National Scholar Updates

One of the enduring themes of my religious life has been the reconciliation of my Jewish and American cultural identities. As the daughter of a Modern Orthodox rabbi who taught me to look critically at the ways in which religion can be variously used and practiced, I became very aware of the pushes and pulls of different religious factions and how they have informed by beliefs. As a student of science, I gained insight into the importance of empirical knowledge and learned to look critically at the claims of universality and objectivity of research theories. My own framework for understanding differences in religious philosophy has developed over time, and centers around my personal struggles with the resolution of the cultural tension between my experience as an American—steeped in pervasive scientific values based on rational knowledge—and my experience as a Jew—with a set of mores and beliefs about the world that are strongly held but grounded within a framework that seems incompatible with the uncertainty that intellectual analysis brings.

The center of the internal struggle to integrate these seemingly incompatible aspects of myself crystallizes around my understanding of the observer effect. In science, the term observer effect refers to changes that the act of observing will make on the phenomenon being observed. Thus, every experiment is necessarily influenced by the presence of the investigator, and no researcher can be factored out of an experimental system. An elaboration of this discovery has led to the idea that as humans we inevitably try to impose order on a fundamentally chaotic universe; thus the way we structure our studies is implicitly biased and colored by human experience. This radical principle revolutionized the way we think about science and has led to a paradigm shift in the way we conceptualize and study other fields as well, comprising a vital component of postmodern scholarship.

Postmodern ideas now permeate almost every scholarly enterprise, from literature and history to psychology and sociology. Serious scholarship in many fields requires an open acknowledgment of the perspectives that provide the lens through which ideas are given meaning. The intellectual ramifications of the observer effect pervade twentieth-century intellectual thought and are an implicit part of a Western cultural sensibility. Despite its importance to our scholarship, this paradigm has not seriously influenced the way large segments of the Modern Orthodox world think about or treat religion and religious study. This disparity, as I see it, is one of the fundamental problems facing Modern Orthodoxy today. Since Judaism is taught in a factual way, while at the same time uncertainty permeates every other faction of our life, religion can become encapsulated or split off as a result.

In my various experiences growing up and living in different Jewish communities, I have found that Orthodox Jewish thought is often taught and learned in a categorical way that does not take into account differing viewpoints. As students, we are not taught to think critically about religious material or our religious leadership but must learn to do so on our own, outside of traditional educational systems. Religion is taught unequivocally, in a way that leaves out the doubts and subtleties each teacher necessarily brings to the material he or she teaches.

Under the current mainstream yeshiva system, pertinent information is selected and taught by instructors whose students are expected to grasp and apply it without significant evaluation of its merits. Teachers' formulations and interpretations are often implicitly presented and accepted as objective truths to be assimilated by their students. In this educational system, many learning experiences are characterized by acquiescence to the expertise of the teacher-as-authority. This method of indoctrination makes sense for young children as the stability and structure of an educational institution provide a sense of security, granting refuge from an ambiguous understanding of ideas. Yeshiva schooling constitutes a safe environment that provides a secure, though embryonic foundation for the understanding of religious knowledge.

The problem arises when this culture of indoctrination continues into our experiences as adult members of Orthodox communities. The dominant contemporary explanations of Jewish theology are generally given over in a way that precludes open debate or critical assessment of merit. In my experience, many religious leaders tend to be more concerned with making a point than with openly approaching others as an interpreter with a culturally bound perspective; this reluctance to address uncertainty extends to common religious discourse as well.

For many who do not acknowledge their participation in American culture, this does not pose a problem. They are content in being handed over objective knowledge, secure in the truth of their belief. But for those who choose to engage in Western culture and concomitantly adopt its cultural ethos, the struggle to integrate their American and Jewish sides is more difficult. It is not necessarily the content of the religious teachings that makes this challenging, but the way that knowledge is confused with or presented as objective truth. The prevailing methods for the dissemination of Jewish religious thought within communities are definitive and conclusive, as though the injection of any doubt or uncertainty into the discussion could lead the child or layperson astray. This trend can be alienating to those whose belief is influenced by American culture, as it leaves little space for a personal relationship with religious material. This can make it difficult to assimilate meaningful interpretations of religious information—and in effect widens the cultural divide between religious and secular selves.

The first time this conflict came starkly into my awareness was in my freshman year of college, in a humanities class covering a scholarly reading of the Old Testament. I had never before come into contact with this material—and its effects were gut-wrenching. I responded to what felt like an assault on my beliefs by holding on to my religious understanding of the Bible, defending it at all costs. As I listened to myself debate my classmates on the merits of these theories, I realized that I was approaching the issue from within a cultural perspective that was different from many of my fellow students. My only previous experience with the Bible had occurred within the framework of religious study, with an eye for one objective truth.

In this new, intellectual environment, my religious views seemed undeveloped; my beliefs were fundamental to my way of thinking but had never been challenged by the lens of historical scholarship. My previous yeshiva training had formed a secure basis for my religious beliefs but had not prepared me for impingement by the general prevailing cultural standards for critical thought. Because I could not locate my belief within a context, I was not equipped to effectively engage in intellectual discourse on the topic.

Years have passed since that shock of self-awareness, and yet I still find myself struggling with the same issues.  How is it possible to incorporate a fundamental religious belief system with a world based in critical rationality? I believe that the first step in bridging this divide would start with a growing awareness of the subjective nature of our beliefs. We may posit the existence of a set of objective religious beliefs, but as human beings interpreting these truths, our knowledge is necessarily bounded, even flawed. Even objective truths based in religious faith must be filtered through our subjectivity. The observer effect has taught us that because we are a part of the system we are studying, there is no way of standing apart, separate from our cultural milieu.

Acknowledging the biases with which we enter religious debate is never an easy task. Religion is the scaffolding on which our society is built and has provided a vital function for humanity. It forms the underpinnings for Western civilization and the guidelines by which many of us live our lives. Perhaps the centrality of Judaism’s position in our lives makes this struggle such a poignant one. It feels dangerous to subject our faith to critical examination as it may lead to a cynical deconstruction of our traditional Jewish beliefs. On the other hand, denying that our environment informs our perspective closes us off from seeing reality.

Each person must engage in his or her own quest for navigating meaning in religious tradition and modernity. For me, this has involved the reconciliation of the dueling sensibilities of my American and Jewish identities. The observer effect has helped me to locate my religious beliefs within a context. When viewed through a prism of critical rationality, Judaism becomes more complex, and is cast with ambiguity and nuance. And although it is decidedly more multifaceted and difficult, I am at peace with the uncertainty of my perspective, as it feels more compatible with the overarching environment in which I live. As humans our knowledge is necessarily limited; in our fallibility, we may take comfort in having others join in our struggle with uncertainty.

The current world is one of information-overload and hyper-stimulation. In this increasingly changing and competitive world, the stakes are high. Being creative gives you the competitive advantage. The fastest and best innovators thrive and survive, and creativity is the key factor. In this article, I propose and will provide support for the argument that Jews historically have been highly creative, and that they are currently very creative in many endeavors.

Jews are creative and use their creativity to innovate and improve the world. The title of this journal is “Conversations,” discussions among people. The concept of conversation is an example of Jewish creative dialogue and learning. This article will examine how the practice of Judaism leads to high-order thinking and creativity. I will discuss the roles of prayer, Jewish education, and self-examination, as tools to become a better and more creative person. The final section of this article provides methods the reader can use to enhance creativity. Each person reading this article probably uses these methods to some degree already; but by articulating the strategies, readers can consciously apply them and enhance their work and personal lives.

Jews Beat the Odds in Terms of Achievement

I nostalgically recall the 1960s when I attended University of California at Berkeley. It was the end of my senior year, and I was having coffee with two Jewish friends with whom I had grown up. In fact, we three students were the only Jews in our public school class in Sacramento, California. We lived in the Jewish part of town and went to Hebrew School together. In those days Sacramento was a relatively small town, and the Jewish population was small as well. What are the odds of three students getting into and succeeding at one of the most challenging Universities in the United States? In Berkeley they do that thing with freshmen: “Look to the student on your left, and now look to your student on the right. Only one of you will graduate.” Fifty percent of freshman students flunked out before their junior year, and only about one-third of entering freshman graduated. Jews were only about 3 percent of the population of California, yet they far exceeded that percentage at UC Berkeley.

