Racism or Reality?

It used to irk my liberal sensibilities to be labelled the 'chosen' people and find in chassidus that other life forms, human, plant and mineral, had less 'refined' neshomas.

While on the one hand those 'chosen' then have a moral, ethical as well as religious responsibility to 'bestow' care and compassion on those less capable, what was never clear to me is the context or parameters, if any that exist.

And I mean this individually as well as for the klal. For example on a personal level, does one only extend largesse to jews less fortunate and in need, or is humanity at large our responsibility? This may seem obvious, but it is not. If it was obvious the klal, would be sincerely addressing, on a daily basis the needs of our own people whether here or in Israel as a primary issue. These issues include a re-examination of 'mi-yehudi?' and how conversions are done, how heterim are given and to whom, who is being hired to teach and administrate in yeshivahs, the ongoing crises of yidden committed to living in Israel and perhaps foremost, a serious examination of goyishe influences on frum life including technology that both enhances and eases our lives, while simultaneously opening the door to public and secret perversions and expectations due to the blatant sexuality and lack of shame in Western culture.

The last and most important issue, the impact of technology on human life and relationships, is one of the most profound reasons our culture is both revered and reviled by other cultures and religions.

The ability to immerse in self gratification online in what would traditionally be considered unacceptable behaviour, chatting and flirting just for self pleasure, sexual stimulation or gratification outside a sanctioned relationship, shameless exhibitionism in posting one's image for anyone and everyone, clothed or unclothed for the sheerness of being seen, borders on idolatry.
While women moan and gripe about men being less than responsible in supporting a traditional lifestyle, we purchase the magazines, makeup, clothes and behaviour of the goyishe world which increasingly can only be defined as similar to Sidom before it was burned and destroyed. Televisions, elevators, lights, air conditioning et al can be turned on and off by a shabbos clock as desired. Restrictions, put into place to define a jew, are now refined by technology to make the 'restrictive' life a jew should be living, less so, and therefore easier to bear in a goyishe world. Less restrictive means fitting in, more comfortable, less stress and anxiety in being different...less 'chosen' and more like the Other.

Because ultimately, we're all human and part of one big family, the family of Mankind...right?
Because we're all human, we all bleed the same color blood, dont we?
Because we're human we all know what it means to love and to need love, doesnt it?
Any mother knows what it means to lose a child in her lifetime, either by abortion, murder or war, correct?
Every man needs to feel like the care giver and supporter of his kingdom, so we learn...
The exploitation of technology to benefit yiddishe 'causes' is only turning something for good use, hence its okay for dancing and jolly lubavitcher rabonnim to have televised beggathons asking for money to support chabad houses while at the same time our kids and some heedless adults are interviewed by The New York Times in articles like City of Refuge describing spiritual desertion and despair.

Every flame (human heart) flickers upward toward its source (Hashem).

If we set aside the presumption that with age one grows more conservative and I am doing that, I would say both our lives and thinking as a community has been deeply effected by goyishe Western liberal philosphical thinking, that is not only taught in universities and public education, but has trickled down and seeped into our lives like poison. We have absorbed it, wether we like it or not, from the media, computers, television, movies and accepted it into our lives. I do not know if this is the case in more restrictive chassidic communities, but it is the case with lubavitch and in non chassidic judaism. A broad statement, broad condemnation, I stand by it.

This kind of thinking comes to yidden under the guise of 'political correctness' and accepting social behaviour including intermarriage, forms of sexuality once considered forbidden including homosexuality, polygamy (a frum marriage with long term shiksa girlfriends IS polygamy, a frum marriage and a jewish girl friend is adultery), incest, sexual abuse in yeshivahs, online chatting and webcams, pervasiveness of pornography in television, music, advertising and men's (mainly) expectation of women playing the role of private whore under the sanctity of marriage, while publically appearing virtuous, has clearly brought a schism into the yiddishe velt, confusion in shidduch expectations and marital roles on men and women.

I am guilty of some of these behaviours, specifically intermarriage, because of my own parents intermarriage, my own educational background and intellectual confusion. much of which developed from public education including university study.

While we cannot blame parents once we are adults for the choices we make, we are also defined and shaped by the parents we are born to, lived with and the receipt of their care or the lack of it.
Instead of stepping back and refusing to participate, we (self included), try to survive in the world, by participating in unacceptable (Torah standard) behaviour- we condone unacceptable social issues and behaviour we KNOW is wrong, support it, excuse it, explain it and allow it.

And we do this because we want to consider ourselves enlightened humans, and as part of humanity in the global village we now all live in, we all 'have to get along.'

Don't we?

Does 'getting along' mean getting along with other yidden or being accepted by the velt?

We're clearly fractured with levels of yiddishkeit defining how frum one may be...this reminds me of M. Friedman explaining the life of being a chassidic jew to new baletschuvahs in our Minnesota cleansing session before moving into CH. He told us that "being religious is like being pregnant, you either are or you're not, there's no middle ground."

What stuck with me from that statement, is not that Lubavitcher chassidus is the only road to living life as a jew, which is what he meant us to understand, but that a jew must define him and herself according to Torah and less social commentary and interpretation that increasingly draws us away from the core of being a jew.

Perhaps it means not defining ourselves by standards imposed by living in Western culture, not following the standards imposed by the liberal education received in a university to obtain a degree to work with goyim or people who think like goyim.

If being jewish means being racist by today's standards and in the court of public opinion we perhaps need to take some time alone and ask ourselves in the privacy of 'yechidus' with the Abishter what our priorities as yidden are. Is it to become closer to Him in the way He wants us, as yidden, to be?
Or have we become so blinded by wanting to fit in and get along, we have slowly set aside the most fundamental issues of being Jewish including being 'chosen' and separate, to be inclusive and confused?
Some answers can be found in the rate of intermarriage, divorce, domestic violence, tolerance of emotional and physical abuse be it spousal or to children. The strength of judaism has always been the family, a women's virtuousity and intelligence and the respect of and by men for both, as well as defining our daily life by our laws and tradition, not goyishe laws and traditions.

The filmmaker Woody Allen once was quoted as saying something to the effect that 'the heart knows no boundaries,' in defense of his sleeping with his adopted daughter whom he married.

The human heart indeed has no boundaries if one chooses to disregard the inheritance of being Jewish. The human heart has no boundaries and no boundaries means we can love anyone and everyone. But a jewish heart is defined and guided by Torah laws. I had to convert to be al pi halacha jewish. While the goyishe velt never once regarded me as anything as a Jew, I tried other coats on during 20 years of living in secular society.
Begin sneered at by educated Jews, told to 'take the shmattah off if you want to work for me' forced me to take the shmattah off, to get an education and earn a living. And living in other societies, amidst people of other religions, I remained a spectacle of 'the Jew' among them no matter how I twisted myself to become the Other.

Someone once told me a jew always remains a jew, no matter how you try to change it...I found his summary offensive. Surely we can all change, we can be whatever we want in this big world of individuality and growth potential. We can dye our hair pink, tatoo anything, anywhere, pierce every body part or wear a kapotah or kefiyeh and assume another identity...for awhile.

It seems that not only a chassid cannot turn from judaism, but a yid in the eyes of the world is condemned always to being a Yid and until we accept who we are and how we will fit in our own skins as such, we will continue to implode both here and in Israel.