The New Weavers
[Opinion]
Portraying the inner workings of a religious community provides for ample camera material. Judgement was an episode on the BBC TV series Silent Witness back in 2008. A team of pathologists investigate a murder on our streets. Quite banal and hopelessly under researched. Wrong hats to wrong suits and Chabadniks wearing side-curls. Perfectly within the boundaries of political correctness, ostentatiously so.
“We came out quite well,” people here had said. Well yes, but did you not notice that one line? “How could you let one of your own go, without support and without love, merely because he is gay?” the cop asks the rabbi. The rabbi replies, “In our lives it is never about the individual. It is about the community.”
The ongoing storyline in the BBC’s soap, Eastenders, drags on. Syed, a muslim young man has shamed his family by outing himself as gay. In true soap opera style, the destruction left in the wake of this simple announcement is massive.
Now, perhaps here too, the portrayal of the workings of a mosque is wholly inadequate. I have no clue. True, it is extremely difficult to offer a perfect portrayal of closed communities.
But whereas most of the people I know understand why ostracising is fair, sometimes it takes an outsider to see that shouting, “No, Chava, no, there is no other hand,” is simply unjustifiable. When Syed’s mother tells him as he recovers from a suicide attempt, “I wish you would have gone,” it is plain for all to see how warped a mother must be to think that way.
Yes, they romanticise and marvel at our sense of community, the countless grassroots support organisations that flourish and that keep our way from going under. But they also see the ugly and costly downside to living like that. In fact, it seems to be a reoccurring theme in every depiction of a structured community such as our own.
Only in a democratic system is it apparent that there are weavers that wove that royal gown, who found wealth in the process, who are gone. Who knew that the gown was but a figment of imagination. Only then is the little child who appears every once in a while, who cries out with glee, plainly to say that he sees a naked king, hoisted upon shoulders and hailed as a simple saviour.
But in our communities, Hans, the little, silly, and idealistic child cries out in vain, and is banished from the kingdom.
Printable Version
Whilst Hans is indeed little, silly and idealistic it is not us who banish him from the kingdom. Would you say that the stallholders chasing the vagrant who tipped over the apple cart are picking on him? No. Of course not. The rascal was asking for it. You make your bed, and you sleep in it.
Idealists will always remain exactly that, ideal. Only through doing can one actually achieve, and more often than not, it’s because only through actions, can one recognise one’s abilities but more importantly, one limitations including those determined by the society in which one finds oneself. Doers know that the world is far from ideal, and they learn to work with the tools at their disposal. They don’t yell and draw attention to themselves. They know that that achieves notoriety but not much more.
The kid who yells “He has no clothes!” is only right if everybody around him is dressed. But if he’s in a nudist colony, he will quickly find that the happy smileys surrounding him have turned upside down.
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>You make your bed, and you sleep in it.
A: Well that not strictly true. There are some systems that do not leave a lot of room for bed-making. Personal growth and development are virtually non existent and are hacked away by extreme one size fits all societal norms here. And no, we do not have free will all the time, if at all.
B:Why, why does it have to be that way, is the question. Why do we have derogatory terms such as “Minim”? What were Chazal so afraid of? Was it the truth? Other systems seem to flourish on merit.
>Doers know that the world is far from ideal, and they learn to work with the tools at their disposal.
Again, untrue. I guess you are not in favour of those who brought about the Magna Carta for instance.
>But if he’s in a nudist colony, he will quickly find that the happy smileys surrounding him have turned upside down.
True, but the allegory has more to do with challenging widely held misconceptions, in my view.
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A & B for another day when I’m not rushing to get home!
I will quickly say this however. Free will is very overrated. If one is free to partake of all ones desires is one as free as the word implies? Isn’t a really free indivdual, one who chooses, and that is the specific word, “chooses”, to comply with a set of rules that restrict him from acting upon his every whim. Isn’t a person with the utmost self control the freest of all? Reaching that level of perfection is growth is it not? Middos Tovos, i.e. personal growth is fundamental to Yiddishkeit.
“I guess you are not in favour of those who brought about the Magna Carta for instance.”
The Magna Carta was brought about through a movement, not through the acts of one individual. All the kings subjects were tired of being subjugated. It was more than a few lone misfits.
Gotta Rush!! Sorry! Have a great Yom Tov!
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> The Magna Carta was brought about through a movement, not through the acts of one individual. All the kings subjects were tired of being subjugated. It was more than a few lone misfits.
The Magna Carta wasn’t the result of a popular movement. At the time there was a constant power struggle between the English crown and the barons. John was a weak king and the political climate provided the barons an opportunity to guarantee that certain privileges couldn’t be usurped by the monarchy, and they forced John to sign.
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” It was more than a few lone misfits.”.
Maybe because the Frummers didn’t dissaude the many to follow the few.
But seriously, I do agree that so much whining is pathetic. Yes Chasidim are not THE most empowered, educated, and sophisticated society around, but we are by far not the least.
There is so much we COULD do, rather than bemoan our lot.
Example, NY Times has an article today about how Russian journalists who are exposing some government fraud are being beaten to death or close to it. How’s that for an empowered society?
BTW, these journalists know whats coming, yet still do what they think is right. hmmm.
IMHO, there’s a lot of options for indvidual growth, and even some collective growth.
Let’s stop whining and start living.
Be’birchas Kabolas HaToirah Be’simcha U’bePnimius
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