Why We Decide

Sweetest friends - here is a paragraph from an article in the secular press that can be very educational.

"I’ve been observing this phenomenon since my college days in the Haredi women’s yeshiva Neve Yerushalayim, when a newly frum friend and I started walking up the staircase cut into the hillside in Har Nof to get to our destination, and noticed a clutch of yeshiva bochurs hanging out at the top of the stairs. She insisted that we walk all the way around a long, windy road to get to the top of the hill instead of taking the stairs, lest we walk too close to the young men. And this was more than 25 years ago. Of course, I wanted to know why the guys couldn’t just step aside as we passed, but my friend had already internalized the idea that women must accommodate men’s need for gender separation, and given up her voice in the dynamic. It was at that moment that I knew I could never be frum."

UNREAL!! 3,300 years of Jewish tradition, countless Jews who died to sanctify Hashem's name, millions of pages of Torah literature and this young lady decides that she is going to reject it all because her friend had "internalized the idea that women must accommodate men's need for gender separation, and had given up her voice in the dynamic". How SILLLLLYY! What on earth does that have to do with TRUTH??! If Hashem gave us the Torah at Mount Sinai then we have to keep the Torah. If not - then we don't. What does that have to do with a chance encounter with yeshiva bochrim and a trip up a long windy road?? How can one decide questions of eternal import based on such trivialities?? [On a personal note, close to 18 years ago I was dating a girl who lived in Har Nof, and after I walked her to her building late one Friday night I attempted to return to where I was staying. As you may know, in Har Nof EVERY STREET LOOKS LIKE EVERY OTHER STREET so I got lost and accidentally almost wandered on to the Neve campus. The guard stopped me and I thought he was going to shoot my head off. That would have been silencing my male "voice in the dynamic". Fortunately he spared my life and fortunately the girl, despite my somewhat flaky personality, agreed to marry me. All's well that ends well.:-)]

Is there a G-d? How did the earth get here? It created itself?? How does a drop of sperm magically turn into the most complex organism imaginable all by itself?? And she rejects a life of cosmic significance because of absolute pettiness.

The explanation is - and remember this because this is huge - most of our decisions in life are founded not on logic but based on other, often subconscious considerations. We will often make mistakes because we don't allow our logical conscious mind to be the judge. That is why most people who go off the derech do so not because of theological difficulties but because of "bad experiences" with frumkeit. I have yet to meet a non-religious person or formerly religious person who made a serious study of the great works of Jewish philosophy and theology and AFTERWARDS decided that our religion isn't true. The rare irreligious person who might have studied SOME books of Jewish thought already had his mind made up in advance. [Maybe there is an extremely rare exception to this rule.]

So this [the author of the article] woman's children - and the woman herself - are going to be robbed of the pleasure of living wholesome spiritual lives forever because of her rash decision.

How sad.

No. Not sad.

Tragic.