Comments on: The Times They Are A’Changin – R. Yosef Kanefsky

By: Bat Sheva M

Bat Sheva M — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:26:51 +0000

Wolfman is right that some of these girls may drop out,or opt out or get frustrated..Or maybe some of these women will go on to help open the eyes of the Orthodox community and create new and different variations we haven’t even considered yet. The world for Orthodox women is so different today then I could have ever forseen 30 years ago. I don’t even pretend to guess what my daughter’s future will hold. But I do know this: iife is never worth living in a myopic tunnel and trying to protect our kids will never allow for change, growth and nearing a more perfect world. Yasher Koach for the amazing work you’re doing and fill us in next year when you have the same discussion!!

By: Cold Weekly Review « Ilana-Davita

Cold Weekly Review « Ilana-Davita — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:57:42 +0000

[...] The Times They Are A’Changin, Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky reflects on the new generation of Modern Orthodox kids in his shul [...]

By: ilanadavita

ilanadavita — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:25:25 +0000

This is very interesting but also promising.

By: David S

David S — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:45:23 +0000

I think you are right. Its always darkest before the dawn and I think people are waking up to reality. It was one thing to obey the power that be when you believed that they were better than you are, its another when you realize they are not.

By: OTG

OTG — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:36:19 +0000

Of course, Rabbi, you set the agenda of topics to be discussed. Feminism (or the role of women or however one wants to describe it) is the premier topic for young people because you make it such. It isn’t about spirituality or kashrus or learning Torah or Israel or belief in God. This is where you lose me.

By: Michael Makovi

Michael Makovi — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:57:19 +0000

The heart follows the deeds.

My mother never had to teach me, for example, that blacks are equal to whites or that women deserve respect. I just saw that in practice, she treated black store clerks the way she did white clerks, etc. I just saw that she herself was a chemist with an M.Sc. earning a nearly six-figure salary, and that she didn’t shy from expressing her opinion on any political or social issue. That’s all I needed to see; I didn’t need her to explicitly teach me anything.

So yasher koah, and hazak u’barukh!

By: wolfman

wolfman — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:46:15 +0000

I see three possible futures for these kids, ranked in terms of likelihood:

1) They will drop out of “frum” Jewish life by the end of college or a few years later, disillusioned by the brow-beating they will receive from their more right-wing (and self-assured) Orthodox peers, exhausted from trying to maintain the cognitive dissonance required to stay within the broader narrow-minded Orthodox community, and, despite the “halakhic commitment that runs in their veins”, bewildered by their inability to articulate — to others and to themselves — the rationale behind their practices in broadly comprehensible anthropological terms.

2) They, being particularly motivated and engaged, end up joining (or, if especially driven, forming) a community that looks a lot like Hadar, reasoning that their values and halakhic commitments can best be met by cutting the gordian knot and that whatever loss of community and weakening of halakhic commitment they experience is more than made up for by the fulfillment they feel at no longer needing to walk on eggshells amongst most of their peers.

3) They remain within the Orthodox fold, acquiesce to the sexism, fundamentalism, and anti-intellectualism they encounter there for the sake of strong community and nostalgic ties, submerge or alter their value commitments in order to do so, and perhaps privately hope (like many of their parents did) that the next generation will be more conducive to those values.

It’s already been almost a generation and a half since the founders of WTGs hoped these same hopes, and, with rare exceptions, found those hopes disappointed. It’s not clear to me why this generation should be any different.