Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Too Much Doing and Not Enough Being
A recent article in the London Times shows that commuters all over the world are walking much faster than they were ten years ago (see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article1733967.ece). The gist of the article is that in the [post] modern world, people are too busy today to enjoy life in their quest to achieve.
In a recent Lookstein Center webconference on spirituality, Rabbi Aryeh Ben David asserted that people often neglect their essence, rather than being "human beings", they become "human doings".
Has Judaism has also been affected by this process? Is it possible that Orthodox Jews have become obsessed with the minutiae of halachik achievement, constantly adopting more stringencies and practices, that they have stopped thinking about and appreciating the purpose of our halachik practice? Has keeping halacha to its strictest degree overtaken its purpose of bringing us closer to God and Man?
For example, rather than becoming liberated by Pesach, many of us have become slaves to its halachik (or pseudo-halachik) stringencies and rather than creating a holy society, strict separation of the sexes on even busses and taxis, has often succeeded in desecrating God's name (See Zvi Grumet's schmoozed http://schmoozed.lookstein.org/2007/05/jewish-education-works.html).
In a recent Lookstein Center webconference on spirituality, Rabbi Aryeh Ben David asserted that people often neglect their essence, rather than being "human beings", they become "human doings".
Has Judaism has also been affected by this process? Is it possible that Orthodox Jews have become obsessed with the minutiae of halachik achievement, constantly adopting more stringencies and practices, that they have stopped thinking about and appreciating the purpose of our halachik practice? Has keeping halacha to its strictest degree overtaken its purpose of bringing us closer to God and Man?
For example, rather than becoming liberated by Pesach, many of us have become slaves to its halachik (or pseudo-halachik) stringencies and rather than creating a holy society, strict separation of the sexes on even busses and taxis, has often succeeded in desecrating God's name (See Zvi Grumet's schmoozed http://schmoozed.lookstein.org/2007/05/jewish-education-works.html).
Labels: halachik stringencies, hilul Hashem
