Haham Solomon Gaon passed away on 19 Tevet 5755 (December 22, 1994). During the course of his lifetime, he impacted on many thousands of people. He served for many years as the Haham of the Spanish and Portuguese community in London; and was the founder and director of the Sephardic Studies Program at Yeshiva University in New York.

As one of Haham Gaon’s first students at Yeshiva University in 1963, I want to share a few thoughts about a man who was not merely a teacher, but a mentor and friend. Had I not studied with Haham Gaon, I almost surely would not have become a rabbi; had he not been a constant guide and friend, I almost surely would not have had a rabbinic career spanning five decades.

Solomon Gaon was born in Travnik, Yugoslavia in 1912 and studied at the yeshiva in Sarajevo. Both his parents died in the Holocaust. He received his rabbinic ordination from Jews' College in London. In 1949 he became Haham (Chief Rabbi) of the Sephardic congregations of the British Commonwealth. With Alan Mocatta, he is credited with revivifying a declining community. Beginning in 1963 he became involved (initially on a part-time basis) with Yeshiva University in New York, and was integral in the founding of its Sephardic Studies Program. While in New York, Haham Gaon was closely identified with Congregation Shearith Israel where he attended services regularly.

Haham Gaon had an uncanny understanding of human nature. He seemed to know what was on your mind without your ever having to tell him. He was one of those rare rabbis and teachers who actually cared about others with a fullness of concern. He held impressive titles and received many honors; but he was among the humblest people I have ever known. Whatever he achieved was not directed at self-glory, but was for the glory of God. He spoke to all people with respect and kindness. He was as non-judgmental a rabbi as I have ever met. His motivating emotion was love; his compassion and empathy seemed to know no bounds.

Haham Gaon seemed to have boundless energy. He traveled extensively; he visited many Sephardic communities around the world. He spoke at many conferences and scholarly gatherings. As busy as he was, he always seemed to have time for family, friends, and students. He and Mrs. Gaon were gracious hosts; they enjoyed being with people, sharing happy times.

Haham Gaon had a lively sense of humor. He also had gravitas. He knew how to carry himself with great dignity while still not becoming aloof.

Haham Gaon, like the classic rabbis of Sephardic tradition, placed great emphasis on prayer. He seemed to have a remarkable spiritual intimacy with the Almighty. When Haham Gaon prayed, all of us in his presence felt an extra spiritual energy in the room.

In an article I wrote on Sephardic models of rabbinic leadership, I referred to Haham Gaon: “As a young rabbi, I learned much from my teacher Haham Solomon Gaon, with whom I studied at Yeshiva University, and to whom I turned for guidance for many years thereafter. I once complained to Haham Gaon that I was called upon by various organizations and committees to attend their events and meetings. I felt I should be exempt from these communal responsibilities, so that I could devote more time to my studies. I thought the Haham would support my request. Instead, he gently rebuked me. He said: the people who devote their time and effort on behalf of the community need to know that the rabbi is with them. They need to see the rabbi, to hear the rabbi’s suggestions, to know that the rabbi appreciates and participates in their work. Yes, you need time to study; but you also need to devote time to working with members of the community. Haham Gaon was a Haver ha-Ir, a friend of the community.”

I went on to write that the classic Sephardic rabbinic model personified by Haham Gaon has been on the decline. “For a variety of sociological and psychological reasons, there has been a sea change in Orthodox rabbinic leadership in general—and an even more profound change in Sephardic rabbinic leadership. The upsurge in the influence of extreme Hareidi religious authorities has dragged much of Orthodoxy to the right.”

Haham Gaon represented a balanced religiosity, deeply faithful to tradition while deeply sensitive to the needs and feelings of modern men and women. Haham Gaon was a model of dignity, compassion, and total commitment to the People of Israel and the State of Israel. He did not attempt to validate his religiosity by adopting “Hareidi” style rabbinic garb; on the contrary, as a proud Sephardic rabbi, he refused to compromise his own traditions in order to curry favor among others. He respected Ashkenazic rabbis who were faithful to their traditions, and he expected them to be respectful of his traditions.

As we mark the anniversary of the passing of Haham Gaon, we may well also be marking the end of an era of Sephardic rabbinic leadership. The broadness of vision, tolerance, spirituality and humanism of the Sephardic rabbinic tradition is on the brink of extinction. At the very moment when the Jewish world needs exactly this kind of spiritual leadership, we miss Haham more than ever.

Haham Gaon was an optimist. He believed that the tradition he embodied would be a source of strength to the Jewish People in the generations to come. Those of us who were his students and friends must also be optimists. We must be worthy heirs to the spiritual legacy he has left us.

She’elah: Is there a halakhic obligation of Western Orthodox Jewry to engage in Jewish-Christian dialogue with their fellow citizens?

Teshuvah: This question involves many components, but the short answer is yes. Western Orthodox Jewry is halakhically obligated to engage in dialogue with Western Christians. The necessity of our participation in dialogue with Christians is clear from any objective—even from a secular—perspective. The Western Jewish narrative demonstrates the utility of this dialogue. Our halakhic obligation to the Christians amongst whom we live includes social justice-related behavior that requires dialogue. Further, just as Christians approach their relationship with Jews as individuals who follow the will of God, Jews must approach this dialogue as fulfilling their halakhic obligation. As God’s Providence shapes Jewish History, halakha guides Jewish actions in accordance with the will of God. The Jewish relationship with Christians in the West falls squarely under the rubric of building a better world in the service of God.

From talmudic times it was well established that none of the biblical or talmudic restrictions with regard to dealing with idolaters apply to Christians because Christians are monotheists who believe in the God of the Jewish people. Despite varying talmudic opinions, both pagans and Christians in talmudic days were already treated differently from heathens of previous times. For example, Jews are obligated with respect to both pagans and Christians to visit their sick, bury their dead and help their poor (see Gittin 61a; also see Rambam Hilkhot Melakhim 10:12). It was also explicitly determined that outside of the land of Israel Gentiles are not considered idolaters (see R. Khiya bar Abba in the name of R. Johanan, Hullin 13b).

During the Middle Ages the halakha was established that Christians are not classified as idolaters. Rabbeinu Tam, for example, categorizes Christians as Noahides, not pagans. He accepts their oaths as being given in the name of God (Tosafot Behorot 2b). This is particularly noteworthy because of the period of Jewish history in which Rabbeinu Tam lived. In the twelfth century, he was caught in the anti-Jewish riots that accompanied the Second Crusade. He witnessed the utter destruction of the Jewish community of Blois, France, by a murderous mob. During the massacre, which occurred on Shavuot of 1147, Rabbeinu Tam’s home was plundered, and he was severely wounded. He only narrowly escaped death. Still, he held that when Christians give an oath, they have the Creator in mind.

Rabbi Menahem Meiri, one of the sages of Provence who lived in the thirteenth and into the fourteenth century, further developed the halakha with regard to Jewish dealings with Christians. He states that Christians who live by the discipline of their religion should be treated as we treat our fellow Jews in our social and economic dealings (Bet haBehirah to A. Z. 20a).

Rabbi Joseph Caro, who lived through the expulsion from Spain as a child, accepts the view developed in the Middle Ages. In his Shulhan Arukh (Yoreh Deah 148.12; and more strongly by Mosheh Rifkes in the Beer haGolah to the Shulhan Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat, 425 at the end) he states that Christians are not considered idolaters.

Rambam goes further than just stating that Christians are not idolaters. Rambam adds an important element by stating that Christians assist in the preparation for the Messianic Era (Rambam L’am, Hilkhot Melakhim 11.4, the non-censored version). This was a particularly bold ruling by Rambam due to importance that both Christians and Jews place on the Messiah. However, Rambam does not otherwise view Christians favorably. He is not a Western Jew and his rulings on this topic reflect conditions of Jews in Muslim, not Christian, lands.

Just as Jewish law cannot be decided without a clear understanding of the current facts on the ground, the development of halakha over the centuries cannot be understood without an understanding of the historical narrative surrounding the legal rulings.

Between the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492 and the acceptance of Freedom of Religion enshrined in the American Constitution, there was a slow positive development in the relationship of Jews to their Christian fellow citizens in the West. Jews and Protestants were often grouped together as heretics and burned at the stake, side by side. The 1648 Treaty of Osnabruck, part of the Peace of Westphalia at the end of the Thirty Years' War, expanded religious tolerance by legalizing Jewish religious worship in “clandestine churches”—as long as that worship was discrete.

The first important halakhic development after this turning point was by Rabbi Jacob Emden. He attributes to Christians the possibility of greater participation in fulfilling the commandments of God than just following the seven commandments of Noah: by assisting the Jews in the fulfillment of mitzvoth.

He states that one who helps others to observe is greater than one who observes but does not help others to do so—even though he only observes the seven Noahide Commandments; and the non-Jew who does not observe the 613 commandments, but supports it, is considered among the blessed. R. Emden states that the founders of Christianity correctly demonstrated the Christian view that the Jews are still bound by God’s Torah—and that the children of Israel who remain loyal to God are worthy of Christian love (Seder Olam Rabbah veZuta).

This ruling is of particular importance within the Jewish historical narrative. In R. Emden’s lifetime Western Christendom opened to the possibility of not just tolerating Jews, but offering greater freedoms. The notion of a social contract between citizens and their government, which would include freedom to worship, was new in R. Emden’s time. This new conceptualization of the state would allow the Jewish people living in Western lands to openly serve God—and therefore better follow the tenets of Jewish Law.

R. Emden states, with reference to Christians, that Jews should consider them instruments for the fulfillment of the prophecy that the knowledge of God will one day spread throughout the earth. Whereas the nations before them worshipped idols, denied God's existence, and did not recognize God's power of retribution, the rise of Christianity served to spread among the nations the knowledge that there is One God who rules the world, who rewards and punishes and reveals Himself to humanity (Seder Olam Rabbah veZuta). This is perhaps not as strong as Rambam’s statement that Christians assist in the preparation for the Messianic Era, but it does offer the opportunity that Christians might participate more fully in service to God.

Although not a halakhic source, it is important to continue the Jewish narrative with Moses Mendelssohn. As part of the Haskalah, Mendelssohn confirmed this status of the non-Jew in relation to the Jew—but from a secular point of view (Jerusalem, section 4, Judaism and Christianity).

Mendelssohn contended that respect can only exist in a realm of secular modernity and tolerance based on universal truths. Mendelssohn played an important part in the Jewish narrative. In his lifetime, his views were accepted and implemented in the religious freedoms granted by the Virginia Declaration of Rights which accompanied its State Constitution. Soon thereafter, these religious freedoms and equal protection under the law were granted to all U.S. citizens with the ratification of the U.S. Bill of Rights. Then Napoleon similarly emancipated much of the Jews of Europe.

Moses Mendelssohn was an observant Jew who considered himself a disciple of Jacob Emden, and they had a friendly relationship. However, by disregarding the authority of halakha and secularizing the foundations of Jewish-Christian dialogue and cooperation, the shared project is weakened.

For R. Emden, respect is based on our shared commitment to God, divine commands, and divine providence (Seder Olam Rabbah veZuta). This, for R. Emden, is greater than being co-equal citizens of a secular state.

Perhaps Mendelssohn’s way was the only way, given the situation in his particular time. He did not develop halakha, yet we do not ignore him as part of the Jewish narrative, which, in its own way, impacts Jewish Law. [1] Just as the effect of the Providence of God on Jewish history is real, so too are the Torah's narrative and laws reflections of God's will. Only halakha is binding as precedent, yet we appreciate the role Mendelssohn played in Western Jewish emancipation and history. And as we do not ignore Mendelssohn, we cannot ignore what is going on around us today—in what will become part of Jewish history. The facts on the ground today are critical in determining the halakha with regard to Christian-Jewish dialogue.

When I came to Stamford in 1948 I involved myself in interfaith work, among other things. I felt a few areas were important to build my community: Youth work (including a basketball team in the Church league), hospital visits every day, and involvement in the interfaith religious community.

I joined the Stamford Clergy Association, which gave me close contact with the various church leaders in town, including Protestant, Black Baptist, and Methodist ministers. I ultimately became the President of this association toward the end of the 1950s. Of the “out of towners,” that is, the Yeshiva University rabbinical graduates who received posts outside of New York City, many involved themselves in interfaith organizations in their local communities.

This fact was well known. We, as YU graduates, saw no halakhic barrier to prevent our involvements in such organizations. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik knew of our involvement and gave it tacit approval—mipenei darkei shalom: All the paths of Judaism lead to peace (Gittin 29b). We learned this from the Rav, and I took it to heart. I felt that visiting the sick and having a positive influence on the non-Jews in the community was important for me as a local congregational rabbi. It also had positive results for the Jews in my community.

By 1963 we had outgrown our synagogue building and purchased land to build a new one. One of my colleagues from the Black Baptist congregation expressed an interest in our current building. It was clear that we would receive the highest sale price from a buyer who would build a residential high-rise. But I felt that the non-monetary benefits of selling our building to the Baptist congregation would outweigh the monetary benefits of selling to a developer.

However, as there are halakhic ramifications to selling a synagogue, I felt that it was necessary to seek the advice and approval from the Rav. Rabbi Soloveitchik found no problem with the sale to the Church but said that with the sale of any synagogue building it must be shown that the new building is an improvement over the old. Implicit in the approval of the Rav is that the Christian group we were selling the synagogue to was not practicing idolatry (Avodah Zara, 2a). With the Rav’s approval, the sale of our synagogue building was made to our Baptist neighbors.

