I have proof that the frum Jews of yore were smarter than they are today, of course my proof is faulty, because things were different back then. Back then, there was no internet or secular society to pollute the minds of young people, to beckon them to go off the derech, to tell them to do what they wanted. All they had was talmud, walks in the Russian forests where they met the ghosts of Chassidic rebbes and the prospect of taking over their fathers shoe cobbler business.
So what happened then that allowed me to believe that as a whole the frum Jews were smarter than they are today? Was it the little known fact that every single kid religious or not knew the entire Talmud with all its commentaries by heart by the age of 14 and in order to be considered the Illui of some town you had to know all of shas and the commentaries and kaballah by the age of 8, but in order to really qualify your father had to be dirt poor and your mother had to be an eishes chayil (definition: never left the kitchen, even though all they had were potato peels because they trust the local butcher and time spent in the kitchen with just potato peels remember they didn’t have mishpacha magazine, binah or Z’manback then – was quite boring)
Was it that the yeshivas were filled with tons of these illui’s that they had to constantly open new one’s and that everyone was so poor but still sent their kids to yeshivas and every shoe cobbler, tailor and carpenter knew all of shas and regularly communicated with the Kotzker Rebbe while they traveled through the pale to inns to tell the rebbe that the cosacks were coming to arrest him – but don’t worry – we won’t say tachnun on that day.
Nope, none of these reasons are why I think orthodox Jewry has taken a plunge out of heaven to the fiery pits of rampant porn downloads, illegal daf yomi shurim on their heretical smart phones, the smuggling in of internet to the home for “business” purposes, women wanting to leave the kitchen and lain at the kotel, men wanting to earn a living and eat more than potato peels, children wanting to fasten their kipot to their heads because of the global warming induced wind storms that wreak havoc on frum communities of which has been blamed on the acceptance of gays by a society which isn’t far from accepting the marriage of humans and their domestic pets.
The elders believe that like “global warming” Judaism is a natural cycle, a downward trend that started right after the grass and flowers died on Mt. Sinai. After all, we are farther from the mesorah, so we don’t know as much and we cannot rely on the firsthand experience of our grandparents who remember exactly what Moses was wearing when he came down from the Mountain and saw everyone tripping on the wild mushrooms that God had planted there, there is a theory that Moshe Rabeinu himself was tripping when he dreamed up the golden calf orgy thing and the only reason the women didn’t take part in it was because the mechitzah was too high. They were that frum!
My proof is in the tayvas, the desires were for knowledge which the shtetl didn’t supply. Every book about the shtetl I read is about how the evil Maskilim tried to steal away the learned buchrim by providing knowledge of the outside world, but it wasn’t frivolous knowledge, it was art and literature and philosophy and psychology. It just so happens to be that I know a lot of folks who are lured off the derech for those very things, but it’s not the majority. Is it possible that we are just dumber than they used to be, or that the lure of Television is much higher than that of a book.
Sure society has degenerated to the point where people don’t understand the beauty of getting a hand written letter in the mail, finding a tattered first edition book with an inscription dated 1868 inside the back cover or watching a concert without writing tweets about it, but people are still searching for knowledge aren’t they?
It just seems that the folks going off the derech are getting dumber, it’s my opinion of course and it’s faulty I admit it. It just seems that back in the day, they went off the derech after actually learning everything and figuring out that it didn’t make sense intellectually and it doesn’t – but I enjoy being religious so I carry on with rolling out of bed at ungodly hours to don leather straps on my head that may look like some sort of early BDSM thing to outsiders, especially if they show up during a chabad erev yom kippur malkus session.
So were frum Jews of the shtetl smarter than today’s?
Or am I just comparing pears to quinces?
yudes October 30, 2010 at 8:58 pm
first!!!
Bubba Metzia October 30, 2010 at 9:13 pm
What’s the point of having the first comment if you aren’t going to say anything constructive? I’ve been seeing a lot of comments like this lately and it’s starting to get annoying.
ari October 31, 2010 at 10:10 am
dont be a dick
ari October 31, 2010 at 10:10 am
dont be a jerk
Dave October 31, 2010 at 10:47 am
case in point
Julie October 30, 2010 at 9:19 pm
I’m pretty sure there’s little difference, except these days you have higher literacy rates and the internet so you can quickly figure out how much fideism is a crock and to fact-check the things people in positions of authority say.
