National Scholar Updates

The Bible has topped the best-seller list every week since the invention of printing. It has directed the course of human civilization and has served as the foundation of faith for billions of people. Its content and style are recognized by believers and non-believers alike as the most profound and inspirational writing in the history of humankind. For observant Jews, Tanakh is nothing less than the Word of God. With these credentials, one might expect that teaching Tanakh would be an easy sell.

            However, as in all teaching, bridging the gap between the subject and the student is a task that requires careful thought and continual reimagining. Students must overcome not only a language barrier when studying Tanakh in Hebrew, but also historical, cultural, and philosophical differences between the world of Tanakh and that of modern Western civilization. The teachings of Tanakh are certainly eternal; but their relevance is not always obvious to children and teenagers immersed in the digital age.

            In previous generations, teaching Humash and Rashi sufficed to imbue students with the fundamentals of Jewish faith and law. Advanced students would also study the Ramban and—especially in Sephardic lands—pride of place was given to Ibn Ezra. However, I believe that our students today deserve and require a greater range of commentaries and methodologies. We have already seen this expansion of the canon take place in the past few decades in Modern Orthodox education, primarily through the writing and influence of two people:

1. Professor Nehama Leibowitz has opened up for us the full range of traditional Jewish commentaries, ancient and modern, with a talent for zoning in and clarifying the differences between them on various exegetical issues and their methodological considerations. Nehama also had a unique ability to make those issues relevant to modern society to the point where her classes could be appreciated by a wide range of Israeli society—both religious and secular.
2. The effort spearheaded by Rav Yoel bin-Nun and continued by the many talented faculty members of Yeshivat Har Etzion and Makhon Herzog to bring a literary appreciation for Tanakh in terms of structure, themes, and parallels within a context dedicated to peshat.

These are but two prominent examples of individuals who have advanced our understanding and appreciation of Scripture through their innovative methodologies that successfully combine traditional and modern sensibilities. Many others have similarly made remarkable contributions to our understanding of Tanakh in a way that is respectful of its integrity. This is especially true in the recognition of the value of setting Tanakh in its ancient Near Eastern context, not only for the similarities but more importantly for the differences. The revolutionary messages of the prophets of monotheism and morality shine when viewed on the background of ancient paganism. Such efforts abound in the halls of Yeshiva University, Bar-Ilan University, and many other institutions.[1]

These developments have opened a pathway toward selectively integrating modern Bible scholarship into mainstream Judaism. It is true that biblical scholarship presents certain challenges to traditional Orthodox belief, and recent thinkers have proposed a number of ways of dealing with these challenges. However, these issues are mostly irrelevant in a yeshiva high school setting where the goal is to inspire students about the eternal lessons of Tanakh and provide them with a basis upon which to build a lifelong commitment to Judaism and continued study.

Rather than focus on the problems of academic Bible, the approach of the writers mentioned above is to take advantage of the array of ways recent scholarship can enhance our appreciation and teaching of Tanakh. David Berger has argued that literary analysis of the Bible can help deal with problems of the morality of the Patriarchs as well as issues of higher criticism.[2] But we should teach such literary approaches not only in order to “provide the cure before the calamity” but also because it reveals more of Tanakh’s prophetic depth.

Unfortunately, these wonderful discoveries and helpful methodologies developed in academic circles in recent decades do not always trickle down into traditional educational settings. Nehama Leibowitz has certainly transformed generations of Modern Orthodox teachers and Makhon Herzog is also making a major impact on teachers who study there and who access their resources. Nevertheless, there is much more to be done in this regard, and there is especially a need to create curricula specifically designed with a classroom teacher in mind and that can guide a teacher as to how to transform this material into a structured and effective lesson.

Curriculum Development

            A few years ago, I started a project to prepare curricula for teaching Tanakh in high school. So far, my colleagues and I have written teacher’s guides for all or parts of Shemot, Devarim, Yeshayahu, Yirmiyahu, and Tehillim. Each lesson includes a step-by-step guide of suggestions for how to present the material, including worksheets, source sheets, PowerPoint presentations, and other multimedia resources. All of this material is freely available at www.teachtorah.org, and many dozens of teachers in schools around the world have successfully made use of this material. Below, I present a small selection from these lessons that highlight the approach we have taken to integrate use of multimedia, derive insights from archaeology, make the subject matter relevant to contemporary sensibilities, and use analysis of structure to discover the essential lesson of a given chapter.

Using Multimedia

            With most high school classrooms now equipped with projectors and Smart boards, teachers can enhance their lessons with pictures, music, and interactive presentations. One way to vivify Tanakh is to show medieval paintings of biblical scenes.

The Finding of Moses by Orazio Gentileschi (1633)

For example, Shemot 2:5 narrates: ^“The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe in the Nile, while her maidens walked along the Nile. She spied the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to fetch it.” The question arises, what role do the maidens play in this story? A wonderful trigger for this discussion is The Finding of Moses by Orazio Gentileschi (1633). This painting depicts tension between the princess and her maidservants. While the princess and one of the maidservants point to the circumcision as evidence for the need to murder the baby, the maidservants on the other side show caring and seem to plead for compassion.

Compare this painting to the Gemara at Sotah 12b, which says that all but one of the maidservants were punished for encouraging the princess to follow her father’s orders and murder the baby. Sforno explains that by God’s providence, the maidens, who would have murdered the baby, did not see the ark; instead only the princess saw it and she sent her personal maidservant to save it. While most Christian paintings of this scene depict a reluctant princess who is urged by her compassionate maidens to save the child, Jewish commentators take the opposite position. This viewpoint can lead to a conversation about peer pressure and doing the right thing even when those around us may encourage us not to.

It is noteworthy that one opinion in the Gemara takes amatah to refer not to her maid but to her arm, which stretched forth to take hold of the ark. This is a creative poetic way to portray the enthusiasm of the princess in wanting to save the baby and the miraculous nature of the event. However, this is obviously not the peshat, as Rashi and Ibn Ezra prove.

            When learning Tehillim, we should emphasize their performative aspect. Just as one cannot appreciate the experience of being at a live concert if all you have are the lyrics, we have to try to reconstruct what it must have been like to experience the Leviim performing Tehillim in the magnificent Bet ha-Mikdash, Temple. Archaeologists have actually found the earliest musical notation in ancient Ugarit and have reconstructed what is sounded like. They have also uncovered mosaics with pictures of ancient instruments and figurines playing those instruments. Here, for example is a kinor, an eight stringed lyre, as depicted on a Bar Kokhba coin:

A kinor depicted on a Bar Kokhba coin

            By playing recordings of ancient world music, as well as Tehillim chanted by modern Hazzanim according to the te‘amim, one can get some sense of how Tehillim may have been sung in the Bet ha-Mikdash. Modern musicians have also set many Mizmorim to music and playing these recordings in class can help make the study of Tehillim not only intellectually interesting but also emotionally inspiring.

Archaeology

            Archaeologists in the Middle East have made amazing discoveries in the past century—both of material remains and inscriptions—that can help shed light on the Tanakh. These findings can also be a valuable pedagogical tool for filling in the context of biblical times and making the events come to life.

A drawing at Beni-Hasan from the tomb of Khnumhotep, who served in the royal court of pharaoh Senusret II in the nineteenth century BCE. This drawing depicts a group of Semitic people entering Egypt.

To cite a couple of examples, the Hyksos were a conglomeration of Semitic people who infiltrated Egypt starting from the twenty-first century BCE. They then gained supremacy in 1700 BCE and ruled Northern Egypt until 1550 BCE, when the Egyptian Pharaoh Ahmose I chased most of them out of the country and reestablished native Egyptian rule. Although these events are too early to identify the Hyksos with the Israelites, as Josephus did, this history nevertheless does help fill in the context for several aspects of the biblical story:

• The migration of Jacob’s family to Egypt was part of a larger movement of Semites making the same trip.
• Hyksos rule of Northern Egypt explains how Joseph, a foreigner, could rise to great power and marry an Egyptian noblewoman since he was a Semite just as they were.
• It further explains why Pharaoh was so paranoid about the Israelite nation increasing and joining enemies to conquer the Egyptians. Such an event had already happened with the Hyksos and the memory of their revolt would still be prominent in his mind.

            The second example is from Dr. Shawn-Zelig Aster’s teacher’s guide for Yeshayahu and is based on his own original research. Isaiah 6 has the prophet experience the sights and sounds of God’s throneroom. Isaiah sees God seated on a throne and six-winged angels attending Him and pronouncing His holiness. One of the angels purifies the prophet by touching a hot coal from the altar to his lips. What is the meaning of this deep prophetic vision?

            In 879 BCE, King Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria built a magnificent palace that was still in use over a century later in Yeshayahu’s time. Like all other nations in Assyria’s power grip, Israel and Judah had to send emmissaries to the Assyrian palace with protection money if they wanted to avoid being conquered. Such an emmisary would have been impressed by the many scenes of Assyrian battle victories etched in the palace hallways. In the Assyrian throneroom, he would see this relief:

Drawing from throne room of Ashurnasirpal II

• In the center is the tree that represents the world. At its top is a winged image of the god Ashur, the chief Assyrian god. The message is that the god Ashur is in charge of the world.
• On either side of Ashur is an image of the Assyrian king (with beard), whom the Assyrians consider king of the world.
• On either side of the Assyrian king is the four-winged figure that protects the king from impurity.

The emmisary would probably have concluded that the Assyrian king is more powerful than Israel’s God and would have reported this when he returned home. This would lead the nation to give up its hope, faith, and identity. Isaiah’s prophecy counters this false impression. In fact, it is Hashem who sits on the throne and is king of the world: “His presence fills all the earth” (Isaiah 6:3). Significantly, while the Assyrian king is himself susceptible to impurity and requires protective angels to keep him pure, the angels in Isaiah’s prophecy are necessary only to remove Yeshayahu’s impurity. Hashem requires no protection for He is Eternal, Holy, and beyond all human power.

            Dr. Aster suggests that teachers connect Yeshayahu’s prophecy to their own lives. Teenagers can often feel a sense of sensory overload and be impressed by the power of technology, movies, rockstars, international politics, and big business. This prophecy of Yeshayahu, however, which the rabbis incorporated into the daily siddur, can help students re-evaluate their priorities and loyalties and thereby reset their moral compass.

Contemporize

Every lesson in a high school setting should have an enduring understanding so that students can relate it to their own lives and contemporary society. By contemporizing the Tanakh we not only ensure that students will internalize its teachings but we also provide a motivation for studying Tanakh and a way to make it relevant to their life concerns.

Studying the opening chapter of Shemot provides a fitting opportunity to understand dictators, ancient and modern alike. As Ramban points out, Pharaoh gradually enacts harsher and harsher decrees against the Israelites in order to slowly turn the Egyptian populace against their Israelite neighbors. How can people who were on good terms with their neighbors for generations suddenly become enemies? We see the same phenomenon occur in our own times in the Bosnian war and in Nazi Germany.

A teacher can provide to the students a few sources on the history of the Holocaust and ask students to find parallels in Shemot. For example, Goebbels refers to the Jews in Germany as “guests” who are “misusing our hospitality,” and Julius Streicher spreads propaganda that the Jews are responsible for World War I and are enemies of the state. This reminds us of Pharoah’s accusation in Shemot 1:9–10: “The Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us.”

We must be vigilant in recognizing propaganda whenever we read a newspaper, watch television, or listen to speeches. A teacher can easily find examples from current events whether relating to local news, Israel, or pop culture. Politicians, businesses, religious leaders, and intellectuals of various kinds constantly try to convince us that their view is correct and all other views are wrong. It is up to us to distinguish between the sincere and the self-serving, between good and evil, between accuracy and propaganda.

It might seem that nothing could be further from the lives of American teenagers than Moshe’s prophetic encounter in the middle of the desert at the burning bush. In fact, however, this can be a foundational lesson for students about finding themselves and achieving their own leadership potential. Many elements went into the emergence of Moshe as a leader: his family, background, birth and childhood, a strong sense of justice, and passion to take action. While these attributes took many years to develop and mature, there was one single moment at which they all came together. In Shemot 3:4, we read that Hashem only calls to Moshe after He sees that Moshe turns to examine the bush. In order to hear the divine calling, one must be attentive and on the lookout for it. This is when the hero finds his calling and resolves in earnest to follow a plan to accomplish his or her set goal.

Although we are not prophets, each of us can receive a divine calling at his or her own level. A teacher can ask students to identify issues in their own schools, communities or in the world where there is injustice or something that needs attention. What talents and tools would someone need to help that problem? How can we develop ourselves to develop our own talents and be sensitive enough to take notice of the “burning bushes” all over the world today? How can we develop the confidence to step up and become leaders?

Structure

            Mizmor 145, known as Ashrei, is a highly structured alphabetic acrostic. That it is missing a pasuk for nun therefore stands out as a glaring omission. The classic answer given in Berakhot 4b explains that nun is omitted because it represents the fall of Israel as seen in Amos 5:2, “Fallen is the virgin of Israel,” which begins with a nun. This answer is not convincing for a few reasons. Just because there is a negative verse in Amos which begins with nun does not mean that nun is forever tainted. There are many positive verses that begin with nun and many negative verses that begin with other letters. If nun really is unusable, why is it found in other acrostic Psalms such as 111, 112, and 119? As I explain further in the teacher’s guide, this midrash is not meant as a commentary to psalm 145 as much as a way to deal with a difficult verse in Amos.

Most scholars think there was originally a verse for nun but it was mistakenly omitted by sloppy scribes. For evidence, they point to a copy of this Psalm found in the Dead Sea scrolls, which does include a verse for nun: “ne’eman Elokim bi-dvarav ve-hasid be-khol ma`asav—God is trustworthy in His words and faithful in all His works.” However, it is highly unlikely that this is the original missing nun verse considering that its second half is a duplicate of verse 17. More likely, an overzealous scribe invented this verse to “correct” what he thought was a mistake.

Rather, we should seek out a literary explanation for why this psalm intentionally omitted a verse for nun. This emerges upon analysis of the structure of this Psalm. This Psalm begins and ends with the word tehillah/tehillat. Verses 1 and 2 both end with “Your name forever and ever” and the last verse similarly ends with “His holy name forever and ever.” The verb brk–bless occurs four times in the mizmor in vv. 1, 2, 10, and 21. Taking all these words together, we find that the first two verses and the last verse form an envelope around the rest of the psalm. Since the only other occurrence of brk is in v. 10, this middle verse too is linked to the opening and closing. Once we compare these pesukim side by side we find that there is a progression from one to the next:

¹ I will extol You, my God and king, and bless Your name forever and ever.

²Every day will I bless You and praise Your name forever and ever.

¹⁰All Your works shall praise You, Hashem, and Your faithful ones shall bless You.

²¹My mouth shall utter the praise of Hashem, and all creatures shall bless His holy name forever and ever.

In the first two verses, the singer blesses Hashem by himself. In the middle verse, a small group of faithful ones bless Hashem. By the end, all creatures bless His Holy Name. We can picture someone beginning to sing by himself, then being joined by a few devotees, and finally rallying everyone to sing together. These four verses act as a refrain at the beginning, middle, and end of the Psalm.

There are four sections in the mizmor: two before the refrain and two after it. Section 1 consists of vv. 3–6 and focuses on God’s greatness. The key words in this section are: greatness, might, glorious majesty, splendor, wondrous, and awesome. All of these words praise the great works of God in creation and nature. They relate to God as transcendent, powerful, and beyond reach.

Verses 7–9 comprise section 2, which is a celebration of God’s goodness. The key words in this section are goodness, beneficence, gracious, compassionate, kindness, and mercy. Verse 8, in particular, paraphrases God’s 13 attributes of mercy (Shemot 34:6). In this section we feel Hashem’s closeness to us, His care, and His accessibility.

Section 3 spans vv. 11–13, and its key words are: majesty, kingship, might, majestic glory, and dominion. This section shares many of the words and themes from section 1 but emphasizes God’s kingship in particular. Like section 1, this section also gives off the sense of Hashem as transcendent just like a human king is beyond the reach of the ordinary citizen. Remarkably, the three verses of this section begin with the letters כ, ל, and מ. When read backward, these letters spell מלך—king!

Section 4 is the largest section at vv. 14–20 and parallels section 2 in its theme. This section describes how God provides help and sustenance to the needy (vv. 14–16) and responds to and protects the deserving (vv. 18–20). The middle verse of this section sums up its central message—“Hashem is beneficent in all His ways and faithful in all His works” (v. 17). The predominant word in this section is “kol­–all,” which is repeated 10 times. It emphasizes that Hashem is not just selectively good to some people sometimes but rather all-good all the time to all living beings.

Some philosophers speak of God as a transcendent, infinite, all-powerful being about whom we can know nothing and from whom we would not expect special favors. Others think of God as a close, ever-compassionate father-like figure who thinks about us and cares for our every need. In philosophy, it is difficult to reconcile these two conceptions. However, when meditating or when in a state of prayer, our emotions can often shift from one to the other and back. The four sections of this mizmor similarly vacillate between these two extremes. Sections 1 and 3 conceive of God as transcendent and therefore call to proclaim His greatness and kingship. Sections 2 and 4, on the other hand, consider God to be near at hand as they praise His goodness.

We can now trace the movement of the reader as he or she experiences this mizmor. At first alone, the reader begins by thinking of God’s greatness and awesomeness in section 1 but does not feel close to Him. Once the reader begins to fathom God’s mighty acts in creation, the reader begin to think of acts He performs for the world. In section two the reader begins to sense God’s mercy. The reader now reaches a higher level where he or she feels connected with a group of “faithful ones” in the refrain. We then think about God as an infinite king in section 3. But even a king must take care of his subjects, and the infinite king provides infinite care for all beings. It is significant that the last section is the longest and most detailed. It is clearly the climax of the mizmor and contains its most essential message.

            Getting back to the missing nun, we now see that this verse is omitted right at the juncture between sections 3 and 4. This omission makes the reader pause and serves as a literary device to indicate a section break. In fact, as we saw from the structure above, section 4 is the climax and essence of the mizmor and so it is fitting to mark a section break between it and everything that precedes it. In fact, vv. 1–13 are also marked off as a unit by the envelope created by the word melekh in v. 1 and the repetition of the same word in section 3, vv. 11–13. Furthermore, when reading the acrostic backward from the end, the absence of the nun verse calls attention to the beginning letters of section 3, mem, lamed, kaf—king.

The main idea of the mizmor is a total praise of Hashem by all people at all times. This is summed up in the progression of the refrains and in the repetition of the key word kol. The psalm takes the form of an alphabetic acrostic in order to poetically convey this message. By using every letter of the alphabet, we sense that we are praising God using all possible language. It is complete praise from A to Z. This is a truly magnificent example of how appreciating structure, even—or especially—when it deviates from our expectations, is a necessary and inspiring method for uncovering the wisdom and perfection of Tanakh.

I hope that this selection of lesson summaries will suffice to prompt the reader to visit www.teachtorah.org. I would further request that readers provide feedback on this material and I invite teachers to join in participating in and contributing to this project.

Notes

“It’s All Relative: The Contemporary Orthodox Jewish Family in America”

by Chaim I. Waxman

(Chaim I. Waxman is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Jewish Studies, Rutgers University, and lives in Jerusalem. He specializes in the sociological study of Jews and Judaism, including, America’s Jews, Orthodox Jewry, Jewish identity and identification, Israeli society and culture, and Zionism. He is the author of numerous books and articles.)

I recently received an inquiry for an interview from a journalist who was writing a story about the Orthodox Jewish family. The interviewer assumed that Jews “used to live together in one place for generations in previous generations,” and was interested in “what changed and why.” Although I should be used to it by now, I am regularly struck both by the prevalent assumptions about the idyllic nature of the Jewish family in Eastern Europe and by the assumption that the imagined Eastern European Jewish family is the model of the “authentic” Jewish family.

All too frequently, discussions of “the Jewish family” are based on the assumption that there is one single model of that family and it is typically that of the stereotypical Jewish family in Eastern Europe. Actually, there is no one single model of the Jewish family. From as early as 598 b.c.e., Jews have been and continue to be “a nation spread out and separated among the nations.” In every society that they have dwelled, Jews acculturated to one degree or another and internalized cultural patterns from the larger society. That is a major source of the differences in the traditions of Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Jews from North Africa, Asia, and so forth, and between those of the various groups among all of them. Hence, the Polish Jewish family was different from the German Jewish family, the German was different from the Turkish, the Turkish from the Moroccan, and so forth. (This raises an interesting and important question that cannot be discussed here, as to whether one can speak of “Jewish culture” and even “Jewish identity” as if there are such things when there are actually different Jewish cultures and different Jewish identities.)

            One more point about many discussions of the Jewish family, is the tendency toward nostalgia, to romanticize “good old days” that, in many ways, as the late Prof. Nathan Goldberg would consistently remind his students at Yeshiva College, were actually not so good at all. Nor were most Jewish families there like the stereotypical large, extended family in which people married young, were cared for by parents and in-laws while they had many children, and all of the extended-family members lived near each other and shared warmth and bliss.

            Shaul Stampfer, for example, rejects the notion that the Eastern European family was patriarchal. As he convincingly demonstrates, women had active and independent roles in economic matters; very many if not most wives worked to help support their families; and wives made the most important daily decisions for the family, including what household items should be purchased; disciplining children; and finding spouses for the children (“How Jewish Society Adapted to Change in Male/Female Relationships in 19th / Early 20th Century Eastern Europe,” pp. 65–84 in Rivkah Blau, ed., Gender Relationships in Marriage and Out, Orthodox Forum 17 New York: Yeshiva University Press, 2007). He likewise shows that the age of marriage among Eastern European Jews rose during the nineteenth century, and rose even more significantly during the inter-war years of the twentieth century (“Marital Patterns in Interwar Poland” pp. 173–197 in Yisrael Gutman, ed., The Jews of Poland Between Two World Wars, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England/Brandeis University Press, 1989). If that is not enough, evidence also indicates that there was a high level of divorce in Eastern Europe traditional Jewish society.

That having been said, I turn now to the American Jewish family, in general, and the American Orthodox Jewish family, in particular. (I omit any discussion of the frequency and impact of intermarriage, as that topic is beyond the scope of this article.) Until recently, evidence indicated that, although Jewish men and women in the United States married somewhat later than non-Jews, this was not a reflection of a declining significance of marriage and family for Jews. Jews were more likely than non-Jews to eventually marry, less likely to divorce and remain divorced and, at almost every age, a lower percentage of Jews than non-Jews were either previously married or widowed. The most recent evidence questions whether the Jewish values of marriage and family remain as strong as they were. According to the 2008 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life/U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, the gaps between Jews and Christian white Americans have narrowed and, in some cases, are non-existent. Thus, on the one hand, the percentage of people who are divorced/separated among Jews (9 percent) is lower than that of Mainline Protestants (12 percent), Evangelical Protestants (13 percent), and Catholics (10 percent). On the other hand, the percentage of married people among Jews is the same as for Mainline Protestants (57 percent), but lower than Catholics (58 percent) and Evangelicals (59 percent), and the rate of never-married among Jews (19 percent) is higher than that Mainline Protestants (15 percent) and Evangelical Protestants (14 percent) as well as Catholics (17 percent).

            At least since the nineteenth century, Jews in the United States have had lower birth rates than those of non-Jews. Jews marry later, want and expect fewer children, have the most favorable attitudes toward contraception, and have been its best practitioners. Data from various studies show that U.S. Jewish families today have fewer children than the minimum necessary to maintain group size, that is, zero population growth.

            That being said, it must be stressed that, primarily because they are such a small percentage of the U.S. population, most surveys of American Jews do not distinguish between the various wings or denominations within American Judaism and the American Jewish population, and there are almost certainly significant differences among them on all of these issues and more. Indeed, the Pew Religious Landscape Survey did indicate differences between Reform and Conservative Jews, and their data indicated a higher rate of marriage for Reform (61 percent) than for Conservative (53 percent) Jews, but higher divorced/separated rates for Reform (11 percent) than for Conservative (7 percent) Jews.

