re: #25 researchok

Unfortunately, you are describing the behavior, not of a religion, but of a cult. Which means that they are on their own curve. Help equals interference, questions threaten the paradigm, asking others to help fix the problem constitutes an attack on boundaries, etc.

However, in history, these institution wither on their own, as long as there is a newer worldview that is internally stronger. I think the best strategy is for other Jews to look at the Torah in ways that are more internally coherent, that foster greater individual decision making and learning, essentially stressing that each person become the type of person wise enough to live in the civilization described in the Torah. And life will help that process along.

This structure has to be almost anarchic. Individuals are not looking to be told how to think. Synagogues are useful, but not necessary, and personal interactions are more like informal discussions among scientists—

STRINGS
by Carole Bugg
directed by Marvin Kaye

On a train en route to London to attend the play Copenhagen, two English physicists, upper-class cosmologist George and brilliant working-class String theorist Rory, along with George’s American cosmologist wife June, pursue their complex ideas about physics—a conversation that barely masks just-below-the-surface deceit and lies. Old Cambridge University classmates George and Rory dig at one another, with June caught in the middle. Poetry and probability fuel their collisions, as their heroes—Isaac Newton, Max Planck and Marie Curie—intercede with perspective, solace and humor. Excavating layers of jealousy, loss and grief, George, Rory and June finally expose their deepest longings for meaning in a questionably trustworthy universe. This train ride firmly intertwines cool science with the heat of emotional desire and longing. STRINGS is loosely based on the real-life train ride event in which American physicists Burt Ovrut, Paul Steinhardt and English physicist Neil Turok tweaked the Big Bang theory—and changed it forever.

Paul describes this event as showing the way that scientists really think, which is not quite so analytical, but closer to the chase of a butterfly hunt, looking for elusive inspiration.

That train ride is closer to Judaism than listening to the sermon on Shabbos between Shacharis and Mussaf.