The 1960s was a time of change, and Berkeley students were leading this change. Jewish students were major players in the student movements. These movements were driven by social concerns such as free speech, antiwar efforts, equal rights, and unionization of farm workers. The leaders of the student movement as well as the student activists had vision and determination. They wanted a better world, and they would work toward changing the status quo to make a world that was as fair and just as possible. They were practicing Tikkun Olam. Many of the leaders of these student groups were Jewish, including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Bettina Aptheker.¹

What was true in the 1960s and throughout Jewish history is still true today. Jews are creative and take the lead. Currently Israel, where Jews flourish and prosper, offers so many examples of creativity. Most significantly, Israel is a world leader in the high-tech industry, medicine, and military technology. This little country is in a very dangerous part of the world and has few natural resources. Yet this small Jewish country soars in the marketplace of the world.

The list of Jews and creativity would consume a complete article in itself. Therefore, I am going to choose just a few examples that illustrate Jews and creativity.

Military. In terms of military technology, Israel has developed the Iron Dome and the Eitan. The Iron Dome can intercept short range rockets, and the Eitan is a drone spy plane.

Medical. As for medical technology, my husband and I just benefited from Israel’s innovative and technologically advanced medical services. We were in Hashmona'im, a small Yishuv in the middle of the country. My husband went to the Urgent Care Center in Modiin, which uses the most current technology and Telehealth system.

High Tech. As for the high-tech industry, many of the major international high-tech companies have located in Israel because of the well-educated, highly competent, and intelligent workforce. For overall brain power, just look at the number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners for examples of Jewish outstanding achievement. The Jews have produced many great thinkers and world changers.

Jews can generate creative concepts, and translate them effectively into economic gain and professional achievements. They succeed in the current global market because they are able to produce a high rate of questions and ideas, they have the ability to overcome obstacles, and they have skill set to translate those ideas into marketable products that solve real-world problems. Creativity drives the engine in many areas such as the arts, writing, music as well as business and commerce to mention only a few spheres of interest. Personally, I have found that parenting and family matters benefit from creative thinking.

Jews are economic catalysts not only of the current millennia but throughout the ages. There are many examples where Jews have been invited into countries and usher in an economic Golden Age. When Jews are expelled, the country’s economy goes from boom to bust. Many times the Jews are invited back. Currently, Harbin, China is trying to attract Jews in hopes of regaining economic prosperity for their city. In the early 1900s, Jews were invited to come to Harbin. Jews came and with the Jews came economic prosperity. The Jews were forced to leave in the 1950s, and Harbin has experienced economic decline.²

Why are Jews high achievers and leaders? Lama lo! or in English, why not!

How Practicing Judaism Enhances Creative Thinking

The skill sets and brain power that Jews develop by practicing Judaism can be generalized to achievement in scientific, intellectual, artistic, and business scopes of practice. One of my professors at Teachers College, Columbia, Mel Alexanberg, described the shared cultural underpinnings of Jewish life as Jewish metacognition.³ Jews are exposed to a shared intellectual and value system, which are Torah and Talmud.

Jews have a dialogue with God. It is through speaking to God and debating God’s response that a moral, ethical, and survival system was and continues to be developed. Jews are the “People of the Book.” Books are words and words are symbols. Words have meanings, various meanings. Study Judaism and you are exploring multidimensional symbolic concepts. This includes multiples levels of ideas and information. There is thinking, exploring, and conceptualizing in an ever-evolving interaction of ideas and points of fact. Through this process, Jews developed a highly sophisticated strategy that involves complex reasoning.

Jewish education emphasizes asking questions, learning more, and then refining concepts and ideas. Jewish learning trains techniques in acquiring information, integrating the information, and generating new and innovative thought or concepts. Jews continue to refine their ideas by constructing new interpretations and theories. This is a continual process where existing information and theories inform emerging concepts.⁴

Throughout the centuries, yeshivot and synagogues have been centers where Jews immerse themselves in complicated interactive information systems and challenge the construction of these information systems, accessing their higher-order thinking. Jews are driven with a passion to question and then seek answers through studying the Torah.

Rabbi Marc Angel has often pointed out that “The Torah is an inexhaustible source of wisdom.”⁵ The fundamental basis of talmudic discourse is to question. Each Jew is free to develop his or her own unique multilevel information storage base, skill and mental proficiency to recall symbolic code, and apply and use that information. Each Jew develops innovative conceptual schema, and eventually, new realities. Jews are trained to suspend judgment and live with ambiguity as they think through their ideas and concepts. As time progresses, the examination of text and communicating with God through prayer establishes an ever-evolving value system. In my dissertation, I examined creativity in the Hassidic community in terms of an individual in interactions with mental stimulation, and related this interaction to creative productivity. I was able to document notable creativity in the Hassidic community.⁶

Jewish creative abilities skill sets learned through Judaism can be used in other areas of work. That is why Jewish scholars have soared in many business, academic, and artistic disciplines. Jews are exercising and building their mental capacity through studying Torah. Jews ask questions and wonder why. Jews construct complex mental systems which are reciprocal exchanges between the individual in interaction with environmental stimulation to solve real-world problems.

The next section describes strategies for enhancing creativity. These techniques are taught in traditional Jewish education.

Jewish Techniques for Enhancing Creativity

Immerse yourself . Jews immerse themselves in study. They ask questions. Succeeding in any intellectual frontier requires immersing yourself.

Throw yourself into your  work. Learn as much as possible. Always question. Access the most current information. Acquire as vast a body of facts and opinions that you can. All that you are learning is fascinating. At times you can feel overwhelmed with all the information. Learn to live with ambiguity. The process of generating order out of all the information leads to innovation. You know that you have immersed yourself in the problem when you are engrossed and totally consumed by the question.

Be passionate. Jews historically have been passionate and committed to their religion, to understanding God’s message. The world is fraught with many problems and difficulties. God asks that meaning be sought after through study of Torah and Talmud. Being passionate and intently committed to seeking meaning and truth in life can be applied to any other areas of study.

Take on the study of a topic that is compelling to you. You have strong and intense feelings. The topic cries out to you, and all kinds of question soar in your head as you seek a deeper understanding. There is a problem that can be solved, or just another step can be taken in solving a problem. You know that you are passionate when your mind drifts to the question, concept, problem, uncertainty, or difficulty. You are on a quest and feel a sense of being driven to learn more and more. You are on unconventional ground. You do not know the answers, and there is a thrill to the work. There are more questions than answers.

Attach yourself to a community. Jews build communities, and live and work together. Jews develop support systems and rules and principles which enhance their lives. Jews are always engaged in vibrant groups to learn and reexamine the religious texts. Each person sustains and builds their conceptual understanding by examining multiple and often contradictory concepts from others in the group, from revered wisdom of our sages, and from current thinkers. Jews are life-long learners; and when applied to other disciplines, leads to creativity in those disciplines.

Surround yourself with amazing people. Examine the work of people you admire, and have them review your work. Build your conceptual framework on the shoulders of giants in your area of study. Do not be afraid to hold contradictory theories in your brain at the same time. You know that you are part of a community of amazing people when these people stimulate your thinking. These amazing people have ideas and information that is helping you move your concept forward. When you are with these people in discussions, you feel your creative juices flow. These people do not have to agree with you. If fact, it is far more important that they challenge your thinking than rubber stamp your theory.

Often people are considered successful when they reinforce the status quo in their field. They do not challenge the accepted conceptia. Do not mistake success, such as fame and fortune, for innovation. Most of the time and most people doing creative work have a unique vision. This puts creative people outside the mainstream. Being outside the mainstream can be difficult. Do not measure your work in terms a yardstick from the mainstream. Rather, evaluate your work in terms of the amazing people that you have surrounded yourself with, and measure your success by accomplishing your goals. The best of all possible worlds is to have the support of amazing people, accomplish your goals, and become rich and famous.

