Addressing Alienation in the Torah world

Why our communities' fringes may be wider than we think

There’s lots of talk these days about polarization in society. We can’t agree with each other on all that much and, partly as a result, our governments seem even less functional than normal. Politicians certainly don’t seem to represent their citizens in any meaningful way.

There are fewer universally acceptable issues that bring everyone together and there’s a lot less consensus. It’s harder for us to see ourselves as willing and generous members of our communities. In other words, we lack cohesion. Or perhaps a better way to describe it is that many of us feel alienated and disenfranchised from our communities’ power centers.

Orthodox Jews may be at each other’s throats more often than is healthy, but we certainly enjoy far greater cohesion than our neighbors. Push comes to shove, we’re always ready to help. More than that, we share a robust big-picture vision for the world that comes from our shared Torah.

But we’re never entirely insulated from big social trends; it may just take a bit longer before the changes are obvious. So to better understand what alienation might mean within the Torah world, I think it’s worth taking a bit of a peek at the the ways we communicate ideas and values.

It’s certainly true that Moshe didn’t gather our opinions by running focus groups before transmitting the Torah’s mitzvos. That communication was strictly unidirectional. But, as the Gemara (Berachos 55a) tells us, even in that general context God insisted that Moshe consult with the Jews as a community before appointing His choice (Betzalel) as a “parness”.

Apparently, good relationships require at least a degree of two-way communication. But for often unavoidable reasons, communication doesn’t always happen. Parents certainly hear important messages sent by their children’s schools, but there’s often no mechanism for meaningful dialog. Kehilos share their standards in newsletters and speeches, but those standards seldom incorporate consultation.

Instead there’s a top-down communication model. Schools, naturally, control their educational message; book and magazine publishers adopt carefully tested and managed belief and style sets; institutions amplify their preferences by sending their graduates out into the world; news websites (like Yeshiva World News) closely moderate the tone and content of their comments pages.

But all of that messaging is controlled by a very small number of individuals. I would estimate that the five largest frum periodicals between them have less than 300 employees - and only a few of those have a real voice in setting policy.

Similarly, the most popular English-language frum news websites might attract a total of 25 million page views each month, but only a handful of people get to decide what’s displayed on those pages.

I’m not criticizing those institutions for their choices: given the facts on the ground, there may be no better model. But the system breeds alienation.

More than two years ago - in the early days of this publication - I asked readers to participate in a survey about their relationships with community information, news, and opinions. The survey sample was small and hardly statistically compelling, but the responses were fascinating. Among other things, I found that:

“Individuals want to take responsibility for their Torah lives and make intelligent, healthy choices, and that many aren’t eager to outsource those choices to authorities they don’t know - and who don’t know them.”

And that:

“There’s a strong desire for access to the inside stories that’ll explain our complex Jewish world, but that it’s often difficult or even impossible to satisfy that desire.”

Traditional face-to-face relationships that might have worked in small Eastern European towns are, for the most part, impossible in the dense population centers where Jews now live. In the modern world good communication at scale requires some form of electronic media. But right now, for most people, those media are as distant as Mt. Sinai.

People tend to want at least some control over their lives. Its absence invites alienation. And alienation can be a powerful disruptive force in a society.

Any thoughts on making things better?