“Intellectually curious” my a**
I grew up Conservative and I’m fuming today. Was just talking to someone I grew up with who is on his way to becoming a rabbi. The smugness is off the charts with this guy so I usually avoid him but he was asking about why I no longer consider myself Jewish and I thought I’d try to give him an honest answer. I talked about how our Hebrew school experience was very closed-minded. You had to come up with the right answers (that fit the teacher’s politics…) or else you’d be dismissed and told condescendingly to “keep digging” to arrive at the approved conclusion. Like if I don’t find feminist themes underlying each Torah story, then somehow I’m not “getting” it. I know this sub is mostly ex O but in my experience growing up, the Conservative and Reform communities also have their views that you cannot in any way disagree with and it’s very rigid. One of them is that the Torah is actually this amazing deposit of feminist, queer and inclusive tikkun olam liberalism and that if you don’t see it that way then you’re not reallyyyy understanding Judaism. I found it so aggravating growing up because the Torah is clearly NOT that way at all but they don’t want to hear it.
This guy proceeds to completely disregard what I’m saying and talk about how it’s actually amazing because us Jews are so “intellectually curious” and open and tolerant of other viewpoints. He pointed out that the congregation was majority atheist/agnostic like that somehow proves anything. (For the record, I found that actually insufferable. Like you don’t even believe this stuff is true or valid in any way - not my parents, rabbi, nobody in the community really - and yet you still judge people who don’t follow it the way you do? Insane).
I shot back that actually, if we’re being honest, I learned more about Judaism from a college class on the New Testament than anything else because it actually delved into the time period and the history and theology way more than anything I ever learned all through Hebrew school/Jewish history classes, and I found it fascinating and very informative, which is completely true. He got VERY mad at me for saying that and I felt like that alone proved my point. He isn’t actually “intellectually curious” he just wants to pat himself on the back and feel a sense of unearned superiority and belittle me for not buying his bs. And then when I point out that some of the most interesting historical sources on Jewish theology are Christian, which I find hilarious, he acted like I was suggesting the earth is flat. Insufferable hypocrite.