Soon after Rabbi Soloveitchik approved the sale of our synagogue to the Baptist congregation, he published the essay “Confrontation” (Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Thought, 1964 volume 6, #2), which addressed head-on the issue of Christian-Jewish dialogue. The Rav added important nuance to our evolving understanding of the halakha. (It is important to note that the “Confrontation” the Rav speaks of in this essay is not a confrontation between Jews and Christians. In fact, Jews and Christians are on the same side of the confrontation the Rav presents.)

Jews, the Rav says in “Confrontation,” stand shoulder to shoulder with Christians as part of Western Civilization. We Jews are halakhically obligated to advance the general welfare and progress of humankind, to alleviating human suffering, to protecting human rights, to helping the needy, et cetera.

The Rav explicitly recognized that Western civilization has absorbed both Judaic and Christian elements—and that we may speak of a Judeo-Hellenistic-Christian tradition within the cultural framework of Western civilization. But the Rav clearly expresses that Jews are an independent Covenantal Community, and must remain so.

The Rav therefore requires one fundamental condition to Jewish-Christian dialogue to safeguard Jewish individuality and religious independence: No Jewish or Christian theological claims may be included in the dialogue. [2] To engage in interfaith theological dialogue would be counter to the reverence we are obligated to show to God. The Rav does not deny the right of the Christian community to address itself to the Jews in Christian eschatological terms.
The Rav’s allowance of including eschatology within the scope of Christian-Jewish dialogue has echoes of Rambam’s earlier ruling. And, like R. Emden, he offers the possibility for Christians to participate more fully in God’s work.

Including the topic of eschatology in the dialogue suggests that the dialogue presents an opportunity to take part in building the World to Come or bring the Messianic Age—that is, to build a better world according to God’s will.

A few months later that same year was the march on Washington in support of the Civil Rights Act, which would benefit both Jews and African Americans. I headed a delegation from Congregation Agudath Sholom to participate in what we knew would be an historic event.

At 3 a.m., the train to Washington D.C. stopped in Stamford. I boarded with many congregants—including young people. I marched in the front row with Martin Luther King, Jr., and then watched him as he delivered his “I have a Dream” speech. It was an important moment not only in Black and U.S. history, but also in Jewish history. The next year, when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Jews were beneficiaries of newfound rights, along with African Americans.

A few years later, Dr. King was assassinated. Neighborhoods erupted with destructive anger in many cities across the United States. Immediately after the news broke, I was contacted by one of my African American colleagues from the Clergy Association. We organized a peaceful march through Stamford to convey a message of peace and unity. We marched down West Main Street in Stamford, singing songs of peace and ballads of the Civil Rights Movement. We were successful in Stamford. The atmosphere remained calm. As a comparison, Newark, New Jersey, the city in which I grew up as the son of a congregational rabbi, suffered a great loss to people’s property and their livelihoods.

In the years that followed, I was invited to speak often, especially on Martin Luther King Day, at the Baptist congregation that resided in our former Synagogue building—with its big Star of David above the door.

The Rav is correct in his ruling that the scope of the dialogue should be limited; and we as Jews should always be vigilant that Christians with whom we dialogue have no hidden agenda to proselytize to us. However, my experiences have demonstrated that facts on the ground have improved in fundamental ways during my lifetime. Christians who are currently engaged in dialogue with Jews have sincere intentions and engage in the dialogue out of what they see as a shared commitment to follow the will of God.

The year after the Rav published “Confrontation,” the Catholic Church made a major theological change in their relation to the Jews in Vatican II, with their Nostra Aetate. The Catholic Church made clear that there is no ancestral or collective Jewish guilt for the death of Jesus. They made clear that the Jewish religion is not “extrinsic,” but “intrinsic” to the Catholic religion. And, although it claimed that the Church is the new people of God, it also insisted that Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God. In this declaration, the Church affirmed the continued validity of God's covenant with Israel. In the wake of Nostra Aetate Christian-Jewish dialogue flourished. In my dealings with Christians during this time I have found them to be sincere in their motives and beliefs.

In 1990, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I received a call from the chairman of the Rabbinical Council of America. He wanted to know if I would go to the Vatican that Sunday for the 25th anniversary of Nostra Aetate. One of the two Orthodox rabbis who were members of IJCIC (the International Jewish Committee for Inter-religious Consultations) had taken ill at the last minute and could not be part of a group that was headed to the Vatican. I was honored to accept this invitation.

Twenty Jews and twenty Catholics met in the Vatican. At the end of the conference, the Jews and the Catholics each wrote a paper and presented it to Pope John Paul II. The Pope read the papers and addressed us as a group. After the address, the Catholics were dismissed and the Pope told us that he wanted to meet each of us Jews personally. I situated myself at the end so my meeting wouldn’t be under time pressure.

When my turn came, I told the Pope we are Landsmen, explaining that Landsman is the Yiddish term for people from the same country or area. The Pope was from Poland where my parents had lived until they arrived in the United States just before my birth. I told him that my father had memories of the Polish people being anti-Semitic—yet it seems that the Jewish people have never had a greater friend in the leadership of the Church than this Polish-born Pope.

Pope John Paul II replied that he would explain with a story. He said that when he was young he attended a small school in Warsaw where he studied drama. He aspired to be an actor and a playwright. When the Nazis came, they gathered the entire student body into the courtyard. They brought down the faculty—many of whom were Jewish—and proceeded to kill them all in front him and the other students. This had a traumatic effect on him. He was not embarrassed to tell me that he was one of the best students in the school and he loved his teachers as they loved him. He said he walked away from that incident knowing that he did not want to live in such a world. He decided that he would enter a seminary and study for the priesthood. Soon thereafter he made a pledge to God. Pope John Paul II paused and said he had never told anyone before—but that he pledged to himself that whenever he is in a position of influence he would do what he can for the Jewish people. He never dreamed of being Pope—he was not yet even a priest—but now he is in exactly such a position of influence.
A bit overwhelmed, I must have shocked him as I breached protocol and leaned over and gave him a hug.

Three years later, as I was transitioning from rabbi of my congregation to rabbi emeritus, I co-founded and then became CEO of the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield Connecticut—a Catholic institution. I subsequently met with Pope John Paul II seven more times. I found him to be completely sincere in his dealing with the Jews. I also had the opportunity to meet Pope Benedict XVI—several times before he was Pope and twice after. As Cardinal Ratzinger, he was a major theologian and influential confidant of Pope John Paul II before becoming Pope himself.

Although my experience with Catholics has been on a more intense level, I see a similar sincerity from many Protestant groups. I spent ten years teaching a Sunday adult education Torah class at local Protestant churches in New Canaan, from 1995 to 2005, and found them to be warm and sincere. Evangelical leaders I have dealt with, such as Marcus Braybrooke, have made great theological strides in aligning Jews and Christians in their relation to each other and, mutually, to God. The dual covenant theory has even become commonplace in Protestant communities, allowing Jews to be seen as achieving salvation through Torah observance. The commitment extends to more practical realms, as several Protestant communities have recently become major financial contributors to Jewish organizations such as Keren Hayesod.

The Christian leaders who are our partners today have demonstrated that their main goal in dialogue is joint service to God. Building a better world is their focus. Christians involved in Jewish-Christian dialogue by definition have faith in God; it is only appropriate that the Jews involved in Jewish-Christian dialogue be similarly motivated by religious convictions. If Orthodox Jews do not participate in this dialogue, the Jewish side will continue to be represented by secular Jewish organizations whose world view does not match their religious Christian counterparts, and who fundamentally see their actions as universalist and not bound by God’s will.

It is essential for Christian-Jewish dialogue to occur within the framework of Jewish law so it continues to be part of our halakhic understanding and our normative Jewish behavior. It is essentials because it is a part of both Jewish and Christian service to God. Christian-Jewish dialogue must not be left to Jews who do not feel bound by God’s Law.

If Jews build this dialogue with Christians based on secular underpinnings our commitment is subject to change based on utilitarian or political calculations. But if both parties enter into dialogue as people who understand themselves to be in a covenant with God, we have a better chance of building a true and lasting relationship to alleviate suffering, advance social justice and build a brighter world in the service of God.

We, as Jews, do have certain halakhic obligations to the Christians among whom we live. These obligations can be thought of under the heading of social justice, including to bury their dead, to visit their sick, and to help their poor. Christians see the same obligation and are our partners in this, God’s work. The necessary dialogue required for the fulfillment of these mitzvoth is likewise a halakhic requirement. All the more so, we must dialogue with our Christian neighbors to help establish the Messianic Era and create a better world to come.

Community leaders are obligated to ensure that there is proper inter-communal dialogue between Jews and Christians. It is clearly not incumbent upon—nor desirable for—every individual Jew to initiate such dialogue.

To conclude, most Jews currently engaged in Jewish-Christian dialogue still believe that proper interfaith respect and dialogue can only exist in a realm of secular modernity and tolerance based on secular universalism. However, our partners, as faithful Christians, respect our shared commitment to God, God’s Law, and God’s Providence. We do a disservice to the Christian faith Community and to ourselves as Jews, by disregarding this fact.

Further, without the constraint of Jewish Law, any individuals or groups may feel free to dialogue and form alliances for whatever purposes. However, it is exactly God’s Law that is important, and necessary, within Christian-Jewish dialogue.

It is time to re-contextualize our relationship with those Christians with whom we dialogue. It is time to accept that we and our Christian counterparts are engaged in God’s work, mandated by halakha, to bring about a better world.
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[1] Please note that I leave Spinoza out of our narrative.

[2] However, even on this point, Dr. David Berger has stated in his article “Revisiting ‘Confrontation’ After Forty Years: A Response to Rabbi Eugene Korn” that a rabbi close to Rabbi Soloveitchik has stated that the Rav told him he trusted Rabbi Walter Wurzburger to deal with theological issues in conversations with Christians.

Book Review

Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible: Genesis (Regnery Faith, 2019)

Rabbi Hayyim Angel

          Dennis Prager is far better known as a political commentator than a Bible Scholar. Nonetheless, he is animated by his belief in the Torah and its enduring moral messages for humanity. His commentary, as the book’s title suggests, is rooted in a rationalist approach to the Bible.

          Whether or not one agrees with all of his politics or individual interpretations of the verses, Prager’s commentary is strikingly relevant when he emphasizes the moral revolution of the Torah and the vitality of its moral teachings to today’s overly secularized Western world. Rather than serving as bastions of moral teachings and American values, universities are increasingly at the vanguard of attacks against God, the Bible, family values, Israel, and the very notion of an objective morality. Prager pinpoints several of the major differences between the Torah’s morality and the dangerous shortcomings of today’s secular West.

          Throughout his commentary, Prager makes his case for belief in God, providence, the divine origins of the Torah, and the eternal power of the Torah’s morality. He also offers a running commentary on the Torah, bringing insights from a wide variety of scholars and thinkers, as well as from his personal experiences. In this review, we will focus exclusively on the former, as it is here that the commentary makes its greatest contributions.

God’s creation of the world teaches that there is ultimate purpose to human existence. Atheists reject God’s existence. If all existence is random happenstance, however, there is no ultimate purpose. Additionally, the Torah posits that God is completely separate from nature. God gave human beings a special role, and the moral God demands morality from humanity. Science teaches science, but it cannot teach right from wrong, or even if there is a right or a wrong. Science cannot provide ultimate purpose, since it studies only the physical universe (7-8).

          The world began as chaotic (tohu va-vohu, Genesis 1:2), and God created order through a process of distinctions. According to the Torah, the primary responsibility of humanity is to preserve God’s order and distinctions. The creation narrative in Genesis distinguishes between God and the universe, humans and animals, and sacred and profane. Elsewhere in the Torah, God distinguishes between people and God, good and evil, life and death, and many others. The battle for higher civilization essentially is the struggle between biblical distinctions and the human desire to undo many of those distinctions. Prager concludes with a chilling assertion about the contemporary West: “As Western society abandons the Bible and the God of the Bible, it is also abandoning these distinctions. I fear for its future because Western civilization rests on these distinctions” (14).

          Pagans believed that the gods inhere in nature. This belief led to the need for people to propitiate the gods and offer sacrifices. By stressing that God is outside of nature, the Torah revolutionizes the role of humanity vis a vis the world. People must rule and conquer the earth, meaning that the world was created for human use (1:28). People must not abuse nature or inflict unnecessary suffering on animals, but people rule the world. Among other things, this belief led to the invention of modern medicine to fight diseases. Prager warns of a relapse to the pagan worldview: “Many secular people in our time romanticize nature, perhaps not realizing—or not wanting to realize—that either humans rule over nature or nature will destroy humans” (27).

Without the values of the Bible, people lose their uniqueness as being created in God’s image (1:26), and instead become insignificant parts of nature. British physicist and atheist Stephen Hawking said, “We humans [are] mere collections of fundamental particles of nature.” When God is diminished and nature is elevated, human worth is reduced (104). Finally, without God, people are simply another part of nature. There cannot be any good or evil behavior for humanity, just as we would not call an earthquake evil. “Therefore, as ironic as it may sound to a secular individual, only a God-based understanding of human life allows for free will” (505-506).

