National Scholar Updates

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.

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.

Rafael Medoff, The Jews Should Keep Quiet: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and the Holocaust (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2019)

Reviewed by Dr. Peter Schotten 

    For almost ninety years, there has existed something of a love affair between American Jewry and Franklin Roosevelt.  Many Jews reflectively have regarded Roosevelt as their friend and protector--as the President who overcame a worldwide depression while later helping vanquish Hitler's world-wide genocidal ambitions.  In the academic world, however, the verdict has not been so clear.  Ever since the 1984 publication of David Wyman's The Abandonment of the Jews, Roosevelt's special status among Jews has undergone serious challenge.  Wyman believed that Roosevelt was largely indifferent to the fate of persecuted European Jews.  Passing up numerous opportunities to mitigate the effects of Hitler's genocide, inaction and indifference were Roosevelt's responses.  Nor, according to Wyman, did America's Jewish leadership do enough to save the lives of European Jews.  In particular, Reform Rabbi Stephen Wise, the most prominent American Jewish Zionist leader of his day, failed notably. The source of Wise's failure, argued Wyman, was his misplaced trust in Franklin Roosevelt.   

    Rafael Medoff chairs the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and, not surprisingly, dedicates his book to Wyman, his late friend, literary collaborator and teacher.  Medoff endorses Wyman's scholarship but ups the ante. It was not mere political calculation or indifference that motivated Roosevelt but also anti-Semitism.  Despite Roosevelt's failings, Wise constantly supported Roosevelt, prizing his access to the President.  Roosevelt took for granted Wise's constant loyalty and played the Rabbi.  Medoff presents a history of Roosevelt's deceptions and Wise's self-deception.   It is not a pretty picture.   

      Medoff describes Roosevelt’s dealings with Wise on Jewish matters of concern to be manipulative, dishonest and expedient. But more importantly is Medoff's description of Wise's effectiveness and character. It constitutes the most important aspect of his scholarship.  Charmed by Roosevelt's commitment to progressive causes, Rabbi Wise (who helped found the ACLU, was a board member of the NAACP and was active in women's suffrage, labor and disarmament causes), found Roosevelt politically admirable. Throughout Roosevelt's Presidency, Wise generally refrained from public criticism of Roosevelt and sought to prevent other Jewish leaders from voicing criticism of the President.  He sought no alliances with Republicans, putting his entire faith in Roosevelt. He prized his access to the White House and often later, in private conservations, would exaggerate his influence on the President.  All the time, Wise wanted to fit into the assimilated mainstream of secular American life and he wanted other Jews to do so as well. Too often, he opposed calling excessive attention to his peoples' distinctiveness or to their unique suffering, a political failing according to Medoff. Nor did he like having his leadership challenged.  His private letters to and about critics--even his public pronouncements--could be nasty and self- serving.  Often, it seemed that Wise was far too concerned with maintaining his  power and authority within the numerous Jewish organizations he headed or in which he participated.   

     Here is one striking example.  By September, 1942, Wise had received confirmation of his worst fears regarding the ongoing and intended genocide against European Jews.  His private correspondence spoke of his utter distress and sleepless nights.    Medoff writes that although he does not doubt the Rabbi's sincerity, "one would have expected him to set aside the more mundane matters on his usually daily schedule to focus on the pressing life-and-death situations in Hitler-occupied Europe."  "Yet,” continues Medoff,, "Wise's activities in September indicate that he did not separate himself from his usual business."  This self-indulgent organizational mania was evident even late in his life when he was battling a variety of serious health issues.  Even then, Wise was reluctant to let go.

     Medoff's book is the sober work of a serious historian.  His use of source material is excellent and, for the most part, his observations are considered and judicious.  His scholarship reinforces the unsustainability of the widespread unqualified popular Jewish adulation of both President Roosevelt and Rabbi Wise.  It fortifies the new scholarly consensus: that there was more President Roosevelt could have done for the Jews with relatively modest effort.  He could have quietly worked to increase the number of Jewish refugees admitted into the United States, even under existing quotas.  He could have countered the endemic anti-Semitism so deeply entrenched in the State Department. He could have led far more effectively in educating public opinion about the Nazi's specifically anti-Jewish genocide.  Such an effort may not have made a difference but it would have been the right thing to do.  Regarding Rabbi Wise, Medoff causes us to understand the complexity of motivations and temptations that often influence important individuals and compromise those who intend good in public life.  As to the question of whether the more vigorous, less administration-friendly political tactics favored by Wise's rivals'  (and Medoff) would have ultimately proven more effective in influencing American policy--indeed if any pro-Jewish advocacy strategy would have made much difference --remains a matter of conjecture.   

    But is Medoff's more radical critique of the failure of Jewish leadership and Presidential leadership correct?  Perhaps; but this most important question is not so easily settled. Admittedly, Roosevelt could have done more.  But Roosevelt himself, and Jewish defenders like Lucy Dawidowicz, have argued that, in the largest sense preserving Jewish lives was dependent on winning World War II. That was what mattered most.  Of course, it was not predestined that the allies would emerge victorious from that conflict.  To the contrary, at the time that the news of Hitler's final solution was filtering to the West in late 1942, the War's outcome was in doubt. Yes, the fate of most all of Europe's Jews was likely pre-ordained.  Nonetheless, a successful conclusion to the War would end Hitler's malignant menace forever, saving some Jewish lives in Europe and worldwide.  In that sense Roosevelt's war management mattered, to all free peoples generally and to Jews in particular. Furthermore, a skillful waging of the War saved Jewish lives in other ways that are often overlooked, perhaps even at the time by Roosevelt. As Breitman and Lichtman point out in their indispensible FDR and the Jews, Roosevelt's shipment of A-20 bombers and Sherman tanks helped the British defeat Rommel's armies at the decisive second battle of El Alamein. Admittedly, Roosevelt's main purpose was to join the Brits in safeguarding the Suez Canal. But by stopping Nazi domination of the Middle East and North Africa, Roosevelt also defeated stillborn a plan that had been hatched by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Adolf Hitler (among others) to extend the Holocaust beyond Europe.  That numerous Jewish lives were saved is certain.  How many they were remains undetermined.

