National Scholar Updates

I can trace the seeds of my abiding interest in the intersection of Jewish/Israeli and Arab culture to two specific events that occurred while I was a high school student on a kibbutz in the eastern Galilee. The first took place when the group of American high school juniors of which I was a part travelled to the nearby Arab town of Daburiyya, at the foot of Mt. Tabor. We met Arab Israeli youth of our age in their classroom, where we bashfully introduced ourselves to each other. From there, our hosts took us to their homes where we were graciously hosted. I also recall our playing soccer on a field of dirt and stones as our Arab peers patiently indulged our feeble footballing skills. Given our total lack of Arabic skills and our fairly basic knowledge of Hebrew, along with the Arab students correspondingly basic level of English, our ability to communicate verbally was minimal, but we felt welcomed and warmed by the exchanges of good will.

Returning to the kibbutz, I was perplexed by the fact that my Israeli peers had no contact and seemingly no interest in the Arab villagers who lived nearby. When I asked my kibbutz family about this, they told me that in the old days things had been different; that they had known and been on good terms with people in the neighboring Arab village of Kafr Misr, and there would be exchanges of visits often around holiday or wedding celebrations, but now the only contact that seemed to exist was that between employer and employed (on kibbutz!), with the Arabs performing the menial or difficult labor that the kibbutzniks preferred to avoid. When we invited the Palestinian youths for a return visit to us on the kibbutz high school, the kibbutz kids all kept their distance and couldn’t understand why we would be interested in making friendships with Arab children.

The second event took place during my senior year, after I had decided to remain in Israel and was invited to join the kibbutz class of my age. As a gift for his parents, my kibbutz brother wanted to construct a rock garden in front of their home. Without receiving much in the way of explanation, I helped hitch up a trailer to a tractor and we rode a couple of kilometers into the kibbutz fields. On the top of a small rise surrounded by gorgeous views of the eastern Galilee, Mt. Tabor, we came upon piles of black stone blocks of basalt; in a few places, parts of walls still stood in place on their foundations, while on some stones there were white markings. Nir explained to me that these were the ruins of the Arab village of Tira, whose inhabitants had fled during the ‘48 War.

Subsequent to their departure, the IDF had razed the buildings to prevent infiltrators from using them, and the white initials I had noticed dated from this destruction. We loaded up the trailer with the hewn blocks, brought them to my kibbutz parents’ home, and built low retaining walls to form flower beds in the front yard.

But the thought of those stones and the homes of which they were built did not leave me: What had the homes looked like? When were they built? Who lived there? Why did they leave? Had they been expelled? Had they fled? How many lost their homes? Where did they go? Why did they never return? Why did the IDF have to destroy the village?

Were there other villages like this? Did the presence of these stones pose any moral quandary for the kibbutzninkim? Was the Jewish presence on this land somehow immoral or illegitimate? These questions troubled me and have continued to do so down to the present, and the images I carry in my mind of the stones both in the fields and transplanted to the kibbutz where they became a decorative garden element retains for me iconic and metaphoric significance.

In what follows, I will provide an example of a pedagogical and scholarly journey by which one person, an American Jew with strong commitments to Jewish tradition and the Jewish state, has searched for small ways to break down walls and build bridges between Arabs and Jews, despite a long and often painful history of disparate and conflicting political and religious identities. My worldview is one indubitably shaped by my own upbringing, my family of origin, my friends, my identity as an American with an abiding sense that “all people are created equal,” and the privileges I have enjoyed from a lifetime in academia that provide me the opportunity and freedom to think, teach and write about these issues in a university setting. I have no illusions that what I have done has had any major tangible impact. I do not actively advocate for rapprochement between Jews and Arabs via institutional involvement or through community organizations but I and others like me attempt through our teaching and research to expose others to examples of the human side of those with whom they may fear or hate, yet whose image is shaped to a large extent by stereotypes and prejudices inculcated by our families, our communities, and the media.

I.
I am a professor at a very large, Midwestern state university, where I serve as core faculty in both the Jewish Studies and Muslim Studies programs, an unusual arrangement in American academia. Among the repertoire of courses I regularly teach is one on Israeli culture and society. This course, enrolling approximately fifty undergraduate students, is one of a limited number through which students may fulfill their humanities breadth requirement. Most faculty at my university assiduously avoid teaching these courses as they have relatively large caps on enrollment, but, more significantly, the students, obliged to take these courses to complete graduation requirements, are mostly unmotivated. Indeed, while some of the students who enroll in my course may have some interest in learning about Israel, many of the students register based primarily on the course’s fit with their schedule. While I am thus compelled to “sell” the students on the topic, I personally enjoy teaching these courses for the opportunity they offer to expose students from a broad spectrum of majors to matters of wide societal import and have them engage with texts in a critical fashion. While among the students signing up for the course is a contingent of Jewish students who have some knowledge of Israel, may have visited on a Birthright trip, or learned a sanitized version of Israeli history from day school or after-school synagogue education, the bulk of the students are of non-Jewish background, and for them, this is the first encounter with Israel beyond that provided by the mainstream communications media. Typically, I am also fortunate to have a small number of American students of Middle Eastern descent, primarily Muslims and Chaldeans, as well as international students, often from the Gulf.

The course is divided into three units: in the first, “An Old-New Nation” (playing off the title of Herzl’s 1902 utopian novel, Altneuland), we establish a theoretical framework through which we structure our investigations: collective memory and (re )constructions of the past. During this part of the course I also provide a basic overview of Jewish history so that students may understand the bonds that connect Jews to each other, to their languages and cultures, and to their land; however, the core of this unit is comprised of the rise of the Zionist movement in its European context and the foundation of the State, and we explore such topics as the Haskalah, emancipation, anti-Semitism, the notion of the New Jew (and its corollary, “the negation of the Diaspora”), the Old Yishuv, waves of aliyah, the revival of Hebrew, etc. In the second unit, “The Dream and the Reality,” we compare the utopian Zionism vision with its actual implementation. Here, we examine the centrifugal tensions within Israel along religious, ethnic, national, and gender lines and why, in spite of these, the society is somehow able to cohere and thrive. In the final unit, ‘Growing Up in Israel/Israel Growing Up,” the students connect their life experiences with those of youth from a variety of Israeli communities and consider what is different about childhood and young adulthood in Israel. We also consider the creative dynamism of its people and economy, the challenges and contributions of recent influxes of immigrants, and the costs of the ongoing violence. We conclude our survey by looking at the ways in which the Zionist revolution is still working itself out, including the revisionist history of its foundations and the shift from a mobilized collectivist society to a more individualistic one.

Given the diverse population of students, the course goals vary for each of the groups involved, but writ large, I see my role as complicating their understanding of Israel. For the majority of students, those who have little or no background, I seek to provide some awareness of the causes that led up to the push for a Jewish state and some insight into the complexities of the society as it exists today. For those Jewish students with some knowledge of Israel, I want to challenge their often simplistic and sometimes chauvinistic notions of the contours of the society. For students of Middle Eastern background, I seek to gain their trust and, by my example, get them to think openly about a country and society that for many of them has primarily negative associations. I make it clear from the outset that all questions are encouraged, nothing is out-of-bounds, and I encourage the students to think critically and “outside the box.” All the students are interested in understanding current events and making some sense of the scenes of violence that emanate from the Middle East as a whole and from Israel in particular, and we of course deal with these issues; but I try to provide a nuanced introduction to Israeli society that takes into account the history and modes of identity that underlie these conflicts. The major work for the course consists of the compiling of a response journal in which students are asked to engage a diverse range of texts—written and filmic—in a critical fashion. The approach is one that views the country as a social laboratory and a work in progress, one in which we have the unique opportunity to observe a revolutionary movement that in large part accomplished its goals: reestablishing Jewish sovereignty, gathering in exiles, and creating a vibrant culture. I believe this openness to critical approaches to Israeli history and the injustices and tragedies that necessarily accompanied a revolutionary movement encourages the students to think critically about their own assumptions. I am particularly gratified by the fact that among the students who seem to get the most from the course are the Arab and Muslim students, who appreciate the openness with which I treat the Arab-Israeli conflict and the tragedy of the Palestinian people.

I also teach a course on the Judaism, Christianity, and Islam that focuses on the similarities and contrasts between the three monotheistic traditions that arose in the Near East. Again, this is a humanities breadth requirement course with similar enrollments in terms of number and ethnic background. After introducing the students to the tools of comparative religion, we examine the basic history and central tenets of each of the three faiths, and then proceed over the remainder of the course to examine each in conjunction within the frameworks of sacred text, sacred beings, sacred space, and sacred time. Among the highlights of the course are the site visits the students conduct to a mosque at the Islamic center, a Chabad synagogue, and the Catholic Newman Center. At each site, they meet with students and leaders of these houses of
worship, observe a prayer service, and submit a visitation report written from the standpoint of an ethnological observer. For the majority of students this is the first visit to a house of worship outside of their own tradition, and for nearly all the non-Muslim students, it is their first visit to a mosque.

Finally, I have the great pleasure of regularly leading a university summer study abroad program in Jerusalem at the Rothberg School for International Students at the Hebrew University. Typically, around half to two-thirds of the students are Jewish; the remainder are Christian or non-identified. The program consists of two courses: a lecture course on “The Emergence of the Modern State of Israel” taught by a Rothberg School faculty member, and my field-based course on the cultural and historical geography of Jerusalem. The pedagogical opportunities offered by such an intensive experience in a new culture are manifold.

In the course on Jerusalem, we take full advantage of our presence there by walking the city and delving into the major events in its history, while considering its significance as a source for tremendous cultural innovation and its status as a bitterly contested locus of contention. During our tours we look at attempts by successive settlers and conquerors to destroy or, alternatively, co-opt the symbols and structures of the preceding civilization. Central to our considerations is the construction of narrative and ritual and sacred time and space within competing ideological, political, and religious systems. In our discussions of the contemporary situation, we cover such topics as religious-secular tensions; poverty and municipal budget constraints; various immigrant subcultures; city planning; the status of the “unified” city (i.e., East and West Jerusalem); and the problem of Jerusalem in final status negotiations. Especially meaningful for the students are the meetings we conduct with a variety of individuals in order to develop a multidimensional understanding of the city and its citizens. For example, in our tour of Silwan we meet with a leader of the local Palestinians who see their homes being threatened by the encroachments of Jewish settlers and archaeologists. We also meet with settlers and try to gain an understanding of their motivations in purchasing property and living at some risk in areas such as Silwan and the Mount of Olives. We meet with a prominent Western journalist who describes the tightrope she must walk in covering Jerusalem. We meet with members of the organization Parents Circle-Families Forum, a grassroots organization of bereaved Palestinians and Israelis whose members seek to promote reconciliation as an alternative to hatred and revenge. We meet with representatives of the Haredi community, and religious leaders from the Muslim and Christian communities. Students undertake a final project on some aspect of Jerusalem that reflects their academic and perhaps future professional interests and for which they are expected to conduct original research and consult experts in the field. These projects have included social protest movements, water rights, home destruction by the Israeli authorities of Palestinian homes, the Separation Barrier, graffiti art, the Haredi lifestyle, journalistic coverage of the city, the history of various Jerusalem institutions, and many others.

