PLAY THE BALL, NOT THE PERSON

Fundamentalism, in a nutshell, is over-simplifying the world into two camps: mine and everyone else’s. It is a philosophy born out of stereotyping a particular race, culture or faith - generalising the most extreme from within that camp and extrapolating to everyone who identifies with it. It is a mindset that cannot see nuance and difference between individuals. Everything is black or white; there is no grey.

Unfortunately, life is grey. No two people think alike. There may be Arab terrorists, but that doesn’t make all Arabs terrorists. It doesn’t even make most Arabs terrorists.

This Letter to the Rabbi appeared in a UK Jewish Newspaper last week:

Female rabbis acceptable?

Dear Rabbi,

I was always sceptical about ordained Orthodox female rabbis. And now one has been given a job in an Orthodox synagogue. That should surely suggest it is becoming acceptable. Do you envisage that happening in the UK?

Gregory

Dear Gregory

In a word, no. Don’t get me started on these pseudo-suffragettes, or should that read “rabbragettes”? In any event, she got a job in an “Open-Orthodox” synagogue – whatever that means. Suffice it to say, a little digging and one discovers on the website that on the High Holidays they have a “family section” in their synagogue, i.e, no mechitza and men and women sit together.

So, in summation, when someone gets “ordained” in some so-called Orthodox manner and immediately takes up her posting in a synagogue that breaches some of the fundamentals of Orthodoxy (I guess that’s what they mean by “open”), then you have to call into question the establishment that “ordains” these women and indeed the women’s own levels of conviction.
My father always told me: “If the end result is no good, then you know the whole premise is flawed.”

Personally I am not in favour of the ordination of women, but to state that every woman who is interested in ordination is agenda-driven and fundamentally flawed is both overly simplistic and panders to the extreme elements in our community.

I cannot know the personal motivation of each feminist. Some may have agendas, but I am sure that many are as sincere in their belief as I claim to be.

How can this Rabbi claim to “know the inner rumblings of the heart”?  Is he so all-knowing that he can dismiss others with whom he disagrees, not on halachic or philosophical grounds, but rather on projected and assumed intent?

Apparently agendas are only in the other camps, not our own. 

Dear Rabbi- fight fire with fire. If you disagree, disagree on issues. Play the ball, not the person.

It's already happened

There used to be a member of the community who always responded to my greeting of "What's happening Abe?" with a casual "Rabbi I think it's already happened."

Tongue in cheek, but incredibly profound.

I have a friend who once asked for some guidance regarding whether he should propose to his girlfriend of 2 years.

"What's your doubt?"

"I don't know, but I'm not sure..."

My response was simple "Either propose or end it. If she hasn't convinced you yet then she's never going to".

In life we are so often waiting to be inspired, waiting for a sign, waiting for the right time and for the best opportunity.

The best opportunity has probably already happened.

You can't have your cake and eat it

Compromise is a phenomenon that none of us can escape. Whenever we invest time in any endeavour, we unavoidably deny investment in another.  We can be good at many things but we cannot be our best at anything, unless we are prepared to sacrifice other values and ideals on the altar of that success.

In 2012, Anne-Marie  Slaughter published the article "Why Women Still Can't Have it All". It was a explanation as to why she, who served as Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State, voluntarily left her role to spend more time with her teenage sons.

True balance in life is an illusion; we cannot have the best of all worlds. Practical balance is the acceptance of the fact that one cannot be one’s best at all areas in life; it’s the choice of which areas to excel and in which areas to capitulate.

Time is a commodity that must be budgeted. Investment in one area, detracts it from another. Priorities ultimately will determine where the commodity should be spent.

Absolute success comes with an absolute cost. 

The problem with immoral religious people...

Nothing outrages us ‒ both those of faith and those without ‒ more than the religiously pious who act in a socially immoral manner.

Be they thieves, philanderers or sexual deviants, the hypocrisy strikes a chord within us that stokes the coals of hatred.

We admire those who live by their principles. We respect their personal sacrifices of lifestyle, convenience and social norms to remain true to their values. We may disagree with their beliefs, but we admire their conviction.

This admiration is a moral contract. The principled person sacrifices things that many of us cannot or will not, and in turn we respect them for it. But when they fail to uphold even the most basic of moral tenets, that contract is broken. 

Our admiration was misplaced.

When that trust is broken, our moral outrage is born from feelings of deceit.

In an age of internet-assembled philosophies...

"Those who hear the warnings of this curse should not congratulate themselves, thinking, 'I am safe, even though I am following the desires of my own stubborn heart.'” (Devarim 29:18)

The verse speaks of individuals who, despite hearing the warnings of the Torah to those living an immoral life, are convinced that they are the exception to the rule; the smokers who feel they can beat the statistics.

The human personality’s natural ego considers itself immune to popular critique; we find unique ways of justifying our hypocrisy and validating our inconsistencies.

In an age of internet-assembled philosophies, we tend to think of ourselves as sophisticated and well-read, whereas in reality we have only replaced genuine self-assessment with over-inflated self-congratulations.

In the lead-up to Rosh Hashanah, a time when we try to contextualise our lives, perhaps it is opportune to develop humility. Not the humility of the self-effacing type, but rather the humility that seeks to understand before developing an opinion.

Tolerance

Last week I participated in an interfaith dialogue between members of the Jewish, Christian and Islam faiths.

The event was both insightful and fascinating; being amongst people from such a culturally diverse spectrum seeking to find common ground during a time where religion is so often used as an excuse for separation.

In our groups we were asked to suggest ideas for promoting dialogue and fostering tolerance. Each group shared their views, a conglomeration of the group’s tri-affiliated co-religionists.

One of the groups claimed that as a prerequisite for promoting tolerance was the removal of the ‘Abbot’ government.

How ironic that the promotion of tolerance necessitates an intolerance towards those positions unaligned with my own.

I think there’s a term for that...intolerant.

Correlation is not causation!

Anyone who has taken an intro to psych or a statistics class has heard the old adage, "correlation does not imply causation." Just because two trends seem to fluctuate in tandem, this rule posits, that doesn’t prove that they are meaningfully related to one another.

Correlation is a statistical measure that describes the size and direction of a relationship between two or more variables. 

Causation indicates that one event is the result of the occurrence of the other event; i.e. there is a causal relationship between the two events. 

Causality is the area of statistics that is commonly misunderstood and misused by people in the mistaken belief that because the data shows a correlation that there is necessarily an underlying causal relationship.

A good example is that the rate of drowning on Sydney’s beaches is positively correlated to the sale of ice cream.

An incorrect conclusion is that “the consumption of ice cream leads to drowning”. More likely the reason would be that both drowning and ice cream sales are positively affected by hot weather; more people are at the beach and more ice creams are sold- correlation does not imply causation!.

A few examples from recent articles and headlines:

“Spiritual people are more likely to be mentally ill” -The Daily Mail 

 “...children whose parents smoked were more likely to exhibit delinquent behaviour”- The Guardian

“People who have large weddings are less likely to get divorced”- Psychology Today

“Men and women who eat more of the sweets are also likely to be depressed”-LA times

“Coffee may prevent depression, scientists say”-BBC

Don’t be duped by Facebook trends- correlation does not imply causation