We have very limited data generally for Orthodox Jews in the United States because, among others, their numbers are so small, relatively, and many of them are reluctant to reply to surveys and interviews. The U.S. census is unhelpful in this respect because it has no religion question and, thus, we can’t even get data for American Jews in general from it, let alone for the Orthodox segment. The 2001 National Jewish Population Survey did contain a reasonable sample of Orthodox Jews, and those data indicate a significantly higher marriage rate, a lower divorced/separated rate, as well as a lower single/never married rate than those of Conservative and Reform Jews. Since Orthodox Jews marry at a higher rate and do so at a younger age, it is not surprising that they are more likely that the non-Orthodox to have children age 17 or younger living in the household. Over one-third (34 percent) of Orthodox Jews have a child living in the household, which is more than double the rate of the non-Orthodox. In terms of future denominational trends, it is especially notable that the Orthodox are considerably younger than the total American Jewish population; about 40 percent is comprised of children, as compared to 20 percent for the non-Orthodox. More than half (52 percent) of all American Orthodox Jews are younger than 45 years of age, as compared to 44 percent for the total American Jewish population. All of these figures reflect a continued strong emphasis on marriage and family formation among the Orthodox. Unquestionably, there has been an increase in divorce among the Orthodox. However, the absence of divorce, especially in previous decades, was not necessarily an indication of a stable and healthy marriage. In any event, the Orthodox divorce rate is still significantly lower than that of the non-Orthodox.

Needless to say, not all Orthodox Jews have strong marriage and family values, nor do they manifest them in the same way or even positively. We do not have hard data on spouse abuse for either the broader American Jewish community or for the Orthodox community, Modern or Hareidi and, in her study of responses to it in Hareidi communities, Roberta Rosenberg Farber (“The Programmatic Response of the Ultra-Orthodox American Jewish Community to Wife Abuse: Social Change Within a Traditional Religious Community,” Contemporary Jewry 26, 2006, pp. 114–157) reports of professionals who believe that spouse abuse is as common among Jews as it is in the general population. Likewise, with respect to sexual abuse within families, Michelle Friedman reported of her study of over 400 observant Orthodox women in the United States and Israel (“On Intimacy, Love, Kedushah and Sexuality: Reflections on the 5th Annual YCT Rabbinical School/Community Yom Iyyun in Conjunction with Congregation Ohab Zedek,” Milin Havivin 2, 2006, p. 187), “Sadly, we found the same statistics for sexual molestation and abuse of girls and teens as in the secular population.” Neither Farber and Friedman nor any other studies suggest that there has been an increase in either spousal or sexual abuse of minors within families among Orthodox Jews. What is significant here is that there is likewise no evidence of any decrease in either of these horrible sins.

            Be that as it may, there have clearly been American social and cultural changes, including technological changes, that have affected the Orthodox Jewish approach to family and family behavior. To begin with, sex is much more public than it was just several decades ago. Not only are words and scenes that were previously taboo on television now normal prime-time fare; the Internet has broken all barriers. There are no longer any taboos, and it is increasingly difficult not to be bombarded with pornography. Whatever one thinks of the freedoms of the press, the airwaves, and the web, they impact on religious behavior, especially for young adults. Some parents refuse to allow television and some refuse to allow the Internet into the home, while others implement various net filters, but none of these is fool-proof and nobody is immune. Of course, none of us was ever totally immune, and the Orthodox community is struggling to adapt as best as it can. It appears that the only ones who are talking publicly about the problem are those who have decided to completely ban the new technologies, but not too many appear to be following them.

One social pattern that is apparent, especially among the Modern Orthodox, is a growing tendency of later marriage. There has been a noticeable growth of singles communities such as the one in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem (which is the subject of the popular Israeli television series, Serugim) and on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. These communities raise challenges even as they resolve others. Some twenty years ago, Calvin Goldscheider pointed to the rising Orthodox divorce rate and suggested that the primary challenge is the potential religious alienation of the divorced individuals that results from their not being in families. Likewise, he pointed to the growing pattern of later marriage as challenging in that it results in increasing numbers of Jews who are rejected due to their unmarried status and become religiously alienated (Calvin Goldscheider, “Family Changes and the Challenge to American Orthodoxy: The Implications of Recent Social Science Data,” Tradition 23:1 (Summer 1987), pp. 71–81). The new Orthodox singles communities undoubtedly serve as a buffer against the religious alienation upon which Goldscheider focused, but on the other hand they may be making it increasingly acceptable and less inconvenient to remain single longer. The growth of these singles communities potentially challenges the Orthodox growth rate, and, assuming that there has been no significant change in libido patterns—I know of no studies indicating any such change—challenges ritual observance with respect to a number of sexual matters.

Abstinence from all sexual activity prior to marriage has been a Jewish religious norm for at least the past 2,000 years, and presumably, it was always difficult. Anyone who says otherwise has forgotten what it was like to be a teenager. Also, as was indicated, late marriage is not new, nor are some of the religious challenges it presents. What has changed is the frequency and openness of male-female interaction and, perhaps even more significant, the religious, ethnic, and sexual statuses of the males and females in the interaction. Their increased social and cultural equality often removes social-psychological barriers that prevented the development of intimate interaction. Today, those barriers are no longer supported externally and, thus, there appear to have been changes even among the Orthodox.

During the 1960s, Rabbi Irving (“Yitz”) Greenberg was a very popular professor at Yeshiva College, and in an interview that appeared in the college newspaper, The Commentator, on April 28, 1966, he made some remarks that were interpreted by some as his advocating “a new value system and corresponding new halakhot about sex” for non-married as well as married men and women. This caused somewhat of a storm and, in the May 12^th issue, Greenberg wrote a lengthy letter to the editor in which he adamantly disavowed any such notion, clarified his views, and apologized for being insufficiently clear and precise in the interview. Despite his clarification, he was taken to task by Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein in his lengthy letter to The Commentator, in the June 2^nd issue. (I thank Menachem Butler for providing me with copies of those letters. This episode and the much broader Greenberg-Lichtenstein debates are astutely recounted and analyzed in David Singer, “Debating Modern Orthodoxy at Yeshiva College: The Greenberg–Lichtenstein Exchange of 1966,” Modern Judaism 26:2 (May 2006), pp. 113–126.)

In their mid-1980s study of varieties of Orthodox Jews, sociologists Samuel C. Heilman and Steven M. Cohen (Cosmopolitans and Parochials: Modern Orthodox Jews in America, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989, pp. 173–179) found, across the range of Orthodox people they studied, “younger respondents consistently reported more indulgent attitudes toward the practice of premarital sex than their older counterparts”; that almost a quarter of those they labeled as “centrists” (not to be confused with what scholars at Yeshiva University term “centrist”; see David Berger’s highly critical review of the Heilman-Cohen book, Modern Judaism 11:2, (May 1991), pp. 261–272) do not disapprove of sexual relations between couples who are dating seriously, and as many as 40 percent do not disapprove for those who are engaged to be married; and that among younger centrists, only about half disapproved sexual relations for those dating seriously, and less than half disapproved for engaged couples. Although these figures reflect attitudes, it is hard to imagine that there was a highly significant gap between attitudes and behavior. The popularity of the expression “tefilin date” also apparently reflected a reality of otherwise observant Orthodox Jews who spent the night with their dates but prayed wearing tefilin the following morning.

Most recently, Zvi Zohar (“Zugiyut al-pi haHalakha lelo hupa veKidushin,” Akdamot 17 (Shevat 5767), pp. 11–33) argued, based on the opinions of Nahmanides (1194–1270), Rabbi Abraham ben David (Rabad, 1125–1198), and Rabbi Shelomo ben Aderet (Rashba, 1235–1310), as well Rabbi Jacob Emden (1697–1776) that there is no prohibition against sexual relations without marriage so long as the relationship is not illicit, that is, it is consensual and monogamous, and the woman observes the laws of niddah and mikvah. His thesis was strongly rejected (in the same issue of Akdamot) by Rabbi Yehuda Herzl Henkin, Shemuel Ariel, Mikhal Tikochinsky, and Rachel Shprecher Frankel. Despite their rejections of its halakhic legitimacy, sexual relations among the unmarried was apparently perceived to be significant enough of a phenomenon in the Orthodox and traditional communities that the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Yonah Metzger, issued a ban on allowing unmarried women to use mikvaot. The effectiveness of that ban is anyone’s guess.

Relatively recent technological developments have had significant impact on Jewish family life in that for the first time in history human beings can conveniently and effectively control reproduction. This has had major impact on attitudes toward sexual behavior, making it less threatening to the unmarried and those married who do not currently want to bear children. It also has fostered new medical techniques that enable previously infertile couples to bear children. With all of these developments, however, come a myriad of halakhic issues. One of the first and most controversial addressing the problem of infertility was that of artificial insemination.

Beginning in the late 1950s, concerning different types of artificial insemination—one in which the donor was Jewish, one in which he was not, and the third in which the husband was the donor—Rabbi Moshe Feinstein issued lenient rulings and was staunchly attacked by numerous opponents, including Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe. Since then, a body of literature has emerged not only on matters of fertility and halakha (see, for example, Richard V. Grazi, Overcoming Infertility: A Guide for Jewish Couples. New Milford, CT: Toby Press, 2005, and all of the sources to which he refers), but also on the much broader question of the role of the posek, including the extent to which his own perspectives and sentiments, as well as social and psychological forces, have a place in the process of halakhic determination. With respect to the specific issue at hand, in his Masters thesis analyzing Rabbi Feinstein’s method of ruling in a series questions related to childbearing (“Rabbi Moshe Feinstein’s Rulings Regarding Questions of Fertility, Contraception, and Abortion,” Talmud Department, Bar Ilan University, 5766 [Hebrew]), Baruch Finkelstein argues that R. Moshe’s lenient rulings on artificial insemination “were motivated by his compassion for the infertile woman.” Going further, in an address at a conference at the Ramban Synagogue in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem, on the occasion of a the publication of a Hebrew translation of Richard Grazi’s book (Horut nikhsephet: Etgar haPiryon beMabat rephui veHilkhati. Jerusalem: Magid, 2009), Rabbi Benny Lau emphasized the impact of hashkafa on halakha, and he lauded the declaration by the rabbinic head of a leading fertility institute that, “There is no halakhic infertility,” and “We will go the entire route with this couple in order to resolve the problem,” as a leadership declaration. By contrast, in a review essay of the Grazi volume (“Technology in the Service of the First Mitzvah,” Ḥakirah, the Flatbush Journal of Jewish Law and Thought 6 (Summer 2008), pp. 259–267), Gideon Weitzman rejects the notion that compassion figured in to R. Moshe’s pesak halakha. He asserts that, for R. Moshe “and all other posekim,” it is halakha that influences their approach to ethical problems, rather than vice versa, and the halakhic decision is based on the careful analysis of the sources.

As indicated, the issue is much broader than that of infertility and artificial insemination. As I indicated elsewhere (“Toward a Sociology of Pesak,” in Moshe Z. Sokol, ed., Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy” Orthodox Forum 1, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1992, pp. 217–238), there are those who argue that “authentic” or “pure” pesika is that which is rendered by a posek in a computer-like manner, solely on the basis of characteristics inherent to the specific case involved and impervious to psychological and/or social forces, while others see a role for those forces in the halakhic decision-making process. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “the Rav,” seems to suggest an intermediary position when he wrote,

. . . the mutual connection between halakha and an event does not take place within the realm of pure halakha but rather within the depths of the soul of the halakhic man. The event is a psychological impetus, prodding pure thought into its track. However, once it begins to move in its specific track, it performs its movement not in surrender to the event, but rather in obedience to the normative-ideal unique to it. . . To what is this comparable? To a satellite that was launched into a particular orbit. Although the launching of the satellite into orbit is dependent on the force of the thrust, once the object arrived at its particular orbit, it begins to move with amazing precision according to the speed unique to that orbit, and the force of the thrust cannot increase or decrease it at all.

The Rav’s approach has echoes of Max Weber and his approach to the place of values in sociological research, namely, that the sociologists’ values surely influence the choice of subjects whom they study. However, once the research has begun, the rules of scientific research take over, and evaluation is made solely on the basis of the empirical evidence. Value neutrality, in the sense of excluding one’s own preconceived values in the subject of one’s studies, is a cardinal requirement. Of course, anyone who has studied the social sciences knows that the goal of value-neutrality is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. We are, after all, human, and we are influenced in many ways of which we are unaware. Similarly, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein cites the Rav’s distinction between the “psychological impetus” and “pure thought” in the halakhic process and suggests, “It is a nice distinction, and I confess that I am not certain it can be readily sustained in practice.” (“The Human and Social Factor in Halakha,” Tradition 36:1 (Spring 2002), p. 12) it might be argued that Hazal recognized it’s unsustainability in practice, and therefore decreed that certain type of people, such as very old people, eunuchs, and the childless, should not be appointed as judges to a Sanhedrin. Maimonides (Hilkhot Sanhedrin 2:3) provides the reasons, namely, that very old people and eunuchs should not be appointed because they have a cruel streak, and the childless should not be appointed because the judge should be merciful. In other words, it was recognized that judges have an impact on “the orbit” of the law.

In an article published a year earlier, Rabbi Lichtenstein had already indicated the human element in the decision of the posek, and he averred that

A sensitive posek recognizes both the gravity of the personal situation and the seriousness of the halakhic factors. In one case, therefore, he may tend to view the points of contention in one way, while in a second case exhibiting slightly different details, he may tilt the decision on these points in the other direction. . . He might stretch the halakhic limits of leniency where serious domestic tragedy looms, or hold firm to the strict interpretation of the law when, as he reads the situation, the pressure for leniency stems from frivolous attitudes and reflects a debased moral compass. This approach is neither evasive nor discriminatory. The flexibility arises from a recognition that halakhic rulings are not, and should not be, the output of human microcomputers, but of thinking human beings; a recognition that these rulings must be applied to concrete situations with a bold effort to achieve the optimal moral and halakhic balance among the various factors. (Aharon Lichtenstein, “Abortion: A Halakhic Perspective,” Tradition 25:4 (Summer 1991, p. 12)

Abortion is another issue where the question of whether the perspectives of the posek have any influence on his halakhic decision-making came to the fore. To support his argument that a halakhic decision is immune to the perspectives of the posek, Gideon Weitzman (referred to above) cites as evidence R. Moshe’s pesak (Iggrot Moshe, Hoshen Mishpat 2 (1976), 69, p. 300), in which he rejects a more lenient pesak by Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg (Tzitz Eliezer 9 (1967), 51:3, pp. 239–240) and prohibited an abortion for a women carrying a fetus with Tay-Sachs disease. “Can we possibly claim that Rav Feinstein did not have compassion on those unfortunate couples who are both carriers of Tay-Sachs?” Weitzman asks. To him, it is obvious compassion had nothing to do with R. Moshe’s rulings on abortion, artificial insemination, or any other issue. Interestingly, Rabbi Benny Lau cited the same halakhic decisions of R. Moshe as well as that of Rabbi Waldenberg and their respective arguments as proof that the perspective of the posek does influence his halakhic decision. He argued that the reason R. Moshe took such a strict stance on abortion was to counter what he perceived as the larger social and cultural patterns in which abortion was becoming too commonplace. Indeed, in the final paragraph, R. Moshe explicitly states that he wrote the entire responsum in light of “the huge breach in the world that the governments of many countries have allowed the killing of fetuses, including Israeli heads of state, and countless fetuses have already been killed, such that at this time there is a need to make a fence (safeguard) for the Torah . . .”. In other words, under other social conditions, he might have ruled differently.

In line with R. Moshe’s wishes, though more as a result of greatly improved and much more widely used contraception methods, the number of abortions worldwide has decreased during the past decade and more. However, abortion is readily available and used in Israel and, more to the point, it has increased in the religious community there. Over the past decade, awareness of the possibility of abortion has increased in the religious community. According to estimates by several medical professionals, religious women don’t speak of it publicly but at least 70 percent of the religious women do an ultrasound to detect Down syndrome and, if detected, at least 90 percent have an abortion. For more serious defects, where the fetus will not survive, even Hareidi women will abort. Also, not all religious women, Hareidi and not, seek rabbinic advice; some decide on their own, as has always been the case. The difference, according to the head of the ultrasound unit of Hadassah University’s Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, is that there has been a revolution in the medical knowledge of rabbis. They now understand the complexities better, are more sensitive to all of the issues, and are better able to help the pregnant woman decide to abort. Prof. Simcha Yagel claims that religious women cope better with that difficult decision because they have religious authority assisting them with it. (Yifat Ehrlich, “Beten Meleia,” Dyokan Magazine, Makor Rishon, May 8, 2009, pp. 10–14).

The Internet has had impact on the entire area of halakha and Jewish family life with the introduction, especially in Israel, of a relatively new phenomenon: Internet responsa. Indeed, it is an interesting question why the phenomenon is so prominent in Israel and yet is relatively absent elsewhere. Perhaps it has to do with the differences in the nature of the role of rabbi in Israel and elsewhere. Also, Israeli Orthodoxy is more pluralistic because of the much wider ethnic mix there and because of the non-denominational character of Israeli Judaism.

Be that as it may, in Israel the Internet has dramatically altered the role of the rabbi, in a number of vital ways. The anonymity of those engaged in the discussion allows people to ask very intimate and demanding questions that they might not have asked if their identity was known. In addition, the limits of the community that a rabbi serves have been expanded from finite physical boundaries to almost infinite virtual ones. Finally, for our purposes, the Internet provides greater public awareness of a particular rabbi’s decisions, which, on the one hand, makes him more vulnerable to criticism but also, on the other hand, enhances his stature as prominent rabbi.

An examination of topics covered in Internet responsa reveals that family and sexual issues play a major role among the questions raised. Thus, of the three volumes of such responsa by Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, the head of Yeshivat Hesder of Petah Tikva and the most prolific of the Internet rabbis, the largest volume, Reshu”t HaYahid, is wholly addressed to issues concerning modesty, couples and family. In published Internet responsa on the leading Internet site for the dati-leumi/Modern Orthodox communities, www.kipa.co.il, as well as on a range of other Jewish religious Internet sites and blogs, family issues are central. Among the issues discussed there are: early marriage—a concern especially for students in yeshivot hesder; singles; premarital sex; agunot whose spouses refuse to give them a get; gays and lesbians in the Orthodox community; and others.

An issue related to the artificial insemination matters that R. Moshe discussed (but not specifically discussed by him) is one that also addresses an aspect of the singles phenomenon, namely, voluntary single motherhood. One of the earliest sociological studies of the phenomenon (Jane D. Bock, “Doing The Right Thing? Single Mothers by Choice and the Struggle for Legitimacy,” Gender & Society 14:1 (February 2000), pp. 62–86) focused only on the Reform branch of Judaism and found it to be basically accepting. Since then, Conservative Judaism has become likewise increasingly accepting. Mainstream Orthodox Judaism opposes voluntary single motherhood on social policy, if not “pure” halakhic grounds, but it is gaining acceptance at least among some Modern Orthodox. Dvora Ross, herself a voluntary single mother, has not dispassionately reviewed the “pure” halakhic and social policy aspects and staunchly defends single motherhood (Dvora Ross, “Artificial Insemination in Single Women,” in Micah D. Halpern and Chana Safrai, eds., Jewish Legal Writings By Women Jerusalem: Urim, 1998, Hebrew Section, pp. 45–72). Most of the Orthodox criticism of Ross’ article is not on grounds of pure halakha but on the basis of the phenomenon’s negative consequences on the Jewish family unit (See for example, Rabbi Aharon Feldman’s scathing review-essay, “Halakhic Feminism or Feminist Halakha?” Tradition 33:2 (Winter 1999), pp. 61–79. The reference to Ross’ article is on p. 74). To many, as Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein points out in his seminal essay on the role of social factors in halakha (cited above), such concerns are within the purview of the halakhist. Others, such as Rabbi David Stav, one of the heads of the Yeshivat Hesder of Petah Tikva, argues that the only halakhic issue is that the father’s identity is unknown and that might, conceivably, present a problem when the child wishes to marry. Other than that, “on the halakhic level, there is no argument between the posekim that there is no prohibition for a woman to become pregnant through artificial insemination…. This is not a halakhic question but one that is in the realm of social policy.” When weighing the anguish of single women who yearn to have children against the fear that women might not want to get married—and include the admittedly remote halakhic complication from not knowing the identity of the father—leaves Stav unable to decide. However, his colleague, Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, is reported to allow artificial insemination for single women who unsuccessfully sought to marry by the age of 37.

This issue is surely one of a group of contemporary issues in which the extent to which the halakha can remain in its own orbit and its unique speed without being the force of the thrust increasing or decreasing it, to use the Rav’s analogy, in cases that involve major cultural clashes, is somewhat dubious. We saw this with the issue of women’s prayer groups and the “pesak” of the “RIETS 5,” which was clearly much more about the role of women in society than about the laws of tefilla. The issue of voluntary single motherhood, likewise, is one that is controversial and emotionally charged in American society, in general. Even at the highest levels of analysis, there are some scholarly works that view it as very harmful to the children involved and, ultimately, society as a whole (See, for example, David Popenoe, Life Without Father: Compelling New Evidence that Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for the Good of Children and Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999). There are other works (see, for example, Rosanna Hertz, Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice. New York, Oxford University Press, 2008) that present evidence indicating that although some women became mothers in a “radical” way, they were motivated by normative family values and aspirations, and their family lifestyles are actually very conventional. In terms of Orthodox voluntary single mothers, although the rabbis and others may debate the halakhic and meta-halakhic issues involved, the meager evidence available suggests that the many of the women involved are making their choices individually, without careful consideration of those issues.

Perhaps the most emotionally charged family and sexual issue of our time is homosexuality. In terms of its prevalence, recognizing the difficulty in determining rates due to the variety of definitions of homosexuality and the unwillingness of many people to offer information about their sexual behavior, the empirical evidence suggests that there has not been any significant increase in homosexuality in the past half-century and more. We have no studies of it prior to the 1940s, so we really do not know if there has been any increase in the behavior. Shaul Stampfer found hardly any references to it among Eastern European Jews during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but it is difficult to believe that the phenomenon was non-existent. In fact, it is reasonable to assume that there actually has not been any significant increase in homosexuality. Rather, the phenomenon is now much more open, primarily because of the rise in identity politics in Western society and culture during the 1960s and 1970s. On the other hand, perhaps it has actually increased because the tolerance of it allows those with surmountable homosexual tendencies to avoid undertaking the effort to change. (I thank Prof. Martin Lockshin for this suggestion.)

Judaism across the spectrum incorporated the biblical condemnation of homosexuality as an abomination (“to’eva”) and had, until recently, not only vehemently censured the act but ostracized the offenders as well. With the growing acceptance of homosexuality in the broader society, Reform Judaism was the first branch of American Judaism to alter its stance, when, on March 29, 2000, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) overwhelmingly approved a resolution giving rabbis the option to preside at gay and lesbian commitment ceremonies. Not long afterward, the movement’s temple and synagogue organization, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now called the Union of Reform Judaism) called for full legal equality for homosexual couples, including legal recognition of their relationships. 

During that same period, on March 25, 1992, Conservative Judaism’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) voted in favor of a lengthy responsum written by Rabbi Joel Roth that reiterated the traditional stance of homosexuality as an abomination. It also rejected castigations of some social activists who labeled the decisors as callous, and proclaimed, “It is possible for a decisor to be understanding, empathic, sensitive, caring, and without irrational fears, and yet conclude that the halakhic precedents are defensible, warranted, and compelling.” In a postscript, Roth went on to distinguish between halakha and civil law and, in the realm of the latter, saw “no justification for civil legislation proscribing such acts.” Thus, while the Rabbinical Assembly reaffirmed its traditional prescription for heterosexuality, it supported complete civil equality for homosexuals; deplored violence against them; reiterated that they

are welcome as members in their congregations; and called upon the entire movement to

increase “awareness, understanding and concern for our fellow Jews who are gay and lesbian.”

