Needing the Secular World: A Thought Experiment and Some Rodney Stark

In the last post, I discussed the idea that Haredim, while they might possess individual scientists, are incapable of creating their own genuine scientific culture. This brought up an argument from the late Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz of the necessity of being able to fill out all jobs required by a society. It is not enough for Haredim to say that other people should be doctors or lawyers and, for that matter, policemen and garbage collectors; Haredim need to be able to fill these positions themselves. The fact that Haredim cannot do this, in the long run, poses a major ideological challenge far beyond any particular scientific argument. I would like to further develop this idea with a thought experiment and consideration of the Rodney Stark model of conversion. 

Imagine a town divided between secular people and Haredim. No one has a political advantage to allow them to force their values on anyone. Both Haredi and secular parents are keen to pass on their values to their children and keep them from going over to the other side. One major advantage that secular parents would have is that, ironically, it would be easier for them to raise their children without ever interacting with the other side. The reason for this is that there is no job that they require that they cannot simply fill in with their own people without recourse to Haredim. They can make sure that their children only visit secular doctors and have their trash picked up by secular garbagemen. Haredim, for all their talk about maintaining their purity, are forced to lead relatively open lives. Every day Haredi children will walk past secular policemen and garbagemen. If they get sick, they will be hard-pressed to make sure that they are seen by a religious doctor. It will not only be that these people happen to be secular, but the children will be conscious of these facts as they have been taught to think of these as non-religious jobs.  

Haredim, of all people, should be able to instinctively appreciate how such casual contact with the outside world can become spiritually dangerous. To understand the problem at an intellectual level, it is useful to turn to the sociologist Rodney Stark and his model of conversion. Stark argues for the importance of social relations in causing people to convert to a different denomination or even to move outside of one's religion. People are unlikely to be converted and even more importantly stay converted due to some argument made by a stranger in the street. By contrast, they are very open to their friends and family. 

There are two major reasons why a personal connection is so much more valuable than an intellectual argument. Human beings are social creatures. Even if we wanted to, we are unlikely to be able to change our lives around an argument, even one we believed. By contrast, we do readily change our behavior to match those around us. Furthermore, it is social relations that are going to keep a person within a movement. An argument can be countered with another argument. By contrast, you cannot will a new set of social connections into place; it takes years of work (particularly if you are not a neurotypical).

A good example of this kind of thinking can be found in Mormonism. The LDS Church, decades ago, recognized that having missionaries try to "cold call" strangers was essentially useless. By contrast, having a potential convert meet with a missionary at the home of a Mormon friend was very effective. Hence the LDS Church has now built its entire missionary program around this premise. 

Everyone has their moments of crisis. People with a strong spiritual sensibility are likely to have more of them and they are likely to involve their chosen faiths. Keep in mind that, if you never expect much from your religion, it can never disappoint you. It is precisely the true believer who can become disillusioned. When that happens it can only benefit the LDS Church if you have a Mormon friend that you can find yourself falling into a theological conversation with. This friend can then suggest that perhaps you might want to come over to his house sometime to continue this conversation with some of his other "friends."

This idea that people are ultimately converted by their friends leads us to a particular narrative of conversion. There is a first stage in which a person "socially" converts in the sense that they take on a group of friends, who happen to follow a particular religion. At this point, there is nothing intellectual involved. In fact, the person would likely insist that they have not converted or changed in any significant way. That being said, this is the truly crucial stage. At some point, a person is going to realize that he has come to associate with people from a particular religion and that religion carries a particular ideology that needs to be taken into consideration. A person who fully converts is likely to look back and reframe their narrative to make themselves seekers who found their faith when, in truth, it was the religion that found them.  

This idea of social conversions can be seen in Chabad. The society around a Chabad house consists of a series of circles. At the center is the Chabad emissary couple. Around them, you will have some observant people. But most people at a Chabad house are not Orthodox. You can have people who have been associated with Chabad for years as an important part of their lives without ever becoming Orthodox. They like the Chabad rabbis and perhaps recognize some need for Jewish spirituality, but have no interest in being ritually observant. 

