National Scholar Updates

What guided our sages’ decisions when they placed aggadic (non-legalistic) passages in the Talmud? Perhaps they came armed with a treasure trove of quality material, such as the account of R. Shimon bar Yohai in the cave and the final moments of R. Hanina ben Teradyon’s life, and they simply looked for associations enabling the insertion of this material into the Talmud. If so, analyzing the placement will not contribute to meaning. Alternatively, the sages built upon thematic connections in arranging the aggadot. Talmudic stories can connect to themes of the tractate, the chapter, or a preceding sugya (talmudic passage), be it halakhic or aggadic. If so, study of placement enhances understanding.

As far as I know, the major traditional commentaries on aggadic material, Maharsha (R. Shemuel Eidels, 1555–1631) and Maharal (R. Yehudah Loeb of Prague, 1520–1609), did not raise questions of placement. However, in the nineteenth century, R. Zadok Hakohen from Lublin made a programmatic statement that all aggadot relate conceptually to their talmudic location. Stories about the Temple’s destruction are found on pages 55b–58a of Gittin, a tractate about marriage and divorce, since the destruction represents a breach in the marital relationship between God and the Jewish people.[1] Aggadot about the manna can be read on pages 74b–76a of Yoma, a tractate about the laws of Yom Kippur, because eating this heavenly food reflects a less corporeal consumption that reminds us of the angelic transcendence of the physical on Yom Kippur.[2]

R. Zadok also notes how placement at the beginning of tractate can set the tone for the entire tractate. Pesahim (mainly concerned with the laws of Pesah) begins with a long discussion about what the word “ohr” means in the opening Mishnah. It then proceeds to a discussion of different values involved in speaking well, including refined speech, clear discourse, and brevity. For R. Zadok, this fits the topic of the exodus since he connects refined speech with yihus, lineage or pedigree, and sees the exodus as emphasizing Jewish uniqueness.[3] I would like to suggest an alternative connection. Dialogue plays a bigger role on Pesah than on any other holiday. The Torah commands us to relate the exodus story over to our children, and the Seder attempts to facilitate this momentous conversation. Therefore, the tractate begins with a study of proper discourse.

R. Zadok assumes purposeful placement regarding every aggada. Such an assumption expresses his belief in omnisignificance, an apt term coined by Dr. James Kugel describing the eschewal of technical explanations in the search for a maximum of religious meaning.[4] R. Zadok goes so far as to suggest a deeper explanation for why the mitzvah to write a Sefer Torah appears specifically in siman 270 of the Shulhan Arukh. This commandment corrects the sin of Judah’s son Er (see Genesis 38), whose gematriya (the numerical value of the Hebrew letters) is 270.[5] Many of us will find this degree of omnisignificance too extreme, but we can still accept a more moderate version of R. Zadok. Perhaps some placement is meaningful while others are more arbitrary.

Let us move from the Batei Midrash of nineteenth-century Poland to the libraries of contemporary academia. Yonah Fraenkel deserves a lot of credit for initiating literary academic study of talmudic stories. He showed that these tales are not merely historical accounts but finely  crafted literary creations. Fraenkel also insisted in the principle of “closure,” which reads each story as an independent unit. His approach resembles the literary theory called New Criticism, which champions focusing on the poem itself, with an indifference to the biography of the author or historical context. Along similar lines, Fraenkel contends that we should analyze an individual story about a given sage without bringing in information from other stories. A sage can be poor in one tale and quite wealthy in another.[6]

Fraenkel notes a contrast between biblical and talmudic writing, in that only the former operates within a historical framework. Megillat Rut begins with a historical context, the time of the judges, and ends with a clear historical direction, heading toward the Davidic dynasty. Talmudic stories do not function that way. Even when a string of stories on roughly the same theme appear together, such as the aforementioned aggadot about the Temple’s destruction, they are not seriously connected to each other in a chronological or thematic fashion.

More recent scholars disagree with Fraenkel arguing that context does matter. Ofra Meir utilizes different versions of stories in rabbinic literature to show how they are shaped by context. The story of R. Shimon bar Yohai hiding in the cave appears in the Jerusalem Talmud without the Babylonian Talmud’s theme of the tension between Torah study and mundane work. In the Babylonian Talmud’s immediately preceding Gemara (Shabbat 33b), R. Shimon bar Yohai states that the illness called askara is a punishment for bittul Torah (wasting time on activities unrelated to Torah). Thus, R. Shimon’s call for intense dedication to Torah study was already lurking in the background of this passage and helped focus the ensuing presentation. Furthermore, R. Elazar son of R. Yossi attributes askara to the sin of lashon hara (gossip), which also appears in the story when Yehuda ben Gerim relates the rabbinic conversation to the Roman authorities.[7]

Meir notes the identical phenomena regarding two versions of R. Hananya ben Hakhinai spending over a decade away from home studying Torah and then shocking his wife upon returning home. In the Babylonian Talmud (Ketubot 62b), the story appears in a larger context discussing when husbands have the legal right to eschew domestic responsibilities in order to study Torah. In a midrash (Vaiykra Rabba 21:8), the story supports a theme of not suddenly entering one’s abode, fitting the biblical context of Aaron’s sons illegally entering the Holy of Holies. Meir shows how differences between the two accounts reflect the themes of each version.[8]

Jeffrey Rubenstein adds more arguments in favor of looking beyond the story itself. [9] He notes literary connections running through extended passages such as key words and thematic continuity. For example, the verb tikun comes up repeatedly in Shabbat 33b, first as something the Romans do, then as something R. Shimon bar Yohai does, and finally as something our patriarch Jacob does.[10] To use an example from Fraenkel himself, a series of stories about husbands spending significant time away from home to study Torah play off each other (Ketubot 62b). In one story, R. Hama bar Bisa tries to avoid the mistake of R. Hananya ben Hakhinai from the preceding tale. Furthermore, the entire picture balances stories critical of the rabbis for avoiding domestic responsibility with the successful model of R. Akiva spending many years away.[11]

Yonatan Feintuch’s recent book, Panim el Panim, makes a major contribution to aggada study and brings more evidence showing the importance of context. He points to a series of stories about confronting the evil inclination (Kiddushin 82a). In the first few, rabbis struggle with sexual urges and the tales encourage great precaution to prevent sin. However, in the final story, we see R. Hiyya renouncing sexuality with his wife leads to martial tension, R. Hiyya consorting with someone he thinks is a prostitute, and R. Hiyya punishing himself by sitting in a burning oven. This balances the preceding message; we cannot address the challenges of temptation with complete abstinence. These examples indicate that reading each story in isolation will miss some of the force of the overarching message.[12] 

Beyond literary context, Rubenstein also stresses the importance of cultural context. We can turn to other talmudic sources for help “when confronted by a symbol, such as a column of fire, or a motif, such as a sage forgetting his studies.”[13] To use an example of my own, carob trees appear in the stories of Honi haMe’agel sleeping for 70 years (Ta’anit 23a), in the oven of Ahkhinai when R. Elazar utilizes miracles to support his halakhic position (Baba Mezia 59b), and when R. Shimon and his son live in the cave (Shabbat 33b). Consistent usage of the same tree does not seem to be coincidence. In the Honi story, carob trees produce fruit only after an extremely long duration. Maharsha suggests that the choice of carob trees adds to the miraculous quality of R. Shimon’s survival in the cave since the tree that grows to feed him normally takes decades to bear fruit.[14]

To be fair, Fraenkel himself did not always adhere to his closure principle. He understands the significance of Moshe sitting in the Bet Midrash’s eighteenth row (Menahot 29b) based on a different talmudic story (Hulin 137b).[15] In a chapter on future directions for aggadic scholarship, he mentions the idea of a topos, a commonplace theme in a given body of literature.[16] Thus, even the champion of “closure” occasionally saw the value of looking beyond the individual story.

Feintuch’s work includes several models of how aggadic stories impact on adjacent halakhic sugyot. They can present another opinion. The halakhic discussion of the five afflictions of Yom Kippur ultimately decides that only not eating and drinking are included in the biblical command of afflicting oneself on Yom Kippur whereas the other prohibitions come from a different source. Feintuch shows how the subsequent aggadot (Yoma 74b–78a) relate to abstinence as a kind of innuy (affliction), differing from the preceding halakhic texts.[17] From this aggadic perspective, innuy is not only concrete discomfort or pain but even the absence of pleasure.

Secondly, the aggada can reveal some of the difficulties in applying the abstract halakha in the real world. One Gemara (Bava Batra 22a) grants special selling privileges to scholars who function as traveling salesmen. In a following story, R. Dimi comes to a town intending to sell dates. One of the locals, R. Ada bar Ahava, asks R. Dimi an obscure halakhic question and stumps the latter. R. Dimi doesn’t receive the privileges of a scholar and his dates therefore turn rotten. Feintuch suggests that applying this law proves difficult in practice since determining who qualifies as a talmid hakham (sage) can bring out scholarly competition and become a major source of social tension. The aggadic tale adds an important dimension to the legal ruling.[18]

Finally, a talmudic story can convey a level of extralegal piety. Berakhot 33a teaches that someone engaged in prayer interrupts his prayer if a life-threatening situation emerges. For example, a snake may not endanger the person praying but a scorpion will. Nevertheless, a preceding story tells of a pious fellow who does not interrupt his prayer to return the greeting of an important Roman official. In theory, ignoring the Roman is a very dangerous gambit. Feintuch explains that this story presents a level of super piety, which would allow for taking on risks in the pursuit of intense devotion to God.[19]

Yakov Blidstein offers a similar read of aggadic stories about not destroying trees. In one tale, the son of R. Hanina apparently perishes for cutting down a tree. In another, Rava bar R. Hana resists eliminating his own tree despite its negative impact on his neighbor, R. Yosef (Baba Batra 26a). Rava was willing to have R. Yosef remove the tree but refused to do the act himself.[20] Blidstein explains that while halakha actually allows for cutting down such trees, the aggadic material reflects a religious attitude extremely committed to the ideal of bal tashhit (not being destructive). 

R. Zadok and university professors obviously do not approach Talmud from the same vantage point, yet the parallels between them are intriguing. Both think that placement and context matter, and both find religious meaning in their analysis of these literary issues. I would like to close with one further parallel. We noted earlier how R. Zadok thinks that placement of a sugya at the beginning of a tractate can be telling. Several academics have made the identical suggestion about an aggada at the beginning of Avoda Zara relating how the nations of the world complained that they were not given a chance to accept the Torah. This conversation appropriately sets the stage for a tractate about the relationship between Jews and gentiles.[21] 

Perhaps this happens on a meta level at the beginning of the entire Talmud. The first line in the Talmud questions how the Mishnah could simply jump into the details of keriat shema without initially establishing the existence of a mitzvah to recite the Shema. The Gemara answers that the Mishnah works off biblical verses establishing the Shema requirement. R. Zadok and a contemporary Israeli scholar think that this opening question and answer begin the Talmud to establish an idea that the reader will carry through the entirety of the Talmud. R. Zadok explains that the rabbinical discussions found in all of the Talmud are rooted in the biblical world. This ancient legal dialogue is not just a conversation of intelligent humans but a discussion of the divine word.[22] Ruth Calderon says this opening conveys how each rabbinic text builds upon earlier texts. Unlike R. Zadok who speaks of God, Calderon writes about the nature of being part of an ongoing literary canon. Both think the placement here at the start of our talmudic journey was purposeful.[23]

Parallels between Hassidic rebbes and university professors should encourage us to realize that these two worlds need not always remain completely apart. The yeshiva world has much to gain from the keen insights of Fraenkel, Rubenstein, and others. Conversely, academics would benefit from utilizing the interpretations of traditional rabbinic commentary. We need not collapse methodological distinctions and theological assumptions to learn from each other.