Awareness of homosexuality in the Orthodox community increased by the award-winning documentary, Trembling Before G-d (2001), which portrayed the conflicts experienced by Jewish gays and lesbians between their strong bonds with God and the Orthodox Jewish tradition, on the one hand, and Judaism’s very strong condemnation of homosexuality, on the other. A number of Orthodox rabbis, Hareidi as well as Modern Orthodox, have expressed compassion for individual homosexuals while, at the same time, affirming the condemnation of prohibited homosexual activity, and have urged that those violators not be shunned any more than are other sinners, such as Sabbath desecrators. Among the more Hareidi of those who profess compassion, one senses an outreach approach that aspires to enlist them in programs aimed at reorienting them from their homosexual tendencies (See, for example, Avi Shafran, “Dissembling Before G-d,” Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, Feb. 21, 2002). There is much debate in society at-large as to the feasibility of such reorientation, based on the question as to whether homosexuality is hereditary or learned behavior.

For the Orthodox community in particular, the publication of Steven Greenberg’s Wrestling With God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004) had the potential to create a real stir and perhaps even change some attitudes. Greenberg, after all, has ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University, and considers himself as part of the Orthodox community. However, as Asher Lopatin elucidates in his extensive sympathetic yet forthright critique (“What Makes a Book Orthodox?” Edah Journal 4:2 (Kislev) 5765/2004), the book is not and will not be seen as an Orthodox work because the author is admittedly not fully committed to Orthodoxy; because its methodology and style are not those of Orthodox works; and it is insufficiently creative halakhically. That and the facts that it was published by a university press with limited distribution and, even more, that has an erotically suggestive painting on the cover, have made it a non-event in the public Orthodox community. How widely it was read under wraps in that community is anyone’s guess. Not surprisingly, Greenberg replied to Lopatin’s critique (Edah Journal 5:2 (Sivan) 5766/2006), stating that his intent

was not to settle the thorny halakhic issues, but to set the stage for richer halakhic engagements that in time will follow. It is my view that a full-fledged halakhic “solution” to the problem of homosexual relations is premature. . . .There is still too little understanding, let alone empathy, in the Orthodox community for the gay religious person and too much entrenched fear about the consequences of any partial, let alone full-fledged acceptance, of embarking on such a project.

If one were to assume from this that there has been little change in the Orthodox community, one would be very mistaken. There definitely has been change. There are now several openly gay Orthodox groups in Israel. One, Havruta, held its first anniversary event in Jerusalem recently, where the guest of honor was none other than Rabbi Yaakov Medan, who is one of the heads of Yeshivat Har Etzion. A number of other prominent Orthodox religious personalities participated as well (Yair Ettinger, “Of Pride and Prayer,” Haaretz, Feb. 26, 2009). Also, the second season of the Israeli television series, Serugim, will include homosexuals, and there are even several gay Hareidi web sites (such as Mendy’s Blog and Homo Hareidi).

            Does all of the change documented lend support to Blu Greenberg’s famous assertion that, “Where there's a rabbinic will there's a halakhic way?” As a historical statement it may. Orthodox Judaism is, by definition, conservative, and all conservative religious groups manifest stronger family values that the non-traditionals do. On the other hand, no group is immune to the broader social and cultural patterns, and their families of today are not quite what they were a half-century ago. However, if the assertion is taken to be a political call to action, none of what has been discussed should necessarily be taken as supporting that assertion. All too frequently, such calls backfire and lead to a reactionary impulse, because they are seen as undermining halakhic authority, and serve to make it even more difficult to achieve the very objective intended by the call. As several of the issues discussed above suggest, working with halakhic authorities, rather than attacking them, is much more productive.

            As the world shrinks—and technological innovations assure that it does—broader social and cultural patterns will change even more rapidly, and they will increasingly impinge on the Jewish family, including the Orthodox family. Nor is there anything novel about it. As R. Yehudah Hehִasid (c. 1150–1217), the author of the Sefer haHassidim, recognized centuries ago, “As is the custom of the gentiles, so are the customs of the Jews in most cases.” How Orthodoxy will respond to these new challenges is anyone’s guess. It is increasingly obvious that digging one’s heels in, furthering the “she’erit haPeleta” (“saving remnant”) approach, and trying to ignore the changes does not work, as a look at the rising divorce rates among the Orthodox, including Hareidim, indicate. Perhaps increasing numbers of Orthodox rabbis and other communal leaders will decide to learn more about the broader societal and cultural patterns, to work with experts in society-at-large, as well as with each other in attempts deal with the changes within a halakhic framework. The latter, of course, presents a formidable challenge of agreeing on an appropriate halakhic framework. One might be tempted to say that only Mashiah will be able to bring that about, but unless he arrives shortly, we may not be able to wait.

Are there any Jews in Ghana?' I was asked this question numerous times after my return from Sub-SaharanAfrica in January, 2008. I had participated in a service trip with the AmericanJewish World Service (AJWS) through which 25 rabbinical students from acrossthe denominational spectrum, together with group leaders and ascholar-in-residence (Rabbi Rolando Matalon of Congregation Bnei Jeshurun inNew York,) had visited a village in Ghana to work with the local community andto learn about the challenges facing people there. We mixed cement, carriedwater, learned the local language, visited a herbal doctor, trekked through ajungle, met people of all ages and occupations, spoke to doctors, visited arefugee camp and had discussions for hours on end. But we did not meet anyJews. There are Jews in Ghana, but hundreds of miles from Gbi-Atabu, our host village inthe North Eastern region of Ghana. I would love to meet them one day but the short durationof the trip meant that we did not have time to visit them on this occasion.

'Arethere any Jews in Ghana?'What is the assumption behind this question? I was on a trip, to help and tolearn, with rabbinical students. It was led by the American Jewish WorldService. For many, an obvious inference is that our hosts must have beenJewish. At first, this conclusion was baffling to me, or even offensive. Justbecause I am Jewish does not mean that I am only interested in other Jews. AndAJWS, which is dedicated to the goal of alleviating poverty, hunger and diseasein the developing world, is Jewish because it is run, funded and supportedlargely by Jews who believe in the Jewish principle of pursuing justice for allpeople, whatever their religion. The assumption that I could only have been inGhana to visit the Jewish community pushed the same buttons in me as another questionI am also sometimes asked: 'How many people live in your building?', by whichthe (inevitably Orthodox) questioner means 'Are there any Jews in yourbuilding,' but has overlooked the fact that there are people in the world whoare not Jewish.There is,however an argument behind these assumptions that does deserve to be addressed.They represent a serious and challenging set of questions about charity andpublic policy in the Orthodox Jewish community in the United States and elsewhere. What are the concerns of Orthodox Jews? Athome, there is anxiety over the cost of kosher food and Jewish education,supporting the Jewish poor and elderly. Abroad there is the matter of Israel and its relationship with other countries, and the plightof vulnerable Jews the world over. And there is ongoing fear of anti-Semitismand unease over inter-marriage. That is a lot to deal with. So where does Ghana (or El Salvador, Thailand, or any other developing country) fit into this picture?Once it has dealt with its own issues, can the Orthodox Jewish community reallyspare the financial or organizational resources to dedicate to infant mortalityacross the globe? Do we care more about someone dying in Vietnam than someone being shelled in Sderot? And isn't the Jewishcommunity small enough that it has to look after itself first and foremost? Weare limited by our size and besides, there are plenty of non-Jews in the worldwho can deal with the problems of other non-Jews.Gbi-Atabuis a village of a few hundred people. Its inhabitants live in smallsingle-story houses with dirt floors, no running water and intermittentelectricity. Some recent technology has made its way into the village - somevillagers have cell phones, for example - but it has not made any significant differenceto the way of life there. Water has to be drawn daily from the river or a well.Goats and chickens roam freely along the dirt tracks. Trash is burnt, notcollected. People wash themselves outdoors behind partitions made out of cinderblocks. Employment is scarce and the village has been in the process ofconstructing a small community building for several years as it is dependent onforeign aid and the physical labor of the community itself (and visitingrabbinical students.)Despitethese challenging circumstances, people seem happy, at least at first sight.Children, though often shoeless, laugh and play in the fields. Familystructures are very tightly knit which creates a sense of belonging. There arefrequent sessions of drumming, dancing and singing, often in connection withthe local church. Indeed, my initial impression was that despite the physicalhardship of everyday life, the people of Gbi-Atabu are free of the anxietiesand stresses of the typical New Yorker. Perhaps they are even happier than weare.Butthis impression was short lived. A number of factors contribute to placing thetypical life in Gbi-Atabu in perpetual crisis. The public health situation inthe entire region is dismal. The local hospital has three doctors treating 50,000people (that number of people in the USA would on average be served by 275 doctors) and even thesefacilities are difficult to access because transport to the hospital is oftenmore than people can afford. (As a result, the local 'clinic' treats anythingfrom headaches - a symptom of hypertension which is very common there - tobroken bones, often with herbs and a hacksaw on a dirt floor in the proximityof free roaming farm animals.) The water supply carries a number of lethaldiseases that have been eradicated in many other parts of the world such aspolio, meningitis and TB. Most of the population is unable to afford mosquitonets, leaving them vulnerable to yellow fever and malaria. The food supply isseverely deficient in calories and both children and adults are perpetuallymalnourished. Many suffer from respiratory problems resulting from the cloudsof red dust carried by the dry season winds from the Sahara Desert. Women especially suffer from spinal problems as a resultof carrying water in huge containers on their heads, often for miles every day.And then there is HIV-AIDS which has infected 7.5% of the population ofSub-Saharan Africa (compared with 0.6% in the USA). In the absence of easy access to affordable drugs andthe option of caesarian births which help to avoid infants receiving theinfections from their mothers (there is one obstetrician in all of Ghana), HIV-AIDS often passes onto children through childbirth.The average life expectancy in the region is about 57 years (in the US it is about 77). Children die daily from diseases thatcould be cured with cheap, easily administered drugs if only there was theinfrastructure to distribute them.Otherdeficiencies in the local strated and pessimistic about their future. One ofthe villagers that I met, Mamata, has made her way through high school thanksto the recent innovation of free schooling throughout Ghana. She is intelligent and energetic and she wants to be anurse. But here is where the road stops for this 18-year-old woman. She lacksthe funds to buy the textbooks she needs to complete her high school exams. Herextended family depends on her labor to support them. Transportation to the nearestuniversity is also unaffordable. So she remains unemployed, drawing water,cooking and washing for her family. She is frustrated at her lack of options.Another child that I met, Eric, was orphaned at an early age and has come tolive with Mamata's family in the absence of anyone else who could support him.On the day I met him he was upbeat and optimistic and told me of his hopes tobecome a doctor. But one evening he spent hours with another member of ourgroup. He had been drinking - alcoholism is a common side effect of thefrustrations in the community - and cried about his lack of future prospects,his loneliness and his poverty. He literally begged to be taken to America.This isonly a glimpse into the endemic crisis that Ghanaians need to endure. But whatdoes this have to do with us, Orthodox Jews in wealthier countries? There arealso people in crisis in the Bronx, Sderot and elsewhere who are closer to us by virtue ofgeographical proximity or their being Jewish. As I am frequently asked when Iteach or speak about Ghana, surely we need to prioritize? I first need to make clearthat I do not advocate an approach to tzedaka or social action that requires atotal dedication to one cause only. 'One should only study what he or she findsfulfilling' and the same thing goes for tzedaka. It is important that everyindividual identify the goals and causes that speak to him or her. But whatabout the community as a whole? Considering the multiple concerns of the Jewishcommunity that I outlined at the beginning of this article, some feel that theplight of the developing world, however severe, simply is not a cause for Jews.It is this argument that I resist. In today's world, Jews have a moralobligation to concern themselves with vulnerable people who are outside theirreligious community. And beyond the moral obligation, an orientation outward,as well as inward, is ultimately essential for the wellbeing of the Jewishcommunity itself in the long-term.On asimple level, it is a fallacy that because our community has other concerns,the developing world lies outside of our sphere of obligation. Even if we couldidentify the single most important issue, it should not monopolize communityfunds or other energies. That is why governments fund theaters and parks eventhough hospitals and schools are short of money. It is a mistake often made inthe Orthodox community that because we have pressing concerns of our own, thereis no room in our over-anxious minds and no further we can thrust our handsinto over-stretched pockets in the service of other needs. This is a dangerousline of thinking. Notwithstanding the pragmatic necessity to prioritize in theallocation of resources, a moral obligation is a moral obligation irrespectiveof other obligations that may compete with it.I alsowant to go beyond this logical and ethical argument and to point out that evenwithin traditional schemes of hierarchies of charitable priorities, it is notat all obvious that causes outside of the Jewish community come last. One keyTalmudic text that outlines a hierarchy is found in Bava Metzia 71a where RavYosef considers who should be lent money first:

'A Jew and a non-Jew – a Jew has preference; the poor or therich – the poor takes precedence; yourpoor [i.e. your relatives] and the [general] poor of your town — your poor comefirst; the poor of your city and the poor of another town — the poor of yourown town take priority.'

RavYosef's text ostensibly supports the conventional view of the hierarchy ofobligation. Jews come first, gentiles second. Relatives first, strangerssecond, and so on. And yet, his statement also implicitly challenges this samehierarchy, not by what is said but by what is not. Who comes first if you facea choice between a Gentile in your town and a Jew in another town? A rich localJew and a poor foreign Gentile? By maintaining a silence on most of thepermutations of these factors, Rav Yosef invites us to question thecomprehensiveness of his system.Thesame challenge is implicit in the formulation of R Yosef Karo in the section ofhis Shulhan Arukh dedicated to charity:

'Relatives take priority over everyone else...and the poorof one's own household over the poor of one's city, the poor of one's city overthe poor of another city, and the inhabitants of the Land of Israel over thosewho live outside it.' (Yoreh Deah 251:3)

Againwe are invited to explore the gaps in the hierarchy. This challenge is taken upby a number of poskim who explore the ambiguities in the approach of a stricthierarchy of priorities. R Moshe Sofer, for example, maintains that a verygreat need overrides the hierarchy altogether (see Hatam Sofer on Yoreh Deah234). Someone in immediate danger of death demands our help irrespective ofwhether he/she is our relative or not. It could certainly be argued that theplight of many in the developing world is more urgent than any other issue inthe world today. Quantitatively (in terms of the vast number of peopleaffected) and qualitatively (the alternative to intervention is nothing shortof death on a massive scale) the situation in Congo, Sudan, Thailand, ElSalvador and many other places dwarfs the urgency of other demands for aid.Although I am not advocating the priority of one charity over others for everyindividual, I do believe that this question of urgency should at least beseriously considered in our own decisions about charitable priorities.Anothergreat posek, R Yehiel Michel Epstein also questions the hierarchy:

'There is something about this that is very difficult for mebecause if we understand these words literally – that some groups take priorityover others – that implies that there is no requirement to give to groups loweron the hierarchy. And it is well known that every wealthy person has many poor relatives(and all the more so every poor person) so it will happen that a poor personwithout any rich relatives will die of hunger. And how could this possibly be?So it seems clear to me that the correct interpretation is that everyone,whether rich or poor, must also give to poor people who are not relatives, andgive more to those who are relatives. And the same would apply to all the othergroups on the hierarchy.' (Arukh ha-Shulhan Yoreh Deah 151:4)

Ifeveryone takes care only of their own, points out R Epstein, many people willgo without. His insight is evinced by a cursory look at the distribution ofworldwide wealth. Massive disparities in global income mean that 85% of theworld's wealth is held by the wealthiest 10%. Almost all of this 10% (about 90%of it) lives in the US, Europe and in high-income areas of Asia andOceana. If everyone takes care of their own first and foremost, countries like Ghana with very limited resources and a halting nationalinfrastructure, will get very little. And this is what happens today. Mamata'srelatives cannot help her to finish school and neither can her religiouscommunity or her government. If she does not receive attention from outside ofthe conventional charitable hierarchies, she will not receive any attention atall.Theseinsights, then, are challenges to the hierarchy even on its own terms. Anothercomplication in is that in today's world the categories within the hierarchyhave also become very ambiguous. At the time when the R Karo was writing, Jewslived in self-contained autonomous communities within larger Gentile societies.The Jewish community (like Christian and Muslim communities) supported theirown poor who almost always came from nearby. Although there were business andsocial relations with people outside the Jewish community, nobody expected theJews to provide support, charitable or otherwise, to those living outside ofthe community, and the Jews did not expect to be supported either. Besides, itwas unusual for Jews to encounter people outside of their community, andcertainly outside of their own towns, who needed their assistance.Allaspects of this picture have changed today. In the modern world, neither Jewsnor any other group lives in a self-contained community. The state builds roadsand utilities which are used by Jews. It contributes to Jewish charities andhelps to support the Jewish poor through social security and (one would hope)national health insurance. And not only are Jews in a strong mutualrelationship with the countries in which they live; we are also integrallylinked with the social and economic realities in the developing world. Most ofthe clothes that we wear and the toys we buy for our children have been made bysome of the 3 billion people who live on less than $2 a day. The Jewishcommunity (like all people) today is socially and economically enmeshed withthe rest of the world to a far greater degree than in the middle ages. This isnot to say that Jewish communal ties are not important - I of course believe theyare - nor that it is inappropriate for us to feel closer to those in the Jewishcommunity than to others. It is, however, wrongheaded to continue to constructa hierarchy of charitable priorities as if nothing has changed in the past 500years.Andthat is not all. We now know more than ever before about the state ofvulnerable human beings all over the world. We participate in service trips,see live pictures, read statistics and meet immigrants. The fact that from ourown houses we can see live pictures of people all around the globe seriouslychallenges a paradigm that is based on a difference between the local and thedistant needy. Indeed, the philosopher Peter Singer makes a powerful case thatin today's world our obligation to someone dying in Africa is nodifferent from our obligation to someone dying right in front of us, becausewith toady's communications, everyone is essentially right in front of us. Thenearly 30,000 children who die every day because of poverty may have lived inremote villages we have never been to; but they also breathe their last in ourown homes.Furthermore,the status of Jews in today's world is different than at any other period.Notwithstanding anti-Semitism, attacks on Israel and all our other concerns, Jews in America are, on the whole, wealthier, more secure and moreinfluential than ever before. This position brings with it a responsibility touse our wealth and our influence for the good of all. And this is not anexhortation only for the very wealthy. In the democracy we live under, lobbyingand organized campaigns can really make a difference. We have theresponsibility not just to give money to charity but also to volunteer our timeand to contact our representatives to voice our concern for the world's poor.I havetried to argue on halakhic, moral and pragmatic grounds that as a community weneed to take very seriously our responsibility to those outside of ourgeographical and religious communities. But I want to make an even morefundamental argument, which is that doing so is not a diversion from ourcommunal goals, however necessary, but a fulfillment of them. Judaism has avery fine balance between particularism and universalism. Our mission as apeople is, literally, to save the world. God promised Abraham that 'all thefamilies on earth will be blessed through you.' But this promise was also ademand. We are charged to bring about blessing for all other peoples. To dothis, we need to be a strongly constituted people ourselves. And by the sametoken we become a strong people by reasserting our divine mission. We are to bea 'mamlekhet kohanim' - a nation which is a conduit of God's message into theworld. Both sides of this description are vital. To achieve our divine missionwe need to be a people, just as we need to be a people in order to fulfill ourdivine mission.All ofthis means that we treat with the utmost importance our responsibility to thephysical and spiritual wellbeing of our own community. But that is not all; thegoal of our community is to go outside of itself, to improve and perfect theworld. And this goal is not external to the existence of the community, butconstitutive of it. We simply are not the Jewish people properly conceived ifwe cannot see beyond our own noses.

This is true from a very pragmatic point of view. As I learnt serving in Ghana with Jews from many other denominations, worldwide social justice is a cause that can strengthen the bonds within the wider Jewish community. Jews who cannot pray together can still do justice together. Thissolidarity across the Jewish community will help us all, and in turn help us todo more good in the wider world. Furthermore, the formulation a strong visionof the divine Jewish mission in the world that goes beyond self-preservation isan essential step in the strengthening of the Orthodox community itself. 'To continue your tradition', or 'because of the Holocaust' are not compellingarguments to those considering marrying out of the Jewish community. But a very compelling argument can be: 'Because part of being Jewish is to bring blessing to all people in the world'. Our dedication to those outside of our owncommunity as well as those within it will result not in a distraction from ou community but a strengthening of it. 'Are there Jews in Ghana?' There certainly are, and I feel a special bond withthem. But there are also many others who need my attention in Ghana and beyond and I have the obligation to dedicate myself to them. Not despite being, but because I am, a Jew.

“I tell you, all the madness of the human race is in the sanctification of that book. Everything going wrong with this country is in the first five books of the Old Testament. Smite the enemy, sacrifice your son, the desert is yours and nobody else’s all the way to the Euphrates. A body count of dead Philistines on every other page—that’s the wisdom of their wonderful Torah.” (Philip Roth, The Counterlife, p. 75)

I

            As a yeshiva boy in Forest Hills, New York in the 1980s (this was at Ohr Torah Institute—otherwise known as “the Institution,” as in house of detention), the closest thing to a Jewish American novel we were ever required to read were the aggadic sections of rabbinic fantasy we occasionally studied in Talmud class. It should be mentioned, however, that the rabbis almost always skipped over these “story” passages as unimportant. We routinely turned the Talmud page when we came upon what my ninth-grade rebbe called “these worthless passages,” and jumped headlong into the text’s pilpul and halakhic discussion of a gored ox or a disputed tallit.

            Growing up in Cedarhurst, Long Island, in the 1970s and 1980s as an “aynekel of the Modzitzer” was a strange and heady experience. Every winter we would get in my father’s beat-up car and drive all the way to Brooklyn, to a shteibel in Flatbush where, as the only non-black-hatted Hassid in the room, I would be rewarded by being seated between my grandfather and the current Modzitzer Rebbe. I would listen with rapt attention as my grandfather’s cousin, Ben Zion Shenker, sang the beautiful and haunting niggunim of my great, great grandfather, Rabbi Yisrael Taub of Modzitz. Each niggun came with a story that my grandfather would whisper into my ear as the hundreds of loyal Hassidim swayed to the mournful strains of Ben Zion’s voice; I heard history, both his and mine, unfold in each note. One niggun, called a “song of the homeless,” was written in response to the thousands of refugees streaming through the Modzitzer’s shtetl in the aftermath of World War I. Another terrifyingly beautiful niggun was penned while the Rebbe (my grandfather’s grandfather) had his right leg amputated. The song, which is sung only twice a year, once at the yarzeit of the Rebbe and again during the Ne’ilah service on Yom Kippur, is a gentle reminder to God pleading with him not to forsake his people during their times of sorrow.  

            Needless to say, our family never davened at a Young Israel; my father managed to find the one shabby shteibel in all of Long Island—and he made fast work to move the family directly across the street from Congregation Beis Medrash—an insider’s joke of an appropriate name for a Long Island synagogue—a shul without a pool (but, with plenty of Vilna shases for consolation). My father must have believed that proximity to a real honest-to-goodness bearded Rebbe, one who strolled down Central Avenue wearing a shtreimel and kapotah no less, would somehow keep me from losing my Modzitzer bearings. As it turns out—he couldn’t have been more right.

            Shabbos in our home not only meant traditional Jewish foods: challah for motzi, thick Malaga wine for kiddush, gefilte fish and chrain, but, as importantly, it also meant a new hands-breadth of Jewish American fiction—my reading for the coming week. Once the last strains of benching were sung, my father would wordlessly rise from the table and quietly descend the steep basement steps and disappear, sometimes for a half an hour or more. When he came back up to us all, his arms would be filled with dusty old paperbacks of Jewish American novels—his old yellowing musty texts from his youth growing up in Kingsbridge in the Bronx, the second son of Holocaust survivors. Other texts he had culled as an English major up in the Harlem hills of City College, that “poor man’s Harvard” of the mid-1960s.

