Follow Up - A Strange Princeton Reunion

Recently I met my Haredi fellow alumnus of Princeton in a modest coffee shop on the fringes of the Haredi neighborhoods of Jerusalem, and we had a lively conversation for an hour or so. He is clearly a highly intelligent man, well educated in secular studies and fully a master of rabbinical literature. He is also very open about himself and has not shut himself off from the world beyond his own extremely religious community. I enjoyed meeting him and talking with him, and I felt that despite the huge gap between our world views, we could be friends.
I doubt that anyone who had known either of us while we were students at Princeton (he graduated high school the year that I graduated college, so we were never there at the same time) could have predicted that either of us we would end up living in Israel and getting seriously involved in Judaism. People's paths in life are unpredictable, which gives us a feeling that what happens to us is not inevitable, but I find myself more and more believing in fate: that which happens in the world had to happen.
You can find out more about the man by reading his blog.
My wife and I, although we took up a fairly orthodox life style after we moved Israel, were never tempted to go the Haredi route, even though she is related to a huge clan of Hasidic Jews. Why would one be drawn in that direction?

• Belief: God chose the Jews and told them how to behave, and the Haredim have it right.
• Conviction that Haredi Judaism is the only authentic Judaism.
  
• Admiration for Haredi teachers and leaders: the desire to emulate them.
• The desire to live a sanctified life.
  
• Alienation from earlier life interests.
  
• Intellectual interest: the Talmud is fascinating, and if you're a studious person, it's easy to become immersed in Talmud study, especially because it's sanctioned by your community.

But we were always put off by the restrictions that Haredim take upon themselves, by loyalty to values that conflict with Haredi values.

Dialogue of the Deaf

A Web-Based Dialogue
One of the Internet social networks got me connected with a fellow alumnus of Princeton who has become an ultra-orthodox rabbi. Here's part of our dialogue:

I mentioned to him:
I got "religious" for a while too (I'm not sure why you put it in quotes) - but I'm getting more and more turned off by orthodox Judaism - though we still attend shabbat services and keep kosher and stuff -

He responded:
Well, I know why I put religious in quotation marks. It's because I really hadn't become all that religious at the time. Since then, I've gone the whole way, meaning that I am a twice ordained ultra-orthodox rabbi. Probably, if you have any issues with orthodox Judaism, it's because of the orthodox Jews. Religious life is dreadfully politicized in this country.

I answered:
I respect your decision to go all the way with Judaism, but I couldn't do it. I tried. I lived in a very orthoprax way for a long time, but in the end, it isn't because of orthodox Jews that I'm turning away from orthodoxy (though I have to admit that they are a strong factor in my emotional attitudes toward orthodoxy) but because I have never subscribed to the theological beliefs that underlie halakhah.

He replied:
I am, of course, curious as to what you meant by "because I have never subscribed to the theological beliefs that underlie halakhah." What are they?

My answer to him was:

I think you're pretending to naive. Wouldn't you say that unless one subscribes to a list of beliefs something like the following, there is no good reason - beyond individual existential choice, a kind of absurd assertion - to observe the Halakhah?

1- there is a God
2 - that God chose Abraham and his progeny
3- that God delivered the Israelites from Egypt, revealed Himself on Mount Sinai, and entered into a covenant with them, demanding that they keep a set of laws, which He dictated.
4- there is an unbroken chain of tradition from Mount Sinai to the present, by virtue of which rabbis interpret the Halakhah authoritatively.
Aren't there also a lot of other beliefs about the connection between reward and punishment in the world to come and observance of the commandments in this world?

His reply, which, I think, has put an end to the conversation was:
Of course, but I never imagined that you had an issue with that part.

The moral:
I can imagine (sort of) what it would be to subscribe to the beliefs I outlined, but he can't (or perhaps can no longer) imagine what it would be like not to subscribe to those beliefs. Religion may not close the mind, but sometimes it fills it up so completely that there's no room there for anything else.