     Before the War, dealing with an isolationist Congress that favored neutrality proved challenging for Roosevelt. Even more daunting was the later task of waging War.  It brought multiple problems that had to be surmounted on a daily basis.  Although Medoff effectively discusses the bureaucracy and personalities surrounding Roosevelt as he dealt with Jewish concerns during World War II (and earlier during the depression), one does not always get a sense of the larger picture. Larger contextual questions of strategy, economics, maintaining supplies and alliances and broader issues of international relations during the War are largely ignored.  One does not have a sense of the many competing international and national trade-offs and pressures that constantly faced Roosevelt during this time of extreme and extended stress.  Rather, Medoff's book is focused narrowly on the relationship between the Jews and the Roosevelt Administration, almost always to the exclusion of all other considerations.  In that dynamic, Jewish concerns were of course everything to Jews. Yet given Roosevelt's larger political and strategic concerns, Jewish concerns simply did not loom large.  On those occasions when President Roosevelt sat across the room from Rabbi Wise, and disagreed about what should or could be done, these two men simply prioritized their political and moral obligations differently.  Whatever feelings existed or did not exist in Roosevelt's heart, each was differently situated, empowered by different constituents, seeking to achieve different, but sometimes overlapping, goals   

    There is another vexing problem when it comes to evaluating this book's thesis.  Just as it was difficult to determine if Roosevelt possessed anti-Semitic sentiments (as Medoff suggests), so it is difficult to evaluate many of Roosevelt's actions or inactions at this time.  It is not only that the President lived in a world of many, often competing demands which made it difficult for others to understand why he acted as he did.  It is also that Roosevelt's actions or inactions usually admitted more than one plausible explanation.  Over time, the historical record regarding Roosevelt has become much clearer. But Roosevelt has not.  He remains an enigma.  As Dawidowicz writes succinctly "he left scarcely any record of his feelings and ideas."  Interpreting Roosevelt is a scholarly art, and yet it frequently it is an art that yields disputable results. 

      Medoff's case against Roosevelt (and by implication against Wise) looks at the President (and his administration's) political actions and policies.  Medoff's topical analysis examines Roosevelt's interaction with Jewish leaders, specifically his action (or inaction) regarding Jewish immigration, Roosevelt's  efforts (or lack of effort) regarding possible Jewish worldwide resettlement, the St. Louis incident, the possibility of bombing Auschwitz and the railroad tracks leading to it, and Roosevelt's post-war thoughts regarding the creation of an eventual Jewish homeland.  Except for his effort to win the War, no one overarching perspective or point of view defines or unites Roosevelt's response to these concerns. There are numerous reason why. Roosevelt remained ever the pragmatist.  He spoke differently to different people.  Both nationally and internationally, political considerations mattered.  Thus, his language was often calculated and prudent. Additionally, he also trafficked in political generalizations.  Often he was inscrutable. 

    Multiple illustrations of this pattern of persistent elusiveness exist.  Examining one proves useful and illustrates the frequent tentativeness of rendering conclusive historical pronouncements regarding Roosevelt's thoughts and actions.  On February 14, 1945 an exhausted Franklin Roosevelt made time to meet in Egypt with Saudi Arabia's King Saud's aboard the cruiser USS Quincy. The President had just returned from Yalta.  He was not well; in two months he would be dead.  But that day, with the War winding down, he wanted to discuss the future of the Middle East and also wished to create space for a greater Jewish presence there.  To do that, he would have to persuade Saud. Roosevelt had received numerous warnings that the King was intransigent on the matter and not open to accommodation. Still he went.  Why?  The most likely explanation supplied by Radosh and Radosh (in A Safe Haven: Harry Truman and the Founding of Israel).  According to them, "FDR still believed that his charm and commitment to negotiation could work and that he would be able to make a breakthrough that would be acceptable to all sides."   But the talks went nowhere as Saud's hostility to an enhanced Jewish Mideast presence proved to be intractable and fanatical. Roosevelt assured Saud that there would be future consultations and assured him that he would not advantage the Jews at the expense of the Arab interests. Subsequently, on March 1, in an address to Congress.  Roosevelt ad-libbed that "I learned more about the whole of Arabia--the Muslims--the Jewish problem--by talking to Bin Saud for five minutes than I could have learned in the exchange of two or three dozen letters." 

    What did Roosevelt mean?  Naturally, Jewish leaders were outraged, interpreting his remark to constitute a change in policy and an explicit endorsement of the Arab Middle East perspective. More likely, as has been widely pointed out, the remarks reflected that Roosevelt now felt that a mutually acceptable Palestine solution, however desirable, was impossible.  He now believed that any such attempt probably would end badly because Arab hostility to Jewish aspirations was unalterable and therefore was likely to produce even more Jewish deaths, perhaps even another Jewish genocide.