            From my father’s overflowing arms, I first discovered my life as a Jew in Long Island—these books spoke far more powerfully and poignantly to me than the pilpul sections of Gemarah we labored over each morning in yeshiva. From Bernard Malamud’s poor shopkeepers and decrepit grocery stores, I learned deep in my soul what rachmones meant and the difference mercy could make in poor people’s lives; Saul Bellow’s thwarted intellectuals warned me of the perils of only living in one’s own head, Herzog-like, as so many of my genius relatives had done and were still doing in the new world; from Philip Roth’s angry bar-mitzvah boys or quisling army privates and jaded upper-class Jewish WASP wannabes, I saw transcribed in print the vain material strivings that I witnessed from a back-row seat each week at Rabbi Speigel’s Long Island shteibel—where the yearly celebration of the glory of the ancient Torah included the selling of atah hareta to the highest bidder; or where each Shabbos aliyah in the layning was an opportunity to get someone to donate twice hai—every prayer it seemed was an opportunity not to draw closer to God, but an occasion to pander to the wealthy patrons seated comfortably at the shteibel’s front table. Through these many Jewish American writers whom my father bequeathed to me, I discovered the meaning of commitment to a Jewish world of ideas and ideals: tsedakah—charity, gemilut hassadim—acts of lovingkindness; with each new novel devoured by the fading light of my mother’s Shabbos candles, I learned deeply Rabbi Akiva’s message: veAhavta leRaiakha kamokha, love your neighbor as yourself.

            Shalom Aleichem, I. L. Peretz, Mendele Mokher Seforim, Franz Kafka, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Israel Joshua Singer, Chaim Grade, Edward Lewis Wallant, Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick—each Friday night I would turn to these brilliant writers and learn again what it meant to be a Jew: torn, conflicted, angry, compassionate, loving, argumentative, generous. My weekly reading expanded my understanding not just of what my grandparents had gone through in Europe, but what I might at some time be required to do, think and believe as a Jewish man in the not too distant future—a future that, as I got older, seemed rapidly to be approaching the present.

            Needless to say, during all my time being schooled in yeshiva—thirteen years to be exact, I was never once asked to read or reflect on a single work of Jewish American fiction. I suppose we once read Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman—sneaked into our tenth-grade world drama curriculum by Mr. Joseph Cohen, a lovely man who walked with a distinct limp, his left knee having been shattered when, as a young boy, a horse from a Lower East Side ice truck kicked him as he tried to pilfer something cold to suck on during a particularly sweltering August day on Avenue C.

            So what gives? Why is Jewish American fiction not taught in the yeshiva world? Is it fear of ridicule? Fear of allowing young, impressionable minds to be influenced by secular (read: treyf) thinkers? More importantly should this literature be taught in the yeshiva world or in the hundreds of Jewish Day Schools across America?

            Many of the rabbis I studied under in yeshiva would dismiss such books as shtuss—nonsense that would lead to bitul z’man, a frivolous waste of time. Worse, many would label this glorious literary heritage as apikorsus—heretical teachings, forbidden to read let alone to savor and enjoy. Which begs the question: Why should Jewish American fiction be taught in the yeshiva world?

II

            In her recent biography of the greatest of all Jewish philosophers, Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity, Rebecca Goldstein tells of the ways that she was discouraged in her Bais Yaakov yeshiva to even say Spinoza’s name—let alone be permitted to study his philosophical treatise, The Ethics. This would not only be bitul Torah, but it would be heretical as well, giving the girls illicit ideas not conducive to marrying a good yeshiva bochur.

            Much like Goldstein’s grim Bais Yaakov experience a generation earlier, from the many rebbes I came across in my years of yeshiva in New York, I was told time and again that it would be better to sit in a room and do nothing than to waste my time filling my head with illicit ideas from that self-hating Jew, Philip Roth. One rabbi at OTI, a man who was also the English Studies Principal (I kid you not) at the major Satmar yeshiva in Brooklyn, became so enraged upon seeing me reading Philip Roth’s latest offering, The Counterlife, he knocked the book out of my hand grabbed me by my shirt and, shaking me violently, screamed: “Cappell—you should at least read Shakespeare or the Greek myths—there is true poetry, not this filthy garbage from a self-hating Jew! If you keep reading Roth, what will your children know about Judaism?”

            Not that there wasn’t a library in our modified office building on 108^th Street that served us hundred and twenty Jewish boys as The Cohen Educational Center. There was, in fact, perched high on the top floor in a dark corner of the building a large steel door with the word “LIBRARY” scratched into the industrial paint. During my four years at the school, I cannot recall ever seeing that door open. When we literary-minded talmidim complained to the administration, we were told that in theory they supported the idea of a library hour once or twice a week, but the problem was they had no funding for a librarian—hence the room remained dark and sealed.

            One morning while we were studying a particularly difficult talmudic passage dealing with the numerous issues of shehitah (ritual slaughter), our tenth-grade rebbe, being a top-flight educator, the type of teacher who was up on the very latest pedagogical techniques, filed us into the library, which unbeknownst to most of the boys, contained a TV and a VCR. The idea was for us to watch a rather gory video of a schoichet wrestling with a large animal. I vividly recall a recalcitrant goat being the star of this particular after-school special; I will also never forget my classmate David getting ill and vomiting all over the library floor when the schoichet, after explaining to his video audience the sharpness of his knife, quickly pulled his prized implement across the goat’s throat. Just as a stream of hot, steaming blood shot forth so did David’s lunch fly across the library floor. During all of the excitement with the vomit, my good friend Ari swiped the Rabbi’s keys and quickly ran down the street to Queens Boulevard and bribing the bemused Israeli locksmith who at first (before Ari handed him a folded $20 bill) pretended to be outraged at the request, refusing to copy the official school keys which were clearly marked “DO NOT COPY.” Of course, with the $20 in his pocket he did make copies of all of the yeshiva keys. Now after the shehitah video was over most of the boys were interested in the office keys (grade changing and other assorted mischief). But Cal, Jonathan, Shlomo, and I had other plans: we had our eyes on that shiny brand-new brass library door key.

            And so began our “Rescue a Book” program from the shuttered OTI library. My friends and I would at opportune moments, while one of us acted as the lookout down the hall, sneak into the dank dark corner of the library and with just a dim natural light filtering in from 66^th Street, quickly scan the dusty shelves for books worth reading. At first we made random selections: Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays. As we got more bold in the dark library (an old 6 Volt flashlight helped with our courage), more thought went into the process: we systematically went through the Russian masters (a shelf not too far from the door should a quick exit be required): Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and my favorite from this lot—Nikolai Gogol. We soon worked out a system: the actual book thief (borrower) would get first dibs before passing the book(s) around our small literary club. When we were all done reading the person going in for the next book would return the previous book. We even voted Shlomo as our first underground librarian, tasked with keeping track of who had which rescued book.

            Back from the Riverdale days of “The Institute”—when it had a top-flight educational program founded by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin (before he abandoned the education of New York’s finest young minds in deference to the settler movement in Efrat, Israel), the library had a focus on great works of European literature. There was even a large section with French titles. Of course we, the young men of the 1980s Queens version of OTI were, amazingly, not offered any foreign language instruction: not French, not Spanish, nothing. When it became apparent to the upper administration of OTI that we needed a foreign language exam to obtain a New York State High School Diploma with the Regent’s Seal of Approval, our rather enterprising principal came up with the solution that the entire yeshiva should study Hebrew language one hour a week during the rebbes’ lunch hour. This way we could pass the Regents and help our Talmud and Mishnah study at the same time—thereby avoiding yet one more hour of “wasted time.”

            One afternoon as I was looking through the French section of the library, picking up a copy of Stendhal’s The Red and the Black, I noticed a misshelved book among the French classics. There staring up at me from behind the pale glow of my flashlight was the impish grin of a man. I flipped the book over to discover a beat-up first edition of The Adventures of Augie March (as the dust-jacket proclaimed—by the author of Dangling Man and The Victim). I grabbed the two volumes: Bellow and Stendhal, and quickly made my way back down the hall. It sounded more like a kid’s book (certainly in comparison to Crime and Punishment), but I opened the first page and began to read aloud quietly to myself in the near darkness:

I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago, that somber city—and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man’s character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn’t any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles. (Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March, p. 3)

            And I was hooked.

III

I began this essay with a quotation from The Counterlife, one of Philip Roth’s most important novels. Taken at face value, it seems like a rather angry and one-sided attack on ancient and holy Jewish texts. Why would any yeshiva or Jewish Day School principal want his or her students to study a text that contains such seemingly hateful words and ideas? Well, of course, one could find just as hateful ideas (taken out of context) in that (recently) much-maligned Hebrew Bible itself. After all, “an eye for an eye,” sounds pretty scary and hateful as well—that is without interpretation. Once we understand that the Torah is speaking of the value of labor lost through blindness we can begin to see the wisdom and morality of this ancient biblical passage. No yeshiva principal or rebbe worthy of the title would suggest that his or her students should go study the Torah without commentators such as Rashi or the Rambam. So too one must delve more deeply into Philip Roth’s novel before we may interpret his work. This isolated quotation, while extremely provocative, does no justice to the larger aims and deep moral underpinnings of each of Roth’s novels. Without interpretation of the Torah we could easily end up like Karaites sitting in the dark all Shabbos long, afraid to turn right or left. Similarly, without any critical understanding of Philip Roth, many religious leaders over the years labeled Roth as a self-hating Jew.

The truth about Roth, as well as about the many dozens of brilliant contemporary Jewish American writers, could not be further from this idea of self-hatred. Writers like Roth, those who have been satirizing the exploits of their Jewish American characters for decades, are actually the self-appointed guardians of the morals and values of the very culture they may be skewering in their fictional portrayal. Philip Roth never denigrates Judaism in The Counterlife or in any of the other thirty or so novels he has written in the past fifty years. Instead, he is attempting to push American Judaism (and America for that matter) toward a more perfect union of study and pragmatism, idea, and ideal.

In this quotation from The Counterlife, the speaker is one of Roth’s most amusing characters, an Israeli journalist named Shuki Elchanan, who in this scene is goading his old friend, Philip Roth’s alter-ego Nathan Zuckerman. They are out at dinner, discussing the current difficulties of Israeli politics, when his anger and frustration comes to a boil:

“I tell you, all the madness of the human race is in the sanctification of that book. Everything going wrong with this country is in the first five books of the Old Testament. Smite the enemy, sacrifice your son, the desert is yours and nobody else’s all the way to the Euphrates. A body count of dead Philistines on every other page—that’s the wisdom of their wonderful Torah.” (Philip Roth, The Counterlife, p. 75)

In this scene, Zuckerman and Shuki are discussing the dangerous right-wing leader of the Israeli settler movement, Mordecai Lippman—a man who perverts the Torah to bolster his message of hate and fury. More than likely, Roth modeled Lippman on Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose real-life party “Kach,” was first listed as a terrorist organization back in 1994 (as well as their splinter group, “Kahane Chai,” which is still labeled to this day as a terrorist organization by Israel). A short while after this conversation with Zuckerman, Shuki corrects these distorted ideas in a heartfelt letter to Zuckerman in which he explains that he doesn’t want to be misunderstood—nor does he want Zuckerman to mistake the zealots of the settler movement for the majority of peace-loving Israelis. (Lippman espouses a platform of fear and hatred: “There is nothing the American goy would like better than a Judenrein United States…”[p. 124].) Shuki explains in his letter to Zuckerman that he is on edge because his son, a musical prodigy who has been given an opportunity to study under the tutelage of Daniel Barenboim in New York City, would rather do his military service than continue his studies in New York. The reader of Roth’s novel soon learns that Shuki is really quite a dedicated father who loves the Jewish State and loves being a Jew. We also hear from his father, a Holocaust survivor, now a welder in Israel, who pleads with Zukerman to make aliyah. That drunken rant against Israel and the Hebrew Bible is in fact a manifestation of Shuki’s frustration with the horrors of war and the many hatreds unleashed by the Middle East conflict. Shuki, we discover, is a veteran of the Yom Kippur War, where

he’d lost his hearing in one ear and most of the sight in one eye when an exploding Egyptian shell threw him fifteen feet from his position. His brother, a reserve paratroop officer, who in civilian life had been [an] architect, was taken prisoner when the Golan Heights were overrun. After the Syrian retreat, they found him and the rest of his captured platoon with their hands tied behind them to stakes in the ground; they had been castrated, decapitated, and their penises stuffed in their mouths. Strewn around the abandoned battlefield were necklaces made of their ears. (p. 63)

After all this fighting and horror, Shuki is tired of warfare and tired of people who, like Lippman, believe that they have God on their side and therefore all of the answers. In fact, having witnessed numerous atrocities committed on both sides of the conflict, as these disturbing passages demonstrate, Shuki remains somewhat shell-shocked by his experiences.

What Roth gives his readers in The Counterlife (and in each and every one of his novels) is a complex view of a multi-faceted religion and culture. There are no easy answers in The Counterlife; like the best literature, it offers us difficult questions we must contemplate alone and communally. Do not Jewish schools and yeshivas owe it to their students to present complex thinking on the many complications of Jewish life in America and Israel? Do yeshiva principals think that by barring these discussions from the Beis Medrash and the yeshiva classrooms that their talmidim do not know of the existence of alternate perspectives, varied identities, shifting levels of religious observance to Judaism and a “Torah-true” life? Do these same rebbes and principals not know of the high attrition rate of students who have been denied opportunities to discuss the complexities of individual faith and understanding of our tradition? How many of these students had Roth novels (or, like Rebecca Goldstein in her yeshiva experience being denied Spinoza’s Ethics…) knocked out of their hands? How many of these students who were frustrated in their attempts to gain a deeper more meaningful individualistic understanding of Judaism are no longer affiliated with the faith or no longer consider themselves “practicing” Jews? How many of these thoughtful students are now “off the derekh”?

IV

At the end of one of Saul Bellow’s most important stories titled, “Something to Remember Me By,” the narrator—now an old man preparing for his own death, but barely sixteen years old in the frame of the story—is trying to prepare himself for the imminent death of his mother, a woman who has suffered for many months from cancer and who is in the midst of the very last throes of her disease. After several misadventures in the frigid cold of a Midwestern storm, the narrator has been robbed of his sheepskin overcoat; he knows he must return home, where his furious and often violent father awaits him. These are the boy’s thoughts as he rides on the Chicago streetcar home:

If my father should catch me I could expect hard blows on my shoulders, on the top of my head, on my face. But if my mother had, tonight, just died, he wouldn’t hit me.

    This was when the measured, reassuring, sleep-inducing turntable of days became a whirlpool, a vortex darkening toward the bottom. I had had only the anonymous pages in the pocket of my lost sheepskin to interpret it to me. They told me that the truth of the universe was inscribed into our very bones. That the human skeleton was itself a hieroglyph. That everything we had ever known on earth was shown to us in the first days after death. That our experience of the world was desired by the cosmos, and needed by it for its own renewal. (Bellow, Collected Stories, p. 436)

The boy gets off at the North Avenue stop and that is when Saul Bellow’s pithy drash on Jewish mourning rituals begins:

I got down on the North Avenue stop, avoiding my reflection in the shopwindows. After a death, mirrors were immediately covered. I can’t say what this pious superstition means. Will the soul of your dead be reflected in a looking glass, or is this custom a check to the vanity of the living? (p. 437)

            A cynical reader might say, “Why should yeshiva students have to put up with this angry dismissal of an important shiva ritual?” After all, Bellow’s narrator dismisses this minhag, or custom, as “pious superstition.” Yet the narrator’s next two questions suggest a far more nuanced appraisal of this custom. In fact, Bellow himself is not at all dismissive of these Jewish rituals. “A check on vanity of the living”—this is in fact a brilliant interpretation of this mysterious ritual of uncertain origin. More importantly, Bellow’s entire story is focused on key ideas of Judaism and our relationship with this tradition: how to honor one’s dead parents and what is bequeathed from one generation to the next.

V

            Why study Jewish American literature in the yeshiva classroom? Because without it we have a very limited idea of the varieties of Jewish life in America. We cannot hide from the difficult questions Jewish writers in America ask of our community no more than we can fend off the many barbed critiques that much twentieth century and contemporary Jewish American literature presents to an early twenty-first-century practicing “Torah Jew.” Nor should we. Any serious appraisal of Jewish life in America (the aim of a yeshiva education?) would be incomplete without these varied Jewish American voices weighing in. We as a community need to contend with these key ideas. So whether stolen by its students or willingly given, this body of imaginative work created by Jews in America during the past century of experimentation on these shores desperately needs to be contemplated. I have often thought that it is a yeshiva audience, those readers classically trained in the traditional Jewish texts and culture, who truly have the knowledge to “unpack” all of the hidden meanings contained in Jewish American writing and who constitute the ideal readers for Jewish American fiction writers. How sad that this perfect audience has, with an angry flick of the hand (Shtuss!), so often rejected this body of post-rabbinic literature, work that might be thought of as a complex commentary on traditional Jewish sources: the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud.

VI

Many of the new Jewish American writers are former yeshiva students formally schooled in Torah and mitzvoth: Allegra Goodman, Tova Mirvis, Gary Shteyngart, Shalom Auslander. Yet many of these former yeshiva students seem to use their hard-earned knowledge of Judaism as fodder for satire and ridicule. Early on in Gary Shteyngart’s funny and culturally vital 2006 novel Absurdistan, his protagonist Misha Vainberg, a recent immigrant from Russia, is maimed in a botched adult circumcision by a group of Hassidim in Brooklyn. Late in the novel, Misha is traveling on an airplane when he spots a large Hassid sitting in first-class getting into an argument and acting rudely to a flight attendant. He enters into the first-class cabin and begins shouting at the Hassid: “Beware of their mitzvah mobiles, fellow Jews among you. Beware of circumcision late in life. Beware of easy faith…” (p. 109). Similarly, Shalom Auslander puts his knowledge of yeshiva to work in almost each of his stories collected in his 2005 book Beware of God. In “The War of the Bernsteins,” the eponymous character becomes so obsessed with the mathematics and mechanisms of Jewish reward and punishment that he spends most of his waking hours calculating the number of negative commandments versus the positive mitzvoth—missing the spirit of the Torah in the process and completely ignoring and alienating his young wife, who eventually divorces him:

The spiritual mathematics consumed him.

Was obeying a negative prohibition worth the same amount of reward in the World to Come as fulfilling a positive commandment? Would the inaction of negative prohibitions really be as rewarded as the deliberate action of positive commandments? (p. 3)

Of course, all of Bernstein’s anti-social behaviors are actively encouraged by his rabbis who think of his increasing concern with mitzvoth as a positive sign of his becoming a much better Jew—a true “master of repentance.” Perhaps no contemporary Jewish American writer better exemplifies the need to study this literature in the yeshiva than Shalom Auslander. While his writing is uproariously funny—it is also a wry commentary on the importance of not losing track of the true meaning of the Torah as a way of living a life filled with meaning and concern for our fellow human beings. The Torah is not a ledger sheet of virtues and demerits. Auslander’s stories point out the shortcomings of a yeshiva education that does not focus on how all this Torah observance should strive to make better human beings.  

Reading Auslander’s stories brings me back to some of the more unsavory aspects of my own yeshiva background. At Ohr Torah Institute the rabbis would greet us in the morning with a big bear hug combined with a back rub. What was the purpose of this morning ritual? Had the rabbis missed us so much since the previous afternoon? Was this a true emotional exchange between rebbe and talmid—an emotional overflowing of powerful feelings? It was not long before we each realized that this outburst of physical warmth was really a slick rabbinical maneuver to do a quick once over for each boy: I refer to what became known in our yeshiva as the “tsitsith-check.” During this morning ritual hug, if you were discovered to not be wearing your four-cornered, fringed garment under your button-down dress shirt, you would be required to purchase just such a ritual object proffered by the more enterprising rabbis of our school right out of their attaché cases. 

            As in Auslander’s story “The War of the Bernsteins,” these rabbinical machinations did more to alienate the recipients of all this religious attention than they served to draw people closer to God and an increased level of ritual observance. One way to read Auslander’s stories would be as a cynical perspective on the yeshiva world—stories best left out of Jewish Day School and yeshiva high-school curricula. Yet I would argue that the most important audience that Shalom Auslander is writing for is precisely the world of tsitsith-checking rabbis—complete with frozen smiles and false embraces. Perhaps a Jewish educator reading this story, or as importantly, one of the poor unfortunate tsitsith-checkees like myself—just might be brought back to an awareness, a deeper sympathy with the true spirit and beauty of Judaism. At the same time Auslander’s fiction forces his readers to recognize how that beauty has been perverted by numerous unthinking and uncaring religiously-motivated actions. After all, tsitsith are supposed to bring the wearer to an understanding and an appreciation of God’s omnipresence. As it says in Numbers 15:40, you wear tsitsith so “that ye may remember, and do all My commandments, and be holy unto your God.” Ironically, the Torah goes on to explain that tsitsith are supposed to serve as a reminder of God’s granting the Israelites their freedom: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Numbers 15:41)—probably not the first thought on each manhandled boy’s mind during a morning tsitsith check. I can say with certainty that God’s commandments were the furthest thing from my mind during (and long after) those demeaning (and often expensive) exchanges.

            In contrast, my reading of contemporary Jewish American fiction has afforded me a deeper understanding of Jewish ritual, and it has inspired in me an appreciation for the true beauty of Judaism—an aesthetic that was often marred in my yeshiva experience. After all, satirists have always been the self-appointed moral guardians of their culture. Whether it is Philip Roth, who way back in the 1950s had his young character Ozzie Freedman scream down at his rabbi: “Promise me, promise me you’ll never hit anybody about God” (p. 158), or Shalom Auslander’s twenty-first century vision of a sterile Jewish Orthodoxy, these brilliant works of fiction engage young minds both in and out of the yeshiva. What great literature does is force its readers to think and reflect on their lives, their roles in shaping their culture and universe. This is especially true of literature that engages readers on their own native grounds—in this case in an Orthodox or Torah setting. It is most important to allow students within the yeshiva world to be engaged by Jewish American literature to allow their imaginations to run over the possibilities that engagement with the modern world from a traditional perspective and lifestyle entails. We owe it to ourselves and to our students not to stifle the important discussions that would ensue from these readings.

VII

One of those dusty books I rescued years ago from my moldering yeshiva library was a seminal work of literary realism: Stendhal’s The Red and the Black. Late in that book, Stendhal famously defines the novel as: “a mirror that strolls along a highway. Now it reflects the blue of the skies, now the mud puddles underfoot” (p. 479). Morris Dickstein, one of the most important critics of contemporary Jewish culture, in his recent survey of American literature, The Mirror in the Roadway: Literature and the Real World, claims that in this passage

Stendhal only appears to be invoking the mirror as an impersonal mechanism, a carbon copy that displays the world as it actually is. The image itself, as he positions it, belies this simplistic claim. This is not a stationary mirror fixed upon the passing show, observing the parade as from the viewing stand, but a dynamic reflector shifting position as it moves down the road. (p. 8)

            Dickstein goes on to suggest that the mirror “must be held or carried by someone, and the images it provides will be framed, constantly changing, a series of partial views contributing to a larger picture” (p. 8).

            Surely the world of the yeshiva and the young minds it seeks to shape deserves just such a “dynamic reflector” to gauge its progress and its shortcomings. Thankfully this reflector already exists in the body of work Jewish American fiction writers have produced during the last one hundred years of experimentation on American shores.

In this essay, I am proposing that the yeshiva world institute a curriculum of study that not only reflects the beautiful blue sky but also the mud puddles of the contemporary Jewish American community. Our vast literary inheritance does just that—all we need to do is open the books ourselves and make them available to the youth studying in our yeshivas and Jewish Day Schools across the country. We deny our young questioning scholars of the yeshiva a glimpse into this mirror at the peril of the community. The yeshiva world is fearful of allowing young impressionable minds to delve into the dangers of contemporary fiction. But in fearing the “reflected mud and muck” of the Jewish community, the beautiful image of the blue sky is obscured as well.