Use your mind’s eye. Jews pray as part of their life. When Jews are praying, they are also imagining and envisioning. The Jewish experience is thinking of what I am now and what I can become, as I strive to be a better person in the image of God. Most significantly, Jews are seeking clarification and testing themselves as to the progress that they are making towards becoming a better person according to God’s guidance. Using your “mind’s eye” is necessary for novel ideas and innovative solutions.

You want to envision and imagine; and to do this, you use your mind’s eye. This well-honed skill is transferable to the development of innovative products and marketing. It is a process of taking complex situations and making sense out of them. Essentially, you are using your imagination to see the whole problem and the end resolution to the problem. Once you are able to envision, the abstract problem can be broken down into steps. Each mini-step resonates throughout the complex problem and has an impact. When using your mind’s eye, you can match the impact of the mini-step to the goal of solving the problem. You know that you are using your mind’s eye when each mini-step moves you closer to a solution to your problem. Or on careful examination, the mini-step created obstacles to your solving your problem. Every mistake or misdirection offers you the opportunity to rethink the problem and redesign your next step. It provides you with fuller information, more questions, and guides you on your next step. Each mistake is a gift.

Be aware/be in the moment. Praying is a conscious experience that makes actions intentional. When praying with intention, you are in the moment. Kavanah is praying with intention and being aware. You will be more creative in your work when you are aware, present, and in the moment. You should be consciously aware and use the information that you have to produce a clearer understanding of the concept that you are studying. You should be alert and have your mental faculties at their peak performance. All your actions are deliberate and cognizant. All the information that you have gathered facilitates your knowing as much information as possible. Your mind is aroused. It is a dynamic process. You are interacting with the information and using the feedback to refine your thinking. You are in the moment.

Be resilient. Jewish people have had to struggle to survive. They have had to be better than the average guy. Often they have had obstacles that would overwhelm others. Throughout history Jews have experienced misfortune and have recovered and persisted. Jews do not have a choice whether to be resilient. If they are not resilient, they will be destroyed. For periods of time, Jews have been relatively successful in many countries, which are known as Golden Ages. Then crash, the world comes down around them. Jewish history teaches a series of punishing events. Jews have a long memory of all the calamities, yet they pick themselves up and rebuild their lives. I have heard Jewish holidays described as a narrative: they tried to kill us, we won, and now let’s eat. In the face of overwhelming obstacles and repeated failures, the resilient people go forward and possibly achieve their goals. The choice is be resilient and possibly succeed, or give up and assure failure.

Resiliency is recovering from disappointment and managing frustration. Each failure provides the opportunity to recover and keep going. When treading on new ground, you may come to dead ends. Your strength to bounce back will help you keep going even when you are discouraged. Your will know that you are resilient when you are completely defeated, when you blunder and achieve disaster. Yet each obstacle only makes you more determined. You go back for a deeper understanding of what happened, and what went wrong. Despite the setbacks, you try something different. You are imagining a possible different outcome. If you experience only success, then you are not challenging yourself.

Conclusion

Again, I am brought back to the day I sat with my Jewish childhood friends having coffee in Berkeley 1968. Was it by chance that we all succeeded? No, it was not by chance because the Jewish rate of success challenges the probability it was simply by chance. Was it the Jewish education at Hebrew School, or living in a Jewish community, praying, Jewish family values, or our connection to our synagogue? The answer is all of the above and a resounding yes to the great achievements of the Jewish People. There is a shared metacognition. Jewish metacognition is a shared set of symbols, values, and thinking strategies, that trains creativity.

Take a moment. How has your practice of Judaism enhanced your creativity? In terms of the Jewish concept of always trying to improve yourself, what strategies can you use to be more creative? How does your experience with Jewish thought and creativity help you contribute to improving the world?

Notes

1. Mendes, P., ‘“We are all German Jews”: Exploring the Prominence of Jews in the New Left’,    Melilah 2009/3.

2. Hadassah Magazine February/March 2011, pp. 40-48.

3. Conversations with Mel Alexanberg. He was my dissertation advisor in the late 1970s.

4. Miran, MD, Miran E., & Chen, N., DESIGN OF LIVING SYSTEMS IN THE INFORMATION  AGE: Brain, Creativity and the Environment. Eds. Joseph Seckbach ORIGIN(S) OF DESIGN IN  NATURE: A Fresh, Interdisciplinary Look at How Design Emerges in Complex Systems,  Life [ODIN] volume to be published.

5. Angel, M. Angel for Shabbat, Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, USA, 2010.

6. Miran, E. The Ecology of Creativity. Dissertation. Teachers College, Columbia,

Daily Birkat Kohanim in the Diaspora

By Daniel Sperber[1]

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Question: May Kohanim outside the Land of Israel give the priestly blessing (Birkat Kohanim, or Nesiat Kapayim) on weekdays and on regular Shabbatot?

Answer: The Torah explicitly requires the Kohanim to bless the people (Numbers 6:23), but does not tell us where or when they should do so. Rambam (Sefer haMitzvot, Mitzvat Assei 26) gives no details, but refers us to B. Megillah 24b, Taanit 2b, and Sotah 37b, to work out the details. However, there are versions of the Rambam's text (edited by R. Hayyim Heller and R. Yosef Kefir), where there are the additional words "every day,” and this, indeed, is his ruling in the heading of his Hilkhot Tefillah and Birkat Kohanim. (See further ibid., chapter 14; this also is the ruling in Sefer haHinukh, Mitzvah 367). However, there we find the additions that "the mitzvah applies in all places at all times…". Hagahot Maimoniyot, to Rambam Hilkhot Tefillah 15:12 note 9 writes, on the basis of R. Yehoshua ha Levi's statement in B. Sotah 38b, that any Kohen who does not bless the people transgresses three commandments, splitting as it were the biblical verse in Numbers thus: "So shall you bless the children of Israel: say unto them,” adding verse 27 ibid., "And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel…". The Hagahot Mordechai modifies this by adding that if the Kohen has not been summoned to bless the people, he does not transgress by not doing so, referring to the Yerushalmi text, and this view is accepted by the Beit Yosef, Orah Hayyim 128. There is also a minority view, rejected by mainstream authorities, that of Rabbenu Manoah, that even if the Kohen was not called, if he did not bless the people, he transgresses at least one commandment.

Outside Israel it is the practice in many congregations for the Kohanim not to give the priestly blessing, and for the congregation not to request that they do so—with the exception of musaf on the foot-festivals and Yom Kippur—even during Neilah. The Beit Yosef was very perturbed by this practice. He writes (Orah Hayyim 128):

The Agur wrote that Mahari Kolin [the Maharil] was asked why the Kohanim do not give the priestly blessing every day, since it is a positive commandment. And he answered that it was the custom of the priests to make a ritual ablution [in the Mikvah] before blessing, as is recorded in Hagahot Mordechai, and to do so every day in the winter would be very difficult for them. Hence, the custom evolved to do so only on the festivals. Furthermore, [doing so] would curtail the business activities (mi-taam bitul melakhah), and in any case if the Kohen is not summoned he does not transgress.

However, the Beit Yosef continues:

He forced himself to justify his local custom; but the reasoning is insufficient. For that which he said that they were accustomed to make a ritual ablution every day, this is a stringency—i.e., it is not really required—which leads to leniency… Since ritual ablution as a requirement for the priestly blessing is not mentioned in the Talmud. And even if they took upon themselves this stringency, why would they cancel three commandments, even if they were not transgressing since they had not been summoned. Surely it would be better that they carry out these three commandments clearly and not make the ritual ablutions, since there are not required, and by not doing so they could fulfill the three commandments.

He ends by saying:

And praise be to the inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael and all Egypt who give the priestly blessing every day, and do not make ritual ablutions for it.

