REPLY
ZionGateParticipant
Keith,
We’re livening in a time where culture, good or bad, is being thrown into the garbage heap.
The progressive mindset , especially in academia and the arts is that great art, great books, great music, values, etc. from the past is mocked and in some cases demonized.
This holds true in the frum world also.
I learned in a frum, though not Chassidic nor strictly yeshivish yeshiva. Like most others, secular subjects were taught in the afternoon; sciences, literature, English, languages , etc. in high school.
Dickens, Shakespeare, poems, sonnets, plays …. and other classics.
All under the aegis of rosh yeshivos, rabbis, with parental approval. We took exams, and the dreaded Regents…. on the very desks where an hour ago, a big Talmud tome has rested . You’re correct in that there’s learning and value in reading history, studying the great classics and other great secular material. Just as smartphones/computers can used be used for negatives, so too can it be used for good.
Some rabbis known as “gedolim” also read theses books, and many more were very familiar with the history and classical music.
We live in an age of revisionism and outright lies masquerading as religion or frum, or whatever you want to call it. The famous Jewish publisher of the Talmud, Chumash, etc, which also publishes bios of rabbis have deliberately omitted this info. They have also refused to publish a RASHBAM in their new Bereishit chumash because of some mealy-mouthed excuse, when it was in fact published for hundreds of years.
There is now Photoshopping, pixelating and erasing photos of women whether they were mothers, wives rebbetzins or just old grandmas in magazines, rags, freebie tabloids, serious articles and individual paintings.
BTW, I’m FFB, and interestingly, a number of people whom I’ve known over the years who were, or came from BT families were in the tank with anti- secular book parade.
( Never let an ex—– smoker drinker, gluten , blintzes eater, drive you nuts) .
There’s good/bad , great/mediocre/…. atheistic/faith … sewage/gold … in everything.
Heck, you can see spirituality even in a baseball game when you set your mind to it.
Speaking of 1984 ,it’s almost here, in more than one way.
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You could not have said it any better. Thank you for not mincing words like so many commentators tend to do here.
Btw huckleberry finn was one of the most common book read in many frum high school’s in america during the 70’s and 80’s
And so was romeo and juliet. Then came the extremists and dictated to start using artscroll in high schools. V’hamavin yavin. $$$$
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