          It is not good for man to be alone (2:18). People ideally were meant to marry and to live together in a community. In the secular West, there has been a dramatic decrease in marriage rates, and more people live by themselves than at any time in recorded history. Consequently, loneliness has become a major social pathology. A meta-analysis of 70 studies covering over three million people published in the journal ‘Perspectives on Psychological Science’ concludes that “loneliness is now a major public health issue and represents a greater health risk than obesity and is as destructive to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.” Prager also quotes the moral benefits of participating in a religious community. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks summarizes the research of Robert Putnam: “Regular attendees at a place of worship were more likely than others to give money to charity, engage in volunteer work, donate blood, spend time with someone who is depressed, offer a seat to a stranger, help someone find a job…Regular attendance at a house of worship is the most accurate predictor of altruism, more so than any other factor, including gender, education, income, race, region, marital status, ideology and age” (39-41).

          God expressed grave concern over Adam and Eve’s eating from the Tree of Knowledge, lamenting that “man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:22). Prager frames the sin in Eden as the struggle over who determines morality. The Torah teaches that God does, but human sin is when people determine good and evil. When people usurp that right, people become god. “And it is precisely what has happened in the West since the French Enlightenment. Man has displaced God as the source of right and wrong. As Karl Marx wrote, ‘Man is God.’ And as Lenin, the father of modern totalitarianism, said, ‘We repudiate all morality derived from non-human (i.e., God) and non-class concepts’” (59).

Human conscience alone cannot bring about a just society. Conscience can be easily manipulated when serving a cause. Conscience can be dulled when people do more and more bad. Conscience also is not usually as powerful as the natural drives—greed, envy, sex, alcohol and others can overpower the conscience. And finally, conscience does not always guide someone properly to do what is right. We need God to teach objective moral values (108-109). “Even Voltaire (1694-1778), a passionate atheist and the godfather of the aggressively secular French Enlightenment, acknowledged: ‘I want my lawyer, my tailor, my servants, and even my wife to believe in God because it means that I shall be cheated, and robbed, and cuckolded less often. If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him’” (239).

          Those who admire the achievements of successful people likely will strive to emulate them. Those who are jealous and resentful of the success of others become destructive. Rather than improving his offering, Cain instead envied Abel’s successful sacrifice and murdered him. The Philistines envied Abraham and Isaac, and therefore destructively filled up Abraham’s wells and persecuted Isaac (Genesis 26). Economist George Gilder (a non-Jew) wrote about this phenomenon in his book, The Israel Factor. He demonstrates that a society’s reaction to Israel’s successes is a predictor of their success or failure. Those who resent the outsized achievements of Israel are likely to fail morally, economically, and socially. Those who admire Israel and seek to emulate its achievements are likely to create their own free and prosperous societies (65). Prager draws a lesson for contemporary America: “The most notable exception to this unfortunate rule of human nature has been the American people. Until almost the present day, Americans tended to react to people who had attained material success not by resenting them but by wanting to know how they could emulate them. This seems to be changing as more Americans join others in resenting the economic success of other people” (308).

          The Torah describes Noah as “a righteous man, blameless in his age.” The Sages of the Talmud debate whether the Torah’s addition of “in his age” diminishes his objective righteousness, or whether it makes Noah all the more impressive for standing above his wicked society. Although both positions are valid, Prager supports the latter view, observing that few people have the moral courage to reject their environment. Prager adds a more important point: Many are tempted to judge people of the past by our contemporary moral standards, rather than in the context of their time. As a result, we would conclude that virtually nobody who lived before us was a good person. For example, many of the founding fathers of America owned slaves, and America allowed slavery at the time of its founding. Since slavery is indeed evil, we may conclude that America’s founders were bad men and America itself was a bad place. However, it is vital to judge America in 1776 “in its age,” and not by the standards of our time. At that time, virtually every society practiced slavery. It was the values of America’s founders and Western Bible-based civilization that led to the abolition of slavery, and the thriving of freedom-loving and freedom-spreading society (91-93).

          After the flood, God concludes that He never again will destroy humanity, “since the devisings of man’s mind are evil from his youth” (8:21). Prager uses this verse as a springboard to attack a modern Western belief, that people are basically good and corrupted by society. The belief emerges from the West’s abandonment of the Bible, and is associated with philosophers of the French Enlightenment such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). No rational person can believe that people are basically good. All children need moral teachings to learn the most basic decency. The unjust wars, slavery, child abuse, and so many other horrors of world history down to the present should be ample evidence that people must actively build a good society. The wrongful belief that people are basically good also is dangerous. Parents and schools will not invest time and energy teaching goodness if they assume that children are naturally good. God and religion become irrelevant to teaching goodness. Society, not the individual, is blamed for evil. Those who blame society try to change society, rather than teaching individuals to be better. “The Torah teaches that, especially in a free society, the battle for a good world is not between the individual and society but between the individual and his or her nature” (109-115).    

          Making good people is the single most important thing parents can do. Loving children without teaching them moral responsibility turns children into narcissists. Parents must constantly emphasize goodness, integrity, and honesty, and praise these traits as most important. Parents also must morally discipline their children, rather than ignoring that responsibility. Teaching the Bible only can help, both because the Bible is unparalleled in its moral wisdom, and it is valuable for children (and their parents) to recognize God as the source of morality (132-133).

          Through these and so many other religious-moral teachings, the Torah was a revolution in world history, and continues to bring relevant teaching to the modern world.

Angel for Shabbat, Parashat Vayikra

By Rabbi Marc D. Angel

We are witnessing a tragic war in the Ukraine. Hundreds of lives are lost; hundreds of thousands are fleeing the country in search of safety. The human and financial costs are staggering. It all seems so senseless. Even if Russia totally conquers and suppresses Ukrainian forces, how will it be able to govern a nation that hates it passionately? How will it be able to rebuild Ukraine? How will it be able to salvage the damage to its own economy and the suffering of its own people? Whatever little it may gain from this war will be massively offset by the losses it will endure.

But doesn’t the leader of Russia see this? Don’t his advisors realize the futility of this war?

Apparently, once the decision has been made to invade and conquer there is no backing down regardless of consequences.

In her powerful book, “The March of Folly,” Barbara Tuchman studied the destructive behavior of leaders from antiquity to the Vietnam War. She notes: “A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by government of policies contrary to their own interests.” She points out: “Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others—only to lose it over themselves.”

But why should people with political power succumb to policies that are wrong-headed and dangerous? Tuchman suggests that the lust for power is one ingredient in this folly. Another ingredient is an unwillingness to admit that one has made a misjudgment. Leaders keep pursuing bad policies and bad wars because they do not want to admit to the public that they’ve been wrong. So more people are hurt, and more generations are lost—all because the leaders won’t brook dissent, won’t consider other and better options, won’t yield any of their power, won’t admit that they might be wrong. These leaders are able to march into folly because the public at large allows them to get away with it. Until a vocal and fearless opposition arises, the “leaders” trample on the heads of the public. They are more concerned with their own power politics, than the needs and wellbeing of their constituents.

The march of folly is not restricted to political power. It is evident in all types of organizational life. The leader or leaders make a decision; the decision is flawed; it causes dissension; it is based on the wrong factors. Yet, when confronted with their mistake, they will not back down. They have invested their own egos in their decision and will not admit that they were wrong. Damage—sometimes irreparable damage—ensues, causing the organization or institution to diminish or to become unfaithful to its original mission. The leader/s march deeper and deeper into folly; they refuse to see the light.

Parashat Vayikra lists various sacrifices that are offered in the Tabernacle, each relating to specific individuals and sins. The Torah discusses “asher nasi yeheta”, if the leader shall sin! Happy are those whose leaders are able to admit their own sins and errors in judgment. Impressive is that leader who is able to say: I have sinned, I have done wrong, I am bringing an offering to the Lord in admission of my shortcomings. I will do better in the future.

The Torah envisions leadership that avoids the march of folly by recognizing their responsibility to their people and to God. Such leaders are not ashamed to admit their shortcomings. Such leaders have the courage to change direction—to march not to folly but to real greatness.

How do we speak to our children about scandal—whether it is rabbis who have been convicted of sexual impropriety, or our nation’s leaders in the United States or Israel?

Our goal in this article is to keep the tone apolitical. To frame the focus, I will begin with an experience I had in a Modern Orthodox Jewish community after a prominent rabbi was arrested and convicted of sexual impropriety with a number of his congregants. This tragedy was heavily covered by the local and national press and was the subject of extensive discussion on social media.

Shortly after the scandal erupted in the public eye, I was invited to speak in separate meetings with the parents, teachers, and children attending one of the local community yeshivot. I began the meeting with the students by asking “What guidance have you received from your teachers or parents about whatever questions and concerns you had regarding the rabbi’s behavior?” To my dismay, with very little exception, the children were left to cope with the situation on their own. The parents assumed that the school would take care of educating the children about the moral and educational lessons that should inform their approach in responding to the scandal; the educators believed that this was something best dealt with at home. The children were left in a moral vacuum. A teachable moment that presented priceless opportunities for clarifying Jewish values related to sexuality, and how to respond to situations where leadership fails, was squandered.

With that as an introduction, let me relate this to educational and ethical challenges posed to us by the behavior of political leaders in the United States and Canada. I know that we have a debt of gratitude for President Trump’s strong support of Israel and the drastically changed policy his administration has put in place in dealing with Iran and their proxies. I also know, that depending on one’s political perspective, much of what follows can be said about current and former leaders of the Democratic Party. Regardless of where one stands, however, the reality is that our children are being raised in an atmosphere marked by adults who are absolutely certain of their view. Respectful dialogue and healthy perspective-taking has given way to disrespect, stridency, and failure to foster an ability to see the world through the eyes of the other.

Dr. Gene Beresin, a child psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds makes a number of important points about how to address concerns raised by troubling behavior on the part of leaders. The guiding principle, Dr. Beresin recommends, is to stay away from discussion about politics and policy and, instead, focus on how the behaviors our children have been exposed to may raise questions in their mind. Examples of troubling behavior exhibited by various leaders include lying, mocking others, making fun of those who aren’t viewed as attractive, externalizing blame, and seeking revenge for perceived slights.

Conversations with children on this range of behaviors from supposed role models must begin with understanding how the child or student is processing the information they may see online, in the papers, or in discussions around the dinner table. Among the initial questions that Dr. Beresin recommends parents or educators use to trigger a productive discussion is to calmly ask these questions:

• What have you seen?
• What have you heard?
• What do you think about this behavior?
• How does it make you feel?

The discussion can then lead to exploring what similar behaviors they might have seen in friends, family, or acquaintances at home or in school. Parents can engage their children in discussion of how, in their dealing with similar challenges in their own life, they can find more effective alternatives in trying to achieve their goals. Parents should keep in mind that such conversations are not a one-shot event, but a process that ideally can become an important tool in shaping our children’s moral development.

            I play a game with my grandchildren called “moral dilemma.” While it might sound like one of the many annoyances that go along with having a grandfather who is a psychologist, my grandchildren love the game and actively push me to play it with them whenever we spend Shabbat together. The game consists of presenting a real-life ethical dilemma that I might have faced during the week, followed by a discussion of how they would respond to a similar dilemma. This approach to clarifying moral values is described by Dr. Mary Gentile, a senior research scholar at the Yale School of Management.[1] Dr. Gentile and her colleagues assume that most people know the right thing to do in a particular morally challenging situation. The challenge is how to translate this knowledge into action. She uses discussions of moral dilemmas as a bridge from knowledge into action by giving people the opportunity to practice and pre-script responses to situations that call for an ethical response.

At a hotel-based Pesah program, one of my grandchildren was playing with friends at the program’s camp, when the girls in her group decided to play a game of pretending that their counselor was invisible. They pretended that the counselor wasn’t there and ignored every attempt that she made to engage the girls in activities. My granddaughter, not comfortable with the game, ran to my daughter and said, “Ima, I have an ethical dilemma!” After my daughter and granddaughter discussed the various approaches to dealing with the girls’ behavior my granddaughter was able to rejoin her friends and act in a manner that assertively gave voice to her values.

The next sections will elaborate on three areas of moral education that inform a response to the challenges just described—the key role of promoting perspective taking in our children, the power of growing from mistakes, and recent research on the importance of quality time with children as a crucial ingredient in the transmission of values.

Indirect Transmission of Values and the Importance of Perspective Taking

In addition to directly transmitting our values to our children, the transmission of proper values is often a subtle process.[2] It is important to be aware of the many indirect forces that shape our children’s values since raising a mensch is so much more complicated than only telling them what to do. Longitudinal studies that identify the core ingredients associated with raising an empathic child identify a subtle process that is typically present in such families. Parents who raise children who are kind and charitable as adults expose them to discussions that show respect for those with whom they disagree. Imagine a family sitting around a Shabbat table discussing an issue about which they feel passionately. Parents who show contempt or disrespect regarding those with whom they disagree are conveying a very powerful message to their children. They are modeling an approach to conflict that includes disdain and contempt for those who view the world differently. Whether the discussion is about family members, friends, or the leadership of the local shul or yeshiva, showing respect for those with whom we disagree is a very potent lesson for children.

A crucial facet of this process is parental promotion of perspective taking in their children. It is common sense that children who are encouraged to see things respectfully—through the eyes of others, even those with whom we disagree—are getting an important lesson in one of the basic building blocks of empathy. Parents whose discussion style is associated with instilling the proper values in their children are also more likely to actively encourage their child’s participation in family discussions. These parents pull their children into discussions with adults and supportively challenge their child’s thinking in an atmosphere that is marked by respect for the views of others, as well as that of their child.

