Orthodox Jewish Outreach

One of the many problematic practices of Machon Shlomo for several decades was to seek out guys from elite schools but not to provide them with a program that is fitting for people of relatively higher academic intelligence or ambition. Quite to the contrary, MS has a program so minimal that you can't even call it a program. It's two classes, but not even that. It's a Gemara shiur that was delivered for years without any introduction or background. If you have the kind of mind that says, hey, who wrote this book? Why is its style so odd? Why is it part Aramaic, part Hebrew? From where does it get its authority? Well, they won't help you with that. They just open to page 2 and start reading. The other so-called class was a recitation of the Chumash, ie the Chumash was read to you. That's it. Nothing else. And no library, no guest speakers, no visits to anywhere or anyone in Israel, and lots of propagandizing about how Machon Shlomo was the only place in the world wit...

you wake up to a roommate who won't talk to you as i did (a British snob from Cambridge who as a second year guy should have been some kind of mentor), then go to schacharis where you walk into a bare-walled bookless apartment room that faces a cemetery where you enter from the front with everyone staring at you to an assigned seat with unfriendly snobbish guys sitting on either side of you (they were taught to be that way as the whole school was built not merely on elitism but on the notion that it was the only place on earth with the truth) and go through 50 minutes of boredom conducted in a foreign language that they don't teach you even as they pressure you to "pray" in that language. You try to recite a liturgy about which you have learned nothing, a liturgy that appears to be about a deity about which you have learned nothing other than he is uptight and hates everyone and is going to punish you. And since there is no library you can't read about it. And sin...

Maharal: Maharal (Baer HaGolah #6) One should not reject something which is against one’s views… especially if it is not presented as an attack on religion but is simply an honest expression of the other person’s understanding of faith. Even if it is against one’s religious faith, he should not say, “Be quiet and shut your mouth.” Because if one silences questions there will not be a clarification of that person’s religious understanding. In fact, such a person should be encouraged to speak and fully express how he feels. If sincere questions are silenced that is indicative that the religion is weak and needs to be protected from inquiry. This attitude is the opposite of what some people think. They mistakenly think that silencing questions strengthens religious faith. In fact, however, suppressing of dissent and questions indicates a weak religion. Thus, we find with our ancestors that even if they found something in books against religion they would not simply reject it. (In Daniel E...