Indeed there are some congregations that still follow the Beit Yosef's position. Thus, the Syrian community has birkat Kohanim every day, (see H. C. Dobrinsky, A Treasury of Sephardic Laws and Customs, Hoboken N.J., New York 1986, p.168). This, too, was the Amsterdam custom of the Portuguese community (Shemtob Gaguine, Keter Shem Tov, vol.1, Kédainiai 1934, pp. 222–227, note 268, who also quotes Even Sapir, that this was the practice in Yemen, and possibly in some Moroccan congregations), while in Djerba they did it on Shabbatot and festivals (R. Moshe HaCohen, Berit Kehunah, Orah Hayyim, pp.101–102, and note 30). Thus, there are ample precedents for this practice.

However, the Ashkenazi Rema, R. Mosheh Isserles, in his Darkei Mosheh, ibid., 21, seeks to justify the Ashkenazi custom. He writes:

Because [doing so] would curtail business activities for the people in these countries, for the Kohanim are struggling to support themselves in the exile, and they can barely support their families, other than the bread they gather by the sweat of their brows daily, and they are not happy. And it is for this reason that they do not carry out the priestly blessing, which leads to bitul melakhah la-am. And even on Shabbat they do not do so, because they are troubled and concerned about their future…, and they are only joyful on the festivals. And thus the custom evolved only to bless the people on the festivals. So it would appear to me.

The notion that the Kohen must be joyful when blessing the congregation has its roots in the early Rishonim (in Rash's teacher, R. Yitzhak ben Yehudah).

The Mateh Efraim, of R. Efraim Zalman Margaliot, added that this was an ancient practice, even more than 500 years old, going back to the Tashbetz haKatan, a disciple of the Maharam Mi-Rothenberg, and the Kol Bo sect. 128, and accepted by the Maharit, the Agur, the Darkei Mosheh, etc., "and one may not stir from this custom." He also gives additional reasons to support this custom.

The Sephardic Kaf haHayyim, R. Yaakov Hayyim Sofer, on the other hand (Orah Hayyim, ibid., note 16), cites French R. Yaakov of Mervais, (in his Shut Min-ha-Shamayim no. 38), who writes that

In a place where there are suitable Kohanim to bless the people, and they do not do so even once a year, both the congregation that do not call them to do so, and the Kohanim themselves, who do not make the blessing, transgress, also because they seem not to be relying on their Father in Heaven.

This was cited by the Egyptian Radbaz, R. David ben Zimra, and especially the Hesed leAvraham of R. Avraham Azulai, who writes at length censuring those who do not bless the people, enumerating the negative effects of their flawed thinking, concluding that "it is proper to do so in every place, and not to seek out strategies to avoid doing so."

And even the Ashkenazic Hafetz Hayyim, in his Mishnah Berurah 128:12 in the Beur Halakha wrote:

It is only because of weakness that the Kohanim can go out and not go up [to bless the people. For if not so, certainly they are not acting well to needlessly nullify a positive commandment.

Indeed, there are some Ashkenazic congregations where they do carry out the priestly blessing at least once a month, as we learn from the Sefer haMitzvot, or even every Shabbat, as is mentioned in the Mateh Efraim.

Finally, we may cite the words of R. Yehiel Michel Epstein, in his Arukh haShulhan, Orah Hayyim 128:4:

And behold, it is certainly the case that there is no good reason to nullify the mitzvah of birkat Kohanim the whole year long, and [it is] a bad custom. And I have heard that two great authorities of former generations—probably the Gaon Eliyahu of Vilna and R. Hayyim of Volozin—each one wished to reestablish birkat Kohanim daily in their location, and when they decided on a given day [to begin], the issue become confused and they did not succeed, and they said that from Heaven it was thus decreed.

In view of all the above we may state that Birkat Kohanim does not require ritual ablution, and in present-day diaspora countries, blessing the people will not affect or curtail any business activities, and people in the diaspora are not downtrodden, nor do they live in permanent misery so that they cannot be joyful enough to bless the congregation. And according to some opinions (e.g., the Pri Hadash) even if they are not called to give the blessing, they may/should do so, (see e.g. Piskei Maharitz, Orah Hayyim vol.1, Bnei Brak 1987, pp. 259–260, with the note of R. Yitzhak Ratzabi ibid., Note 7, ibid., Be’erot Yitzhak). Thus, the reasons given for avoiding giving the priestly blessing are for the main part largely irrelevant in present-day diaspora conditions.

On the other hand, not doing so means not carrying out three positive biblical commandments, and according to some, albeit minority, opinions this is also the case when the congregation does not summon the Kohanim. Some, somewhat mystical sources also stress the great spiritual benefits of the priestly blessing, and the considerable negative effect of their absence. Furthermore, we have seen evidence that in some Ashkenazic communities Birkat Kohanim was practiced on Shabbatot or monthly, and not merely on the festivals.

Taking into account all of the above, I would think that nowadays, there is little justification for not carrying out the priestly blessing daily in our diaspora congregations.

I would like to end by again referring to the Hesed le-Avraham:

…The Kohen who fears the word of the Lord and desires His commandments will not transgress by refraining to give the blessing to give satisfaction to his Creator, for it is good in the eyes of God to bless Israel. How good and pleasant is the practice in some places, where the Kohanim give the priestly blessing each day. This is the fitting way to practice in all places, and not to seek excuses for annulling a positive commandment from the Torah.

To summarize:

1. It is a biblical commandment that obligates the Kohanim to bless the people.
2. Not doing so means not fulfilling that biblical commandment, and, according to some authorities, even transgressing three biblical commandments.

Here we may add yet another element to our discussion. There is a well-known opinion of R. Eliezer Azikri, in his Sefer Haredim chapter 4 (with the commentary of R. Yitzhak Leib Schwarz, Kunszentmiklos 1935, p. 19), that "those who stand before the Kohanim in silence and direct their hearts to receive the benedictions as the words of God, they too are included in the mitzvah as parts of the 613 [mitzvot].”

The commentator, ad loc. (note 18–19) discusses this opinion, pointing out that it is a subject of considerable controversy among the greatest of authorities, but he quotes the author of the Haflaah, R. Pinhas ha-Levi Horowitz, (in his notes to Ketubot 24b and Rashi ibid.), that just as there is a commandment to the Kohanim to bless Israel, so too is there a commandment to Israel to be blessed by the Kohanim. He states that there are other examples where the Torah, explicitly commands only the active partner and not the passive recipient, but nonetheless both are obligated. He brings as one example to mitzvah of yibum, which devolves both on the levir (yavam) as well as the sister-in-law (yevamah), even though the Torah commandment is directed toward the levir alone. The Sefer Haredim's novum was widely accepted, even though his source remained unclear to many.

This being the case, surely we should not deprive Am Yisrael in the diaspora from having opportunity to participate in this important mitzvah.

The reasons given by the various authorities for not fulfilling this mitzvah regularly in the diaspora are in and of themselves problematic, but in any case quite irrelevant to present-day diaspora communities. There exist precedents in different congregations, even outside Eretz Yisrael, for daily, weekly, or monthly priestly blessings.

In Jerusalem and in some parts of Eretz Yisrael the priestly blessing is carried out daily.

In view of all of the above, it follows that the daily, or at least weekly, blessing on the part of the Kohanim be performed in diaspora communities.

We continue to reach thousands of people annually through our National Scholar program, combining classes, teacher trainings, and publications to promote the core values of our Institute.

            There are several upcoming classes and programs in January and February:

On Wednesday, February 14, 7:30 pm, there will be a book reception for my latest book, The Keys to the Palace: Essays Exploring the Religious Value of Reading the Bible. It will be held at Ben Porat Yosef Yeshiva Day School, 243 Frisch Court, Paramus, New Jersey. I will give a talk on “Building Bridges and Mending Rifts through Tanakh Scholarship.” Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Since the beginning of September, I have served as the Tanakh Education Scholar at Ben Porat Yeshiva Day School, in Paramus, New Jersey. I am developing a new Tanakh curriculum for grades 1-8, that reflects our core religious values at the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. I also have given lectures to the Ben Porat Yosef parent community in this capacity.