This state of affairs is possible because Chabad emissaries tend to be both remarkably nice and tolerant. Non-religious Jews are amazed at how tolerant Chabad emissaries are and want to be friends with them. In the long run, this model has proven to be incredibly effective even if that is hard to see on a day-to-day level where it appears that what you have is an observant rabbi surrounded by a non-observant congregation just like you would see in a Conservative synagogue.

My wife an excellent example of this. As a teenager with a non-Jewish mother, she started going to the Chabad in Pasadena on Friday nights mostly as a matter of convenience as it was easier to get there by bus than the Conservative Temple. Her taking on ritual observance and then realizing that, if she ever wanted to get married, she needed an actual Orthodox conversion was a process that took years. This process was made possible by the kindness and tolerance of the Chabad emissaries for someone who was not halakically Jewish.

As to ideological conversions, consider the example of C. S. Lewis. The most dramatic moment of Lewis' journey from atheism to Christianity was a late-night conversation with a number of religious Christians, including J. R. R. Tolkien, in which Lewis argued that the main ideas of Christianity came from ancient paganism and therefore should be taken with equal seriousness. One might enjoy Greek and Norse mythology and even see it as a source of great moral teachings, but one cannot be expected to seriously believe in these religions. The response was that the ancient pagans intuitively understood certain truths that were ultimately fulfilled in Jesus. 

Now what can easily be lost in this story is that Lewis did not simply walk up to some random Christians at his favorite pub, the Eagle and Child, and start an argument with them. At this point in his life, he had started believing in God largely because the writers he most identified with were theists and he found that he could not disassociate what he admired from that theism. He had even started going to church as an exercise in being part of the theism team. This led him to become friends with a number of intellectually serious practicing Christians and it was with these Christian friends that he had his famous late-night conversation about pagan mythology.    

To bring this back to our earlier thought experiment, in order to keep their children in the "faith," both the secular and Haredi parents are going to have to keep an eye out for alternative social circles as opposed to some guy handing out leaflets. The secular parents have nothing to worry about as there is no reason why their children would consciously ever have to interact with Haredim. They will know that Haredim exist as theoretical abstractions walking in the streets in strange clothes almost like philosophical zombies. There will never be a reason to take them seriously as individuals with names. Haredi parents will be able to work with no such advantage. Their children will have to interact with secular people, such as doctors and policemen, as individuals with names. This can form the basis for a friendship or at least enough of one that, when that inevitable moment of crisis comes and they feel frustrated with the Haredi community, they might think to go talk to that secular person in their life. The moment we cross that line, the child might still be a long way from leaving and may have no conscious desire to do so, but his soul is now in play.

Religion Reading List

My Episcopalian aunt (she is married to my wife's step-uncle) works in her church's Sunday school and is interested in improving her religious education so she asked me for a suggested reading list. Here are my recommendations. My criteria were books that are intellectually sophisticated that avoided the obvious polemics from either an orthodox or anti-religious positions. I also made a point of including books dealing with Church attitudes towards Jews and women. I would be curious as to what other suggestions blog readers would make. 


Bible:

Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book by Timothy Beal.

Prophets by Abraham Heschel.  

The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs. 

In God's Shadow: Politics in the Hebrew Bible by Michael Walzer. 


Judaism:

Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism by Sarah Bunin Benor. 

American Judaism: A History by Jonathan Sarna. 

The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised by Marc B. Shapiro. 

This is My God by Herman Wouk. 


Jewish and Christian Relations:

Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism by Daniel Boyarin 

Divided Souls: Converts from Judaism, 1500-1750 by Elisheva Carlebach.

Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages by Mark Cohen. 

Exclusiveness and Tolerance: Jewish Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times by Jacob Katz.

Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages by Hyam Maccoby.  

Early Christianity:

Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium by Bart D. Ehrman. 

When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger. 


Medieval Christianity:

Holy Feast and Holy Fast: the Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women by Caroline Walker Bynum. 

The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Messianism in Medieval and Reformation Europe and its Bearing on Modern Totalitarian Movements by Norman Cohn.  

Proving Woman: Female Spirituality and Inquisitional Culture in the Later Middle Ages by Dyan Elliott.

Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Western Europe, 950-1250 by R. I. Moore. 


Modernity:

Theological Origins of Modernity by Michael Allen Gillespie. 

God is Back How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge. 

Secular Age by Charles Taylor.

United States:

Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics by Ross Douthat. 

Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction by Kathryn Gin Lum.

Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll.  

Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - And Doesn't by Stephen Prothero.

American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell. 

The Unlikely Disciple: a Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University by Kevin Roose. 

Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back by Frank Schaeffer.


Psychology:

Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt.

Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion by Rodney Stark and Roger Finke. 

Agora’s Two Acts

I finally got around to watching Agora. My friend Lionel Spiegel got a hold of a copy and so, armed with popcorn, we got ready to wage merciless Mystery Science Theater 3000 against the movie's Whig biases. Agora tells the story of the female pagan philosopher Hypatia, who was murdered by a Christian mob, and the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria at the hands of Christians. I therefore expected a highly simplistic movie with virtuous enlightened pagans living in paradise and vicious intolerant Christians ruining everything and bringing about the "Dark Ages." I must admit, though, that the movie turned out much better than the trailers had led me to expect, managing for the most part to be fair to the actual historical events. This is until the second act of the film.

First off, full credit has to be given to the set designers for their breathtaking reconstruction of late fourth century Alexandria. This has to go down as one of the best reconstructions of a pre-modern city in the history of film. I was not even so bothered by the lack of mud; this still being the Roman Empire. Next, you have Ashraf Barhom's film stealing supporting role as the Christian monk Ammonius. If I had seen this movie earlier I would have tried showing at least parts of it to my 111 class as part of our unit on Christianity. Barhom's portrayal of Ammonius fits precisely into the Rodney Stark model of religious outreach that I presented. Ammonius preaches on the streets of Alexandria to crowds, picks debates with pagans and performs "miracles" (in his case walking through fire), but what makes Ammonius effective is his charismatic charm, which allows him to form relationships with individual people. This allows him to attract, not massive crowds in single dramatic speeches, but to slowly win over individuals, in the case of the movie Hypatia's slave Davus. This is essentially how I imagine Paul preaching and winning converts. Whatever you might think of his actions, this is a man that you like and can understand why others might change their lives around to convert to his religion and follow him.

Anchored by Barhom's Ammonius, the film actually does manage to offer a nuanced portrayal of Christianity, where, even if Christians are still the villains of the story in the end, there is a recognition that the world of late antiquity was not completely black and white. If the Christian mob ends up sacking the Library, it is only after the pagans' started the fight. In keeping with the narrative of the slow, quite non-dramatic spread of Christianity, the pagans find the tables turned on them by the unexpected size of the Christian counter-attack, leading one of the pagan leaders to exclaim: "who knew that there were so many Christians?"

If the movie had ended after the first act, I would have been on my feet acclaiming this movie as one of the greatest historical films ever, one that could allow Christians to burn down the Great Library of Alexandria and maintain some sense of nuance. The second act, though, with Hypatia's conflict with Bishop Cyril, leading to her death, manages to fall into all the Whig anachronisms I feared. First, there is Hypatia's grappling with the problem of the elaborate system epicycles, circles on top of the planet's circular orbits, in the Ptolemaic geocentric solar system. Even this is well done and worthwhile as a portrayal of the necessary thought processes on the road to heliocentrism. The fact that Hypatia is made out to be a heliocentrist is also not a problem, even if we have no evidence that she was, as the belief was found among the ancient Greeks. The film though decides to go one better and has Hypatia preempt Kepler in the theory of elliptical orbits, necessary in order to avoid the problem of epicycles. If you are going to go that far then why not have her ask why planets move in elliptical orbits and come up with Newtonian mechanics or even Einstein's Theory of Relativity? Then there is the crude misogyny of Bishop Cyril as he quotes Paul's Epistle to Timothy about the role of women. (Anyone who sits in smug judgment of pre-modern patriarchy without considering the inevitable logic of a highly militarized society, in which women do not serve in the military, has failed to engage in due historical thinking unfit to comment on historical events.) In keeping with this theme of misogyny, Cyril levels the ultimate patriarchal accusation of witchcraft against Hypatia even though the charge of witchcraft did not come into common use until the fifteenth century. (Sorcery is a completely different issue.)

