Orthodoxy’s Claims
This book focuses on Orthodoxy, and only Orthodoxy. It’s not concerned with the wider questions of the truth of (non-Orthodox) Judaism, the validity of wider religious claims, or the existence of God. Each chapter explores a claim or sub-claim(s) that frum people make about Orthodoxy. Each of the claims is essentially an argument for why one should be frum, and as we’ll see, each is incorrect.
None of the things discussed in this book are knock-out arguments. They’re not if-then arguments that show that if X is incorrect, then frumkeit is definitely wrong. They’re things that, if true, make it more likely that Orthodoxy is true, and if not, make it less likely that it’s true.
To help decide on a list of claims to address, I informally polled a wide range of people who had grown up in various Orthodox communities. The claims included in this book are those that people from across the Orthodox spectrum recognized as widespread beliefs in the Orthodox communities which they are currently or had once been a part of. The only caveat is that while respondents from Modern Orthodox communities confirmed that these ideas were current in their circles, some of them are less foundational or taken less literally than they might be in Yeshivish or Chassidish communities.
The following are the claims that we’ll be examining. Keep in mind that these are claims relevant to Orthodoxy qua Orthodoxy. They are claims that if found to be false may cause someone to decide that Orthodoxy per se is not true. We won’t be looking at Orthodox claims that have wider relevance, such as claims about the Torah (relevant to all versions of Judaism) or claims about God (relevant to all theistic religions).
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