After I gave a lecture that included a discussion about the importance of showing respect to others in conversations we have in front of our children, a rabbi in the audience told me the following story. He had just taken a position as the leader of a shul that had a rocky relationship with the previous rabbi. He was shocked to hear that the son of one of his congregants had just become engaged to a non-Jewish woman. He met with the young man to try to understand how this happened and to try to dissuade him from his decision to intermarry. The young man explained that all of his life, the conversation he heard around the Shabbat table was dominated by his parents’ bitterly complaining about the previous rabbi. When company came over, this too was a major topic of conversation. He asked the rabbi: “How do you expect me to view this religion? I was a young, impressionable boy and my view of Judaism was mainly informed by the bitter anger my parents and their friends felt toward their spiritual leader. I see no reason to continue to belong to a religion that was so devalued by my parents and their friends.”

Who do you want your children to marry one day? Somebody who comes from a family where the views of others are dealt with respect, and where there is an effort to understand the opposite viewpoint? Isn’t that an essential building block of a good marriage? Were your future daughter-in-law or son-in law exposed to a home environment that taught them to live with the grays?

There is a fascinating Rav Nachman story that explains the significance of the Torah being given in the arafel, in the mist. It is in the fog that we acquire wisdom. “The people kept their distance but Moshe approached the fog where God was” (Exodus, 20:17). Rav Nachman explains this passage as having the following implication: “For when they saw the mist, the obstacle, they kept their distance.” But Moshe approached, into the obstacle, which is precisely where God was hidden (Likutei Maharan, 115).

Even the most basic examination of the Talmud is an education in the core value of Jews being comfortable with uncertainty. How often in talmudic discussions do we see a high level of comfort with concluding: “kashya” (that is indeed a question) or “tayku” (we will have to wait for the coming of the messiah to come to a conclusion about this issue). The Talmud tells us that the reason we adopt the opinions of the house of Hillel over the house of Shammai is because the house of Hillel was able to appreciate the perspective of the members of house of Shammai and take that perspective into account in making their decisions.

Antidote to Externalizing Blame: Embracing Mistakes

In an oft-cited study,[3] Dr. Charles Bosk, a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, analyzed the difference between the most outstanding neurosurgeons who, after years of extensive training and practice, had the best success rates and lost the fewest patients, and those who were at the other end of the spectrum, losing so many patients that their attending privileges at their hospital were terminated. The top surgeons weren’t those with the best manual dexterity, the highest MCAT scores, or graduates of the best training programs. Rather, the best predictor of being in the top tier of this select group of doctors was how they handled their mistakes. If they lost a patient, these top tier neurosurgeons wouldn’t rest until setback was transformed into feedback. They typically wouldn’t allow themselves to go home until they determined how they could do the surgery better in the future. They would go to the medical library to see if they missed a recent study and they would call leading surgeons around the world to discuss what approach might work better the next time. In contrast, the transcripts of the interviews with the worst performing surgeons were chilling. They would blame the lighting in the operating room or the “incompetent” nurses assisting them with the surgery. These doctors externalized all blame and failed to learn from their mistakes. Stanford University professor Robert Sutton quotes similar studies[4] that document how creating an atmosphere marked by emotional safety and the ability to calmly view mistakes as an opportunity to grow and improve is a central ingredient in effective teaching and leading.

In one of the last speeches my late father made, at an event commemorating his 65^th year at the White Shul in Far Rockaway, he shared his belief that the older he gets the more he realizes that one of the most important goals in life is to learn how to “fail better.” He quoted Samuel Beckett, who said: “Ever tried, ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Quoting this speech, one of my father’s students, shared the following story: He was one of the many baalei tokeah (shofar blowers) who, over the years, blew shofar on Rosh haShana in the White Shul. After years of doing this, he became anxious at the prospect of continuing to bear the immense responsibility of blowing the shofar properly for a packed shul on yom tov. In spite of being a talented baal tokeah, he resigned from that position. My father tried to build up his confidence by regularly meeting with him and reviewing the laws of shofar together. Unfortunately, this approach did not work. Harnessing the power of learning to “fail better,” my father arranged for there to be a class on the laws of blowing the shofar properly for the entire community. The job assigned to the former baal tokeah, in co-teaching the class, was to teach those attending the shiur what mistakes in shofar blowing looked like. Of course, as planned by my father, the baal tokeah performed flawlessly, regained his confidence, and was able to once again resume blowing shofar for the shul.

When sociologist Dr. Sam Oliner was 12 years old, the Nazis came into his small town, in Poland, and murdered his family, neighbors, and friends. During the chaos, he escaped to a farmhouse in the outskirts of town and was taken in by a Polish Gentile family who sheltered him at tremendous risk to the life of their family and friends. As an adult, Oliner dedicated his career to researching what the active ingredients were in the childhoods of these moral giants which resulted in such remarkable courage and moral clarity. Oliner found that a crucial contributor was how their parents handled their children’s mistakes. When they did something that violated the moral code of the family, rather than berating them, their parents patiently explained what was wrong with their behavior, and conveyed a clear belief in their child’s ability to engage in a teshuvah (repentance) process that would repair the mistake by making appropriate apologies and righting the wrong done to the injured party.

In contrast to the prevailing atmosphere our children are exposed to in the media and by many of our leaders, adults should try to teach children how to have broad enough shoulders to accept responsibility for wrongdoing by calmly suggesting corrective action while simultaneously communicating a belief in their ability to grow from their mistakes.[5]

In 1975, in Cologne, Germany, world renowned jazz pianist, Keith Jarrett arrived early to try out the piano he would be using for the sold out concert he would be performing that evening in the Cologne Opera House. He immediately discovered that the piano was not usable. The black keys stuck, the pedals didn’t work, and the upper register of the keyboard produced sound that was harsh and thin because all the felt had worn away. The 17-year-old girl who was in charge of producing the concert, desperately tried to obtain an appropriate replacement piano but was not successful on such short notice. When Jarrett told her that he would have to cancel the concert, she became extremely upset at the prospect of being publicly humiliated in front of the 1,400 people scheduled to attend the concert. Jarrett took pity on her and agreed to perform. The performance that evening, on this ostensibly unusable piano, has become the best-selling piano recording in history, as well as the best-selling jazz piano solo in music history. If you download the recording of “the Köln Concert,” you instantly recognize how the seemingly insurmountable challenge became the source of genius. The adjustments that Jarrett had to make to cope with this broken piano made the music better. Forced to avoid the harsh registers, Jarrett stuck to the middle of the keyboard. You can hear him huffing and puffing as he pounded down on the keys to compensate for the fact that the piano was so quiet. This passion and effort brought out a level of sublime artistry that over 40 years later hasn’t been surpassed.

The Talmud tells us: “A person does not understand statements of Torah unless he stumbles in them” (Gittin, 43a). The lesson of the Cologne concert is that parents and teachers need to educate children on the power of risking failure, and viewing mistakes as a crucial engine of growth.

Perspectives from Cognitive Psychology

Effortful learning changes the brain, building new connections and abilities. Research in cognitive psychology consistently highlights the power of struggle as a pathway to growth.[6] Among the studies that illustrate this is the finding that when text on a page is slightly out of focus or presented in a font that is hard to decipher, people recall the content better. Educational psychology studies have found that when the outline of a lecture mismatches the text in some way, the effort to reconcile the discrepancy promotes learning. After French elementary school students are taught that difficulty is a crucial part of learning, that errors are natural and inevitable, and that practice helps, they do better on a test of anagrams than a comparison group. This finding led to a “Festival of Errors” in Paris and “Failcon,” in the technology industry. Both events actively celebrate mistakes and absorb their lessons as a source of learning and growth. It is of note that recently, this trend has been adopted by the world of Jewish education. The Kohelet Foundation gives an award for risk taking and failure. A cash prize is given to educators who can demonstrate what they learned from educational initiatives that failed when implemented in Jewish schools.

The Power of Time and Connection in Moral Education

            A core predictor of which families produce children who grow up to be described as a “mensch” is the amount and quality of time spent by parents with their children. In a carefully researched national survey of working parents in the United States, the Pew Research Center[7] documented the reality that most children grow up in a household in which both of their parents work. Many parents find it difficult to balance the demands of work and family. Most parents, including at least eight in ten mothers (86%) and fathers (81%), say they feel rushed at least sometimes, while four in ten (40%) full-time working moms say they always feel rushed.

Almost 1,000 years ago, Rabbeinu Bahya introduced a four-word prayer that captures the essence of our objective: “May God save me from fragmentation of the soul.” (Hovot haLevavot, Introduction to the Gateway to Faith). A similar statement was made by the Piacesner Rebbe, who quoted the Baal Shem Tov as saying that another way of understanding the words we say several times a day in the Shema “and you will be swiftly banished” (Devarim 11:17) is that we should strive to get rid of the rush in our life (instead of the literal translation “you will be quickly lost” it can be read out of context to mean “you should lose ‘quickness’”—i.e., don’t rush).[8]

The amount of time parents spend with children is not necessarily correlated with positive child outcomes. Rather, it is the quality of the time. For example, there is evidence that when parents are stressed, irritable, and sleep-deprived, time they spend with their children can actually be harmful. In contrast, quality time spent reading to a child, enjoying a family dinner together, or engaging in calm one-on-one discussion is clearly associated with positive outcomes in children.[9]

In a fascinating series of studies, researchers have found a direct correlation between the number of times a week parents eat dinner with their children and their children’s risk for drug abuse.[10] Families that eat dinner together once a week have children with lower risk for drug abuse than those that never do. With each increasing night that parents and children eat together, drug abuse risk decreases to the point that there is virtually no risk for drug abuse in families in which parents and children eat dinner together every night.[11] The importance of “eating dinner” together is not the eating or the dinner; it’s the uninterrupted, focused interaction that seems to bear such valuable fruit. Children have sensitive radar and can tell whether their parents are really there and paying attention to them, or if their minds are preoccupied with concerns about work or other problems. Making time for your child entails truly being present both in mind and body, and providing the undivided attention that children need to develop and internalize proper values.

In addition to eating meals together, routine family “rituals” such as regularly scheduled family vacations, bedtime rituals, and holiday and birthday celebrations are more important to a child’s healthy development than has been previously appreciated. Research has documented that children appear to benefit in a very powerful manner from partaking in regularly scheduled, structured and predictable activities. For example, studies indicate that families who value these activities and invest time and energy in ensuring that children experience these rituals in a meaningful and predictable manner, raise children who are less anxious, feel more “loveable,” and have more positive self-concepts.[12] Conversely, when these activities are disrupted because of traumatic family events such as divorce or chronic illness, children are at increased risk for a wide range of behavioral, academic, and emotional difficulties.[13]

The central role that Jewish thought puts on having control over how one’s time is spent is illustrated in a comment by the Sforno on the verse: “This month shall be for you” (Shemot 12:2). What does the Torah mean by “this month is yours?” We are talking about the importance of control over one’s time. The language of “lakhem,” to/for you, is to highlight the contrast between a free person and a slave’s experience of time. The Sforno explains: “Henceforth, the months of the year shall be yours, to do with them as you desire. During the bondage, your days, your time, did not belong to you but was used to work for others and fulfill their will.” A slave has no control or mastery over time. He cannot sit down and make his own schedule. What is the essence of freedom? It is the freedom to control one’s priorities, to choose to pursue what one’s heart desires.

            The Kotzker Rebbe has a beautiful interpretation of a verse found at the end of Tehillim:

“Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of youth” (Tehillim 127:4). The obvious question is what is the connection between a warrior holding his bow and arrow and childhood? The Kotzker answers that just like with an archer, the closer he pulls the bow, the further and straighter the arrow will go, so too, with children: The closer we hold them, the further and straighter they go.

The role of strength of parent-child connection is another crucial determinant of internalization of religious values. In a classic longitudinal study,[14] USC Sociology professor, Vernon Bengston, asked a basic question about internalization of religious values: Looking over the span of four generations, what kind of parenting practice best predicts which great-grandchildren would continue to share in the basic religious values and practices of their great-grandparents? Bengston’s basic findings were what common-sense would dictate: a consistent religious message, a lack of hypocrisy demonstrated by practicing what was preached, and marriage to a partner who was committed to carry on in the family religious traditions. Perhaps, most importantly, however, the most powerful predictor of what determined whether a child who left religious practice returned was the level of warmth and closeness between parent and child. As long as at least one parent continued to metaphorically hold their child’s hand, even after they left religious practice, the continued warmth, connection, and love made it more likely that the child would ultimately return to the religious tradition in which he/she was raised.

The challenge of how to respond to the exposure of our children to morally questionable behavior on the part of some religious and political leaders presents an opportunity to clarify our thinking about our responsibility to foster the moral education of our children through direct discussion as well as awareness of some of the more subtle ways that children internalize our values. Awareness of some of the “silent” modes by which children learn moral lessons include prioritizing spending quality time with them in spite of our hectic schedules, helping them see their mistakes as opportunities for growth, and modeling respect and curiosity regarding the perspectives of those we disagree with. It is hoped that some of the ideas shared in this paper can help bridge the gap between moral knowledge and moral action.

Different Responses to New Realities

Beginning in the nineteenth century, cataclysmic changes affected Jewish communal life. Secularization, the separation of Church and State, emancipation, and the institution of civil marriage undermined the authority of Jewish communal leadership and led to a shift from a generally traditional society to one where the majority of Jews no longer observed all of halakhah and many chose social assimilation and (increasingly) intermarriage. The latter phenomenon gave rise to the following question: If a Jew has chosen to marry (or to live with) a non-Jewish partner, and that partner applies to convert, what is the proper rabbinic response? While there is a wide range of opinions among rabbis responding to this question, they can be divided broadly into a more lenient position and a more restrictive position. This chapter will explore the central arguments of each side.