Friar Yid October 31, 2010 at 11:55 am
it wasn’t frivolous knowledge, it was art and literature and philosophy and psychology. It just so happens to be that I know a lot of folks who are lured off the derech for those very things, but it’s not the majority. Is it possible that we are just dumber than they used to be, or that the lure of Television is much higher than that of a book.
First point: You have to remember that the most famous OTDers tended to be the intellectuals, and specifically the males. The Singer brothers, Sholem Aleichem, Ab. Cahan, Ahad Ha’am, all these yeshiva bochurs were raised in very intellectual environments,were attracted by other ideas and values, and made the transition into being “enlightened” writers and thinkers. BUT the reason we know so much about them is that they became well-known and wrote things down and/or got written about. We don’t know that much about the motivations of really poor OTDers, or women, for instance, because they weren’t writing books or newspapers. They don’t have biographies for us to look through. We have one slice of the story, and while the popular narrative certainly plays up the fact that those smarty-pants intellectuals tended to leave the shtetl, that doesn’t mean that they were the only ones having doubts. (Just look at the popularity of the Jewish Bund in the Pale O’Settlement, or the big dip in observance levels among American immigrants.)
Second point: I think to a large degree, despite the best efforts of the blackest of black-hatters, the ripples of the Enlightenment have penetrated into everything, including large swaths of OJs. While they may need to hide the fact that they use treyf technology or read treyf books, one need not necessarily make a total break in order to have some contact with the outside world. This wasn’t always possible 100-150 years ago. Education and the needs of modern economies have also meant that large sectors of the frum world have had to include some practical elements to their curriculum.
So no, I don’t think it’s that OTD folks are getting dumber; I think it’s that everyone (frummies included) have become more educated (relative to 150 years ago), but that’s s because the Enlightenment ideas have saturated into everything. That’s not to say there isn’t plenty about contemporary culture that’s dumb, of course. But it’s all informed by the openness of the Enlightenment.
Bubba Metzia October 30, 2010 at 9:29 pm
There’s a very romanticized view of shtetl life that’s far from reality. There were smart people and not so smart people just as there are now. Although a big difference is that back then when there were people that excelled academically there weren’t these inefficient bureaucracies that deter those high achievers like that 14 year old prodigy in Israel who the rabbinate wont grade his entrance exams because of age requirements. Also, back in the shtetl most of the people who stayed on to study in the kollels were the top learners instead of nowadays where in addition to the top learners there are a lot of people in kollels who just aren’t cut out for it.
kiddush bouncer October 31, 2010 at 1:07 am
why do you wake up early and don leather straps if you just complain about it. sleep in and be who you really want to be, you don’t get schar if you show you don’t really want to do it.
Heshy Fried October 31, 2010 at 1:15 am
I can complain all I want, I’m Jewish – I don’t do it for the schar, I do it because God told me to – the rewards and demerits thing is so screwed up I can’t even tell you.
Like when people do something because it’s a kiddush Hashem and not because it’s the right thing and my complaining is more like trying to be funny by exaggerating everyday frustrations I and almost everyone I know has.
Orthoebonyjewess November 1, 2010 at 11:03 am
Tell him, Heshy!
FrumNudist October 31, 2010 at 1:55 am
I’d guess frum Jews of yore had more geniuses because they had a bigger pool to choose from. 200 years ago, all those Jews who today are among the world’s leading mathematicians, scientists, and engineers would have entered Vlozhin at 14 instead of starting MIT then. Then, at 22, one Friday night 90% of them could have gone outside and smoked a cigarette. Instead of today where 10% get AISHed.
Possibly the percentage of frum geniuses from the total frum population should be about the same now, unless those who went off the D in previous generations were disproportionately from the right side of the bell curve.
Avrumy October 31, 2010 at 2:00 pm
A frum nudist. I like that idea!
Anonymous October 31, 2010 at 4:19 am
maybe non-jewish society used to be smarter. they used to have literature and philosophy now they don’t, they have internet and the jersey shore. frummies still have torah and god. but if they had the internet and the jersey shore 1000s of years ago there would been no shtetl, they would all been at the beach! I <3 the beach
Anonymous October 31, 2010 at 4:49 am
The “fact” that prior generations were populated with geniuses is, in fact, an unsubstantiated myth. The ridiculous notion that some fundamental change in our brain wiring has occurred in under a century is laughable. The proliferation of this hoax in Jewish society comes as a result of the romanticization of pre-War Jewish society.
