The way the Jewish law works is that thousands of years ago the Sages wrote the rules. The scholars continued to decipher and pour over their teachings throughout the generations, and we have a set of detailed laws to live by.

My question: how does it make sense to dictate the same rules to millions of people? Each person is so different in personality, temperament and so on.

These are some of the laws and the messages they are meant to teach: The message of Shabbat is to pause every week and introspect on what life is about. The message of blessings over food is gratitude, and understanding that we are dependent on the graciousness of God for everything we have. The message of modesty is to understand one's own worth and therefore show why we value and respect our bodies. These are foundational messages that should be incorporated into raising our children. The issue is that one child will learn the message of introspection, gratitude and modesty through these laws, and some children with different personalities will feel inhibited, restricted and oppressed. In our community today we perceive children who do not learn the standard way as "at risk," or problem children. Instead of dictating how you want them to go about learning a concept, aka micromanaging, give over the message by nurturing them, by modeling the behaviors you want them to learn, teaching them about the concepts; encouraging --not forcing them-- to incorporate the message into their own lives. SHOW them how it's done. Show them you believe they are capable of finding what it is that specifically brings them the love, positivity, mental health and joy in life. They are simply children who need to be taught in a different way or they will not learn the real message of God, the Torah, life. This saddens and angers me because it is a great disservice to our children, and the name of God. I understand the religion emphasizing on the concepts of love, modesty, confidence, positivity, spirituality et cetera. But to tell each human, so different in how their minds work, so different in temperament and nature— how to tie your shoes, how to eat food, how to wash your hands…? It is bound to fail for at least half the people. Another aspect is that the bible talks about people who stand out as confident, zealots who fight the powers that be for themselves and the people. The (Brooklyn) Jewish Orthodox society today conditions us to get in line and follow the leader. It makes it extremely difficult to search for yourself in your own unique way and still be fully accepted in the community. An example of that would be the matchmaking system, in which closely analyzing the person and his or her family to a shallow extent is common. Another would be the schools that put aot of pressure on appearance rather than the nurturing of each of their students. I was brought up with rules at every corner, conditioning my own independent nature to lay low and to be ashamed of it, because I was expected to follow what everybody else was doing. In addition, I was not encouraged to fully explore my passions and talents and, as an Orthodox girl I was limited (for example girls shouldn’t sing in front of men.) My family, school and community told me that G-d gave us the Torah, and that the Torah was written cryptically to leave things to interpretation. They said the sages wrote the laws for generations and that they were privy to prophecy and godly knowledge; therefore they know better than us and

we must listen to the rules they lay out for us.

I think about this now, as an adult, trying to distance myself from the community to learn about myself and the world through more objective lenses. I am now free to wonder: what was so great about the people of the past? It seems to me that because they lived so long ago we can romanticize them, put them up on pedestals; say they knew better, and that they knew what we needed in every generation. In my mind to be a great human being is to unlock the potential that you have in all areas. For example, your potential to love, to be compassionate, to be empathetic, to be musical, artistic; to utilize your talents to make this world a better place. Assuming this is the criteria for a great person, those in previous generations and we who live now have the same ability to be successful and great. Therefore why is it fair that we romanticize the past generation and tell ourselves we don't we don't compare to them? I do not think it is stressed enough that they can make mistakes. For example I learned in school about actions the ancestors took that is completely forbidden to us now, for example having sex out of wedlock. For some reason it is looked over and we say they didn't sin. For some reason their doing a sin is different than our doing a sin because they did it for a reason, or maybe they did it for the sake of God, so it's a different level sinning than us. If there is one thing I have learned it is that the human condition does not discriminate. Meaning that no matter what somebody looks like whether they are man, woman, young, old, of different nationalities...we all have the same basic human needs, feelings and tendencies. For example, we all want to be successful, we all have families with all sorts of issues, we all need love and kindness, we all enjoy pleasure et cetera. Because I did not understand this while I was still in school, I believed every word. At this point though, I don't

see how it makes sense for me to believe that the people of previous generations were better, and looking at history, it's obviously just not true. People have a brutal side to them and it came out plenty in previous generations, i.e. Wars, massacres, abductions, pillaging, the Crusades Etc. Even within the Jewish world there was brutality and cruelty, just as there is today. This is not surprising when we understand that the only criteria for the human condition is to be human. I think that looking at history is a good way to realize that whether they lived back then or in this generation people Are People. And people make mistakes and people don't know everything and people especially cannot dictate what millions of people should do not just in their day but for thousands of years to come. Sometimes it happens that people who have not learned the talmud in depth do not fully understand what it is the rabbis were telling us, rather they only see how it is today's generation interprets the laws. I understand and respect that and perhaps one day I will look up my questions. Even so what today's generation and generations past have gone through because of the status quo is terrible and painful. So today I realized two things, number one just because they lived in previous generations does not make them special and number two the notion of

dictating such detailed rules to millions of people cannot makes sense because of the fact that each person's temperament and way of learning and personality is different.

Photo creds @nechamaphotography