On Mondays January 8 and 15, and Wednesday January 24, 8:00-9:00 pm, I will be teaching a three-part series at the Young Israel of Scarsdale (1313 Weaver Street, Scarsdale, New York):

Torah Study in a Modern World: Conflict & Resolution

Monday, January 8: Orthodoxy and Confrontation with Modern Biblical Scholarship

Monday, January 15: Traditional Commentary and Biblical Archeology: Friends or Foes?

Wednesday,  January 24: The Bible, as a Book of Literature vs. The Torah, as a Sacred Text

Copies of my new book, The Keys to the Palace, as well as several other titles, will be available for purchase and signing at the final lecture on January 24.

The classes are free and open to the public.

On Shabbat, February 9-10, I will be a scholar-in-residence at the Baron Hirsch Synagogue in Memphis, Tennessee (400 South Yates Rd, Memphis, TN).

The classes are free and open to the public.

On Sundays, February 18 and 25, 7:30-8:30 pm, I will teach a two-part series at the Young Israel of Jamaica Estates in Queens (83-10 188^th Street, Jamaica, New York) on Megillat Esther.

The classes are free and open to the public.

Our University Network, which I now coordinate, continues to do incredible work to promote our religious ideology and vision on campuses across the United States and Canada. We have added several new campuses and fellows this semester. Please see my December report on our Campus Fellows on our website: https://www.jewishideas.org/article/campus-fellows-report-december-2017

As always, I thank you for your support and encouragement, and look forward to promoting our core values through these and many more venues in the coming year.

Rabbi Hayyim Angel

National Scholar

Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals

My name is Jeannie Appleman.  I’m an organizer with the Jewish Funds for Justice.  My family and I  daven at the modern orthodox synagogue near us in Long Island.  I organize and train rabbinical and cantorial students, including from Chovevei Torah, and Rabbis, from all four movements in a particular approach to transforming our synagogues into “covenantal communities.”

What do I mean by covenantal community? I mean a community whose members believe and act on a premise that each of our futures is inextricably intertwined, and that we have a stake in each others’ future.  I mean a community whose members truly partner with and act to improve our city with others across race, class and religious lines based on shared interests and common vision. I mean a community where  congregants are engaged around their talents and dreams, not tasks; where developing people takes precedence over providing programs for every need; where private struggles are voiced, and change is achieved.   Covenantal communities stand up for the collective good as well as our own synagogue’s interests. Shearith Israel’s history is full of this type of covenantal behavior.  

I will begin by posing some questions and then laying out a new opportunity to engage in covenantal community – both within your synagogue and with your Manhattan neighbors, with whom you share a common fate.  

Here are a few questions to consider: What is the current chapter of community engagement that you are writing as a congregation? What legacy, in the spirit of Emma Lazarus, a former congregant, will you leave to your grandchildren?  In addition to this aesthetic structure, and the vibrant tefilla, Torah study, and chesed work, for what courageous community involvement will Shearith Israel be known, in this time and place?  What does it mean to be a covenantal community in Manhattan, in 2008?

         Just as particular events and experiences shaped Shearith Israel’s journey and choices in community involvement, so too my journey as an organizer and as a Jew has been shaped by a series of experiences.  I grew up in a Catholic family in a racially-mixed, working class neighborhood in South Bend, Indiana. When I was 16, and I learned about the prophets, I thought they were talking to me and my family; I felt like WE were the widow and orphan that the prophets spoke of that the Almighty protected, when my father nearly lost his factory job -- the best of the three jobs he worked to put food on our table – because of the unbridled greed of the owner.  That was the beginning of my journey to becoming an organizer.  When I asked my religion teacher about Jews, he told me to go ask a Rabbi.  So I looked in the yellow pages and picked one out – Rabbi Chaim Kuperman, straight out of YU doing kiruv at a traditional synagogue.  I showed up at Sinai Synagogue in my school uniform – plaid skirt and navy jacket and bobbie socks - and he was kind enough to mentor me in my journey towards Judaism.  I have found in modern orthodoxy an authentic and holistic way of life, where every act has meaning and purpose, and every occasion has a bracha.  And I’m proud that our community has written the book on caring for our own.  And yet I struggle with how little impact we have had in the broader community.

         In today’s Parsha, Mishpatim, and later in Devarim, that in order to walk in the ways of Hashem (G-d), You shall love the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”  Some commentators  broaden the commandment to include not only converts, but also all strangers .   The Ramban contends that WE should learn from our Egyptian experience that the Almighty does not tolerate the mistreatment of strangers.  When I read this passage, I am reminded that we have not yet reached our potential for acting powerfully in the public square on the full range of our community’s interests or the collective good in our cities, including Manhattan.   What are we doing right here in NYC, in 2008 to harness our people power to hold our public officials accountable for their commitments to make our city safer and cleaner, to create more affordable housing and quality education, and affordable health care options for every New Yorker? 

           What do I mean by power?  Many of us believe that the access that our Rabbis and big donors have to decision-makers is power.  But I would call this influence. It’s easy to confuse the two. Power is what happens when we join together with our neighbors to voice our collective concerns to politicians and negotiate face-to-face and publicly, not just through back-room deal.  It is what we need to do if we want public policy to address the needs of our community and the broader society.

       Congregation Shearith Israel has a long and rich history of community involvement, of standing up for yourselves and for others.  It seems to have begun from the very founding of SI!  The pioneers who created this synagogue refused to be bystanders to their own struggle, and that of other Jews and non-Jews alike in their new country, America, particularly in this political powederkeg of an island, called Manhattan!  It all started with 23 Jewish pioneers from Dutch Brazil standing up to the dictatorial Governor of New York in 1654 – Peter Stuyvesant – who ran NY like his personal fiefdom, for the right to settle here.  

          The history includes initiating settlement houses for immigrants and Jewish poor; opening a homeless shelter and partnering with NY institutions to address homelessness; engaging armies of volunteers to mentor and guide troubled young people.   In Rabbi Marc Angel’s Remnant of Israel book he writes “Through one-to-one relationships, the ‘big sisters’ would help guide the ‘little sisters’ to lead constructive and fulfilling lives.”  These SI leaders knew how to build a covenantal community – one relationship at a time.  Shearith Israel’s history of being a “caring” community for its members, the Jewish community, and society at large, is an impressive one; this Congregation has a big heart.  There is also a rich history of engaging in interfaith efforts with Lutherans, Episcopaleans and Catholics starting in the late 1600s.

         I would propose to you, that in 2008, SI has the opportunity to EXPAND how it acts as a covenantal community by joining with other faith communities and communal organizations to create a truly “covenantal community” here in Manhattan.  There is a congregation-based community organization that operates as a covenantal community – Manhattan Together -- that negotiates collectively and directly with the city’s and state’s “powers that be” on the matters that affect many of our lives. They’re waiting for more synagogues who share this vision to join them. 

          There are nearly 100 synagogues nationally, who are employing this particular approach to creating covenantal community, within the context of multi-faith and multi-ethnic organizations, invented  by Saul Alinsky and the Industrial Areas Foundation in the 1940s.  The Jewish Funds for Justice has worked successfully over the last several years to connect synagogues to these organizations. 

          Let me describe one synagogue’s experience, that a fellow organizer, Meir Lakein, is working with in Boston, called Temple Emanuel.  They held 42 small group meetings where over 400 of its congregants met together in each other’s living rooms, to tell stories of their concerns, and hopes and dreams.   They didn’t kvetch, they didn’t argue ideology; they didn’t even discuss a “social justice” issue.  Instead they told stories about their experiences that helped their fellow congregants get a better sense of who they were, stories that surfaced some of their core interests and values.   What emerged were stories of struggle as congregants attempted to navigate the long-term care systems that made it hard to age with dignity, or to care for their aging parents.                                                                                   

     Then they held a synagogue-wide meeting of over 420 congregants at which they launched synagogue-wide chesed initiatives to not only expand chesed, but to make it the instinctive NORM of the community.  They launched an organizing drive to press local and state legislators, to commit new resources and support for the long-term care system that would make it easier for seniors to stay in their homes, if they so chose.  Shortly after, the synagogue joined a multi-ethnic, interfaith community organization, Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO), affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF)  with several synagogue members, so they could build covenantal community across faith and ethnic lines.