      The ambiguity of interpretation that surrounded Roosevelt's language to Congress (and to King Saud for that matter) grew out of Roosevelt's elusiveness and partially from the fact that in the midst of wartime Roosevelt had not enunciated, and perhaps had yet not formulated, a clear vision of a post Holocaust Middle East.  It is not surprising that Roosevelt may have had no carefully formulated, specific view of this matter.  Throughout his presidency, Roosevelt tended to react ad hoc to issues involving the Jews.   Breitman and Liebtman (in FDR and the Jews) argue that FDR's relationship to the Jews was ambiguous and ever changing.  Medoff offers a different explanation. FDR did not much care for Jews and consistently desired that they would keep quiet and leave him alone. This was the Roosevelt Rabbi Wise seldom saw. Too often Wise was charmed and seduced by his access and direct encounters with the charismatic President.  Also, Medoff argues that Wise often rejected bolder pro-Jewish strategies and overlooked political alternatives while focusing all his considerable efforts on the President.  As provocative as Medoff's criticisms are, questions linger.  Was there really a critical mass in the Republican Party that would have made any difference?  Would going around Roosevelt have proven more productive in advancing Jewish goals?  How much influence could any Jewish presence, exercising any strategy, truly have wielded?  Inquiring minds continue to wonder.

      Perhaps that is the point.  Rafael Medoff has provided a thorough, well documented interpretation of the Roosevelt-Wise relationship.  Read the book.  But if you want to understand the many nuances in the interaction between FDR and organized Jewish interests during this historical period, at a minimum, also read the comprehensive and well-balanced FDR and the Jews by Richard Breitman and Allan Lichtman.  Should you have even more time, also take a look at two essays by Lucy Dawidowicz that paint President Roosevelt and Rabbi Wise in a more favorable light.  Although a bit dated, her essays "Could America have Rescued Europe's Jews?" and "Indicting American Jews" still have bite and saliency. They appear as chapters 10 and 11 in  Neal Kozodoy's edited volume of her essays, What is the Use of Jewish History?  All of these works shed considerable light on this important and troubling intersection of American and Jewish history.  Together, they provide a rich legacy of education as well as a continuing source for further reflection. 

  Catastrophes are all too well known in Jewish history and therefore in the Jewish psyche and in the Jewish faith. There is even a Hebrew word for such an event: Hurban.  This word comes from a verb that means “to destroy” and is related to the Hebrew word for sword.  It means destruction and it is used primarily to refer to the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem.  By extension it can refer to any of the catastrophes in Jewish history: the Crusades (during which many Jewish communities in Europe were massacred), the Expulsion from Spain in 1492, and the Holocaust among others. There is an entire literature on the subject.  I will look at some of the events related to the destruction of the two Temples in ancient Israel, and the responses to them by those who witnessed them.

            I would divide the kinds of responses into three categories: lamentation, destruction (the desire for revenge or power), and construction (acts of faith and building for the future).  The second and third are two sides of the same coin, as each is a way of seeking empowerment in the wake of being overwhelmed by violence or oppression.  It is the choice between these two that is most crucial in drawing lessons from the catastrophes in Jewish history.

The Destruction of the First Temple

            The Temple of Solomon, known to Jews as the First Temple, was built at the point in Jewish history which is regarded as the ideal, the high point of our history.  Our borders were at their greatest extent, there were no wars, and the kingdom was prosperous, engaging in trade perhaps as far away as India.  As with most peoples in that part of the ancient world, the Jewish kingdom considered the temple to its God as the symbol of the power and welfare of the entire nation.  When one nation defeated another the loser’s God’s temple was often destroyed.  In 586 BCE the Babylonians attacked and besieged Jerusalem because of repeated rebellions against their empire.  They destroyed the city and the Temple with it.  The people were forced into exile as was often the case with rebellious subject nations.

            The book of Lamentations in the Bible, usually ascribed to the prophet Jeremiah, is a lamentation over the destroyed city.  It begins

Alas!

Lonely sits the city

Once great with people!

She that was great among nations

Is become like a widow… ^[1]

This powerful elegy does much more than weep and wail, however.  It does describe the horrors of the Destruction and what followed and Jeremiah howls with grief.  However Lamentations also tells of why God allowed this Hurban to occur.  It was the just punishment for a people that had strayed from faithfulness to its covenant with God.  Many prophets had warned that this would happen, beginning with Moses in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.  Jeremiah calls on the Eternal to forgive the people and to restore them to their land and to allow the city to be rebuilt.  Jeremiah calls on the people to repent.

                        Let us search and examine our ways.

                        And turn back to the Eternal.

                        Let us lift up our hearts with our hands

                        To God in Heaven.

                        We have transgressed and rebelled.

                        And you have not forgiven.^[2]

The justification of Divine Justice (theodicy) and the appeals for repentance represent a revolutionary departure from the thinking of the time.  Most nations that suffered this kind of destruction simply disappeared from history, their very identities obliterated.  Jeremiah affirmed that there is only one God and that God is sovereign over all nations.  The covenant made at Mount Sinai is eternal and still stands.  If the people will repent it will be restored.  Against all the rules of history the Jewish people survived destruction and exile because they were made to see beyond themselves and beyond the present moment.

            Jeremiah himself performed an act shortly before the destruction, which he foresaw.  Following a legal obligation he wrote a contract that would redeem a piece of family property in the future.^[3]  After following the most traditional form of the transaction he said to God,

…the city, because of sword and famine and pestilence, is at the mercy of the Chaldeans who are attacking it.  What You threatened has come to pass – as You see.  Yet You, Eternal One, O God, said to me, ‘buy the land for money and call in witnesses – when the city is at the mercy of the Chaldeans.’

