions on yiddishkeit. Perhaps you should get a hold of this sefer.

↑ Besiyata Dishmaya ↓

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 8:20 pm

marina wrote:

oh.
But, hey, which rambam should I get a hold of?
You know, to clarify my yiddishkeit issues.

Do you mean the same rambam who wrote in the
moreh nevuchim that there is no hashgacha pratis for the majority of the world? Is that the rambam I should pick up, BSD? Or a different one? Would that be the same rambam who holds that people who believe in medrashim literally are morons?

Or maybe you mean someone else?

Why don't you ask the amother I referred to? She's extremely knowledgeable and wise and has very worthwhile things to say and has really thought these issues through? She knows it all.

And why didn't you heed her brilliant advice of ignoring the posts of those who are not extremely knowledgeable and wise and do not have very worthwhile things to say and have not really thought these issues through?

↑ amother ↓

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 8:26 pm

Besiyata Dishmaya wrote:

amother wrote:

marina wrote:

Quote:

For those who really care to improve their emunah, there's a segulah: to say the 13 Ikrim (Ani Mamins) of the Rambam daily.

Yep, that's what I'm going to go do just now, say the 13 ikarim over and over again until I get it.

op here

thats why I want a sub forum

getting nasty arent we?

look your not being helpful and I didnt start this thread to have a fight. I started so that I can avoid exact responses like yours.

if you have an intellectual response then post it if not please dont.

↑ gryp ↓

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 8:28 pm

When the Alter Rebbe was in prison, the guard asked him the meaning of the word "Ayekah," in Bereishes. Before the Alter Rebbe answered the question, he asked the guard if he believes that the Torah is true and that the word of G-d is true. The guard answered that he does. Only after that did the Alter Rebbe proceed with an explanation.

The reason I'm posting this story is to show that in order to answer a question, there must be some common ground between the questioner and the responder- in this case the basics of Judaism, including the Yud Gimmel Ikrim. Otherwise, there's no point, because there is no starting point and no ending, just a typical merry-go-round.

↑ gryp ↓

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 8:41 pm

This is not the first thread where someone threw out some kind of kfirah phrase and burden of proof is suddenly on the Torah-believing-and-observant posters. As if, if nobody can type the answer nice enough or fast enough, there is no answer.

To repeat myself, anyone who is truly interested in an answer, "truly" meaning the interest overrides her desire for convenience or wish to sin, will find an answer if she looks in the right places. It may not be a complete answer, but it will be enough to satisfy, and of that I'm confident.

Postscript: I'm not going to be dragged back in to the nonsense that gets repeated here often, about how G-d doesn't really care what we do, G-d doesn't need us or want to hear from us, or want good for us. Or that Torah SheBaal Peh isn't worth much when it comes to proving anything or that anything any old man says or writes is proof of nothing. I'm not going to dignify it all with a response although I've looked up plenty in the past hour. It just shows me that people who think this way don't have a very clear picture of what the world is about, who G-d is, or who they themselves are.