Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

Not all Pharisees of the Talmud are worthy of our admiration. No, this statement is not one I personally originated; this idea actually comes from the Talmud itself.

Two thousand years ago, the Jewish community had an entire class of people who delighted in such feats of piety. The Talmud heaps scorn on the religious pretentiousness of these “foolish Pharisees.”

The Jerusalem Talmud writes, “Who is a man of piety that is a fool? “He, for example, who, if a woman is drowning, says, ‘It is unseemly for me to look at her, and therefore, I cannot rescue her. . . . Who is the pious fool? He who sees a child struggling in the water, and says, ‘When I have taken off my phylacteries, I will go and save him.’ By the time he arrives to rescue him, the child has already expired. Who is the crafty scoundrel? R. Huna says, ‘He is the man who behaves leniently toward himself, while teaching others only the strictest rules.’”[1]

“Our Rabbis have taught: There are seven types of Pharisees: the ostentatious Pharisee[2], the Pharisee who knocks his feet together and walks with exaggerated humility[3], the Pharisee is one who knocks his face against the wall rather than gaze at a woman[4] The Pharisee who feigns religious piety while constantly exclaiming, ‘What is my duty that I may perform it?’”[5]

You have just returned from Memory Lane.

Imagine a Haredi convention where the great rabbis come up with their latest technological and religious innovations designed to keep men and women apart. Wait until you see the latest fashions the Haredi rabbis decreed upon their enthusiastic followers. Mind you, I am not saying that all Haredi are lunatics-however, the Belzer, Satmar, Gerer Hassidim have hundreds of thousands of lunatics following some very shady religious leaders. I did not include the Lubavitch or the Bratzlav, for both of these movements operate on a principle of ahavat Yisrael-for the most part (but not always). This is obviously a topic nobody in the Haredi world want to talk about. Like most dysfunctional families, family “secrets” are necessary to allow the dysfunction to continue.

Now, back to our subject . . .

Last year’s innovations included:

• A ban on mannequins.
• The Personal Mechitza, which is a small partition Haredi Jews wear around their heads when travelling on El Al Airlines. The PM prevents Haredim from gazing at the lovely El Al Stewardesses. It comes in only one color: black.
• Women must sit at the back of the bus!
• How to attack Modern Orthodox girls walking to elementary school.
• How to attack wheelchair bound children on Shabbat!
• Rock concerts for Haredim during the Shabbat, where non-Haredim get stoned!
• Separate sidewalks!

This year’s innovations include:

• Use only “BLACK” rabbinically certified baby carriages!
• Using gangs to intimidate other Haredi Jews.
• Living like the Coneheads—special headgear for women designed to out-Taliban the Taliban burka!
• Separate elevators for women as of 1/18/2012![6]

The Taliban are probably experiencing envy as you read this article. “Why can’t we become more religious, more fanatical like the Haredim?” asks a child to her mother.

Most of you have probably heard of OCD—Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I personally prefer identifying this acronym as, “Orthodox Compulsive Disorder.” Hey, if the shoe fits, wear it!

OCD is a very common kind of anxiety disorder. Haredi behavior makes sense when you realize that all these new “halachic” acts of piety involves ways of coping with underlying anxiety, tension, anger, and guilt.

Most modern psychologists and therapists probably are not deeply in love with Freudian psychology, but I have a pretty healthy respect for Freud’s view of religion as an obsessional type of neurosis. Unlike Jung, Frankl, Rodgers, Fromm, and others who saw religions as serving a potentially positive function in society and in the life of the individual, Freud only concerned himself with the pathological aspects of religion that constricts rather than liberates the human spirit from its shackles.

When Freud wrote “Religion as Obsessional Neurosis” in 1907, he observed how religious people suffered from an overwhelming feeling of guilt:

• We may say that the sufferer from compulsions and prohibitions behaves as if he were dominated by a sense of guilt, of which, however, he knows nothing so that we must call it an unconscious consciousness of guilt, in spite of the apparent contradiction in terms. This sense of guilt has its source in certain early mental events, but it is constantly being revived by renewed temptations which arise whenever there is a contemporary provocation. Moreover, it occasions a lurking sense of expectant anxiety, an expectation of misfortune, which is linked, through the idea of punishment, with the internal perception of the temptation. . . [7]

Freud was right. Religion for many people is a mental disorder.

Compulsively religious people are always afraid of losing control of their inhibitions. They fear not just the external world around them; they also fear that their internal world might implode within them. Obsessive and compulsive behavior help create the illusion that they are in control of both their action internal and the external world.

I came across a citation from Victor Frankl’s “The Unheard Cry for Meaning,” where he writes about his travels through Mexico back in 1975, when he once decided to visit a Benedictine monastery. After having a discussion with the monastic supervisor about the issues of neurosis and how one may extricate oneself from its grip, the head of the monastery decided to let the monks undergo therapy with Frankl. After Frankl finished his therapy with his group, about 80% of the monks decided to leave the monastery! By addressing the real underlying issues that religiously compulsive people have about themselves, they have a much greater chance of living a healthier and more honest–not to mention psychologically well-adjusted–way of life.

Lastly, Abraham Maslow’s insights develop Freud’s concept of religion as neurosis even further. Religion becomes neurotic whenever it frustrates our basic human needs, thus short-circuiting the possibility of self-actualization. His exposition explains the religious and social phenomena we are witnessing in the Haredi world with its endless penchant for obsessive-compulsive behavior–all of which is masked under the guises of Halachah:

• Compulsive-obsessives try frantically to order and stabilize the world so that no unmanageable, unexpected or unfamiliar dangers will ever appear; They hedge themselves about with all sorts of ceremonials, rules and formulas so that every possible contingency may be provided for and so that no new contingencies may appear. They are much like the brain injured cases, described by Goldstein, who manage to maintain their equilibrium by avoiding everything unfamiliar and strange and by ordering their restricted world in such a neat, disciplined, orderly fashion that everything in the world can be counted upon. They try to arrange the world so that anything unexpected (dangers) cannot possibly occur.

• If, through no fault of their own, something unexpected does occur, they go into a panic reaction as if this unexpected occurrence constituted a grave danger. What we can see only as a none-too-strong preference in the healthy person, e. g., preference for the familiar, becomes a life-and-death, a necessity in abnormal cases.[8]

Obviously, the Haredi are really quite unhappy and frustrated because they are failing to realize their true human potential. They do not know or understand why they are experiencing their sexual anxieties. Obviously, their mind is not just filled with Torah thoughts, but with something else . . . An army of social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, self-help gurus, and therapists might actually help heal their tragic lives.

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Notes:

[1] JT Sotah 3:4, f. 19a, line 13.

[2] He behaves like Shechem, who circumcised himself for an unworthy purpose (Gen. 34) The J. Talmud explains: anyone who carries his religious duties upon his shoulder (shekem), i.e., ostentatiously (BT Ber. 14b).

[3] He walks with exaggerated humility. According to the Jerusalem Talmud: He says: Spare me a moment that I may perform a commandment.

[4] The Jerusalem Talmud explains: a calculating Pharisee, i.e., he performs a good deed and then a bad deed, setting one off against the other.

[5] He behaves as if he has fulfilled every religious obligation.

[6] Ari Galahar, “New in Modiin Illit: Segregated elevators.” Ynet News, 1/18/2012.

[7] Sigmund Freud and Peter Gay, The Freud Reader (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995), 433.

[8] Abraham Maslow, “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Psychological Review, Vol. 50, NO. 4, pp. 370-396.