Like many things Jeremiah did during his life, this was a symbolic act expressing faith that in the future what had been destroyed would be rebuilt and the people would return from their exile. 

The Destruction of the Second Temple

          After only seventy years the Persian Empire defeated the Babylonians and returned all of the exiled peoples to their homelands.  A contingent of Jews did go back and rebuilt Jerusalem.  The majority, who remained in Babylonia and elsewhere became the beginning of the Diaspora community.  From that time until this a majority of the Jewish people, but never all the Jewish people, has lived outside of the Land of Israel.  The task of creating a national existence outside of the Land of Israel was successful. For example, it is believed that the synagogue was created in the Babylonian exile as a center for meeting both spiritual and social needs.

            It would be too much to recount the history of the Second Temple here, but in the year 66 CE there was a revolt by Jewish nationalists against the Roman Empire.  That war lasted four years and ended predictably with a Roman victory and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.  Once again this was a completely devastating event.  There is a very large literature of responses to it.^[4] There were lamentations written.  These may be found within various works of Rabbinic literature that were edited and published long after this event.

            There were two primary reactions at the time.  The first was a continuing movement of rebellion against Rome.  The Zealots who started and led the revolt held out in the fortress of Masada for a few years, but were overwhelmed by the Romans.^[5]   The following two generations saw Jewish revolts all over the Roman Empire –  in Alexandria and Cyprus, among other places.  None of these succeeded.  Finally there was another great revolt in the Land of Israel led by a man named Simon bar Koziba, better known as Bar Kochba.  His followers believed he was the Messiah who would drive out the Romans, restore Jewish independence and rebuild Jerusalem with its Temple.  This revolt was a spectacular and devastating failure.  The Romans were driven out, but they came back, defeated Bar Kochba, and committed such a great massacre of Jews that it was said the Mediterranean ran blood-red all the way to Cyprus.  Jewish self-government, which had been allowed after the first Great Revolt, was ended.  Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Roman city called Aelia Capitolina dedicated to Jupiter.  Jews were not allowed to set foot there.  Bar Kochba has been rehabilitated as a heroic figure in modern times, but his contemporaries condemned him as an impious brute who brought destruction and exile on the Jewish people.^[6]  This response was one of seeking empowerment after destruction through war and conflict.  It ignored reality and reached out for a messianic solution to the destruction of Jerusalem.  If this had been the only Jewish response, Jewish history would probably have ended there and then.

            It was, fortunately, not the only response.  There was another which was every bit as revolutionary as the one that had followed the destruction of the First Temple.  The most respected Rabbinic leader at the time was Yohanan ben Zakkai who was already eighty years old.  He pled with the Zealots who had completely taken over Jerusalem, which was then besieged by a Roman force, to offer some token of conciliation.  He wanted to avoid the destruction of Jerusalem, which he knew would occur if the Romans entered the city by force.  The Zealots’ response was to declare that anyone who went over to the Romans in any way would be executed. 

Rabbi Yohanan confided in his nephew Abba Sikra, a Zealot leader, and asked for his help.  On his advice they would give out the news that Rabbi Yohanan had become ill and then that he had died.  That meant that his body had to be carried outside the city walls, because the dead were not permitted burial within.  They got past the Zealot guards at a gate and went immediately to the Roman camp where they were taken to the general Vespasian.  Yohanan ben Zakkai greeted Vespasian, “Hail Caesar.”  The astonished general said, “I am not the Emperor.”  Just then a messenger arrived to announce that the Emperor Nero was dead and that the Roman legions had declared Vespasian his successor.  Vespasian told the Rabbi, “Since you were the first to address me as Caesar, I shall reward you.  What would you want as a reward?”  Rabbi Yohanan replied that he wanted to establish a school in the nearby town of Yavneh, which the Romans already controlled.  Vespasian granted his wish.^[7]

The “school” that Yohanan ben Zakkai established was not a school in the sense of it being a place where students were educated.  Yavneh became the seat of the Jewish government that was allowed to govern after the Revolt.  At Yavneh the Rabbis created something new – a form of Judaism that could survive destruction and exile.  It would not require a central shrine or even a tribe of priests.  The practice of Judaism devolved to every Jew equally.  Rabbis would not be clergy, but teachers and judges.  The legal tradition, which existed mostly in oral form until then, was to be codified and published.  Community, family, and education, along with the synagogue would be the means of continuing the covenant tradition.  Essentially this group of scholars created Judaism as a religion.  This worked so well that it continues down to the present day, almost two millennia later.  The Dalai Lama, impressed with this history, consults with Jewish scholars to see if our history can serve as a model for Tibetans to have their identity, faith and culture survive in the long run outside of Tibet. 

There were two responses to the destruction of the Second Temple.  One was to try to recover what was lost by force.  That failed completely.  The other was to create something new.  That succeeded so well that the Jewish people far outlasted the Roman Empire.

^[1] Lamentations 1:1

^[2] ibid. 3:40-42

^[3] Jeremiah 32:6-25

^[4] The author’s Rabbinic thesis, entitled “Tannaitic Reactions to Persecution”, deals with some of this literature, especially the Midrash on Lamentations, Eykhah Rabbati.  That work is available at the HUC-JIR library in New York City.

^[5] For reasons far too complex to go into here the author does not believe that the famous mass suicide actually occurred.

^[6] This historic lesson is discussed and applied to modern Israel by Yehoshfat Harkabi in The Bar Kokhba Syndrome: Risk and Realism in International Politics, Rossel Books, Chappequa NY 1983.