In 1919, Rabbi Benzion Uziel, then a young rabbi, spoke to a conference of rabbis in Jerusalem. He stated: "Israel, the nation of peace, does not want and never will want to be built on the ruins of others....Let all the nations hear our blessing of peace, and let them return to us a hand for true peace, so that they may be blessed with the blessing of peace." In 1939, when Rabbi Uziel became Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, he delivered his inaugural address in Hebrew, and then added words in Arabic. He appealed to the Arab community: "We reach our hands out to you in peace, pure and trustworthy....Make peace with us and we will make peace with you. Together all of us will benefit from the blessing of God on His land; with quiet and peace, with love and fellowship, with goodwill and pure heart we will find the way of peace."

At around the time that the State of Israel was being recognized by the United Nations, the Chief Rabbis of Israel wrote a letter in Arabic to the Arab world. The Sephardic Chief Rabbi Benzion Uziel, who was fluent in Arabic, likely wrote this letter that was signed by him and the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Herzog. They wrote:

21 Kislev, 5708
"A Call to the Leaders of Islam for Peace and Brotherhood."

To the Heads of The Islamic Religion in the Land of Israel and throughout
the Arab lands near and far, Shalom U'Vracha:

Brothers, at this hour, as the Jewish people have returned to its land and
state, per the word of God and the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, and in
accordance with the decision of the United Nations, we approach you in peace and brotherhood, in the name of God's Torah and the Holy Scriptures, and we say to you:

Please remember the peaceful and friendly relations that existed between us
when we lived together in Arab lands and under Islamic Rulers during the
Golden Age, when together we developed brilliant intellectual insights of
wisdom and science for all of humanity's benefit. Please remember the sacred words of the prophet Malachi, who said: "Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we break faith with one another, profaning the covenant of our ancestors?" (Malachi 2:10).

We were brothers, and we shall once again be brothers, working together in
cordial and neighborly relations in this Holy Land, so that we will build it
and make it flourish, for the benefit of all of its inhabitants, without
discrimination against anyone. We shall do so in faithful and calm
collaboration, so that we may all merit God's blessing on His land, from
which there shall radiate the light of peace to the entire world.

Signed,
Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel
Yitschak Isaac Ha-Levi Herzog

The words of Rabbi Uziel and Rabbi Herzog reflected the wishes of the tiny Jewish community in the land of Israel in those times. Those words still reflect the wishes of the Jewish community of Israel today. Hawks and doves alike would like nothing better than genuine, secure peace. They would like Israeli society to be free and happy, without the specter of warfare and terrorism, without the constant threat and reality of Arab military, economic and political attacks. They would like to live in harmony with their Arab neighbors-and to trust that their Arab neighbors will want to live in harmony with them.

We applaud the United Arab Emirates and the State of Israel for reaching the decision to establish full diplomatic relations. The President of the United States and his representatives played an important role in this historic peace-making process. We pray that other Arab nations will join the "circle of peace," by establishing peaceful, harmonious and productive relations with Israel.

It takes courage and wisdom to work for peace. It takes courage and wisdom to maintain an environment of peace and mutual respect. Israel and the United Arab Emirates have taken a giant step forward. May others follow their example.

America.

That was the dream of so many poor Jews in the

old Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 20th

century. America was hope, a chance for a better

life, a way out of poverty and squalor, a bastion of

freedom.

America.

Enthusiasm for the new “promised land” spread

from heart to heart. Thousands of hopeful souls

uprooted themselves from the old world and set sail

for the new.

Among them, in 1908, were Bohor Yehuda Angel

and his eldest son Moshe. They left the Island of

Rhodes and made the long, arduous trip to Seattle,

Washington, where a small community of Rhodes

Jews had already settled.

Bohor Yehuda was a sturdy, pious man. He left his

six young children in Rhodes with his wife Bulissa

Esther. He and Moshe planned to work hard, earn

money, and bring the entire family to Seattle as soon

as possible.

Bohor Yehuda opened a shoe-shine stand in

downtown Seattle. Moshe worked at various odd

jobs. They lived simply and with great self-sacrifice.

They regularly sent money to their family in Rhodes

to sustain them until they could save enough to

bring them all to Seattle. It took them three years

of toil and scrimping before they finally raised the

necessary funds.

Bulissa Esther received the news with ineffable joy.

The past three years had been difficult. Separation

from a husband so many thousands of miles away in

a strange land was not easy. Caring for six children

in the absence of their father was a huge challenge.

Although she was blessed with great wisdom and

patience, Bulissa Esther was taxed to the limit of

her abilities. At last, she could now arrange to travel

with her children to America and the family could

once again be united.

Bulissa Esther and her six children set sail in the

summer of 1911. They traveled steerage, but no one

complained. They were on their way to the freedom,

happiness, and the promise of America. They were

on their way to family reunion.

When they arrived in New York harbor, they looked

forward to stepping onto American soil. They would

soon take a train cross-country to Seattle. All would

be well.

As they exited the ship, all passengers were brought

to the immigration office. American officials checked

their names, their places of origin, their ultimate

destinations in the United States. They asked many

questions, although most of the immigrants did not

know English and could not understand what was

being asked of them. Somehow, though, most of

the passengers answered well enough and received

papers admitting them into the United States.

When the turn of Bulissa Esther and her six children

came, she stood before the examining officers with

trembling anticipation. She told the officials that

they were on their way to Seattle to reunite with her

husband and eldest son.

One of the officials, following standard immigration

procedures, checked the family members to

determine if they had any obvious diseases or health

issues that would prohibit their entry into the

United States. Bulissa Esther and five of her children

were deemed to be healthy. Her nine-year-old son,

Joseph, was found to have a scalp disease, tinias.

This was not a serious health problem in itself; but

the immigration official ruled that Joseph could not

be admitted into the country due to his disease.

Bulissa Esther’s heart jumped a beat when she was

made to understand that Joseph could not enter the

United States. She broke down crying. She pleaded

with the officials. He is just a little boy, we will get

medicine for his tinias, please let him in, what am I

to do if you do not admit him? We’ve waited three

years for my husband and son to raise the funds to

bring us here! We can’t go back to Rhodes again!

No, said the official, you don’t have to go back to

Rhodes. You and five of your children can continue

your trip to Seattle. But Joseph can’t be admitted

into the United States.

Please, have mercy on a mother and her children.

Have mercy on a nine year old boy. How can we

separate him from the rest of us? How will he go

back to Rhodes alone? Who will care for him there?

That is not our problem, said the official. Joseph

cannot be admitted. You need to decide what to do

now.

America.

The promised land. A land with laws, but without

mercy. A land that would turn a young boy away,

that would break the hearts of a good, honest family.

Bulissa Esther was beside herself with grief. She

could not bring her family back to Rhodes. But

neither could she abandon little Joseph.

As it happened, a Jewish man from Rhodes, who

had been on the same ship as Bulissa Esther, was also

denied entry into the United States due to a health

problem. He had no choice but to return to Rhodes.

When he heard Bulissa Esther crying, he came over

to her and learned of the problem with Joseph. He

volunteered to bring Joseph back to Rhodes with

him, to settle him in with a family of relatives until

such time as Bohor Yehuda could raise enough

money to pay passage for Joseph to join the family

in Seattle.

Bulissa Esther had no other realistic option. She

thanked the man profusely for agreeing to look

after Joseph. So she kissed her beloved son and said

goodbye. All the brothers and sisters hugged Joseph

and promised that they would see him again soon.

Bulissa Esther and five of her children traveled on

to Seattle, reunited with Bohor Yehuda and Moshe,

and gradually adapted to their new lives in America.

Joseph was brought to the home of relatives in

Rhodes. Bulissa Esther prayed for the day when

Joseph could be brought together with the rest of

the family in Seattle.

That day never came.

Bohor Yehuda could scarcely earn enough to

support his large family in Seattle, let alone to save

money to buy passage for Joseph. Meanwhile, world

events were impacting on life in Rhodes, making

Joseph’s travel to the United States increasingly

unlikely.

War broke out between Italy and Turkey, with

Italian forces occupying the Island of Rhodes in

May 1912. After nearly four centuries of Turkish

dominion, Rhodes was now under Italian control.

Italy was officially granted Rhodes in July 1923 under

the Treaty of Lausanne. The Jews of Rhodes, along

with the other residents of the island, soon began to

speak Italian, to think Italian, to be Italian subjects.

Economic life in Rhodes blossomed. Little Joseph

grew up at a time of growing optimism among the

Jews of Rhodes.

He couldn’t easily travel to America during the

Turco-Italian War years. Then World War I broke

out in July 1914, making travel across the Atlantic

Ocean dangerous if not impossible. By the time the

war ended in November 1918, Joseph was a young

man, already comfortable in his life in Italian-ruled

Rhodes. In due course, he was married to a lovely wife,

Sinyorou; and they went on to have four children—

two boys and two girls. Life was moving along well.

They could see no reason to move to America; and

in any case, American quota laws of 1921 and 1924

dramatically limited the number of immigrants

eligible to enter the United States. Joseph had been

turned away from America once; he had no desire to

face American immigration officials a second time.

But conditions in Rhodes were to change radically.

In June 1936, Italy aligned itself with Nazi Germany.

Jews living in Italian territories—like Jews living in

Germany—became victims of a horrific policy of anti-

Semitism.

The Jews of Rhodes were thunderstruck

by the dramatic undermining of their lives and

their livelihoods. The Rabbinical College of Rhodes

was forced to close. Jews in Rhodes were required

to keep their stores open on the Jewish Sabbath

and festivals. In September 1938, anti-Jewish laws

went into effect in Rhodes that prohibited kosher

slaughter of animals. Jews were no longer allowed

to buy property, employ non-Jewish servants, send

their children to government schools. Non-Jews

were forbidden from patronizing Jewish doctors or

pharmacists. Jews who had settled in Rhodes after

January 1919 were expelled from the Island. (They

were the fortunate ones!)

For a short period in the early 1940s, there was

a slight easing of the anti-Jewish measures. Yet,

conditions were dire. Aside from dealing with their

loss of civil status and human dignity, they had to

deal with the ongoing hardships of living in a war

zone. British planes dropped bombs on Rhodes in

their effort to defeat the Axis powers, and dozens of

Jews were among those killed in these attacks.