For many of the students this is a life changing experience and I derive much pleasure and satisfaction from and observing them learn and grow. Here is the report of one, a non-Jewish student:

Israel was not at all what I anticipated it to be. The few expectations that I had coming in were erased on day one, and I am so glad for this. I really felt that I learned so much more about the history and complexity of Jerusalem by being physically present instead of being taught in a classroom. I cannot even begin to explain what it felt like to stand on Temple Mount, touch the Western Wall, and go inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Our trip truly encompassed aspects of each of the Abrahamic religions, which I deeply appreciated and found to be extremely interesting. Not only did we see and hear about the background of these religions and how each has had some influence in Jerusalem, but we were able to apply our knowledge to current issues through meetings with local Jerusalemites, including an Arab villager, a Jewish settler, a Sufi sheikh, and two men that have each lost a family member in the conflict—one a Palestinian and the other an Israeli. Being able to go into the city and explore, talk to people, and learn about past and present issues was truly an amazing and invaluable experience. Although I learned so much about the history, life, religions, and the formation of the state of Israel, I think the thing that most impressed me was the true complexity of the land. While we were only there for five short weeks, I know that everything I learned, saw, and experienced will stick with me for a lifetime. I really cannot say enough about this experience—as my friends and family who have been forced to hear about it constantly can tell you. Even pictures aren’t enough to convey the incredible wonder of Israel and particularly Jerusalem. Standing on top of Masada and looking across to the sun rising over the Dead Sea and Jordan, looking up at the Dome of Rock, and even wandering the Old City with friends are irreplaceable memories for me. I met people from all over the globe, saw the holiest places in the world, learned an incredible amount, and made lifelong connections to a place that will always remain close to my heart because of the fantastic experience I had there. It was an amazing trip—the highlight of my college career.

II.
One of my primary interests as a scholar is the history and dynamics of the intersection of Jewish with Muslim and Arabic culture. The history of these contacts is a complicated one, but one that in the popular imagination is often viewed as some sort of utopian symbiosis, or, alternatively, as a story of Muslim repression of the Jewish minority culture. Of course, both of these perceptions are simplistic caricatures. In Stories of Joseph: Narrative Migrations Between Judaism and Islam (Wayne State University Press, 2005), I take as my focus a popular and widespread Judeo-Arabic retelling of the story of Joseph known as “The Story of Our Master Joseph the Righteous.” This tale is widely represented in the Genizah materials and manuscript collections of Jewish communities throughout the Muslim world.

Perhaps no richer theme exists for an analysis of cultural competition over sacred figures and the transfer of cultural artifacts than the Joseph story. Claimed as an illustrious progenitor within Islamic and Jewish tradition, Joseph and his tale have a commanding presence in both scriptures; he is the central focus for the final third of the Book of Genesis, while in the Qur’an, Joseph’s tale, comprising the entire twelfth surah which bears his name, is the only instance in which we are provided a ‘complete’ and sequenced story of a biblical protagonist. Each of these scriptural accounts served as a springboard for rich traditions of exegesis and narrative expansion or retelling of the core tales. Within Jewish tradition, the Joseph cycle has come to stand as the prototype of the people’s experience in Exile, while in Islam, Joseph serves as a precursor for the Prophet Muhammad and the difficulties he faced in gaining acceptance for his mission.

There thus arose two distinct bodies of traditions of the story in post-biblical and post-quranic literature typified by the midrash-based retellings of biblical narratives and “The Stories of the Prophets” collections, respectively.

I am able to demonstrate that while “The Story of Our Master Joseph” was intended for a Jewish audience—recorded as it is Judeo-Arabic and employing the Hebrew script—remarkably, it is actually an adaptation of a Muslim tale. What we have then is a dramatic example of the migration of cultural artifacts across multiple cultural borders: a Jewish text has taken its form from an Islamic prototype, which itself is largely based on midrashic works, which in turn draw from Hellenistic literature, ancient Near Eastern material, and so on and so forth, back all the way into the mists of the earliest human stories of parental favoritism, sibling rivalry, separation from loved ones, sexual mores, and the struggles for continued communal existence outside of the homeland. This Judeo-Arabic text, drawing as it does from a shared reservoir of materials, provides a window into the flow of ideas, motifs, and traditions between Jews and Muslims and my work on materials such as these is a way I am able to directly experience and hopefully share the richness of two rich cultures that have much to teach each other.

Recently, I have turned my attention to a contemporary situation involving Arab-Jewish dynamics, this time of an Arab minority within a Jewish majority culture in the State of Israel. In collaboration with an Israeli colleague, Dr. Rivka Bliboim, I am looking at a work of contemporary popular culture: the Israeli sitcom Arab Labor, created and written by the Israeli Arab journalist and writer, Sayed Kashua. The show, which is entering on its fifth season, is broadcast by Channel Two in prime time. Its popularity continues to rise, and it has won multiple broadcasting awards. The flipping of the power relations Arab and Jew is also mirrored in issues of language, and our research explores the linguistic choices made by the writer. In particular, we focus on the linguistic code-switching engaged in by the Arab characters: When and under what circumstances do the characters use Hebrew and when do they opt for Arabic? What factors, such as gender, generation, and ideology, affect these choices? When the Arab characters do use Hebrew, what register do they employ? The show’s primary language is Arabic, and given the dismal state of knowledge of the language among Israeli Jews, this therefore requires almost all Jewish viewers to read subtitles. The fact that despite this the show is at the top of the ratings in its prime-time slot is revolutionary in and of itself.

Although seemingly conforming to the conventions of the sitcom genre, the events and characters are presented in exaggerated stereotyped manner that serves an ultimately subversive role: to question the gap between the State’s commitment to equality of all and the quotidian reality of its Arab citizens. Beyond the humor, what I believe makes the critique of Israeli society palatable to its largely Jewish audience is the willingness of Kashua to lampoon himself through the somewhat autobiographical main character. Amjad is an obsequious Israeli Arab journalist desperate to fit into the WASP (White, Ashkenazi, Sabra with Protektsia) Israeli culture, but is invariably rebuffed in his attempts to do so. At the same time, Kashua doesn’t hesitate to point out the hypocrisy of ostensiby “enlightened” Jewish Israelis. The show is audacious in its taking on such heavy issues and events as the Separation Fence, the 2008 IDF Cast Lead operation and the identification of the show’s characters with the plight of their Gazan brethren, Independence Day or Day of the Catastrophe (al-Nakba), lack of public services provided to the Arab sector, discrimination in housing and the marketplace, forced removal or excision of the Arab population from the boundaries of Israel, kidnappings, settler violence, etc. The show reveals the underlying fears and stereotypes of its characters—and through them, of ourselves, the viewers.

I see Kashua’s project as a model for the ways in which knowledge and education can be used to change attitudes, knock down walls built on stereotypes and ignorance, and build bridges between peoples separated by different and conflicting identities. Not only is the Arabic language more present in the daily lives of Jewish Israelis, but it is also likely that both the status of the language and those citizens for whom it is the mother tongue has risen perceptibly. Moreover, the show has educated Jewish Israelis on the realities of the lives of their fellow citizens who live among them but are largely invisible. I now return to the story I told at the beginning of this piece, and the metaphorical valence of the stones from the razed homes of Tira. In university life, we have the opportunity to engage our students in inquiry about cultural artifacts—language, texts, implements, and, yes, stones to build houses or walls. Sometimes, when we understand our common humanity and look to the needs of others, these same stones can also serve to build bridges between individuals and communities otherwise divided by prejudice and hatred. My work has been a small effort to build such bridges.

November, 2014

To our members and friends,

With the Holiday season behind us, we have begun our robust schedule of educational programs.

Here are some upcoming highlights:

Kehilath Jeshurun (114 East 85th Street, between Park and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan): The next two Shabbatot as part of a monthly Shabbat Rabbinic Scholar program will be the morning of November 22 at the Sephardic minyan, and then December 20: morning with the Sephardic minyan, and then afternoon classes in the broader Kehilat Jeshurun community. That afternoon, I will teach a class at 3:30 p.m. on the topic of “Cut the Baby in Half: King Solomon’s Wisdom” and present at Seudah Shlishit (following Minhah at 4:05 p.m.) on “The Books of the Maccabees and Rabbinic Thought: Getting to the Roots of Hanukkah.” Classes are free and open to the public.

Creating Jewish Unity: We began a brand-new eight-part series, Creating Jewish Unity, on October 21. This course, sponsored by our Institute, outlines some of the most important areas for developing a religious worldview that is authentic to Jewish tradition, reasonable, and relevant to life in the 21st century. A wide range of opinions is considered, seeking those approaches that best address our complex contemporary reality. These classes present some of the core values of our Institute. It is held on Tuesday mornings, from 8:40-9:30 am, at the Apple Bank on 73rd Street and Broadway in Manhattan. Classes are free and open to the public. Upcoming Creating Jewish Unity Dates: November 18, 25 December 2, 9, 16 The shiurim also are posted on our website, jewishideas.org, on our Online Learning section. You are welcome to join at any time.

Second Samuel: In-Depth Bible Study: We have resumed our in-depth Tanakh learning at Lincoln Square Synagogue (68th Street and Amsterdam in Manhattan). This year we are learning the Second Book of Samuel. These classes meet on Wednesday evenings, 7:15-8:15. Upcoming dates are: November 12, 19 (not 26, Thanksgiving weekend) December 3, 10, 17 These classes are co-sponsored by our Institute and Lincoln Square Synagogue. For registration information, please go to lss.org.

Shabbat November 14-15: I will be scholar-in-residence at the Young Israel of Hillcrest (16907 Jewel Ave, Queens, NY 11365). All are welcome to attend.

Shabbat December 5-6: I will be scholar-in-residence at Beth Israel Abraham & Voliner in Overland Park, Kansas (9900 Antioch Rd, Overland Park, KS 66212). All are welcome to attend.

Four Thursdays: November 20, December 4, 11, 18, 11:45-1:00: Lamdeinu Teaneck, Haftarot. For registration and more information, go to http://www.lamdeinu.org.