 Many of us would find it hard to believe that synagogues and Haitian 7^th Day Adventist churches would have anything in common.  But as members of GBIO, several synagogues discovered that they did.  Both communities needed to change nursing home care.  Leaders at Temple Israel needed better nursing care for their parents and grandparents who were living in unsanitary and inexcusable conditions in the homes. The Haitians who staffed the nursing homes were mistreated, overworked and underpaid. When they heard each others’ stories in small group meetings, these stories led to action. GBIO held a large community meeting and invited the Massachusetts Attorney General to ask him to issue an unprecedented advisory enforced stricter monitoring of both nursing home care, and that would improve conditions for workers.  The Attorney General came to the meeting prepared to decline this request.  But he was so moved by the immigrant stories he heard and was impressed by the united power he saw, that he changed his mind. He was reminded of his own mother’s story of exploitation and mistreatment as an Irish immigrant.  When he committed to issue the advisory, he was nearly drowned out by the cheering.   

          As synagogues, we cannot pretend that our own members are immune from skyrocketing health care and housing costs, from unemployment, from the cost of aging, and the challenge of supporting aging parents while underwriting our children’s escalating education costs.   Unless we’re willing to share our stories of struggle and hope with each other, and with other communities, I don’t believe we will achieve the fullest possible covenantal community in the broader society either.  If we park our own interests and stories at the door and hide our own struggles, we imply, that only people of other ethnicities and faiths struggle, and we’re there just to fix them, instead of partnering with them to create a joint future for all our children.  

My great-grandfather died when my grandmother was very young, leaving my great-grandmother penniless, and with five children to support.   But since she had no means of support, the local authorities threatened to tear her and her siblings away from their mother, and dump them in an orphanage. The young priest at their church stood up to the authorities, and provided my great-grandmother with odd jobs at the Church, rent, and groceries.   

While it saved my family, BY ITSELF, this approach of “meeting individual needs” of congregants, fell short.  My family’s shame about this experience kept them isolated from the rest of their congregation because no one ever spoke about “private” matters. Like many synagogues today, they attended each other’s weddings and funerals, but never spoke to each other of their struggles or dreams.  If this had been a covenantal community that encouraged my great-grandmother to share her story, she would have met others who had also suffered under the crushing weight of abusive power, and they could have joined together and fought for laws that protected families.  But my grandmother didn’t belong to a covenantal community.

         Achieving covenantal community requires taking big risks and trusting our fellow congregants and other community members from diverse backgrounds enough to share our stories. This kind of community calls us to be open to hearing their stories and being changed by them.  It requires the courage to recognize that a shared covenant that ties our destinies is not cemented only with words – it is signed with action.  In the covenant we made with the Holy One, our ancestors committed, “We will do and we will hear.”  Can we really expect any less of ourselves, today? 

Growing up in suburban New York City, I never heard the phrase “secular humanism,” or if I did, I did not find it meaningful enough to remember because I had no concept of religion as a life-encompassing endeavor against which to compare it. Certainly, life offered choices. I could choose to become a doctor or a lawyer, and I might even be so bold as to move to Africa to work for UNICEF, but the mentality of my secular Jewish upbringing would remain underneath any career or geographical choices. In the end, I would be “learning” the New York Times wherever I went. One of the hardest tasks in life is breaking out of one’s Weltanschauung. Few do it, and it is a bona fide miracle that people find their way to Torah observance, which can be a whopper of a life-change in our era.

 A quarter of a century ago when I became frum, the yeshivot for ba’alei teshuvah essentially were Hareidi, or they tried to appear so. My limited experience in the Torah world left me unable to categorize them as such just as my prior life as a secular Jewish middle-class American did not seem to me at age 18 a life choice but rather life itself. I lacked the words to encapsulate it and to contrast it from anything else.

Even though I did not become observant via a kiruv organization, but rather through thinking and reading, I made my way to yeshiva when enough of the people I encountered recommended it. I had expected yeshiva to be a place for further exploration of the religion and of my own thoughts and feelings about it, in part because it was advertised as such, but that’s not what it was at all. Rather, it was a kind of factory for producing Hareidi Jewish men.

I do not say that with outrage. Many of my old classmates function fairly well as Hareidi Jewish men, better than they were functioning as secular Jewish men. They took to yeshiva and found a productive place in life through the lifestyle it promoted. Most importantly, of course, they are Shomer Shabbat.

The problem was for the people who did not precisely fit the mold. If this matter of single-sizing is causing trouble in the schools for the frum-from-birth (FFB), the trouble is magnified for ba’alei teshuvah. Consider, for example, what happens to the academically inclined person who had spent his entire life immersed in secular studies. Whether this happens in public school, which serves largely as preparation for college, or college itself, or graduate school, or a PhD program, or Sunday afternoons with the New York Times, it comprises a life’s work for many people. Suddenly, one hears that it is all narishkite, emptiness, and lies. Try it on yourself; say “My life’s work was a waste of time.” That is a bitter pill to swallow, and it has nasty side effects.

This would not be such a problem if indeed it were all emptiness and lies. Emet serves as an excellent replacement for sheker. Normally, one is happy to unload rocks from his backpack. But what if they are not really rocks?

Consider my coming to Yiddishkite. As I said, I found my way on my own, not through a kiruv group. Ironically, I did it largely through “secular” studies. Despite the claim that the non-Torah observant thinkers and writers of the world are all heathens and enemies of God, there are in fact many who write about morality, monotheism, and spirituality. For example, it was none other than conservative political and social commentator William F. Buckley, whose writings taught me about the concepts of faith, self-restraint, and morality as pursuits to encompass every facet of life. He talked about eschatology, that is, the idea that life on a personal and global level takes place in stages with heaven and hell coming last. He introduced me to the catchphrase “Don’t immanentize the eschaton,” which is an exhortation against utopian secular philosophies such as communism that try to make heaven (the eschaton) on earth. The phrase stems from the writings of Eric Voegelin, a German-born political philosopher who taught at University of Notre Dame and University of Munich.[1]

I am not suggesting that either Buckley or Voeglin were b’nei Torah or that seminary students in Lakewood should read their writings. I am saying merely that the bifurcation of humanity into camps of pure truth or complete lies is not the complete truth. Wonderfully, I have learned after years in the frum world that many great figures from our history would concur with my statement. Take for example what Rabbeinu Bachya wrote in his introduction to Duties of the Heart:

I also quote the pious and wise men of other nations whose words have reached us—such as the words of the philosophers, the discipline of the ascetics, and their admirable codes of conduct—for it is my hope that my readers will incline their hearts to them and listen to their wisdom. Our Masters of blessed memory have already said [in this regard]: One verse says, “But you have acted in accordance with the laws of the nations around you” (Yechezkel 11:12), and another verse says, “Nor have you acted [in accordance with the laws of the nations around you]” (ibid. 5:7). What is the resolution [of the two verses]? You have not acted like the refined among them, but you have acted like the corrupt among them. (Sanhedrin 39b).[2]

Here we learn that not only did Rabbeinu Bachya study the works of gentile thinkers but he incorporated some of their ideas into his masterpiece. Let us remember where Duties of the Heart stands in the cannon of Jewish thought as the Rambam, the Vilna Gaon, and the Hatam Sofer, each one a seminal figure in the Hareidi world, studied and praised it.[3] The grandson of the Hatam Sofer said that “Almost all of his ethical teachings and practices were from the words of this holy book.”[4] In our times, the Steipler Gaon wrote, “Whoever has not seen the lights of the holy words of the Duties of the Heart will be missing very much, he will be wanting inside, in the purity of all that is holy.”[5]

So what do we do with secular studies, much of which obviously is not fit for Jewish eyes or human eyes for that matter? I do not have a simple answer. But I can tell you this, pressuring a person to surrender truths only because of their source or to force them into different terminology that does not feel as true can yield destructive results. As I said, it is a miracle that many people become frum.