^[7] Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 56a and Lamentations Rabbah I:33

(On September 12, 2004, a special service was held at Congregation Shearith Israel in New York (founded in 1654)  to mark the Congregation's 350th anniversary. Since Shearith Israel is the first Jewish Congregation in North America, this occasion also marked the 350th anniversary of American Jewry. Rabbi Marc D. Angel delivered a sermon at the 350th anniversary service, reflecting on American Jewish history through the prism of the experience of Congregation Shearith Israel. This is an abridged version of that sermon.)

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” These words from the American Declaration of Independence reflect the deepest ideals and aspirations of the American people. America is not merely a country, vast and powerful; America is an idea, a vision of life as it could be.

When these words were first proclaimed on July 4, 1776, Congregation Shearith Israel was almost 122 years old. It was a venerable community, with an impressive history--a bastion of Jewish faith and tradition,and an integral part of the American experience.

When the British invaded New York in 1776, a large group of congregants, including our Hazan Rev. Gershom Mendes Seixas,left the city rather than live under British rule. Many joined the Revolutionary army and fought for American independence. Our story in America is not built on historical abstractions, but on generations of Jews who have played their roles in the unfolding of this nation. It is a very personal history, ingrained in our collective memory.

On this 350th anniversary of the American Jewish community,we reflect on the courage and heroic efforts of our forebears who have maintained Judaism as a vibrant and living force in our lives. We express gratitude to America for having given us—and all citizens—the freedom to practice our faith. This very freedom has energized and strengthened America.

Within Congregation Shearith Israel, we have been blessed with men and women who have helped articulate Jewish ideals and American ideals. Their voices have blended in with the voices of fellow Americans of various religions and races,to help shape the dream and reality of America.

The American Declaration of Independence pronounced that all men are created equal. In his famous letter to the Jewish community of Newport, in August 1790, President George Washington hailed the United States for allowing its citizens freedom—not as a favor bestowed by one group on another—but in recognition of the inherent natural rights of all human beings. This country, wrote President Washington, “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

And yet, if equality and human dignity are at the core of American ideals, the fulfillment of these ideals have required—and still require—sacrifice and devotion. Reality has not always kept up with the ideals. In 1855, Shearith Israel member Uriah Phillips Levy—who rose to the rank of Commodore in the U.S. Navy—was dropped from the Navy’s active duty list. He was convinced that anti-Semitism was at the root of this demotion. He appealed the ruling and demanded justice.He asked: are people “now to learn to their sorrow and dismay that we too have sunk into the mire of religious intolerance and bigotry?... What is my case today, if you yield to this injustice, may tomorrow be that of the Roman Catholic or the Unitarian, the Presbyterian or the Methodist, the Episcopalian or the Baptist. There is but one safeguard: that is to be found in an honest,whole-hearted, inflexible support of the wise, the just, the impartial guarantee of the Constitution.” Levy won his case. He helped the United States remain true to its principles.

Shearith Israel member Moses Judah (1735-1822) believed that all men were created equal—including black men. In 1799, he was elected to the New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves. During his tenure on the standing committee between 1806 and 1809, about fifty slaves were freed.Through his efforts, many other slaves achieved freedom. He exerted himself to fight injustice, to expand the American ideals of freedom and equality regardless of race or religion.

Another of our members, Maud Nathan, believed that all men were created equal—but so were all women created equal. She was a fiery, internationally renowned suffragette, who worked tirelessly to advance a vision of America that indeed recognized the equality of all its citizens—men and women. As President of the Consumers’ League of New York from 1897-1917, Maud Nathan was a pioneer in social activism, working for the improvement of working conditions of employees in New York’s department stores. Equality and human dignity were the rights of all Americans,rich and poor, men and women.

The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that human beings have unalienable rights, among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.These words express the hope and optimism of America. They are a repudiation of the tyranny and oppression that prevailed—and still prevail—in so many lands. America is a land of opportunity, where people can live in freedom. The pursuit of happiness really signifies the pursuit of self-fulfillment, of a meaningful way of life. America’s challenge was—and still is—to create a harmonious society that allows us to fulfill our potentials.

President George Washington declared a day of national Thanksgiving for November 26, 1789. Shearith Israel held a service, at which Hazan Gershom Mendes Seixas called on this congregation “to unite, with cheerfulness and uprightness…to promote that which has a tendency to the public good.” Hazzan Seixas believed that Jews, in being faithful to Jewish tradition, would be constructive and active participants in American society.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were not reserved only for those born in America; they are the rights of all human beings everywhere. This notion underlies the idealism of the American dream, calling for a sense of responsibility for all suffering people, whether at home or abroad. American Jews have been particularly sensitive and responsive to this ideal.

On March 8,1847, Hazan Jacques Judah Lyons addressed a gathering at Shearith Israel for the purpose of raising funds for Irish famine relief. The potato crop in Ireland had failed in 1846, resulting in widespread famine. Hazan Lyons well realized that the Jewish community needed charitable dollars for its own internal needs; and yet he insisted that Jews reach out and help the people of Ireland. He said that there was one indestructible and all-powerful link between us and the Irish sufferers: “That link, my brethren,is HUMANITY! Its appeal to the heart surmounts every obstacle. Clime, color, sect are barriers which impede not its progress thither.” In assisting with Irish famine relief, the Jewish community reflected its commitment to the well-being of all suffering human beings.American Jewry grew into—and has continued to be—a great philanthropic community perhaps unmatched in history. Never have so few given so much to so many. In this, we have been true to our Jewish tradition, and true to the spirit of America.