On Shabbat October 24-25, I was scholar-in-residence at Anshei Sphard Beth El Emeth in Memphis, Tennessee. My book, A Jewish Holiday Companion, is a sequel to my Synagogue Companion. It is being published by our Institute and should be available shortly. Thanks to the generosity of special friends and supporters of the Institute, the book will be distributed at no charge to members of our Institute. It will also be available through our Institute's online store and at amazon.com.

As always, I thank our members and friends for their support and for enabling us to spread our Institute’s vision through teaching and publications throughout the country and beyond. Stay tuned for a new layer of exciting program, which I look forward to describing in my next report!

Rabbi Hayyim Angel

National Scholar

Over 20 years ago when I was the National President of the Australasian Union of Jewish Speakers we hosted Rabbi Avraham Infeld for a National Conference. Avraham was the first person to tell me that I should become a rabbi. “But Avraham” I said, “I don’t even know if I believe in God” and he responded to me, “But you love people”. That was before I started learning Torah and before Torah was the guiding light in my life. I was standing at the precipice of my spiritual journey that has opened out in different directions including through prayer, yoga, meditation, dream-work, inner child healing, relationship work, conflict transformation, spiritual direction, pastoral counseling & sexual healing.

I had the privilege of studying at and graduated from Yeshivat Maharat, Class of 2015. One of the things that I love about Yeshivat Maharat is the diversity of women students. I appreciate the clarity of the institutional goal of training orthodox women spiritual leaders- and also the plurality of women and of visions for the rabbinate that this shared goal brings together. A sense of the diversity of the contexts in which we operate is reflected in the different titles we hold. We have the titles of Maharat (acronym for Leader in Jewish Law, Spirituality and Torah) Rabba, Morateynu (Our Teacher) and even a Rabbi, each title being mandated by its context.

I have been teaching and leading in Jewish life for many years. I love learning and I love halakha. As a law graduate, I have an appreciation for law generally as well. The rabbinic attention to detail involved in the halakhic process is a symbol of love, an act of love. As we learn the halakhic details and distinctions, we are invited into that love relationship of paying attention, of noticing, of caring - and of discernment and differentiation.

For me joining Yeshivat Maharat, was an important opportunity to be part of a cohort of women leaders who could act as mirrors for each other, mutually supporting each other’s journey to be who we can possibly be as leaders, and as humans in this magnificent and broken world.

My intention for my ordination is to use the threshold and wearing of this formal mantle of leadership and responsibility, to more fully speak my voice and have it be heard. As I start living and embodying this intention I am confronted with so much resistance. It is so uncomfortable for me to continue to speak and put my voice into the public arena, even as I write this now. However, this discomfort is only matched and even overtaken by a huge discomfort of what I have been calling my passion, the feeling that I am on fire, a feeling that I have so much energy and desire to give that need to find channels. This passion is a consuming fire and it could consume me from the inside without adequate channels for expression.

I see my role as using the depth and sensitivity of my own experience as a resource that other people can use in service of their own process and self-understanding and acceptance. Each challenge has its dividends. Over the past 4 years my work in conflict transformation has taught me that conflict truly can be an opportunity for openness, healing and transformation. Instead of managing problems and trying to put out fires, appeasing people with big feelings and numbing ourselves to the pain of the real, we make the choice to jump into the fire, bring out the messiness and then in unraveling it we get to discover the magnificence of the world.

This is the intention with which I accepted my ordination at the Yeshivat Maharat Ordination Ceremony, Sunday June 14, Ramaz , NYC:

With this smicha I will..Love truth and pursue the Divine; Embrace and share the Living Torah; And empower myself and others to live full lives of passion and transformation- sustained and guided by the deep knowledge that all humanity is created in God’s image.

I am blessed and sustained by the connection to you my colleagues, my hevrutot, women, spiritual leaders, in Torah, and I treasure how we are mirrors for each other. Each one holding inside her the seeds, sprouts, and fruition of her own calling- and the manifestation of her own unique voice and refraction of holy Torah.

I am deeply grateful to all those who have gone before us and in whose merit we are here, to the Board, donors, faculty and staff at Yeshivat Maharat- and all those teachers, family, friends and communities who have held me and brought me to this place. At a moment like this, I see all that I carry- and that I inherited- the light and the dark- the individual and the collective- as transmuted into a blessing.

May I be of service as a vessel of connection and an invitation to plumb the depths- Both accompanying people into the joy and fullness of their own solitariness, as well as into the celebration of community and togetherness.

May I step forward with the courage of speaking truth to power, and have the trust to fully manifest in this dear world the gifts you, God, have bestowed upon me- in ways I dream of and ways I have yet to dream - at home, with family, with friends, in and across communities. At every breath.

I rubbed my eyes in disbelief when I read that Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef has extended the ban on television and computers by decreeing that anyone using the “abomination” of smartphones be prohibited from leading prayers. Like most Israelis, I felt profoundly ashamed that a “chief rabbi” could seek to impose such primitive views on the Israeli public. Under such circumstances, is it any surprise that Israelis have utter contempt for the Chief Rabbinate?

The time has come for the vast majority of us, including nonobservant Jews, who take pride in the fact that we represent a cultured people which was at the forefront of enlightenment and civilization from time immemorial, to stand up and say enough is enough.

The state has imposed upon the nation a Chief Rabbinate that is now dominated by the most extreme and obscurantist elements. We are not living in the Middle Ages when our sages were actually trailblazers in enlightenment and worldliness. Indeed, Maimonides, one of the greatest Jewish thinkers and halachists of all time, was an utter repudiation of what today’s ultra-Orthodox extremists symbolize. Steeped in Torah, he was nevertheless a worldly man, considered one of the great physicians of his time, and even wrote books relating to Greek philosophy. He called on Jews to adhere to the “golden path” of moderation and shun extremism. However, because of his worldliness, Maimonides today would be ineligible to teach in most haredi educational institutions.

It is clear that this obscurantism has no relationship with piety or standards of religious observance. Many ultra-Orthodox Jews, especially in the Diaspora, take pride in high academic and professional achievements. Few endorse the extremes of gender separation and inequality which have more in common with the Taliban than with traditional Jewish practice. Likewise, many haredim reject the approach of extremist Israeli-based rabbis that commitment to a Torah life necessitates eschewing a livelihood.

Under the mantle of the Chief Rabbinate, the extremists display contempt for and seek to undermine the Zionist state -- which pays their salaries. They prohibit their followers from serving in the army or performing national service.

If these elements merely sought to practice an obscurantist lifestyle, that would be their democratic prerogative. However, it is outrageous to seek to impose on the entire nation rigid and primitive lifestyles inconsistent with the Judaism that sustained our people throughout the millennia.

In the past, we were privileged to have chief rabbis who were spiritual giants -- Rabbi Isaac Herzog, Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Uziel and Rabbi Shlomo Goren -- whose piety and learning was unsurpassed and who sought to unify the nation, thus making Yitzhak Yosef’s edicts sound like the ravings of a troglodyte.

The current Chief Rabbinate and its courts are incompetent and corrupt and largely recruited on the basis of “jobs for the boys.” They lack a modicum of compassion and frequently transform what should be routine marriage applications into a bureaucratic nightmare, encouraging thousands of nonobservant Israelis to bypass the rabbinate and perform their secular weddings in Cyprus and elsewhere. Were it not for the admirable and courageous work of Tzohar, the rabbinical organization that provides a warm and friendly service for thousands of Israelis, the numbers would be even higher.

But the worst aspect of this abhorrent structure is the almost venomous approach toward converts which is disparaging, humiliating and usually forces them to withdraw in disgust.

There are over 300,000 Russian immigrants who regard themselves as Jews, are indistinguishable from other Israelis, and serve in the army but are not considered halachically Jewish. It is clearly in the national interest to encourage them to convert before the impending crisis when they will seek to wed and will be told that they are ineligible because they are not Jewish. This has potentially enormously divisive social implications and the makings of a long-term disaster for the state.

Instead of employing halachic precedents for easing conversions of Jews of mixed marriage -- especially from a society like the Soviet Union which denied Jews the right to a religious education and ruthlessly persecuted those seeking to practice their Judaism -- today’s Chief Rabbinate does the opposite.

Indeed, current Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau was only elected after pledging not to tamper with the prevailing conversion restrictions without the approval of the extremist elements such as those who sought to retroactively annul conversions authorized by religious Zionist Rabbi Haim Drukman.

In recent years, the Chief Rabbinate attempted to widen its influence and also sought to centralize control of rabbis in the Diaspora akin to the Vatican’s control of the Catholic Church. It demanded total subservience to its stringent and hostile approach toward conversion and rejected conversions undertaken by more enlightened Orthodox rabbis despite the fact that, according to Halachah, a conversion court can be convened by any three religiously ordained rabbis. If successful, this centralization would lead to a reign of zealotry unprecedented in Jewish history. From the Mishnaic era, there were disputes in halachic interpretations between the more stringent followers of Shammai and the more liberal disciples of Hillel, but the people could select the rabbi they chose to follow, and no one disputed their legitimacy.

The previous government, which excluded the haredi parties, intervened and tabled legislation to enable Israelis to select the rabbis of their choice for marriage, divorce and conversion. Unfortunately, under pressure from the haredi political parties, the current government turned the clock back, reverting to the totally centralized control by the Chief Rabbinate. This emboldened the Chief Rabbinate to further abuse its power by attempting to force the retirement of Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, one of the principal and highly respected Orthodox rabbis seeking to bring about conversion reform. Only due to a storm of protest did the attempt fail.

This led to a schism and the creation of a new conversion court, independent of the Chief Rabbinate, headed by a renowned scholar Rabbi Nahum Eliezer Rabinovitch, head of the Maaleh Adumim hesder yeshiva, Rabbi Riskin, and Rabbi David Stav, head of Tzohar.

This court, rather than seeking to impose the most stringent regime of observance on converts, will apply the more flexible solutions and interpretations of Maimonides reflected in the approach of former Chief Rabbi Uziel, who approved conversions without obsessing on the minutiae of observance.

This is an explosive situation, with the haredi groups in government pressing Netanyahu to compel the Interior Ministry to endorse the Chief Rabbinate’s refusal to recognize conversions by the new courts.

With a majority of one, Netanyahu is in an impossible position -- which he himself created by capitulating to all the haredi demands when he formed his government.

Yet, if the new conversion courts are not recognized by the Interior Ministry, we face a social disaster in which the most extreme elements of the ultra-Orthodox will further intensify their control of the nation.

