Tuesday, July 29, 2008

How all this has affected my feelings towards organized religion

I don't think this has anything to do with Judaism, per se.

I do think it has something to do with organized religion.

I think that people who have personality issues/disorders that involve a need to be idolized and to control others are drawn to positions that serve those needs. The rabbinate happens to be that sort of position.

During my time as Rebbezin Jekyll, I met many rabbis who had character traits similar to Rabbi J's.

There was a period when we were the only family of staff living in the community in which his yeshiva was located, and on Rosh Hashanah, the other families would stay over in the community and come to our house on one of the afternoons. The rabbis would discuss their students, and the discussion included such delightful descriptions as "mental paraplegics." there would also be kvetching about not being afforded enough "kavod hatorah" (honoring the Torah, which, by extension involves honoring teachers of Torah) by the students.

This leads to another issue I have with organized religion. I think most religions expect teachers of the tradition to be honored merely for being just that. I understand why this is done, and it probably works in many cases, but not in the case of personality disordered clergy.

Since Orthodox Judaism (aka Rabbinic Judaism) involves relying on decisions made by rabbis, both or our generation and in the past, I'm having trouble dealing with that.

So, I would say that I'm having trouble dealing with a number of aspects of organized religion, some related to my marriage, some not so much, and am not sure quite where I stand these days religiously.

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