No, we have no reason to assume that Hypatia could have jump started the Scientific Revolution in late antiquity Alexandria only to be stopped by Church misogyny. The story of Hypatia and the downfall of Greco-Roman civilization is tragic enough without that. By all means, go watch this movie for the first act; if you feel so inclined, try to stomach the second.

Why are the Haredim Holding Up? A Response to the “Would Haredim Make Good Terrorists?”

Reuben Seligman sent me a response to my review of Radical Religious and Violent and was kind enough to allow me to post it.

I read your posts regarding the Berman book and I was disappointed. I would have preferred that you focus on the economics of Haredim. Economics is the science that deals with how people make choices and this science has been extended by several economist and sociologists (including Rodney Stark) to religious choices. Berman focuses on the structure of religious societies that make place barriers to exit, including Haredim. What I find interesting is how successful they have been. The best way to bring it out is the contrast with the terrible situation of Orthodox Judaism in prewar Europe which you had posted in the last few days. In contrast, both in the U.S. and in Israel, Haredim have managed to establish themselves in communities that are largely successful in retaining their children and are in fact growing. You may be correct that you have had contact with many people who grew up in the system and would leave if they could, but there are many who had many opportunities and chose to go into the system despite pressure from their parents.
To me, the question is how did we get from where we were fifty years ago to where we are now. You posted correctly that many of the Satmar Chasidim today are descended from what were considered Modern Orthodox Jews. Why is it that they were not successful in perpetuating their way of life; their descendants became Chasidim. The issue is not whether you are happy about it or not, but how people made choices that led to that result.

Another example, you may ask your father, but in my generation of Torah Vodaath, the parents universally wanted their children to go to college and were largely successful. I believe that about 70% of my class went to college of some sort. Yet many of the children of my contemporaries who went to college are not going to college. What were the choices that my contemporaries faced in raising their children and how did their choices lead to that result?

I can best speak about my own choices. I did go to college, but I spent two years in yeshiva after high school before going to college and went to Brooklyn College at night. In doing that, I gave up on my chances of going to a better college, but it was worth it to me because I wanted to study torah. To use a neologism (coined by the economist Herbert Simon) I satisficed (combination of satisfy and sacrifice).  My question is why wasn't I able to reproduce myself. I see people studying torah and they have no education; Faigy tells me that there are no people in her generation who replicate me: a decent knowledge of Torah and a good secular education. Why is it that way? Is it that choices that were available to me are no longer available? I don't claim to know the answers. 


To recapitulate: I don't believe in the historic inevitability of the collapse of the Haredi world. I believe that there are many problems with the sustainability of Modern Orthodoxy, but it is not collapsing either. But in order to make decent predictions about the future, a study of the religious economy, i.e., how choices were made in the past are essential.


My response:  
 Fair enough that I did not focus on the economics question. I am not an economist. My field of interest leans more to political theory and the mechanics of creating movements. My doctoral thesis deals with the worldly political issues that go into creating apocalyptic movements. This was what interested me about Berman's work and formed the bulk of my review

You ask two questions. What has allowed the Haredi community to be successful in the United States and in Israel in ways that they were never able to in Europe? The second question is essentially about the failure of the "Modern Orthodox" option; why are we unable to create people who are masters of both Jewish and secular subjects?

I would argue that ironically enough, the Haredi situation has been made possible by the rise of modern multiculturalism. (I think Samuel G. Freedman was fundamentally correct in regard to this, in Jew vs. Jew, when he argued that the big Jewish winner in this shift in American culture over the past few decades has been the Haredim and the big loser has been the secular Yiddishists.) Modern liberalism is far more willing to tolerate men with long beards and funny hats than early twentieth century America. While modern liberalism may give more tolerance to its favored groups, they are still trapped into at least making a show of tolerance. You cannot deny someone a job because of a beard and peyos and because they want to leave early on Friday. Modern liberalism has also helped in that it created the welfare state. This is one of the reasons why I oppose modern liberalism. What most people do not see is that this does not serve to create a more liberal society, but to bring out all the worst superstitions of the Old World. (The willingness of hard leftists to jump into bed with Islamic radicals is a more extreme and dangerous form of this same problem.)