The truth is that the current Chief Rabbinate -- which has no standing as an institution in Halachah -- alienates the nation from Judaism. No communal group accepts its authority. Despite having hijacked the Chief Rabbinate to exploit it as an instrument to impose their stringent interpretations, haredim themselves continue to despise the institution. Many also feel embarrassed by the primitive outbursts like those of Yitzhak Yosef, and recognize the need to educate their children so that they can earn a livelihood. Religious Zionists are obviously appalled with the abuse of an institution that was created to unite the nation and is now dividing it.

But it is the secular parties from both the Left and Right that created the haredi Frankenstein’s monster. Most nonobservant Jews are utterly ignorant and incapable of distinguishing between any varieties of Judaism and display contempt for all forms of religion. They fail to understand that the religious orientation of the state-sponsored rabbinical establishment is at the core of national identity.

The secular parties should have ensured that qualification for rabbinical leadership, at a minimum, involves loyalty to the Jewish nation state and its institutions. To have rabbis on a state payroll who refuse to permit the prayers for the welfare of the state and its armed forces in their synagogues, is an abomination. For secular parties, for the sake of political expediency, to endorse the appointment of a chief rabbi who has himself not served in the army and does not support the draft, is unconscionable.

Today we stand at a crossroads. In an ideal society, the prime minister and leader of the opposition would suspend political differences on this issue and either dissolve or restructure the Chief Rabbinate so that it provides a Zionist religious leadership, more in tune with the national need. But since this is unlikely to happen, the secular Zionist parties will bear the guilt for exploiting short-term political benefits to create generations of extremists and anti-Zionists who will ultimately undermine the Zionist state and devour them.

Isi Leibler may be contacted at [email protected]

The Rhythms of Jewish Living
A Sephardic Exploration of Judaism’s Spirituality
By Rabbi Dr. Marc D. Angel
Reviewed by Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin

Rabbi Angel demonstrates his well-known knowledge and writing skills in this very informative exploration Jewish practices. He offers details about and explains Jewish daily observances and holidays, the differences between Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jewry, the unique Jewish use of time, halakhah, theology, history, sacred places, divine revelation and providence, confronting death with the right attitude and without fear, the significance of the State of Israel, the manner in which Jews highlight and celebrate family, how people can transcend themselves, and much more.

I’ll give some examples.

The rabbi stresses the importance of a sensitive relationship between humans and nature. The Bible emphasizes this relationship by speaking about creation in the beginning of the Bible. Additionally, all of the biblical holidays are related to nature: spring (Passover), summer (Shavuot), and fall (Sukkot). Many blessings do not focus on what is eaten but on the renewal of nature. Jews recite blessings when they observe natural phenomenon such as lightning, thunder, very strong winds, and rainbows. They approach God in a two-fold manner, through the divine creation of nature and the divine revelation of the Torah. But it is God that is the most important; therefore Jews turned to the west away from the sun as they left the temple.

He writes, “There has been a steady and increasing alienation between Jewish religious observance and the natural world, with a parallel diminution in sensing awe for God as Creator of the natural universe.” He points, for example, to the wide-spread current practice of placing stained-glass windows in synagogues, which obstructs outside views and “symbolize a changed sense of spirituality, a break from traditional outdoor religiosity.”

Rabbi Angel describes some Sephardic practices, such as the custom during the Passover Seder “of placing a piece of matzah in a sack and carrying it on their shoulders as though they were among the Israelites of old carrying their belongings as they escaped from Egypt.” This practice, as many similar Sephardic ones during Passover and other Jewish holidays, deepens the holiday, “we are sharing a historical national memory and we are attempting to identify ourselves with our redeemed ancestors.”

The Jewish meal is another example of our identification with our ancestors. “The table upon which one eats is considered symbolically to be the altar in the Temple in Jerusalem. It is consecrated. One is not supposed to treat the table with disrespect, to sit on it, to place one’s shoes on it. Before eating a meal, we ritually wash our hands as a sign of purification. Just as Jews in ancient Jerusalem had to purify themselves before coming to the altar, so we must do likewise. We recite the blessing over bread, but before eating it we dip it in salt. This is reminiscent of the practice in the Temple to add salt to the sacrifices offered on the altar.”

Rabbi Angel gives readers an extensive interesting historical account of the ancient great court in Jerusalem, popularly known as the Sanhedrin, comprised of seventy-one scholars. Readers may be surprised to learn that the Great Court “even had the power to overrule a law of the Torah (see, for example, the discussion in the Talmud, Yevamot 90b.” Maimonides wrote in his Mishneh Torah, Laws of Rebels 2:1, that in ancient times the law was fluid and flexible. Each Court had the right and responsibility to use its own understanding in applying the word of God to the people of Israel. Each Court “ruled according to the way it seemed to them that the law should be – their judgment is the law. If a subsequent Great Court found a reason to refute their decision, it should refute it” for the Torah states we are “only obligated to follow the Court which is in your generation.”

This power to change laws was traditionally given only to the Great Court. Unfortunately, the Great Court ceased to operate when the Romans destroyed the temple in 70 CE. Several efforts were made to reestablish the authority of the Court, but these efforts failed. The latest call for the reinstitution of the Great Court was made by the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Benzion Uziel (1880-1953) in 1936, but his call went unheeded. Soon thereafter the dissolution of the Court in 70 CE, in the mid-second century, Rabbi Yehuda the Prince compiled the Mishnah, a record of the rabbinical teachings up to his time. From then on, the Mishnah and the subsequent discussions on the Mishnah in the Gemara, together called the Talmud, one composed in Israel and the more widely accepted one in Babylon, became, together with later composed law codes, the fixed laws. Rabbis no longer went to the Torah to determine the law. Today, the law, called halakhah, is no longer fluid.

Rabbi Angel discusses the different approach that Sephardic rabbis take to Jewish law and Judaism from that of Ashkenazic rabbis after the time of the Great Court. Ashkenazim primarily lived in Europe under Christian domination under harsh conditions and were generally unable to secure a secular education. It wasn’t until the eighteenth and nineteenth century that these Jews were westernized. In contrast, Sephardim had a far better life in Spain until they were expelled in 1492. They made great contributions to the Spanish culture in science, medicine, philosophy, and mathematics. Whereas Jews in Ashkenazic lands – France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, and Eastern Europe – lived a sober, melancholy life, and focused on piety because of their restraint, Sephardic Jews were on the whole a happy people. While they were quite observant of halakhah, their observance did not lead them to become sober or overly serious.

“Rather, the pleasures and aesthetics of this world were viewed in a positive light.
Sephardic holiday celebrations and lifecycle observances, for example, were characterized by the preparation of elaborate delicacies to eat, the singing of songs, and a general spirit of gaiety and hospitality…. This spirit carried itself even to the serious season of the High Holy Days, when self-scrutiny and repentance were expected…. The unstated assumption was that eating, rejoicing, and being happy of heart were not in conflict with piety, even in the serious season of penitential prayers.”

The effect of Christian persecution upon Ashkenazic Jewry also resulted in Ashkenazic rabbis being more stringent in their halakhic rulings. “H. J. Zimmels, in his book ‘Ashkenazim and Sephardim’…suggests that Ashkenazic inclination to stringency was largely the result of centuries of persecution suffered by German Jewry.” Rabbi Angel also cites Chief Rabbi Benzion Uziel who wrote that Sephardic rabbis “felt powerful enough in their opinion and authority to annul customs that were not based on halakhic foundations. In contrast, Ashkenazic rabbis tended to strengthen customs and sought support for them even if they seemed strange and without halakhic basis.”

Among much else, Rabbi Angel discusses how understanding how to die tells us how to live. He notes that the Midrash Genesis Rabbah interprets the divine statement in Genesis “Behold it was very good” as referring to death. He explains how both nature and the Torah provide paths to God and that God’s revelation through nature may be experienced today by all people, Jews and non-Jews alike.

Changing the Immutable

By Dr. Marc Shapiro

Since time began, since the more intelligent men and women realized they had ideas they could not share with others, yet they had to speak, they learnt to lie.

Highly respected philosophers did so. The pagan Greek Plato called what they said “noble lies.” The Jewish Maimonides named them “essential truths.” The Moslem Ibn Tufayl gave the lies no name, but wrote a book describing why it is necessary to hide the truth.[1] The Roman Plutarch hid the truth in his famed history “Parallel Lives,” and gave an idealized version the ancient heroes “with the intention of conveying moral examples to imitate or avoid.”[2] They knew that the lies they taught the masses were not facts, but teachings that advance what they considered to be good, what we could call “pedagogical truths,” focusing on education, or “orphaned truths,” unrelated to real truths, or “pious myths.”

As many other philosophers, Maimonides recognized that intelligent people, leaders, clergy, philosophers, and teachers of all kinds need to teach people lies – such as, God spoke to prophets, you will be resurrected, pray and God will help you, this is what God demands, God will punish you unless you do this, there will be a messianic time when all evil will cease – to make people feel good about themselves, feel secure, “know” that there will be a better time, behave properly, provide stability, preserve order, and teach and promote values. Maimonides told readers of his Guide that he will place both his true ideas and “essential truths” in his Guide so that the common people will find notions in it that support their beliefs while intelligent people will be able to sift the true teachings from the dross.[3]

Even the Bible seemed to sanction lies. Abraham told his servants and his son Isaac that he and Isaac will return from offering a sacrifice while he had every intention when he said this that he would offer Isaac as a sacrifice to God. Jacob misled his father Isaac claiming he was Esau the son that blind Isaac wanted to bless. Moses attempted to persuade Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt saying they would return after three days. The biblical book Chronicles suppressed the truth contained in the earlier biblical books; they retold the earlier-told tales in a manner that erased mistakes made by biblical heroes, such as King David’s adultery and murder of Bathsheba’s husband. The Chronicle version is “actually far from a detached recording of what happened in the past.”[4] And there are many more examples of dishonesty in the Bible. Abraham ibn Ezra states: “Our sages explained this beautifully, for ‘a prudent man conceals shame.’”[5]

The Talmud recognized a concept halakhah ve’ein morin ken, meaning that although something is technically permitted, the rabbis do not inform the masses of the leniency out of fear that using this permission could have negative ramifications. Nachmanides (1194-1270) contends that this concept is in the Torah which states “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing,”[6]

The rabbis lied and continue to lie for many reasons, such as the interest of peace, to stop people from sinning, to avoid embarrassment, to prevent injury, to collect money to support the study of Torah, to help feed a poor man, to improve a person’s chance of marriage, when one has a mental reservation that what he is saying is not true,[7] for educational reasons, and if the lie leads to a good result. Each of these reasons is subjective; one rabbi may feel that the lie is appropriate while another might strongly disagree. It is as if the rabbi is saying, I can lie if I think it is proper to do so and if I feel that it is better for the person to believe my lie rather than know the truth.