VIII

Throughout her 1998 novel, Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman engages numerous Jewish philosophical questions. How restrictive must an Orthodox life be? Does kosher always mean kosher? What are the true ethics of kosher food? (In the midst of the horrors of Postville, Iowa, can the Orthodox Jewish community really afford not to fully engage their students in a meaningful debate about the letter of the law and the true meaning of the spirit of kashruth and holy eating habits?) How can an individual adhere to a stringent code of Orthodox behavior yet concurrently remain a committed individualist? How do twentieth-century feminist ideals jive or conflict with a Torah-true life? Goodman forces her readers to ponder and meditate on these difficult questions. Precisely because of Goodman’s engagement with these tough, thorny issues, she is able, at the novel’s conclusion, to powerfully evoke the Shabbos ritual of havdalah. Many of the main characters of the novel gather around the lit candle to mark the conclusion of the Shabbos and debate the meaning of ancient Hebrew prayer. I could not ask for a better talmudic or midrashic interpretation that would form the basis of a better understanding of this important ritual.

            Goodman’s novel also perfectly “reflects” Stendhal’s metaphor of fiction being a “movable mirror.” Throughout Kaaterskill Falls, Goodman’s characters question their adherence to the strict laws and traditions dictated by their leader Rav Elijah Kirshner and, after his death, by the Rav’s puritanical son Isaiah (who reveals more than a few mud puddles); however, by the conclusion of the novel, Goodman’s protagonist, Elizabeth Shulman, finds her own place within that beautiful “blue sky”—the culture and life of Orthodox Judaism.

            Kaaterskill Falls concludes with numerous characters ending their Shabbos with the traditional havdalah service:

They get up and go inside the house to make havdalah. The Landauers get out the spice box and kiddish cup. Brocha holds the braided candle, and Isaac says the prayer marking the end of the Shabbat. After he says the last words, Hamavdil ben kodesh lihol, Nina asks, “What do you think is the best translation for that?”

            “Blessed be he who separates the holy from the profane,” Isaac says.

            “The sacred from the secular,” puts in Elizabeth.

            “The transcendent moment from the workaday world,” suggests old Rabbi Sobel in his quavering voice.

            “Mm.” They pause around the smoking candle. (p. 324)

Just imagine the debate that would ensue in a yeshiva classroom after reading this scene. What do we make about this separation between the secular and the sacred? Just imagine the conversation a group of students highly educated in traditional Jewish texts, talmudic and midrashic, might have after reading this powerful novel. Let’s debate it—is Jewish literature outside the realm of holy and in the realm of the profane? Through engagement with traditional Jewish sources, I would argue that the literary production of Jews in America should be seen as one more stage of rabbinic commentary on the scriptural inheritance of the Jewish people.

Goodman draws her readers’ attention to the distractions of American popular culture and the importance of continuing to make those distinctions, those vital demarcations between holy and mundane, Holocaust memory and the noise (and comfort) of American popular culture. For pre-Haskalah Jews, this was not a personal concern—Judaism itself made these distinctions. However, much of contemporary postmodern Jewish American fiction seems to ask the all important question of how do we make these distinctions in a post-Holocaust world?

            I, for one, after reading Goodman’s novel back in 1998, would never think of havdalah quite the same way again. These days, when I perform this ritual, it is no longer as mere rote repetition of an ancient text. Goodman’s novel began a personal questioning of just what this separation we celebrate entails. How can we truly sanctify the Sabbath as separate yet a part of our weekly lives? How do we truly sanctify the Sabbath so that the havdalah service can be truly felt as a demarcation of difference? As I argue in my recently published book: American Talmud: The Cultural Work of Jewish American Fiction, I believe that this is precisely the type of work that Jewish American literature performs for its readers. What Jewish American fiction does is open the many ancient Jewish texts and rituals to a contemporary audience so that we become a part of a living breathing tradition—one that may in fact augment our contemporary American lives and not stand in opposition to it.

Instead of requiring its pupils to steal the promethean fire of contemporary Jewish literature, the yeshiva world ought to be celebrating this body of work, willingly incorporating it into its curriculum as a means of conveying ancient tradition to their contemporary Jewish students. In doing so, they will secure the relevance and primacy of ancient Orthodox Judaism for many more generations, ensuring the mesorah or great chain of tradition continues in a contemporary American setting.

In American Talmud I quote an aggadic section from tractate Menahot:

Rabbi Judah said in the name of Rab: When Moses ascended on high (to receive the Torah) he found the Holy One, blessed be He, engaged in affixing taggin (crown-like flourishes) to the letters. Moses said: “Lord of the Universe, who stays Thy hand?” He replied: “There will arise a man at the end of many generations, Akiba ben Joseph by name, who will expound upon each little letter, heaps and heaps of the laws.” “Lord of the Universe,” said Moses, “permit me to see him.” He replied: “Turn thee around.” Moses went (into the academy of Rabbi Akiba) and sat down behind eight rows of Akiba’s disciples. Not being able to follow their arguments he was ill at ease, but when they came to a certain subject and the disciples said to the master “Whence do you know it?” and the latter replied, “It is a law given to Moses at Sinai,” he was comforted. (Menahot 29b).

            This aggadic short story might seem peculiar to those not regularly engaged in the study of the Talmud. Although the Talmud is often perceived as being a rigid book comprised of legal maneuverings designed to codify the intricate Mosaic laws, it might more accurately be thought of as a blueprint for modern and postmodern fictional play.

Far from being a dry legal document, the Babylonian Talmud, particularly its aggadic sections, revels in the fantastical and the ambiguous. Not merely capable of tolerating dissent, the Talmud honors and celebrates a difference of opinion; time and again the Talmud honors radical rethinking, even about its foundational concepts. In the previous passage, for example, the Talmud tells a seemingly heretical story in which Moses, the greatest leader of the Jewish people, cannot follow the basic logic of even a simple talmudic argument.

            This foregoing aggadic passage reveals the storytelling aspects, the cultural work performed by the Babylonian Talmud. Through its literary passages the Talmud reinterprets the Torah anew for its own generation. This open-endedness, this celebration of multiple perspectives, is not only a characteristic of the Babylonian Talmud; it is also a hallmark of twentieth-century and contemporary Jewish American fiction. There are so many analogues between the two that Jewish American fiction writers embracing modern and postmodern life are often mistakenly perceived as radically breaking with their traditional past. Yet they are one more link in the great chain of rabbinic thought conveyed to us through the centuries as a means of interpretation designed to ensure that scripture will remain vital and new for each generation.

IX

            At the end of one of his greatest novels, The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow’s hero reflects on his many-faceted identity, wondering to himself how a poor orphan from the wrong side of Chicago ended up tramping across the frozen postwar fields of Normandy. He begins to laugh, and Bellow writes: “that’s the animal ridens in me, the laughing creature, forever rising up” (p. 536). Bellow refers to Aristotle’s designation that to be human is to be able to laugh. Augie’s associative mind then goes on to reflect on Christopher Columbus, who, five centuries before Augie came on the scene, set all of his personal discoveries in motion: “Columbus too thought he was a flop, probably, when they sent him back in chains. Which didn’t prove there was no America” (p. 536).   

Shutting out contemporary Jewish American voices from the yeshiva syllabus does not prove that these students will grow up without doubts—forgetting that there is an America swirling in all its contemporary glory and horror right outside the beis medrash doors. For me, 108^th Street led directly to Queens Boulevard and Jacey’s Billiards when, at the age of 16, I preferred shooting pool to being denigrated by my rebbes for reading a body of work that even back then I thought of as post-rabbinic literature. Yet, hineni: here I am twenty years later engaging in traditional Jewish texts through the very literature that was branded as shtuss by my supposed spiritual leaders—the well-intentioned but wrong-headed rabbis in my yeshiva.

Much of contemporary Jewish American writing eloquently voices the perils of unfettered assimilation, the withering of roots and the loss of memory that is often attendant with pursuing the dream of America. Jewish American fiction writers’ morally serious work warns of the political misuse American popular culture has often made of Holocaust commemoration and tradition. Their work continues to dramatize the complex lives of their Jewish American characters, while powerfully rendering the conflicts that inevitably arise between tradition and modernity, memory and history.

            That “dynamic reflector” of contemporary Jewish American literature is extremely important. It might reflect some of the less-savory aspects of our culture; writers like Philip Roth have been doing that since their first published works. But they also reflect the sky—the great promise of a life lived by an ancient code of understanding, belief, faith, and compassion. Shutting off discussion does not lead to blind adherence—and it does in fact lead to its opposite. When we stifle that discussion we threaten our viability in a contemporary world of myriad identity choices and, in the process, we destroy our own textual tradition. It didn’t work in the shtetl as the Haskalah blew winds of enlightenment through the dusty shtetl streets with its intoxicating air of freedom—it certainly will not work in the freest society the world has ever known. We ignore Philip Roth’s blue sky and puddles of mud at our own peril.

Works Cited

Auslander, Shalom. Beware of God: Stories. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.

Bellow, Saul. The Adventures of Augie March. New York: Viking, 1953.

———. Collected Stories. New York: Penguin, 2001.

Ben Isaiah, Rabbi Abraham, and Rabbi Benjamin Sharfman. The Pentateuch

            and Rashi’s Commentary: A Linear Translation into English. New York: S.S.

            & R., 1949.

Cappell, Ezra. American Talmud. Albany: SUNY Press, 2008.

Dickstein, Morris. The Mirror in the Roadway: Literature and the Real World. New

            Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2005. 

Epstein, Rabbi Dr. I., ed. and trans. The Babylonian Talmud in 18 Volumes.

            London: Soncino, 1961.

Goldstein, Rebecca. Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity.

            New York: Shocken, 2006.

Goodman, Allegra. Kaaterskill Falls. New York: Dial, 1998.

Malamud, Bernard. The Assistant. New York: Avon, 1957.

———. The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1997.

Roth, Philip. The Counterlife. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1986.

———. Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories. New York: Vintage, 1987.

Shteyngart, Gary. Absurdistan. New York: Random House, 2006.

Stendhal, Henri Beyle. The Red and the Black. New York: Penguin Classics, 2002.

Stern, David, and Mark J. Mirsky, eds. Rabbinic Fantasies. New Haven: Yale University

            Press, 1998.

Few would deny that what differentiates Orthodoxy as a standpoint is largely the boundaries it places. These boundaries are notably stricter and more delineated than those of the non-Orthodox movements. This is not to deny the role of beliefs, ideals, and other emphases in structuring Orthodox life; however, even these rely to some extent on a set of strong borders to preserve them.

            Borders are critical in defining identity. Orthodox Judaism’s relatively clear parameters can appear to good advantage, especially when placed against a background of Western culture, which arguably often fails its adherents, leaving them adrift in a sea of contradictory recommendations from scientific and cultural mavens. When one’s personal borders of behavior and creed are firmly established, one is freed from the need to constantly create and adjust them. One can then focus on creating the content rather than the vessel in which to hold it.

            In an ideal world, Orthodox parameters would serve to minimize confused wandering and searching. Furthermore, while some measure of dynamic dialogue is unavoidable as individuals change and grow, the overall picture would be one of a stable, rich lifestyle in which one’s religious, intellectual, and behavioral impulses are in synch, both within oneself and also vis-à-vis the surrounding community. And indeed, many are drawn to Orthodoxy precisely for this kind of clarity. Yet limits, boundaries, and borders may also be extremely stifling, and may in fact—especially when driven by fear rather than existing organically as part of a secure identity—overly curtail individual autonomy and choke off important spiritual and existential processes necessary to religious life.

            The Orthodox classroom or other study forum reflects the above truths. I’d like to explore briefly some of the boundaries—both of content and form—placed within the Orthodox classroom. Some of the questions to be dealt with include:

• In terms of content, what is studied and embraced as positive, and what is deemed inappropriate or dangerous and is kept out of the classroom, either by omission or by active suppression?
• In terms of form, in what fashion do the students learn? How much control does the teacher appropriate or relinquish, and how much autonomy and self-expression is granted to the students within the learning process?

            For the purposes of this discussion, I will borrow two categories applied by Dr. Marla Frankel (who in turn utilizes Professor Michael Rosenak’s educational terminology and theory) in her analysis of the work of Nehama Leibowitz z”l. An examination of Leibowitz’s work will demonstrate for us a model of a lesson that contains both openness and limits; and through it we can arrive at a general discussion of the limits of the Orthodox classroom.

            Frankel suggests that Leibowitz wore at least two teaching “hats,” and that this granted her a large measure of flexibility, a trait critical to good educating. The first “hat,” or role, is that of the facilitator. This kind of teacher steps back from the students, enables discussion, challenges them intellectually, and trains them in problem-solving. It is the process, not the solutions, that is important. The facilitator’s religious focus is on existential, emotional dimensions rather than on enforcing norms and laws. The second “hat” is that of the pedagogue. This type of teacher presents a discourse or lecture, using rhetorical and analytical skills to answer his or her own questions instead of letting the students answer them.

            In the first model, the individual student is important; in the second, it is the community and the content that matter as vehicles for belief and practice. These two broad roles (though obviously other models are possible) will help us organize what otherwise appears a confusing patchwork of contradictory elements in Leibowitz’s pedagogy, and to see that ultimately she implemented what may be termed “pluralism within limits.”

            This was true of both the content of Leibowitz’s classes and also their form. In terms of content, we see both the facilitator and the pedagogue in action. Leibowitz believed in offering a diversity of interpretation, and the method she invented of presenting different commentaries side-by-side was very much a facilitator’s technique. It activated the students—and also taught them that many options existed, and that their questions were not heretical. As Leibowitz states: “It is important to include this opinion too so that the students will not assume that Rashi’s explanation is the only one possible, and anyone who is bothered by it… is, so to speak, an utter heretic who has no part in the Torah of Moses.”

Overall Leibowitz’s method was pluralistic relative to her contemporaries and to the traditional approaches that preceded her. The Tosafists, for example, aimed to reconcile discrepancies, while Leibowitz loudly broadcasted them. When educators expressed to her their concern that students, especially children, could not easily grasp that multiple opinions may co-exist, she retorted: “We are not Catholics! We have no Pope to decide who is right!”

            Furthermore, Leibowitz opened up the limits of her classroom and writings to include non-Orthodox and non-Jewish sources in the study of Torah. These sources were not only used to bolster traditional sources (an agenda palatable to conservative elements, as it served to show “how correct our sources are”) but also to unearth new layers of the Torah. This was far more radical, implying that thinkers outside Orthodoxy can reveal dimensions in the Torah overlooked by traditional commentators. Leibowitz believed she could eat the “fruit” of these thinkers, while throwing away the “peel.”

            However, Leibowitz took the facilitator role only so far before putting on the pedagogue’s hat. The students were allowed to choose, but only from a certain range of sources selected by her. She placed constraints on the use of universal sources—worldly wisdom was not to be equated with Torah, and the non-Orthodox sources referred to always remained a precisely selected minority, approached with caution and never given the pride of place that the traditional commentators claimed.

            In terms of form, Leibowitz encouraged open discussion in her classroom. She paid personal attention to each student as far as she was able, and she was seen as an accessible teacher. She hated the idea of lecturing, believing that when the teacher talks too much it limits the interaction essential to learning. Instead, her lesson consisted largely of group discussion of a topic, with the teacher interspersing her comments and never talking for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Students forgot that they were being educated, as the discussion flowed as naturally as a conversation. Though not lacking in personal charisma, Leibowitz did not rely on it as the driving-force of the lesson. Rather, she chose questions that would open up discussions, and she deferred her own opinion until after the students had had a chance to reflect. In permitting such interactivity, she relinquished control to the students, functioning as a facilitator and anticipating contemporary trends to a certain extent.

            Today’s students are encouraged to express their opinions and to create personal connections to the subject matter, whereas the teacher’s role is to validate the students, not to critique them or guide them too strongly. Leibowitz’s lesson partly conformed to this model, in its encouraging of maximum participation and lively discussion. Ultimately, however, she kept a tight rein on what was considered the correct answer, using a formula of positive and negative reinforcements and not hesitating to announce “Bikhlal lo!” (“Totally incorrect!”) when she disagreed, an experience that could be mortifying for the student. Few educators in tune with today’s trends would read a student’s answers out in front of everyone and then declare, “That’s completely wrong!” She ran a strict classroom, not permitting the lesson to stray off on random tangents and insisting on punctuality and proper preparation. She expelled students who did not have a basic understanding of the material, or who arrived empty-handed, sans Tanakh. When two young yeshiva students admitted they had brought neither Tanakhs nor notebooks, Leibowitz announced to the roomful of students, “It’s the TV generation! They come to sit and watch!” Many found her harangues somewhat intimidating; some even left, never to return. In all this, she acted as the pedagogue; and some might even label Nehama’s style authoritarian, though she herself would be repulsed by such a term.                

            In her approach to the text, Leibowitz also demonstrated such mixed tendencies. While on the one hand she encouraged her students to read the text closely and directly, ultimately the commentators’ lead was to be followed when studying text critically, with the student’s own ideas in second place.

            Students’ responses to Leibowitz’s classroom varied, in line with the diverse elements mentioned above and with the students’ own personalities. For many, her teaching techniques were their first experience of the teacher as facilitator. The fact that her class was founded upon dialogue between commentators of different periods and spirited discussions between participants constituted a breath of fresh air. Unlike old-school lecturers, Leibowitz was open to diverse viewpoints in her lessons, and students were even allowed to contradict her, though not the text. She was interested in the individual student and in nurturing original thought; her aim was active learning.

            Yet she also firmly steered her class, rigorously training her students to approach the text correctly as she saw it. There were limits to her tolerance of critique of faith-based principles in her lesson. Those who studied with her remember occasions when students disagreed with her—and it was obvious to all present that such “insolence” was out of place. Leibowitz was controlling the class, and for a student to introduce some new agenda was completely inappropriate. Students were there to learn from the teacher, not to advance their own theories. She countered opposition with responses such as: “You didn’t understand,” “You need to learn more about this issue,” or “This is off the topic.” One student challenged: “But Nehama, aren’t there seventy facets to the Torah?” She replied, “Yes, but what you said is not one of them!”

            Many students liked the balance Leibowitz struck between her two roles. They enjoyed the discussion, while also appreciating her firm control of the class, which, by preventing too much digression, allowed mastery of a specific topic. She allowed arguments to continue for just so long, knowing exactly when to interrupt and return to the original point that she had made. For these students, what Leibowitz lost in openness of discussion, she gained in sharpening the student’s mind. With a firm hand, she invited them into a new way of looking at a text, beyond their existing opinions, and she restrained overimaginative students with unsupported interpretations. In her class, even highly opinionated and voluble people learned to defer to her in order to gain what she could give. One charismatic educational figure, today the director of several institutions, recalls, “She would tell me what she thought, and I learned to keep quiet.”

            But this policy frustrated those who wished to broaden the field of inquiry, or who thought along different lines than hers. A free-spirited person might feel uncomfortable in her class; individualistic or critical students might experience the classes as rigid, with her constant demand to justify oneself using strict and rational tools serving to cramp a looser, more associative relationship with the text. Leibowitz was also not (barring a couple of isolated statements, not backed up in practice) interested in personal and emotional reactions to the text. On the contrary, she believed that they interfered with correct interpretation: “When analyzing or interpreting a literary work… [there is a risk] that the interpreter will speak about himself… about his own elevation of spirit, about what is going on inside himself… instead of about the text.” She cared greatly about general relevance, but not about the personal relevance for each individual. Class time was reserved for the correct answers, of which Leibowitz had a very clear idea. Personal issues and questions, even those of existential urgency for the student, must be saved for outside the classroom walls.

            One last significant point to be made is the fact that Frankel, along with Erella Yedgar, discovered through careful analysis that the limits of Leibowitz’s classroom changed depending on the students. The more knowledgeable and committed students generally were allowed more leeway.

            The picture that emerges from all of the above is that of a complex approach, enabling Leibowitz to reach many different kinds of people simultaneously. It appears that Leibowitz achieved a good balance of elements in the classroom, creating openness and space and yet firmly setting limits so that various lines would not be crossed. She gave the impression of teaching from within a secure, non-defensive, open Orthodoxy (except perhaps when it came to biblical criticism and the historicizing of the Bible, around which she had extremely strong feelings that might lead to defensiveness); and that the limits she set were simply those of a teacher invested in guiding students to think in a certain way, rather than creating the free-for-all that sometimes passes for pluralism today.

            We must, however, be careful before applying the Leibowitz model as an ideal for contemporary Modern Orthodox education, so many decades after it was developed. In the hands of the wrong (read: insecure, unimaginative, or authoritarian) teachers, or as part of a rigid system—for example, as widely applied through the Israeli matriculation exam—there is a risk of it becoming dry and mechanical, with the more limiting and inflexible aspects dominant. Moreover, today’s educational mindset, in line with changes in general global sentiments, has shifted in the direction of the facilitator. Hence, the elements of the pedagogue in Leibowitz’s style run even more risk today of alienating creative and independent-minded students, who expect and desire to be allowed to express their opinions and have them considered with respect. For this reason, some of her students who continued her method in their own teaching chose to modify it and extend its limits; for example, allowing more direct access to text without mediation by commentaries.

            We can argue, on the other hand, that precisely because the world of education has shifted so far toward interactive discussion and away from making definitive statements, Leibowitz’s model of pluralism within limits has much to offer. Those educators for whom pluralism means never disagreeing with someone’s interpretation—however illogical or textually inconsistent—for fear of offending, would do well to take a leaf out of her book and learn to make firmer statements and guide toward a worldview. These, however, are often the problems of the non-Orthodox, while Orthodoxy by its nature risks the opposite, namely excessive ridigity and over-imposed limits.

            This article has not set the ideal borders for the Orthodox classroom; such an aim would be too ambitious—and also arrogant. This is a multi-faceted, ongoing discussion, and will vary from educator to educator, institution to institution, and sector to sector. My purpose has been to raise the issues and show some of the prices to be paid for moving too far in one direction or another; and to present at least one model that incorporates both poles, so that educators may work out for themselves what proportion of “facilitator” versus “pedagogue” role is worthwhile adopting in their own lessons. I would also challenge the educator to introspect and ascertain how many of the limits he or she imposes upon the classroom derive from personal fears (such as that of relinquishing control), and how many constitute a thought-out a priori model.

            On a final, personal note, as a product of an Ultra-Orthodox high school and some elite Modern Orthodox institutions of higher learning, I personally suffered greatly from the cramped limits of Orthodox classrooms. There was little space available for my questions and self-expression. My opinions were at best tolerated, rather than engaged or valued, and at worst seen as threatening, though they stemmed from an entirely genuine searching place. As for my creativity and imagination, it found no place at all. Many of the lessons strait-jacketed and silenced me rather than allowing me to emerge feeling more engaged, more connected, and more self-appreciating.

            As an educator, I have since tried to rectify this by engaging in open debates where I value my student’s opinions as a genuine source of wisdom for me. I try to engage with them with respect for their insights, while at the same time not abrogating the value due to my own knowledge. I have also adopted creative techniques that encourage self-expression and free the mind to go broader and deeper than is generally accepted in Orthodox circles. One example of the latter is Bibliodrama, a marvellous role-playing technique of “spontaneous midrash” that, when done correctly, with firm steering and with faithfulness to the text, can achieve superb results in terms of deepened identification with the Torah, without straying from what feels comfortable for an Orthodox population. Here, I aim to stretch the limits but not breach them—and I feel it is important to do so. I trust that this question of what the limits are, and when and how to expand them to their maximum, may spark discussion in the right quarters.

Despite the rhetoric emanating from certain camps of Orthodox Judaism, studying secular knowledge lishmah—knowledge for knowledge’s sake—is a widely accepted notion among Jewish thinkers. In fact, virtually none of the great Jewish personalities who discuss the value of secular knowledge—from Rav Saadiah Gaon and Rambam to Rav Kook and Rav Soloveitchik—speak of its utilitarian value. Rambam does not praise Aristotle’s philosophy for its salary-increasing powers, nor does Rav Kook laud university studies because of their utility in getting into a good law school.

            Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch is a classic example of this knowledge-lishmah school of thought. Not only does he extol the spiritual value of secular studies, he explicitly derides those who see knowledge as a tool in advancing one’s career. Two quotations (many more can be adduced) from his essays should suffice to establish this point. In “The Relevance of Secular Studies,” Rav Hirsch writes:

[A]ny supporter of education and culture should deplore the fact that when these secular studies are evaluated in terms of their usefulness to the young, too much stress is often placed on so-called practical utility and necessity. Under such circumstances, the young are in danger of losing the pure joy of acquiring knowledge for its own sake, so that they will no longer take pleasure in the moral and spiritual benefits to be obtained by study.

            And in “The Joy of Learning,” Rav Hirsch has this to say:

[W]e forget that by hurrying to impose the yoke of the materialistic, or, as we like to put it euphemistically, the practical aims of life upon the dawn and springtime of childhood and early youth, we only deprive our children prematurely of the bloom of flowering youth and nip our children’s spiritual yearnings in the bud. Instead of encouraging our children to get wisdom for its own sake, we raise them to become only clever and shrewd, judging everything in the light of self-interest and respecting only those intellectual and spiritual pursuits that are likely to yield the highest dividends in terms of material gain. A generation raised on such a philosophy of life will never be able to experience that true joy of learning, which regards knowledge itself as the supreme reward.

            Rav Hirsch also stresses that educators must not give their students the impression that their secular studies are simply a necessary concession to modern times. Such an impression is both incorrect and harmful, for “[o]nly ideas rooted in genuine conviction will be received with enthusiasm. Products of compromise can expect no more than grudging acceptance forced by considerations of expediency.”

Thus far, Rav Hirsch merely emerges as another proponent—albeit an enthusiastic and vocal one—in the long line of Jewish thinkers who see inherent value in studying secular knowledge.

What distinguishes Rav Hirsch, however, and what makes him a fascinating case study is that more than once in his essays on education, he cites statements of Hazal, our Sages, regarding learning Torah lishmah to bolster his position that one should study secular knowledge lishmah.

For instance, in an essay discussing general—not specifically Torah—education, “Ethical Training in the Classroom,” Rav Hirsch cites Pirkei Avot 2:6, “v’lo am ha’arets hassid” and remarkably translates this aphorism as “[A]n uneducated man will not attain the moral grandeur of selfless devotion to duty.” Traditionally, the term am ha’arets applies to someone ignorant vis-à-vis Torah, not general, knowledge. And yet, Rav Hirsch either ignores or pretends not to know this.

Even if Rav Hirsch understands am ha’arets in a nontraditional sense, he also applies other statements of Hazal to secular knowledge that almost certainly apply exclusively to the study of Torah. For example, he cites Kiddushin 40b, “Limud gadol she-haLimud meivi lidei ma’aseh,” and translates this statement as “Knowledge has priority because only the right kind of knowledge can give rise to the right practice.” Two sentences later he paraphrases Pirkei Avot 4:7 as “[I]t was considered a desecration of knowledge and the striving after knowledge to use learning as a ‘crown of self-glorification’ or a ‘tool for making a living.’” Rav Hirsch applies these quotations to secular studies without even hinting that in their original context they refer specifically to the study of Torah.

Nor does Rav Hirsch limit himself to select quotations. In the same essay he makes this general statement about Hazal:

[O]ur Sages were enemies of ignorance. They regarded education, intellectual enlightenment, and the acquisition of knowledge as the first of all moral commandments. They viewed the dissemination of intellectual enlightenment among all classes of the population as the prime concern of the nation, and the training of a child’s mind as the first and most sacred duty of fatherhood. They considered it a matter of conscience for every Jewish father to see that his child should not remain a boor and am ha’arets; no Jewish child must be allowed to grow up as an ignorant, uneducated person.

            Frankly, this is staggering. Rav Hirsch talks of Hazal as enemies of ignorance, generally speaking, not as enemies of Torah ignorance—even though most of Hazal’s statements concerning education surely apply to Torah education only. Nor does Rav Hirsch apparently feel the need to explain himself (and an explanation is desperately needed, especially keeping in mind the vast difference between Torah study and other fields of knowledge in the minds of many Orthodox Jews). Rav Hirsch never says something to the effect of, “Although our Sages speak of Torah education, we can apply the principle behind their statements to other fields of study as well.”

            While Rav Hirsch’s employment of Hazal in speaking of secular knowledge is most pronounced in his essay, “Ethical Training in the Classroom,” he blurs the lines between Torah and secular knowledge in other essays as well. For example, in “Education in the Rabbinic Era,” which concerns the educational values of the mishnaic and talmudic sages, Rav Hirsch concludes by asking, “If the pure delight in knowledge for its own sake should, once again, become the common heritage of an entire nation, might it not contribute, in some fashion, to the uplifting, the healing, and the greater happiness of all mankind?” Again, Rav Hirsch speaks of “knowledge”—generically—even though the mishnaic and talmudic sages’ educational values concern Torah knowledge.

            In “Talmudic Judaism and Society,” Rav Hirsch, citing Shabbat 31a, writes that the second question Heaven asks a person after he or she dies is “[D]id you set aside a fixed time each day for continuing your studies?” The actual question, as found in the Talmud, is “Kavata itim laTorah?—Did you set aside fixed times for the study of Torah?” Rav Hirsch somehow morphs “Torah” into “studies.” Further blurring the lines, Rav Hirsch cites this statement of Hazal among a series of other talmudic statements, all of which concern generic knowledge, not Torah knowledge.

Finally, in “The Joy of Learning,” Rav Hirsch attempts to convince parents of the need to instill a love of learning in their children even though he describes his era as “so materialistic, and materialistic concerns are given such prominence…”. He contrasts his age’s attitude to knowledge with “the spirit of true scholarship, which, until very recently, was cherished by the members of the Jewish nation.” Of course, this “true scholarship” cherished by Jews was Torah scholarship. Indeed, in subsequent sentences in this essay Rav Hirsch writes specifically of “Jewish scholarship.” Nonetheless, Rav Hirsch is less than crystal clear in this essay when he employs, without qualification, the words “scholarship” and “knowledge.”

            With this fascinating discovery in hand, what now? How does one explain what appears to be an intriguing misuse of Hazal and Jewish history?

            My short answer to this dilemma is “I don’t know.” One can write this apparent distortion off to Rav Hirsch’s lifelong goal of winning hearts and minds to Orthodox Judaism. However, such an answer is less than satisfactory in that it assumes a certain dishonesty on Rav Hirsch’s part. Therefore, I offer the following possible explanation.

Rav Hirsch obviously knew that he took a logical jump in applying statements of Hazal regarding Torah study to the study of general knowledge. Nonetheless, he considered the step more of a logical “skip” than a logical “leap.” In other words, unlike the vast chasm many Orthodox Jews currently see between Torah and general knowledge, Rav Hirsch views the two fields of study as basically similar to one another. Both concern God’s wisdom. The student of Torah studies the Divine word and the student of nature, history, and the people in it studies the Divine design. Both are divinity students.

            Moreover, in his essays on education, Rav Hirsch repeatedly posits that discovering the laws governing nature should inspire people to search for the laws given to govern their lives—the moral law. In Rav Hirsch’s terminology, the laws of the Creator should lead people to the laws of the Lawgiver. And by “obeying this moral law of his own free choice, man joins the great chorus of creatures that serve God.”

If, then, the proper study of Torah, nature, and history (where one sees God’s guiding hand) are all closely intertwined with the study of God’s moral law, and if “[i]n the view of Judaism, truth is one and indivisible,” Rav Hirsch’s out-of-context utilization of Hazal’s educational statements becomes more understandable. In his mind, secular studies represent another path in one’s Divine service. If so, truly how can one misuse such knowledge as a “crown for self aggrandizement” or as “a tool for making a living”? May Hazal not have had these studies in mind when they argued, “lo am ha’arets hassid”? Jewish learning is, after all, in Rav Hirsch’s opinion, “so broad and universal in character that it happily welcomes any other fields of study that aspire toward an understanding of the realities of nature and history.” And if Hazal did not have such studies in mind, are the two not similar enough to, in good faith, apply a quotation said regarding Torah to general knowledge? Very likely, Rav Hirsch felt the answer to this question was an emphatic yes.  

In his Yad haHazakah, Rambam writes:

If someone is bitten by a scorpion or a snake it is permitted to recite a charm over the wound, even on Shabbat, in order to calm the patient and give him encouragement. Although such a thing is of no [objective] benefit whatsoever, since a life is in danger they [the rabbis] permitted it lest the victim suffer mental anguish [should it appear that not every effort was being made]. (Abodah Zarah 11:11)

This ruling of Rambam was adopted by Rabbi Yosef Karo (Shulhan Arukh, Y.D. 179:13)—to the great annoyance of the Vilna Gaon, as evidenced by his following comment:

This opinion is the Rambam’s [as expressed in the latter’s Laws of Abodah Zarah 11: 11–16]. He also wrote [similarly in] Perush haMishnah, A. Z. 4:7. But all subsequent authorities disagreed with him because of the numerous charms recorded in the Gemara. He, however, was drawn by the accursed philosophy, and that is why he wrote that witchcraft, names, charms, demons and amulets are all deception. But he has been thoroughly refuted on the strength of the innumerable stories found in the Talmud such as that of the matron who uttered words and immobilized a ship [Shabbat 81b, Hullin 105b] ... or that of the rabbis who every Friday studied the halakhot of creation, and would create a “tertiary calf” [Sanhedrin 67b] and R. Joshua who pronounced a name and was suspended between heaven and earth [Bekhoroth 8b] ... But philosophy with her blandishments misled him to explain all such stories allegorically and to uproot them from their literal meaning. As for myself, Heaven forefend that I should accept any of those allegorical explanations...” (Biur haGra Yore De‘ah, 179:13).

            The foregoing dispute reflects an age-old clash between two worldviews. Rambam reads the texts of the Talmud in a manner that does not violate reason or contradict the results of empirical knowledge. Rabbi Elijah of Vilna, on the other hand, prefers to uphold a literalist reading of the same texts. Indeed, his evident commitment to literalism propels him to accept superstition! As for the “accursed philosophy,” Rabbi Elijah blames for Rambam’s metaphorical interpretations of difficult aggadot, we cannot be sure what he had in mind. Certainly Rambam himself shows no awareness of being a victim of philosophical deception when he expounds his opposition to literalist readings of improbable aggadot. No, if Rambam is to be believed, his anti-literalism arose from deep convictions regarding the Sage’s essential rationality:

Know that the words of the Sages of blessed memory, are understood differently by three groups of people.

Regarding the first, from observing them, reading their books and hearing about them, they are the largest [group]…. They understand the teaching of the Sages only in their literal sense, in spite of the fact that some of their teachings, when taken literally, seem so fantastic and irrational that if one were to repeat them literally, even to the uneducated... their amazement would prompt them to ask how anyone in the world could believe such things true, much less edifying.

The members of this group are so poor in knowledge that it pains one [to think] of their folly. Their very effort to honor and to exalt the Sages in accordance with their own meager understanding actually humiliates them! As God lives, this group destroys the glory of the Torah and darkens its light, for they make the Torah of God say the opposite of what it intended. God said in the perfect Torah, “The nations who hear of these statutes shall say: ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people’” (Deut. 4:6). But this group expounds the teachings of our Sages in such a way that when the other peoples hear them they say, “How foolish and worthless is this insignificant group of people!” The worst offenders are preachers who preach and expound to the masses what they themselves do not understand. Would that they keep silent about what they do not know, as it is written: “If only they would be utterly silent, it would be accounted to them as wisdom” (Job 13:5).

The second group is also a numerous one. It too consists of persons who, having read or heard the words of the Sages, understand them according to their simple literal sense and believe that the Sages intended nothing else than what may be learned from their literal interpretation. Inevitably, they ultimately declare the Sages to be fools, and hold them up to contempt...

There is a third group. Its members are so few in number that it is hardly appropriate to call them a group—except in the sense in which one speaks of the sun as a group of which it is the only member. To this group the greatness of our Sages is clear. They recognize the superiority of their intelligence from their words, which point to exceedingly profound truths.... The members of this group understand that the Sages knew as clearly as we do the difference between the impossibility of the impossible and the existence of that which must exist. They know that the Sages did not speak nonsense....Thus, whenever the Sages spoke of things that seem impossible, they were employing the style of riddle and parable, which is the method of truly great thinkers. (Rambam, Hakdamah lePerek Helek. Cf. Isadore Twersky, A Maimonides Reader, West Orange, NJ: Berman House, 1972, 407–409)

Rabbi Yehudah Halevi shared Rambam’s fear of the threat to Torah posed by excessive irrationality.

See that we are not any different than our ancestors. If the details of ancient idolatrous practices were widely known today, we would also be lured astray—just like we are [at present] by other popular vanities such as astrology, incantation, talismans, and other actions [alchemy?] that mean to change physical nature—despite the fact that the Torah has commanded us to stay far away from these practices! (Kuzari, end of 4:23. Cf. Sanhedrin 102b; Rambam, Guide, III:37)

It is meet to come clean and state up front that I incline toward the Maimonidean position. That is to say, the Sages’ acknowledgment of nature’s basic predictability and their manifest scientific curiosity do not allow me to think of them as irrational. It is hardly necessary to add that such keen study of nature’s laws in no way debars a person’s openness to miracles and the power of God to change the world. That holds for the Sages, for Rambam, and for us humble latter-day folks. Yet, because they studied nature so closely, the Sages were in the best position to recognize miracles for what they are—the exceptional intervention on the part of the Creator for God’s own moral purposes.

            You may be wondering what this literalist debate has to do with the topic I’ve been invited to write about, namely Torah education from the perspective of a parent. Answer: the debate per se, nothing; its ramifications, plenty. A major pedagogic disappointment I have encountered over and over again is the seemingly indiscriminate way teachers in many Day Schools introduce young children to material far above the average child’s intellectual and emotional age. I know that some parents read Grimm’s fairy tales to their kids in the hope that a child will understand it as mere fancy. Be that as it may, sacred texts are another story. It seems to me that because the child approaches these texts with a different level of receptiveness, the educator needs to exercise extra care about what material to teach. Particular perturbation is caused to children when hard aggadot are set before them in the raw.

Let’s take the following text from Megillah 12b as an example:

“And Queen Vashti refused” (Esther 1:12). Since she [too] was immodest, as the master said above, that both of them had an immoral purpose, why then would she not come? Rabbi Jose bar Hannina said: This teaches that leprosy broke out on her. In a Baraitha it was taught that Gabriel came and made her a tail.

What goes through a teacher’s mind before deciding to share such an aggada with his or her class? Surely the teacher has considered at least the obvious questions it raises: Why did this great miracle of the tail occur—even if Vashti’s vanity was off the charts?! Or was the tail’s advent something less than a miracle? We recall that in the rabbinic corpus, a human changing into an ape is not precluded.

Rabbi Yirmiyah bar Elazar said: They [dor haPalagah] split up into three parties. One said, ‘Let us ascend and dwell there;’ the second, ‘Let us ascend and serve idols;’ and the third said, ‘Let us ascend and wage war [with God].’ The party that proposed…‘Let us ascend and wage war’ were turned to apes, spirits, devils, and night-demons… (Sanhedrin 109a).

So maybe our Sages believed that humans were created with the potential to turn into (revert to?) apes—but back to the question about Vashti. What was the size of her tail? It would have to be imagined as too long and voluminous to hide under the normal train of a queenly robe. What was it about Vashti’s sin that merited so vile a metamorphosis? If, on the other hand, humans were not endowed with simian latency, then why would the Creator choose to revise creation?

Unless the teacher has thought all this through, surely he or she is ill-advised presenting it to impressionable children, even if he or she emphasizes its sociological aspect. (There are those who see this aggada’s point as an attempt to downplay non-Jewish Vashti’s virtue in order to boost our collective Jewish ego.) Still, whether presented as entertainment, myth, or anthropology, this aggada, with its inescapable grotesqueness, is best saved for advanced students who are able to articulate any problems they might have with it.

            Another aggada, though seemingly innocuous, can cause considerable bafflement. Noah is told to provide the Ark with a “tsohar” (Genesis 6:16). This rare word, tsohar, is generally understood as a porthole by writers ancient and modern. However, one aggada identifies tsohar as a light-giving gemstone. Now, although jewels can sparkle and reflect light, they cannot generate it. Therefore telling children that stones can be luminous is plain wrong.

Besides choosing their material wisely, teachers would do well to prepare themselves both intellectually and emotionally for questions their students might throw at them. Years ago, my daughter was paying attention to a lesson about kapparot that her elementary school teacher gave in advance of Yom Kippur. When the teacher had finished explaining the mechanics and purpose of that practice, my daughter asked, “If all the sins of a person went into the chicken, was it not unfair to give the chicken to the poor? They would be inheriting all those very sins that had been purged from the first person!” The teacher gave the child a blank stare, and without any response, moved on to another topic.

Of course one is not advocating the sanitization of texts—or even an avoidance of charged ones. Most teachers are responsible, but often labor under the notion that anything found in our sacred literature must be edifying for all and sundry. The Mishnah thought otherwise: “[A child of] five years [is ready] for Scripture, ten years for Mishnah…fifteen years for Talmud…” (Aboth 5:21). Entrusted with the stewardship of Torah for the next generation, it behooves every one of us educators to rethink many current pedagogic practices.

Give Grateful Credit

Book Review

Spiritual Activism: A Jewish Guide to Leadership and Repairing the World by Rabbi Avraham Weiss.

The spiritual activist is the person whose activism is both inspired by the relationship with God and in turn inspires others to expand their relationship with God. No rabbi or Jew has been a more consistent and greater spiritual activist in the last five decades than Rabbi Avi Weiss. Luckily for us, Rabbi Weiss took a break from his many duties to author a masterpiece, Spiritual Activism: A Jewish Guide to Leadership and Repairing the World (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2008).

Rabbi Weiss writes of the difficulty of being an activist as well as a communal rabbi. The activist is by nature a tenacious fighter, wedded to ideals and horrified at compromise. The activist calls people out when they are wrong and even embarrasses those leaders who are corrupt and shameful. The rabbinate, as practiced by Rabbi Weiss (and I had the opportunity to witness this first hand when serving as the Assistant Rabbi of Rabbi Weiss’s congregation, the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale), loves everyone regardless of their baggage and with great difficulty attempts to judge no one.

This paradox often causes most rabbis to avoid the realm of activism in favor of focusing on their congregational needs. But Rabbi Weiss rejects that approach; not because he craves the excitement of activism or seeks the limelight, but rather because he feels that it is the responsibility of the rabbi to be the voice of moral conscience in the community.

A major tenet of Rabbi Weiss’s activism is to follow an injustice that is not being addressed by the establishment organizations of the Jewish community. He writes that he is not anti-establishment, but non-establishment. Because he is not a full-time professional activist, in the sense that he has two other full-time jobs, Rabbi Weiss focuses his activism on areas where others are not speaking out.

In this sense, Rabbi Weiss has often become the lodestar and conscience for the Jewish community. Rabbi Weiss’s book recounts the many times he spoke out on an issue of great importance to the Jewish community only to be criticized by the Jewish establishment. In retrospect, we can all be grateful for Rabbi Weiss’s prescience.

For example, Rabbi Weiss spoke out on the struggle for Soviet Jewry before the Jewish community organizations recognized this great human struggle. Rabbi Weiss recounts how he fought against leaders of the Jewish community for the passage of the Jackson-Vannik amendment, the critical piece of legislation that was responsible for the freeing of Soviet Jewry.

He tells of confronting the Israeli government about the need to rescue the Ethiopian Jewish community only to be dismissed disrespectfully. Today the world recognizes Israel’s rescue of Ethiopian Jewry as an action by Israel that was a light unto the nations.

When the muckety-mucks of the America Jewish community were giving honor to President Carlos Menem of Argentina, Rabbi Weiss protested and was carried face-first down the steps of the posh, Pierre Hotel. As he was being carried out by police officers, some guests managed to put down their cocktails long enough to shout at Rabbi Weiss, “You are dishonoring the Jewish people.” Ten years later The New York Times ran a story on the front page proving that Menem was involved in the July 1994 bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Argentina.

There are countless stories like these in Rabbi Weiss’s book and countless others that he leaves out. Such is the life of the activist. He speaks out because he feels it is the right thing to do, even though it is very often not the popular thing to do. Indeed, almost by definition, Rabbi Weiss will usually only speak out when it is the unpopular thing to do, since if it is popular, he will feel that others are already making the case.

All this is not to say that Rabbi Weiss does not appreciate the defense organizations of the Jewish community. He recognizes that they play an important role in the symphony of the Jewish community. His goal is parallel to theirs. His goal is to inspire other individuals in the community to assume responsibility and rise up for the Jewish community.

Rabbi Weiss tells the stories of individuals or “students and simple housewives” such as Avital Sharansky, who have become some of the greatest activists in Jewish history. This is the ultimate teaching of Rabbi Weiss: The great activists speak out because they feel a religious need to do so. The great activists do not shirk responsibility but rather embrace it.

But even the greatest activists need a guide, so Rabbi Weiss offers a “street manual” to people who seek to become activists. In this respect, he religiously follows the principles of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He absolutely rejects violence by activists, even when being physically attacked. He demands absolute integrity in dealing with the media and even in dealing with opponents. Furthermore, he reminds us that no matter how pitched the battle, we can never forget that the people we are protesting against are human beings.

Some people think that the life of an activist is glorious. After all, they will often see the activist on television or in the newspaper or meeting with elected officials. I have had the great honor of standing next to Rabbi Weiss on many occasions during his moments of activism. For every successful rally of thousands of people there are literally tens, if not hundreds of rallies, with just a few committed souls. Spiritual activism is not for those who wish to hobnob with the “big shots” of the world. It is a tough, never-ending struggle for the soul of the community. It is often thankless and physically and mentally consuming.

The publication of Rabbi Weiss’s book is an opportunity for all of us to step back and be grateful for what he has given our community. There is, however, one important omission in this book that is necessary to correct.

Rabbi Weiss notes that in March 2002, on short notice and with little advertising, he and a small group of like-minded rabbis organized a rally for Israel in New York City that was attended by more than 12,000 people. At this rally, Rabbi Weiss called for a much larger rally to take place the next week in Washington, D.C. He said that the Jewish establishment should organize such a rally—and if they do not do it, then we will do it ourselves.

Within twenty-four hours, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations met and decided that it would hold a rally in Washington the very next week. The ensuing rally was attended by well over a hundred thousand people and will forever be remembered as one of the bright spots in American Jewish history.

Unfortunately, the organizers of the Washington rally decided to completely freeze out Rabbi Weiss and his rabbinic partners from the rally. These rabbis attended but were given no credit. Such is to be expected. Such is the role of the activist.

But in this one instance, The New York Jewish Week decided to write an editorial giving credit where credit is due. Here is the passage as it appears on page 122 of Rabbi Weiss’s book:

Kol Hakavod (give grateful credit) … for not only spearheading the highly successful rally outside the United Nations on Sunday, but for no doubt convincing the Jewish establishment—some would say shaming them into acknowledging—that passion and commitment go farther than endless planning when it comes to staging an impressive pro-Israel event.

The rabbis have staged several rallies for Israel since June, but Sunday’s was by far the largest, attracting at least 10,000 people—some say many more—to voice their support for Israel in its time of crisis…. By contrast, the organized Jewish community of federations and national organizations has been slow to respond to the crisis in Israel, now in its 18^th month, at least in terms of public displays of support.

In his great modesty Rabbi Weiss omits four key words from this paragraph. The original editorial in The Jewish Week stated, “Kol Hakavod (give grateful credit) to Rabbi Avi Weiss….” Indeed!

            I am a convert. There can be no question that I am halakhically Jewish, at least if you trust the Lubavitchers to know halakha. I am writing to protest the downright shameful treatment of converts by the Orthodox community, which so conveniently forgets the explicit commandment to not oppress the ger.

            First, let me state my background—though I will omit identifying details for reasons that will appear later. I was raised as a Christian in the Bible Belt to believe that the Bible was the word of God. Nobody explained to me why “God’s Word” did not include the laws in the first five books, which today are observed only by Jews. Due to my parents’ severe opposition, I could not do anything toward converting to Judaism until I went away to graduate school in a small college town.