The basic issues on which the two sides disagree are as follows:

1. If the non-Jewish partner of a Jew applies to convert, is her motivation for the sake of marriage (rather than sincere religious motivation)? If so, are we required to reject this application out of hand?
2. If we agree to accept such spouses for conversion, are we not thereby implicitly condoning and even encouraging intermarriage?
3. If a Jew has chosen a non-Jewish spouse, this frequently reflects that he or she herself holds a cavalier attitude toward observance of mitzvot. It stands to reason that we can expect no more from the prospective convert. If so, then:
   
   1. Should we agree to accept a convert who likely will not be religiously observant?
   2. If halakhah regards “acceptance of the commandments” as a crucial part of the conversion ceremony, can such a candidate fulfill that requirement? If not, then even if we want to accept such a person it is a waste of time, for without acceptance of the commandments conversion can never be valid.

Several German rabbis, including Yaakov Ettlinger, Samson Raphael Hirsch, and Azriel Hildesheimer, opposed performing conversions in cases of intermarriage. They maintained that in the era when Rambam permitted such a conversion (see previous chapter), the Jewish community was generally observant. Back then, conversion to Judaism necessarily meant entry into an observant Jewish community. However, one no longer could presume that a convert would join an observant community, since the majority of born Jews no longer fully observe halakhah. These rabbis maintained that it is contrary to Torah to accept a convert who will be non-observant. Therefore, Rambam’s ruling is not relevant as a precedent in the modern era.

Similarly, some rabbis ruled that a mohel should not circumcise a boy born from a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, since there was little likelihood that the child would grow up in an observant Jewish home. Thus, even if the child were later to complete the conversion process by immersion in a mikvah, he would at most become a non-observant Jew, whom (as noted above) Torah does not want as a convert. In addition to their halakhic analysis, this group of rabbis believed that a strict policy against conversion and circumcision of sons born through intermarriage would deter others from intermarrying.[1]

            Other rabbis disagreed with this analysis. They believed that a Bet Din is obligated to do whatever it can to avoid an intermarriage and that this can be achieved by converting the non-Jewish partner. Moreover, the Bet Din also has a responsibility to ensure a Jewish future for the children of intermarried couples. Rabbis Zvi Hirsch Kalischer and Marcus Horowitz insisted that a mohel should circumcise a boy born from a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother, since he is still of Jewish stock, zera Yisrael. The Bet Din has a responsibility to keep such children closer to Judaism and the observant community, and perhaps one day they would come to accept Judaism more fully. These rabbis maintained that a Bet Din should view a father’s desire to circumcise his son as an act of sincere commitment, since he did not have to request this circumcision at all.

            In this spirit, Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann ruled that if a couple is civilly married and the non-Jewish spouse comes to a Bet Din to convert, this should not be considered a conversion “for the sake of marriage” since they already live as a married couple and therefore have no ulterior motive for conversion. Aside from the responsibility to do everything it can to prevent intermarriage, the Bet Din also has a responsibility to the children of these couples, and can help in their religious development by giving them two Jewish parents.

Rabbi Hoffmann understood that this situation was not ideal, but considered performing the conversion as the lesser of two problems. Rabbi Hoffmann also wanted prospective converts to avoid going to Reform rabbis, as the converts (and many others) would mistakenly think that they are Jewish even while not having undergone a halakhic conversion. Within his permissive ruling, Rabbi Hoffmann maintained that the non-Jewish partner must commit to three pillars of mitzvah observance: Shabbat, kashrut, and the laws of family purity.[2]

One of the central debates between the two positions revolved around the requirement of conversion “for the sake of Heaven” (Gerim 1:3). The permissive side maintained that any choice made by the prospective convert not for personal gain should be considered “for the sake of Heaven.” A civilly married couple, then, could be considered sincere since they did not need to come to a Bet Din in order to be married. Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg agreed with Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann, that if a couple already lives together, a Bet Din may view their voluntarily coming to the Bet Din to mean that the conversion was not for ulterior motives. Others, including Rabbi Shlomo Kluger and Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, maintained this view, as well.[3]

Additionally, many who permitted such conversions did so in order to avoid the greater problem of intermarriage. A lenient interpretation of the rules of conversion was the preferable choice. Finally, the permissive side insisted that a Bet Din has a responsibility to work proactively to help people avoid living in sinful relationships.

The restrictive side disagreed. True, such a conversion may not be for the sake of marriage, but it also is not a sincere conversion for the sake of heaven. The Jewish partner, for example, may want his or her non-Jewish spouse to convert for social and communal acceptance. The restrictive side also maintained that it is not the responsibility of a Bet Din to proactively bend the rules of conversion to help sinners. Additionally, they argued, of what benefit would it be to convert a non-Jewish spouse if the couple likely will remain non-observant? Similarly, of what benefit would it be to the child of an intermarriage, who was unlikely to grow up observant? Such individuals are better off as non-Jews, since they will not be culpable for violating the Torah. Better remain a Gentile than become a non-observant Jew![4]

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, some rabbis pushed the restrictive position further and maintained that absent a fully sincere and heartfelt commitment to observing all of the mitzvot at the time of conversion, conversions are not valid even after the fact, even if performed by an Orthodox Bet Din. Professors Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar maintain that Rabbi Yitzhak Schmelkes was the first to state and defend this position (in 1876).[5] Two leading exponents of this position were Rabbis Mordechai Yaakov Breisch and Moshe Feinstein.[6]

One of the leading exponents of the permissive position in the twentieth century was Rabbi Benzion Uziel, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel at the time of the founding of the State. Rabbi Uziel maintained that many mixed couples exist, whether just living together or married under civil law, and the Bet Din has a responsibility to change this situation for the better if it is able to do so. He therefore ruled that if a couple already is civilly married, or they are certainly going to get civilly married, a Bet Din should perform the conversion to create a marriage in which both partners are Jewish.

Rabbi Uziel understood the obligation of a Bet Din to inform a prospective convert of some mitzvot prior to conversion (Yevamot 47a–b) to mean that the convert is required to be informed that a central aspect of Judaism is commitment to Torah and mitzvot, and that Jews are held responsible by God to observe them. However, the halakhah does not demand that a convert commit to observing all of the mitzvot, but rather only to understand that he or she is responsible to observe the mitzvot.

            Rabbi Uziel also invoked Rambam’s responsum (#211, discussed in the previous chapter), where he permitted the less-than-ideal conversion of a Christian maid who had an affair with a Jewish man so that they could get married. Similarly, argued Rabbi Uziel, many circumstances in the modern period fit this less-than-ideal status, where a Bet Din must choose the lesser of the two evils.

            Rabbi Uziel also insisted that the Bet Din has a responsibility to the children of intermarried couples. If the father but not the mother is Jewish then the child is of Jewish stock, zera Yisrael, and should be converted so as to become halakhically Jewish. If the mother is Jewish, then the child is Jewish. If that child’s non-Jewish father wants to convert, the Bet Din should accept him so that the child grows up in a unified Jewish home with two Jewish parents.

Not only is the Bet Din permitted to do such a conversion, but it is obligated to do so in order to progress from a situation of intermarriage to one in which the entire family is Jewish. Rabbi Uziel stressed that the Bet Din first must attempt to break up such an intermarriage, but if it could not dissuade the couple, the conversion should take place.[7]

A prolific contemporary writer on conversion, Rabbi Chaim Amsellem, maintains that there are particular halakhic grounds for leniency where a prospective convert is of Jewish stock, zera Yisrael. He maintains that some actual religious commitment is required of a convert, but that is not tantamount to an acceptance to observe the entire Torah. Rather, commitment to have some semblance of a Shabbat and holidays, as well as a belief in one God and an abandonment of previous religious affiliations, is sufficient.[8]

Current Realities

With the creation of the State of Israel, a new identity was possible as people living in Israel could cast their lot with the fate of the Jewish people, without adopting any meaningful religious lifestyle.[9] Ashkenazic Chief Rabbis Yitzhak Herzog and Isser Zalman Unterman both maintained stringent policies for conversions that occur outside of Israel. However, they believed that if an intermarried couple wanted to convert to make aliyah under the Law of Return, and it was safe to live in the country where they currently resided (so that they did not have the ulterior motive of converting to attain physical safety by moving to Israel), then their adoption of the Zionist dream is to be considered casting their lot with the Jewish people.[10]

With hundreds of thousands of people from the former Soviet Union living in Israel today who are not halakhically Jewish, several religious Zionist rabbis maintain that a lenient policy is required. Rabbi Yoel Bin-Nun has argued that there should be a mass conversion ceremony. Rabbi Yigal Ariel similarly maintains that their living in Israel fulfills the halakhic requirement to accept Jewish peoplehood.[11]

Similarly, the rampant rate of intermarriage throughout the Diaspora has led several rabbis to adopt the lenient ruling on conversion so that they can prevent as many instances of intermarriage as possible. These rabbis also attempt to convert the children of mixed marriages when possible.

In contrast, the restrictive position maintains that every convert must be judged on a case-by-case basis as an individual, and each one must demonstrate a full and sincere personal commitment to halakhah and Jewish belief. Without such commitment at the time of the conversion, the conversion is invalid even post-facto.

Rabbis who espouse the restrictive position maintain that a Bet Din should welcome anyone who fully accepts the Torah’s religious standards, and everyone else is better off remaining non-Jewish. People who sin through intermarriage and assimilation are not the responsibility of a Bet Din, since they brought these problems onto themselves by making sinful choices.

Summary of the Major Issues

            There is a wide range of definitions assigned to “acceptance of mitzvot,” including the following: (1) The convert agrees to fulfill the ritual of conversion, circumcision, and mikvah (Ramban, Tosafot).[12] (2) The convert must give verbal assent to observe the mitzvot (Rabbis Hayyim Ozer Grodzinski, Abraham Isaac Kook). (3) The convert needs to understand that a central aspect of Judaism is commitment to Torah and mitzvot, and Jews are held responsible by God to observe them (Rabbis Raphael Aharon ben Shimon, Benzion Uziel). (4) The convert must commit to observe all mitzvot. If, at the time of the conversion, the convert said untruthfully that he or she was committed, then the conversion is invalid even post-facto (Rabbis Yitzhak Schmelkes, Mordechai Breisch, Moshe Feinstein).[13]

            There also is debate over the meaning of conversion “for the sake of heaven”: (1) As long as there is no tangible benefit for the convert, a conversion can be considered to be for the sake of heaven. Therefore, an intermarried couple that approaches a Bet Din so that the non-Jewish partner can convert is accepted, since they already are living as a married couple. (2) Some concede that such conversions are less than ideal, but it remains good policy for the Bet Din to accept such converts to avoid the greater evils of intermarriage, mixed-religion households, and to keep the children of intermarriages closer to the Torah. (3) Conversion for the sake of Heaven requires a full and sincere commitment to God, the Torah, and mitzvah observance.[14]

            There is a fundamental debate regarding the obligation of a Bet Din toward sinners: If the more lenient positions are a compromise with pure halakhah (which they may not be, as we have seen), is it the obligation of the Bet Din to bend the rules to accept the lesser of two evils, or does the Bet Din have no obligation to compromise?

            Intertwined with the purely halakhic debates is a disagreement over the best public policy. Granting that there are strong halakhic opinions on both sides of this debate, what policy best serves the Jewish people? Do hundreds of thousands of people of Jewish stock from the former Soviet Union living in Israel who fight in the Israeli armed forces and marry other born Jews; or the countless couples who either are intermarried or will intermarry, and the children of intermarriages, require the Bet Din to be proactive and as inclusive as possible? Or is it preferable for a Bet Din to be as restrictive as possible toward those who do not fully adopt the ideal beliefs and observant lifestyle of the Torah?

            To summarize, the permissive side has two dimensions: (1) The classical halakhic sources support the permissive side. (2) The classical halakhic sources may not fully support the permissive side at the level of ideal halakhah, but we live in an age where halakhic compromise is preferable to the greater problems that arise by not performing the conversions. The restrictive side, in contrast, insists that the classical halakhic sources do not support the permissive side, and that a Bet Din should not bend any rules to help sinners.

