Read this important link and then continue to read Rav Mikes response here.
Shalom Aryeh,
A few thoughts in reaction to your posted experience.I would want someone who says that a path of consciousness and personal authenticity leads to being less “shomer mitzvot” to tell me exactly which ones he’s worried about, and which others (if any) such a path might enhance.
I sense some truth in the fear that this style of education can cause a reconsideration of values, and that many people find a life of mitzvot that dictate a lifestyle of separation and commanded attention to detail burdensome. Particularly if it is an unreflective life, and the details are detached from essential meaning. If any shift in behavior occurred through Ayeka, I’d want to know if it was due to a new sense of empowered choice and consciousness of action, and/or a reaction to previous education as a denial of consciousness and a unconscious submersion of will into that of others’.
What would Orthodoxy look like if mindfulness education was foundational and not just a “tail pipe management” attempt to evoke us into consciousness? Critical problem posing education might seem anathema to Orthodoxy as well, if it not for the gemara. It is a sign of the decline of our relationship with Torah if we are losing the ability to ask questions we don’t already sense the answers to. What kind of relationship is it to Gd, Torah and Am Yisrael if I can’t take any risk?
Anyway, from the historical perspective, these rabbis are right. Orthodoxy is a movement within the religion Judaism, is already two steps removed from the living covenantal relationship we are being called to. It adopted its name in reaction to the threat of reform. Defining itself in reaction to other, and by those elements of life which are not to be considered (or reconsidered, which is what we’re be asked to do here) to a certain degree excludes the sense of conscious will and critical awareness which are at the core of the relationship offered by Ayeka-style education. I question whether these labels of particularist identity are bringing us any closer to geulah, even if they keep some people on the derech.
I take comfort in knowing personally from Aryeh and experiencing in my own life and work that we are laboring l’shem shemayaim. Therefore all we need is to have hope, maintain integrity and to keep the shoulder to the grindstone.
Chazak v’amatz and Gd bless all your endeavors
Mike Feuer