Marc B. Shapiro[8] points this out and shows how this phenomenon continued from ancient time to righteous Jews today, including famed rabbis who lie to other Jews. His book is superb, scholarly, comprehensible, well-documented with copious supportive notes, very readable, and above all eye-opening. He shows that all too many rabbis in the Orthodox community rewrite the past by snipping out of books of prior rabbis and scholars, even well-respected ones, that which does not fit into their personal world-view. They “insist on viewing the past through the religious needs of the present,” erasing the liberal opinions of the past to obligate others to follow their personal notions of what is right. Organizations such as ArtScroll distort the interpretations of Bible commentators in their ArtScroll commentaries when what is said contradicts their understanding, as they deleted the “offending view” of Rashi’s grandson Rashbam on Genesis 1:5 that in the Bible the day began in the morning. These rabbis are turn their backs to what is true when they are convinced that what was said would lead readers to observances they dislike. Paradoxically, rabbis who make these changes consider themselves traditional, even hereidi, ultra-Orthodox, men who decry the changes wrought by the Reform movement; yet they too are uncomfortable with the past, the history of Judaism and its practices, and feel the need the revise what is most sacred to them, what the Torah actually says and Judaism.

They conceal the conviction of many sages that parts of the Five Books of Moses” were composed after Moses’ death, such as Abraham ibn Ezra and the famed pietistic Rabbi Judah HeHasid who held this post-Mosaic view. They hide the fact that the codifier Moses Isserles felt that it is permissible to drink non-Jewish wine. They censored Joseph Karo’s “Shulchan Arukh” where he states that the “kapporot” ceremony on the day before Yom Kippur in which people transferred their sins to a chicken was a “foolish custom.” They erased the opinion of Rabbi Hayim of Volozhin quoting the Vilna Gaon “that in matters of halakhah one should not give up one’s independent judgment, even if that means opposing a ruling in the “Shulchan Aruch.” They excised the statement of Rabbi Joseph Messas (1892-1974) from his “Mayim Chayim” where he ruled that married women have no obligation to cover their hair, a decision also held by Rabbi Joseph Hayim (1832-1909) and many others. They conceal the ancient decisions by respected rabbis such as Rabbenu Tam, Rabbi Solomon Ganzfred in his “Kitsur Shulchan Arukh,” and others that the “shekiah,” sunset for the purposes of when the Sabbath starts, takes place much later than what is usually regarded as sunset, that the Shabbat begins when it is dark about an hour after the current practice. They obscured the ruling of the highly respected codifier Rabbi Yehiel Mikhel Epstein (1829-1908) that one is allowed to turn on electric lights on festivals. They expunged the opinion of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch that everyone does not need to devote his life to Torah study and the opinion of Maimonides in his Introduction to his opus “Mishneh Torah” that Jews need not study the Talmud. They erased the Vilna Gaon’s belief that it is only a custom for males to cover their heads and that in Orthodox families in Germany, male Jews only covered their heads when at prayer or saying a blessing. They painted head coverings on the pictures of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and many others who did not wear a head covering in college. They hide that Rabbi Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine as well as Maimonides taught that people need to exercise.

Also, hereidi Jews as well as rabbis who are afraid to deviate from them will not mention the words breast, gay, homosexual, rape, or insert the words in their newspapers, and even exclude pictures of women, including that of Hillary Clinton, even though this is not prohibited in the Torah and was not the practice in ancient Judaism.

These are just some of the many examples that Dr. Shapiro gives in his excellent book (with a couple that I added) of how rabbis and others have changed and are continuing to change the immutable Torah.

We could, of course add many more to the couple of hundred example offered by Dr. Shapiro, for Dr. Shapiro notes that he is not giving a complete list of violations. For example, many rabbis today do not reveal that the behaviors they are advocating in their sermons is not taught in the Torah. Also, when these rabbis sermonize today and base their sermons on the “fact” that the “medrish” says such and such, the rabbis do not reveal that there are multiple Midrashim, each saying something somewhat different than the others, and the position they are advocating is not held by other Midrashim.[9]

[1] Plato’s “Nobel Lie” is discussed in his Laws 2.663d-e. He lived in Greece between 427 and 347 BCE. Maimonides’ “Necessary Truths” is in the Guide of the Perplexed 3:28. In essence, although people may consider this incredibly insulting, philosophers recognize that the vast majority of people need to be taught fraudulent notions and treated in a paternalistic fashion by those who are convinced they know what is best for them. Ibn Tufayl died in 1185. His book is Hayy ibn Yaqzan, University of Chicago Press, 2009.

[2] Donald R. Kelly, Faces of History, New Haven, Conn. 1999. Kelly notes that none of the Roman historians were objective in a modern sense.

[3] It is not easy for readers to identify the “essential truths” and as a result there are Maimonidean scholars who are convinced that Maimonides believed that prophecy is from God, angels exist, God controls people, etc.

[4] In a commentary attributed to Rashi, the Bible and Talmud commentator points to a number of times that the book of Chronicles has a goal to portray King David in a positive fashion.

[5] Proverbs 12:16.

[6] Nachmanides commentary on Numbers 30:2 referring to Proverbs 25:2.

[7] As in the somewhat ridiculous practice of some people of saying a lie while crossing one’s fingers.

[8] Changing the Immutable, How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites its History, By Marc B. Shapiro, The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2015, 347 pages.

[9] Many rabbis use the made-up word they heard in the Yeshivas, a Yiddish mispronunciation of Midrash.

I

1. Does Such a Possibility Exist under Torah Law?

The Torah (see Deut. 24:1) describes a divorce occurring through a “writ of [marriage] termination” (sefer kritut) given by the husband. Indeed, the Mishnah (Yevamot 14:1) states: “A woman can be divorced when she agrees and when she does not agree; but a man divorces only at his will.” Thus, there seems to be no way in which a woman can receive a divorce if her husband is recalcitrant.

However, our most ancient rabbinic sources state that such a possibility exists. In vaYikra 1:3, the Torah notes that in certain circumstances, a person must bring a sacrifice, and he is required to do so willingly (yakriv oto lirtzono). This seems to be an oxymoron: Either an act is mandatory and one is obligated to perform it, or one is free to act at one’s own personal discretion; can these seemingly contradictory elements be reconciled? The ancient halakhic Midrash answers in the affirmative: “We apply pressure upon him, until he says ‘it is my will to do so.’”[1] In other words, an act that is mandated by the Torah will be considered as having been performed willingly even if such “will” was formed under pressure by legitimate agents of Torah. The Sifra does not extend this principle beyond the issue of sacrifices, but the Mishnah (‘Erkhin 5:6) does. After stating that a sacrifice is considered as brought willingly after the person was pressured until he says, “It is my will to do so,” the Mishnah adds: “and the same is true for women’s bills of divorce.” [2]

Several explanations may be offered for this principle. One explains this in light of the general halakhic principle, “What a person harbors in one’s heart is halakhically irrelevant.” [3] Thus, when the Mishnah refers to “will,” it is not relating to an internal psychological disposition, but rather to an externally verified condition. Thus, if a person declares: “I do not want to do X”—we hold that performing X is against his will, and are not concerned with his internal thoughts. Conversely, if he declares: “I want to do X”—we hold performing X to be in accordance with his will.[4] Others suggest that if a husband refuses to divorce a wife who hates him and will in no case remain with him, he is acting only out of spite in order to deny her to others.[5] Such behavior, denying to others something that in any case cannot bring the individual any benefit, is halakhically unacceptable; we can therefore apply the general principle kofin ‘al middat Sedom. A third explanation was given by Maimonides:

Since he was compelled, why is this divorce not invalid? … Because a person who was overcome by his evil inclination to desist from performing a positive mitzvah or to commit a transgression, and who was then coerced [by the authorities] until he did what he ought to do or desisted from what he was forbidden to do, is not considered to be acting under compulsion …since he does want to be a Jew, he ipso facto wants to fulfill the commandments and to refrain from sin, but his evil inclination overcame him. When he was beaten, his evil inclination weakened, and so when he says “I want [to divorce]”—the divorce is in accordance with his will. (Laws of Divorce, 2:20)

Maimonides has a theory of human personality that recognizes several “levels” of will that can be in simultaneous conflict. The “will” required for divorce is not a subjective feeling but an objective mental position, which is assessed according to the overall context of a person’s life choices. A person who wants to be a Jew, surely consents at heart to what is entailed by being a Jew. If according to Torah he should in the case at hand divorce his wife, his refusal to do so is in conflict with what he deeply assents to. By physical coercion, the court is merely enabling him to overcome a powerful urge that conflicts with his own deeper and more serious will.

2. Who May Coerce a Husband to Divorce?

Having seen that Torah law contains the option for coercing a husband to divorce, the question arises: Who may do so? It should be pointed out that today, with a get regarded as a document required only because of adherence to a religious tradition, physical coercion to give a get flies directly in the face of the principle of freedom of religion. When we discuss today physical coercion of a get, we are therefore arguably doing something analogous to discussing the death sentence as a punishment for adultery, i.e., marking certain actions as worthy of extreme censure. With this in mind, let us return to the question: When physical coercion was a real operative option, who might be involved in this? The upshot of the talmudic discussion in Gittin 88b seems to be that physical coercion of divorce is not a matter that should (or may!) be undertaken by individuals. No matter how much I personally may be convinced that Zalman (for example) should really divorce his wife Rivka, I am not allowed to take matters into my own hands and beat him up in order to get him to agree to do so. Indeed, if he does give a divorce after being manhandled by self-appointed guardians of Torah (or by thugs they employ), the get thereby produced may well be halakhically invalid. Rather, it is only legitimately appointed communal leaders who were authorized to decide to apply such physical coercion. Having reached such a decision, they could appoint agents—whether Jews or non-Jews—to actually do so (in much the same manner that civil courts today direct law-enforcement officials to act against those who refuse to follow court rulings).

3. What Circumstances Justify Coercion of a Husband to Divorce His Wife?

If in general a husband divorces his wife only at his will, but in certain cases legitimate community leaders may coerce him to do so, the question arises: What are those “certain cases”? The Mishnah (Ketubot 7:10, cited at Bavli Ketubot 77a) gives a very specific and very short list of men whose extreme objective physical repulsiveness justifies coercing them to divorce if their wife demands a get. The more interesting case, however—not discussed by that Mishnah—is when a wife declares that her husband is subjectively repulsive to her and demands a get. This matter comes up with regard to a “rebellious” wife, i.e., a wife who openly refuses to have intimate relations with her husband. The Mishnah (Ketubot 5:7 cited at Bavli Ketubot 63a) states, that the communal authorities are not allowed to physically force her to change her mind, but that economic sanctions may be employed to cause her to reconsider, i.e., they may sanction her by impairing her right to payment of ketubah, thus threatening her with a situation in which her husband can divorce her not only against her will, but at no cost to himself. However, in the talmudic discussion Ameimar (c. 400 CE) states, that the above does not apply to a wife who justifies her refusal to remain with her husband by explaining that she finds him repulsive (ma-ees ‘alai). Well then, what is to be done when a woman so declares? Here the picture becomes really interesting, because we have at least three variant wordings of the talmudic phrase defining what is to be done in such a case. The printed text of the Talmud (based of course on manuscripts the first printers had before them), states:

But if she says ma-ees ‘alai—we do not coerce her.