This was more than 35 years ago. At that time, I took instruction from the only Orthodox rabbi in the state, who could be described as Modern Orthodox. In those days, I knew nothing of Modern/Hareidi distinctions among Orthodox Jews; in fact, there were no Hareidi Jews in my immediate vicinity. The Bet Din consisted of my rabbi; the only Conservative rabbi in that town (he was a Sabbath observer), and one other person. As I started meeting other Jews for the first time (I had had no significant social Jewish contact before my conversion), I started getting questions about this conversion. I had met a community of Lubavitchers by this time, and they decided that although they believed my conversion was valid, they would redo it just to remove all question. They even placed a call to New York and got a ruling that I should not say God’s name in the blessing for this re-run. This second conversion took place about a year and a half after my first conversion.

            I did not meet and marry my husband until nine years later. His entire family is Hareidi, and he is yeshiva-educated. We are Shomrei Shabbat but not “yeshivish,” and live in a small college town with a bare minyan for our Orthodox community. We have one child, a son, who is also Shomer Shabbat.

            The basic problem a convert faces in the Orthodox world stems from the following mind-set: If you observe one mitzvah more than I do you are a fanatic, and if you observe one mitzvah less you are an apikores, or heretic. This is hard a enough mind-set for a ba’al teshuva to navigate and to figure out what is essential halakha and what is less essential minhag, or custom—and even more so for the convert. If a convert is at all less stringent than the person he or she is speaking to, the logic seems to extend that the convert has not accepted all of the mitzvoth, and therefore the validity of the conversion is in question. I’ve even had an Orthodox rabbi say this to me in those very words!

I recall an occasion when I asked: Why, if there is one law for the convert and one who is born Jewish, that converts are automatically classed with prostitutes as people kohanim may not marry? That’s when I learned that questioning is not permitted. Another “learning experience” I had was when I became friendly with a young man—and our friendship was disapproved of by people in the community, who forced him to end the friendship. I obviously hadn’t accepted that the only permissible relationship between a man and a woman was marriage to that person, so therefore I wasn’t “really Jewish.” I even got into trouble when I expressed secular political views that differed from those of the person I was speaking with. I didn’t elevate “what’s good for the Jews” (including the State of Israel) over all other considerations. This showed that I had not really become part of the Jewish people, and therefore I wasn’t considered to be Jewish.

            My point is that the only way for a convert to be “accepted” is to become SuperJew: to be more stringent than anyone else, and to totally block out the former non-Jewish self. I have known of a few such people, though I have never become close enough to them to tell if this is real or an act they put on for self-preservation. Sorry, folks, I’m not SuperJew, nor are the vast majority of converts I have known—though they and I feel pressure to be so. If you can be “accepted” only by putting on an act, you’re not really accepted.

            In the culture in which I grew up, the cardinal sin is forgetting where you came from. I’ve often had Jews tell me that they assume I wouldn’t want my children to know my parents, and that since my parents are not halakhically my parents I owe them no obligation. I’m afraid that I’ve never bought that, and it has been the source of many problems. Does this mean I’m not really Jewish?

            And I wish I had a dollar for every remark I’ve heard made by Jews about “the goyim.” I can’t stand such remarks about me (I’m still the same person I was before) and my family and my former co-religionists (whom I do NOT consider to be idolaters!), and it’s no excuse that the speaker didn’t know my background. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 94a) recognizes that this is painful for the convert and explicitly forbids such comments lest the convert regret the conversion. Believe me, I’ve heard much worse about non-Jews from Jews than I’ve ever heard about Jews from non-Jews. I’m afraid that this does not exactly solidify my identification with the Jewish people, whom I encountered only after my conversion to the faith.

            The effect of all this on me (and I’ve only related a few examples) was very nearly to drive me away from Judaism. When people do things to you in the name of religion, it becomes hard to separate the people from the religion. In this case, it is also very hard to separate halakha from minhag. When a demand is made on you that you simply can’t fulfill, and you are told that this is an essential part of the package, how do you not then reject the whole package? I very nearly did. If there had been a way to undo my conversion, I might well have done it. But when I give my word, I keep it. I believed I was now obligated to observance and couldn’t get out of it. What really saved me Jewishly was that I was now living in my present small college town, where all Jews are accepted without question (because, for one thing, we can’t afford to be very particular). This tolerance allowed me the space to recover after my experiences with larger and more rigid Orthodox communities.

            Most of my problems of the sort I’ve described occurred before I got married. Since then, my husband’s yihus (religious lineage and connections) has largely protected me, coupled with the decision we made to hide my ancestry where at all possible. This started with my mother-in-law, a Polish immigrant who probably subscribed to the “can the leopard change its spots” view of non-Jews that I have also heard (primarily from members of her generation). She was deeply embarrassed about her son having non-Jewish in-laws, but she wanted her son to be happy. She solved the problem by pretending to everyone (and herself) that my parents were Jewish, and ordering us to say nothing to the contrary. She has been dead many years now, but my husband, with his greater knowledge of the Orthodox world, convinced me that it would be better for our son if my background still was not known. We have all become very good at giving the misleading impression that I was born Jewish, while at the same time not saying anything that isn’t true. I do not have sufficient Hebrew language skills to pass as someone who was born into a Jewish, religious home, but we allow the impression to exist that I am a ba’alat teshuva. Although our son knew my parents (now long-deceased), to outsiders we emphasize my husband’s family and de-emphasize mine. I am not comfortable having to deny who I am, and I hope that someday my son will decide that denying half his heritage is not good, but I’ve acquiesced because it’s best for him. If my status becomes known, he will be forever under the same cloud that I am. I wouldn’t wish my experience on anyone, especially my own son.

            My latest problem, which has reawakened all of these memories, is that my son has started looking for a shiddukh, a wife, in the Orthodox world. We recently had a very bad experience. The girl signaled interest on a computer site, knowing of my background. Her mother took over and forbade her to meet my son until I was investigated. The result was very unpleasant for me: the matchmaker, in the course of her Inquisition, persisted in thinking that it was for the sake of marriage, that the re-conversion was at my husband’s insistence (never mind that both conversions took place long before I met him), and even asked whether our son had conversion papers! Their rabbi then called us to explain that it was his synagogue’s policy to have copies of conversion papers on file, and asked us to send them. (All of this was before my son could even talk with the girl to see if the match was worth pursuing.) I was going to refuse unless the same demand was made of the other parents; before it came to this point, my son refused the match. He agreed with me that proof of my Jewishness should not be halakhically necessary (especially at this stage), since it was not in question that I had long been observant, and further, it sounded like a bad in-law situation. It still left me very upset. I don’t mind the asking itself as much as I do the unwillingness to accept my answers. I am hoping that in whatever shiddukh he makes, my background can remain hidden (except to the girl herself) until after the wedding, because I can foresee a repeat of this unpleasant suspicion directed at me and only me. I don’t know whether this will be possible.

            This brings me to one of my long-standing grudges. Converts are asked to show papers at every instance, from day school enrollment (either their own or their children’s) to weddings. The same is not asked of people who claim to be born Jewish. I resent being singled out for this suspicion. I don’t care how politely it is phrased or what reasons are given. (“Standard synagogue policy” certainly doesn’t cut it.) I find it offensive and discriminatory to constantly have to prove myself, to know that there will never be a time when I am simply accepted as a Jew without strings attached.  Perhaps the larger community is simply unaware of the impact this practice has on a convert’s feelings. But it’s past time that this was realized and these policies reexamined.

            These actions may actually violate an additional negative commandment, beyond oppressing the ger. Maimonides, when talking of “cheating with words,” gives an example of someone who tells a convert to “remember your origins.” He may have meant that someone who while in negotiations with a convert assumes a superior position because of his Jewish birth is cheating, by taking for himself something to which he isn’t entitled (since Jewishness should be equal for all Jews). These demands for proof of conversion in return for shiddukhim and Jewish education may qualify.

            I will now refuse to provide papers for any reason unless the same is required of non-converts as well. (I can tell you that my husband has no such paperwork to prove he is Jewish.) If one needs to be sure I am Jewish, one should apply the same criteria for people who claim to be born Jewish. To me (and my yeshiva-bred husband agrees), this discriminatory treatment is a clear violation of the commandment not to oppress the ger. One convert I know got so fed up with this practice that she tore up her papers. I haven’t dared go that far, but I’m sorely tempted. Whatever happened to the halakhic presumption that if you are observant of mitzvoth, you are Jewish? I’ve been Shomeret Shabbat for 35 years. Shouldn’t that suffice? (The yeshiva community actually may be better on this point than non-yeshiva people; my Hareidi sister-in-law and her husband immediately and totally accepted me with no questions asked.)

            I have been told that I should not feel offended by these procedures because, especially these days, people need to make sure that both parties to a Jewish marriage are Jewish. First, I don’t think anyone should tell me how to feel. The commandment not to oppress the ger only makes sense in light of the ger’s own feelings. Second, why are the same requirements not made of the parties who claim to be born Jewish? Ba’alei teshuva aren’t asked for papers; but even for them, isn’t it forbidden to shame a ba’al teshuva by reminding him or her of past non-observance? Third, I don’t think one should downgrade the explicit commandment not to oppress the ger.

            So what if an occasional mistake is made? I’m afraid that with my background I can’t consider this the worst thing that could happen. I can hardly take the position that any non-Jewish ancestry is a blot on the Jewish people. Actually, I believe there is an opinion that if it should transpire that a maternal ancestor wasn’t Jewish, it would not negate the Jewish status of observant mikva-going descendants. But if that doesn’t suffice, do a conversion to make sure—and I don’t mean making an already observant person start from scratch. This problem is fixable. Elijah the Prophet is going to have quite a job sorting us all out anyway; what’s a few more, especially when weighed against the commandment not to oppress the ger? Personally, I’d go with this Torah commandment as against concerns with the purity of the Jewish people. Unfortunately, however,  the Orthodox community seems to have taken the other position. I think a number of so-called religious Jews will have a few things to answer for on the Day of Judgment.

            The situation today is even worse than it was 35 years ago. With the Orthodoxy’s move toward the right, standards for converts have been raised. It is forbidden to refuse a sincere convert. In the effort to weed out the insincere, has the bar been raised so high as to also exclude many sincere converts? In my day, the “Big Three” mitzvoth were Shabbat, kashruth, and taharat haMishpahah (family purity); anything more was desirable but not a deal-breaker. It was not required that the convert know all of halakha. And at least where I did it, anyone who did not have a Jewish fiancé(e) was automatically accepted. In addition, if a problem was later discovered with the procedure, redoing it was no big deal. Now, to judge by the experience of newer converts in our community, one must have to commit to a higher level of observance and must live in a large Orthodox community (which, as a resident of a small community, I disagree with—it is quite possible to live halakhically without a lot of large local Jewish institutions). Additionally, there is a reluctance to simply redo questionable conversions. One Shomer Shabbat person in my community is in halakhic limbo with his questionable prior conversion, which nobody is willing to redo as long as he lives here. The point about questionable conversions that appears to be overlooked is that although the conversion may be invalid, it also may be valid. The current focus seems to be on the possible invalidity, with the result that these converts are treated as if the conversion never happened. What about the possibility that it may be valid? If it is, aren’t we committing several serious sins, from oppressing the ger to discouraging further observance?

            The religious leadership in the State of Israel adds to the problem by only accepting certain rabbis’ conversions. Where would that leave me? I doubt such a list even existed 35 years ago; if it did, I don’t know whether my rabbi would have been on it. Put it this way: My son knows it would be probably too complicated for him to consider making aliyah.

            Even outside the State of Israel, there is a problem with local autonomy. A conversion that is accepted in one community may not be accepted in another. One person in our community converted 50 years ago. No problems arose until now, when her daughter was refused membership in one European synagogue, and her grandchildren were denied a Jewish education in that community. Since the (Orthodox) converting rabbi has long been dead, he could not be asked for information. The daughter is accepted as Jewish in some Orthodox communities but not in others. What is a convert to do, especially when it is long enough after the fact that all witnesses have died?

I have read the Rabbinical Council of America’s new conversion policies, which are intended to address at least the uniformity problem. Aside from the fact that these policies are only prospective, I am afraid that in implementation they will be used to institutionalize a very high bar for converts and justify retroactive rejection of converts such as myself. I fear that the prescription that converts should tell their local rabbi of their status merely invites the sort of social problems I’ve described above, unless said rabbi is both trustworthy and sensitive (which, unfortunately, not all are).  We do, after all, know the halakhic implications of our own conversions! I for one (and I suspect others as well) prefer not to emerge from the closet now.

            It appears that no convert can ever be secure in his or her status as a Jew, no matter how much time has elapsed. Ignorance of the halakha involved, coupled with prejudice against non-Jews, makes it all too easy for a Jew to consider a convert to be insufficiently observant, hence non-Jewish, and to feel no qualms about expressing this. It should be absolutely forbidden for a Jew to raise this issue about a conversion once validly performed, and it also should be forbidden to reexamine decades-old conversions that were done by Orthodox rabbis. Otherwise, there will be literally no end to the suspicion surrounding a convert.

It may not be too farfetched to draw an analogy with the “purity of blood” concerns of Spanish Christians at the time of the Inquisition. “Old Christians” constantly suspected “New Christians” of being secret Jews, even if generations of the New Christian family had been devout Christians. This entailed serious social and political repercussions against the New Christians, who became a permanent and inferior social class. Only if one could prove “purity of blood,” that is, unadulterated Old Christian descent, could one rest easy. I am afraid that the present-day Orthodox Jewish social structure may be developing into a similar caste system, with converts at the bottom of the ladder and with decreasing possibilities of social integration. The tales I hear from outreach organizations about the problems ba’alei teshuva face in Orthodox communities indicate this—and, of course, converts have even lower status than ba’alei teshuva. Rambam would be appalled.

            When people ask to convert, they are warned about persecution from non-Jews. Nobody ever warns them about persecution from Jews. Perhaps this is simply not on the radar screen of conversion rabbis, very few of whom have ever experienced it themselves. However, this has been the experience of nearly every convert I know. Frankly, if I had known 40 years ago everything I know now, I doubt I would have found becoming Jewish to be worth the struggle, despite my theological convictions. Is this the message we want to give converts—that they will never be fully accepted by the Jewish community? I can never fully belong, nor can my son if the truth about me were made public. At least my child is a male, so the problem should die with him. As for me, there is nothing more that I need from the Jewish community. I only want to protect my son, who did not choose his situation, from having to go through the same experience. It is past time for someone to remind Jews that the commandment not to oppress the ger is still part of the Torah.

The rabbinic roots of the Fetaya family can be traced back to Hakham Reuven David Nawi (1770–1821). Hakham Reuven was disciple of Hakham Moshe Haim, the father of the Ben Ish Hai, and was described by the latter as “the great scholar, master of the Torah, our master….” Hakham Reuven passed away at a young age, and only one of his halakhic works, Yehi Reuven, has been published. His grandson Hakham Moshe Yeshua Yehezkel Fetaya (1830–1905) was a mystic and a poet. He founded one of the first printing houses in Baghdad in 1866, with his brother Aharon and their partner Rahamim ben Reuven. Fifty-five books were printed by the printing house until 1882, but Hakham Moshe’s own poems, covering a range of themes from mysticism to stories of personal miracles and prayers for redemption, were printed only in 1909 by his son, my great-grandfather, Hakham Yehudah.

I have heard the following story from my grandfather, Hakham Shaul Fetaya, regarding the initiation of his father into the wisdom of Kabbalah. Hakham Yosef Haim, better known as the Ben Ish Hai, who was 25 years Hakham Yehudah’s senior, used to deliver a sermon on Shabbat afternoon at the great synagogue of Baghdad, Midrash bet Zilkha, also known as Slat il-Kbiri. The Ben Ish Hai was a mesmerizing orator, and his sermons lasted several hours and included halakha, Torah commentary, ethical teachings, and Kabbalah.

In 1869, when Hakham Yehudah Fetaya was only nine years old, he came home crying one Shabbat afternoon. To his father’s inquiry, he answered that he attended the Ben Ish Hai’s sermon and felt frustrated that he could not understand the Kabbalah part of it. His father was moved by his son’s genuine interest and promised him that he would teach him Kabbalah. He did so until his son Yehudah turned 12, at which point his father told him that he has taught him all that he knows and that the time had come to search for a greater master. Young Yehudah duly enrolled in the Rabbinic Seminary of Hakham Abdallah Somekh (1813–1889), the most prominent of Baghdad’s rabbis in the nineteenth century.

In 1876, four years into his studies with Hakham Abdallah Somekh, the Hakham asked 16-year-old Yehudah to be the Hazzan for Minha at the Rabbinic Seminary. One of the older rabbis who was present protested, claiming that a Hazzan must be a married man with a full beard, but Hakham Abdallah Somekh insisted that the teenager he chose will be the Hazzan. “I cannot make his beard grow,” he said, “or marry him off right now, but since everyone agrees that a rabbi can serve as a Hazzan, I will now ordain him.” And so young Yehudah Fetaya was ordained, as a rabbi, at the age of 16.

The honor bestowed upon Hakham Yehudah by his great master did not quench his thirst for knowledge. Alongside his studies of Talmud and halakha under Hakham Abdallah, he learned Kabbalah under Hakham Shimon Agassi and the Ben Ish Hai, eventually becoming their colleague.

Hakham Yehudah was a prolific author, who wrote his first commentary on Kabbalah at the age of 23. The book, which he called Afiquei Mayim, is a commentary on Rabbi Haim Vital’s Etz Hayim, and was only published in a facsimile edition. He later expanded the commentary to what has become his magnum opus, the two-volume commentary on Etz Haim known as Beth Lehem Yehuda. This commentary was praised when first published and is still considered by leading scholars in the field as “The Rashi” on Etz Haim. Hakham Yehudah also wrote commentaries on portions of the Zohar, Yain HaReqah, on the portions known as Idera Raba and Idera Zuta, and Matoq LaNefesh on the Zohar of Parashat Mishpatim. He chose to write a commentary on those portion because they were widely studied during anniversaries for the deceased, and he wanted people to better understand what they were reading.

In general, one could say that despite his lofty field of study, Hakham Yehudah was very much down to earth and involved with the people. His house was open for all and he addressed questions and counseled people constantly. In his private diary, which is kept by my family, he describes a period in his life in which he experienced great closeness to God, a meditative state known as Devekut. He writes how his legs would carry him to his destination, while his mind and soul were elsewhere, but when he got to the yeshiva to deliver a class on Talmud, he reconnected with reality. I find that story intriguing not only because of the meditative state it describes, but for the ability of Hakham Yehudah to detach himself from this state of spiritual bliss for the sake of his students.

Among the many books of Hakham Yehudah, there are anthologies of commentaries on the Torah and Pirkei Avot, original prayers, and mystical writings, but the most popular of his works is no doubt the one he calls a notebook. That book, Minhat Yehudah, is basically a kabbalistic commentary on the Bible, but in several places, the author segues to discuss the interpretation of dreams and issues related to reincarnation. In the introduction to the book he writes that his main purpose in writing the book was to inform people of the full spiritual scope of their life in this world and the world to come and to encourage them to repent.

Among the many disciples in the field of Kabbalah were H. Sasson Mizrahi, H. Yitzhak Khadouri, H. Salman Moutzafi, and H. Salman Eliyahu, father of H. Mordecahi Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi of Israel and a very close friend of my grandfather and my family, but although his printed works focus on Kabblah, H. Yehudah’s activism and teachings were not limited to the esoteric. In one of his few halakhic responses that were preserved, he uses harsh words to criticize men who take advantage of women desperate to get married. He calls on the other judges to amend the situation where all the power was in the man’s hand, saying that women should not need to suffer by being summoned to court, or by feeling that they are tied in marriage to a man against their will.

He was also concerned with the physical and mental health of the people who came to him for a blessing or to seek help. My mother, who was eight years old when her grandfather passed away, told me that people used to say about him in Arabic “idou khudhra”—his hands are green—meaning that they felt special spiritual energy when he blessed them. She herself felt it, and I have experienced it as a child when my grandfather, H. Shaul, took care of me after I was frightened by a dog and could not sleep several nights. He sat me on his lap, placed his hand on my chest and recited verses, and I felt a pleasant warmth spreading through my body and soul. Years later, when my own children went through similar experiences, I tried to do the same, thinking that it might have been a placebo effect, but I failed.

There are many stories about H. Yehudah as a miracle worker, but the one that is close to my heart is one that can be emulated by all of us, and does not require an expertise in Kabbalah. The story is about one of his students in Baghdad, whose wife was expecting. H. Yehudah was concerned that the due date had passed, and asked the man about his wife’s health and whether she gave birth already, but his student dodged the question. The Hakham understood that something was wrong and kept pressing, until finally the man admitted that his wife was acting in a strange manner after she gave birth, and so she was sent by the embarrassed family to live with a Muslim foster family in a village outside the city. H. Yehudah asked for the name of the family and their whereabouts, and then immediately left the Rabbinic Seminary and went home. He asked his daughter Lulu, who was 17 at the time to join him, and together they traveled several hours until they arrived at the foster family’s house. They found the woman, who suffered from what today is known as postpartum depression, in a miserable condition. Besides the shock of being rejected by her family and separated from her young daughter, she was weak and emaciated, since she refused to eat non-kasher food.

H. Yehudah promised the woman that he would help her. He then traveled with his daughter Lulu to the nearest Jewish settlement and went directly to the local rabbi’s house. The rabbi was amazed to see the great hakham at his door. H. Yehudah explained that he was traveling with his daughter to Baghdad and that they were very hungry, and asked if the rabbi can offer them a hearty meal. Once the meal was ready, however, Hakham Yehudah said that he cannot delay and asked the perplexed host to pack the food “to go.” The Hakham and his daughter returned to the woman’s bedside where they fed and took care of her until she was strong enough to travel back to the city of Baghdad. When they arrived there, the women in H. Yehudah’s household took care of the woman for several months until she recovered physically and mentally. H. Yehudah then called the husband and reintroduced him to his wife, not before rebuking him for abandoning her at her darkest hour.

This story, which I have heard at a very young age, is engraved in my mind in a way which overshadows all the other stories about miracles attributed to H. Yehudah Fetaya. It is important because it teaches something that we are all capable of doing, even if we are not prodigies or great mystics. The Hakham’s great sensitivity and understanding of human nature shines through this story.

He was concerned not only with the learning of his students, but with the well-being of their families; and when he heard of the crisis he dropped everything and rushed to the woman’s help, but did not rebuke the husband yet, knowing that he would not listen to him. He traveled with his daughter, because he wanted the woman to feel comfortable with Lulu taking care of her. When visiting the rabbi’s house, he did not reveal the real reason he was asking for food, and would rather cast himself in a negative light, barging into a home and asking for food to go, in order not to embarrass the woman who needed the food. Finally, after returning to Baghdad, he made sure that the woman has fully recovered and then orchestrated her reunion with her husband and daughter.

The many halakhot that can be gleaned from this story cannot be found in any halakhic compilation, and they should be for us a guiding light in our dealings with others. This is but one example of his tireless work for the people of Baghdad and Israel.

Hakham Yehudah’s fame reached the Iraqi diaspora in India, and he was offered a position with that thriving Iraqi community, an offer that he rejected since his aspiration was to migrate to the Land of Israel. He settled in Israel in 1905, but returned to Baghdad after several years. He made a second attempt at aliya in 1923, and finally fulfilled his wish in 1934, at the age of 74. He initially lived in Ramat Gan, where there was a concentration of Iraqi Jews, but eventually moved to Jerusalem, where he was actively involved in the study circles of the kabbalist school Beth El, as well as Shoshanim LeDavid and Ohel Rahel, not far from Mahane Yehudah.

