Contemporary attention span is now down to a millisecond, so it is no wonder that slogans and buzzwords have taken over our lives. Why bother to think, when a clever slogan can do the thinking for us?

Such is the current battle cry of the anti-chareidi left, “Share the burden,” the slogan du jour of those who have no concept of chareidi life. For them, a life of Torah study and spiritual connection is tantamount to being a slacker, a draft-dodger, one who contributes nothing to the general welfare of the State of Israel.

Here is proof once again that slogans are a soporific for those who find thinking a burden. “Sharing the burden” is a powerful slogan — on the surface — but under simple examination it collapses.

Consider: It is a given that a country — especially a Jewish one — exists on more than material, physical considerations; it rests equally on spiritual matters. And certainly Eretz Yisrael, in its modern flowering as the State of Israel, is dependent on Torah and its teachings as much as on technological and material development.

So if a Jewish state is partly spiritual and partly physical, are not those who do the heavy lifting of the spiritual burden carrying their full share of the load? “Share the burden” cuts both ways, after all. Is the secular community holding up its share of the spiritual burden of this land?

Another popular buzzword deals with the institution of marriage. In the attempt to redefine and ultimately to destroy traditional marriage, the term “equality” has been resurrected. Equality, like “sharing,” has a certain appeal. Since we all believe in equality, two members of the same gender living together should be entitled to all the legal privileges of “marriage” — no different from the treatment the law grants one man and one woman living together. To deny the status of “marriage” in the former case, goes the argument, is to deny them “equality” with a couple consisting of a man and woman. (Such was the argument before the Supreme Court in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. It was rejected by the Court this month — a rejection deplored, predictably, by the liberal Jewish establishment, arguing vacuously that “equality is a Jewish principle.”)

But here, too, the slogan collapses under examination. Marriage is not simply a relationship of any two adults committed to one another; it is much more profound. It goes back to Adam and Eve, about which the Torah says, “A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh” (Bereishis 2:24). Throughout human history, marriage has meant the permanent union of a man and a woman in a full-time lifelong partnership that has as one of its fundamental purposes the creation of new life.

This classic version of marriage is deeply embedded in human nature. Man and woman are equal partners, equally significant, equally crucial. The permanent union of these two different creatures is the fulfillment of the Biblical plan, and is fully congruent with human nature. To insist on recognizing same-gender marriages as equally legitimate is clearly to distort nature, and flies in the face of millennia of human history.

Such distortion, under the spurious banner of “equality,” is part of the multi-pronged assault on traditional morality that marks our times. Traditional morality has boundary lines; the new morality seeks to eliminate all limitations. Under this new morality, the unnatural becomes natural, and the natural is a perversion. (You’re married to the same person of another gender for 20 years? What’s wrong with you?)

This gradual unraveling of traditional morality threatens not only Judaism and Torah, but all of civilization. At its core it is a return to paganism, which was marked by emphasis not on the other, but on the self. In today’s language, it is the question of what my rights are, as opposed to my obligations. And the irony is that same-gender marriages all seek religious ceremonies, even though all major religions condemn this behavior as an abomination. The hedonists reject a major Biblical prohibition, but nevertheless demand a religious umbrella to ensure their legitimacy.

These mindless slogan-assaults on Torah learning and marriage are not disconnected. They are of one cloth: the desire to toss off anything that is not self-indulgent. Torah learning represents selfless devotion to the other; traditional marriage represents selfless devotion to the other.

Slogans are the narcotic of a lazy mind. May we rid ourselves of narcotics and begin to do some clear thinking of our own.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 716)