Reply To: Who Should be Giving Tochecho to Whom?

DY, I think that I would make only a few generalizations. I do feel, and not only through my experiences in the CR, but in my experiences as part of a diversely frum community my whole life, that the kind of quiet paternalism or prejudice I pointed out in Zeeskite’s and Vochindik’s posts exists throughout the chareidi world, even among the most well meaning.

Though the degree to which abuse and corruption is attitudinally swept under the rug has diminished, I grant you, (paradoxically in large part due to the inability to hide things in the age of the internet), it is still qualitatively and quantitatively distinct from other communities (the raglayim ledovor canard, even for mandated reporters, for example).

I have to distinguish, DY, that I am not clarifying that I am only “attacking” anonymous CR posters, though I did point them out; I am “attacking” a culture of criticism, of comparison and judgementalism. The posters here don’t appear in a vacuum. The were taught by someone somewhere along the line that they are ehrliche and yenem is as close to treif as makes no difference. Whether it was a parent or a rebbe or someone else, the attitude is alive and well, it is seen and heard in many communities around the world well beyond the confines of the CR.

That is where the nature of Tochecho and potential humiliation come in, and where I began by pointing out that even if one believes there is one true kind of genuine observant Judaism, and that single kind is chareidi practice (which i do not believe for a minute is the case), the way in which “tochecho is and has been conveyed is contrary to our sources, and the embarrassment some frum Jews are apparently justified in being subjected to is by almost all accounts tantamount to murder.