David and I both went to SUNY Albany, although at different times. We were recently shocked to see that the school made it to the NCAA Tournament and were tied with the number 1 team, Connecticut with 6 minutes to go in round 1. They lost the game but I can now segue into a basketball analogy.
Boxing out is the process by which you try to keep a player out of the action when going for a rebound. There are also many defenses that try to keep the key players out of the action, through a boxing strategy.
There is another type of boxing out that goes on – and that is painting someone with whom you have a difference into as small a corner as possible in order to show the small mindedness of their position. Most people don’t fit into nice boxes, but nonetheless, attempts to box people remain, this is also called labelling and stereotyping.
One of our goals here is to undo this boxing, by trying to understand alternative viewpoints – not necessarily accept them, but at least understand them. I think BTs have the most to benefit from this, as the boxes we are painted into are often the smallest.
When I had first started exploring the vast expanse of Judaism, a relative of my wife expressed her opinion on the tunnelvision of Orthodoxy. She put her hands by her eyes, like blinders. I gently spread them apart and expressed to her that the landscape was indeed very wide. You should have seen her intrigued look as she saw her hands getting further and further apart.
i also went to sunya – just came across the shabbos house website- neat
http://www.shabboshouse.com
“David and I both went to SUNY Albany, although at different times.”
Yeah, Mark’s much older!
This is why I like the posts on this website that share the personal experience of the author. They take us past generalizations and let us hear individual perspectives.
I went to SUNYA also – “one of a million”