Tragic Recent Development: The Possibility of Annulling a Conversion

Toward the end of the twentieth century, a radical new development took place, as several rabbis began to insist that a conversion can be revoked at any time if the convert demonstrates a lack of halakhic observance.[15] This innovative ruling led to a series of truly dreadful events. In 2006, then Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Amar declared that he rejected most Orthodox conversions from abroad. In 2008, Rabbi Avraham Sherman of Israel’s Rabbinical High Court cast doubt on thousands of conversions performed by Rabbi Haim Drukman, who had been the head of the State Conversion Authority in Israel. He also declared Rabbi Drukman to be invalid to serve as a rabbinical judge since Rabbi Drukman disagreed with what Rabbi Sherman maintained was the accepted position in halakhah. In 2009, then Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger supported Rabbi Sherman, and insisted that Israel’s Chief Rabbinate has the power to annul any conversion.[16]

The besmirching of the good names of righteous judges who performed the conversions, and the horrific anguish brought upon halakhic converts and their children who are fully and irrevocably Jewish, are absolutely unacceptable. The Talmud debates whether one who oppresses the convert violates 3, 36, or 46 Torah laws (Bava Metzia 59b). Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon condemns Rabbi Sherman’s sinful conduct of disqualifying Rabbi Drukman and his court:

Rabbi Haim Drukman is a God-fearing and righteous man. Disagreeing with his judgment is one thing; disqualifying him from being a judge—or even a good Jew, since conversion overseen by three observant Jews is valid—is intolerable. Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein…intimated that Rabbi Sherman’s comments about Rabbi Drukman is a transgression of Torah prohibitions relating to bein adam l’haveiro [interpersonal relationships], which disqualifies him from testifying or serving as a dayan [rabbinical judge].[17]

Returning to the genuine principled debate, rabbis who insist on the restrictive position recognize that many leading halakhists maintain positions against their own.[18] Therefore, they should grant legitimacy post-facto to conversions performed by Orthodox Batei Din who follow the permissive opinions. All converts need to know that once they convert through an Orthodox Bet Din, they are irreversibly Jewish and nobody ever can take that Jewishness away from them or from their children.[19]

The religious establishment is obligated to address cases of intermarriage, children of intermarriages, and people of Jewish ancestry. While halakhists must determine the proper halakhic ruling and policy, it is clear that both sides have great halakhic decisors and strong arguments to support them. The key to Jewish unity, then, is for Batei Din to recognize the rulings of others who follow different halakhic opinions, even when they vigorously disagree with their positions.

            There are fewer people more courageous and beloved than adult converts, who enter under the wings of the Shekhinah, transforming their identity, and identifying with the Jewish people.[20]

            One Midrash states this point beautifully:

God greatly loves the proselytes. To what may this be compared? To a king who had a flock [of sheep and goats].... Once, a deer came in with the flock. He associated with the goats and grazed with them…. The king was told: “A certain deer has joined the flock, and is grazing with them every day.” The king loved him. When he went out into the field, the king gave orders: “Let him have good pasture as he likes; no man shall beat him; take care of him!”… They said to him: “Master! You have so many rams, so many sheep, so many kids—and you say nothing to us about them; but with regard to this deer you instruct us every day!” The king said to them: “The sheep, whether they want to or not, such is their way: to graze in the field all day…. The deer sleep in the desert, and it is not their way to enter into human settlements. Should we not be grateful to this one, who abandoned all the great wide desert where all the animals live, and came to be in our yard?” Similarly, should we not be grateful to the proselyte, who abandoned his family and father’s home and left his people and all peoples of the world, and came to be with us? (Numbers Rabbah 8:2)

In Washington’s days, religious liberty as we now know it was not a well understood, conventional policy. It was a daring revolutionary departure from the universally accepted order. In all Europe, and throughout the New World also, there were established state churches. In this land, too, notwithstanding the pioneer efforts of Roger Williams, Jefferson, Madison and Washington, many of the clergy belonging to the faith of the majority were zealous in endeavoring to see their Church constitutionally recognized as that of the established official religion of the new United States. To their sincere piety, the state should naturally be, as it was everywhere else, the ally of the universal claims and missionary spirit of the Church. Had not that tradition been set up in this land by the Pilgrim Fathers when they established here not so much a state as a church polity expressing itself through the forms of a state?

The results of that union of Church and State are all too well known. Those very Pilgrim Fathers who had sought these shores as a refuge from the intolerant discriminations exercised by a dominant majority Church in the Old World, in their turn here exercised the same discriminations against those whom they regarded as dissenters.

Against this danger, George Washington took a firm, determined and consistent stand. Churchman though he was, he could not understand a concept of national liberty which gave physical freedom without spiritual freedom. He declared: “The cause of American liberty is the cause of every virtuous American citizen, whatever be his religion or descent.” In the eyes of George Washington, this complete spiritual as well as civic liberty had to be not a grudged or a gracious concession, but a right. It was not to be toleration exercised by a privileged majority, it was to be religious equality.

Again and again he expressed himself in this vein, as when he wrote to the United Baptist Churches: “Every man conducting himself as a good citizen and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinion ought to be protected in worshiping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.” To the New Baptist Church in Baltimore, he wrote: “In this enlightened age and in this land of equal liberty, it is our boast that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the laws nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest offices that are known in the United States.”

In Washington’s letter to the Jewish Congregation in Newport, he wrote: “All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for happily the government of the United States which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens.”

Washington himself took more than one occasion to give public and eloquent demonstration of his own utter freedom from religious prejudice, and his convictions that in this new America all religions must stand on a footing of equality, as when at his inauguration as first President of the United States the whole clergy of this city, including Gershom Mendes Seixas, the Minister of Shearith Israel at the time, took official part in the parade and epoch making ceremonies. In his letter to the Jewish community of Savannah, Georgia, he expressed his rejoicing that “a spirit of liberality and philanthropy is much more prevalent than it formerly was among the enlightened nations of the earth, and that your brethren will benefit thereby in proportion as it shall become still more extensive.”

Alas that his roseat belief has been so bitterly belied, and that a century and a half after he wrote these noble words the great majority of our brethren of Israel in other lands are cowering or crushed under social segregation, political discrimination, economic boycott, calculated persecution or bloody violence. This great principle of religious liberty for which George Washington stood so strongly, bravely and unflinchingly is not yet fully granted by lesser men with narrower hearts. Eternal vigilance is the price of religious liberty. We must still be on our guard against those who, without daring openly to advocate an overthrow of the constitution, would yet undermine it by a thousand insinuating ways of giving to our government, our public schools and all our institutions a sectarian character in the pattern of a dominant Church. We must still exercise unwearying vigilance against the hydra-headed monster of bigotry.

Truly, America’s enemies today are within her own borders. We do not need a George Washington to lead us against a foe from other lands. Today we need a George Washington to preserve our America from disrupting intolerance within our own borders, whether it be the intolerance of religion or the intolerance of irreligion. Among America’s enemies today are those who flaunt that constitutional civic liberty and liberty of conscience which we recall today as among the most precious gifts bequeathed to this country by George Washington.

Let us pray in the very words of Washington: “May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

The Unsung Heroes of the Exodus

Rabbi Hayyim Angel

Our Sages codified most of the holiday Haftarot (the prophetic passages read after Torah reading in synagogue), but left it to individual communities to decide which prophetic readings to select for regular Shabbatot. Communities often chose similar passages, but they occasionally focused on different themes in the Torah reading that required different readings.

Parashat Shemot is one such example. Ashkenazim read from Isaiah chapters 27-28, a prophecy of redemption. They highlight how the people of Israel become enslaved and now required divine redemption. In contrast, Sephardic communities selected Jeremiah chapter 1. This passage features God’s choosing Jeremiah, the prophet’s reluctance, and God’s compelling him to go on his mission. This Haftarah parallels Moses’s selection, as he also expressed unwillingness until God forced him to accept his mission.

While worthy and central themes in their own right, they do not account for another vital element in Parashat Shemot, namely, a series of brief narratives pertaining to five heroic women: Shiphrah, Puah, Yocheved, Moses’s sister (likely Miriam), and Pharaoh’s daughter.

Shiphrah and Puah

The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, saying, “When you deliver the Hebrew women, look at the birthstool: if it is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live.” The midwives, fearing God, did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, letting the boys live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women: they are vigorous. Before the midwife can come to them, they have given birth.” And God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and increased greatly. And because the midwives feared God, He established households for them. (Exodus 1:15-21)

The Hebrew meyalledot ha-Ivriyyot, Hebrew midwives, could mean that they themselves were Israelites (Sotah 11b; Rashi, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Ramban), or that they were midwives who served the Israelite population (Josephus, Philo, Abarbanel, Malbim). We cannot determine their ethnicity from the text.

What we can see is that they fear God, namely, they have a powerful moral sense and defy the decrees of the wicked Pharaoh (see, for example, Genesis 20:11; 42:18; Deuteronomy 25:17-19, for illustrations of fear of God=moral).

We do not know what gave these two midwives such moral courage in an evil society that threatened to destroy them if they were caught. We do not even know if they were Israelites! Yet, they are immortalized by the Torah. Strikingly, this narrative is longer than the Torah’s description of Israelite slavery! The Torah celebrates the moral heroism and defiance of a wicked society of two otherwise unknown figures.

Yocheved and Moses’s Sister

A certain man of the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw how beautiful he was, she hid him for three months. When she could hide him no longer, she got a wicker basket for him and caulked it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child into it and placed it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. And his sister stationed herself at a distance, to learn what would befall him. (Exodus 2:1-4)

Despite Pharaoh’s subsequent decree of drowning boys, Israelites still chose to have children. Ramban observes the heroism of Moses’s parents to bring a child into the world in the face of Pharaoh’s decree. Midrashic traditions also praise Miriam’s inspiring Moses’s parents to bear more children (e.g., Sotah 12a).

Pharaoh’s Daughter

The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe in the Nile, while her maidens walked along the Nile. She spied the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to fetch it. When she opened it, she saw that it was a child, a boy crying. She took pity on it and said, “This must be a Hebrew child.” Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a Hebrew nurse to suckle the child for you?” And Pharaoh’s daughter answered, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, who made him her son. She named him Moses, explaining, “I drew him out of the water.” (Exodus 2:5-10)

Pharaoh’s daughter recognized that Moses was an Israelite, perhaps because he was abandoned (Shadal, Hakham), or circumcised (Exodus Rabbah 1:24; Rashbam). This is the only place in Tanakh where a baby is said to be crying (since compassion is relevant to the plot). The Torah highlights Pharaoh’s daughter’s compassion with a crying baby, even though she knew of her father’s decree to drown Israelite baby boys!

The Torah jumps from Moses’s infancy to his emerging from the palace as a grown man, filled with a deep moral sense of protest against Pharaoh and his wicked nation. Even though slavery was the law of the land, Moses was scandalized at the state-sponsored abuses.

Shiphrah-Puah, Yocheved-Moses’ sister, and Pharaoh’s daughter form the background of how Moses emerged as a paragon of morality. Moses came from them.

People often quietly impact on others. The Torah’s emphasis on these brave individuals teaches that this sort of quiet impact can transform individuals and change the world.

The Revolution of Terah and Avraham

The opening of Lekh Lekha raises numerous questions. Why did God choose Avraham? Why was it necessary to choose anyone? Why does the focus of Sefer Bereshit suddenly shift from a broad universal focus to a narrow, particularistic one?

Let us begin with an observation about the structure of Sefer Bereshit. More than any other book in Tanakh, Bereshit can be identified as a book of toledot, of listing generations. There are only 13 times in all of Tanakh that a passage is introduced by the words elleh toledot or zeh sefer toledot (“These are the generations of…” or “This is the book of generations of)—and 11 of those are in Bereshit. This expression is so dominant that one could argue that it is the defining literary element of the book. That is, Bereshit is essentially comprised of 11 books of toledot, with Chapter 1 as an introductory chapter—and each unit of toledot ends just before the next one begins.

One interesting literary element defining each book of toledot is that it begins by repeating some information that we already know. Thus, toledot Adam begins with the birth of Shet, even though the end of the previous section concluded with that information; toledot Noah begins by telling us about his three sons, even though we were told that just a few pesukim earlier; toledot Yitzhak begins by telling us that Avraham had fathered Yitzhak. This insight leads us to a somewhat puzzling observation—there is a toledot Terah, but no toledot Avram or toledot Avraham. How are we to understand this?

We would need to begin by defining what we believe toledot refers to. A survey of the 11 records of toledot reveals that “toledot” means neither children nor generations, as many would like to think. One need look no further than the first time it is used—toledot shamayim ve-ha-aretz, the “toledot” of the heavens and the earth (Bereshit 2:4). The heavens and the earth have neither children nor generations. It would appear that the term refers to an outcome or result, as in Mishlei 27:1—lo teda mah yeled yom—who knows what this day will give birth to, or, what will be the final outcome of what this day brings? What was the result of the creation of shamayim va-aretz? In the end, what came from Noah? The word toledot can almost be understood as meaning legacy. What was the legacy of Yitzhak? What was the legacy of Yishmael, or Esav?

Sefer Bereshit, then, would be the unfolding of the legacy of God’s creation, followed by the legacy of human involvement in that creation, followed by successive legacies. What was the final legacy of Yishmael? That the promise given by the angel to his mother came true—Yishmael would be a great nation and dwell as a nomad. What was the legacy of Esav? That his father’s blessing came true, as he finds a place to settle, establishes (or takes over) a kingdom, and plants his permanent roots outside the Promised Land.

Applying this observation to our earlier question yields a most bizarre conclusion. Since there is a toledot Terah but no toledot Avraham, Terah leaves a legacy under which Avraham’s entire life’s work is subsumed. How are we to understand this? Hazal understand Terah as nothing more than an idolater. His idolatry is unquestionable, and is mentioned explicitly in a pasuk in Yehoshua (24:2). Yet an investigation of his introduction to us in Bereshit reveals another aspect to Terah, one that is truly revolutionary. Terah is introduced to us at the end of Parashat Noah. Right from the start it is clear that he represents the end of one era and the beginning of a new one—each previous generation is introduced as having borne a single son (there were others, but they were unimportant to the Torah’s story), Terah has three named sons. Terah fits into a pattern in Bereshit, in which significant figures have three sons. Adam has three named sons; Lemekh has three named sons; Noah has three named sons; and now it is Terah.

