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| The Yeshiva- where young Charedim study Torah the vast majority of their time |
One of the co-founders of that group is a fellow who calls himself Philo Judaeus. I have surmised from his posts that he was once Charedi but is now OTD for intellectual reasons.
As is often the case here, when the subject of Charedim comes up, there is a lot of bashing that goes on there. That is something that upset him. He clearly has warm feelings for his former community and asked respondents to try and post only positive comments about the Charedi world to counteract all that negativity.
People responded in spades. Many of them are former Charedim that are now OTD - and yet wrote glowingly – almost jealously - about the positive feelings they still have and the things they miss about their former world.
That is what surprised me. The conventional wisdom is that those that leave are bitter - having done so because of the negative things they experienced there. With rare exception, I would hardly expect such a person to find anything positive to say. I would expect only the Charedim of that group to be saying positive things. But I am happy to report that I was wrong.
I thought it would be edifying to present some of what was said there - quoted or paraphrased. While some of it may apply to other segments of Orthodox Jewry – or even non Jews, clearly all of it applies to the Charedi world. The following is what I gleaned:
The closeness each member of the Charedi world feels for one another. Which can be seen by their creation and operation of community help organizations like Hatzalah, Chaverim, and Shomrim. And as individuals they do not hesitate to stop and help a fellow Jew in any kind of distress.
The communal responsibility is impressive, The extent to which people will go to help others especially when something bad happens or when someone is in need is extraordinary.
The way their culture encourages supports and celebrates having and raising children
The extraordinary respect they give elders.
The ability to filter out so many of the negative outside influences on their children in part by more strictly limiting media exposure.
They take life seriously and are able to lead the simple life - sacrificing a "higher" standard of living for their values – their higher standards are reserved for more important areas.
Their extraordinary commitment to Torah study and Tefilla (prayer). And their dedication to the intellectual rather than the physical world.
They are always ready to teach you about anything in Judaism if you are interested in knowing about it.
The ability to stand back from and critique modern society from the standpoint of the better part of Jewish ethics. The trust about personal honesty and integrity they each have in one another. As one fellow put it:
It is pretty common for someone to front a large amount of money for someone else they don't know at all and have no doubt they'll be paid back. Also letting you sleep in their home and feeding you, despite not knowing you. This happened to me... Someone I didn't know put down hundreds of dollars on an apt for me.
Another individual said this:
(T)he non-judgmental warmth that frum people display (at least to me) when they see me the way I am. It definitely goes way deeper than that they are trying to be m'karev me.
And yet another individual said this:
They take life seriously. They have goals and standards and their belief is that every action is meaningful and they should always strive for improvement.
The following items are from lists submitted by two people. Here is the first list:
- the security of being in a community that has your back in every aspect
- tightly knit families
- overall good “middos” for lack of a better word (of course there are exceptions, but there’s a certain refinement that’s more common there)
- shabbos like it’s meant to be
- less distraction from “garbage” media. I never heard of The Bachelor until a few years ago and think I’m all the better for it!
- the “varemkeit” (because the word “warmth” doesn’t quite capture it)
- the more honest, or rather, less lazy, approach to observance.
And finally Philo mentioned his own list of things he especially loves about his former community:
- the warm close-knit community
- the sense that if you spotted a frum person in a crowd you immediately felt a bond of kinship
- the psychological high of really delving into a sugya lishma (studying a topic in the Gemrah for its own sake) yeshivishe mehalech (approach).
- the psychological high of spending your days focused on Torah and avodah
- the strong sense of mission, purpose in life, and even pride that comes with focusing so heavily on Torah and avodah
- a certain type of "aidelkeit" (refinement) that I don't find to be as common elsewhere
- the innocence of many teenagers - seems to be very uncommon in the "outside world"- the lack of cursing
- the chareidi way of doing ... well, most things really - as I said, I really did enjoy the lifestyle
This is all truly impressive. There is indeed a lot to admire about the Charedi world. Not that I don’t already know all of these things. As I indicated above, I do. But it is so easy to forget or overlook these things when criticizing them. That is something we should all think about the next time the subject of Charedim comes up in any context. No one group or individual is perfect. On the other hand we ought to acknowledge that there are a lot of good things that goes on that world. Things that we can all learn from.