What has benefited Haredim has to a large extent hurt Modern Orthodoxy. Modern multiculturalism devalued the "Great Books" and classical culture. If Modern Orthodoxy was the commitment to a dialogue with the best of the surrounding culture then modern multiculturalism robbed Modern Orthodoxy of its partner in dialogue. If, in sophisticated gentile society, it is no longer absolutely necessary to be able to know something about Shakespeare why should boys learning in Yeshiva have to? The difference between Modern Orthodox society and Haredi society is that Modern Orthodoxy society is premised on the working man (preferably a doctor or a lawyer), even if it acknowledges the necessity of having individuals sitting and learning. The Haredi world is built around a society of learners. Obviously, it requires people to hold down jobs. The jobs that pay the sort of salaries needed to support a Haredi lifestyle and hold up this community of learners require an advanced secular education. Even the more conservative members of the Haredi world can accept that there may be a value in having individuals with knowledge about the humanities. This Haredi society could only function in Eastern Europe as a rabbinic elite, one of the reasons why Eastern European religious life was so dysfunctional. Before the 1960s, in essence, almost everyone had to be Modern Orthodox so Modern Orthodoxy did not have a serious competitor. Comes modern liberalism and the modern welfare state and now there is another option.

The situation in Israel is slightly different. There the main issues are government welfare, in a more extreme version, and the army. I think Berman is right on in his discussion of how government subsidies only serve to encourage men to sit and learn and not work. As Libertarians know, government welfare is really simply government funding poverty and when you fund something you get more of it.

As to why we do not see more people who can do both, I do not have any good answers. It is hard enough for someone to be able to do one let alone do both so I suspect that, in any age, such figures are going to be few and far between. To what extent was your generation better at this than ours? I suspect this is largely a matter of the eye of the beholder. Obviously, the Haredi world is not going to be producing switch hitters. Your generation's Haredim were still in many respects "Modern Orthodox." They were raised as part of American society and they still operated on a worker model. That was a world that could produce you. Can the Modern Orthodox produce switch hitters? I would argue that they can even if not many. I admit that the Modern Orthodox suffer from a major limitation that it lacks a culture and model of intense Torah study. This will limit the amount of serious Torah scholars to come out of this society.

Articles of Interest

Mike Adams wishes to recruit animal rights groups for his new proposal to protest women's study centers that support abortion. Hint, it involves kitty stew.

The article I mentioned last week about Orthodox Jews leaving observance behind while in college has generated a number of responses. Divrei Chaim gives a Haredi cry of triumph. Josh Waxman offers a sober look at the actual study. Garnel Ironheart offers a needed dose of reality, as someone who has actually been on a college campus, as to what campus life is really like. My personal experience matches Garnel's. I went to Ohio State for three years and for some strange reason not a single half-naked non-Jewish girl tried to sit on my lap. I guess I was just not looking in the right places.


Cory Driver discusses Menachem Kellner, responds to my principles of faith post and ends off discussing Galatians. There are some things better left for Christians to say.

Orson Scott Card is in middle of a series of articles discussing Rodney Stark and his sociology of religion. Stark uses the Mormons as his main focus and Card offers a Mormon response.

Julia Baird, in Newsweek, refers to C. S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters as she discusses the value of silence and of getting rid of cell phones.

Response to Staying in the Haredi World

Miss Shona posted the following comment:

After googling Rodney Stark, I can see that I would be one of his problem students if I ever had him as a professor. I do not know if in the year 2008, the policy of applying the laws of economics to people's choice of religion totally flys (although I can understand the logic).