Look at the elite of the Yeshiva world today. I suspect that those of them who abandon Judaism do so in the quest of knowledge and intellectual fulfillment. Conversely, do you really believe that the majority of pre-War Jews were religious, or held academics in high esteem? I’m almost certain that most of those who abandoned religion in the Haskalah movement did not do so for any lofty philosophical reasons.
If you are looking for illui’s, go to Israel. There are institutions there with students whose mastery of Gemara and Shas would astound you. If you are looking for academics, go to large universities, and you will see them populated by disproportionately many Jewish students and professors.
People and society don’t change.
Anonymous October 31, 2010 at 5:40 am
“an unsubstantiated myth”
ACTUALLY our brains are wired differently caused by the invention of the printing press. Previous generations were forced to memorise everything, then with printing they were able to store knowledge in books not in their brain. now we can easily look on google copy &paste. In the shtetl they had scrolls but not many and not photocopies for everybody.
Oral or pre-literate societies are not absolutely smarter than us but they are smart in a different way. Their way of smartness is irrelevant to our society as our way is to their society.
Anonymous November 1, 2010 at 1:37 am
I’m not sure which definition of “smart” you are using. “Smartness” is the ability to comprehend, not how well you have trained your mind to memorize. Having knowledge at our fingertips does not make us less intelligent. Technology allows us to devote our intelligence to other concerns.
One can say that two people are “smart, but in different ways” if one is stronger in deductive thinking, and the other in inductive reasoning, for example. But society as a whole has not developed or lost any natural capabilities. You’ll find the full spectrum of reasoning talent today as you would centuries ago. A difference of subject is not one of genetics.
Realistically Speaking October 31, 2010 at 9:30 am
The same could be said about every society and cultural group. It seems like we all have dumbed down across the board. People had to rely on themselves to survive. They had to independently develop the skills and knowledge to advance whereas we have groups that allow opportunities for the more disenfranchised.Nowadays, a lot of people have the incentive to earn things on their merits.They can get ahead in society based on their racial classifications and titles. Students are given less homework and tests than they used to. The academic standards are lower.The literacy rate has significantly plummeted.Education doesn’t seemed to be valued as much. People spend more time watching TV and being online than they do reading books. We tend to focus on doing as little as we can instead of thinking of strategic ways we can accomplish our goals. Selfishness does attribute to the rampant stupidity and ineptitude in people.Our overly sensitivities has gotten the better of us. So yes I do sadly agree that people of yesteryears were smarter than their descendants of today.
G*3 October 31, 2010 at 1:17 pm
People aren’t dumber than they used to be. The world has gotten more intellectual. We’ve moved from an agrarian and industrial economy to a service economy. The amount of information available has exploded, and the amount of education needed to practice in a given field keeps increasing. In the 1800s one could become a teacher with a highschool diploma, and most people never finished elementary school. Now you need a masters to be a teacher and nearly everyone finishes high school.
The average person today probably knows much more than the average person a hundred years ago, but the gap between the specialist and the layman has widened.
OfftheDwannaB November 1, 2010 at 5:09 am
I’m sorry but your theories for the “dumbing down” are just ridiculous.
“They can get ahead in society based on their racial classifications and titles.”
You’ve given a possible reason for 10% of the population. Excellent.
“Students are given less homework and tests than they used to. ”
False.
“The academic standards are lower.”
False.
“The literacy rate has significantly plummeted.”
False.
“Education doesn’t seemed to be valued as much.”
Pure conjecture. As much as when?
“People spend more time watching TV and being online than they do reading books.”
Finally, a fact. People almost definitely spend more time watching TV and being online than before those things were invented.
“We tend to focus on doing as little as we can instead of thinking of strategic ways we can accomplish our goals. Selfishness does attribute to the rampant stupidity and ineptitude in people. Our overly sensitivities has gotten the better of us. ”
WTF is this? Do you run a self-help group or something?
The people of “yesteryears” may be smarter than today, especially if we’re comparing them with you.
Azraa October 31, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Well as an off-the-derech Jew myself, I can tell you that my transition away from Judaism WAS because of intellectual thought, philosophy, and thinking
I’m also a woman so go figure. Maybe I’m in the minority here but then again I’m used to that.
