A Telling Non-Rationalist Moment

Some time ago, Rabbi Slifkin published a post on his great Rationalist Judaism blog called A Grand Vision. Before I say anything, I should note that I respect Rabbi Slifkin for his courage and scholarship. I read his blog frequently and am in possession of his great work called The Challenge of Creation. I think that if there would be more Rabbis like him, many people would not have opted out of Orthodox Judaism. So perhaps it is a good thing there is only Rabbi Slifkin. But I digress…

In the abovementioned post, he divulges the reason why he doesn’t address an overall vision of Judaism:

“I am more of an intellectual historian than a theologian. And my own emunah is primarily based on Jewish history, which doesn't speak to everyone, and on hashgachah pratis in my own life, which is very personal and non-rationalist to the extreme!”

Those are frank and honest words.

Which should make everyone think: If even the most radically rationalist Orthodox Rabbi I am aware of does not base his religion on facts but on faith, what does this tell us about Orthodox Judaism?!

Introducing the Off the Derech Facebook Group!

If you haven’t read Abandoning Eden’s auto-biographical post yet, you may have missed the fact that we created an Off the Derech Facebook group, just a few weeks ago

Actually, the original group was already created a while ago, but thanks to AE’s visionary prod, I upgraded it to the new Facebook Groups format. And so far, it has been a smashing success:

• Our group membership has grown from about 92 to almost 200 now
• In total, over 500 posts were created!
• There is even an Openly Off the Derech now for people who are more outspoken about their beliefs
• Rumor has it that there now even is a Facebook group for people who are On the Derech as a reaction to this group, but I wasn’t able to find it so far

It really seems that users are finding a home in the OTD FB group. Probably also because this is a closed group, respecting people’s privacy and security. If you would like to know more, please read our suggestions.

Some positive feedback we received so far…

“I really like what this group represents. I feel like I can express anything and its almost like having a very diverse open minded family. Someone somewhere always seems to pop up and have your back. I don't mean to be mushy or anything but Thanks... “ (Daphne)

“just want to say how great it is to have this group...so far been doing mostly browsing instead of posting, but it still gives me a lot of strength by reading all of your posts” (Jeff)

If you would like to join the group, just request to be added and we’ll take it from there.

Update: Our group has a shotlink called http://www.facebook.com/groups/offthederech/. Also, the On the Derech FB group, created as a reaction to our Off the Derech FB group is called http://www.facebook.com/groups/openlyon/.