On this version, it is not the business of the court to in any way pressure such a woman to have sex with her husband. If he is fed up with such a situation, he can divorce her. Of course, in those times, polygamy was also an option: if he was sufficiently well to do, the husband could simply take a second wife. But the court will take no sides in this marital crisis. This version seems to have been the one known to most rishonim, including Rabbenu Hananel (d. 1055), Rabbi Yitzhak AlFasi (1103), and many others.
However, a second version exists, in a talmudic manuscript known as ms. Firkovich-Leningrad. In that manuscript, the Talmud states:

But if she says ma-ees ‘alai—we coerce him.

On this version, the court will actively intervene on behalf of the rebellious wife who declares her husband repulsive, and coerce her husband to divorce her! Thus, in addition to the short list in the Mishnah of physically repulsive men who are coerced to divorce, a husband who is subjectively repulsive to his wife is also so coerced. Rabbenu Gershom, “Light of the Exile” (c. 960–1028), the greatest scholar of Ashkenazic Jewry of his time, ruled that if a woman found her marriage so unbearable that she was willing to totally forfeit her ketubah if only her husband would divorce her—the court is required by Torah law to coerce her husband to do so. As he writes (Teshuvot Rabbenu Gershom Meor haGolah, #42):

If she wants to be divorced and forfeits her ketubah, and he does not want to divorce her, the authorities must coerce him to give her a get. As the rabbis taught […] “We apply pressure upon him, until he says ‘It is my will to do so.’” And such is the actual halakha.

Note that the Mishnah stating that a husband could be coerced to give a get when the Torah mandates this, did not state when the Torah so mandates a divorce; it is Rabbenu Gershom who determined that Torah so requires whenever a woman is so desperate for a divorce that she is willing to forfeit her ketubah!

Another great authority who held this to be Torah law was Maimonides, who ruled that coercion of a divorce when a woman declared ma-ees ‘alai was mandated by the Torah (Hilkhot Ishut/Laws of Relationships, 14:8; note that at 14:14 he rejects post-biblical legislation on this issue):

If a wife declares “I find him repulsive, and am unable willingly to have sex with him”—the authorities immediately coerce him to divorce her. For she is not a captive of war, who must have sex with a man she despises.

This brief ruling reflects Maimonides’ assumptions about the basics of marriage. He holds that the status of a married woman is not like that of a captive enemy, and that she is under no obligation to submit to the sexual advances of a man she finds repulsive—even if that man is her lawful husband. He also clearly assumes that sex is an essential component of marriage, that a woman cannot be expected to be bound in a sexless marriage, and that divorce is therefore an absolute necessity in such situations. Now, the Torah never expressly states either of these things about marriage. While some biblical passages might seem to support such views of marriage, others might be cited against them, as in Psalms 45:11 where the bride is enjoined, “He is thy lord, and do homage to him.” Clearly, Maimonides’ decision that the Torah here requires an immediate, forced divorce is dependent upon his value-laden understanding of what marriage is all about—an understanding that informs his reading of the Torah no less than it derives from such reading. And such an understanding may well have been what led Rabbenu Gershom to also mandate coercion in such cases—and what informed the talmudic author of ms. Firkovich-Leningrad, who wrote: “But if she says ma-ees ‘alai—we coerce him.”

A third variant of this talmudic phrase was proposed by Rabbenu Yaakov ben Meir (also known as Rabbenu Tam, France c. 1100–1171), but it can be understood only after tracing developments in the halakhic history of coerced divorce from the time of Ameimar to the twelfth century.

4. Waiting 12 Months—and What Then?

The talmudic discussion of the rebellious wife concludes with the following cryptic sentences: “And we delay her reception of the get for 12 months. And during those 12 months, she receives no financial support from her husband” (Bavli Ketubot 64a). This seems to be referring to a rebellious wife whose husband has not been coerced to divorce her, and a strange situation is thereby created. On the one hand, unlike other husbands who under talmudic halakha may divorce their wife whenever they want, the husband whose wife has rebelled against him may not do so until 12 months have passed. On the other hand, unlike other married women whose husbands must support them, the husband of a rebellious wife is free of that burden. Their marriage is thus in limbo for 12 months. To what end? Some say (e.g., Rashi): This time period is designed to give the wife further cause to reconsider if she indeed wants to find herself divorced with no ketubah. And some say: The 12-month wait would prevent a husband who wants to be quickly and cheaply rid of his wife from mistreating her (thus causing her to rebel) and then being able to immediately divorce her without a ketubah. Knowing that he will have to wait 12 long months will (in this view) deter him from choosing such an option.

Whatever the purpose of this 12-month delay, the question arises: Once that time has passed—what then? Specifically, may the husband (whether or not he has taken a second wife in the interim), who can now divorce without paying any ketubah—decide not to do so, holding the rebellious wife in eternal limbo as an agunah? The Talmud itself says nothing on this matter. However, it seems that the interpretive tradition of the Babylonian academies was that such an option is a moral non-starter, and therefore the Talmud must have held that any husband attempting to do so is coerced to change his mind. As Rev Sherira Gaon explained: “After these 12 months, the authorities physically coerce the husband and he gives her a get.”[6] However, for Rav Sherira Gaon, as well as for almost all other rabbis until Rabbenu Tam, the interpretation of the talmudic view on this matter was a purely intellectual exercise, as all knew that talmudic halakha on this matter had been superseded by a post-talmudic takanah (rabbinic legislation).

5. Dramatic Change: Whenever a Wife Requests a Divorce, Her Husband Is Coerced to Give a Get

Around the year 650 CE, a dramatic legal enactment (takanah) was instituted by the halakhic leaders of Babylonian Jewry, immediately following the Muslim conquest of that area in 637–650:

When our masters in the times of the Sevora’im saw that Jewish women were going to the Gentiles and with their assistance were obtaining forced divorces from their husbands, and the husbands were writing bills of divorce under compulsion and these were illegally forced divorces—and this resulted in disaster—they enacted, with regard to a woman who rebels against her husband and demands a divorce, that … we compel her husband to divorce her immediately. [7]

In contrast to the policy of the Sassanid Persian kingdom that previously ruled in Babylonia, Muslim legal authorities provided succor to Jewish women seeking divorce, and forced their husbands to acquiesce and issue a writ of divorce. However, as we saw above (section 2), if a husband is unlawfully forced to write a bill of divorce, it is invalid. Therefore, the Muslim coercion resulted in divorces that were halakhically invalid but at the same time made it impossible for the rabbis to prevent the women from re-marrying, because doing so would enrage the Muslim authorities who had validated the procedure. The result was a disaster, because since the divorces were invalid, the women’s second marriages were adulterous, and children born from such unions were mamzerim who would never be able to marry legitimate Jews. Since the rabbis could not change the political-legal reality of Muslim rule, they decided to institute a change in halakha via the mechanism of takanah. From then on, any Jewish woman demanding a divorce (not only on the grounds of sexual repulsiveness) would get it immediately—no questions asked—from a Jewish court! And since a writ of divorce lawfully imposed upon the husband by a Jewish court was valid, any subsequent marriage of the divorcee would be lawful, and children born by her after receiving such a coerced get would be fully “kosher” according to halakha.

The Sevora’im knew full well that the persons directly benefitting by their dramatic takanah were specifically those women who knowingly acted against the Torah and against halakha by refusing to rely upon Jewish rabbinical authorities and instead relying upon Gentile courts—as well as those Jewish men who disregarded the (in)validity of those divorces and married women of such questionable status. But it was precisely for such halakhically deviant/marginal women and men that the rabbis needed to provide a viable alternative—for the good not only of these sinners themselves, but of the entire Jewish community.

The decision of these rabbis to enact such a takanah rested upon an underlying premise that it is important to explicate, that is to say, the premise that within the realm of values recognized by the Torah, it is possible for rational human beings to recognize a hierarchy and to prioritize accordingly, and that the responsibility to do so rests primarily upon rabbis. While the Torah generally granted a husband the prerogative of not issuing a divorce against his will, it also regarded the prevention of adultery and mamzerut as a major value. It was crystal-clear to the rabbis at that time that if historical conditions required prioritization of one of these values, then prevention of adultery and mamzerut should be given preference—even if this meant denying a privilege explicitly granted to husbands by the Divine Lawmaker, and granting to women a privilege He had denied to them. Obviously, the fact that they knew that in certain cases the Torah itself had extended to women the privilege of a coerced divorce enabled them to enact the extension of such privilege to a new range of cases.

For half a millennium after the institution of this takanah (from the mid-seventh to the mid-twelfth centuries), a de facto equality had been obtained between men and women with regard to unilateral divorce: A husband could divorce his wife unilaterally, and a woman could unilaterally achieve freedom from her marriage, since the court would immediately coerce her husband to divorce her.

It is important to note, that this legislation superseded talmudic halakha not only in Muslim-ruled Babylonia but throughout most of the Jewish world, including not only the Middle East, North Africa, [8] and Spain, but also countries where the Gentiles never considered intervening on the side of a women to compel her husband to divorce. Thus, in Catholic Germany, where divorce was anathema to the Christian authorities, Rabbenu Gershom knew of the Babylonian takanah and declared it to be binding in his time and place, i.e., although Torah law allowed coercion of the husband only when a wife was willing to forfeit her ketubah, praxis in Ashkenaz should (and did) follow the takanah, so that the Jewish authorities would coerce the husband of any wife demanding a get to give her a divorce (see his responsum cited above). A century later, in Catholic France, Rashi’s grandson Shmuel ben Meir and other members of the Paris Bet Din also followed suit, demonstrating that such coercion was standard operating procedure in all of Ashkenaz (see Sefer haYashar, responsa, beginning of responsum #24). But all this was to change, because of an almost single-handed effort embarked upon by none other than Shmuel ben Meir’s brother Jacob, known as Rabbenu Tam.