When Mussolini was removed from power in July

1943, the Jews of Rhodes thought their troubles

were over. But contrary to their expectations, the

Germans occupied Rhodes. The situation of the

Jews worsened precipitously. In July 1944, the Jews

of Rhodes had all their valuables confiscated by

the Germans. They were then crowded into three

small freight ships. Of the nearly 1,700 Rhodes Jews

deported by the Nazis, only 151 survived. Almost

all the Jews of Rhodes were viciously murdered in

Auschwitz.

Among those who suffered this cruel and inhuman

death were the entire family of Joseph Angel.

Little did the American immigration official realize

in 1911, that by turning away a little boy with a scalp

infection, he was condemning that boy and family

to a calamitous destruction. That official no doubt

slept peacefully the night he sent Joseph back to

Rhodes, separating the young son from his mother

and siblings. The official was following the rules.

If that official was still alive in July 1944, he probably

slept the sleep of the innocent, not realizing that

his actions led to the death of an entire family. His

dreams were not haunted by nightmares of the

ghosts of Joseph’s family.

In 1924, the State of Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act, criminalizing interracial marriages. There was a special dispensation built into the law, however. Through the so-called “Pocahontas exception,” Virginians proud of being descendants of Pocahontas who still wanted to classify as “white” were able to do so instead of being classified as “Native American.” Similarly politically-weighted claims of ancestry have received extensive coverage in recent years, including the question of why Barack Obama is widely considered a black man with a white mother, rather than a white man with a black father; President Trump’s questioning of Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren’s claimed Native American heritage (Trump has, on numerous occasions, referred to her as “Pocahontas”); and the extensive doubts recently raised about the Jewish identity of socialist New York State Senator Julia Salazar. As Rutgers professor Eviatar Zerubavel discusses in his Ancestors and Relatives: Genealogy, Identity, and Community (Oxford, 2011), how we define or frame our ancestry, and how others define it, is of tremendous importance.

Questions of genealogy are so vital because our ancestry is often a key element in our social structure, the axis on which many of our social interactions, obligations, loyalties, and emotional sentiments, turn. Although we like to believe in meritocracy, that individuals are self-made, our identities can be deeply tied to those from whom we descend. As Zerubavel writes, “Our psychological integrity depends very much upon...the extent to which we feel linked to our genealogical roots.... [S]triking a person’s name from his or her family’s genealogical records used to be one of the most dreaded punishments in China” (pp. 5, 7). And of course, biologically, heredity has a tremendous impact on our traits, personality, and self-perceptions. As Columbia University professor Robert Pollack has noted, our “genomes are a form of literature… a library of the most ancient, precious, and deeply important books” (Signs of Life: The Language and Meanings of DNA [Houghton Mifflin, 1994], 117). Through studying where we come from, we learn how to tell our own story.

Are Our Relatives… Relative?

In It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree (Simon & Schuster, 2017) humorist and author A. J. Jacobs recounts his attempt to assemble his extended, and by that I mean very extended, family, in the largest family reunion ever. After receiving an e-mail from a man in Israel claiming to be his 12th cousin, part of an 80,000-person family tree that included Karl Marx and some European aristocrats, Jacobs set out to bring as many of his living relatives together as he could, figuring “people [who spend countless hours tracing their family roots] want to feel connected and anchored. They want to visit what has been called the “Museum of Me.’” Utilizing online genealogical tools, he connected to countless celebrities, as well as former U.S. President George H. W. Bush. Through this project, Jacobs sought to make the case for people to be kinder to one another because of our shared “cousin-hood.”

Finding out about 79,999 relatives raised for Jacobs questions about the nature of family and the hierarchy of closeness we feel toward certain individuals. He argues that if all of humanity is one very large extended family, it is less important who our immediate relatives are. Maybe,

… we can sometimes make room in our hearts to love others without diminishing what we feel for those already dearest to us. Love is not a zero-sum game…. They tell of a seventeenth-century French missionary in Canada who tried to explain traditional monogamous marriage to a tribesman. The tribesman replied, “Thou hast no sense. You French people love only your own children, but we love all the children of our tribe.” Ignorance of their kids’ paternity apparently [can make] for a more compassionate society. (pp. 87, 150)

Taking this line of reasoning a step further, maybe our conception of family shouldn’t even be limited to biological relatives, or even people in our local community or tribe. One modern writer, Andrew Solomon, has even offered calling those who share your passion or worldview your “horizontal family” as opposed to your “vertical,” biological family. Though we would assume those with common interests are friends rather than family, Zerubavel gives some credence and sociological substance to this counterintuitive idea:

The family… is an inherently boundless community. Since there is no natural boundary separating recent ancestors from remote ones, there is also no such boundary separating close relatives from distant ones, or even relatives from nonrelatives. Any such boundary is therefore a product of social convention alone. Thus, although it is probably nature that determines that our obligations to others be proportional to our genealogical proximity to them, it is nevertheless unmistakably social norms that specify whose blood or honor we ought to avenge and determine the genealogical reach of family reunification policies. It is likewise social conventions that specify who can claim the share of blood money paid to relatives of homicide victims and determine who we invite to family reunions. Thus, whereas the range of other animals’ kin recognition is determined by nature, it is social norms, conventions, and traditions of classification that determine how widely humans’ range of kin recognition actually extends, and societies indeed often vary in where they draw the line between relatives and nonrelatives. (p. 72)

And as the renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson put it in a letter to Jacobs (p. 163):

My philosophy of root-finding may be unorthodox. I just don’t care. And that’s not a passive, but active sense of caring. In the tree of life, any two people in the world share a common ancestor—depending only on how far you look. So the line we draw to establish family and heritage is entirely arbitrary. When I wonder what I am capable of achieving, I don’t look to family lineage, I look to all human beings. That’s the genetic relationship that matters to me. The genius of Isaac Newton, the courage of Gandhi and MLK, the bravery of Joan of Arc, the athletic feats of Michael Jordan, the oratorical skills of Sir Winston Churchill, the compassion of Mother Teresa. I look to the entire human race for inspiration for what I can be—because I am human. [I] couldn’t care less if I were a descendant of kings and paupers, saints or sinners, the valorous or cowardly. My life is what I make of it.

Are You My Mother?

The challenge to the idea above, however, is that while it might make for a sound philosophical argument, it doesn’t seem to hold water empirically. There have been many experiments and contexts, including Israeli kibbutzim, in which children have been raised communally, as opposed to in a nuclear family model, only to discover it made parents and children less happy. There is social, psychological, and moral value provided by what we intuitively classify as our family, which, assuming it contains a generally positive dynamic, serves to aid in both general health and even survival, and inculcate values that an individual applies to his or her colleagues, neighbors, and friends. As the saying goes, “Men may change their clothes, their politics, their wives, their religions, their philosophies—[but] they cannot change their grandfathers.”

The Jewish Family

            Judaism, of course, is based upon the story of a family. The Book of Genesis is the story of chosen children, with the tales of those who were not chosen relegated to the periphery. Like many families, the Jewish family’s “dynastic mental structure” is conceived of as a “single identity” with “particular norms of remembrance” (Zerubavel, 19, 67). Thus, while one might refer to one’s country of origin a “motherland” or refer to the “founding fathers” of the United States, to the Jewish people, Israel is the land of our actual mothers and fathers, and our norms of family remembrance are found in the Torah. We are Benei Yisrael, the children of our forefather Israel.

Following the completion of the Bible, the advent of the monarchy, and the sweep of subsequent Jewish history, what has emerged within the story of the Children of Israel is the anticipated restoration of one particular line within our family. We hope and pray multiple times throughout our liturgy for the resumed authority of the Davidic line through the coming of the Messiah, the ultimate redeemer.

With this background in mind, let us examine the Book of Ruth, which ends with a genealogy culminating with the birth of David, the ancestor of the eventual Messiah. Let us also examine how the ancestral story of David’s family is told and how it might inform our understanding of family in our own lives.

Ten Generations

The Book of Ruth ends with a list of ten generations:

Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez begot Hezron; and Hezron begot Ram, and Ram begot Amminadab; and Amminadab begot Nahshon, and Nahshon begot Salmon; and Salmon begot Boaz, and Boaz begot Obed; and Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David. (Ruth 4:18–22)

A story that began with an Israelite family leaving Bethlehem and dwelling in Moab for around ten years (1:4), during which time a father and two sons died, now lists ten generations of progeny, a healthy and vibrant family line. The birthing of sons has replaced the death of sons. Beyond this portrayal of restoration, the list has a structure that serves a political function as well. The list could have started with Judah, father of Perez, or even Jacob, Judah’s father, but starting with Perez puts David tenth in line, matching an earlier biblical pattern. Just as there were ten generations from Adam to Noah, and another ten from Noah to Abraham, David is listed as the culmination of ten generations. This structure suggests that the book is situating David in the pantheon of foundational biblical figures (See Zvi Ron, “The Genealogical List in the Book of Ruth: A Symbolic Approach,” Jewish Bible Quarterly 38:2 [2010]: 85–92).

The “surprise ending” of David’s birth also reshapes our perception of the entire preceding narrative. Through the realization that this tale of a bereft Naomi and her former daughter-in-law, the Moabite Ruth, ends up producing the ultimate Israelite king, the reader sees how a savior is born through the acts of loyalty and kindness demonstrated by its characters. In the words of Professor André LaCocque in his Ruth: A Continental Commentary (Fortress Press, 2004):

The genealogy is their announcement of victory.... [I]n the West, individualism has become so excessive, so egocentric, that all devotedness to a future generation appears obsolete and even ridiculous in the eyes of some… but the facts of history do teach us that we cannot take the survival of the group for granted. After Auschwitz, the people of Naomi—who are also Ruth’s people—know that they are vulnerable. It was already so in ancient Israel. The discontinuation of the name—that is, of the family, the clan—meant annihilation…. [W]hat has to be assured is not the number but history, the promise, the hope. The typical modern individual does not have any history, only episodes, like the soap operas on television. But Israel has a history, a history oriented toward the coming of the kingdom of God and its regent, the Messiah…. [P]ut simply, the story of Ruth is pulled from the episodic and placed, from the perspective of Israel’s history, into salvation history. (p. 122)

Living during the troublesome era of the Book of Judges, in which each man did what was right in his own eyes because there was no ruler to unify the nation, Ruth merits the bearing the nation’s salvific figure, the conqueror of Jerusalem, and the singer of Psalms through her selfless acts. As Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer-Kensky suggest, “For an ancient audience this final genealogy would have been an exhilarating conclusion; good people have been rewarded with the high honor of illustrious progeny” (The JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth (Philadelphia: JPS, 2011), 92–93).