I was not born or raised anything close to frum...so I will not even pretend to sympathize with feelings of the fear leaving the Haredi world along with the implications of that choice. I did grow up in a dual culture of sorts though. My Grandparents who raised me where super conservative and old-fashioned when it came to sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll (yeah, I couldn't even LOOK at boys, much less have one call the house!). My parents, who I had a good amount of contact with, were quite opposite. My father, being the conventional Jamaican man would have two (or more?) girlfriends simultaneously. My mother knows about more rap music than I ever knew existed really and would be visibly embarrassed by my clueless regarding the latest fashion trends and slang. But in the end, it leaves me to wonder...what in the world is the big deal? Why is sex placed on this high pedestal? Is it the aura of mystery that surrounds sex or something? I am not trying to minimize the effects of very human, natural feelings. But I think that sex is dangerously glorified...even within the frum world.I guess this is where the secular education comes in.

The sexual experience involves many various ingredients, including physical involvement, psychological factors, personal libido and "talents", and chemical hormones thrown in the mix to keep things progressing. To think that all of those factors will be in tip-top condition -- as the movies and TV shows love to portray -- is so completely off base.The definite advantage that the Haredim do have (and I'm not quite sure if they even see this) is that they find a mate earlier as opposed to later which helps with the psychological factor (most of the time) in regards to developing a life/identity which includes their spouse. The unfortunate flip-side is that you get Haredi singles, who when they reach the ages of 25 and older, start freaking out and just stagnate until they find their bershert. And woe be the dear Rivkle or Shmuley who stays single...The labels on hashkafah may be black & white but we exist in an infinite spectrum of grays. As MO as I am, I can surely offer up my share of TV, sex, movies and surely explicit rap music (I would still need to hold onto the R&B and reggae however) to the lowest bidder. The main thing that concerns me is the needless guilt held by these haredim who secretly dip into these indulgences; as well as the let-down they may be in for if they discover that the coveted prize of losing their virginity earlier and within a proper timeframe was not really worth it in the end.

Staying in the Haredi World is Good for Your Sex Life (Part II)

I can easily imagine my own life and the paths I did not take. I grew up identifying myself as Haredi. I started high school in Yeshiva Torah Vodaath. Now even at this point, I was hardly a poster child for the Haredi world; I had a library card to the Brooklyn Public library and I read loads of secular literature. I also read R’ Avigdor Miller and listened to his tapes, but that was mainly to yell at him. In essence, I was, at that point, not that different from my two Haredi friends; I lived within the Haredi world and more or less behaved myself, though, on certain relatively minor matters, I bent the rules. Now over the course of my high school years, as I came to the realization that I was separated from the Haredi world, I made a decision to cease to identify with the Haredi world and to openly break with it. This is an ongoing process, one that, even today, I am still coming to terms with. (Much of my thinking can be classified in terms of I have rejected the Haredi world and now have to figure out where to go from here.)

I could have made a different decision. I could have, like my friends, continued to operate within the Haredi world, saying the right things and going through the right motions. I am certainly capable of living up to the Haredi lifestyle. Like my friends, I could have done all this while bending certain rules and continuing to read secular books to my heart’s content. My rebellion was very minor; it is not as if I was interested in watching explicit television shows and listening to rap music.

If I had done this, come my early twenties, I would have been down in the Haredi matchmaking system as a nice smart yeshiva boy from a good family, a nice catch for any Haredi girl. The Haredi matchmaking system would have been particularly beneficial to me since it could have avoided the problems that arise due to my Asperger Syndrome. I am a smart, funny, and charming person, particularly over short periods of time. There is no reason why I could not have charmed a Haredi girl for a month or two, enough that she would have agreed to marry me. (What might have happened next is a different matter. She would have probably realized, after a few months of being married to me, that I did not relate to people in a normal fashion. At best I could hope that she would stick with the marriage as long as I never gave her a concrete reason to divorce me. As for me, one of the advantages of having Asperger Syndrome is that, while relationships are difficult for me, I do not need human relationships to the same extent that other people do. Admittedly, this would hardly be an ideal situation.)

I did not follow this path and I have paid a price for it. In another fifteen years, I can be the butt of the punch line of a certain film starring Steve Carrell. I do not regret the choices I have made. I wonder, though, if my teenage self would have made the same choice if he knew where it would lead. I have a hard time justifying telling moderately rebellious Haredi teenagers to disassociate themselves from the Haredi world and enter the nebulous world of the various Modern Orthodoxies; the price is simply too high.

