National Scholar Updates

Should a person who desperately wants to make aliyah do so even if his or her parents object?

The basic halakha is that a grown child may decide for him/herself about Aliyah and that parents do not have the right to impose their will in this matter. This is especially true if the grown child feels that he/she can learn and observe Torah better in Israel and if he/she wants to raise children there.

It is best, of course, if parents and children reach an amicable understanding. In our days, it is easier to maintain contact with family, even if they live far from each other. We have whatsapp and facetime and zoom etc.  We also can travel to and from Israel much more quickly and easily than was possible for our ancestors even a few generations ago.

Making Aliyah is a big decision. If a grown child has decided on Aliyah after carefully considering the pluses and minuses, then the parents should accept this decision gracefully…and proudly.

If a Jew who knows better intermarries, how should one treat his or her spouse?  Coldly?  Warmly?  Somewhere in between?

One “who knows better” also must realize that religiously observant Jews strongly disapprove of interfaith marriage. It would not normally be expected to have a non-Jewish spouse treated warmly and naturally, as if nothing were wrong.

On the other hand, we are taught not to judge others unless we imagine ourselves to be in a similar situation.  If someone disapproves of your spouse, for whatever reason, how would you want that person to behave toward your spouse? Would you be pleased if he/she acted coldly, rudely? Would you want to maintain a positive relationship with someone who disdained your spouse? 

If you alienate the non-Jewish partner of a Jewish relative or friend, wouldn’t that almost certainly damage or end your relationship?

One approach is: that person sinned, I want nothing to do with him/her or spouse. Another approach is to try to maintain a good relationship with the Jewish person while having as little to do as possible with the non-Jewish spouse.

Another approach is to deal with intermarried couples as fellow human beings. Although we don’t approve of interfaith marriage, neither do we approve of rudeness. We don’t know the inner life of that couple. Could the non-Jewish spouse be considering conversion to Judaism? If so, our coldness could turn the person away from Judaism.

I think it’s best to be as inclusive as possible. As Bruria taught, one should disdain the sin, not the sinners.

Is it proper to publicly announce donors' names and contribution amounts in shul?

Many synagogues find it essential to conduct public appeals in order to raise funds. Calling names of donors is a way of increasing contributions. It encourages people to participate as generously as possible, and discourages people from avoiding to make their donations. Their reputations are at stake!

Is this ideal? Absolutely not. Wouldn’t it be so much better if everyone contributed generously and promptly, so as to preclude the necessity of public appeals for funds? These appeals degrade the sanctity of the synagogue, often causing frustration and embarrassment.

While halakhic justification for this practice can be found, it is still unseemly and unpleasant.

But the problem isn’t primarily with the fundraisers: the problem is with the community at large.

If everyone met their financial responsibilities generously, there would be no need for public appeals. But—unfortunately—it is the rare synagogue that can maintain itself without public appeals that name the donors and the amount of donations.

Some synagogues have sought other ways of raising funds e.g. scrolls of honor, online campaigns, appeals without actually mentioning donors’ names etc.

Let each of us contribute as generously as we can. If we all do our share financially, we will be contributing to the holiness of our sanctuaries. And if we don’t meet our financial obligations on our own, get ready for the next appeal in shul!

Is it proper to pressure family members of a get refuser?

“Get” refusal is reprehensible. It is never justified, regardless of any personal grievances that may be at stake. If a marriage has effectively ended, a “get” must be given and received promptly. The “get” is not a bargaining tool. The divorcing couple should settle its disputes directly, in a beth din or civil court. Holding back on a “get” is unethical, sinful, and a hillul Hashem.

“Get” refusers apparently persist in their wickedness in spite of external pressures. Either they are spiteful, greedy or malicious. Whatever can be done to prod them to give/receive the “get” should be done. This includes treating the refuser as one in “herem.” Isolating the person socially and in business can be helpful.

Is it proper to put pressure on family members of the refuser? The answer depends on whether or not such pressure can be effective. In some cases, family members may strongly support the refuser. In other cases, family members may have no influence on the refuser.

But if there is a chance that family members can play a constructive role, and you can speak with them calmly and reasonably, then by all means speak with them. If the refuser realizes that the family is being disgraced and pressured, perhaps a “get” will be forthcoming.

“Get” refusal reflects badly on the refuser, on the family and community. It reflects badly on Torah and halakha. We must do our best to eliminate this shameful behavior from our midst.

Pinchas's Peace Prize

Devar Torah by Max Nussbaum

In the 3rd verse of this week's Parasha, Parashat Pinchas, Hashem grants Pinchas with the peace prize. We know from the end of Parashat Balak that Pinchas killed Zimri and Kozbi thus ending the plague on the Israelite People. The result of Pinchas’s action is great; but why should he deserve a peace prize for killing two people? Furthermore, why did this end the plague?

Throughout Tanakh we see a few more interesting rewards and punishments that may lead us to question some foundational ideas. Moshe hit the rock and was unable to enter Israel. Avraham almost sacrificed his son Yitzhak and received a promise that his offspring would be the chosen nation. Yaakov tricked Yitzhak and received many blessings. The spies spoke badly about Israel and they were all sentenced to death in the desert. There’s seems to be no set standard for results of our actions; but in Parashat Ha’azinu we learn: “His (Hashem’s) deeds are perfect”. It appears as if we’re missing something.

There’s one common denominator among all of these things; the proper standard is fulfillment of Hashem's will. Following Hashem's will leads to blessing; violating His will leads to punishment. Moshe was supposed to talk to the rock and was punished because he didn’t. Avraham was ready to sacrifice his son as Hashem had commanded and he was rewarded. The same for Yaakov and the spies. Pinchas acted in a way that maintained Hashem's standard of morality for the People of Israel...and was therefore rewarded.

Pinchas deserved the peace prize because he had faith and was loyal to Hashem’s will. Due to the fact that this incident with Zimri and Kozbi happened in front of the nation, Pinchas inspired the people to do the will of Hashem. This is why Pinchas was granted the peace prize, and this is was why the plague was stopped. The main message to take away from this week's Parasha is that no matter what, we should always do the right thing and strive to live up to the standards that Hashem has set for us.

As of this writing, over 300 people have viewed our recent program on Breastfeeding in Halakhah. We are thrilled to reach people on such an important topic, and are grateful to the Institute for making such vital programming an essential aspect of what we do to promote our vision to the broader community.

View the program on Breastfeeding at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sWQJWg2hxo

Please also view other recent symposia we have run, and of course please share the links with your friends:

Celebrating Rabbi Marc Angel's 50 years in the Rabbinate:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ2VUwW3l78

Torah Education and Morality:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjL_o2e4B68&t=6s

Conversion to Judaism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG17aaahdPQ

Please browse our YouTube channel for many other lectures and programs by Rabbi Marc Angel and Rabbi Hayyim Angel.

Thank you to all our members and supporters who make these and other programs possible.

Rabbi Hayyim Angel

National Scholar

Remembering Mom: Thoughts for Mother's Day

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel 

(Below is an essay I wrote, included in my book The Wisdom of Solomon and Us, Jewish Lights, 2016, pp. 135-138.)

My mother, Rachel Romey Angel, was born in 1914 in Seattle, Washington, the second of seven children born to Marco and Sultana Romey—both immigrants from Turkey. Although my grandparents were born and raised in Turkey, their first language was Judeo-Spanish, the language of the Sephardic Jews scattered throughout the former Ottoman Empire. My mother did not learn to speak English until she attended kindergarten in public school.

The Sephardic immigrants of Seattle came to America with little money and little formal education, but with a tremendous desire to make a new and better life for themselves and their families. The first generation immigrants worked at various trades; their children went on to own stores and other businesses; their grandchildren were nearly all university educated professionals and business people.

My mother was “only a girl.” In those days and in that society, it was assumed that girls would marry at an early age and have families of their own. Girls did not need much education, only basic domestic skills such as cooking and sewing. In the milieu of my mother’s childhood, it was highly unusual for a woman to attend university or to hold a serious job outside the home.

My mother was a brilliant student, but when she turned 16—the legal age that one was required to attend school—my grandfather told her she had to quit school and get a job to help support the family. Her older sister had done that and was working in a candy factory, and my grandfather wanted my mother to do likewise. My mother told her teachers at Garfield High School that she was going to be leaving school to go to work. One of the teachers was so distressed by this news that she spoke with my grandfather, urging him to let my mother graduate from high school. She told him that his daughter was a wonderful student with an excellent mind; if given the opportunity, she could attend university and do great things with her life. My grandfather replied: “she’s only a girl; she doesn’t need more education; she has to go to work and earn money.”

Thus ended my mother’s academic career. She never graduated from high school. She worked in the candy factory for a few years, got married at age 21, and went on to have four children, and eventually twelve grandchildren. She was a voracious reader, a deep thinker, and a keen observer of human nature. Neither her husband nor their close group of friends had a college graduate among them, so my mother was sort of a closet intellectual. She functioned happily and successfully in her world, but she kept her intellectual, philosophical side pretty much to herself. If she had been born two generations later, she would have been a university graduate, probably a Ph.D., and she would have had opportunities in academia, public life or business that were totally out of reach for her in her time and place.

Was my mother a success? Was she happy? Did she fulfill her mission in life? The answer to these questions depends on how we evaluate success, happiness and fulfillment in life. If we deem someone successful, happy and fulfilled if she earned a good income, lived a prosperous life, earned an academic degree, and held responsible positions in professional life—then my mother did not meet these requirements.

But my mother was a remarkable woman. She was a loyal daughter, devoted wife, loving mother and grandmother, gracious hostess, excellent friend. She was a profound thinker, an avid reader, a talented knitter. She enjoyed the simple pleasures of life. She was good and kind, thoughtful, and highly principled. If measured by standards of quality rather than quantity, my mother was eminently successful, happy and fulfilled in life.

When King Solomon praises the “woman of valor,” he refers to the virtues of being a good wife and mother, a hard-worker on behalf of her family, a generous soul who is charitable and kind. The Hebrew word for valor, hayyil, has the connotation of strength and courage. The “ideal” woman is not identified as being passive and obedient, but rather as having a strong character focused on her life’s values and goals.

When reading the last passages of Mishlei today, one is struck by how much society has changed in recent generations. Women today have far more opportunities in education, professions, public life and business than had been true for women in many societies of the past. But this success has also come with trade-offs. In pursuing careers, women may defer or forego the joys of a solid marriage, child-rearing, and being full-time mothers. Are the modern “liberated” women more successful, happier, and more fulfilled than the women of my mother’s pattern of life? In some ways, yes; in other ways, probably not.

I remember reading somewhere that in our modern society a woman is considered creative if she produces a piece of sculpture or operates her own business. But if a woman is “merely” a mother who creates children, shapes their lives, and sees to it that they can lead happy and good lives, she is labeled somewhat pejoratively as “only being a housewife.” A full-time wife and mother is deemed to be on a lower level than women who devote their energies to professional or business life.

If my mother had been given more opportunities to develop her intellect and talents, she would have had a significant impact on many people beyond her immediate circle of family and friends. She would have been gratified to learn more and teach more, and to play a greater role in the larger society. She would have been very happy to have many of the opportunities which were available to her own daughter, daughters-in-law and granddaughters.

But having said that, her own life evaluated in its own context was a remarkably happy, meaningful and successful adventure. She was grateful for what she had and what she was able to achieve. She was beautiful and graceful; she feared the Lord; she loved and was loved; she raised and inspired her children; she left an indelible impact on her grandchildren. “She shall be praised.”

How ought religion, including Modern Jewish Orthodoxy, interact with America’s political democracy? And can it survive our current culture? Not surprisingly, these simple questions simultaneously point in many directions. However, my interest is specific. I wish to understand how secular politics and culture affect religion in the United States and vice versa. Although answers are complex, I do think that a few meaningful generalizations are possible.