The Female Genealogy

            Like all such biblical lists, the final verses of Ruth list male progenitors. However, prior to those last few verses, the narratives offer what some have suggested is a female genealogy as well, one whose allusions offer even greater insight into the story of David’s birth. In this scene, in which Ruth is married to Boaz, the names of certain female biblical heroines are evoked:

And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said: “We are witnesses. May God make the woman that is coming into your house like Rachel and like Leah, those two who built the house of Israel; and be worthy in Ephrat, and be famous in Bethlehem; and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, of the seed which God shall give you of this young woman.” So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife; and he was intimate with her, and God gave her conception, and she bore a son. And the women said unto Naomi: “Blessed be God, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and let his name be famous in Israel. And he shall be for you a restorer of life, and a nourisher for you in your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has borne him.” And Naomi took the child, and laid embraced him, and became his nurse. And the women her neighbors gave it a name, saying: “There is a son born to Naomi”; and they called his name Obed; he is the father of Jesse, the father of David. (4:11–17)

This is the only time in the entire Bible where characters are blessed through the invoking of female characters. Ruth is mentioned as an analogue to none other than Rachel and Leah, two foundational women, mothers, and wives. In this radical acceptance of a stranger, a Moabite widow becomes an honorary biblical matriarch.

            In the coda of Ruth, the invocation of Rachel and Leah, as well as Tamar, is more than a simple reference to memorable female biblical characters. All three of these earlier women, along with the daughters of Lot, have been subtly alluded to over the course of Ruth’s tale. All of them, like Ruth, ensured the viability of their family line through personal sacrifice in the form of “bedtricks” of varying degrees of deception and morality. After fleeing the destruction of Sodom, the daughters of Lot made their father drunk and slept with him, thereby producing Amon and Moab, the latter of which is Ruth’s ancestor (Genesis 19). Leah was switched for Rachel on Jacob’s wedding night (Genesis 29:25) and the two sisters often fought over their husband, once trading a night with Jacob for mandrakes (30:16). (It can be noted that Leah was the mother of Judah, whose descendants include Boaz and David.) And Tamar dressed as a veiled harlot and slept with Judah (Genesis 38). However, as contemporary scholar Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel emphasizes in her Holiness and Transgression: Mothers of the Messiah in the Jewish Myth (Academic Studies Press, 2017), Ruth and Boaz’s story stands both among and beyond those earlier narratives:
 

In contrast to the masculine list, which is summarily “historical,” the feminine list is portrayed as “herstory” and as part of... Boaz and Ruth's wedding scene. This list functions as a connecting link for the formal closing of the book and a disposition to recast forbidden actions into “an expression of blessing” is prominent in it. Absent here is the unforgiving terminology found in the original story: the figure of the qedeisha or the prostitute at the entrance of Enaim, the problematic revelation at Boaz's feet, and the hesitation of the redeemer to corrupt his inheritance, the threat of the world's annihilation in the story of Lot's daughters and their abandonment to be raped in the beginning of the story of Sodom, the poverty, calamity, and death that accompany Ruth and Tamar, the clashing of the sisters Rachel and Leah. All of these are transformed into unified harmony in the mouths of the congratulators at the city's gate. (p. 14)

Through their mention in this story, these earlier women are woven into the fabric of Israel’s royal history, and their sacrifices reach an apex in Ruth’s actions. Whereas those earlier stories were tales of deceit, lack of knowledge, seduction, and trickery, Ruth’s “bedtrick” at the threshing floor was a call to action that necessitated recognition and awareness on the part of the individual actors, and that resulted in “fully legitimate, legally certified” marriage. From Lot’s daughters’ incest, to Rachel and Leah’s wedding night switch, to Tamar’s disguised harlotry, we have progressed, finally, to a public marriage ceremony at the city gates of Bethlehem. Through Ruth, those earlier episodes are thus redeemed, affirmed, and celebrated. Maybe this is why the male genealogical list begins with the name Perez, which means “breach.” Daring to breach propriety for the sake of family, these women not only ensured the continuation of their family line, they provided national salvation.

Struggles, Storytelling, and Salvation

By telling the story of King David’s genealogy through the Book of Ruth, the text is offering a nuanced framework for thinking about our own history, both national and familial. As psychologist Dr. Lisa Miller has demonstrated, the ability for families to articulate their struggles and challenges builds resilience among its members (see The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving [Picador, 2015], 291). Through the tale of a foreign, marginalized widow, whose personal risk mirrors that of other biblical mothers, we are reminded of the sacrifices that sustain the continuity of the Jewish people. We are reminded of the ability of kindness to heal. And we are reminded of the power of family, both biological and beyond. Ruth’s story inspires us to meet the challenges of our own circumstances. Through the tale of communal openness to a disconnected stranger, we are given the keys to redemption. After all, it is the offspring of Lot’s daughter, Rachel and Leah, Tamar, and Ruth, with its family bloodline of struggle, alienation, and foreignness, coupled with selfless dedication to continuity, who is uniquely suited to lead the Children of Israel and bring the nations of the world closer to God. Like Moses, whose virtues and leadership abilities were developed through his fractured, foreign experiences in both Egypt and Midian, Ruth, too, embodies the marginal figure’s messianic capabilities.

It is through our own striving to survive and flourish alongside our imperfections, struggles, and feelings of disconnectedness that will eventually repair a fractured world. To quote Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen in his discussion of the Messiah in Tzidkat HaTzadik (#111), “the lowest will become the highest.”

This is why Ruth is the progenitor of the Messiah, because the Messiah is the ultimate meishiv nefesh [Ruth 4:15], restorer of life and dignity when hope seems lost…. [T]o restore the name [Ruth 4:5] is to reach across the generations, and across interpersonal divide, and at times across the divide between aspects or periods within one’s own self, in active recognition, provoking true transformation. That is what compassionate redemption means…. [I]n the end, Ruth reminds us that nothing is more beautiful than friendship, that grace begets grace, that blessing flourishes in the place between memory and hope, that light shines most from broken vessels. What else is the Messiah about? (Nehemiah Polen, “Dark Ladies and Redemptive Compassion: Ruth and the Messianic Lineage in Judaism,” in Peter S. Hawkins and Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg, eds., Scrolls of Love: Ruth and the Song of Songs [Fordham University Press, 2006], 69, 74.)

In our striving to embody the values inspired by Ruth, may we merit the writing of the next chapter of the Jewish story. May we, as individuals, as members of our family, and as members of the Children of Israel, bring the world compassionate redemption.

How does the Torah and Jewish Thought relate to the rest of humanity?
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Four Spaces:

Women’s Torah Study in American Modern Orthodoxy

 By Dean Rachel Friedman*

Nearly thirty years ago, I left my career as a lawyer to become a teacher of Torah.  As a teacher, I focus on text and substantive study.  But, inevitably, I am also an observer of Torah learning in the United States and of the place of women in that study.  I have witnessed many discussions, often heated, about women’s roles in studying and teaching Torah.  Rather than give a definitive perspective on those issues, I offer here something else:  a taxonomy of the discussion itself.  In any discussion, nothing can get done without knowing, first and foremost, what the discussion is actually about.

          In that vein, I have observed that discussions about women and Torah learning are not about any one thing.  This is natural, because Torah study itself is not a single thing.  Torah study is an aspect of formal Jewish education, but it is also preparation for professional careers.  And, perhaps more importantly than either of those, it is one of Judaism’s most significant religious and social acts.  Any discussion about women’s Torah learning, then, relates to one of four “spaces”: the education, the professional, the religious, and the social.  These spaces are all interconnected.  Teasing these out as separate spheres will do much to make our discussion of their significance more coherent.

The Education Space

The first context for discussing women’s Torah study, then, is education.  This context deals with what women learn as students in formal classrooms in elementary school, high school, seminaries, and college batei midrash.  Yeshiva day schools – including those I attended as a child -- have long emphasized women’s textual and primary-source learning in the form of Tanakh.  Indeed, because of this, girls’ schools were often thought to provide better Bible and Hebrew-language skills than their all-male counterparts. 

Traditionally, however, these day schools did not impart primary knowledge of torah she-ba’al peh or halakhah, focusing instead on bottom-line practice.  This has changed dramatically over the past two decades.  In both co-educational and girls-only schools, young women study the full panoply of torah she-ba’al peh, from Talmud to rishonim to modern piskei halakhah.  The basic Torah educations received by young Modern Orthodox women and men, therefore, resemble each other as never before.

Still, there is a caveat.  This is true of the basic education expected of our students.  At higher levels – those that follow high school – the quality and quantity of women’s and men’s offerings differ markedly.  A male high school graduate spending a gap year in Israel will, by default, end up in a program that emphasizes torah she-ba’al peh, unless he seeks out something different.  By contrast, a female student with the same background will, by default, end up in an institution that emphasizes areas of study other than gemara and text-based halakhah, unless she actively seeks admission to one of a small number of seminaries whose curricula resemble those of men’s yeshivot.

And the difference becomes more acute in college.  Men seeking intensive beit medrash study focusing on torah she-ba’al peh have a number of options, including at Modern Orthodoxy’s flagship institution, Yeshiva University.  The closest that women come to such an opportunity at YU is the Stern College Beit Midrash for Women.  Students have expressed, however, that the range of torah she-ba’al peh offerings at Stern, and the number of religious authorities who serve as teachers and mentors, does not approach that of the men’s campus.  See https://yucommentator.org/2020/05/making-strides-towards-a-stronger-beit-midrash-on-beren/. 

These differences in advanced learning may, of course, simply reflect that women’s learning of gemara and halakhah is, in historical perspective, a recent phenomenon.  And I would agree that the trajectory is towards greater opportunities for women and greater parity with men’s education options.  But it seems likely that women’s opportunities differ for structural reasons, also, which means that differences will not evaporate with time alone.  For men, advanced gemara and halakhah learning can lead to a title such as rabbi, and to the respect and jobs that come with the title.  Women’s opportunities for certification, such as a certificate from GPATS or the Drisha Scholars Circle or the title of maharat, lead to fewer professional opportunities and less communal recognition.  This means not only that women have less incentive to populate advanced Talmud classes, but that they may receive a subliminal message – intended or not – that men are the keepers of the torah she-ba’al peh and that women do not need to study its intricacies at an advanced level.  All of this lays the groundwork for our discussion of the second space for women’s learning: the professional. 

          The Professional Space

Here, women face a fundamental limitation in most Modern Orthodox communities because they cannot partake of a title such as rabbi.  This lack of a title makes it more difficult for a woman to signal that “I am a trained Jewish professional with significant learning under my belt.”

          Women have worked creatively around this limitation.  They have long taught Tanakh in yeshiva day schools and, in recent decades, have played more public roles as scholars-in-residence in synagogues.  For those trained in torah she-ba’al peh, many have found roles teaching (without a title) in high schools, in advanced programs like Lamdeinu, Drisha, Midreshet Nili, and in public speaking.  Following the Israeli precedent, a number of learned women have begun calling themselves rabbanit, a moniker which proves less controversial because it preserves the ambiguity of whether it signifies marriage to a rabbi, independent accomplishment in  high level Torah study, or both. Women have also found roles as yoatzot halakhah, toanot, and rebbetzins that allow them to partially take on some tasks traditionally performed by men.  Finally, women trained in torah she-ba’al peh have found communal roles – such as at federations, the UJA, and in kashrut organizations -- that take some advantage of their Torah training.