Dovybear October 31, 2010 at 2:56 pm
And as an on-the-derech Jew, I can tell you that my staying on it WAS because of intellectual thought, philosophy and thinking.
I’m also a man, so go figure. Maybe I’m in the minority here, but then again, I’m used to that.
;-p
OfftheDwannaB October 31, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Dovybear, I just read an article that was very disturbing to me. I’d like your opinion on it, if you get the chance.
http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/eln08_childrearing.html
It makes the Torah seem dated (a period piece, if you will), and not very helpful in establishing a good, let alone perfect society by doing nothing to curtail child abuse.
The most damning part of the article is that it actually makes sense of ancient civilizations.
Chris_B November 4, 2010 at 8:45 am
Thats odd, I became a Jew because of intellectual thought, philosophy and thinking…
OfftheDwannaB October 31, 2010 at 9:35 pm
When I was a kid, there was an old, nonreligious guy who used to daven in our shul on shabbos. He asked me one time what I was learning. I said Baba Basra. He asked where. I said the amud (or thereabout, I wasn’t so on top of the learning). Then he goes, “Oh, this-and-this sugya. Did you learn the machlokes of such-and-such achronim?” (The answer was no, btw.)
Turns out, he’d learned in Brisk as a kid by the Brisker Rav till he was 14, when the Holocaust put a damper on things. I don’t know if he was a genuine illuy, but I’ll tell you one thing, you don’t see sh*t like that in America.
Yankel November 1, 2010 at 1:56 am
I just opened a sefer yesterday, the author wrote it when he was 12.
It is one of the most difficult areas of study, Mikvaos.
He was 12 and he wrote a sefer which poskim use today to better understand what the later commentaries on Mikvaos understood, and he was a hardly know chassidish Rebbe.
Even a genius cannot do that.
He wasn’t the only one, I just happened to see that sefer and it reminded me of the thread.
If the world wasn’t a completely different
place back then, we are stuck with no explanation.
OfftheDwannaB November 1, 2010 at 4:53 am
1st What was his name?
2nd A genius can do that. I don’t know if you’ve ever met a real illuy, but they make you feel like you have the intelligence of a monkey. (Unfortunately, a couple of my relatives are bona fide geniuses. It’s not fun for my ego.) So when you say the world was different back then because of our lower intelligence, that’s just untrue. I think that when there was only one thing to learn, and it was highly respected, people were naturally solely devoted to it, and even averagely smart guys seem like geniuses to us.
If a genius kid today had no other interests or distractions, he’d be just as smart. I’m certain my cousin could write that sefer if he was only involved in that. As it is, he memorized biology textbooks, the dictionary, etc.. by the time he was 5. He just wasn’t so interested in learning Judaic things.
Schwartzie November 1, 2010 at 1:53 pm
See- that’s the thing. The evils of distractions like video games, internet, TV and movies are multifaceted. They discourage people from reading, shorten attention span, and perpetuate an exponentially hedonistic value system. Oh, and text messaging.
Not that society wasn’t hedonistic back in the day, but it was good, old fashioned hedonism, where besides for eating and drinking and screwing, artistic and intellectual cravings were next on the list to be filled. I don’t think that people’s brains got weaker, but we certainly don’t give them as much exercise as people used to. Instead of having an orgy and then going to check out the new Chagall, today’s ba’alei teiva only pick their asses up from the couch to nuke a hot pocket. Cuz they’re watching their shows.
Yankel November 1, 2010 at 3:55 pm
It was “Chibur L’Tahara” by R’ Mordechai Twersky, who later became the Rebbe of Cherkassy.
Really, beyond real.
He started when he was 12 and finished at 15. The dates of print are all there.
And he lived not too long ago. Niftar in 1903.
WoeToUs November 1, 2010 at 10:35 pm
We know of a concept of “niskatnu hadoros”, meaning that the general populous has gotten dumber and mentally weaker than before. This is why you can’t compare moshe and aaron to rabban gamliel, or rabban gamliel to rashi, or rashi to r’ akiva eiger, or r’ akiva eiger to the chofetz chaim. simply put-one dumbass in a generation taught his kids his dumbassedness,, and the amounts or idiots grew over time. all the tzaddikim either died or had kids go off the derech. it’s not brain surgery.