Let us begin our inquiry by asking the following question: How is religion viewed politically? In the United States, this is first of all a Constitutional and legal matter. After all, it is the Constitution that defines what policies and programs the national government can legally undertake. Usually, any discussion of the relationship between religion and government focuses upon explicating the First Amendment, a legal guarantee that prohibits the national government from establishing religion while guaranteeing to its citizens the free exercise of their religion. However, often overlooked is an even more foundational constitutional guarantee that defines the relationship between the national government and religious practice in the United States. Remarkably, despite the fact that 11 states had established religious oaths as prerequisite for holding political office, the Founders outlawed them in the new Constitution. Article VI, paragraph 3 of the Constitution stipulates that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust in the United States.” The intention of those who wrote the Constitution remains clear: Public officials in charge of the government were required to act legally, not piously. The Constitution demanded only that officeholders in the national government swear to uphold and defend the Constitution.

Although the metaphor of a wall of separation between church and state rather overstates the matter, there exists little doubt that the Founders created a secular government designed to be governed by officials who aim to advance the public interest through the fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law. It might be said that the Constitution’s emphasis on constitutionalism was intended to supply the essence of a public religion much in the way halakha constitutes the core of Judaism.

Where did this secular definition of politics leave organized religion? The Founding generation wrote a Constitution that was premised upon a number of widely shared and nuanced assumptions about religion—assumptions that remain important for us to understand today. First, the Founders believed that it was dangerous when the powers of church and state merged, and religion formally intruded itself in the state’s governing. The Founders responded by creating the secular Constitution to which I have alluded. Second, those who wrote the Constitution almost uniformly feared religious fanaticism. Modern European history suggested that religious fanaticism was the most common kind of a fanaticism, and fanaticism was a mindset that usually produced intolerance and violence incompatible with responsible self-government. It is important here not to confuse religious orthodoxy with fanaticism. Religious orthodoxy represents an adherence to doctrine about God that is believed and lived. Only when its adherents seek forcibly to impose it on others can orthodoxy slip into a politically dangerous fanaticism.

If religion, under the wrong conditions, could be dangerous for self-government, its practice nonetheless was a matter of conscience and could be politically valuable; therefore it required protection. For that reason, the founding generation shared a third view of religion, namely that its reasonable practice required protecting. Different rationales could be detected here. Influential thinkers such as Jefferson pointed out that a citizen’s religious freedom was a subset of freedom generally, and that one of the purposes of self-government had to do with the securing of liberty for all citizens: Not only do my neighbors have a right to their religious opinions, but how my neighbors practiced their religion did not adversely affect me. In Jefferson’s words, whether there were 20 gods or no god, “neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Endangering one’s neighbor’s religious freedom was unacceptable because every citizen’s religious belief and practice deserved respect. Furthermore, any government that could threaten anyone’s religious belief could also threaten one’s own freedom of conscience specifically and one’s political freedom more generally.

A somewhat different defense of a robust religious practice was provided by Founders such as George Washington. Washington often enunciated that political morality, and therefore American national well-being, decisively depended upon religion. For Washington, religion was a source of morality that strengthened citizenship and, by so doing, empowered responsible self-government. Religion clarified the sort of ethical behavior that was expected of us. Contemporary academic studies tend to confirm Washington’s observation, revealing a correlation between citizens who regularly attend religious worship and increased contributions to charity, more frequent civil engagement, and higher levels of empathy toward others.

Shorn of formal involvement in state affairs, and absent any fanatical tendencies, the Founding generation assumed that the practice of religion would be concentrated in the private realm and that its influence would be positive. They championed the widespread reasonable private exercise of religion (combined with infrequent, ceremonial, traditional public acknowledgments of God or religion) because they believed that it benefitted the political order by protecting liberty and enhancing morality. Therefore, from a secular point of view, the Founders praised religion because it was politically useful. The Constitution required from public officials no opinion whatsoever about the truth of any particular religion or about religion generally. But the Founders never denied the importance of religion or its frequent positive influence upon self-government.

This briefly summarizes the U.S. Constitution’s and its government’s view of religion. But what can we say about the opposite perspective? How have religions, and their practitioners, interacted with government? The first thing to be said is perhaps obvious. Citizens who are religious but desire to influence civic and public policy have sought public office since the Constitution’s ratification. Not unreasonably, they have brought with them their religious convictions. Nor could it have been otherwise. It would be unreasonable, not to mention impossible, to expect such citizens to leave their most deeply held, religiously based beliefs behind. But our politics requires that even arguments made by political leaders who are privately religious be publicly made in secular terms. Religion in the United States most frequently and successfully enters the public square indirectly and diluted, dressed in the garb of secular language about public good. Politicians advocating this or that policy inevitably phrase their appeal in the language of perceived secular advantage, even if that advantage coincides with the teaching of their religious doctrine.

There is another way religion reacts to government in the United States. Often, religious individuals are wary of laws or policies that threaten to put religion generally, or their religion in particular, at a disadvantage. Such a situation can arise in several ways. Actions of an expanding government may restrict religious practices, or contradict religious dogmas or beliefs, or treat them less generously than strictly public institutions. This is particularly true for religiously sponsored private institutions that perform a public function, including day care centers, charities, hospitals, and schools. To the extent that such issues are not settled by the courts, religious leaders seek to influence elected officials. They often seek assurances that their institutions are not politically or financially disadvantaged by restrictive rules or funding in the public arena.

The fear of an intrusive government, indifferent to the sensibilities of religious organizations and the beliefs of their practitioners, constitutes a dominant fear of America’s religious leaders. Another is the rejection of religion, or particular religious sects, particularly by the young. Often, this is cited as evidence of religions’ declining influence. In order to combat this threat, many religious sects have sought to become more culturally sensitive and aware. This trend has larger political implications. Rather than reinforcing the larger secular culture of its moral responsibilities and obligations, it appears that religion itself is increasingly being subverted by that culture. The importance of this change cannot be overestimated. Often, religion is pictured as a foundation of society, strong and unchanging. The truth can be quite different. There exists widespread concern that religion, society’s bedrock, is slowly but surely being eroded by the popular culture the Founders hoped it would support.

James Davison Hunter (in The Death of Character) has outlined the problem brilliantly. A therapeutic, relativistic culture currently dominates in the United States. In its battle with traditionally defined religion, it is winning. The ascendency of the pervasive popular culture can be seen both in obvious and profound ways. Here are a few (but only a few). It is no accident that psychologists and social workers have replaced clergy in times of public distress and great tragedies. Nor is it meaningless that schools and popular culture and peer groups have supplanted churches and religion as the arbiters of moral behavior. Furthermore, morality is no longer thought to be divinely rooted but is increasingly seen as individually determined. In its increasingly frantic attempt to be relevant, religion has sought to blend. In such a world, right and wrong is no longer found in sacred texts. Increasingly it is pronounced individually, different practices and behaviors being fobbed off as mere difference. Difference here masquerades as a moral term, a word designed to display tolerance, but which effectively obliterates the very morality it pretends to describe.

Even if the name of religion has not changed, this has become soft religion without meaningful content. Such an approach can be seen most obviously in a surprisingly large number of Americans who define their religiosity by referring to their spirituality. Traditionally understood, religiosity is about belief and action, about faith in God, and about acting in accordance with God’s guidance of our fellow human beings. By contrast, spirituality is all about feeling. It knows nothing about God and postulates nothing about ethical obligations. The locus of the feeling can be located in the experiences and emotions of the affected person. God, if God matters at all, constitutes a mere afterthought.

Although an extreme example, an increasing emphasis upon the self is indicative of a trend in contemporary American religion. Generally, religion in the United States has moved away from its traditional religiosity in the direction of spirituality. An increasingly frantic organized religion in America has chosen to confront a self-referential culture by catering to it. Today, the common question posed to would-be churchgoers and congregants asks whether this or that religious experience is personally fulfilling. Religion, like its larger surrounding culture, has become mired in the ethos of egalitarian individualism.

Having shorn religion of its content, mainstream churches and synagogues have sometimes attempted to remain relevant by significantly supplementing—some would say conflating—liberal political and social doctrine with religious content. This phenomenon is widespread. It has characterized the mainline Protestant Churches for almost 50 years. Similarly, Reform Judaism, repeatedly trumpeting the idea of tikkun olam, has pursued a similar route (leading one wag to remark that the primary difference between Reform Judaism and the Democratic Party has become the holidays).

The consequences of this strategy have not been encouraging. The mainline Protestant Churches have been characterized by internal dissension and today are in notable decline. Within Reform Judaism there has ensued something of theological crises. Consider: Judaism has long understood itself in terms of chosenness. It proves hardly surprising that the idea that the Jewish people uniquely had received God’s Divine Covenant has profoundly informed Jewish practice, belief and liturgy. Furthermore, in very specific ways, the idea of chosenness led the rabbis to reflect in very precise ways on what it meant to live a distinctively Jewish life. God’s Covenant—and what led up to it—was an essential for defining Jewish obligation, of what constituted a Jewish obligation to one’s fellow Jews, to all people everywhere, and to God.

The problem for religion such as Reform Judaism is that the notion of chosenness, at the very least, is in tension with the pervasive idea of equality. Equality is modernity’s—and hence this age’s—most powerful idea. More than any other single concept, it alone frequently defines social justice. Furthermore (as Tocqueville would remind us), its increase has been advanced by every major scientific innovation for hundreds of years—from the invention of firearms and the printing press to the development of the automobile and the iPad. Reform Judaism’s espousal of contemporary liberalism required that it embrace equality; its affiliation with Jewish tradition pointed simultaneously to Jewish distinctiveness and chosenness. Reconciling the two proved to be no simple task. More specifically, the idea of retaining a specific Jewish identity in an age that sees all ethnic and religious identity merely as equally shared group characteristics remains challenging.

What are the social and political consequences caused by the weakening of many of America’s most influential and important religious sects? On the one hand, a diluted religion does have some positive social consequences. Most specifically, such a religion is more tolerant and accepting of other religions (and perhaps even of people who do not practice religion). It is important to recognize that this desirable social consequence often can result from a dilution of religious belief as well as a lessening of faith in a specific differentiating religious doctrine. To the extent that I value my religion because it is mine, or because it is familiar, or because of sheer inertia (rather than because I believe that my faith is correct and others are quite misguided), the more likely I am to view all religion inclusively. Stating this same conclusion negatively, the more a religious person sees another individual as expressing similar religious ideas as themselves, the less likely that person will be to ridicule, marginalize—or advocate, condone, or practice violence against that person.

But such social acceptance comes with a cost. Doubtlessly, the weakening of a believer’s religious belief adversely affects the intensity and vitality of that person’s religious practice. The question becomes: what are the political implications of increasing numbers of people ceasing to regard religion as a first order matter—as a matter of caring for one’s soul and that human being’s relationship to God? To what extent will the United States be changed as religion no longer remains a matter of urgent faith for many citizens, and increasingly becomes a mere preference, little different from any other consumer preference? The Founders had assumed the existence of, and therefore counted upon, a robust religion, a religion whose doctrines were alive and vibrant to its practitioners. They believed that only such a religion could impart the moral urgency to remind human beings of their civic duties and responsibilities to others. In a decent political order, they hoped that the religiously inspired teaching like that which proclaims the importance of loving one’s neighbor could, more often than not, modify the first fact about human nature, namely that human beings are motivated by self-love and therefore often act from self-interest. A successful politics could not ignore the harsher side of human behavior. But neither did it always have to settle for it.

So it turns out that the relationship between revealed religion, American democracy, and our current culture is complex. As such, it is not reducible to simple slogans or clichés. Yet one cannot help but notice the positive implications of this analysis for a religion like such as Jewish Modern Orthodoxy. Its orthodoxy reflects a belief system that is neither flabby nor formless. As a religion rooted in revelation but well disposed to reason, it combines a core coherent belief about its own faith with a respect for others. Equally important from a political perspective, it partakes in the larger culture without succumbing to its influence. To the contrary, Modern Orthodoxy proves quite capable of applying well articulated and thoughtful standards of moral judgment to it. As such, it does not lack influence. Specifically, it can and does help fashion the conscience and convictions of morally grounded citizens who can participate in political discussion and in the public realm. In return, like all other religions, it receives the Constitution’s broad protection of religious free exercise. A contract of sorts between (this) religion and state would seem to exist. Fortunately, it is a good political bargain, for all Americans derive benefit from its existence.

argain, for all Americans derive benefit from its existence.