Who articulated the hope and promise of America more eloquently than Emma Lazarus? “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” How appropriate it is that her poem is affixed to the great symbol of American freedom, the Statue of Liberty.

Alice Menken, (for many years President of our Sisterhood) did remarkable work to help immigrants, to assist young women who ran into trouble with the law, to promote reform of the American prison system. She wrote: “We must seek a balanced philosophy of life. We must live to make the world worth living in, with new ideals, less suffering, and more joy.”

Americans see ourselves as one nation, indivisible, under God, with liberty and justice for all. Yet, liberty and justice are not automatically attained. They have required—and still require—wisdom, vigilance, and active participation. America prides itself on being a nation of laws, with no one above the law. The American legal tradition has been enriched by the insights and the work of many American Jews.

In one of his essays, Justice Benjamin Nathan Cardozo—a devoted member of Shearith Israel--referred to a Talmudic passage which has been incorporated into our prayer book. It asks that the Almighty let His mercy prevail over strict justice. Justice Cardozo reminded us that the American system relies not only on justice—but on mercy. Mercy entails not merely an understanding of laws, but an understanding of the human predicament, of human nature, of the circumstances prevailing inhuman society. Another of our members,Federal Judge William Herlands, echoed this sentiment when he stated that Justice without Mercy—is just ice!

Our late rabbis Henry Pereira Mendes, David de Sola Pool and Louis C.Gerstein, were singularly devoted to social welfare, to religious education, to the land of Israel. They distinguished themselves for their devotion to Zionism, and played their parts in the remarkable unfolding of the State of Israel. They, along with so many American Jews, have keenly understood how much unites Israel and the United States—two beacons of democracy and idealism in a very troubled world.

During the past 350 years, the American Jewish community has accomplished much and contributed valiantly to all aspects of American life. We have cherished our participation in American life. We have been free to practice our faith and teach our Torah. We have worked with Americans of other faiths and traditions to mold a better,stronger, more idealistic nation.

America today is not just a powerful and vast country. It is also an idea, a compelling idea that has a message for all people in all lands. As American Jews, we are committed to the ideals of freedom and equality, human dignity and security, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of harmony among ourselves and throughout the world. We have come far as a nation, but very much remains to be done. May God give us the strength and resolve to carry on, to work proudly as Jews to bring the American dream to many more generations of humanity.

Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

—Maya Angelou.[1]

Courage, at its heart, is the trait that underlies every other. Now, this may seem counterintuitive. If one was to look at the classical character traits (what we refer to in Hebrew as middot), courage is not listed among the most normative or noble attributes. Courage does not necessarily impart anivut (humility); it may be only tangentially related to simha (joy); and it may actually be counterproductive to inculcating savlanut (patience). But, without courage, would we be able to go out into the world and fulfill our soul’s potential? Without the spark that illuminates the challenging path called experience, would we be able to satiate the desire to learn and grow? 

It is important to make a disclaimer. Courage is not reserved for the likes of Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, or David Ben-Gurion. Each of us has opportunities for courage every day. Further, courage does not require putting the entirety of one’s life at risk. We do not need to have the temerity of someone like Nahshon ben Aminadav, who walks into the water hoping that God intervenes and creates a miracle. In fact, the rabbis teach that we may not solely rely on miracles if we are to be present in the world.[2] There is no virtue in taking senseless risks that put our lives or our family’s financial or emotional well-being in jeopardy. There is great risk in staying too comfortable and not changing, but there is also great risk in making ourselves and others too uncomfortable and demanding too much change too quickly.[3] 

In the following essay, we will explore eight variations on the types of courage that are necessary to excel at all other character traits. The following pages are by no means a comprehensive or definitive summation of Judaism’s ethical view toward courage, nor is it a list of categorical bromides. Rather, the eight classifications are based on my personal experiences and anecdotal meditations on the subject. In truth, the inherent definition of courage on display here will play with many facets of the term in a loose, deconstructionist manner. These characterizations will work in concert with each other and clash against each other; such is the nature of the word. Thus, this piece acts a stepping stone to place courage in the broader context of Jewish ethics. 

Courage of Being

The first category of courage is, at the most basic level, to understand that each of us is unique. Inherent in that uniqueness is the mandate to do extraordinary feats that will, in some way, change the world. While one of the great mysteries of existence is to unlock our innermost strengths, we never achieve these strengths if there’s an inability to possess self-value.

Peer pressure and the desire to fit in and to be loved are powerful emotions. But they are also crippling. Somewhere in the world, someone will despise you. It could be for your skin color, your religious beliefs, your favorite sports team; this litany of petty excuse to hate a fellow person is staggering. In the end, this is only noise; static in the ether. In this case, courage here means to have the courage to strive to be our authentic self. But how do we achieve this seemingly straightforward imperative? First, we have to realize that it takes enormous courage to hold ourselves accountable to our potential. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel breaks down the essence of this potential in a beautiful biblical metaphor:

We are all Pharaohs or slaves of Pharaohs. It is sad to be a slave of a Pharaoh. It is horrible to be a Pharaoh. Daily we should take account and ask: What have I done today to alleviate the anguish, to mitigate the evil, to prevent humiliation? Let there be a grain of prophet in every man![4]

While not everyone has the fortitude for criticism that a prophet must possess, staying true to one’s forthright convictions is an apt contemporary embodiment of the prophet’s purpose. Of course, the vision for our lives need not be steeped in the purely righteous. Courage means setting a goal for yourself—modest or grand—and have the perspicacity to see it made manifest. Even Steve Jobs, the late founder of Apple Inc., whose life was marked with as many failures as triumphs, remarked, pithily, that we should go out and pursue the dreams that will further our lives:

…[H]ave the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.[5]

Courage of being means asking hard questions; it’s an introspective pursuit. This is quiet courage, a courage that radiates from deep within the recesses of our essence yearning to break free.