If you think I am going over the top here, I will point out that the yeshivas themselves openly play on this. In high school, I constantly heard rabbis tell guys that if they learned and were good Bnai Torah they would get a good shidduch, marriage match. Let us translate this phrase into teenage boy: play along with the system and do what you are told and we will help you get laid in a few years. For moderately rebellious teenagers, people doing things that outside of the Haredi world do not even count as rebellion, this is a hard deal to turn down. Keep in mind that we are dealing with observant Jews here, who are not considering going outside of Orthodoxy, so their sexual opportunities are limited. If they leave the Haredi world then they are going to have to play by Modern Orthodox rules and that means that they are likely going to have to delay sexual gratification. Furthermore, we are likely going to be dealing with people who lack the social skills for conventional dating. I certainly did not have them. (I still do not have them, though I like to think that I am learning.)

To clarify matters, I am not arguing that my Haredi friends stayed in the Haredi world simply for sex, though sex is a big enough issue that one cannot pretend innocence. Particularly, considering the tactics used by rabbis to keep people in line. I would see the issue of sex as simply one example of the Rodney Stark model of religion at work. A clearly defined society, such as the Haredi world, offers certain social advantages to those remaining in the fold that has nothing to do with ideology. To the extent that it might even be in one's interest to be part of such a society even if one is not a full believer.

Staying in the Haredi World is Good for Your Sex Life

Jewish Philosopher likes to argue that the reason why people leave Orthodox Judaism is because they have sexual desires which they are unable to pursue within the confines of Orthodox Judaism (See here and here). While one can challenge his generalizations about those who leave Orthodoxy, I would like to approach the issue from a different angle. While Jewish Philosopher’s arguments might have at least some grain of truth in many cases, this line of argument can also be turned around and used against those who remain within the Haredi world. One can make a very strong case that there are many people who remain within the Haredi world, in large part, because, by doing so, they are maximizing their opportunities for sex. This might sound counter-intuitive considering how constrictive Jewish law can be when it comes to sex. But consider that, while Orthodox Judaism strongly opposes pre-marital sex and is one of the few societies left in American culture in which there are real consequences for being caught fooling around, particularly for women, it is perfectly normal for Haredim to get married in their early twenties or even in their teens. Not only that but Haredim have a well-developed matchmaking system to help people get married.

In the spirit of Rodney Stark, who analyzes organized religions in terms of economics (People make religious choices based on their rational self-interest, and act so as to maximize their social resources.), I offer a curved model to describe one's sexual opportunities within Orthodox Judaism. We start with the Haredi world, in which one has a statistically high chance for sex. As we move toward the left one undergoes a statistical drop in one's opportunities for sex. This rises slightly once you get to the outer fringes of Modern Orthodoxy, where there is an increased tolerance for pre-marital sexual activity, and rises greatly once you get outside of Orthodox Judaism, where one is no longer beholden to Orthodox sexual mores.

While I do not have any hard statistics to back this theory up, it does confirm to my own anecdotal experience. To give two examples of this. Recently I got into a conversation with a Haredi woman about the television show the Tudors. I have not seen the show, but I was able to fill her in about sixteenth-century English history in general and Henry VIII in particular, which she was quite unfamiliar with. While her Haredi education left her ignorant of English history, it has not stopped her from watching television, even television shows that have graphic sexual content. In another conversation with a Haredi person, we shared our mutual love of Bernard Cornwell, a writer whose high adventure works of historical fiction are filled with blood, violence, and sex. I have previously listened to this person’s iPod, a banned object in his yeshiva, and found it full of secular music, much of it rap music with explicit lyrics.

I do not see these people as hypocrites for bending the rules and doing things that the Haredi world forbids. I would hope that this exposure to secular things, and the recognition of their own weaknesses will, in the long run, make them more tolerant and not lead them into becoming the sort of people who, due to their own insecurities about their lives, suspect everyone else and go around on witch-hunts to ferret out those who fail to live up to community standards. Their actions are not the momentary lapses of a people caught in the heat of the moment nor do they appear to be addicts. The only explanation left is that they are making fully rational decisions to go against Haredi norms; this must be viewed as part of an ideological disagreement. There is nothing wrong with this; it is perfectly normal for people to find the society that they best fit into and remain there despite minor disagreements.