          Finding ways for women to use their learning is important not only for the professionals themselves, but for the community, which risks losing out on their individual and collective contributions.  Still, this is a delicate balancing act.  Fear of a feminism that runs counter to the Jewish value of women as the center of the Jewish home and family runs deep.  And Orthodox Judaism must be, by its nature, conservative in the Burkean sense.  It can absorb slow, incremental change, rather than measures that do too much too quickly.  I am likely not alone in wanting measured, gradual change that sticks, rather than a hasty and dramatic overhaul that does not, when it comes to creating professional roles for women. 

                   The two spaces we have discussed so far – the educational and professional – are important, but immediately relevant only for the subset of women still in school or entering Jewish communal work.  Torah learning, though, is much more than an educational or professional endeavor.  It is also a religious act and a facilitator of social connection.  I will focus next, therefore, on women’s Torah learning in religious and social space.

          The Religious Space

As a religious matter, it is generally understood that men have a formal obligation to study Torah, while women do not.  Kiddushin 29b.  Nevertheless, even in the absence of obligation, our community looks at women’s Torah study as valuable because it is a kiyyum mitzvah (fulfillment of a voluntary mitzvah) and, perhaps more importantly, an essential way of connecting to God.  See e.g. https://www.jpost.com/magazine/judaism/may-women-study-the-talmud.  Rabbinic leaders have recognized that, as a practical matter, women with sophisticated secular education and advanced professional roles may find it challenging to connect meaningfully to their religion without a similar opportunity for sophisticated engagement.  Id. 

          We must think carefully, therefore, about the messages we send to women with respect to their roles as Torah learners.  For example, what does it say to a spiritual woman, married or single, if her community encourages men to be kovei ittim and study be-havruta for hours each week, but offers no similar encouragement or form of engagement for her?  I do not claim to know the exact answer to this question.  But I do know two things.  First, it will be hard for some women to find fulfillment as observant Jews if we do not value their engagement with Torah study as a spiritual and religious act.  Second, in my experience, women’s thirst for this spiritual act is profound, judging by the fact that the beit midrash which houses Lamdeinu, the institution I founded and lead, is filled on weekdays with women learning Torah. 

          The Social Space

I move now to the fourth and final area of women’s Torah study:  learning as a social act.  For many, studying Torah is about more than the study itself.  It is a way to connect with friends who attend the same shiur or to bond with a study partner.  Torah study provides a framework for Jewish social life.

          With a few exceptions, Torah study for women comes much more frequently in the form of classes than havruta study.  By contrast, it is not uncommon for adult men – often retired or otherwise not working full-time -- to sit in a shul beit midrash studying in pairs.  In this way, Torah study offers more social interaction for men than for women.  This difference may reflect differing preferences, particularly among the older adults most likely to have time for Torah study and whose expectations were formed in an era when women’s discretionary learning was less common.  But, if these preferences are generational, we must be aware that future generations of women who are accustomed to participating in Torah study as an act of social connection, may expect more beit midrash style options.

          As a case in point, one of the most popular classes at Lamdeinu is a Parshanut haMikra shiur on Sefer Bereishit which includes guided havruta preparation followed by an interactive shiur. Strong personal friendships have formed between students, who often live considerable distances from each other, owing to their study of Torah and rabbinic sources in a havruta setting. These learning/social relationships have proven enduring; they have continued full force through zoom and telephone in the covid era.

          Concluding Thoughts

Having provided a taxonomy of women’s “Torah learning spaces” in 21^st century America, and of some attendant challenges, I offer a few remarks in conclusion.

 First, I do not imply that women’s Torah learning must be made to look exactly like its male counterpart.  Women, as a group, have needs, interests and desires that may differ from those of men, and we do ourselves no service by imitation for its own sake. 

Second, just as we ask about changing what Torah study for women looks like, we may ask the same about men.  For example might men benefit from incorporating a greater emphasis on tanakh into the traditional yeshivah curriculum and in their own discretionary learning?

          Finally, on a personal note, I feel blessed to have spent my adult life mi-yoshvei beit ha-midrash -- as a teacher of Torah and an administrator of high-level Jewish educational institutions.  Even as I contemplate the evolving role of women’s Torah study in Jewish communal life, I never forget that what brought me to this work – and what keeps me there – is not the new, but the ancient and eternal.  I am here because I love Torah and I love teaching it.  I cannot imagine a meaningful connection to ha-Kadosh Barukh Hu without it.  If I ask questions, it is only in the hope that others may be so blessed to connect with Judaism and God through Torah learning as I have.

*I am grateful to my son Rabbi Elie Friedman for his significant contributions to this article, and for deepening my understanding of Torah and humanity always.

“I am Tunisian, but Jewish, which means that I am politically and socially an outcast. I speak the language of the country with a particular accent and emotionally I have nothing in common with Moslems. I am a Jew who has broken with the Jewish religion and the ghetto, is ignorant of Jewish culture and detests the middle class because it is phony. I am poor but desperately anxious not to be poor, and at the same time, I refuse to take the necessary steps to avoid poverty” (The Pillar of Salt, p. 331).

            In these few words in his autobiographical novel, Albert Memmi describes the dilemma of his life. He is an outcast. He does not belong to his religious community, to his nation, to any particular group. He is a human being, and wants to be a universal human being…but the world won’t let him out of his box.

            Memmi was born in Tunis (French Tunisia) in December 1920. He grew up in the Jewish ghetto and hated being a ghetto Jew. He attended the school of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, was drawn to French language and culture, and went on to study at the University of Algiers and later at the Sorbonne in Paris.

            During the Nazi occupation of Tunisia, he was imprisoned in a forced labor camp from which he later escaped. After World War II, he supported the independence movement in Tunisia but was unable to find a place in the movement because he was a Jew and because of his French education. He left Tunisia and settled in Paris where he became a prominent writer and teacher, and was especially well known for his works analyzing and criticizing Colonialism. He had a long and distinguished career; he died in May 2020 at age 99.

            Like many other Jewish intellectuals who grew up in ghettos, Memmi simply wanted to be a human being…like everyone else. He deeply resented living in a cocoon separated from the mainstream culture of the land. He found the Jewish religious leadership to be narrowly focused, unaware of or strongly opposed to prevailing intellectual currents of the time. Religion, to Memmi and others like him, was a combination of superstitions and traditions that lacked meaning except for the ignorant.

            Who could understand the dilemma of Memmi? Who could help him out of his self-enclosed world?  There was no religiously significant person within the Jewish religious establishment who could reach the young aspiring intellectual. And outside of the Jewish community, there was a wall of hatred, anti-Jewish prejudice, dehumanization. Memmi lamented: “I do not believe I have ever rejoiced in being a Jew. When I think of myself as a Jew, I am immediately conscious of a vague spiritual malaise, warm, persistent, always the same, that comes over me. The first thing that strikes me when I think of myself as a Jew is that I do not like to consider myself in that light” (Portrait of a Jew, p. 15). In his novel, he made it clear: “I did not want to be Alexandre Mordekhai Benillouche, I wanted to escape from myself and go out toward the others. I was not going to remain a Jew, an Oriental, a pauper; I belonged neither to my family nor to my religious community; I was a new being, utterly transparent, ready to be completely remade into a philosophy instructor” (The Pillar of Salt, p. 230).

            The Jewish predicament was forced upon him by a hostile non-Jewish world. “To be a Jew is first and foremost to find oneself called to account, to feel oneself continuously accused, explicitly or implicitly, clearly or obscurely….There is that constant hostility, that noxious haze in which the Jew is born, lives and dies” (Portrait of a Jew,  p. 57). Jews are accused for any and every ill in the world. “The moment a nation is struck by a catastrophe, we are the first to be abandoned….When a nation is in trouble, when the world is in trouble, I know now, from the experience of my short life, there is danger for the Jew: even if the malady has no connection with Jews” (Ibid., p. 208). The non-Jewish haters treat Jews not as fellow human beings, but as repulsive stereotypes. “I am not only suspected and accused, I am bullied, restricted, curtailed in my daily life, in my development as a man….For the most serious element, perhaps, the one most difficult to admit, is that the fate imposed on the Jews is a degrading fate” (Ibid., p. 321).

            How is a Jew to be liberated from this unpleasant fate? How can a Jew simply be accepted as an individual human being rather than as an ugly, hateful stereotype? Memmi reminisces: “When we graduated from the lycee at Tunis many of us decided to cut ourselves off from the past, the ghetto and our native land, to breathe fresh air and set off on the most beautiful of adventures. I no longer wanted to be that invalid called a Jew, mostly because I wanted to be a man; and because I wanted to join with all men to reconquer the humanity which was denied me” (The Liberation of the Jew, p. 22).  He, like many others, considered adapting to the styles and mores of the “majority.” By blending in, by accepting their way of life, he would be accepted. But he soon learned that no matter how much he—and other Jews—tried to assimilate, the non-Jews still saw them as Jews and still denigrated them for being Jewish.

            So Jews tended to create their own inner world, to protect themselves psychologically from the constant Jew-hatred of the non-Jews. “I came to discover at the same time a fundamental truth: the ghetto was also inside the Jew. It was more than a stone wall and wooden doors, more than a collective prison imposed by others; it was an inner wall, real and symbolic, which the Jew had built” (Ibid., p. 129).

            But Memmi ultimately came to a clear understanding of how to cope with being a member of an oppressed group. The first step is to admit the problem candidly. The next step is to deny oneself all camouflage and consolation for one’s misery. And then, above all, one must make an effective decision to put an end to the oppression. The oppressed person must take responsibility for shaking off the control of the oppressors. “The Jew, oppressed as a people, must find his autonomy and freedom to express his originality as a people” (Ibid., p 278). For Memmi, the ultimate goal is for Jews to live freely, independently, not under the thumb of others. In practical terms, that meant Jewish liberation is expressed through the State of Israel.  “The specific liberation of the Jews is a national liberation and for the last years this national liberation of the Jew has been the state of Israel….If Israel did not exist it would have to be created….For Israel alone can put an end to the negativity of the Jew and liberate his positivity” (Ibid., pp. 283, 294).

            From his personal struggles as a Jew, Memmi extrapolated his concerns to all oppressed peoples. In his classic work, The Colonizer and the Colonized, he underscored the arrogant assumptions of the European colonial powers. Colonialists posit an unbridgeable gulf between themselves and their victims. “The colonialist stresses those things which keep him separate, rather than emphasizing that which might contribute to the foundation of a joint community. In those differences, the colonized is always degraded and the colonialist finds justification for rejecting his subjects: (p. 71). The self-assured oppressor assumes all the virtues, and expects the victims to adapt to the ideas and values of their oppressors. “The point is that whether Negro, Jew or colonized, one must resemble the white man, the non-Jew, the colonizer” (p. 122). But no matter how hard the victims try to emulate the oppressors, they “can never succeed in becoming identified with the colonizer, not even in copying his role correctly” (p. 123). The situation is intolerable for the victims. “Must he, all his life, be ashamed of what is most real in him, of the only things not borrowed? Must he insist on denying himself, and, moreover, will he always be able to stand it? Must his liberation be accomplished through systematic self-denial?” (p. 123).