6. Reversal of the Tide: Rabbenu Tam’s Campaign against Coercing Divorce

Rabbenu Tam heard of an incident in which a woman demanded a divorce, and his brother Shmuel and other rabbis in Paris ruled (in line with generally accepted praxis) that the husband should be coerced to do so. In a lengthy halakhic epistle (Sefer haYashar, responsa, beginning of responsum #24), Rabbi Jacob ben Meir critiqued their action. Beginning in a minor tone, he first expressed concern lest “the enemies” claim the get was invalid, because the Bet Din in Paris had not waited for 12 months as required by the Talmud. At this point it seems to the reader that he is not contesting the validity of coercion after the 12 months are over (i.e., he seemingly accepts Sherira Gaon’s tradition, that already in talmudic times the husband was forced to divorce after that interim period). But he is definitely contesting immediate coercion—in other words, he is contesting the Sevora’ic takanah.

Indeed, Rabbenu Tam proceeds to state that there could never have been such a takanah. Why? Because the power to enact takanot contrary to Torah law in matters of marriage and divorce existed in talmudic times—but not after that. Thus, talmudic rabbis were authorized to decide that a get could be coerced in circumstances where the Torah had not allowed that.[9] But if post-talmudic rabbis were to enact such a takanah, they would be acting ultra vires. However, the post-talmudic rabbis were very great, and would never have so acted. Something that could not have happened, obviously never happened. Therefore, such a takanah had never been enacted. The conventional view in Ashkenaz (and wherever else it might be held), that such an enactment had indeed been made, was simply a counterfactual myth.

The only possible source that could authorize rabbis to coerce the husband of a rebellious wife to divorce her was, therefore, the Talmud itself. Rabbenu Tam writes to his brother: “I will now explicate for you; line by line, the talmudic sugya in Ketubot about the rebellious wife,” and proceeds to do so. In the course of that explication, he explains that the Talmud recognizes two types of rebellious wives. Both want to terminate the marriage and receive a divorce. The difference between them is this: Do they also demand payment of their ketubah? The rebellious wife who says ma-ees ‘alai is willing to receive a divorce without any payment of ketubah. It is with regard to her that Ameimar states (according to Rabbenu Tam’s citation of the Talmud):

But if she says ma-ees ‘alai—we do not coerce him.

Rabbenu Tam explains that this means that we do not coerce the husband to wait before divorcing her. Rather, he may immediately divorce her, as she in any case has waived payment of her ketubah. But what if despite her waiver of ketubah, the husband does not want to divorce her? Rabbenu Tam is very clear on this: “In the entire talmudic discussion, there is no mention at all of coercing the husband to divorce, and no other interpretation of the sugya has any validity.” Since, as Rabbenu Tam argues, there never was a post-talmudic takanah enabling coercion, and the Talmud itself does not authorize coercing the husband of a rebellious wife to divorce her, the upshot is clear: Any Jewish court that applies such coercion is acting illegally, and the resulting get is invalid. If the wife remarries, she and her new partner will be adulterers, and their children will be mamzerim. Therefore, “It is better that she remain an agunah, than that aspersion be cast upon the status of her children.” And if the rabbis of Paris were to respond, that for hundreds of years the custom had been to coerce husbands to divorce, and that a general maxim in Ashkenaz was “custom overrides halakha (minhag ‘oqer halakha)—Rabbenu Tam is not impressed: “Heaven forbid that we follow this maxim, when the result will be forbidden adultery and mamzerut.”

Rabbenu Tam is known for his bold reliance upon his own best understanding of the sources, even when this flies in the face of accepted halakhic praxis. Thus, he argued that the conventional arrangement of the four biblical passages inside the tefillin was mistaken, thereby ruling inter alia against his own grandfather Rashi. He also explained that the conventional view that Shabbat begins at sunset was completely mistaken, and that it began only when darkness had fallen. However, his overturning of the ancient tradition that when a woman demands a divorce her husband is coerced to do so—was certainly his most dramatic reversal of halakhic praxis. What could have been the reason for him to do so? Why would he want once again to place the wife at a disadvantage vis-à-vis her husband?

Having phrased the question thus, the answer is immediately obvious. In twelfth-century Ashkenaz, the enactments attributed to Rabbenu Gershom (herem de rabbenu Gershom) had become totally accepted. These enactments had deprived men of two of their major marital advantages vis-à-vis women: They could no longer be married to more than one wife, and they could no longer divorce their wife against her will. However, Rabbenu Gershom had not deprived the woman of her right to have the court force her husband to divorce her! The situation was therefore asymmetrical—to the advantage of the wife! It was this asymmetry that Rabbenu Tam effectively cancelled … by denying that women had ever legitimately possessed such a right.
Post-Rabbenu-Tam, neither the husband not the wife could opt out of a marriage by imposing a divorce upon the other. Divorce was only possible by mutual consent.

7. How to Justify Rabbenu Tam’s Ruling: Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel’s Portrayal of Women

Some 200 years later, Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel (also known as as Rosh) re-located from Ashkenaz to Spain. In Ashekenaz, Rabbenu Tam’s denial of a coerced get to women had by then become totally accepted. In Spain, however, coercion of the husband to divorce was still quite widely practiced. This was apparently especially so in cases where the woman stated that she found her husband repulsive and declared ma-ees ‘alai. How indeed could one go against Maimonides’ value-judgment that a woman may not be compelled to have sex with a man repulsive to her? Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel responded:

Is this a reason to force a husband to divorce, and thereby permit a married woman [to other men]? Let her not have sex with him, and remain a straw widow to the end of her days! In any case, a woman is not commanded to have children. Can it be, that because she wants to follow her headstrong desires, and has fastened her eyes on another man and desires him more than the champion of her youth, that we should fulfill her lust and force the man, who still loves the woman of his youth, to divorce her?! God forbid that any rabbi should rule thus! [...] In this generation, the daughters of Israel are cheeky, and if a wife will be able to extricate herself from under her husband by saying “he repulses me,” not a single daughter of Abraham will remain with her husband; [rather] they will fasten their eyes on another and rebel against their husbands! [10]

According to this view, women are not interested in marital stability but in following their lust and desire. Indeed, if given the choice, not a single woman would remain married to her present husband! One might argue that if that is truly what women want, perhaps they should be freed from their current unwanted state? But this is not the view of Rabbi Asher. His analysis reflects a deeply-held understanding of the purpose of marriage. Marriage is a bulwark against socio-sexual chaos. Such chaos will occur if women will be able to follow their desires for men other than their husbands by forcing him to divorce against his will. Therefore, it is only by absolutely closing such options that social stability can be ensured.

This does not mean that Rabbi Asher is in favor of forced sex. If a wife claims that she finds her husband repulsive, she need not have sex with him. But that does not entitle her to a divorce. Better that she remain without sex for the rest of her life, he argues, than that her husband be forced to capitulate and give her up, against his will! Unlike Maimonides, who holds that a sexless marriage is a moral oxymoron and must be terminated by divorce, Rabbi Asher holds that if such a divorce will enable a woman to seek sexual satisfaction with another man, it is absolutely preferable morally that she remain married against her will—and if she will not have sex with her husband, let her not have sex at all.

However much a contemporary reader may be turned off by this view—and whether or not Rabbenu Tam himself held such a view of women—it is very important to note that this is not a formal-authoritative presentation of halakha. Rather, Rabbi Asher bases his position on what he holds to be central Torah values: the sanctity and stability of marriage, the suppression of social chaos, the preference for marriage without female sexuality over an alternative of lust and licentiousness. And while it is quite probably true that today very few Jews (of either gender) agree with the Rosh’s view of women, the halakhot of divorce remain as they were formulated in twelfth-century Ashkenaz: A husband or a wife who seeks divorce is effectively hostage to his or her marital partner, without whose consent he or she cannot become divorced.

8. Conclusion

When I was growing up, I was taught that the holiness of Jewish marriage is based on the serious commitment of man to woman and of woman to man, expressed (inter alia) in their entering a relationship in which neither party can cast off the other against his or her will. Later, when I leaned in the Yeshiva, I became aware that such had not always been the case: Originally, “in the time of the Torah” (and indeed, also the time of Hazal and the first millennium of the Common Era), a husband could arbitrarily be rid of his wife whenever he wanted. Only later, in the eleventh century CE, did Rabbenu Gershom decide to come to the aid of Jewish women and defend them against such a possibility by forbidding divorce without the woman’s consent. From time to time, a strange question would pop up in my head: Did Torah and Hazal not know that a true Jewish marriage means a serious commitment that cannot be unilaterally terminated by one of the parties?

Subsequently, I became more acquainted with the sources, and realized that over the course of time, holy Jewish marriage with huppah and kiddushin has undergone many metamorphoses. Originally, a husband could divorce a wife against her will, but a wife could not be divorced without her husband’s agreement (pace, e.g., Rabbenu Gershom and Rambam, who hold that under original Torah law any woman really fed up with her husband could forfeit her ketubah and receive a coerced divorce). Later, at the end of the talmudic period or at least from the seventh-century Rabbanan Sevora’ei, halakha moved to a symmetrical situation: Not only the husband but also the wife could unilaterally end the marriage. Then, after Rabbenu Gershom forbade the husband to unilaterally divorce his wife, the pendulum swung to the opposite pole: For about a century, only the wife could coerce the husband to divorce her, while he was forbidden to do so against her will. At this time, halakha (at least in Ashkenaz) was directly contrary to Torah law. After that, Rabbenu Tam restored symmetry between the spouses—but in a manner opposite to what had been the case until Rabbenu Gershom: Now, not only the man but also the woman could not exit the marriage unless the partner concurred. For the first time since Mount Sinai, both partners entering a Jewish marriage knew that they might become hostage to the other.

In recent years, the ideal of no-fault divorce has become prevalent in many societies around the globe: Marriage should not be a prison in which each side holds the only key to the other’s freedom. Hearing rabbis speak (nay, sermonize), one gets a clear message: Such is not the way of the Torah. Our marriage is holy, and that is why it is called kiddushin. And marriage cannot be holy unless it is a total, unconditional commitment that can be abrogated only after much travail and by mutual consent. No-fault divorce is thus a halakhic non-starter.

After reading this article, one thing should be clear: Whatever this or that rabbi may think of no-fault divorce, such was exactly the character of Jewish divorce for a very long time. According to Rabbenu Gershom and Maimonides (et al.), this was original Torah law from the time of Moshe Rabbenu (and according to many others, from the sixth or seventh century until Rabbenu Tam, i.e., for at least half a millennium). Was Jewish marriage not holy then? Similarly, if today, or in several years, halakhic authorities find the will and the courage to (re)institute halakhic no-fault divorce, this will not at all undermine the holiness of marriage under huppah and kiddushin. In fact, the opposite may well be true.