Interestingly, there appears to be a pattern within those three sons. One son is clearly outside of the main line of the story (Kayyin, Ham, Haran), one is the central figure from whom the story will continue (Shet, Shem, Avram) and one son plays a “supporting role” (Hevel, Yefet, Nahor). Beyond that, however, there is an anomaly in the description of Terah and his family—his family. The Torah’s description of Terah’s family members is excessive in its mention of their relationship to him. Take one example. After introducing his three children, the death of Haran and the marriages of Avram and Nahor, the Torah describes a journey Terah initiates (11:31): “Terah took Avram, his son, Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, Sarai, his daughter-in-law, the wife of his son Avram …”. Every relationship mentioned in this pasuk is unnecessary—we were just told that Avram is his son, that Lot is his grandson (from Haran), and that Sarai is Avram’s wife. The text could have easily been written as: “Terah took Avram, Lot, and Sarai …,” yet it chose to accentuate the familial bonds. What the Torah seems to be emphasizing is that the value of family, and the responsibility for family, was a paramount value for Terah. This is further accentuated by the verb va-yikah—he took. The very fact that Terah took his orphaned grandson suggests a sense of responsibility for grandchildren (contrast that to Noah who curses his grandson). But the verb va-yikah is used in the same passage to describe acts by Avram and Nahor, who took wives. This “taking” was apparently also an act of taking responsibility for orphans, as Milkah and Sarai (possibly another name for Yiskah) were their orphaned nieces. Orphaned nephews are adopted, orphaned nieces are married. That is how they are cared for. (This may be why Hazal suggest that Mordekhai was married to his orphaned cousin, Esther.) The value of family, and the responsibility for family, is Terah’s legacy.

It is not surprising that the end of toledot Terah indicate this as well. As we suggested earlier, each book of toledot ends just before the next one begins. Toledot Terah ends with death of Avraham and his burial. It is the first time in the Torah that we have explicit reference to a man being buried by his children—the sense of family responsibility has been extended to children’s responsibility for parents. Even more, it is both Yitzhak and Yishmael who bury Avraham. Even the family torn by strife is unified by the sense of responsibility for parents. It is also not surprising to find that Terah’s son, Nahor, bears the same name as Terah’s father. Terah honored his father by bestowing his name on his son.

Let us examine more closely the marriages of Avram and Nahor. Reading the first 11 chapters of Bereshit we are struck by the description of 20 generations of man; not just mankind, but man. There are 20 generations of men begetting men. The only exceptions are the strange references to Lemekh’s wives (4:22–24) and the anonymous references to the wives of Noah and his sons. To be sure, the absence of women in the narrative should not be surprising; the narrative reflects the culture and mores of the times. In this strictly patriarchal society, the primary role of women was to carry the man’s seed for the next generation of men.

Enter Terah’s children. Avram and Nahor are the first individuals in Shet’s line to be described as having taken wives. Even more—it becomes clear early on that Sarai is barren. In a society for whom women’s function was to serve as incubators for the man’s seed, taking—and keeping—a wife who will not bear children was nothing short of revolutionary. If such a revolution were to take place, it would make sense for it to happen within the sphere of the man who effectively “invented” family values.

 Aside from the fact that Avram’s entire life is subsumed under toledot Terah, and we now understand that it is Terah’s legacy of family which Avram continues, there is additional textual evidence that Avram continues—or completes—what Terah set out to do. Let us look at two pesukim, written with only five pesukim separating them. One describes Terah’s journey from Ur Kasdim, the other describes Avram’s journey from Haran. (Bereshit 11:31 and 12:5) The structure of the two pesukim is identical. Even the unnecessary descriptions of the family relationships (we already know that Sarai is Avram’s wife and that Lot is his nephew) is copied in the description of Avram’s journey. And just as Terah took responsibility for his orphaned grandson, Avram takes his orphaned nephew under his wing.

The key difference between the two descriptions is that whereas Terah planned to go to Canaan he never arrived. By contrast, Avram finished the journey that Terah started. Both literally—in terms of the arrival in Canaan, and figuratively—in terms of developing the notion of family, Avram completes Terah’s journey. It does not surprise us that most of the challenges Avraham faces revolve around his family. The command to leave his father, Sarai with Pharaoh in Egypt and with Avimelekh in Gerar, Lot in Sedom, Hagar and Sarai, Yishmael and Akedat Yitzhak, all involve sacrifices related to family. The man of family must endure challenges to his core values.

All of this begs the question—why is family so important? Our answer, to put it simply, is that the Torah understands the family as the core unit for the transmission of values. This is actually explicit in the Torah. Prior to the destruction of Sedom, the Torah informs us of God’s choice of Avraham and His decision to reveal His impending plan to him. “Avraham will become a great and mighty nation, and through him will come blessing to all other nations of the earth. Since I know that he will instruct his children and his household after him, that they will observe God’s way in doing justice and righteousness—that is why Avraham will receive all of which has spoken about him” (Bereshit 18:18–19). The opening words identifying Avraham as the one who will become a great and mighty nation and through whom will come blessing to all of the other nations, are a clear reference to the beginning of Lekh Lekha, where God initially chooses Avraham and promises him precisely those things (12:2–3). If so, then this passage is where the Torah explicitly identifies the reason for the choice of Avraham—because Avraham will use the vehicle of the family as the unit of transmission of the values of tzedakah and mishpat.

Let us explore this innovation of Avraham from a number of angles.  If the Torah highlights Terah’s legacy as the one who founded the notion of family, to the extent that Avraham’s entire life is subsumed under it, we must be curious as to why God did not choose Terah and instruct him with lekh lekha. The answer here is apparently clear—Terah was, as stated in Yehoshua, an idolater. Although Terah’s innovation of family was significant, it was insufficient, since he was unprepared to leave his idolatry. Perhaps even more interesting is the question of tzedakah and mishpat, which Avraham apparently championed. From where did Avraham learn these values, and why were his predecessors not chosen? One could easily argue that these were Avraham’s innovations, yet it appears from the text that Avraham carried with him an earlier tradition. Hazal identify this earlier tradition as the “yeshiva of Shem and Ever,” and this bears a closer examination.

Our introduction to Ever’s legacy is introduced by an unusual comment. Back in Parashat Noah, when identifying the legacies of Noah’s sons (toledot benei Noah—Bereshit 10:1), Shem is identified as the father of all of the “Ever-ites” (benei Ever—10:21). This is a strange appellation on two accounts. First, Ever has not been identified yet. He is first introduced three pesukim later. Second, when Ever is introduced, he is only one of Shem’s great grandchildren. Apparently, the Torah is suggesting that there is some link between Shem and Ever. Even more, there is a link between Shem and all those identified with Ever. Although at the end of Parashat Noah that identification is still a mystery, that mystery is cleared up later as Avram is identified as an Ivri—a descendant of Ever (14:13). (This appellation is later given to Yosef, and then to Yosef’s brothers. They are all the benei Ever referred to in Parashat Noah.) Thus the text is suggesting that there is some legacy which began with Shem, was passed to Ever, and then to all those who are identified with Ever. Shem’s precise legacy is left unclear—it might have begun with the incident after the Mabul in which he protects his father’s dignity and receives his blessing, and it may have to do with Avraham’s notions of tzedakah and mishpat.

All this returns us to our original question. If, indeed, Avraham carries a tradition from Ever, passed on through Shem (or, in Hazal’s language, a tradition that Avraham learned in the yeshiva of Shem and Ever), why were Shem and Ever not chosen by God for the lekh lekha command and blessing? The answer, I believe, is that while Shem and Ever may have been champions of particular values, they were unable to find an appropriate vehicle through which to transmit those values. Shem waited for three generations before he found someone worthy to teach; Ever waited even longer. Absent a reliable vehicle for transmitting values, they had to wait until a worthy recipient of their tradition could be found. Avraham, however, presented a new model. Avraham married the values of family he learned from his father with the values of tzedakah and mishpat, and understood that the family had the potential to serve as the vehicle for the transmission of other values. Terah, as an idolater, lacked those other values; Shem and Ever lacked the reliable vehicle of transmission of their values. Hence God’s testimony about Avraham’s commitment to instruct his children and his household in upholding God’s values of tzedakah and mishpat (Bereshit 18:17–19).

The significance of the Terah-Avraham revolution in Bereshit cannot be overstated. The first toledot is toledot shamayim ve-ha-aretz, creation itself. What was the result, or the legacy, of that process? It was a two-fold legacy. On the one hand, it was the legacy of a shattered family, of the first fratricide. On the other hand, it was the legacy of Enosh, who began to call in the name of God (4:26). Humans had the capacity to recognize God, but they would need some help in putting their families in order. The second toledot, that of Adam, yielded an even more troubling dichotomy. There were individuals, like Noah, who managed to find favor in God’s eyes (6:8), but for the masses, their thoughts and actions were becoming increasingly bad (6:5). That left God with little choice but to start anew. Following the Mabul, toledot benei Noah leaves us with a world that is repopulated and diverse. Indeed, God has successfully brought about a fulfillment of His original intent of peru u-revu u-milu et ha-aretz, albeit not without considerable effort and intervention (the dispersion from Bavel helped considerably).

The question that remained was whether humanity would once again call in God’s name, as did Enosh. With the choice of Avram that question was finally answered. Avram heeds God’s instruction, journeys to Canaan, and when he reaches Bet El he builds an altar and calls in God’s name (12:8). With the emergence of Avram, who transforms into Avraham, we are returned to a state which existed prior to the Mabul. The return to this state, however, was not a step backward but a step forward. For whereas Enosh’s calling in God’s name comes in the backdrop of the first failed family, one that did not transmit its values, Avram’s calling in God’s name is accompanied by his championing of the value of family. With the vehicle for the transmission of values in place, the story can progress.

Yet as we know, although Terah and Avram innovated the notion of family, the families in Bereshit are hardly models worthy of emulation. Tensions between spouses and siblings abound. Those tensions lead to multiple breakups, planned vengeance, and even plots to kill. Indeed, it is my contention that all these family challenges are an essential part of what hindered the process of Bereshit. Strife in the families of the Avot prevented God from moving forward. After all, how could we continue if the central vehicle we need for the transmission of the values God wants to propagate is dysfunctional? This, I believe, is the underlying tension in the story of Yosef. If Yosef disappears, if the brothers don’t somehow figure out how to maintain their nuclear unit, then God’s plan cannot continue. It is only at the very end of the story, after Yaakov’s death and the fear expressed by the brothers and Yosef’s response, that it becomes clear that there is a mutual commitment. It is only with the mending of the family that the story can continue. That is why Bereshit ends with a story of a family that reunites following a generations-long conflict. That is why at the end of Bereshit we hear of Yosef raising his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren (50:23). That is why Bereshit can close with Yosef’s understanding of his need for his brothers, and of the long-term destiny of his people. And that is why immediately following Bereshit we see the transformation of a family into the seed of a nation.

Anyone who is even partially involved in the life of a traditional synagogue becomes aware, sooner or later, that there is diversity within halakha. This becomes even more obvious after one has occasion to participate in activities at several synagogues: it would be rare to find two congregations that follow identical praxis. Traveling abroad, the differences seem all the more salient. Yet most people I know seem to live comfortably with such diversity. Isn’t this strange? After all, if there is one God who gave us one Torah, shouldn’t there be one norm for all observant Jews?

Some people I know would answer that we should differentiate between minhag (custom) and halakha (“law”): variety in minhag is OK – indeed, meritorious: a person should follow the custom of his family (or community; or place; but obviously these may be in tension …). The diversity noted above, in synagogue praxis, falls into this rubric of minhag. But, these people would continue, the same is NOT true regarding halakha – all Jews should follow the same halakha.

Now, as a matter of fact, quite a few differences between synagogues go beyond ‘mere’ custom. Issues such as: what is the height and transparency of the divide between the women’s and the men’s section? Can a non-observant man be called up to the Torah? Is Yom ha-‘Atzmauth (Israeli Independence Day) celebrated (and: how)? – All these are issues of halakha. So, things probably do not boil down to a demarcation between minhag (variety is OK) and halakha (variety nix).

1. My impression is, that what tends to trouble quite a few Orthodox people is not so much variety within halakha (=synchronic diversity), as much as change within halakha (=diachronic diversity). Let me try to articulate the viewpoint such persons may hold; a viewpoint that when held in a more relaxed version might be called ‘conservative (with a small c) and in a more intense version might be called ‘fundamentalist’:

God is eternal and transcendent. He does not change, and He is above the vicissitudes of this transient, shifting world.

God is holy, and is thus radically different from this secular, mundane existence.

God is the source of the true and the good.

Because of all this, human beings recognize God as worthy of worship, and seek to lead their life in tune with His being. 

But, how can we know how to worship God, and how can we know what actions and behaviors are in tune with His being?

To our great joy, God in His grace and love has revealed to us, through His prophet Moshe, His Torah. If we allow our lives to be guided by Torah, we will be living as God wills.

God’s Torah is primordial and primeval. Its existence pre-dates the creation of the world. As the Talmud teaches (Zevahim 116a): “He had in His archive a hidden treasure, nine-hundred-and-seventy-four generations before the creation of the world – and He chose to bestow it upon His children”.

We, the Jewish people, have been granted the unique opportunity to live under God’s grace, attuned to His eternal will by virtue of the eternal Torah He bequeathed to us. By following this eternal, God-given Way, we can raise our lives above the transient, mundane and arbitrary aspects of human existence, and imbue them with the truth, good and holiness that derive from closeness to God.