My question to them, though, would be why they remain within the Haredi world. They could easily declare themselves to be Modern Orthodox and live exactly as they do now and no one would think twice about them. On the contrary, they would be viewed as deeply observant Jews. What have they gained by remaining in the Haredi world? Well, the girl, despite being a rebellious teenager, got married at the age of nineteen and now has several children. This past week I got to meet the boy’s fiancé. She is a cute little thing with the same name as a character from the musical Rent. That is not a bad deal for a young man in his early twenties.

(To be continued …)

SB's Response to Haredi Generation Gap

SB, who was one of the people I talked about in my post, Haredi Generation Gap, responded to me via email, which he was kind enough to allow me to publish here. I think it demonstrates my point wonderfully. Last I checked Yeshiva Torah Vodaath has no interest in producing graduates who have read Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.


First, the nomenclature … of the word “haredi.” I don’t believe I heard the word until my late adolescence. The word is an Israeli term and indicates Israeli influence. We referred to ourselves as “yeshivish” or “litvish.” There was no term encompassing Chasidim and yeshivish people. This is not just a nitpicking point, since arguably yeshivish people moved to the right because it became de rigueur for guys to learn in Israel after high school.

When you stayed with us, I tried to expose you to the ideas of Rodney Stark regarding the sociology of religion. (I know that he has written several bad books recently, but that doesn’t negate the quality of his good works.) I believe that Stark has dealt only briefly with changes in Jewish life and not at all with changes in the orthodox community, but I believe that you have to take an “economic approach,” i.e., thinking about changes by looking at the alternatives available at the time. For instance, the orthodox world was much smaller then. Yeshivos were more tolerant because they were expected to take everyone. In contrast, in the current world, yeshivas can exclude anyone who has a tv at home.

Another change involves the economic concept of making tradeoffs. In my day, people went to Brooklyn College; now they go to Touro. I cannot comment much about the education at Touro, but I had several professors who were radical Marxists; I don’t think a Touro student is likely to have that exposure. Assume that a parent who went to Brooklyn is choosing a college for his son. He is very likely to be aware of the advantages of sending the son to Brooklyn, yet choose Touro because it will be easier for him to learn in yeshiva while going to Touro.

I don’t want to go through many examples, but in each case we can look at individual choices based on the “market,” i.e., the options available. In any case, what I want to stress is that rather than blaming my generation, you might want to consider how we got from the situation, say in 1969, when I started Torah Vodaath high school. You may not agree with my economic approach. That is ok. You may want to use Toqueville’s concept of the Unlimited Power of the Majority. But the point is, as an aspiring historian, you should try to understand historical changes, not bemoan them. While I threw out a few ideas, I cannot give you a complete explanation of the changes. That would require a book length treatment that I have no desire to complete, but I certainly would appreciate reading if you were to do so.
Lastly, the Unlimited Power of the Majority usually is not manifested by tarring and feathering, but by simple disapproval. The only negative consequence that I have experienced personally is that my daughter Dasi was rejected by Bais Yaakov of Brooklyn. However, that probably was the result of her behavior, not mine.

I hope that this email does not offend you, but encourages you to study contemporary Judaism as a historian. After all, Haym Soloveitchik did write a seminal article about contemporary orthodoxy, although as you know, I disagree with his interpretation.

My response: I use the world Haredi because unlike ultra-orthodox it has no negative connotations. I admit that, as with all human categories, it is flawed.I don't think we are disagreeing here. I was describing the situation that we have gotten ourselves into. You deal with how we have gotten there. Your economic explanation makes a lot of sense. I would love to hear you elaborate on it. (I guess I have to come visit you next time I am in New York.) Personally, I tend to look at history more through the lens of intellectual history but that is just my personal taste. If I had to explain how we got here I would focus on 60's multiculturalism. Something for a future post, I guess.