1. Women: Tradition, and Thoughts for the Future

2. Intermarriage and Conversion

3. Universalism vs. Particularism: Sephardism and/or Sephardic Ethnicity

4. Rationalism/Mysticism/Superstition

Parashat Hukat: The Mysterious Red Heifer

by Jake Nussbaum

The books of Bereishith and Shemot are almost exclusively stories about our ancestors. Vayikra is all laws. Bemidbar is interesting, because while it is mostly stories of the journey and challenges of the children of Israel through the desert, sections of this book are dedicated to teaching laws, sometimes seemingly without relevance to the stories being talked about before and after.

One such section appears in Parashat Hukat with the laws of the Para Aduma, the red heifer. These laws describing the process of purifying someone from the highest levels of ritual impurity are perplexing. Rashi (chapter 19 verse 2) explains that laws categorized by the Torah as “hukah” have the sole reason of being a decree of Hashem, and are beyond our reason. In other words, there are laws in the Torah that cannot be understood by humans.

The Sefer Hahinukh was written in hope of trying to understand the possible reasons behind each mitzvah in the Torah. However, in Mitzvah 397, (which is the red heifer) the Hinukh admits that he cannot state a reason for this mitzvah. Based on several midrashim, he writes that Moshe was the only person who was ever able to comprehend this Mitzvah.

Rav Yaakov Kaminetzky pointed out that this is the only Mitzvah that the Hinukh couldn't provide an explanation for; even including the other hukim. This makes the para aduma the epitome of the laws of Hashem that go beyond human intellect.

Rabbi Levi Yitchak of Berditchev points out in Kedushat Levi that the mitzvah of parah adumah is the perfect example of us not being able to understand the reasons of the mitzvot, but it also comes to remind us that even if great sages come up with explanations for them, we will never know if we have unlocked the true meaning. There are many Mitzvot in the Torah that are easier to understand based on basic human morality and logic, and this can sometimes cause us to think that we observe them because they make sense or seem right. Therefore, every mitzvah in this category of “hok” reminds us that we perform the mitzvot purely because of the decree of Hashem.

Given the nature of this mitzvah, its placement in the Torah is very interesting. The previous parasha, parashat Korah, is about a rebellion against the authority of Moshe and Aharon by Korah and his followers. Rashi in chapter 16 verse 1 quoting the midrash says that Korah asked Moshe if a garment made entirely of  teheilet requires tzitzit or not. When Moshe responded in the affirmative, Korah and followers laughed, remarking that an entire garment of teheilet should fulfill the obligation and tzitzit shouldn't be needed. Korah was challenging the logic and reasoning behind Mitzvot.

In his essay “The Common Sense Rebellion,” Rav Joseph B. Soleveitchik writes that Korah believed that human intellect is the chief deciding factor in matters of Jewish law, and therefore Moshe is no better than anyone else, as Korah said: “...For the entire nation- all of them are holy” (Bemidbar 16:3) The Rav compares this to people in his time who argued for reforms based on their own limited understanding.

This can be taken a step further. Korah couldn't wrap his head around the fact that there are things beyond human comprehension, and that common sense does not override Hashem’s law. The Midrash says that Korah began his rebellion after the laws of the red heifer were taught to the children of Israel. Given his nature and outlook on life, it makes sense that as soon as the Torah taught laws that were outside the scope of his understanding, he would reject it’s teachings. This flaw in Korah turned out to be fatal for him and his followers. 

I believe there is another connection from the Parah Aduma to the surrounding stories in the Torah. After the laws are taught, we learn of the infamous incident of “The waters of strife,” when Moshe hit the rock. Assuming that Moshe’s sin was hitting the rock instead of speaking to it, (Rashi on Bemidbar 20:12) perhaps Moshe too made a mistake when it came to what he was able to understand and what he couldn't. Rashi on the previous verse, verse 11, says that when Hashem told Moshe to speak to the rock, he mistakenly spoke to the wrong rock which didn't produce water. Once this happened, he rationalized that since 40 years prior (Shemot 17:6) he was able to get water out of the rock by striking it, it would work again. His logic was correct and the water did come out, but not without repercussions for him, as he would be prohibited from entering the land of Israel. Moshe also made the mistake of letting his personal logic interfere with doing what Hashem commanded him to do. 

I believe that the laws of the Para Aduma are mentioned in this section of Bemidbar to teach that regardless of how great you are, and whether the matter is large or small, the most important thing is to always follow the word of Hashem. While it is a massive value in Judaism to try and understand reasoning and to try to break down laws to figure them out, logical arguments can never supersede following the mitzvot according to how they were commanded to us. The Kedushat Levi and Rabbi Yaakov Kaminetzky said, the laws of the Para Aduma remind us that although we won't always understand everything in life, our true purpose is doing our best to fulfill the decrees of Hashem. May we all strive to follow all the mitzvot in their highest forms, and may we become closer to Hashem in their merit. Shabbat Shalom. 

It was the Fall semester of the Academic year 1970–1971 that I entered the Talmud class of Hakham Professor Jose Faur zt”l (1935–2020) at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS). And now, with his passing 50 years later, it still seems as if I have never left the shadow, direction, and guidance of the sage who was to become my rav muvhaq, that special Torah personality who shaped my own Jewish identity, worldview, and approach to Torah.

Born in Buenos Aires to a traditional Jewish family of Syrian descent, Hakham Faur studied Torah, Talmud, and Jewish law with Hakham Eliahu Freue, the head of the community, and other rabbis of that tradition. Hakham Faur’s descriptions of his early mentors’ manners provide the key to decoding his own unique understanding of Judaism:

They [Hakham Faur’s first teachers] never assumed an arrogant attitude toward their students or anyone else. They were accessible to all and encouraged contrary views and free discussion. The truth was the result of a collective effort in which everyone had equal access and share, rather than being imposed by an individual of a superior mind. Following Sephardic educational tradition, the teaching was methodical and comprehensive. Before one began to study the Talmud, it was expected of him to have a solid knowledge of the scripture, Mishnayot, the famous anthology Eyn Yaaqov, the Shulhan Arukh, and other basic Jewish texts.[1]

The Sephardic approach to Jewish learning into which Hakham Faur was initiated as a child presumed that the Torah library is readable, teachable, transmittable, and that divine truth is found in the canonical Torah text, and not in the oracular intuition of the charismatic rabbi. The ideal rabbi is an effective teacher, a personal example, and a mentor who is willing and able to understand and respect each student’s unique potential and individuality. For these Sephardic sages, authentic Torah authority resides in the sacred canonical text,[2] which must be presented convincingly. Following the Maimonidean criterion that the law is decided according to the view that makes the most sense,[3] Hakham Faur’s model rabbi is authorized to interpret the Torah reasonably, convincingly, and impersonally, without fear or favor.[4]

This rationalist approach to legal authority, associated by Max Weber with modernity,[5] contrasts with “traditional” and “charismatic” authority, both of which locate the law in the subjective intuition and political authority of the community’s elite. Hakham Faur dedicates his probing historiographic monograph, In the Shadow of History, “[t]o the memory of my father Abraham Faur, who believed that to be Jewish is to be modern, and vice versa.”[6] His family tradition did not regard “modernity” and “Torah” to be conflicting impulses. For his Judaism, modernity presents a challenge, not a threat, to Jewish life. A Judaism that recoils in the face of modernity lacks confidence and credibility. While Hakham Faur’s “modernity” is a neutral station in history, most institutional Orthodox thinkers regard “modernity” as a threatening state of mind, whose seductive attraction should be resisted.

In one of his lectures, Hakham Faur taught that from years five to ten, the child learns the Written Torah, the Israelite nation’s national narrative and foundation document; ages ten to fifteen are devoted to the study of Mishnah, the canonical compendium of the Oral Law; and from years fifteen to eighteen, the student should be introduced to Oral Torah methodology,[7] in order to understand, control, and apply the hermeneutics according to which a valid Torah claim may be made. For this “Orthodoxy”[8] both teacher and student are bound by and to a shareid rational, readable Written and Oral Torah library. Torah truth is determined by a reasoned exegesis of the readable Torah library. Appeals to social inertia, according to which the way Israel was in the past is taken to be the way Israel ought to be in the present as well as in the future,[9] is an appeal to nostalgic, mimetic,[10] or street-culture tradition. This is not the prescriptive tradition transmitted from one generation’s Bet Din haGadol to the next.[11]

Since there were no venues for advanced Torah learning in South America, the precocious Hakham Faur applied to and was accepted by R. Aharon Kotler, the firebrand visionary founder of the “Lakewood Yeshiva,” the Beis Midrosh Gavoah. Reflecting on his student days in Lakewood, Hakham Faur observed,

The first lesson I heard by Rabbi Kotler sounded like a revelation. He spoke rapidly, in Yiddish, a language I didn't know but was able to understand because I knew German. He quoted a large number of sources from all over the Talmud, linking them in different arrangements and showing the various interpretations and interconnection of later Rabbinic authorities. I was dazzled. Never before had I been exposed to such an array of sources and interconnections. Nevertheless there were some points that didn't jibe. I approached R' Kotler to discuss the lesson. He was surprised that I had been able to follow. When I presented my objections to him, he reflected for a moment and then replied that he would give a follow-up lesson where these difficulties would be examined. This gave me an instant reputation as some sort of genius (iluy), and after a short while, I was accepted into the inner elite group….My years in Lakewood were pleasurable and profitable.... At the same time the lessons of Rabbi Kotler and my contacts with fellow students were making me aware of some basic methodological flaws in their approach. The desire to shortcut their way into the Talmud without a systematic and methodological knowledge of basic Jewish texts made their analysis skimpy and haphazard....The dialectics that were being applied to the study of Talmud were not only making shambles out of the text, but, what was more disturbing to me, they were also depriving the very concept of Jewish law, Halacha, of all meaning. Since everything could be “proven” and “disproven,” there were no absolute categories of right and wrong….Within this system of morality there was no uniform duty. It was the privilege of the authority to make special dispensations and allowances (heterim) to some of the faithful; conversely, the authority could impose some new obligation and duties on all or a part of the faithful.[12]

Hakham Faur’s description of his own Beis Midrosh Gavoah experience provides a window into his mind, method, and worldview. While his halakhic commitments appear to be no less intense and sincere than R. Kotler’s, his rational, reasoned readings—and applications—of the Oral Torah Canon reflect a very different sensibility. While Hakham Faur’s description of his Beis Midrosh Gavoah experience is brutally factual, his narrative carefully avoids any assessment of R. Kotler’s practice, policy, or program. R. Kotler provided Hakham Faur with the opportunity to hone his own methodological skills, reasoning abilities, and the leisure to master the entire rabbinic corpus. I suspect that R. Kotler indulged Hakham Faur’s precocious genius because the Hakham’s Torah understanding was intellectually pure, manifestly coherent, and logically convincing. In other words, Hakham Faur’s Torah was not based on charismatic intuition; it was based upon the most reasonable understanding of the Torah’s actual words. Hakham Faur’s Judaism may be contrasted with R. Kotler’s, which is charismatic, intuitive, and insists upon an unconditional submission to the authority person.

When I asked Hakham Faur why he never commented upon R. Kotler’s impact on him or his greatness in relation to JTS’s leading Talmudist, R. Saul Lieberman, he answered, “I’m too close to R. Kotler. You have the benefit of distance and objectivity. You are better able to answer your question than I am.”