It is thus clear why – on this view – change can be regarded as antithetical to Torah Judaism: when the initial state of affairs is flawed and lacking, movement towards a better condition is good, but when the initial state of affairs is perfect, any movement is a movement away from that condition. True, “Torah has seventy facets” and thus the halakhic ways of Yemenite Jews may be equally valid and primordial as those of Polish Jews. But since Torah is perfect, any change in either of these halakhic worlds can only be for the worse.

It is not difficult to understand the appeal of such a view regarding the unchanging, stable nature of Torah and of halakha.

But, there is one small problem: such a position is not consonant with what actually happened in the past. Any examination of the actual practice of Torah reveals that dramatic changes in halakha took place over the course of Jewish history. The implication of this is that however seductive it may be, an “eternalist” ‘take’ on Judaism is a misrepresentation. And, as Maimonides wrote in his Guide for the Perplexed, religion based on misrepresentation is a false religion.

Obviously, it would require many volumes to survey the entire range of diversity within halakha over the millennia. But, I cannot expect the reader to just take my word for such a general claim. So as not to seize upon trivial or marginal examples, I propose to cite instances of changes and alterations that actually occurred in one of the most basic elements of Jewish life: marriage and divorce. However, it is important to bear in mind that my thesis relates not only to this realm, but to halakha in general.

Jewish Marriage

            What human framework is more basic than marriage? Undoubtedly, Torah is in favor of marriage. But what kind of marriage does Torah advocate? Abraham had only one wife – but several concubines. Isaac had one wife and no concubines. Jacob had two wives, and two concubines. King David had eighteen wives, and Solomon had a thousand. According to halakha, as interpreted by Maimonides in 12^th century Egypt, a Jewish man may have several wives – but no concubines. At that time in northern Europe, however, Jews were forbidden by the “Edict of Rabbenu Gershom” to have more than one wife. In 18^th century Germany, the prominent halakhist rabbi Jacob Emden wrote a passionately argued halakhic treatise advocating non-marital sexual partnerships for unmarried Jewish men and women, and extra-marital sexual partnerships for Jewish married men only, explaining that this was simply what had always been permitted under the halakhic framework of pilegesh (concubinage). Quoting many source-texts, he explained that this was perfectly fine according to Torah, and that any children born out of such relationships would be of absolutely kosher halakhic status.

This concise example from the realm of marriage suffices to illustrate that whatever certain ideologues may claim today, diversity in very basic Jewish norms over time and place (AKA change) is an innate feature of halakha. The rabbis who themselves instituted or justified these changes did not see themselves as operating against or outside of Torah. Rather, they thought that such changes expressed authentic commitment to Torah. What were the modes and processes of halakhic change that these (and other) rabbis followed? To illustrate, let us consider the “mirror image” of marriage – divorce. As we shall see, change can derive from interpretation, legislation or custom.

Changes in Jewish Divorce Laws: Change Via Interpretation

The Torah (see Deut. 24:1) describes a divorce occurring through a “writ of [marriage] termination” (sefer keritut) given by the husband. The Talmud explains that such a document is valid only if given with free will. Thus, there seems to be no way in which a woman can receive a divorce if her husband is recalcitrant.

Maimonides rules, however, that a woman cannot be forced to remain in a relationship when she feels her husband to be sexually repulsive: “she is not a captive of war, who must have sex with a man she despises” (Hilkhot Ishut, 14:8). Therefore, when a woman declares that her husband is sexually repulsive to her, the court “immediately forces him to divorce her.” But … Maimonides not only recognized Torah as eternal, but also included belief in the eternality of Torah as one of his “Thirteen Principles of Faith”; how could he validate a divorce to which the husband was coerced? Is not such compulsion contrary to the requirement that a divorce be given willingly?

Maimonides himself raised this question and provided the answer:

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 beaten [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 … with regard to this man who refused to divorce [his wife]: 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’ move is an interpretive one: “will” here means 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 consents to being a Jew thereby consents to what is entailed by being a Jew, and the court is merely enabling him to overcome a powerful urge that conflicts with his own deeper and more serious will.

The important point for us to note is, that acknowledging Torah as eternal does not mean acknowledging our (or anyone’s!) understanding of Torah as eternal. Our understanding of Torah can change, and when that happens, we will begin to permit actions our ancestors understood that Torah forbade, or we will begin to forbid what they understood Torah to permit. And we will be right in doing so; for we should do no more (and no less) than follow the best interpretation of Torah available to us. Sincere commitment to Torah does not always lead, then, to “adherence to the holy ways of life that characterized Jewish existence in the past.”

Let us consider the grounds of Maimonides’ interpretation. Three assumptions stand out. One relates to human psychology: Maimonides has a theory of human personality that recognizes several “levels” of will that can be in simultaneous conflict. While he did not arrive at this view by studying Torah, he is nevertheless confident that since the theory is correct, Torah must be in consonance with it. In other words, he assumes that Torah is a rational enterprise, and his reading of Torah is informed by his general understanding of reality. If so, it seems plausible that if his understanding of rationality or of reality were to change, his understanding of Torah would change, too.

Maimonides’ second and third assumptions are not about reality, but about values. He holds that the status of a married woman is not like that of a captive, 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, Torah never explicates 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.” In any case, Maimonides’ decision that 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 Torah no less than it derives from such reading.

At the very same time that Maimonides was composing these passages, his contemporary, Rabbi Jacob ben Meir (known as Rabbenu Jacob Tam), was teaching a radically different doctrine. The grandson of Rashi and considered the greatest rabbi in 12^th century France, Rabbenu Tam held that if a man could be forced to divorce his wife when she declared that he repelled her, any married woman who was attracted to another man would claim that her husband disgusted her, receive a forced writ of divorce, and go off to her new sexual partner against her husband’s will!

It seemed self-evident to Rabbenu Tam that this was deeply antithetical to Torah values, and he therefore argued that the possibility of forced divorce in such cases simply could not and did not exist in Torah law.[1]  But, if the husband is not forced to divorce her, and she remains married to him against her will – what of Maimonides’ value-judgment that a woman may not be compelled to have sex with a man repulsive to her?

Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel (Ashkenaz and Spain, 13-14^th centuries) 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![2]

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 is grounded in 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. He too holds that if a wife claims that her husband disgusts her sexually, 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 morally preferable 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 some contemporary readers may be turned off by this view, it is very important to note that this is not a formalist positivistic presentation of halakha; rather, Rabbi Asher clearly 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.

Change By Legislation

Since the values he set forth are seemingly eternal, why did Rabbi Asher explicitly contextualize his ruling by noting that: “in this generation the daughters of Israel are cheeky”? The answer is that he himself was aware of a very different legal tradition, one that had prevailed in Jewish law for many centuries. This tradition began in the year 650/651 C.E., when a dramatic legal enactment 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.[3] 

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, 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. However, it was impossible for the rabbis to prevent the women from re-marrying, because doing so would enrage the Muslim authorities who had validated the divorce procedure. The result was a disaster, because according to halakha, the women’s second marriages were adulterous, and children born from such unions were mamzerim who would never be able to marry other Jews. Since the rabbis could not change the political-legal reality of Muslim rule, they decided to institute a change in halakha. 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 and children would be fully “kosher” according to halakha.

Here, we have a change in halakha that is not interpretive, but legislative. The rabbis in the year 650 did not claim that they had reached a new understanding of what Torah had always meant. They agreed that Torah strictly limited the cases in which husbands could be forced to issue a divorce. But they held that within the realm of values and norms recognized by Torah, it was possible for rational human beings to recognize a hierarchy. Torah upheld the husband’s prerogative not to grant a divorce against his will, but it also regarded the prevention of adultery as a major value – and it was crystal-clear to the rabbis at that time that if historical conditions prevented the realization of both values, then prevention of adultery should be given preference over retaining the husbands’ unilateral prerogative in matters of divorce. They canonized this recognition by legislation and for hundreds of years (from 650 until c. 1150, and in certain localities until after 1400) this legislation was recognized as valid and binding by halakhic authorities not only in the Middle East and North Africa but also in Ashkenaz (Northern Europe).

Legislative change in halakha does not see itself as undermining the eternality of Torah. Rather, it is grounded in the recognition that while Torah is eternal and perfect, human beings are imperfect, and historical reality is fickle. It is therefore possible that under certain conditions, implementation of (what we understand to be) the eternal norms of Torah will entail results that are destructive to (what we understand are) the eternal values of Torah. In some cases, such as the one above, this calls for abrogation of certain norms of Torah. In other cases, it calls for adding on limits or stringencies not required by Torah. However, all legislation under the aegis of Torah is by definition focused on the alleviation of such contextual conflicts, and is therefore – in principle – limited in duration: when the context changes – after a year, a century or a millennium – the enactment may no longer be applicable.

Change by Custom

A third source of change recognized within halakha is custom. If we return once again from divorce to marriage, we see that a lot of what happens in the course of a Jewish wedding is grounded in custom: the melodies, the dances and the breaking of the cup, for example. But most people are unaware of how much more of the ceremony is merely customary: The huppah is a custom; the participation and role of the rabbi is a custom; even the wedding ring is a custom, not required by halakha. When we think of custom, we usually think of it as preservation of the past, not as innovation. But when did today’s customs begin? If people living in Western countries consider the melodies they use at weddings, they will recognize them to be European in character, which means that they cannot be from rabbinic times, because the Talmudic rabbis were Middle-Eastern. And for each custom that we follow, medieval texts report customs that were then in vogue, which have since fallen into desuetude. In other words: the things we know as customs began, in some historical context that we usually don’t think about, as innovation. And in other cases, what was once custom is now no longer followed even by the most religious among us.  In other words: custom reflects change.

While interpretation and legislation are grounded in the authority of rabbinic and communal leaders, why do we attribute authority to custom? There are two schools of thought within halakha with regard to this question. One holds that since what is now customary began as innovation, it must have been validated originally by the rabbis of that time. The authority of customs we follow today derives, then, from the presumption that they reflect rabbinic decisions in the past. The other view holds that custom – as opposed to interpretation – begins not with rabbis, but with the people. The Jewish people, the Jewish community, possess creative powers that do not derive from texts, but from life and praxis. Halakha recognizes and validates these powers. 

These two schools of thought differ most of all in regards to what should be done if custom and halakha seem to conflict. The first view argues that if a custom conflicts with halakha, that must mean that the custom was not originally validated by rabbis. Therefore, the custom should be tweaked so as to bring it into line with our understanding of halakha. According to the second view, since the custom was created by the people, rabbis should try to re-interpret or re-formulate their understanding of Torah, so as to provide halakhic justification for the custom. A more general formulation of this principle is that rabbis should cultivate within themselves an orientation that seeks to view the actual religious praxis of the Jewish people in the most positive possible light, rather than an orientation that tends to focus on where the community is “getting it wrong.”

Interpretation, Legislation, Custom – and the Eternality of Torah

After presenting the religious outlook that opposes change and dynamism in halakha, we noted that for some seriously committed Jews it seems especially imperative today to advocate a totally non-dynamic view, and to unequivocally espouse adherence to the original holy ways of life that characterized Jewish existence in the past. However, our brief survey of laws and customs relating to marriage and divorce reveals that there were many different “holy ways of life” that Jews followed in the past, and that these ways of life were themselves characterized by a dynamic of change. The adoption of a non-dynamic view of Torah is therefore itself contrary to the reality of Torah, as revealed by study of our holy texts.

Study thus frees us from the chains of anti-dynamic rhetoric and empowers us to realize that Torah changed not because Jews got tired of Torah, but because they were enamored of Torah and deeply committed to halakha.  This love motivated them to interpret Torah in the best possible light, as understood by the most outstanding moral and religious minds of their time.

Halakha changed because Jews wanted to celebrate Torah with the most beautiful and moving melodies, dances and ritual objects they were aware of or that they could create. And it changed because of legislation in response to shifts in the wider world of which Jews were a part.

Clearly, at any one point in time, religiously committed Jews around the world were implementing only a small segment of the diverse norms and practices that were recognized and practiced by observant Jews during the thousands of years that have passed since the People of Israel received the Torah. And, while an observer will detect much similarity between the halakhic rulings and praxes of the various communities of observant Jews at any one point in time, s/he will also not fail to note the significant diversity that exists between them.

Not to recognize and validate the diachronic and the synchronic diversity of halakha is to deny not only empiric reality but also religious normative reality: as Rabbi Haim David haLevi, late Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, wrote in 1989:

There is nothing so flexible as the flexibility of Halakha...it is only by virtue of that flexibility that the People of Israel, through the many novel and useful rulings innovated by Israel's sages over the generations, could follow the path of Torah and its commandments for thousands of years.[4]

But change is not the most central value of Torah. Living a Jewish life characterized by a sincere sense of organic continuity with the ways Jews lived in the past and with the ways they understood God and Torah is arguably more important and spiritually satisfying than incessantly seeking to re-create Judaism in consonance with current trends and mores.

A religious life in the spirit of Torah should grant the presumption of authenticity and validity to the living traditions and interpretations we have received from our great cultural and religious past – but never allow that presumption to override our critical commitment to interpret, to legislate and to live Torah in the light of our own sincere rational, moral and religious recognitions. It is by achieving the best possible balance between a deep commitment to organic Jewish continuity and a no-less-deep commitment to a critical vision of what Judaism can and should become that we will really be in step with the rhythm of Torah itself. And there is no way we can do that without empowering ourselves through study of Torah.