Bound by Hope

Hakham Yehudah Fetaya passed away the 27^th of Menahem Av, 74 years ago. My grandfather told me that during the funeral the sky was covered with dark clouds and heavy rain started pouring. Being that this is very atypical to the Israeli summer, people felt that the heavens were weeping for his death. Since then, each year on the anniversary of his death (except between 1948–1967), hundreds of people ascend to his grave on Har HaZetim (Mount of Olives), to read the special prayers he composed for tumultuous times, and specifically the Holocaust. He kept abreast of the news from Europe and conducted prayers for the Jews of Germany years before the Holocaust. When the war started, Hakham Yehudah’s efforts intensified. Besides running, with his son, Hakham Shaul, a center for distributing basic food staples to poor families, he wrote and published special prayers in a booklet he titled Asirei haTikva, Bound by Hope, a name that conveys the message that despite all the difficulties, we are still bound to God by our faith and hope.

The introduction to the first edition, printed in 1940, reads:

The order of prayers in this booklet is what we had to do, with great sorrow, in the holy city of Jerusalem, in the year 1940 (corresponding to the Hebrew date alluded to in the verse: Sound a great shofar and bring forth our freedom), as we were drowning in the tidal waves of disaster [in Europe]. We had to publish it to make it available for all, so we can join together, with one heart, to plead with prayer and supplications before God, and hope that He will have mercy for the remnant of his flock and will not let their blood spill like water….

Those special prayers, which Hakham Yehudah conducted almost daily at Rachel’s Tomb and other sites, were not his only effort in trying to help the Jewish People. At one point, he procured an airplane from the RAF, and with a minyan of kabbalists performed a service of Kapparot over the Land of Israel.[1]

One of the dramatic stories I heard from my grandfather was of the time his father summoned God to trial. Hakham Yehudah gathered all the sages and kabbalists of the famed Beth El and Ohel Rahel academies in Jerusalem, and summoned God to a Din Torah, a trial, with the specific purpose of acquitting the Jews and proving that God must stop the massacre in Germany. In order to have a fair trial, he appointed both a prosecutor and a defense attorney [himself, obviously] for the Jews. My grandfather told me emphatically of the warning his father issued to the prosecutor: “Speak briefly. Do not cast the Jews in a negative light. After all, they all are good people.” The trial came to an abrupt stop when the prosecutor went on a blaming rampage against the Jewish People, and would not stop despite threats and supplications. My mother added to that story that the man lost his sanity afterward. The message of that story guided my grandfather, and since he was my master, guides also me until this very day in dealing with questions of halakha, education, and working with the community. This unique event is typical of Hakham Yehudah, as well of his son, Hakham Shaul, who did not shy away from confrontations with God Himself.

The booklet Asirei haTikva offers an example of his unabated love for the Jewish People, his deep pain for their suffering, and his willingness to argue with God.

When people visited his grave on the anniversary of his death, these gatherings did not include dancing, eating, or lighting candles at the grave. Rather, the prayers he composed were read by the public in what was an awe-inspiring event that left a very deep impression on me as a young child. My grandfather, Hakham Shaul, our cantor, Gurji Yair, and many elders of the Iraqi community would go around the grave seven times, reading the prayers Hakham Yehudah composed during the Holocaust.

Hakham Shaul, following in the pathways of his great father, felt the pain of the needy and the poor, the Holocaust survivors whose spirit was broken, and those who felt imperfect, whether spiritually or physically, and his prayers echoed his pain.

The pinnacle of the prayers at Hakham Yehudah’s gravesite were the special poems he composed in honor of our Mothers, Sarah, Rivka, Rahel, and Leah. He wrote these poems in the early 1900s as an addition to the traditional Haqqafot, which mention only men. One might say that he wrote the first modern feminist Midrash. Hakham Yehudah wrote four poems, one for each one of the mothers, but Rahel received a special treatment. Her poem, Zekhut Rahel, is three times as long as all the others combined. The special affinity of Hakham Yehudah for Rahel was a product of his kabbalistic background, and of the special attention given to her by the prophet Jeremiah and the midrashic literature, but it also had a personal element. His wife’s name was Rahel (affectionately, in Iraqi Arabic: Chahla), and they had lost several children in their infancy. They had also suffered the blow of losing their married daughter Simha and her husband Shimon during the plague of 1914, and had taken the couple’s little orphaned daughter, Haviva, under their wing. The tragic life of our matriarch Rahel, was for him much more than a biblical image and a mystical metaphor for the Shekhina, it was the real-life story of a bereaved father sharing the pain with his beloved wife Rahel.

In the poem, he pleads with God but also argues bitterly with Him, demanding a better treatment for the nation and the individual. Here is the full text of the poem with my translation:

For Rahel’s Sake

 Recall, God, the merit of Rahel, for her wandering children.

She who has brought her adversary under her own bridal canopy in a sleepless night.

She hid under the bed and responded from there [instead of her sister].

Please, from your seat on high, hear her bewail and lament.

Her thundering voice, shattering walls, can be heard from great distances.

She who was buried at the crossroads, is wailing and asking:

“Where is Joseph, where is the one who hugged me? Woe to me for my sweet child!

Where is Ben Oni, who never saw me, who never rested on my chest?”

She went and asked the Patriarchs: “Where are my dear children?”

[They said:] “Go ask ben Amram, who is buried on Mount Avarim!”

“My son Moshe, please speak up, where have you abandoned the flocks?”

From the grave, speaking to her, rose a mournful, lamenting voice: 

“Why are you wandering on the mountains, what are you searching for, dear aunt?”

[She answered:] “Now is not a time for idle talk, as I have to mend the broken wall.”

Moshe, in deep sorrow, answered: “I have handed them to your son, Yehoshua.”

 [She told him:] “Yehoshua my son, please answer me, where are the tribes?”

Faced with her agony and lament, he responded with his own tears

And the voice of their crying and wailing rose to the heavens.

“Please mother” [cried Yehoshua], “please stop, before I die and perish;”

“I have handed them to the elders and to the shepherd kings of the House of David.”

 She left him and rushed to the grave sites of the city of Zion.

[The kings] told her: “On the Temple Mount, there they shall be sought and found.”

Alas, when Rahel saw that there are no walls nor fences,

And the Temple has been burnt to the ground,

And that there are no priests nor Levites, and no Ark nor Cherubim,

She shrieked in agony, and cast away her shoes.

She tore the striped robe, and her scarf, and her dresses.

She wore sackcloth and rolled on the rocks,

Slapping her flesh to mourn her lost son.

Clad in sorrow for God’s people, she was howling in grief.

 Hurriedly she leapt above, towards God, sitting on high,

Speaking for the People of Zion, and raising her voice with tears, [she demanded:]

“Please Father, see my pain, and heed my plea with mercy!

 My Rock, My Hope, will Your people be forever lost?

How could You tear a bride from her husband’s lap and send her into exile?

How could You shoo the nesting mother, but not take care of the fledglings?

How could You abandon Your sheep among devouring lions?

How can you remain quiet while the People of Edom [Germany] turn them into sacrifices?

Were they not punished enough, were they not engulfed by vicious waters?

Are a thousand years not enough for You?

The sun is already setting on the second millennium, and the pain is not letting.

Where is the miraculous sign? When is the Time of Times?

When will you have mercy? When will you console us?

You keep putting us away, day after day!

Almighty God, redeem us already! Do not soothe us with words!”

 A voice was then heard from the Divine Throne: “Hush my daughter, oh bride of the mighty!

Let your eyes stop crying; Let your voice rest from supplications.

Because of your tears and lament, the heavenly worlds are now in exile.

And He rose up above, and mercy has been invoked.

 I shall not rest until I revenge the spilled blood of my servants,

And shortly I will sever and destroy the wicked.

I will cut the stone, smash the idol, breaking it to shards.

I will open the sealed coffers and release the swallowed souls.

Rise up, shake away your sorrow, and wear your precious clothes.”

I hear the voice of my nation saying:

“Though we are sinners, do for Your great name’s sake!”

The Midrashic Origin of Rahel’s Merit

This poem, in which Hakham Yehudah Fetaya casts Rahel as a defense attorney for her children, is based on two midrashic sources, which are in turn inter-connected. The first Midrash[2] has been made famous by Rashi, who included it in his commentary on Genesis,[3] in order to explain the mystery of how Yaakov was tricked into marrying Leah instead of Rahel. According to that Midrash, Yaakov and Rahel suspected that Lavan would attempt a deception, and so decided on a secret password to enable Yaakov to identify his bride. At the last moment, however, when Rahel realized that her father was determined to lead her sister down the aisle, she felt sorry for her and gave her the password so as not to shame her.

The second, less-known Midrash, is found in the introduction to Eikha Rabbah,[4] the midrashic commentary on the Book of Lamentations, and is based on a verse from Jeremiah[5] which describes Rahel’s agony after the destruction of the Temple:

A voice is heard in Ramah [also: a strong voice is heard]. It is the sound of wailing and bitter tears. It is the voice of Rahel, mourning her children, refuses to be consoled for her sons who are now gone!

In the dramatic narrative of the Midrash, Abraham, Yitzhak, Yaakov, and Moshe are pleading with God on behalf of the Jewish People. Each of the men steps forward and asks God that as a reward for his many sacrifices and dedication to God, the Jewish People will be forgiven and redeemed, but none of them is answered. Rahel then jumps the line, apparently uninvited, and speaks to God about her own experience with her sister. She describes how despite her great love for Yaakov she was willing to let her sister Leah take her place because she did not want her to suffer disgrace, and then levels this question at God:

I am but flesh and blood, dust and ashes, yet I was not jealous of my rival [Leah] and did not cause her shame and disgrace! You, Eternal and Merciful King, why were You jealous of idolatry, which has no value? How could you send my sons go in exile, be killed by the sword, and handed over to their enemies to do with them as they wish?

Unlike God’s treatment of the men who spoke before Rahel, He hears her request and promises redemption, using the subsequent verses in Jeremiah:[6]

Let your voice mourn no more, let your eyes shed no more tears, for your deeds are rewarded… they shall return from enemy lands… your destiny is filled with hope… as the exiled sons will come back home….

Feminine and Masculine Perspectives

At first glance it seems that Rahel’s argument follows the same pattern as the men, and that the only reason the midrashic author makes God answer her and not the others, is that Jeremiah spoke of the dialogue between Rahel and God. A more thorough and comparative reading, however, will reveal deep insights on the nature of men and women and on our understanding of divine justice.

Abraham, Yitzhak, Yaakov, and Moshe, appear before God as if they were in court. They maintain decorum, and each one presents a similar argument: “I did this and that, so I deserve a reward.” Each one of them is ignored, and they interpret it as a sign that their request is turned down, and do not argue any more. Rahel, the bereaved mother, breaks the rules. Like a wounded lioness, she pushes her way past the men and speaks uninvited, as if rebuking them for giving up and retreating.

Rahel is not asking for a reward, but rather lectures God, telling Him that He should learn from her. She suggests that she, a mortal woman, was able to overcome her natural selfishness and jealousy, and that God should follow her example and not be jealous of the “second wife” of the Israelites—the idols.

The audacity of the author of the Midrash is shocking. He questions one of the fundamental prohibitions of the Torah, arguing that God should not punish His children so harshly for worshipping idols. The author speaks more as a loving mother than as a disciplinary leader we know from the stories of the judges and the prophets. I am certain that my great-grandfather understood the pain of all mothers, and of course of his own wife Rahel, and that he took the role of defender of the Jewish people to new levels.

Mother Rahel = Hakham Yehudah

Hakham Yehudah uses the midrashic Rahel to present his theological dispute. From behind Rahel’s mask we can hear the voice of Hakham Yehudah, who conveys both his personal pain and his shock at the terrible massacre of Jews in Europe, while emphasizing the different approach of the forefathers and the one mother.

The poet uses Rahel as a symbol for the nation, and in few lines, sketches Rahel’s tragic life. He speaks of her grief for her lost descendants, and simultaneously of the grief of her immediate sons Joseph and Benjamin. Joseph is described as a toddler who is very close to his mother. In the original Hebrew, he is said to be hovering, conjuring the image of a mother and child huddling together, deriving comfort and joy from each other’s company. Benjamin is referred to here as Ben Oni, the name given to him by Rahel at birth. The name has a double entendre; it could mean the son of my sorrow, or the son of my [last] strength. Rahel is lamenting not being able to breastfeed her son, depriving him, as if it were, of the important role of the mother for the child, that of a nurturer and giver of life. Finally, as if to add insult to pain, she is buried at the crossroads, as if she were not important enough to be have proper burial.[7]

After her initial shock and mourning, she rises from the dust and takes action, going from one male leader to another to inquire about her children. In the original Midrash there is no interaction between the men and Rahel, but Hakham Yehudah creates a dialogue which intensifies the image of Rahel the bereaved mother. She uses terms of endearment when talking of her children, and includes not only her direct descendants, Joseph and Benjamin, but all 12 tribes. She uses harsh words when talking to Moshe, first accusing him of abandoning his people, and then telling him that he is wasting his time in trying to calm her.

In Rahel’s encounter with Yehoshua there is a new element. Not only does she exchange words with him, but her tears and mourning affect him so powerfully that he pleads for his life, even though the readers are aware that he speaks from the grave. The protagonists address each other as direct relatives: aunt, mother, son, showing that a true leader cares for the people the way relatives care for each other, with unconditional love. The poem shows gradual progress as Rahel moves from one man to another. The patriarchs shake away the responsibility and refer her to Moshe. Moshe tries to talk her out of worrying but she would not hear of it. Finally, Yehoshua is influenced by her emotions but it is too much for him to bear and he pleads with her to stop.

Rahel finally arrives at the Temple Mount and witnesses the destruction and desolation. Her spirit broken, she expresses her grief by slapping her flesh, a practice mentioned in the Bible[8] and still common in the Middle East. She tears her striped robe, a reference to Joseph, as well as the attack on Tamar by her brother Amnon.[9] The robe embodies the suffering of Rahel as a mother whose son was torn from her arms.

The following stanza is a turning point in the poem, and it is based on the line in the Midrash which describes Rahel as “jumping” and speaking out of turn.

 Hurriedly she leapt… she demanded… Father, see my pain, and heed my plea with mercy… How could You tear a bride from her husband’s lap and send her into exile? How could You shoo the nesting mother, but not take care of the fledglings?

Unlike the men, who remain passive in their grief, Rahel is able to rise from the crushing pain and take action. She approaches God with harsh words that are, of course, the words of Hakham Yehudah Fetaya. He again uses the language of blood relations, as he makes Rahel address God as “Father” and speaks of the Jewish People as a bride who is driven away. Of all the arguments presented here, the boldest is the analogy Hakham Yehudah draws between the people in exile and the nesting bird. This analogy refers to the commandment of sending away a nesting bird while taking its eggs or fledglings.[10] Obviously, the Torah did not mean to say that one is obligated to separate the mother from its offspring, but rather that if one needs the eggs or fledglings, he should spare the mother. The analogy Hakham Yehudah makes is bold and daring because the talmudic sages specifically said about this commandment that one is not allowed to use it to invoke divine mercy:[11]

If [the one leading the services] says: May You show mercy to us as toy did to the nesting bird… he must be silenced.

The Talmud offers two explanations that seem to suggest that the rabbis feared that such statements will encourage a discussion of theodicy, or divine justice, which was a very sensitive issue for post-destruction Judaism. Not only does Hakham Yehudah Fetaya not shy away from this issue, practically accusing God of treating Jews unfairly and of abandoning them, he very cleverly changes the dynamics of the analogy, making it more dramatic. Whereas the commandment calls for releasing the mother and taking the eggs or fledglings for consumption, in the analogy the mother is sent into exile and the fledglings become the responsibility of the hunter, which in this case is God.

Here, the evolution of Hakham Yehudah’s Rahel is complete. She first transitioned from a bereaved mother to a wandering mourner, and she now becomes a fierce advocate for the Jewish people, firing a rapid succession of 14 arguments against God’s treatment of her children. Through Rahel, Hakham Yehudah speaks of his deep pain over the Holocaust, using midrashic Edom to refer to Germany. He pleads with God but does not hesitate to use an accusatory tone, saying that God has abandoned us and that He does not keep His promises.  

The poem concludes with a promise of redemption with many mystical elements, but its essence is a replay of what has transpired between Rahel and Yehoshua. Just as Yehoshua begs Rahel to calm down because he is overwhelmed by the emotions she stirred in him, God now tells Rahel to stop crying, using the verse from Jeremiah. The reason for that request, according to Hakham Yehudah, is that her powerful prayers caused the Divine worlds to commiserate with her suffering and as a result they are now in exile. Using Rahel as a mask, Hakham Yehudah issues a call to all Jews to be relentless in their efforts to usher in the redemption.

The way to do it, as he signaled in his poem about Rahel, as well as in his teachings and leadership, is to be active and not sink into depression, indifference, and apathy. He taught us that we cannot keep quiet when people suffer and that we must constantly challenge ourselves, and God, until we have a perfect world.
 

Halakha and Kabbalah

Hakham Yehudah Fetaya is considered one of the leading kabbalists of the twentieth century, both in terms of his outstanding disciples and colleagues, and his very important commentaries. It is therefore extremely important to hear his view on the role of Kabbalah in Jewish law, as was conveyed by his son, Hakham Shaul Fetaya. My grandfather explained that halakhot influenced by or instituted by Kabbalah were never meant for the public, but rather only for the true kabbalists. That is because the idea at the basis of these laws and practices is that by performing a certain act in this world, one impacts and changes the divine worlds. Let us consider a famous example of a practice stemming from this kabbalistic approach.

Sweetening the Harsh Judgment

The Talmud says in the name of Rava that one must add water to the wine of Kiddush, or else it will be undrinkable and undeserving of being called wine.[12] Rava’s rationale is that without adding water the wine is too strong. Rava’s opinion was not accepted as binding but rather as a recommendation, and Rabbi Yosef Karo writes that one is allowed to make Kiddush with a very strong wine. He does add that it is preferable to dilute the wine, as long as it is done properly, meaning that the final product is better than the original. Rabbi Moshe Isserles, the Rema, comments on that: “Our wines are better as they are, without diluting.”[13]

According to both Rabbi Karo and the Rema, the practice of diluting wine with water should have disappeared in the modern age, as most wines are drinkable, without any addition of water. This is indeed the case for most Ashkenazim; but the Sephardic world, under the influence of Kabbalah, took a different course. The practice of adding water to wine was explained by kabbalists as an act which weakens, or sweetens, the harsh judgment, as water represents mercy and wine represents rigor.[14] To avoid extreme dilution of the wine, the Kabbalists recommended adding three drops of water to the Kiddush cup, a practice kept in many Sephardic households.

The idea that a person can change God’s mind by adding three drops of water to the Kiddush cup could be deeply disturbing to anyone who is familiar with Maimonides’ principles of faith, and specifically the one that states that God is immutable.

There are several ways to reconcile this contradiction. One is to reject all Kabbalah-influenced practices, while another is to find deeper symbolism and meditative tools in the kabbalistic principles. In the case of water and wine, for example, when one adds the water to the wine, he should contemplate his behavior and decide to make a special effort to override his anger and be more kind and sensitive.

The third approach, that of Hakham Yehudah Fetaya, is that there might be a way in which humans induce change in God’s world. However, this is a role reserved for people with a very high spiritual level, namely the true kabbalists. Hakham Shaul, faithful to his father’s teachings, taught us not to add water to wine and not to wash our hands with Last Water, another practice that would have disappeared if not for Kabbalah. In general, Hakham Shaul was uncomfortable with the popularization of Kabbalah study, as he felt that the study is technical and superficial, and that no attention is paid to spiritual growth and interpersonal relationships. He was also opposed to the phenomenon of seeking blessings from “kabbalists” and rabbis who charge for their services. He told me that Hakham Yehudah Fetaya had a very clear opinion on this issue, which is that one is not allowed to seek advice, guidance, blessings, or prayers, from anyone who expects something in return for those services.

He explained that God does not need middlemen, and if there exists a person who was invested by God with special powers or access to Him, that person should care enough for others as to offer prayers and blessings without asking for a penny. My grandfather added that even if the rabbi does not ask for a payment, but says that he will bless a couple with a child on the condition that he will serve as the Sandak, one should decline the offer.

My grandfather, Hakham Shaul Fetaya (1910–1982), refused to serve as a rabbi, and instead dedicated his life to help people from all walks of life. He was a member of the Etzel underground and helped organize caravans to Jerusalem during the War of Independence. He fought for the inclusion of Iraqi and Sephardic Jews in the administrative offices of the newly born State of Israel, and continued his father’s tradition of helping the poor and needy.

He took care not only of material needs, by personally delivering supplies to immigrant families, but also of spiritual needs, counseling and advising thousands in his little store-office near Mahane Yehuda. His method of dream interpretation was studied by Dr. Yoram Bilu, who was astounded to discover a whole world of symbolism in the mystical teachings of Hakham Shaul and his father.

In the late 1970s Hakham Shaul launched a new initiative with his daughter Simha, my mother, and Dr. Hannah and Israel Openheimer, who were Holocaust survivors. That initiative was an occupational habilitation center in which people with physical and mental disabilities learned new skills or revived old ones, in order to integrate into the regular work market. My grandfather’s motto was the verse from Job (31:15): “His maker made me as well, and we were formed in one womb.” Hakham Shaul extended his belief in equality to the religious realm as well and taught his disciples and grandchildren not to use words such as religious and secular to describe factions in Israeli society. To our question what term to use, he replied that all Jews are observant, but each one chooses to observe different mitzvoth. He taught us that religiosity is not judged by external elements, and that there is much we need to learn about others. In the spirit of equality, he also encouraged my older sisters to have a Bat Mitzvah, as early as 1969, when this was not a popular practice among observant Sephardim in Israel.

My grandfather was the epitome of a Sephardic Hakham. He knew the Bible by heart; he read and wrote poetry; he was an activist, a philanthropist, and a philosopher. He did not believe in leading from above, and preached for loving and respecting one another. His approach to halakha was accommodating and understanding. He never forced anyone to drink wine or eat matzah on Seder night, and he tried to avoid Kabbalah-influenced practices.  I remember very well how on Yom Kippur, when I was seven years old, when speaking about Shabbat observance, he said that he knows that many people watch television on Shabbat, and that he just asks them not to switch channels or play with the volume. His approach of understanding and respect has guided me in my halakhic writings and my community work.

Here is a passage from his book Hirhurim (Musings), in which he addresses the religious elected officials and Knesset members, whom he viewed as enslaved to their seats:

…Enough PR, arguments, and animosity… instead of the noise and storms, come down to the people, walk with the people. It will not take away from your honor, it will only augment it. Didn’t God Himself come down on Mount Sinai, and doesn’t it say that Moshe came down to the people? But you… you rest on the comfortable chairs in your offices and never come down… and when you do you go to synagogues and study halls, but not to the “commoners”…

Please, if you ever decide to come down to the nation, don’t go only to those who know the values and principles, who apparently do not keep them, and who despite all this are called holy people…

Because this nation is wise, intelligent, and willing to listen, they will understand you, they are thirsty for knowledge, especially the youth, the knowledge of Jewish insight, the principles, values, and Israeli tradition. Speak to the youth. Speak to their heart. Explain gently, with love, sensitivity, and attention, and they will listen…

Teach the rabbis, the newly minted and the veterans, to be wise and not use the Torah as a tool to aggrandize themselves, so people will learn from them noble and worthy values.

Talk to the rock—it will give forth water… do not cause pain…

These words epitomize my grandfather, Hakham Shaul Fetaya. My grandfather’s love for scholarship, Bible, poetry, and music, as well his activism has deeply influenced me and my siblings, who all continued aspects of his legacy in one way or another. My oldest sister Haviva Pedaya is a professor of Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah and a poet, and the second, Hannah, is the founder and manager of the Firqat al-Nur orchestra, and she spearheads the revival of Sephardic music and liturgy in Israel. My brother Yehudah is the rabbi of my grandfather’s synagogue in Jerusalem, Minhat Yehudah, and he teaches and maintains the unique Baghdadi traditions of Hakham Shaul. My sister Ayyala is an activist, a playwright, and a poet.

As a family, we feel now that there is an awakening, a thirst and longing for the legacy of Sephardic and Mediterranean Jews, and we hope that this legacy will contribute to the creation of bridges of understanding and mutual respect.