There It Is Again- The Ba'alei Teshuvah Mythos At Work

[debka_notion]

I was just reading yet another Jewish blog from somewhere in the Orthodox world, talking about kiruv (the act of bringing secular [or variants thereof] Jews closer to Orthodoxy). His argument is that few BTs (ba'alei Teshuvah- "masters of return", aka the used-to-be-secular folks) get into observance for intellectual reasons, but more for emotional reasons. So far, this seems ok to me: spirituality seems to be the key, and that rarely is purely emotional or intellectual- I'm surprised that that wasn't a factor that said blogger considered at all, honestly. But what got me was that the reason that orthodox/observant Judaism apparently appeasl to BTs is that most of them come from broken homes, or other emotionally lacking backgrounds. (Amusingly, this seems to be the favorite reason given for Orthodox kids dropping the observant lifestyle too.) This seems to be a pretty low evaluation of people who change their religious outlook- that something's wrong with their life, and a change in religious behavior/outlook is just the easiest way to get out of dealing with that situation/compensating for it. (This seems to come with the accompaniment that they can't/won't actually deal with the issue itself.) It seems like a wild over-simplification, and unfair and exclusionary, not to mention rather insulting.

The situation as these people lay it out ignores people like me completely (even ignoring the fact that they seem to have no space for the halakhically observant egalitarian/liberal community in their image of the Jewish community spectrum). I have a perfectly happy family life, and have simply been interested in Judaism in whatever forms I could get it since I was a pipsqueak. Sometimes people just have a sense of self, after all.

Comments

[thevortex.livejournal.com]

(I note parenthetically that you [and people like you] might be an exception to the blogger's rule. On the other hand, rules are what keep statisticians in business, while exceptions are what keep intellectuals in business. Enjoy!)

I point out that many groups doing kiruv seem to target the people looking for easy answers to difficult questions, and, in that respect, God ends up being Nietzche's "opiate of the masses" -- which is to say that you make a spectacular point!

Huzzah!

The Vortex

[sovevuni.livejournal.com]

The explanation you quoted above ("This seems to be a pretty low evaluation of people who change their religious outlook- that something's wrong with their life, and a change in religious behavior/outlook is just the easiest way to get out of dealing with that situation/compensating for it.") is actually used not only for Jewish baalei tshuva but for anyone who becomes religious. It does bother me, too.

I have a Christian friend who is considering becoming a nun. When I mentioned it to a common friend of ours, the other woman's first reaction was: "What is she escaping from?" Well, she might be indeed escaping "the real life" but she might be also fulfilling her inner vocation. G-d only knows.