I am not the only person to pose this question to Hakham Faur. Dr. Joseph Ringel reports that

Rabbi Professor Reuven Kimelman, a student of Faur’s at the [Jewish Theological] Seminary and present-day expert in liturgy who teaches at Brandeis, once asked Faur, “[w]ho is greater? Rabbi Aharon Kotler or Rabbi Shaul Lieberman?” Of course, for Faur to answer such a sincere but loaded question honestly about two authorities under whom he studied would have been halakhically and politically problematic. Faur, known for his insistence on minimizing unnecessary words, answered simply and succinctly: “zeh b’shello, v’zeh b’shello.”[13]

Exquisitely consistent as he is proper in matters of protocol, Hakham Faur responded to Prof. Kimelman precisely as he answered me, as required by Maimonides.[14]

At Beis Midrosh Gavoah, Hakham Faur not only honed his technical learning skills and mastered the Oral Torah Canon; he now found a foil, the alternative sectarian, Hareidi Orthodoxy against which he could test the Judaism of his childhood teachers. He learned a great deal at Beis Midrosh Gavoah, albeit in ideological dissent.[15] On one hand, Hakham Faur accorded R. Kotler the respect due to one’s primary teacher and would not subject him personally to account or criticism,[16] yet as will be shown below, Hakham Faur’s approach is markedly different in tone, structure, and content from R. Kotler’s. Beis Midrosh Gavoah afforded the teenage Hakham Faur the leisure to learn Torah extensively and intensely, undisturbed and without distraction. Because Hakham Faur learned a great deal from R. Kotler, Jewish law prohibited him from passing judgment regarding his teacher’s opinions.

Nonetheless, Hakham Faur had profound problems with R. Kotler’s teaching style and worldview, which he presents without apology or approval. R. Kotler’s worldview is expressed in a narrative, that Hakham Faur called a “revelation.” This word subversively yet subtly suggests that R. Kotler is teaching an alternative Torah system that consists of a selective citation of disparate Torah sources that are woven into a narrative that only the Great Sage is able, and authorized, to formulate. Finding R. Kotler’s understanding of Judaism to be inconsistent with claims, commands, and prescriptions encoded the plain sense of the Oral Torah canon, Hakham Faur respectfully confronted him, as Maimonides clearly requires the student to do.[17] Hakham Faur did not report R. Kolter’s reply.

Hakham Faur discovered that many Beis Midrosh Gavoah’s full-time Talmud learners did not know how to read the talmudic text according to its grammar, and he found that the scholastic dialectics applied to the learning rendered the Oral Torah Canon unreadable, so that its texts mean whatever the Great Rabbi claims that they mean. And R. Kotler presented himself as the arch traditionalist who viewed the sacred Jewish past to be the polar opposite of materialist, secular modernity. The plain sense of the Talmud is, for Hakham Faur and the latter-day Maimonidean teachers of his youth, essentially readable. R. Kotler’s sacred texts shed their plain sense [peshat] meaning so that “everything could be ‘proven’ and ‘disproven,’ there were no absolute categories of right and wrong.”[18] For Hakham Faur, the Torah library is a public book the plain sense of which affords no one, not even God, sovereign immunity.[19] If detached from R. Kotler’s charismatic person, R. Kotler’s ideas and ideology would become subject to review based on objective halakhic benchmarks. As will be argued below, R. Kotler’s Orthodoxy requires the individual Jew to be compliant with the rulings of the Great Rabbi, while Hakham Faur’s Orthodoxy nurtures Jewish citizens to be compliant with the revealed, and readable, Oral Torah Canonical text.

Hakham Faur found R. Kotler, American Hareidi Orthodoxy’s most charismatic, separatist, and strident spokesman, to be offering an Orthodox Judaism that, in spite of its zeal, remains socially, halakhically, and politically problematic. When Hakham Faur argued that violent, hierarchical societies are analphabetic, that they are unable to read,[20] I suggested that these societies’ elites fear being challenged and are coercively analphabetic; these rabbis do not allow their students to read,[21] and he concurred. A society ruled by a readable “Book” binds its rulers to the rules of its Constitution. Authoritarian cultures forbid reading because reading is ultimately subversive. A tyrant cannot claim to have spoken to God when the Torah, the transcript of Israel’s covenantal conversation with God is in Israel’s possession, and might contradict the tyrant’s claims.[22]

When R. Kotler presented a talk based on R. Jonah Gerondi’s Sha’arei Teshuva, who joined with Christian clergy to burn Maimonides’ writings, Hakham Faur reported to me that he sat in the back of Beis Midrosh Gavoah’s study hall auditorium reviewing Maimonides’ Moreh Nevuchim, in Arabic, in protest. R. Kotler reminded his precocious polymath that “we accept R. Jonah, not Maimonides.” Hakham Faur rejoined, “R. Jonah was a moseir who turned to the Roman Catholic Church to burn the books of our ‘heretics’ along with theirs.”[23] R. Kotler locates Torah authority in the charisma of the infallible, canonical person; Hakham Faur pinpoints authority in the canonical, covenantal text.

During Hakham Faur’s years at Beis Midrosh Gavoah, the kippah, the ritual head covering of Jewish men, had adopted colors, patterns, and styles, including a style with a small decorative buckle. Hakham Faur told me that he wore such a kippah at Beis Midrosh Gavoah. Impatient with Hakham Faur’s stylish but technically proper headgear,[24] R. Kotler admonished his student, “this is not the attire of a talmid chochom [Torah scholar, but literally ‘student of the wise person’].” Hakham Faur responded, “In my tradition, a talmid hakham is one who is able to explain a verse from Ezekiel according to its grammar.” This sharp comment presents a three pronged rejoinder: [1] Hebrew grammar is not a high priority in the Hareidi Yeshiva world, even though it is a window into the words that are believed to express God’s perspective; more critically, a knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic grammar empowers the probing learner to read, parse, and apply Torah using one’s own mind. [2] Recalling Hakham Faur’s position cited above, Torah truth is not determined by the divinely inspired, charismatic intuition of the Great Rabbi, but that “[t]he truth was the result of a collective effort in which everyone had equal access and share, rather than being imposed by an individual of a superior mind.”[25] [3] The Great Rabbi’s authority resides in his ability to persuade the student what the Oral Torah Canon, logically understood, actually means and ultimately requires. Hakham Faur was reminding his eminent teacher that a sage’s attire is not a uniform intended to condition students to uniformity of thought. Maimonides rules that scholars’ clothing must be neat and clean, without stains, neither too flashy nor unduly drab.[26] It is possible that Hakham Faur was also calling into question the Ashkenazic Hareidi uniform of white shirt, dark suit, and black fedora.[27] Ironically, in his adult years Hakham Faur resumed wearing a black cloth kippah, exactly like his mentor, dayyanut-ordainer, and rav muvhaq, Hakham Shaul (Matlub) Abadi.[28]

The core tradition inscribed in Hakham Faur’s very being was inculcated during his childhood in Buenos Aires, and it was tested, tried, challenged, and sharpened at Beis Midrosh Gavoah. By leaving Beis Midrosh Gavoah for academic Jewish studies, researching the Aramaic Targum Neofiti at the University of Barcelona and a fellowship and subsequent professorial appointment at the JTS, Hakham Faur adopted the learning approach and religious leadership of R. Saul Lieberman, under whom his scholarly methodology matured. The choices made by Hakham Faur provide the answer to Prof. Kimmelman’s question regarding the greatness and correctness of the alternative models of R. Kotler’s and R. Lieberman’s contrasting “orthodox” Judaisms.

R. Kotler’s Judaism put a premium on a submissive uniformity of dress that nurtures a subservient pattern of thought. The required ritual and social details are filtered through R. Kotler’s hashqofo, literally “perspective” and “worldview.” It is the Great Sage’s divinely inspired ideology that is Da’as Torah, or correct Torah opinion. This Da’as Torah narrative ideology may not be challenged because the Great Rabbi’s intuition is said to be guided by divine inspiration.[29]

Hakham Faur left Beis Midrosh Gavoah for advanced academic studies in Semitic philology, earning his Ph.D. at the University of Barcelona. After completing his Ph.D., he then accepted a three-year fellowship at JTS, supervised by Prof. Lieberman.[30] By abandoning R. Kotler’s Beis Midrosh Gavoah in order to earn a Ph.D. specializing in Semitic philology and by choosing to be guided by R. Lieberman, the generation’s acknowledged master of the Oral Torah Canon’s peshat, or plain sense meaning, Hakham Faur walked away from R. Kotler’s charismatic Orthodoxy and affirmed the alternative “orthodox” religion encoded in the Oral Torah library. In his teaching at JTS, Hakham Faur taught that a proper legal ruling requires an accurate reading of the legal text.

At first I thought Hakham Faur was simply unwilling to give me a straight answer regarding the relative greatness of Rabbis Kotler and Lieberman. He was unable to answer me directly because, as noted above, sitting in judgment of one’s teacher and father violates the deference that is their halakhic due. However, Hakham Faur did answer the question as evidenced by his own personal and professional choices. His penchant for plain sense peshat readings was initially instilled by the Sephardic rabbis who taught him in Bueno Aires. R. Lieberman’s approach to Academic Rabbinic studies applies philology to better understand what the words of the Canon actually mean. For R. Lieberman, the Oral Torah Canon reflects God’s divine will expressed in human language.[31] Personally meticulously “Orthodox," R. Lieberman found in Hakham Faur a younger kindred spirit, a religiously motivated, superbly informed searcher and researcher for God’s message that is encoded the Torah’s human language divine words using the best philological tools available. Like the Orthodoxy of the Spanish Golden Age, JTS’s Orthodox faculty members celebrated participation in the larger culture; secular learning was respected; and this faculty appropriated academic tools to decode the divine message they discovered in the canonical Jewish library.

Historically, JTS was initially founded as a moderate Orthodox alternative to late nineteenth-century radical Reform. Among its founders were the Sephardic Rabbis Sabato Morais and Henry Pereira Mendes, culture-accommodating Orthodox leaders both. Hakham Faur saw himself as a link in their culture chain of tradition.[32]

For the brand of Orthodoxy advocated by R. Lieberman and Hakham Faur, the ideal rabbi explicates the Canon precisely and applies the findings reasonably and appropriately. Judaism’s halakha is a law that is no longer in heaven;[33] it is a rational legal order[34] according to which Jewry’s leaders are themselves subject to review.[35] Israel is ruled by the divine king, whose will is revealed in the Torah’s public laws.

Dr. Menachem Kellner demonstrates that the Maimonides imagined by R. Kotler would likely neither be recognized by nor approved of by the historical Maimonides.[36] R. Kotler’s Maimonides has to explain why and how “the great sages of Israel were cutters of wood and carriers of water,”[37] for whom manual labor was a legitimate and honorable enterprise. Maimonides actually argues that to be worthy of the crown of Torah,[38] one cannot be obsessed with money or deference;[39] Maimonides does not disdain the earning of a living, secular learning, or the right to defend one’s principled position.[40] The Oral Torah observes that it is difficult to be successful at both business and Torah study.[41] While Maimonides valued the study of philosophy, R. Kotler did not value rational, secular thought of any kind. But Maimonides vehemently disapproved of people studying Torah “professionally,” for which they receive financial support:

Whosoever takes it upon himself that he be occupied in Torah, not engage in work, and be supported by charity, profanes God’s Name, despises the Torah, extinguishes the light of the Law, and causes evil to himself, and removes himself [from eligibility for] the eternity to come, because it is forbidden to take [material] benefit from the Torah’s [holy] words in this [mundane] world.[42]

Hakham Faur’s Maimonides affirmed the religion called “Torah.”[43] Accepting the “yoke of Heaven’s [God’s] Kingdom”[44] is the political and legal doctrine known as the “Basic Norm,”[45] the content of which is “obey the Commander of the [Oral and Written] Torah,” using the Rules of Obligation[46] and Recognition[47] of the Torah’s legal order, with no manipulation or misrepresentation tolerated. Rules of Obligation are the norms, or rules of the legal order, in the case of Judaism, the mitzvoth, understood as “commands” which require or forbid specific acts.[48] When an act is neither commanded nor forbidden, that act is authorized or permitted.[49]

R. Kotler contends that the Hebrew language is holy and therefore not fully comprehensible, except by those sages who have learned Torah “in sanctity and purity man from man [Great Rabbi to Great Rabbi].”[50] The ability to read and understand the Torah is contingent upon that person’s possessing “sanctity and purity.” This is a coded idiom proclaiming an ideological zealotry requiring that R Kotler’s narrative be adopted unconditionally. Authority resides in the charismatic rabbi, not the reasoned read of the Canon.