The gaon Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky was sensitive to this idea. He advised kiruv professionals that their goal should be simply to help non-observant Jews to become observant, that is, to keep the mitzvoth. One should not try to impose personality change or to destroy the essence of what defines the person. One should not impose conformity.[6] In other words, do not fold, spindle, or mutilate, to borrow a phrase that used to be printed on machine-readable cards for computers. Rav Yaakov said that it is essential that a ba’al teshuvah feel normal in his Torah observance. He said that, for example, the typical ba’al teshuvah will not feel normal if he does not complete his college education so he should not be discouraged from doing so.[7]

For many ba’alei teshuvah, life in a contemporary Hareidi environment will not feel normal, particularly if one’s mentors are not striving to follow the advice of Rav Yaakov. I have been to more than one shiur where the speaker declared how all secular music was prohibited. Each time I thought to myself, “Bridge over Troubled Water” is osur? Seriously?” I combed through the lyrics, “When you’re weary, feeling small, when tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all.” What is the problem here? Is this a hok like shatnes? Am I never allowed again to hear this song that has comforted and inspired me throughout my life? In my view, most of the people who I observed entering and leaving the frum world left not because they could not handle mitzvoth observance but because they could not cope with the more extreme approaches to it. That is a tragedy. Hence, there was and is a great need for Modern Orthodox kiruv yeshivot where the answer to incorporating the good of the secular world is not met with a shochet’s knife, but rather, with discussion, with decisions, and with indecision.

Note that I use the term Modern Orthodox in the broad sense to mean not “Torah only” or not contemporary Hareidi. There are different shades of Modern Orthodox. For example, in my view, the litvaks of old Europe and even mid-twentieth-century America would not fit neatly into either camp. However, the Modern Orthodox world tends to allow more room for a person to match the complete litvish approach to Torah life which usually included the pursuit of parnassah at younger ages and often included secular studies and other matters that we associate today with the Modern Orthodox. As the Hareidi world narrows its scope, the Modern Orthodox world absorbs approaches to Torah life that are not characteristically modern.

I cannot speak for the contemporary kiruv world as I have long moved on to the daily focus of earning a living. But the English speaking kiruv world of decades ago I knew pretty well, particularly the yeshivot. There really was only one place for people who all ready had earned college degrees that I could describe as espousing “Modern” Orthodox sensibilities of any significance and the rabbi who I met after knocking on the door spent our interview testing me on the Gemara. What I did not know at the time, what he evidentially did not know either, is that I was seeking to learn more about Torah Im Derekh Erets and Torah u’Maddah. As the expression goes, you don’t know what you don’t know. I did not know these terms so I did not know to inquire about them. I only knew that the outlook I was trying to hoist upon myself was not working as promised.

You might be surprised if you came into my home today to see very little secular material lying around. One reason for this is my fear that young people in this era cannot manage both Torah and maddah successfully, particularly as the academic world and general society have drifted into some really bizarre and indecent territory. I cannot get my mind around what passes for culture and entertainment today. But also, I want to spare my family the painful choices and sacrifices that I had to endure. I often think that some ba’alei teshuvah would be wise to retain a small percentage of their old interests, as long as they are halakhically permissible. At some point, you have to make peace with your past. You can only discard so much. But as Rabbi Avigdor Miller used to say, you can like chocolate cake, but you don’t have to tell the whole world about it. Let the FFBs in my house have some peace; let them enjoy the simplicity that just was not their father’s lot in life.

Orthodox Singles: Breaking Myths (or: The "Shiddukh Crisis" Revisited) [i]

I'm smart, successful at my career, and fun to be with. I've worked out many of my "issues" in therapy. Here I am, eminently eligible and ready for a relationship, but somehow all of the guys I meet just aren't there yet. I feel like prescribing them a course of therapy, life-skills, and relationship-skills, and telling them to return in a few years, though hopefully I'll have found someone by then…

Sarah, age 27

I really want to get married and build a "bayit ne'eman b'yisrael" and all that other good stuff, but sometimes life gets in the way. I'm struggling really deeply with my conflicting sexual and religious needs, while trying to move forward in my career, and still make it to minyan—all this under the watchful and critical eye of my parents and community. Spending Shabbat with my parents is the opposite of relaxing. I wonder whether they would have gotten married as young and as happily as they did had they had the same challenges to contend with when single as I do.

Avi, age 31  

I hesitate to take up my pen and write about the broad topic of Orthodox singles. It's a topic on which much ink has been spilt and to little effect. I generally confine myself to the topic of singles and sexuality/religious conflict, which has been much less explored and where there are perhaps more constructive things to be written. However, I want to write briefly about some of the broader challenges faced by singles and by the Orthodox community. The issues are manifold and complex—spanning the religious, psychological, phenomenological, existential, physiological, and halakhic realms, among others—and my goals are limited. If I can succeed in making you question your assumptions about singles, or in breaking some of the myths that you hold dear, and shaking your sense of certainty about anything relating to singles and their place in the community, then I will have done enough. Deconstruction is easy compared to reconstruction, but it often needs to come first—I leave the rebuilding to the future.

We often hear mention of the "Shiddukh Crisis" or "Singles Problem" that currently plagues the Orthodox Jewish community. Various groups, organizations, synagogues, and individuals have given much thought to finding the "solution" or a range of "solutions" to this "problem." I don't want to enter into the fray of searching for solutions, partly because some of the "solutions" I've seen have been worse than the problem itself and have augmented the problem rather than solving it, and partly because I disagree with the entire construct of problem-solving that has been set up around Orthodox singles.

Let's start with some definitions: Many today would define the "Shiddukh Crisis" as the fact that today, more than ever before, large numbers of Jews are remaining single for longer, marrying later, or not marrying at all. This definition assumes that the mere status of married or unmarried is how we define success, and the quality of a person's married or single life doesn't matter to us. For many people, the "Singles Problem" is something that needs to be solved simply by getting everyone married as quickly as possible.

I want to suggest a different definition of the "Singles Problem": the crux of the crisis is, on the one hand, deeply personal, surrounding the individual issues that prevent people from either desiring or achieving a meaningful and committed relationship. And on the other hand, there is a wider communal dynamic in which the Orthodox community simply doesn't know how to include the unmarried individuals in its midst and often alienates singles, forcing them to either form their own singles communities or to leave Orthodoxy.

In this article, I want to focus on the intersection between the single and the community and on some of the myths that prevent mutual understanding.

Beginning the Myth-Breaking

The line between straining at truths that prove to be imbecilically self-evident, on the one hand, and on the other hand tossing off commonplaces that turn out to retain their power to galvanize and divide, is weirdly unpredictable. In dealing with an open-secret structure, it's only by being shameless about risking the obvious that we happen into the vicinity of the transformative….

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet, p. 22

Before we can move toward a productive conversation about singles and their place in the community, I need to clear the ground from some of the many and often contradictory myths that currently prevail regarding singles. The very act of generalizing—of making statements that are relevant to "all singles" or "everyone"—does violence to the individual and his or her experience. Individuals come in different shapes and sizes; physically, emotionally, intellectually—and they relate differently to this period in their lives. We simply can't make any general assumptions about people.

I have chosen five common myths that I want to break systematically, though there are many more. I begin with the sexual realm because I think that it is the proverbial  elephant in the room, which often hovers in people's consciousnesses but is not mentioned in polite conversation. Since halakha does not permit pre-marital sex or any physical contact with the opposite sex (“negiah”), singles either are not sexually active, or their sexual activity is illegitimate. Therefore, they are either grappling with sexual denial or repression, or they are violating the halakha. Either way, their situation is one that the wider community cannot easily identify with. The prevalence of assumptions and dearth of real information about people's sexual beliefs and practices—the confusion between myth and fact—may contribute to suspicion mixed with awkwardness in interactions between singles and members of the wider community. In this vein the myths can be especially damaging.

Myth #1: Everyone is "shomer negiah" /No one is "shomer negiah."

