September, 2015
To our members and friends, I hope you are all well.
As the New Year approaches, we have a robust new season of Institute programs in store. This report will give an overview, and upcoming reports will announce more specifics as the dates get closer.
When we moved to Israel 30 years ago we sacrificed a number of things: living space (we exchanged a two-story home on a large plot of land for an apartment in a 10-story building) and the excellent, affordable, and personal medical care to which middle-class Americans had then grown accustomed. We also lost Sundays as days off.
What we gained made this all worthwhile: a sense of purpose, a sense of being part of something important that was bigger than ourselves, and, we thought, the opportunity finally to be part of the mainstream.
An Orthodox colleague recently created a controversy after writing a blog post explaining why he no longer recites the blessing shelo asani isha - thanking God for not creating him as a woman. Several Orthodox rabbis criticized this position for various reasons with one even questioning the author's right to call himself "Orthodox," ostensibly for deviating from the traditional liturgy through his omission. In the grand scheme of Orthodox Jewish history this rabbi's personal choice is relatively trivial.
When Rabbi Marc Angel asked me to write an article for this issue of Conversations, an issue dedicated to a consideration of Orthodoxy and the State of Israel, I saw both challenge and opportunity.1
A Ladder upon the Earth, Whose Top Reaches the Heavens[1]
I had the honor of spending the weekend of March 16-18, 2012 with the community of Amsterdam’s famous Portuguese Synagogue, Talmud Torah. I was invited to install their new Haham, Dayyan Pinchas Toledano. The Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam is the “mother” Congregation of my own Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of New York City, founded in 1654. Our two Congregations share over 350 years of historical association and both maintain the Western Sephardic minhag. The installation of Haham Toledano underscored the historic connection of our Congregations, as well as the long-standing personal respect and friendship which Haham Toledano and I have shared over the years.
I.
The topic of kol ishah, the halakhic prohibition on men from listening to a woman's singing voice, is obviously a matter of concern for religiously observant Jews. Yet, there are various interpretations as to what exactly constitutes the prohibition. The present essay aims to clarify the prohibition, demonstrating that it is far less restrictive than is commonly believed.
Urim and Tumim
We live in times when the demands on intellectual conformity are increasing to the point where to challenge is to offend and to think in an unusual way is to court charges of heresy. This article is an invented midrash that presents uncertainty in a positive rather than a negative light.