Hakham Faur’s critique of medieval zealotry, in light of his dedication of In the Shadow of History to his father, may be viewed as a critique not of R. Kotler’s person, but of the Judaism he prescribes. Echoing his response to R. Kotler’s complaint regarding Hakham Faur’s attire choices, Hakham Faur argues that God must be worshipped according to the Covenant, according to the law, but “not by pious impulse or religious zeal.”[51] Hakham Faur also attributes the collapse of medieval European Christendom to the Conversos, the Jews who gave up their Judaism, but were unable to fully accept Christianity because it was a coercive society. Rejecting the popular claim that Maimonidean philosophical rationalism was the cause of Iberian Jewry’s mass conversion, Hakham Faur counters that the assimilationists had internalized their oppressors’ ideology,[52] “hounding Jews who did not adhere to their ideology.”[53] Hakham Faur’s description of the anti-Maimonidean ideology is strikingly similar to R. Kotler’s own professed opinions:

The Jewish golden age [in Spain] was displaced by casuistry and love of the occult. Scholarship dwindled to a trickle, and Hebrew poetry and the study of the humanities was a rarity….the anti-Maimonidean made creative thinking unacceptable…all forms of creative thinking were ousted from the Jewish community.[54]

R. Kotler not only outlawed secular, or Enlightenment studies at Beis Midrosh Gavoah,[55] he also opposed applying the scientific method[56] in Jewish discourses. He also claimed that the pure Torah learning that takes place in this world somehow impacts and influences the upper worlds to provide the true learners with their worldly needs.[57] He stated with unqualified certainty that only “through the chain of tradition are we able to understand anything according to their capacity [in learning the] holy Torah…law and lore, statute and story; it is not possible [or permissible] for a person to assess them with his mental abilities.”[58]

R. Kotler requires that the pious faithful zealously accept everything that the Sages say and that one ought not to rely on one’s finite mental prowess.[59] But Menachem Kellner convincingly demonstrates that Maimonides himself did rely upon his own human intellect,[60] indicating that for Maimonides, one is permitted to think.[61] Hakham Faur explains that for Maimonides,[62] the Jew is obliged to obey duly recorded, legislated legal norms which are the takanot [positive, or “to do” legislation, to which commandment blessings are attached], gezeirot [decrees, or “not to do” legislation], and hanhagot [customary usages to which commandment blessings are not attached].[63] Aggadah cannot be normative because descriptive statements are about what “is.” A norm is a prescriptive “ought” statement. Hakham Faur’s explication of Maimonides’ Introduction to the Yad is a frontal, fundamental, and unambiguous alternative to the Judaism prescribed in Mishnas Rabbi Aharon. Nowhere does Maimonides endorse R. Kotler’s claims that Torah Tradition may only be transmitted from one charismatic and unaccountable great rabbinic individual to another.[64] Maimonides actually argues that the Torah Tradition is transmitted from one norm creating body to another, the Bet Din haGadol of one generation to the Bet Din haGadol of the next. A post-talmudic rabbinic authority is not required to defer to any other post-talmudic saintly synod; post-talmudic rabbis are obliged to submit to the most reasonable reading of the Oral Torah library, or da’at notah.[65] As long as any post-talmudic rabbi’s ruling does not violate any rule canonized by the last Bet Din haGadol, i.e., the court of Ravina I and Rav Ashi,[66] that ruling is fully valid.[67]

According to R. Kotler, Orthodox Jewish men may not attend college,[68] but must only learn Torah according to the pure, ideological filter of R. Kotler’s worldview.[69] Seeking a career as a rabbi or teacher is also not an ideal career course, according to R. Kotler.[70] The Lithuanian yeshiva elite saw itself as the ultimate source of rabbinic authority, diminishing the local rabbi’s “authority” to be “apostolic,” i.e., sent and commissioned to teach the Great Rabbis’ ideological narrative. Just because someone was “ordained” and vetted to be able to render logical decisions regarding forbidden and permitted matters, does not mean that the rabbi is actually authorized to issue a reasoned opinion in those matters.[71] The real reason R. Kotler opposes secular learning is that he objects to the secular Enlightenment project and its democratizing critical thinking among the masses. A Jewry that is able to access Torah directly might assess and reject, its supposedly inerrant rabbinic leadership. R. Kotler complains that by engaging in this enterprise, “we mimic the non-Jewish nations of the world…in their eyes human fulfillment is found in secular [literally, ‘Enlightenment’] studies.”[72]

R. Kotler requires that Orthodox Jews not rely unflinchingly on reason, but demands a faith that God will miraculously provide and sustain the yeshiva student with a confidence that defies rational considerations.[73] Finkleman astutely notes that the European Lithuanian yeshivot, whose “pure” Orthodoxy R. Kotler hoped to replicate and transplant in America, did not require R. Kotler’s hyper-rigorous demands. His religious vision imagines an institution transcending time, like the Torah itself, which precludes considering temporal circumstances.[74] A true ben-Torah must not even be tempted to engage the world outside of the yeshiva.[75]

According to the plain sense of the rabbinic narrative, [76] Jewry is entitled, permitted, and perhaps obliged[77] “to gather your grain,”[78] i.e., to earn a living, which conflicts with the approach of R. Shim’on bar Yohai, who narrowly interpreted “the words this Torah may not depart from your lips.”[79] Ignoring the plain sense of the Oral Torah narrative, R. Kotler suppresses R. Yishmael’s world affirming pragmatism,[80] arguing that R. Yishmael’s alternative view permitting earning a living must be viewed as a special circumstance.[81] The exclusive right, authority, and discretion to make these determinations belongs to the Great Sages presiding at the time.[82]

Hakham Faur’s professional trajectory may be understood as a response to his Beis Midrosh Gavoah experience. Before accepting the JTS appointment in 1967, Hakham Faur consulted with Rabbi David de Sola Pool and his own rav muvhaq, Hakham Sha’ul Matlub Abadi,[83] from whom he received permission to accept the appointment. The Hareidi elite called Hakham Faur a “Conservative rabbi,”[84] who should not be permitted to teach in an Orthodox community.[85] Among the “gedolim,” who signed the ban are Rabbis Menachem Schach and Joseph Harari Raful.[86] According to Jewish law, disqualifying a person’s bona fides requires an act of a Bet Din, an identification of the explicit norm being violated, and evidence of willful violation of the uncontested norm.[87] Hakham Faur and Hakham Abadi should have been consulted before a ruling invalidating a sage’s bona fides is issued. Accusing a rabbi of kefira [heresy] is a very serious violation of Torah law.[88]

Hakham Faur’s standing in the Syrian Orthodox community was discussed by the leading Hareidi decisors in the United States and Israel, Rabbis Moshe Feinstein and Ovadia Yosef. Their reasoning and conclusions reveal their political-social program, their respective philosophies of Jewish law, and their model of the ideal Jewish layperson.

R. Avraham Hecht,[89] Rabbi of the Shaare Zion Sephardic congregation in Brooklyn, asked R. Moshe Feinstein if it is proper to appoint a teacher at JTS, i.e., Hakham Faur, to the rabbinic staff of this Orthodox synagogue. Very concerned with maintaining doctrinal Orthodoxy, R. Feinstein avoids directly addressing the actual rules regarding halakhic bona fides[90] because there are policy issues at stake. By referring to R. Hecht as shalit”a,”[91] R. Feinstein signals to the astute reader that the rabbi being answered is an exceptionally worthy person,[92] and by describing the object of inquiry as holding an office in a Conservative synagogue, which permits mixed-gender seating,[93] R. Feinstein signals to his readers that Orthodoxy’s ideological boundaries may never be breached.

But Hakham Faur taught Torah at JTS, whose in-house synagogue in those years observed separate-gender seating and whose ritual was strictly Orthodox. For R. Feinstein, working for a Conservative institution indicates bad affiliation, bad faith, and as a consequence blemished bona fides.  Even if a person’s religious faith and observance are otherwise in order, the mere servicing of what is posited to be an idolatrous cult should invalidate the offender’s bona fides.[94] By defining Conservative Judaism as idolatry and not merely an error, the identification with it in any fashion becomes an exceedingly grave Torah violation, disqualifying the violator from teaching in a Torah compliant synagogue.[95] R. Feinstein disqualifies a shoheit [ritual slaughterer] who took a position with a microphone that is used on Shabbat because the Agudas haRabbonim, whose members are “great Torah sages,”[96] has the prerogative of dismissing and nullifying dissenting opinions.[97] However, once the shoheit withdraws from the offending appointment and behavior, R. Feinstein rules that the offender’s bona fides may be restored if approved by two recognized Orthodox rabbis.[98]

Although R. Feinstein writes like a Legal Positivist,[99] for whom halakha is a divine normative order of a hierarchy of rules that does not tolerate distortion or manipulation,[100] in the Introduction to his Responsa, he concedes that he functions as a Legal Realist, for whom the Law is what the judge says it is.[101] He does not always rule according to the heavenly, or formal, positive statute, but according to his sense of what the Orthodox community requires in an imperfect world[102] at a given moment. Therefore, in order to avoid theological confusion, deviant ideologies must be avoided at all cost, and people like Hakham Faur are, for R. Feinstein, too risky to be allowed a potentially corrupting entry into an Orthodox setting.[103] R. Feinstein concluded his responsum by referring to Maran Joseph Karo’s words: “The rabbi who is not walking in the good path [derekh tovah], even if he is a Great Sage and the masses need him, one ought not to learn from him until he returns to the good path.”[104] Ever the consistent Legal Realist, R. Feinstein here defines “the good way” as complying with his own subjective determination that teaching at JTS violates the law forbidding servicing idolatry, thereby deviating from the “good path.” [105] Unaddressed by R. Feinstein is the fact that R. Shabbatai Cohen [known by the acronym Sha”ch] takes the idiom “not walking in the good path” to refer to violations of explicit norms that would require sanctioning the offender with niddui [shunning],[106] but not for violations of rabbinic policy that might be contested. Furthermore, Abaye ruled that a Samaritan, a member of an ethnically Jewish sect that rejected the Oral Torah, including the belief in the resurrection,[107] may nevertheless be considered to be a haver, if s/he is a scrupulously compliant adherent of the antique rabbinic “orthodoxy” of the time.[108] Ironically, R. Feinstein is very well aware of and indeed cites Abaye’s talmudically uncontested observation that an Oral Torah compliant Samaritan enjoys the status of a fully acceptable rabbinic Jew.[109] With exquisite consistency, R. Feinstein maintains that just as the tannaitic and amoraic rabbis are in fact empowered to consider religious rebels to have the status of non-Jews,[110] so too are the Great Rabbis who lead Orthodox Jewry today.[111]

The reason R. Feinstein does not forbid smoking cigarettes[112] is because “some Great Torah Sages of past generations and in our own generation are smokers.”[113] Realizing that a Positivist reading of the Oral Torah statute yields a restriction of clapping and dancing on Jewish holy days,[114] yet Tosafot contends that since the stated reason for the decree, that one may come to fix musical instruments on holy days, no longer applies neither does the decree.[115] This originally Tosafist claim, that a duly enacted rabbinic decree the reason for which is no longer applicable, does not require a formal legislative act to be overridden, seems to contradict the Oral Torah principle that a rule enacted by the Bet Din haGadol sitting in session, baMinyan, requires a court of similar authority standing to repeal an earlier ruling.[116]

R. Feinstein’s rulings aim to preserve the social cohesion of the Orthodox community. Similarly, R. Feinstein discouraged, but did not explicitly forbid, a yeshiva teacher taking a teaching position at a Conservative congregation’s religious school.[117] He argued that it is possible that in that situation, the teacher might inspire her/his students to adopt Orthodoxy, but there remains a concern that the teacher’s non-Orthodox appointment might confuse uninformed lay people. R. Feinstein further clarified his position, conceding that there is no positive norm forbidding such hiring, but institutional public policy does rule this out.[118] Since Hakham Faur had demonstrated that he is bound by Jewish Law as he understands it, he must still be denied a legitimating platform in an Orthodox setting. While the official flaw that R. Feinstein finds in Hakham Faur is his professional affiliation, R. Ovadia Yosef objects to Hakhkam Faur’s teaching “unfit students,” which is also presented as an unpardonable wrongdoing.