            The colonialist dehumanizes victims, treats them as inferior beings who deserve to be treated as inferiors. But at some point, the victims will find the courage to rebel and to repudiate the arrogance of the oppressors. “The West has discovered that it cannot live peacefully if the majority of the world’s inhabitants live in poverty, envious of the developed world. Because of its very progress, the West has become a fat glutton; it stuffs itself with food and destroys its toys like a spoiled child” (Decolonization and the Decolonized, p. 129.)

            Memmi devotes serious attention to the nature of racism. He sees the problem as impacting on almost everyone. “Each time one finds oneself in contact with an individual or group that is different and only poorly understood, one can react in a way that would signify a racism….We risk behaving in a racist manner each time we believe ourselves threatened in our privileges, in our well-being, or in our security” (Racism, p. 23). Racist attitudes/behaviors are characterized by building up oneself while devaluing others. To bolster one’s own ego, one tears down others who are perceived as threats or competitors. “Racists are people who are afraid; they feel fear because they attack, and they attack because they feel fear” (p. 97).

            In its limited sense, racism is the attribution of negative attributes based on biological factors. People of the victim race/group are branded as being biologically different, and the differences are innate and negative. But more broadly, the issue of racism transcends biology. “The word racism works perfectly well for the biological notion….Heterophobia would designate the many configurations of fear, hate and aggressiveness, that, directed against an other, attempt to justify themselves through different psychological, cultural, social or metaphysical means, of which racism in its biological sense is only one” (p. 118). Racism rejects others in the name of biological differences. Heterophobia rejects others in the name of no matter what difference.

            Racism and heterophobia are not limited to psychotic individuals or hateful groups. “In almost every person there is a tendency toward a racist mode of thinking that is unconscious, or perhaps partly conscious, or not unconscious at all…Racism, or perhaps I should say heterophobia, is ultimately the most widely shared attitude in the world” (pp. 131, 132).  People seek to bolster their own egos by attributing negative value to others who are different in any way. The most obvious targets of racists are the victims who are already the most oppressed. It is easiest to attack those who are weakest.

            How do individuals/groups overcome the tendency to racism and heterophobia? They must come to realize that “racism is a form of charging the oppressed for the crimes, whether actual or potential, of the oppressor” (p. 139). In other words, haters reflect their own negative traits when they brand others. Once they realize that their hatred is a reflection of their own fears and weaknesses, they can try to overcome it. They must not be frightened by people of different races, religions, nations. “Differences must be lucidly recognized, embrace and respected as such. Others must be granted their being as other, with all the enrichment of life that might be possible through their very differences” (p. 155).

            Memmi devoted his life to understanding and combatting racism and heterophobia. In spite of his monumental achievements as teacher and author, he never escaped the feeling that he was oppressed. His very Jewishness was a source of anguish to him because so many non-Jews viewed Jews as caricatures rather than as fellow human beings. Yet, his first hand feelings of being alienated and oppressed enabled him to fully identify with others who were victims of colonialism, racism, hatred. If Jewishness was a burden to him, it was also the source of his greatness.

            Although he was alienated from religion, he had a deep spiritual sense. In his novel, The Desert, he wrote almost longingly: “I have always loved those moments when one finds oneself alone with one’s Creator, and I wonder whether it is not for that reason that God requires prayer, for that daily encounter with ourselves” (pp. 54-55). But he found no rabbinic or spiritual personalities who could adequately address his concerns or cultivate his spirituality.

Memmi wrote: “Do not become a stranger to yourself, for you are lost from that day on; you will have no peace if there is not, somewhere within you, a corner of certainty, calm waters where you can take refuge in sleep” (The Pillar of Salt, p. 316). 

                                                          *     *     *

           To me, Albert Memmi represents generations of thinking Jews who have struggled with their Jewish identities. They have felt oppressed by ubiquitous anti-Jewish attitudes and actions; they have been dissatisfied with presentations of Judaism that are akin to superstition and blind obedience; they have felt unfairly stigmatized and set apart. They have wanted simply to be free and dignified human beings, judged by their individual actions. They have wanted to share in the life and culture of humanity as a whole, and they have wanted to contribute to the betterment of the world.

           In my long career as a Sephardic Orthodox rabbi, I have related to many Jews—young and old—who shared some of the feelings and concerns articulated by Albert Memmi. I have learned much from them, as I hope they have learned from me. When a Jew becomes a stranger to him/herself, inner peace and self-respect are endangered.  To be a liberated Jew means to be a self-respecting, confident, compassionate human being. It means accepting Judaism and Jewishness as great privileges that should be celebrated. Albert Memmi was a tormented soul who could not find his way clear to be a liberated, confident Jew. In his failure, though, there are seeds of redemption for other thinking Jews. We cannot allow ourselves to be boxed in by others. We must insist on our freedom and humanity.

JEREMIAH #1

JEREMIAH’S EARLY CAREER (627-609 B.C.E.)

                                             By Rabbi Hayyim Angel

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, one of the priests at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. The word of the Lord came to him in the days of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign, and throughout the days of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah son of Josiah of Judah, when Jerusalem went into exile in the fifth month. (Jer. 1:1-3)

The superscription dates the prophet’s career from the thirteenth year of Josiah (627 B.C.E.) until the eleventh year of Zedekiah (586 B.C.E.). In reality, Jeremiah’s career actually continued after the destruction of the Temple (chapters 40-44). Shadal explains that the superscription selectively presents Jeremiah’s career to convey the message that Jeremiah’s prophecies of the destruction were fulfilled. It also defines him as the prophet of the destruction.

The insertion and placement of chapter 52, which narrates the destruction of the Temple, also supports this conclusion. The “real” Book of Jeremiah had ended in the previous chapter:

And say, “Thus shall Babylon sink and never rise again, because of the disaster that I will bring upon it. And [nations] shall have wearied themselves [for fire].” Thus far the words of Jeremiah. (51:64)

In his introduction to his commentary on Jeremiah, Abarbanel suggests that the Men of the Great Assembly copied the last chapter from the Book of Kings and appended it to what became the final chapter of the Book of Jeremiah. The positioning of this appendix in the book’s climactic conclusion illustrates how the editor defines Jeremiah as the prophet of the destruction.

The Book of Jeremiah is presented out of chronological order, and to this day scholars debate how to structure the book. We present the central prophecies of the Book of Jeremiah in chronological order so that readers can appreciate how the prophet spoke to people in different historical periods.[1]

          The first time period in which Jeremiah prophesied was that of Josiah, a righteous king whose works are described in II Kings chapters 22-23. The finding of the Torah in 622 B.C.E. was the main catalyst in the king’s reformation. Jeremiah received his prophetic initiation five years earlier, in 627 B.C.E. Based on comparative chronologies of the period, Assurbanipal, the last great ruler of the Assyria Empire, died in 627 B.C.E. as well. Both Josiah and Jeremiah viewed these political changes as a spiritual window of opportunity.

          In 625 B.C.E., King Nabopolassar of Babylonia broke free from Assyria and began to capture Assyrian holdings. By 620 B.C.E., Assyria had retreated from Israel, and their collapse was sudden and total. In 612 B.C.E., their capital Nineveh fell to Babylonia. By now, nations no longer worried about Assyria, but instead became concerned about the rising power of Babylonia.

A decisive moment in Israel’s history came in 609 B.C.E. Egyptian forces marched northward through Israel to help Assyria make a last stand against Babylonia. Josiah tried to stop the Egyptians, so the Egyptians killed the righteous king. The abrupt death of Josiah dealt a traumatic blow to the religious factions in Judah, as Josiah’s successors were unfaithful to God. Egypt immediately deposed Jehoahaz, probably because he was pro-Babylonian. Egypt’s appointing Jehoiakim was the first time that a foreign power had installed a king of Israel.

In 605 B.C.E., the Babylonian army crushed the Egyptian-Assyrian forces in Carchemish (see Jer. 46:1-12), leaving Babylonia as the unchallenged power in the region. Nabopolassar died and his son Nebuchadnezzar assumed the throne of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

          In Israel, the idolatrous factions that had gone into hiding during Josiah’s Reformation came back out into the open. The wicked King Jehoiakim adopted an anti-Babylonian stance. In contrast, Jeremiah preached repentance and submission to Babylonia as means to survival  (e.g., chapters 25, 27). Meanwhile, Egypt encouraged the surrounding nations to ally against Babylonia. Judah was divided over how to respond politically to the Babylonian menace, with her very existence at stake.

In 597 B.C.E., Jehoiakim died and his son Jehoiachin took over. Nebuchadnezzar exiled the new king after three months along with 10,000 of Judah’s best and brightest. Many false prophets arose during this period, who contended that that the exile of Jehoiachin was temporary and that Babylonia would soon fall miraculously (chapters 23, 28-29). Their essential message was that Judah should revolt against Babylonia.

          The last king of Judah, Zedekiah (597-586 B.C.E.), came under enormous pressure from Egypt and his own nobility to revolt against Babylonia (chapters 21, 34, 37-39). Jeremiah pleaded for him to surrender but to no avail. Zedekiah revolted, Jerusalem fell, and the Temple went up in flames in 586 B.C.E.

Soon after the destruction, the pro-Babylonian governor Gedaliah was assassinated and many surviving Jews fled to Egypt against Jeremiah’s prophecy, dragging him along (chapters 40-43). The last chronological chapter in the book has Jeremiah rebuking the Jews in Egypt for their idol worship. They ignored him since they believed their sufferings had come because they had served God (chapter 44).

Jeremiah’s mission was to justify the destruction of the Temple and teach that the God-Israel relationship is eternal even though the Temple is not. He prophesies that Babylonia would fall in seventy years and Israel would be redeemed (chapters 29-33). His inspiring prophetic message of hope during biblical Israel’s bleakest moment is one of the reasons Israel has endured as a people.

We now turn to some of the central prophecies of Jeremiah in chronological sequence.

CHAPTER 1

Before I created you in the womb, I selected you; before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet concerning the nations…Have no fear of them, for I am with you to deliver you—declares the Lord…So you, gird up your loins, arise and speak to them all that I command you. Do not break down before them, lest I break you before them. I make you this day a fortified city, and an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land—against Judah’s kings and officers, and against its priests and citizens. They will attack you, but they shall not overcome you; for I am with you—declares the Lord —to save you. (1:5-19)

Radak and Abarbanel observe that God encourages Jeremiah during his initiation. He is the only prophet told that he was chosen before birth. Aside from the encouragement, God with this same phrase signals to the prophet that he has no choice but to prophesy (Menahem Boleh[2]).

After Jeremiah’s initiation, he offers a prophecy reminiscing about God’s beautiful relationship with Israel at the time of the exodus before Israel became unfaithful:

Go proclaim to Jerusalem: Thus said the Lord: I accounted to your favor the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride—how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of His harvest. All who ate of it were held guilty; disaster befell them—declares the Lord. (2:2-3)

That this prophecy is placed first does not demonstrate that it was Jeremiah’s first prophecy chronologically delivered to the people. However, its literary placement sets the tone for the book. The roots of love and hope existed at a time when it was remarkable to have any hope at all.