Courage of Will

Mark Twain is credited as saying: “It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog.”[6] In all we do, we must cultivate a sense of bravery, an intractable perseverance, and the capacity to have resilience. With the balanced mix of an indomitable persistence of grit and a reservoir of spiritual inspiration, we become better equipped to get through challenges.

This was the essence of courage for the rabbis. Certainly, in a moving talmudic passage, the rabbis posit the following inquiry: “Who is courageous?” There are manifold possible paths that the rabbis could have pursued here: The person with the most faith in God? One who adheres loyally to the letter of the law? One who can be victorious in battle? But instead, what do they say: “One who can control his or her own inner drive,” that one is the most courageous.[7]

Indeed, before we approach any type of action, our vigorous inner life must align with our outer life. At the center of this quest for enthusiastic earnestness is ratzon (will). We must have the desire to be courageous, otherwise we can’t be courageous. This is no mere tautology. We must desire to cultivate a burning passion and a lasting energy to overcome internal and external obstacles. We must desire to overcome our fear of pain, of failure, and of loss.
 

Courage of Speech

Humanity was endowed with the gift of speech. We must use it wisely. And when our minds and souls coalesce around an action, a passion, or a cause, it takes the human ingenuity of speech to convey the importance of said pursuits. A vital element of spiritual courage is being able to speak up when it is terrifying to do so. It is mitzvah to do so. As it says in the Tanakh:

You shall not hate your brother in your heart; you shall reprove your fellow and do not bear a sin because of him.[8]

The late social activist Maggie Kuhn (1905–1995), who spoke out passionately for protections for senior citizens in America, said powerfully: “Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes!” Indeed, we must give feedback otherwise we will “bear a sin” and be culpable of complicity as a bystander. In those moments, we will come to “hate your brother.”  We must never allow this type of moral timidity to invade our souls.

Courage of Action
 

Always do what you are afraid to do.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson[9]

To be sure, courage does not always require leadership but, at times, it requires a modicum of followership. Some either prefer to lead or be cynical. The middle space of participating but not being in control can require enormous courage too.

At momentous points during our life, we must be willing to take critical risks. Not life-threatening or impulsive risks, but measured considerations about how we intend to live our brief moment in this universe. For many, leadership is a constituent piece of their desire to see tangible change. Yet, inevitably, when one takes the difficult step to rise up and lead, the critiques not only begin, but may become incessant. These responses often stymie others who would love to lead but cannot take the negativity and constant second-guessing. To overcome this mindset, it takes a healthy amount of courage to maintain conviction and propel action. Nelson Mandela, whose life story is the stuff of courage, wrote:
 

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

Courage of Restraint

For every notion about courage being an outward display of character, having the foresight to restrain oneself is an underexplored avenue of courageous behavior. Courage is not only about acting publicly or about speaking up, but about being silent when the times call for it. Not every situation requires our voice; not every pursuit needs our opinion. Knowing when to back off is as important, maybe even more so, than to stand up. And, to be sure, we learn in the Talmud that there is a mitzvah to give constructive feedback to our peers, to reprove or rebuke them as the times see fit. But there is also a mitzvah not to speak up when it will not be heard, or when our actions or speech make situations worse:

…Just as there is a mitzvah for a person to say words (of rebuke) that will be accepted, so to there is a mitzvah for a person not to say words (or rebuke) that will not be accepted. Rabi Abba said: … It’s an obligation (not to give rebuke that won’t be accepted). As it says: “Do not rebuke a scoffer, lest he hate you; rebuke a wise man, and he will love you” (Proverbs 9:8).[10]

Others suggest we should still speak up even when it won’t be heard.

R. Zeira said to R. Simon: Master should reprove these (officials) of the House of the Exilarch. (R. Simon) said to him: They do not accept (reproof) from me. (R. Zeira) said to (R. Simon): Even though they do not accept it, master should nonetheless reprove them.[11]

Another form of restraint is taking the initiative to step back and create space for others to shine. Lao Tzu, the philosophical progenitor of Daoism, teaches: “From caring comes courage.”[12] Indeed, when we start, not from the ego-filled position to be a hero, but with the compassionate conviction of love, then we step back when we need to. To do this, we often need to rebuild trust and connectedness. In his book, The Courage to Teach, educator and activist Parker Palmer writes about the necessity of harnessing the will to not act on our fear, even at a moment when it might feel most appropriate:

In response to the question “How can we move beyond the fear that destroys connectedness?” I am saying, “By reclaiming the connectedness that takes away fear.”[13]

Courage of Mind

It is, without a doubt, an immense challenge to exist in a world suffused with ambiguity. Indeed, most people struggle deeply with living within a gray zone rather than the easy binary of black and white. Some need to run toward certainty and clarity rather than orient their inner struggle with uncertainty; this is understandable. Palmer continues:

There is a name for the endurance we must practice until a larger love arrives: It is called suffering. We will not be able to teach in the power of paradox until we are willing to suffer the tension of opposites, until we understand that such suffering is neither to be avoided nor merely to be survived but must be actively embraced for the way it expands our own hearts.[14]

Not everyone can live up to the pressure of living in an un-bifurcated world But, one type of courage is about continuing to live mentally within the discomfort of uncertainty, continuing to grapple with questions before jumping to answers, and continuing to seek truth beyond ideological comfort.

