Selectively Pretending to Be Religious

______________________

In his latest post, Natan claimed that chareidim are hypocrites, that they engage in maximum hishtadlus regarding their own needs, while neglecting hishtadlus for the country's needs. That is, they aren't really sincere in their belief of Divine help, but just use that as an excuse for excusing themselves from attending to the needs of others. Natan thinks the fact that chareidim call exterminators for rodent problems proves this. In his words:

"Chareidim avoid the two most serious national obligations with a claim that they can rely on and provide supernatural assistance instead (which just so happens to be Divinely implemented by way of everyone else working hard). So when they then follow natural law and exert maximum hishtadlus for everything that they see as important to themselves and that they can’t get other people to do for them - be it receiving medical treatment, protection against pandemics (when they take them seriously), obtaining political power, avoiding missiles that are actually being fired at their towns, or getting rid of a rat plague - then yes, they are a bunch of hypocrites."

Now, I am sure most of you realize how insane and twisted this reasoning is. As the clever and learned commenter Shaul Shapira pointed out on a different post:

"Personally, I'm less bothered by any racism involved than I am by the sloppiness, disingenuousness, and sheer tabloid style vapidity of the attack. It's just insane to point to attempts to eradicate rats via natural means as some sort of disproof of charedi society's sincerity in their beliefs. It's like pointing out that dati-leumi types sometimes say mean things so all their claims of ahavas yisrael are a farce: 'They only claim to love their fellow Jews. Or maybe they *believe* that they love their fellow Jews. But when it comes to fighting over who gets which slot on a list, all their ahava goes out the window.' That's about as lucid as using rat-poisoning as a theological talking point is."

I think most would agree that this type of perverted, deranged thinking can only come from somebody who has dedicated his life to lashing out at the society that rejected him, no matter how warped and outlandish those attacks are. As you can see in the comments on his post, almost everybody who is not an open atheist thinks he’s a complete idiot.

But still, let us again articulate what we really believe.

The fact is that chareidim believe in physical hishtadlus, both on an individual and communal level. But they believe spiritual hishtadus is far more important, and this is what they strive to maximize, very often at the expense of physical hishtadlus, and even to the point of living in poverty when necessary. They also believe that Hashem really, practically helps and especially protects. And if the physical hishtadlus carries a great risk of abandoning the Torah (as is the certainly the case with army service), then Hashem does not want us to engage in this particular effort, and will protect us without it.

And this is the way Torah-observant Jews have always been. Historically, maximizing physical hishtadlus in many places meant converting to Christianity or working on Shabbos, doubtless something Natan and his secularist compatriots would have done in an instant had they lived in that era (like many others unfortunately did). After all, it would have opened up many financial opportunities to them and would have enabled them to contribute much more to the national economy and defense, which they claim is the most important thing.

The reason why Natan can’t understand this, the reason why he is reduced to the most idiotic questions, such as “Why do believers need pest control?”, is simply because he himself is almost certainly not a believer in the first place (as well as being very ignorant of Torah sources). As far as we can tell from all his writings, and from communication with him, Natan is not a religious Jew in any normal sense of the word (but maybe he is secretly, like Shvartze Volf). He is not much better than the open atheists who post in his comments, whose comments he “likes”.

So of course he can’t understand what believers believe. Still doesn’t excuse the deranged “proofs” from pest control, or course.

(As for the question of “what is the chareidi plan for the economy?”, this is a silly question, like asking “what is the Slifkin plan for the economy?” or “what is the Slifkin plan to address Chillul Shabbos?” [which for obvious reasons never seems to bother him]. As for Natan’s deranged, wild-eyed predictions of total collapse of the country due to the chareidim, that is all they are….deranged, wild-eyed predictions by somebody who is completely, and I mean COMPLETELY ignorant of economics. Even about economists, a wise man once said, “God created economists to make astrologers look good”. Current practices are no guarantee of future practices, linear, long-term predictions are always wrong. The fact that Israel exists in the first place is a miracle, the fact that it is so successful is a miracle, all in the merit of the Torah observers, who are mostly chareidi. כן ירבו!)