R. Yosef introduces his questioner, R. Yosef Harari Raful, by praising his pedigree, his many good works, impeccable piety, sweetness, purity, as well as his depth and breadth in Torah learning,[119] R. Yosef thereby signals to the attentive Orthodox insider that R. Raful is a recognized member of the authentic Orthodox rabbinic elite, whose authoritative charisma must be trusted and accepted, in contrast to Hakham Faur, whose alleged culture deviance must be identified and condemned.

R. Yosef cited the rule that teaching an unfit student is akin to throwing a stone at Mercury,[120] who will go down to Gehinom.[121] He defines the “unfit student” to be one who “learns” Torah with bad or unworthy intentions.[122] Maimonides’ rules that one may teach someone whose deportment is appropriate, or simple, naïve, and innocent. Although R. Yosef does cite Maimonides in support of his conclusion, that one may not teach Torah to an unfit student, he fails to address the fact that his redefined “unfit student” expresses bad attitudes, while Maimonides unworthy student “walks in a path that is not good,” which refers to bad behavior.[123] This talmudic narrative describes conduct, leaving the idioms “unworthy student” and “walking in a path that is not good” undefined, indicating that the Oral Torah Sages were formulating a social policy, and not legislating a legal norm. Maimonides[124] and Maran Karo[125] do take these idioms to be normative law, providing R. Yosef with his devar Mishnah, the statutory benchmark cited to condemn Hakham Faur’s actions. R. Yosef’s Legal Realism empowers him to redefine “unfit student” in order to disqualify Hakham Faur for the “sin” of finding employment at JTS.

R. Yosef first postulates that there is a relevant norm forbidding teaching Torah to unworthy students, and then designates all of JTS’s students to be unworthy because they are defined by affiliation to be non-Orthodox, thereby nullifying their teacher’s bona fides as well. It must be noted that for the Hareidi rabbinic elite, Jewish Orthodoxy not only requires fidelity to proper Jewish belief and observance; this elite also requires an unquestioned fidelity to its own policy, politics, and most critically, its authority claims.

As noted above, Hakham Faur received permission to accept the JTS teaching position from his mentor, Hakham Abadi, because since it is permissible to teach Torah to Karaites,[126] who professed the non-Orthodox Judaism of Maimonides’ times, it is permissible to teach Torah at JTS in our time.[127] The merits of this opinion is beyond this paper’s purview; the fact that Hakham Faur was condemned without discussion violates Jewish legal procedure. Mijal Bitton reports that

[i]n 1988, perhaps the apex of the controversy, a letter titled “The Torah view on Dr. Faur” went out criticizing Hakham José Faur and banning him from teaching Torah in this community. The letter included quotes attributed to 17 famous rabbis. Some, like R. Baruch Ben Haim, R. Shaul Kassin, R. Yosef Harari-Raful, and R. Elazar Menachem Man Shach, named Hakham Faur and banned him from teaching Torah in the community. Other quotes were teshubot of R. Ovadia Yosef and R. Moshe Feinstein, arguing that rabbis who had taught in Conservative seminaries should not be accepted as Torah teachers…. The accusations in the letter do not describe the precise ideological sins of Hakham Faur. The letter mentions that he taught at a Conservative seminary, a charge that “his books emit an odor of Heresy [sic.],” arguments that he was controversial, and an assertion that he was “a threat to the purity of faith and religion in the congregation.”[128]

Bitton astutely and correctly observes that Hakham Faur did not violate any explicit rabbinic norm,[129] which is the threshold for halakhic culpability, and given that the violation is unclear, that Hakham Faur asked his teacher if accepting the JTS appointment is proper and was informed that it was, one may still argue that Hakham Faur’s professional choice was incorrect or unwise; but the personal condemnation would still be considered to be slander, from a Positivist reading of the Oral Torah.[130] Sadly, Hakham Faur was not accepted by his detractors even after he resigned from the JTS faculty, and several supporters withdrew their endorsement due to political pressure,[131] one of whom, R. Mordecai Eliyahu, “would later state about the incident: ‘the greatest Sephardic Hakham living in the US today is Rabbi Faur.’"[132]

Hakham Faur’s descriptions of the anti-Maimonidean movement, when read through the filter of his own Lakewood experience and his JTS teaching controversy, reveal an autobiographical intensity. He posits that “the anti-Maimonidean movement sweeping French and Iberian communities was itself the result of Christian assimilation.”[133] Mimicking the practice of the Church, “the anti-Maimonideans hounded Jews who did not adhere to their ideologies.”[134] This ideology advocated “casuistry and love of the occult….scientific knowledge, the study of the humanities, and all forms of creative thinking were ousted from the Jewish community.”[135] The Maimonidean/Andalusian ground for religion is the law; for the anti-Maimonidean, the ground for religion is “pious impulse” and “religious zeal.”[136]

The most articulate medieval anti-Maimonidean thinker was Nahmanides, who “no longer recognized the law as the sole constitutive of humankind’s relation with God.”[137] The command to “be holy”[138] in both biblical and rabbinic thought is fulfilled by commandment observance, i.e., the Law.[139] Nahmanides also claims that one must avoid pollution (tum’a), even though this norm is not attested in the Oral Torah, but he rejects the Maimonidean doctrine that the Written Torah authorizes the Rabbis sitting on the Bet Din haGadol the legal power to legislate.[140] Hakham Faur notes that Nahmanides rejects Aristotle’s rationalism but accepts demonology as science.[141] Hakham Faur concludes that Jewish “anti-rationalism was not the affirmation of Jewish authority against non-Jewish culture, as modern historians insist, but of one culture pattern against another.”[142] R. Asher of Toledo shared Nahmanides’ antipathy to philosophy and secular studies or dissenting challenges to his authority.[143] Nahmanides’ undocumented conjecture, that the remains of the righteous do not defile,[144] is not adopted by Orthodox Jewry but this rogue opinion[145] is nevertheless not subject to review, likely due to Nahmanides’ charisma.[146]

Since Nahmanides is an accepted Great Sage, institutional Orthodoxy has adopted the approach of the anti-Maimonideans, for whom the Law is “Tradition” that may be understood by those jurists who are believed to be blessed with inspired intuition. Hakham Faur’s alternative Maimonidean Judaism empowers anyone who is able to read Hebrew to be authorized to participate in the Jewish people’s public discourse. Institutional Nahmanidean Orthodoxy encourages subservience, submission, conformity, and deference to non-assessable elites. Maimonidean Orthodoxy takes God at His revealed word, commanding, forbidding, and when silent, permitting autonomous choices. It is no wonder that Hakham Faur was rejected by the Hareidi rabbinic elite, even after resigning from JTS. He teaches his students how to read, think, and act. For him, the Torah projects and prefers a “horizontal society,” without artificial or conventional hierarchies.

In sum, anti-Maimonidean Orthodox Judaism is a religion of submission for which a charismatic elite presides over an undefined sacred “Tradition” and a sacred past. For the Maimonidean Hakham Faur, Torah Law is a command in the immediate present that empowers the individual, where reason rather than intimidation determines what is right. God has not made Jewry slaves to mortals, but free to become moral agents who possess the learning, conscience, and capacity to do “what is right and the good.”[147]

Notes

At least since the sixteenth century, Purim celebrations have included costumes and masquerade parties. Various explanations have been given.

The Purim story is replete with surprises. Things are not what they initially seem to be. Esther pretends not to be Jewish and masquerades as a Persian Queen. Mordecai wears sackcloth and ashes but is later dressed up as viceroy to the king. The king appears to be all powerful but he is an indecisive hedonist who allots real power to others. Haman seems to be in control but ends up being hanged on a tree on which he had hoped to hang Mordecai. When the Jews ultimately prevail, many of their one time enemies were “mityahadim,” appearing to be Jews themselves. Even God, whose name is not mentioned in Megillat Esther, seems to be hiding.

Masquerade: wearing a costume, playing a role, pretending to be someone other than yourself, hiding your true identity.

Masquerade: putting on a mask, camouflaging reality, creating false illusions.

Once a year, on Purim, Jews indulge in games of make believe, where the line between reality and illusion is blurred. Many other groups similarly have a day (or more) for masquerade balls and parades. Somehow, letting down our guard on one day enables us to face reality squarely all the other days of the year.

In describing the impact of a mask on its wearer, Elias Canetti notes: “As long as he wears it he is two things, himself and the mask…Because it can be torn away, its wearer is bound to fear for it. He must take care that he does not lose it; it must never be dropped and must never open. He feels every kind of anxiety about what may happen to it….He must manipulate it, remaining his everyday self, and, at the same time, must change into it as a performer. While he wears the mask he is thus two people and must remain two during the whole of his performance” (Crowds and Power, Seabury Press, NY, 1978, p. 377).

One wearing a mask wishes to preserve the illusion of being someone else. Being unmasked would ruin everything. So the mask wearer tries to protect the illusion by staying in control of the mask. No one must be allowed to get past the mask. The mask wearer becomes two people: the real self and the play actor wearing a mask.

But what happens if the mask wearer comes to identify totally with the mask?

Much human tragedy is the result of people forgetting who they are at root; they don various masks and personae, pretending to be what they in fact are not. They may imagine that they can only be successful or happy if they adopt a certain persona, if they betray their selves for the sake of winning the approval of others. The psychiatrist, Dr. Arno Gruen, has pointed out: “We establish irrational ideals of the ‘real’ man and the ‘right kind’ of woman, which not only separate us more and more from our genuine potentialities, but in the long run also lead us into self-destructiveness” (The Betrayal of the Self, Grove Press, NY, 1988, p. 60).

People, in their desire to be popular, often end up play-acting. They dress, speak, laugh, socialize—the way they expect that others want them to dress, speak, laugh and socialize. To gain approval, they will wear whatever mask they think will advance them.

Happily, many people are authentic, natural and good. They strive not to wear masks, not to pose as someone other than who they are. When they do feel that they are acting artificially, they are wise enough to catch themselves.

But so many others seem to be play-acting; they pretend to be what they are not; they create an image of themselves and want others to think that the image is true. Perceptive people can see through the mask; they pity the mask-wearers who must spend so much energy trying to live up to a false image of themselves. The mask-wearers are terrified by those who would unmask them.

Masquerades are fine if one realizes that they are infrequent descents into fantasy. Masquerades are destructive if the mask-wearers cease to distinguish between themselves and their masks.

Purim is a reminder that there is a fine line between reality and illusion. Blurring that line once a year underscores how easily one might lose sight of truth and authenticity. But after the day of masquerading, we are supposed to have come to a better understanding of who we are under the mask…and who we are when we don’t wear masks.

Rabbi Dr. Sabato Morais

Rabbi Dr. Sabato Morais (April 13, 1823–November 11, 1897) was described by a New York Yiddish newspaper as “without doubt…the greatest of all Orthodox rabbis in the United States.” This encomium was written several years after the death of Morais, when a full picture of his life and accomplishments could be written with historical perspective.

Few today remember this remarkable religious leader; even fewer see him as a model of enlightened Orthodox Judaism whose example might be followed by modern-day Jews. Yet, Sabato Morais was a personality who deserves our attention—and our profound respect.