Courage of Spirit

To cultivate courage on the soul level is to learn how to transcend self-interest, to transcend one’s own body, and perhaps even transcend one’s own consciousness. The late teacher of Mussar, Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz (1902–1979, Lithuania/Israel), explains how people are capable of much more than he or she imagines, even during a trying moment of existential crisis: 

Our strengths are greater than we realize. A person really has the ability to reach much more than his natural [physical] strengths [we think we are limited to one level, we can move this, lift that, only stay awake for so long, etc.]. It appears that this is the explanation that our Sages give on the sentence, “The daughter of Pharaoh stretched her arm, and she took the basket that Moses was in. Her arm actually extended many “amot.” It's not intended to be understood that her arm physically got longer and then her arm shrunk back to its original state. Because through the gathering of all her energy and her will to save this child, in the merit of that it was in her ability to achieve even the strength of Adam prior to the sin even though the basket was far way. There is no measure to the strength of [people] when they arm themself with ometz [fortitude] and gevurah [strength]. If they do it's in their hand to reach much more than their natural strengths would dictate.[15]

To imbibe meaning from the constant renewal of our spiritual work should not only comfort us, but also challenge us in the best ways. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel encouraged the recitation of prayer to be a vehicle for the cultivation of courage in the soul. For Rabbi Heschel: 

Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement, seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.[16]

Courage of Heart

Finally, and most importantly, courage is a product of the heart. To be sure, we must learn to be comfortable with honest vulnerability. Brené Brown, a professor at the University of Houston and an expert on the diverse dimensions of courage, writes affectingly on the inner nature of courage and its effect on her life:

[A]s I look back on my life… I can honestly say that nothing is as uncomfortable, dangerous, and hurtful as believing that I’m standing on the outside of my life looking in and wondering what it would have been like if I had the courage to show up and let myself be seen.[17]

Such a prospect can be terrifying, and that is normal for anyone. We all feel vulnerable at some point in our lives. To not be is to not experience the full expression of our humanity. Yet, being vulnerable is not equivalent to being weak or cowardly. On the contrary, vulnerability is an element of greater courage. As C. S. Lewis (1898–1963, United Kingdom) wrote:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken…. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.[18]

One might think that acting courageously is antithetical to humility. This is not the case. Consider how Rabbi Abraham Isaac haKohen Kook (1865–1935, the first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of pre-State Israel), explains this point:

We need to make a careful distinction when investigating the emotion of pride/arrogance.  [We need to distinguish between] the regesh haPasul that distances a person from consciousness and consciousness of one’s Maker, and the delicate (adin) feeling that expands a person’s consciousness and reminds one of one’s full and splendid spiritual existence.  Often a person's heart will feel full of strength (‘oz). At first glance this feeling will seem similar to a feeling of arrogance. But after clarifying the matter, the reality is that one’s heart is filled with courage from the Divine light that shines in one’s soul.[19]

How does Rabbi Kook suggest we achieve such an end goal? He continues:

When it becomes difficult for [people] to emerge from this heaviness slowly, they must rise up at once and mobilize the middah of Holy Arrogance. They must look at themselves very favorably and find the good aspects of their shortcomings and weaknesses. For as one sets one’s mind to seek out the good, immediately all of their weaknesses transform into strengths. It is possible for a person to find within him/herself much good and to be very happy with their goodness. Day by day such a person will increase positive activities with a pure heart and full of compassionate hope.[20]  

One final note: We must learn to listen so we know what opportunities and moments are crucial for us to cultivate courage for. The former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks writes about the imperative of being here, of listening to the voices:

There is no life without a task; no person without a talent; no place without a fragment of God’s light waiting to be discovered and redeemed; no situation without its possibility of sanctification; no moment without its call. It may take a lifetime to learn how to find these things, but once we learn, we realize in retrospect that all it ever took was the ability to listen. When God calls, He does not do so by way of universal imperatives. Instead, He whispers our name—and the greatest reply, the reply of Abraham, is simply hineni: “Here I am,” ready to heed your call, to mend a fragment of Your all-too-broken world.[21]

Every day, we should wake up with “Here I am” inscribed on our hearts and animated within our souls. Only in this way do we ensure that the grand experiment of humanity continues fresh and anew with every obstacle that the universe presents before us. Fortunately for the human spirit, we aren’t ill-equipped for such a challenge. We have courage. And as is true with all virtues, cultivating courage takes practice. We must come out of our comfort zone to grow. We must learn the art of when to listen and when to speak, when to act and when to hold back, when to paddle to ride a wave, and when to sit back to enjoy the calm waters.

Rabbi Yisrael Salanter (1809–1883, Lithuania) leaves us with a final message of hope. For Rabbi Salanter, every person must hold on to and keep precious three qualities in order to lead and live a life with courage: not to despair, not to get angry, and not to expect to finish the task. Courage does not mean one makes an appearance and then hurries out the door. No, courage must be cultivated daily. It must be cultivated for years before it’s even given the chance to blossom. Courage comes from realizing that our role in the universe is unique but limited. Yet, it’s this limitation that allows us to excel beyond our wildest dreams. It allows us to pursue our destiny. And whether we know it or not, courage is the engine that allows us to move forward perpetually, with intentionality, with compassion, and with the knowledge that meaning is found through navigating the tribulations of living a full, active life.