[1] “Kofin oto ‘ad she-yomar rotze ani.”Sifra, ad loc. (Dibbura di Nedava, 3).
[2] “veKhen b’gittei nashim.”
[3]“Devarin she-baLev einam devarim.”
[4]See e.g., Tosafot on Gittin 32a s.v. mahu de-teima.
[5]See Rashbam on Bava Batra 48a s.v. hatam nami neima.
[6]Responsum of Rav Sherira Gaon, Otsar HaGeonim to tractate Ketubot, no. 478. This responsum was known to the rishonim. See e.g. Rabbi Yesh’aya di Trani (thirteenth-century Italy), Tosfot RID on Ketubot 64a–b.
[7]Responsum of Rav Sherira Gaon, Otsar HaGeonim to tractate Ketubot, no. 478.
[8]Rabbi Yitzhak AlFasi (Morocco and Spain, 1013–1103) ruled that the takanah was in force throughout the Jewish world. Rabbenu Hannanel (d. 1055) does not mention the takanah, and thus some have held that he rejected its validity. But this is not self-evident.
[9]To prove the categoric difference between talmudic and post-talmudic authority, Rabbenu Tam cites the talmudic statement (Bava Metzi’ah 86a) “Ravina and Rav Ashi are the termination of instruction (sof horaah).” However, the notion that these words teach that after the Talmud no enactments authorizing coerced divorce are possible—may well be an original interpretation of Rabbenu Tam.
[10]Responsa of Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel section 43:8.

To our members and friends

As Shavuot approaches, Torah study through our Institute continues full-throttle. I am grateful to have worked for the Institute as its National Scholar for nearly a year, and look forward to continuing to teach for many years to come as we promote our vision in communities and college campuses, and through our publications and online classes. I thank all of you for your continued encouragement and support.

Here are some upcoming events: We have begun a new seven-part series on the Book of Samuel at Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan (68th Street and Amsterdam). It will be on the Wednesday evenings in May and June from 7:15-8:15 pm (with the exception of June 4, Shavuot). It began this past Wednesday with 1 Samuel chapter 16. Registration is $100 for the course, or $20 per lecture, at lss.org/RabbiAngel. All are welcome.

Over Shavuot, I will be the scholar-in-residence at the Young Israel of West Hartford (2240 Albany Ave, West Hartford, CT). They are celebrating a community-wide study of Tanakh over the past year, and this Shavuot will be a culmination of that learning. All are welcome.

On Shabbat, June 20-21, I will be the scholar-in-residence at the Young Israel of Oceanside. Their community also has been pursuing a Tanakh program, and this weekend will feature in-depth learning in the Books of Isaiah and Jeremiah. All are welcome.

On Tuesday, June 24, I will be teaching in Yeshiva University’s Experiential Learning program. This is their fourth year of this innovative graduate program for creative Jewish educators. This class is open to participants in that program.

On Sunday-Monday June 29-30: I will be teaching at the Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Yemei Iyyun in Tanakh and Jewish Thought. The Institute is one of the co-sponsoring organizations of this annual learning. This year, the program will be held at Manhattan Day School (310 West 75th Street in Manhattan). Registration forms and more information available at http://www.yctorah.org/content/view/895/17/ All are welcome.

On the five Wednesdays of July (11:30am-12:45pm), I will be teaching a series on the weekly Haftarah as part of the inauguration of the new program Lamdeinu in Teaneck, New Jersey. The classes will be held at Congregation Beth Aaron, 950 Queen Anne Road. The course costs $75, and is open to the entire community. For more information and other offerings, please contact [email protected]. All are welcome.

As always, a growing number of my online classes are available at the “Online Learning” section of our website, jewishideas.org. Two more books are on the way. I am in the final stages of editing of a new collection of essays on Tanakh, with a focus on learning methodology. It is entitled Peshat Isn’t So Simple: Essays on Developing a Religious Methodology to Bible Study, and will be published by Kodesh Press.

My next publication project through the Institute is a Jewish Holiday Companion that will contain insights and explanations of the readings, prayers, and rituals of the holidays. As with my Synagogue Companion, we hope to distribute copies of this book to all members of our Institute, and to interested synagogues and schools across the country.

Looking forward to much continued learning together,

Rabbi Hayyim Angel

National Scholar

Certainly the study of Kabbalah(esoteric literature) is authentic and part of the Torah. We know that the great Rabbis that we all revere—the Ramban, Rav Moshe Cordovero, the Ramchal, the Wilna Gaon, Rav Shneur Zalman (Chabad), the Malbim, Rav Chaim Wolozhin, Rav Yosef Hayyim of Baghdad--and many other luminaries spent many hours in its study and produced brilliant literature. Beyond that, didn't Chazzal (Chagiga 13a) themselves deal with these subjects?

However, in our day and age we are faced with the problem of Pseudo-Kabbalists, people who are really ignorant of the true Kabbalah but nevertheless make it into a profitable business. These imposters are photogenic, very impressive in beard and garb, and make a show of great piety. Many who have some problem or worry and who wish to find an anchor of security, feel relieved to have the blessings of these pseudo-kabbalists; although to achieve that "blessing" we must grant them a sizeable amount of money.

Some of these pseudo-kabbalists deal in giving "Divine" advice. When a prospective bride or groom ask for divination whether the match is "lucky", the imposters check the Gimatria of the names, which of course has no practical bearing on the suitability of the match. (So said the Steipler Rabbi, his words recorded in "Tamim Tiyeh" page 13). Who can count how many unfortunate people had their wedding hopes dashed due to the false advice given by such kabbalists? Some imposters claim that the cause of marriage unhappiness and bickering is due to some fault in the letters of the Ketuba document. These pseudo-kabbalists are willing to re-write a new Ketuba, of course for a sizeable sum. Others check the Mezuza, and finding some fault in its legality, claim that this was the cause for illness or financial loss. (And of course rewrite a new Mezuza, for a "nice" sum). Those people who took such advice didn't go to doctors, or to financial advisors, since they relied on the occult advice of these imposters.

Others were advised to change their place of domicile, or change their profession, due to some whim or inner hunch of the "Kabbalist". This implicit reliance on "soothsayers" is negated by Sefer Tanya (of Chabad, page 134).

The question which many readers might ask is "why claim that these "Rabbis" are imposters? I answer: For two reasons. First, all of the famous Kabbalists of yore, all the ancients, didn't deal with these "meddlings" aforementioned. Not the Arizal, not the Ba-al ShemTov, nor any great Gadol of note. And of course there is no mention of such matters in the Zohar literature. These shenanigans are innovations of our present century!

Secondly, this is a false understanding just what Kabbalah is about. The great Ramchal teaches in his book (Sha-arei Ramchal, pages 36, 62, 404) that all of the Kabbalah is built on parables and proverbs and if one doesn't know how to unravel the parable, he really knows nothing. This fundamental approach was said too by Rav Moshe Cordovero (in his Shiur Koma, article Mashal), so too by Rabbi Chayim Volozhin (Nefesh ha-Chayim, part three chapter seven) and others. The pseudo-kabbalists mumble words of the externals, the words of Zohar and Arizal like a fetish, without understanding the inner import. How do we know this? It is because they display publicly their knowledge, they flaunt their "connections" with the occult world. And the Wilna Gaon writes (at the beginning of his commentary to Sifra Di-tzniuta) that Proverbs (11, 2) writes "Et Znu-im , Chochma" those who are modest and don't reveal their expertise, they are those who attain Chochma. As written in Chagiga 13a "Dvash ve Chalav Tachat Leshoneich" wisdom which is sweeter than honey mixed with milk, keep under your tongue! See also the Gaon's teaching on Mishlei 12 verse 28, the real Tzaddikim conceal their inner knowledge. See too the words of Maharal, Avot beginning of chapter six, Ve-he-vai Tzanua (page 285).

In the recent period, several of these fakers have been caught doing sinful sexual actions with female applicants. This causes great Chillul Hashem. The mis-step was already foreseen by the great Rav Nachman of Breslav, who says (Chayei MoHaran 526) that the word "Kabbalah" is the numerical equivalent of "No-eif" (137). Certainly he doesn't intend to say that ALL kabbalists will fall under that category. He only says that those who are not fitting will "slip". This I found in the Zohar (book three, page 123a) that those faulty people unworthy of learning Kabbalah, will be misled by snakes and scorpions, which is a figure of speech for the evil inclination.

Who is fitting to undertake the real study of Kabbalah? Rabbi Chaim Vital, the major student of the Arizal, notifies us (on page 23 of his Introduction to the Etz Chayim) of twenty four conditions. To be sexually pure of sin. To beware of conceit. To be chary of idle chatter. Never to get angry. To love all Jews (in other words not to have a riff with anyone). To have proper intention for all of the 100 benedictions uttered each day, etc., and many other conditions which are very difficult for most people to practice properly. So how can we give the mantle of Kabbalistic authority to just anybody who has impressive dress or mode of speech?

The problem is that some of these imposters sometimes seem to have clairvoyant abilities. Some of them are good at telepathy, or at foreseeing future events, or even for grasping private personal details of the person asking for their blessing. Isn't that a sign of Kedusha? Not So! Researchers at Duke University are presently studying the matter of para-psychological abilities. There are people who are born with that knack, without being holy at all. The Rambam in his Introduction to Perush HaMishna, admits that some people have wonderful ability (despite the fact that they sometimes err). However, it is no sign at all of holiness or of connection with the Almighty. To the contrary, this prowess is a Nissayon (spiritual test) to the person born with that ability, that by misusing his talents he will have control over other people's minds, get their money and dedication, and even establish a cult.

A century ago, the giant ship called "Titanic" hit an iceberg and sank with over 1,500 voyagers. The tragedy was foreseen by Morgan Robertson and depicted in his book "Futility" four years before the tragedy! So too the terrible assassination of John Kennedy was foreseen several years in advance by Jean Dixon. She depicted the month, the place of ambush, the physical description of the murderer. It was uncanny.

Knowing in advance, or knowing secret and personal details of our lives, is no sign of sanctity nor of connection with the Almighty.

We must be wary of these people. Kabbalah, the true Kabbalah, is something else entirely. It is to understand the inner meaning of the Mitzvot, it is to fathom greater understanding of Holy Scripture. It is to understand Aggadot Chazzal (So says the Wilna Gaon, writing on Mishlei 24 verse 30. And so too says the Sefer Tanya of Lubavitch , page 137). It is to get the real appreciation of Ahavat Hashem ve-yir-ato.

Kabbalah is not be a hatchet to be used for bettering our temporal situations (Kardom lachpor bah - Avot, chapter four). And people relying on the "advice" of these charlatans may bring upon themselves considerable physical, spiritual, emotional and financial sufferings.