Thursday, November 7, 2013

Torah tells you how to live. It doesn't replace life.

The anti-secular studies and activities orientation of many kiruv places can put excessive pressure on the Torah study experience to become a replacement for long cultivated joys. There's a big difference between saying to a person: taste this new soup, it's pretty good and taste this soup it's the best food ever invented and is going to be the only food you'll ever have again. You expect much more from the soup in the latter presentation. Pretty good recipe for failure and disappointment.

So too not allowing BTs to date. Many try to replace companionship and sex with religious observance and find themselves disappointed with that observance when it fails to deliver.

Torah tells you how to live. It doesn't replace life. And why should it? God created life just as He created Torah. He doesn't hate life. Many people take the Torah only idea to absurd degrees where they are not even living anymore. This is lunacy. It's cultist.

Torah also doesn't replace mental health, even though if taught correctly, it can help fix it. When an unstable person tries to find get instant Karma sanity in Torah, he often fails. You have to work on mental health issues as health issues. Torah life can give a good framework for healing, but the healing is a separate effort. Studying Gemara does not cure mental illness. It can even worsen it. Derech eretz kadma l'Torah. You have to get your sanity back before all the intense study.

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