Rashi interprets God’s words as a plea for a restoration of the original relationship. Were Israel to repent, God happily would reaccept them. Abarbanel adds a personal dimension to Rashi’s reading. God was concerned that Jeremiah still was reluctant to prophesy, therefore, God opened with a positive prophecy. Not only would that encourage Israel, but it would give Jeremiah the strength to embark on a difficult career.

CHAPTERS 7, 26[3]

God’s encouragement to Jeremiah was certainly necessary. Although his initiation occurred during Josiah’s reign, Jeremiah’s rise to national fame began at the outset of the wicked Jekoiakim’s reign. Jeremiah 26 relates that the prophet entered the Temple precincts at the beginning of Jehoiakim’s reign (c. 609 B.C.E.) to threaten the destruction of the Temple if the people refused to repent. The people were outraged by Jeremiah’s message and tried him as a false prophet:

And when Jeremiah finished speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, shouting, “You shall die! How dare you prophesy in the name of the Lord that this House shall become like Shiloh and this city be made desolate, without inhabitants?” (Jer. 26:8-9)

It is interesting that the people were immediately convinced that Jeremiah should be executed as a false prophet. Superficially, one might conclude that they were wicked people who did not want to change their ways. While this explanation may account for some of their motivation, other factors also may have been involved.

In chapter 7—likely the parallel prophecy to the narrative in Jeremiah 26—Jeremiah censured the people for claiming that the Temple would never be destroyed:

Don’t put your trust in illusions and say, “The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord are these [buildings].” No, if you really mend your ways and your actions; if you execute justice between one man and another… (Jer. 7:4-5)

Jeremiah accused the people—who served God albeit in an inappropriate manner—of maintaining the pagan belief that no deity ever would destroy his own temple. They served God as pagans would serve their deities by offering sacrifices to appease God while persisting in their immoral behavior (Jer. 7:9-11).

Additionally, even a fully righteous individual might have suspected that Jeremiah was a false prophet. Jeremiah prophesied the destruction of the Temple shortly after Josiah met his abrupt death (609 B.C.E.). This critique of Judean society, then, came in the wake of Josiah’s reformation (622 B.C.E.)! How could Jeremiah presume to say that the people were so wicked that the Temple would be destroyed?

Though this critique is valid based on the account of Josiah’s reformation in the Book of Kings, Jeremiah offers a different perspective concerning the sincerity of the ostensibly penitent Judeans:

The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what Rebel Israel did, going to every high mountain and under every leafy tree, and whoring there? ... And after all that, her sister, Faithless Judah, did not return to Me wholeheartedly, but insincerely—declares the Lord. (Jer. 3:6, 10)

The Talmud suggests that Josiah also overestimated the positive spiritual state of the people:

R. Samuel b. Nahmani said in the name of R. Jonathan: Josiah was punished because he should have consulted Jeremiah and he did not. On what did Josiah rely? On the divine promise contained in the words, Neither shall the sword go through your land (Lev. 26:6)…. Josiah, however, did not know that his generation found but little favor [in the eyes of God]. (Ta’anit 22b)[4]

Furthermore, Jeremiah stated this prophecy of destruction less than a century after the miraculous salvation of Jerusalem in Isaiah’s time (701 B.C.E.):

“I will protect and save this city for My sake and for the sake of My servant David.” [That night] an angel of the Lord went out and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp, and the following morning they were all dead corpses. (Isa. 37:35-36)

In principle, the religious establishment might have cited this prophecy against Jeremiah.[5] Jeremiah could respond that Isaiah’s prophecy was intended for that generation, but times had changed and Jeremiah’s new prophetic revelation called for the destruction of Jerusalem. However, such a claim from an unproven prophet would be difficult to accept, even for the most righteous of the priests and scribes.

While the religious establishment who opposed Jeremiah might have appealed to Isaiah’s prophecy of Jerusalem’s salvation, several elders cited a different prophetic precedent from Isaiah’s contemporary Micah in Jeremiah’s support:

And some of the elders of the land arose and said to the entire assemblage of the people, “Micah the Morashtite, who prophesied in the days of King Hezekiah of Judah, said to all the people of Judah: ‘Thus said the Lord of Hosts: Zion shall be plowed as a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins and the Temple Mount a shrine in the woods.’ Did King Hezekiah of Judah, and all Judah, put him to death? Did he not rather fear the Lord and implore the Lord, so that the Lord renounced the punishment He had decreed against them? We are about to do great injury to ourselves!” (Jer. 26:17-19 [quoting Mic. 3:12[6]])

Jeremiah employed yet a third precedent, namely, the capture of the Ark and destruction of Shiloh in Eli’s time (I Sam. 4-7[7]). Just as the Ark did not save Israel when they had religious failings then; so Jerusalem and the Temple would not save Israel now unless the people repent (Jer. 7:12-15; 26:6).

Jeremiah’s argument could be framed as follows: only a prophet can know how and when to apply earlier prophecies and historical precedents to new circumstances. While the religious establishment could cite chapter and verse to support assertions for or against Jeremiah, only Jeremiah could know which precedent applied because he was a prophet.

This trial almost cost Jeremiah his life. How could he prove that he was not a false prophet? We have the Book of Jeremiah and therefore our tradition affirms that he was a true prophet. However, even a well-intentioned God-fearer in Jeremiah’s time would not necessarily have been sure. We explore this issue in the following chapter.

Are Pregnant Women Obligated to Fast on Religious Fast Days

opinion of  Rabbi Moshe Zuriel

Many Rabbis are questioned by pregnant women if they are obligated to fast on Yom Kippur and other fast days, such as Tisha B'Av. These women fear that fasting may lead to miscarriage or premature birth, with its consequent damages to the infant.

A respected rabbinic authority in Israel, Rabbi Israel Fisher, permitted pregnant women to eat and drink during Yom Kippur, if limited to small amounts, 30 grams of solids (about one ounce) and 40 grams of liquids, if no more than that is taken during any nine minute period. This can be done again and again at proper nine minute intervals. The reason for this, he claimed, is that to his knowledge tens of pregnant women doing this fast, had miscarriages. We know that Pikuah Nefesh, even of a fetus, takes priority over fasting.

Many prominent rabbis disagreed with this permissive ruling, citing the Shulhan Arukh which specifically prohibits eating or drinking anything on this day, even for pregnant women.

Rabbi Moshe Zuriel, a highly respected rabbinic scholar in Israel, has written an article in which he supports the view of Rabbi Fisher. Rabbi Zuriel checked with medical authorities and found that Rabbi Fisher is right!

Statistics gathered by the Siroka Hospital (Be-er Sheba) were drawn from the past twenty three years dealing with 744 births.  The study (http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/14767058.2014.954998)  has revealed that the risk factor was significantly higher among those Jewish women who were fasting on Yom Kippur. In cases of premature birth before 37 weeks of pregnancy, the percentages of death of the fetus were 75-80 percent.  Premature births also face problems relating to proper lung development, damage to the nerve system, stomach problems, sight and hearing problems.

In the Hebrew article that was published in the Israeli Techumin (volume 37, pages 71-81), Rabbi Zuriel cites a prominent Halakhic authority, Havot Yair who ruled that eating less than the prohibited quantity (Shi-ur akhila) is only Rabbinically prohibited. Therefore, if a pregnant woman feels weak and unable to fast the full day, she should be permitted to eat and drink less than the prohibited quantity.

Rabbi Zuriel cites other halakhic authorities who concur with Rabbi Fisher's ruling. The halakha calls for leniency when there is a doubt concerning saving human life. Pregnant women who feel great weakness due to the fast and had no chance to ask their doctor's advice before the fast day, and during the fast day have not the ability to ask their rabbi, should eat and drink the modicum amounts aforementioned at no less than nine minute intervals. It is advised that  pregnant women consult their doctor and rabbi prior to the onset of a fast day, in order to determine what is best in their own specific case.

(The first part of this article is drawn from Marc D. Angel, Voices in Exile, Ktav Publishing House, Hoboken, 1991, pp.152-155.)

            Grace Aguilar (1816–1847) belonged to the Sephardic community of London. Although her life was cut short by an untimely death, she left a remarkable literary legacy. Aside from a number of novels, she also wrote works relating to Jewish religious teachings.

            She was concerned that the wave of modernism was undermining the foundations of traditional religious life. Jews were seeking success in the secular world; the bond of religion was weakening. She was particularly aware of the spiritual turmoil among Jewish youth, and she sought to address their religious questions and to thereby strengthen their faith.

            Aguilar corresponded with Isaac Leeser, spiritual leader of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, and he was of much help to her. Indeed, he edited several of her works for publication, including Shema Yisrael: The Spirit of Judaism. This work reflected Aguilar’s deep concern that Jewish youth were not receiving a proper spiritual education in Judaism. She feared that they would be attracted to Christianity, which was popularly portrayed as a religion of the spirit. In contrast, Judaism was described as a religion of numerous detailed observances. Presented as an elaborate commentary on the first paragraph of the Shema (which she transliterated in the Spanish and Portuguese style as Shemang), the book dealt with a wide range of religious topics, emphasizing the profound spirituality inherent in Judaism.

            Grace Aguilar argued that if Jews understood the true power and beauty of their religion, they would proudly assert their Jewishness instead of trying to conceal it. The repetition of the Shema itself is a source of holy comfort. If recited regularly “we shall go forth, no longer striving to conceal our religion through shame (for it can only be such a base emotion prompting us to conceal it in free and happy England); but strengthened, sanctified by its blessed spirit, we shall feel the soul elevated within us” (Shema Yisrael: The Spirit of Judaism, p. 9).

            She stressed the need for Jews to devote themselves to the study of the Bible, the foundation of Judaism. In so doing, she made some pejorative remarks about “tradition,” apparently referring to the traditional stress on fulfilling the details of the law. (Isaac Leeser, in his notes to the book, took her to task on several occasions for her detraction of “tradition.”) (Ibid., pp. 21, 100, 104) However, Aguilar can hardly be accused of being unorthodox and opposed to the observance of mitzvoth.

She consistently called for the faithful observance of the commandments in their details: “Instead then of seeking to find excuses for their non-performance, should we not rather glory in the minutest observance which would stamp us as so peculiarly the Lord’s own, and deem it a glorious privilege to be thus marked out not only in feature and in faith, but in our civil and religious code, as the chosen of God?” (Ibid., pp. 225-226).

            It may be argued that her stress on the Bible and seeming deprecation of “tradition” was her way of trying to appeal to the religious needs of her audience. She perceived her readers as being under the influence of Christian notions of what a religion should be. By asking Jews to read the Bible, she was asking them to do something that was desirable even for Christians, who also venerated the Bible. By emphasizing the spirit of Judaism, she wished to convey to Jews that they had no spiritual need whatsoever to turn to Christianity. But in the process of stressing the Jewish spirit, she found it necessary at times to downplay the details of the laws of Judaism as transmitted by tradition. These details themselves had to be framed within a context of spirituality and not be seen as ends in themselves.