Born in Livorno, of Portuguese-Jewish background, he was raised in the Sephardic traditions of his community. As a young rabbi, he became the Director of the Orphan’s School of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation of London, where he served for five years. In 1851, he began serving as rabbi of Congregation Mikveh Israel, the historic Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Philadelphia. He remained with Mikveh Israel for nearly five decades, until his death toward the end of 1897.

Rabbi Dr. Alan Corre, who served as rabbi of Mikveh Israel from 1955 to 1963, wrote an appreciation of his early predecessor. He noted that “in everything he [Morais] writes and does, he comes across as a warm, loving, eminently humane individual, with self-respect, yet remarkably free of egotism for a man in public life who was the recipient of much honor, including an honorary degree from the University of Pennsylvania.” Rabbi Morais sought “to live as a Jew without qualifiers, one who revered and loved the Jewish tradition and desired greatly to perpetuate it.”

Dr. Corre has pointed out that Rabbi Morais is somewhat of an enigma to many, in the sense that he cannot be easily classified according to the ideologies and styles of the major branches of American Jewish life today:

Orthodox as he was in practice, he does not fulfill the role model of the Talmudic sage, and has about him a somewhat assimilated air at which the strictly Orthodox might well look askance. For the Conservative, he is insufficiently innovative, too unwilling to take religious risks. And of Reform, he was a life-long opponent.

Rabbi Morais was a fine representative of the Western Sephardic rabbinic tradition of his time. Western Sephardim valued general culture, refinement, orderliness, and social responsibility. They fostered a Judaism that was loyal to traditional ritual, while at the same time being worldly and intellectually open. Personal piety was to be humble, not ostentatious.

Rabbi Morais wrote: “True worship resides in the heart, and truly it is by purifying our hearts that we best worship God; still, the ordinances which we are enjoined to perform aim at this object: to sanctify our immortal soul, to make it worthy of its sublime origin.”

He laid great stress on ethical behavior, on compassion, on concern for others. He worked not only on behalf of the Jewish community, but showed concern for society as a whole. He was a vocal opponent of slavery and an avid admirer of President Abraham Lincoln. He supported the cause of American Indians; he spoke against the Chinese Exclusion Acts during the 1880s. He cried out against the persecution of Armenians in 1895. Working together with Jewish and non-Jewish clergy, he fostered an ecumenical outlook that called for all people to respect each other and to work for shared goals to improve the quality of life for everyone. In all of his work, Rabbi Morais did not seek glory or public recognition. He was compassionate, graceful, and idealistic. Perhaps it was his self-effacing style that won him so much admiration and respect from so many. They saw him as an authentic religious personality, not as one who was serving his own ego.

Arthur Kiron, in a fascinating article that appeared in American Jewish History, September 1996, observed that “those who knew and loved Morais repeatedly referred to him in their memorial tributes in idealized terms, as a religious role model, a prophet like Jeremiah, a man of constancy, duty, absolute sincerity, piety, and humility.”

One of Morais’s eulogizers described him as follows:

For the critical eye of man [Morais] has left behind no visible monuments of great achievements, but to the eye of God he has reared a monument far greater than any of those famed by man. That greatness was his goodness, which in point of intrinsic merit will compare with the greatest wonders of genius. Were it possible for man to measure the amount of good he dispensed among the sorrowing and afflicted…the historian would not hesitate to enroll his name among the world’s truest and noblest immortals….To do good was the first duty of his creed, to do it in silence always, and in secrecy wherever possible, was his second.

Rabbi Morais and his New York colleague Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes were co-founders of the Jewish Theological Seminary. They had hoped that this institution would train American-born Orthodox rabbis to lead congregations throughout America. These two rabbis of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregations of Philadelphia and New York worked closely on other communal projects, always in a spirit of devotion to God and community. They both sought to promote a Judaism loyal to tradition, committed to social justice, marked by dignity and gravitas.

Orthodoxy of today is often characterized by increasing narrowness, obscurantism, authoritarianism, and xenophobia. Orthodox rabbis of the ilk of Rabbi Morais are a vanishing breed. The classic Western Sephardic religious worldview is on the verge of extinction. What a phenomenal loss this is for Judaism and the Jewish People!

The following is excerpted from Marc D. Angel, Remnant of Israel: A Portrait of America’s First Jewish Congregation—Shearith Israel, Riverside Books, New York, 2004.)

The 1880s ushered in a period of mass immigration, with many hundreds of thousands of Jews among those seeking a new life in America. Some immigrants were fleeing oppression, and some were simply seeking a better life for themselves and their families. The image of America as a promised land with streets paved of gold attracted the poor and downtrodden of Europe. Between 1880 and 1900, the U.S. population surged 50 percent, from 50 million to 75 million.

Among the throngs of Jewish immigrants were many who were fleeing the pogroms and persecutions in Tsarist Russia. Most entered the country though the port of New York, and a large majority remained in New York City and environs. To Americanized Jews, their incoming coreligionists posed new challenges. The newcomers, for the most part, were poor, unfamiliar with English, and unskilled by American standards. They were very much “old country” in their garb, language, religious outlook, and manners. They needed places to live, jobs, schools for their children, and medical care. In short, they needed help in adapting to American life.

The Jewish immigrants crowded into tenements on the Lower East Side of New York, eventually also spreading out to other neighborhoods in uptown Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. The native American Jewish community established agencies to help the immigrants, and expended considerable energy and resources to assist them. Certainly, there were sometimes tensions between them culturally, economically, and socially. Yet, to the credit of the New York Jewish community in particular—and American Jewry in general—much good work was done to assist in the absorption of the immigrants into American life.

Emma Lazarus

Emma Lazarus (1849–1887), a descendant of old and distinguished Shearith Israel families, became an ardent spokesperson on behalf of these immigrants. She spent time with Russian-Jewish families in their tenement homes and sought ways to alleviate their misery. A noted poet in her day, she expressed her empathy with the plight of immigrants and gave voice to American idealism at its finest. Her poem, “The New Colossus” was inscribed on a plaque and affixed to the Statue of Liberty in 1903. In it, she wrote her now famous words:

Give me your tired, your poor

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

            Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

 I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Among the millions of Jews who arrived in the United States between 1880 and 1924 were 30,000 to 40,000 Sephardim who were mostly from Turkey, the Balkan countries, Greece, and Syria. The existing Jewish agencies that helped immigrants were geared for Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazic Jews like themselves. They did not easily recognize the Sephardim as Jews because the Sephardim did not have what they thought of as typical “Jewish” names and because they did not speak Yiddish.

The Sisterhood [of Shearith Israel] established an “Oriental Committee,” whose sole task was to work with newly arrived Sephardim. The Sisterhood operated settlement houses on the Lower East Side specifically for the Sephardim. The one at 86 Orchard Street opened in 1913, and a larger one at 133 Eldridge Street opened in 1918. These settlement houses provide social services, advice, meeting places, youth programs, a Hebrew School, and even a synagogue.

Shearith Israel’s spiritual leader, Dr. Henry Pereira Mendes, was very interested in the welfare of the immigrant Sephardim. His assistant, Rabbi Dr. David de Sola Pool, worked most actively with the Sisterhood’s “Oriental Committee” and with the Sephardic immigrants themselves. He represented Sephardic interests at meetings of Jewish social workers and charity agencies, and wrote articles explaining their background and needs to the Jewish community at large.

Shearith Israel’s commitment to the Sephardic immigrants entailed a remarkable expenditure of time, effort, and money. Had Shearith Israel performed no other public service at the time, the congregation would still have reason for pride in its social action work. However, the social conscience of the congregation found expression in other causes as well. Several members of Shearith Israel made particularly notable contributions to the improvement of life in New York City—and well beyond.

Maud Nathan

Maud Nathan (1862–1946) was a social activist and a strong advocate of women’s rights. She was a leader in the women’s suffrage movement and was appointed by Theodore Roosevelt as the head of the women’s suffrage committee in his National Progressive Party. She became an international figure in the women’s rights movement, addressing conferences on the topic in such places as London, Lucerne, Stockholm, Budapest, The Hague, Canton, and Peking.

Maud Nathan was once confronted by an opponent of women’s rights. The critic asked her derisively: “Would you want your cook to vote?” She answered calmly: “He does!”

A member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Maud Nathan had deep roots in American life. A member of Shearith Israel, she was imbued with a commitment to public service. She was a founder, and the first President, of Shearith Israel’s Sisterhood, established in 1896.

Throughout the nineteenth century, almost all charity and social action work in New York was conducted on a denominational basis. Protestants, Catholics, and Jews each had their own separate institutions and agencies to meet the needs of their communities.

By the end of the nineteenth century, individuals from the different religious groups began working together. Maud Nathan was one of the first Jewish women in American to be involved on the highest levels in a social action cause that crossed denominational lines.

Josephine Shaw Lowell, a prominent personality in the New York social service world, invited Maud Nathan to become involved in the work of the Consumers’ League of New York, which was founded in 1891. Maud Nathan not only joined this group, but went on to serve as its President from 1897 to 1917. She also served as Vice-President of the National Consumers’ League that developed on the model of the New York Consumers’ League.

In her work for the Consumers’ League, she and her colleagues addressed the terrible working conditions of young women clerks in New York’s department stores and shops. The basic insight of the Consumers’ League was that the problem was caused not just by the callousness of employers but by the thoughtlessness of consumers. If shoppers would demand proper conditions for store workers, the employers would be forced to comply. The Consumers’ League printed a “white list” naming the stores that met at least the minimum standards required by the League. At first, only a few stores earned the right to be included on the list. It soon became clear, though, that consumers were becoming sympathetic to the cause. More and more shoppers were patronizing “white list” stores and many were refusing to shop in stores that exploited their workers.

Through persistent hard work and ongoing negotiations with employers, the Consumers’ League brought about a revolution in working conditions for the store clerks. The success was so monumental that other cities and states copied the New York model, which won adherents internationally as well. Maud Nathan described the history of the Consumers’ League in a book she wrote called The Story of an Epoch-Making Movement.

Through her work for the women’s suffrage movement and in the Consumers’ League, Maud Nathan left an imprint on American history. In eulogizing her at her funeral on December 15, 1946, Rabbi David de Sola Pool referred to “her strong spiritual insight.” She is noteworthy for having been able to translate her spiritual insight and idealism into practical action that helped her fellow human beings.

Maud Nathan was outspoken in her criticism of anti-Semitism and racial prejudice. She felt that group hatred and bigotry were increasing in New York during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. In her autobiography, Once Upon a Time and Today, she reminded her readers:

Prejudice produces humiliation which is not easy to bear. And the sad part is that the nature becomes warped and the spirit of kindliness and friendliness is changed into bitterness and resentment. To live in peace, there must be mutual confidence, trust, cooperation, no antagonism. How often, instead of mutual respect for differing spiritual values, there is suspicion, intolerance. Does not this intolerance find its final expression in the un-American principles of the Ku Klux Klan?

She saw herself as a victim of discrimination, both as a woman and as a Jew. Still, she took pride in the fact that he had “been able to make her protest count, because she persisted.” She devoted her life to advocating the American—and Jewish—ideals of freedom, mutual respect, and social justice.

Alice Davis Menken

A remarkable contemporary of Maud Nathan, also an active leader within the Shearith Israel community, was Alice Davis Menken (1870–1936). She, too, descended from early Shearith Israel families who had served in the American Revolution. Her husband, Mortimer Menken, was a successful New York attorney, and served as Parnas of Shearith Israel from 1922 to 1926. Alice Menken was President of Shearith Israel’s Sisterhood from 1900 to 1929.

Alice Menken’s interest in helping shape a better society went further [than the Sisterhood’s operation of settlement houses on the Lower East Side]. She was troubled by evidence of delinquency and vice among poor young Jewish immigrants. These young people often grew up in horrendous conditions, and it is no wonder that some of them fell into anti-social behavior. Alice Menken believed that the way to deal with such individuals was through genuine, kind assistance and not through punishment. The goal was to rehabilitate them, not to harden them. In 1907, she was a prime mover in founding the Jewish Board of Guardians, which created a system of volunteers to look after wayward young people. Volunteers were given responsibility for supervising Jewish youth who had been placed on court-ordered probation.

In 1908, she organized a group of women from the Shearith Israel Sisterhood to work with the probation department of the Women’s Night Court of New York City. The Sisterhood group took responsibility for delinquent women so that they would not have to be incarcerated. In 1911, she helped found the Jewish Big Sister Association, through which women would “adopt” young women who were at risk of leading anti-social lives. Through one-to-one relationships, the “big sisters” could help guide the “little sisters” to constructive and fulfilling lives.

Alice Menken set a personal example for service. In the period from 1919 to 1922, in cooperation with the probation department, 346 probationers were under her own supervision—for as long a period as required by each of them. The average age of these women was 20, and 197 of them were foreign-born. Alice Menken spent time getting to know the young women, and assessing their needs and wants. She sought to find ways of helping them to help themselves. Almost all of the women for whom she took responsibility went on to live better lives—returning home, finding jobs, establishing families of their own. In at least one case, Alice Menken took a probationer home to live in her own house, making her part of her own family for several years! The young woman went on to live a good life, and was ever appreciative of this incredible generosity of spirit.

In 1920, Governor Alfred E. Smith appointed Alice Menken to serve as a member of the Board of Managers of the Reformatory. In this capacity, she strove to improve prison conditions and to eliminate solitary confinement. She believed that prisoners needed an environment that offered them the possibility of rehabilitation.

In 1933, she published a book entitled On the Side of Mercy, in which she discussed her philosophy (and her actions) relating to problems in social readjustment. She wrote:

The Religious Vision of Rev. Dr. Henry Pereira Mendes

(This is an article by Rabbi Marc D. Angel that originally appeared in a book he edited, From Strength to Strength, Sepher-Hermon Press, New York, 1998, pp. 21–28.)

Dr. Mendes served as Minister of Congregation Shearith Israel from 1877 through 1920. He continued to be associated with the Congregation as Minister Emeritus until his death in 1937. During the course of these 60 years, Dr. Mendes established himself as a remarkable communal leader, scholar, and author.

Born in Birmingham, England, Henry Pereira Mendes grew up in a family well-known for its history of producing religious leaders. Indeed, his father Abraham was Minister of the Jewish congregation in Birmingham. H. P. Mendes received his early religious education and inspiration from his parents and as a young man served as Hazan and Minister of the Sephardic congregation in Manchester. While in New York, he studied and graduated from the medical school of New York University. In 1890, he was married to Rosalie Rebecca Piza.

Dr. Mendes was proud to be the religious leader of the oldest Jewish congregation in North America. From this base, he promoted numerous communal and social ideals and causes.

He was one of the leading Orthodox rabbis in the United States. Although he was Sephardic, he won the good will of the entire Orthodox community, including the Yiddish-speaking immigrants. He was a founder and the first president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (1898). He was also one of the founders of the Jewish Theological Seminary (1887), which he and his collaborators intended to be an institution that would produce English-speaking Orthodox rabbis.

While staunchly Orthodox, he worked with all Jews for the betterment of the community. He was among the founders of the New York Board of Rabbis and was one of the early presidents of the organization. In 1885, he helped organize a branch of the Alliance Israelite Universelle in New York. He also was instrumental in the founding of the YWHA in New York, as well as Montefiore Hospital and the Lexington School for the Deaf.

Dr. Mendes was proud of the fact that Theodor Herzl asked his cooperation in organizing the Zionist movement in the United States. Dr. Mendes was elected vice-president of the Federation of American Zionists and a member of the actions committee of the World Zionist Organization. He advocated “Bible Zionism” or “spiritual Zionism”—an idea of establishing a Jewish State founded upon the principles and ideals of the Jewish religious tradition.

A prolific author, Dr. Mendes wrote essays and editorials, children’s stories, textbooks, sermons, prayers, dramatic works, poetry, and commentaries. His writings were imbued with the love of the Bible.

Rabbi Bernard Drachman, a colleague of Dr. Mendes, described him as “an ideal representative of Orthodox Judaism.” He praised Mendes’ “absolute freedom…from anything approaching narrowness or sectarian bias within the Jewish community.”

Dr. Mendes served Shearith Israel with outstanding devotion. He was a champion of the synagogue’s traditions. At a time when reform and change were the popular catchwords, Dr. Mendes was an eloquent voice for tradition.

The religious vision of Dr. Mendes is reflected in the titles of his main books: Jewish History Ethically Presented (1895), The Jewish Religion Ethically Presented (1895), and Jewish Life Ethically Presented (1917). In 1934, he prepared a little volume of prayers and meditations for home use “to promote and facilitate the habit of prayer.”

Dr. Mendes’ religious outlook was deeply steeped in the Hebrew Bible. The verses of Scripture served as the basis of an ethical and compassionate way of life. In The Jewish Religion Ethically Presented, he demonstrated his method of thought. He began each section with a citation from the Bible, and then provided the traditional lessons that were derived from the text. He then added his own elaboration of moral lessons that could be rooted in the biblical text. And then he offered a series of biblical quotations to close each section.

For example, in dealing with the third of the Ten Commandments (Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain), Dr. Mendes provided the traditional explanations of this commandment. It is forbidden to use God’s name in a disrespectful way, for a false oath, or for any wrong purpose. Likewise, this commandment is violated whenever one says prayers without concentration and reverent devotion. Dr. Mendes added the ethical component: “We take His name in vain, or to no purpose, if we speak of God being good, just, merciful, etc., without trying ourselves to be good, just, merciful, etc.” We must be loving, merciful and forgiving, in emulation of God’s ways.

Dr. Mendes then offered a number of extensions to this commandment:

We are children of God. We are called by His name. When we do wrong, we disgrace or profane His name. Hence a disgraceful act is called Chilul Hashem, a profanation of the Name. And just as all the members of a family feel any disgrace that any one of them incurs, so when any Hebrew does wrong, the disgrace is felt by all Jews. We are known as the people of God. We assume His name in vain unless we obey His Laws….We take or assume His name in vain when we call ourselves by His name and say we are His children or His people, while for our convenience or ease we neglect religious duties which He has commanded us. (The Jewish Religion Ethically Presented, revised edition, 1912, pp. 59–60)

In elaborating on the commandment to honor one’s parents, Dr. Mendes stated:

To honor parents, ministers of religion, the aged, the learned, our teachers and authorities is a sign of the highest type of true manliness and of true womanliness. Respect for parents is essential to the welfare of society…..Anarchy or the absence of respect for authority, always brings ruin. Respect for all the authorities is insisted upon in the Bible. (p. 64)

In discussing the commandment prohibiting murder, Dr. Mendes noted that “we may not kill a man’s good name or reputation, nor attack his honor. We do so when we act as a tale-bearer or slanderer.” He goes on to say that “we may not kill a man’s business….Respect for human life carries with it respect for anyone’s livelihood. We may not make it hard for others to live by reason of our own greed” (pp. 65–66).

Dr. Mendes constantly emphasized the need for religion to be a steady and constant force in one’s life. True religion is expressed not merely in ceremonials, but in our conduct in all aspects of our daily life. In his Jewish Daily Life Ethically Presented (1917), he taught that

our religion thus requires threefold work from us: we must work for our own happiness, we must work for the happiness of the world we live in, and we must work for the glory of God. Our dietary laws mean healthy bodies and healthy minds to be able to do this threefold work. (p. 57)

He argued that the laws of kashruth, by governing everything we eat, add a spiritual and ethical dimension to this basic human need.

Dr. Mendes wrote.

Our daily work, no matter how important or how menial, if we perform it conscientiously, becomes equivalent to an act of worship. It therefore means setting God before us as the One we desire to please by the faithful discharge of our daily duties. This kind of recognition of good faith, honesty and honor means religion. Conscientiousness is religion. We must therefore do our work conscientiously. We should derive spiritual happiness out of labor by recognizing that God consecrates labor. (p. 59)

Dr. Mendes often expressed his philosophy in witty epigrams. A number of these were collected by Dr. David de Sola Pool in his biography of Dr. Mendes. The following are some examples of Dr. Mendes’ wit and wisdom.

• In too many homes religion is a farce, not a force.
• I plead, let every man and woman privately commune with God to place his or her heart-needs before Him.
• I plead for Sabbath observance.
• The three greats R’s: Reverence, Righteousness, and Responsibility.
• Democracy is the ideal form of government, but it needs ideal citizens.
• Music helps us find God.
• Let us have less fault-finding and more fault-mending.
• Speak to the young; but first to the old.
• To be accorded all of little Palestine is not too great a reward for having given the world the Bible.
• Peace for the world at last and the realization of reverence for God by all men. These are the essentials for human happiness. Zionism stands for them.

Dr. Mendes was an avid Zionist; the focus of his Zionism was the religious and spiritual revival of the Jewish people, so that a Jewish state would become a spiritual inspiration to the entire world. He felt that the goals of Zionism could not be accomplished unless the Jews themselves were faithful to their religious traditions. Moreover, he believed it was necessary to win the support and respect of the non-Jewish world. “That respect we can have only if we respect ourselves by respecting our religion. Here is true work for Zionists: to keep Hebrews true to Jewish life, Jewish law, Jewish sentiment” (letter of Dr. Mendes to Haham Gaster, July 21, 1903, published in Tradition, Fall 1995, p. 70).

In spite of his tireless efforts and his eloquent expositions, Dr. Mendes realized that many Jews were turning away from the Jewish religious traditions. Compromises in religious observance were being made for reasons of convenience or ideology. The level of serious Jewish learning was declining. He struggled with singular devotion to raise the Jewish people to a higher level of knowledge and observance, a deep-felt spirituality, a God-inspired ethical worldview.

In 1911, he delivered a sermon at Shearith Israel, after he had recovered from a serious illness. He reminisced about past challenges that he and the Congregation had faced together.

In looking over the years that have sped, there are times when I think that I have failed to bring religion’s holy teachings into the hearts of all this Congregation, and therefore I have failed to do His will….I do know that I have failed to bring into the lives of all the members of the Congregation that spirituality which alone can make us all sons and daughters of God in the highest sense, that spirituality of life which makes us willing, eager, anxious to do His will….It is true, and I thank God for it, that many of you are working hard to bring religion into actual life. You strive to have your children as loyal as you are, and as your parents before you were; you strive to bring sunshine into the lives of others; your communal and congregational activities are splendid….But I repeat, I confess to failure in influencing the lives of those of this Congregation who rarely or never set foot in this holy building; who hold aloof from congregational and communal work; in whose homes Sabbath is forgotten, from whose homes all Jewish characteristics are banished; who forget that constant absence from Sabbath worship, gradually, insidiously, but invariably disintegrates the Jewishness of the home and of all its inmates, and invariably precedes that desertion from our religion which we understand by the expression “he or she has married out.”… Let us both try to prove our gratitude to God by doing His will. Then, come sorrow, come trial, come defeat, come death itself, the God who alone knows the human heart, who alone can read the inmost soul, shall judge whether you and I have labored in vain, whether you and I have spent our strength for naught, and in vain—for surely our judgement shall be with the Lord and our work shall be before our God.

In his 60 years of association with Shearith Israel, Dr. Mendes faced many challenges and had many accomplishments. He was proud, yet modest; forceful, yet gentle; spiritual, yet practical. His memory has continued to influence and inspire the generations which have followed.

Bibliography

Angel, Marc, “Mendes, Henry Pereira,” in Jewish-American History and Culture: An Encyclopedia, edited by J. Fischel and S. Pinsker, New York and London, 1992, pp. 386–387.

Markovitz, Eugene, “Henry Pereira Mendes: Architect of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly Vol. 55 (1965), pp. 364–384.  See also the doctoral dissertation of Eugene Markovitz, H. P. Mendes: Builder of Traditional Judaism in America, Yeshiva University, 1961.

Pool, David and Tamar, An Old Faith in the New World, New York, 1955, pp. 192–201.

Pool, David de Sola, H. P. Mendes: A Biography, New York, 1938.