            In The Jewish Faith: Its Spiritual Consolation, Moral Guidance, and Immortal Hope, completed shortly before her death, Aguilar presented her arguments in the form of a series of letters from a knowledgeable Jewish woman to her beloved young friend, an orphan with little Jewish education. She felt that this style of presentation would be more interesting for her readers, especially younger readers whom she hoped to influence.

            In the introduction to the book, she emphasized the need to present sophisticated religious educational materials to young people. Youth were easily influenced by outside sources; unless they had a proper understanding of Judaism, they would be tempted to abandon it. Indeed, the orphan to whom the letters in the book were addressed had been considering the possibility of converting to Christianity, believing that Christianity offered more spirituality than Judaism. The author, of course, forcefully refuted this claim; in the end, the orphan did not convert, but rather became a more devoted Jew.

            Grace Aguilar expressed the conviction that it was necessary to provide Jewish education for girls as well as boys. She lamented the fact that the education of Jewish girls had not been given adequate attention. She described her book as “an humble help in supplying the painful want of Anglo-Jewish literature, to elucidate for our female youth the tenets of their own, and so remove all danger from the perusal of abler and better works by spiritual Christians” (The Jewish Faith, p. 10).

            Arguing that the new knowledge and ideas brought about by the advances in science did not contradict the truth of the divinely revealed Torah, Aguilar wrote: “So simple, so easy appears to me the union of Revelation and all science, that how any mind can reject the one as contradicting the other is as utterly incomprehensible as it is fearful” (Ibid., p. 124). Scoffers who scorned the truth of religion were guilty of arrogance; they did not have a proper understanding of religion. Aguilar was obviously troubled by the increase in skepticism among Jews and by their intellectual surrender to the antireligious proponents of modern science and philosophy.

            Moreover, Jews were not learning the spiritual aspects of Judaism. They were taught laws and customs, but often had no insight into the deeper meanings and ideas of Jewish tradition. She noted that the Spanish and Portuguese Jews tended to stress the external forms of religious ceremony, giving the impression that these forms were the essence of Judaism. While she recognized the reasons for the emphasis on form, she argued for the necessity of emphasizing the spiritual aspects of Jewish teachings. She warned, however, that people should not abandon religious observance, thinking that spirituality was of higher value. On the contrary, the observances gave expression to the spiritual feelings of love of God. She wrote that “every spiritual Hebrew, instead of disregarding the outward ceremonies, will delight in obeying them for the love he bears his God, welcoming them as immediate instructions from Him, even as a child obeys with joy and gladness the slightest bidding of those he loves” (Ibid. p. 221).

            Aguilar was troubled by the phenomenon of Jews who achieved success in general society but in the process moved away from Jewish commitment. “Many, indeed, have lately distinguished themselves in the law, and in the fine arts of the English world; but why will not these gifted spirits do something for Judaism as well as England? There is no need to neglect the interests of the latter, in attending to the need of the former. We want Jewish writers, Jewish books” (Ibid., p. 264). She was convinced that if the most enlightened Jewish minds devoted themselves to presenting Judaism at its best, the non-Jewish world would be duly impressed. Hatred of Jews would diminish as non-Jews came to learn about and respect Judaism and Jews.

Grace Aguilar’s writings reflected major issues of modernism: the education of women, the need for spirituality, the renewed interest in the Bible, the critique of blind obedience to details of the laws without understanding their deeper meanings. They also shed light on the religiosity of her reading audience: relatively unversed in Jewish learning, skeptical about the mitzvoth, susceptible to the spiritual charm of Christianity. (Leeser challenged the latter point, believing that it was very rare for a Jew to convert to Christianity. As he saw the problem, Jews were simply becoming apathetic to their own spiritual heritage.) (Shema Yisrael, pp. viii, 165)

Grace Aguilar’s essential goal was to demonstrate that loyalty to traditional Judaism was not antipathetic to success in the modern world. By studying the classic sources of their religion and maintaining observance of the commandments, Jews would be secure in their own faith and could function more confidently in the general non-Jewish society.

(The following pages are drawn from Ronda Angel Arking, “’A Spirit of Inquiry:’ Grace Aguilar’s Private Spirituality and Progressive Orthodoxy,” Conversations, Issue 3, Winter 2009, pp. 31-41.)
            While not a “feminist” in the modern sense of the word, she was a strong advocate of women’s rights and responsibilities within Jewish life. Indeed, women played a central role in the maintenance and transmission of our traditions. “Free to assert their right as immortal children of the living God, let not the women of Israel be backward in proving that they, too, have a station to uphold, and a “mission” to perform, not alone as daughters, wives, and mothers, but as witnesses of that faith which first raised, cherished, and defended them…. Let us then endeavor to convince the nations of the high privileges we enjoy, in common with our fathers, brothers, and husbands, as the first-born of the Lord” (The Women of Israel, pp. 12–13).

Jewish mothers had an amazing role of instilling Judaism in the hearts of their children. “A mother, whose heart is in her work will find many opportunities, which properly improved, will lead her little charge to God. … A mother’s lips should teach [prayers and Bible] to her child, and not leave the first impressions of religion to be received from a Christian nurse. Were the associations of a mother connected with the act of praying, associations of such long continuance that the child knew not when they were implanted: the piety of maturer years would not be so likely to waver” (Shema Yisrael, p. 225).

Aguilar faced several issues as a traditional Jewish woman. First, she was denied access to rabbinical texts. Although Jews were relatively emancipated in English society, Jewish women were not fully emancipated in traditional Jewish circles. Second, she felt the pressures of Christian missionaries who sought to convert Jews, and saw Jewish girls and women as prime candidates for conversion.  Aguilar wrote, therefore, to help women stand strong against conversionary pressures. For example, in her novel The Vale of Cedars, she presents a heroic main character who chooses to give up the (Christian) love of her life—and ultimately suffers at the hands of Inquisitors—in order to remain true to her Jewish faith.

What Jewish women needed, according to Aguilar, was to be strengthened in their Judaism, and to feel fulfilled intellectually and spiritually. She wrote The Women of Israel as an apologetic text; in it, she “proves” women’s equality in Judaism—stressing that even the ideal Victorian womanhood can be found in Jewish texts. Jewish women, she argues, should not be seduced by missionaries’ arguments that Judaism relegates them to second-class citizens.

The Women of Israel became a very popular book among Jewish and Christian readers. It highlights some of Aguilar’s theological ideas, her social values, and some of the tensions inherent in her enlightened traditionalism. When examining the lives of biblical women, she glorifies the domestic sphere as the arena of true spirituality and communion with God. For example, in retelling the story of the matriarch Sarah, Aguilar envisions a Victorian model of domesticity—who is at the same time equal in God’s eyes to her husband, Abraham: “The beautiful confidence and true affection subsisting between Abram and Sarai, marks unanswerably their equality; that his wife was to Abram friend as well as partner; and yet, that Sarai knew perfectly her own station, and never attempted to push herself forward in unseemly counsel, or use the influence which she so largely possessed for any weak or sinful purpose….There is no pride so dangerous and subtle as spiritual pride….But in Sarai there was none of this… it is not always the most blessed and distinguished woman who attends the most faithfully to her domestic duties, and preserves unharmed and untainted that meekness and integrity which is her greatest charm” (The Women of Israel, p. 49).

To a modern reader, the idea that a meek, domestic wife has attained equality with her husband seems odd. Aguilar is here promoting Victorian ideals of womanhood alongside a Jewish philosophy that holds women equal in status and responsibility to men. Although she believes that women and men necessarily have different “stations,” or prescribed social roles, she emphasizes women’s spiritual equality, or her equality in worth as a human being in the eyes of God.

In her description of Hannah, for example, she lauds Hannah’s ability to privately utter her own prayers: her poetry shows her intellect, as her poem is “a forcible illustration of the intellectual as well as the spiritual piety which characterized the women of Israel, and which in its very existence denies the possibility of degradation applying to women, either individually, socially, or domestically” (Ibid., p. 260). Additionally, Hannah is able to enter the Temple, showing that she has equal access to holy places. Hannah’s private, quiet prayer—the first of its type—is used by rabbis as the model of prayer in general. Aguilar praises Hannah’s prayer for its quiet modesty and its feeling and intellectual composition, thus elevating a woman’s role to the paradigm of all prayers said by Jewish men and women.

Aguilar’s concern is for the private, spiritual nature of Judaism and the individual’s ability to read Jewish texts and draw use these texts to preserve and strengthen one’s identity. For example, in discussing Yokheved, the mother of Moses, Aguilar follows the rabbinic interpretation that Moses was sent to live with his birth mother until he was weaned. In these few years, Yokheved was able to educate her son and create in him an identity that would enable him to become a great leader of the Jewish people. Home, the site of maternal love and education, is glorified as the only place a Jewish woman should desire to reside and lead: “[Mothers of Israel should] follow the example of the mother of Moses, and make their sons the receivers, and in their turn the promulgators, of that holy law which is their glorious inheritance” (Ibid., p. 144).

In the nineteenth century, Jewish women were not taught Talmud; they were exempt from public prayer; and they could not hold positions of authority in the Jewish community. But rather than chase after a “male” type of emancipation, Aguilar raises the “female” spaces of the Jewish woman to a higher plane than that of Jewish men. Private, personal relationships with God are seen throughout the Bible; thus spirituality should be an individual, private affair. But while spirituality is elevated as a private value for women and men, she believes that public societal positions should be left in the male domain; women should remain in that spiritual, private sphere.

            While Aguilar’s thinking was rooted in traditionalism, she recognized the need for a more progressive and inclusive approach. “A new era is dawning for us. Persecution and intolerance have in so many lands ceased to predominate, that Israel may once more breathe in freedom.… The Bible may be perused in freedom… A spirit of inquiry, of patriotism, or earnestness in seeking to know the Lord and obey Him…is springing up” (Ibid.,  pp. 11–12).

Aguilar continually placed the Bible on a pedestal of unquestioned authority. For example, she declared that “the Bible and reason are the only guides to which the child of Israel can look in security….Those observances…for which no reason can be assigned save the ideas of our ancient fathers, cannot be compared in weight and consequence to the piety of the heart” (The Spirit of Judaism, p. 228).

Aguilar argues that “Circumstances demand the modification…of some of these Rabbinical statutes; and could the wise and pious originators have been consulted on the subject, they would have unhesitatingly adopted those measures” (Ibid., p. 31). Rather than reject rabbinic law, Aguilar promotes modification—based on contemporary realities. The process of halakhic decision-making is a fluid, changing structure. By viewing the Oral Law as “divine,” one discredits the whole nature of the halakhic process, which necessarily evolves as new realities crop up. Additionally, Aguilar notes, it is important to understand the backgrounds and biases of those rabbis who wrote the halakha. Looking at halakha as an evolving process, Aguilar demands an honest assessment of the origins and intellectual validity of each law as it is practiced. She thus encourages every Jew to go back to the original source—the Bible—to try to understand the essential spirit of the halakha. As a traditional Jew, she encourages a more rational, Bible and reason-based, evolving Orthodoxy that will be rich in tradition and spirituality for men and women alike.