These myths, though they contradict each other, are both quite prevalent within the Orthodox community. Each comes from a totalizing perspective that seeks to reduce all singles to the same experience so that we don't need to give the matter further thought. If all singles are shomer negiah, then the system works—everything is fine, there is no conflict to be reckoned with, and we need not concern ourselves with the personal toll that this halakhic observance may be having upon the individual. On the other hand, if no singles are shomer negiah, then there is also no conflict—singles simply don't care about the halakha and thus they aren't part of the community. Each of these totalizing perspectives is detrimental and each ignores the uniqueness of the individual and the fact that people are different and that they cope with singlehood in different ways.

Although sex and sexuality are universal phenomena, they are experienced differently by different individuals and even by the same individual in different stages of life. For some, sexuality is a major challenge during the single years. For others, sexuality is a non-issue, or a minor issue. Some observe negiah with ease, others with difficulty, others not at all. Some are shomer negiah in some relationships and not in others or with some people and not with others. For others, the status changes with time. The endless permutations make stereotypes worthless. There are people who don't look the part who are completely shomer negiah, and people learning in yeshiva who visit prostitutes. A friend of mine recently asked two male friends of hers, of similar age and profession, what they were looking for in a wife in terms of her sexual experience—the answers they gave were diametrically opposed. One would only date women who had never touched men, because "If I waited, why couldn't she?" and the other would only date women who had had some physical contact with men, because, "I don't want someone who's not having sex just so that her ketubah [marriage contract] can say betulah [virgin] (which it can either way)." Leave the stereotypes behind and look at the person who is facing you.

Myth #2: Anyone who engages in premarital sexual activity is totally fine with it.

This myth is particularly damaging because it allows us to ignore the pain and conflict that many Orthodox singles are experiencing. Although there are certainly singles who are not conflicted about their premarital sexual activity, all of the singles with whom I have spoken have struggled very deeply with these issues—either overtly or beneath the surface—and while some eventually made their peace with the choices they made, others continue to struggle.

An extension of this myth is that those who engage in premarital sexual activity simply don't care about the halakha. Most of the singles that I have spoken with cared deeply about the halakha, and it was precisely because they cared so much about the halakha that they were thrown into such a deep existential conflict in its violation. However, the guilt surrounding premarital sexual activity is not purely due to halakhic violation. For many people feelings of guilt are a complex combination of many factors, the halakha being one, and communal or familial expectations and social pressures being another. For women especially, society’s double standard of sexual behavior adds onto the halakhic layer the feelings of being “damaged goods” once one engages in premarital sexual activity, and raises questions about one’s larger identity as a good girl, a good person, and a good Jew. Even those singles I spoke with who chose to leave the halakhic lifestyle retained a lingering sense of guilt and discomfort about their decisions in the sexual realm.

Myth #3: Singles are happy the way they are—they don't want to be part of the "broader Orthodox community."

“Community” means different things to different people. Here I am using this term in an intentionally ambiguous way, though on a basic level I am referring to the community that forms around a synagogue or a neighborhood. In either case, families are generally the building block of the community. Depending on the specific community, singles may have formed their own minyan, or in places with fewer singles, singles may be either invisible within the communal framework or may be full members of the community.

If we take this myth in the specific context of the community that forms around a synagogue, then the exact opposite is often true as well: Many singles feel so alone and isolated that they are often thirsting to be a part of the larger community, if only the community would let them. Especially in the absence of a spouse—who, among other things, provides a regular companion for Shabbat meals—singles often appreciate the sense of belonging or of being part of something larger than oneself.

However, not all singles want to be involved in the community to the same extent, and the community should be sensitive to the range of needs that individuals might have. Some singles might appreciate an invitation to a Shabbat meal, others might appreciate being set up, others might just want a smile and greeting after prayer services, and others might want a more active role on the synagogue board or on various committees. And beyond these concrete actions, there is the ineffable; the sense you get when the person in front of you is being perfunctory in conversation, scanning the room for someone else to talk to, the sense you get when "How are you" is a statement rather than a question. Married people: Be open to singles the same way you would be open to a new family that joins your community, and allow the situation and the person standing in front of you to guide your actions.

Myth #4: Any attempt on the part of the Orthodox community to grapple openly and deal seriously with the challenges and conflicts that singles face will help to legitimize perpetual singlehood and make singles even less likely to marry.

In 2009, when the numbers of unmarried Orthodox Jews in their twenties, thirties and forties have reached an unprecedented high, and when the percentage of Jews who end up never marrying is increasing, failure to confront the issue constitutes an act of burying our heads in the sand, and further alienating those singles who remain part of the Orthodox community. At this point, the question of legitimization of singlehood is almost moot, as the numbers speak for themselves, with the message that people are remaining single, with or without such legitimization. We as a community need to get over the fear of raising questions, and singles are just the tip of the iceberg here.

Several years ago, when single, I was part of a committee of both married and single individuals (which included rabbis and communal leaders) that was dedicated to thinking through the "singles problem" and trying to offer "solutions." Even after a couple of years of conversations, and countless suggestions, this committee was not able to take any definitive steps. We had finally realized the complexity of the issues involved and realized that the proposed “solutions” were merely band-aids that didn’t get to the heart of the problem. At one point this myth surfaced and the committee began to question its existence—was the very fact of our open conversation going to somehow legitimize singlehood? Aside from the fact that none of this committee's deliberations were public, I felt impelled to point out in an email that, "To assume that communal pressure [for marriage] will help the matter is misguided…. Please trust me when I say that no amount of communal acceptance and welcome will ever make any of us forget that we are not your ideal and never will be until we are married with children" (1/2/05).[ii]

Sylvia Barack Fishman puts the issue in more extreme terms, which are perhaps reflective (or perhaps not) of the threat that the community construes in its singles:

The question facing Orthodox communities today has some similarities to Jewish communal questions about how to treat intermarried families: Outreach activists urge inclusiveness—"why not accept the singles community as it is"—while others counter that total inclusiveness would be tantamount to legitimating singleness as an alternative lifestyle for Orthodox Jews. Thinking about the treatment of Orthodox singles thus demands coming to terms with deep philosophical, sociological, and communitarian issues. (Gender Relationships In Marriage and Out, p. 111)

Perhaps the extremity of the comparison is illustrative of how deeply threatened the community feels by the existence of singles.

Myth #5: The sexual restrictions of yihud and negiah have the teleological purpose of ensuring that people have only one sexual partner in life (namely, their spouse); these halakhot are rooted in an awareness of the psychological and spiritual damage that even casual premarital physical contact can cause.

This myth is perhaps the most detrimental myth of all, in that it breaks out of the communal sphere and speaks to each and every single who has ever had even accidental physical contact with a member of the opposite sex, and tells them that they will suffer for this act and it will impact their ability to form a happy marriage; how much more so the individual who has had intentional sexual contact. This idea comes from those popular Jewish authors who, in their quest to convince teenagers to become shomer negiah have—without any use of Jewish texts and sources—read their own pop-psychology into this law.

Although I cannot fully break this myth in the context of the present article, suffice it to say now that the existence of biblical polygamy, concubines, and prostitutes— categories that are all difficult to reconcile with Judaism as we currently live it—and, on a more normative plane, the encouraging of remarriage for those who have been widowed or divorced, serve to dispel the notion that lifelong monogamy is the root of these prohibitions. There is no authoritative source that I am aware of that discusses the psychological or spiritual damage that will ensue upon violating these restrictions, any more than the spiritual damage that results from any sin, and that can be healed through repentance. In fact, a cursory reading of Maimonides (Hilkhot Issurei Bi'ah, chapter 21) and the Shulhan Arukh (Even haEzer 25, Orakh Hayim 240) reveals a very different root to these prohibitions, which is perhaps more disturbing to our modern sensibilities; namely, a striving for asceticism, even within marriage![iii]

To promulgate myths of this nature under the banner of "Judaism," "Torah," and "halakha" has a detrimental effect because it compounds the guilt and anxiety of many singles who are committed to Judaism but for psychological, emotional, or physiological reasons are not observing all of the sexual restrictions mandated by halakha. Although there is certainly value in encouraging abstinence among teenagers, we cannot achieve this at the price of being dishonest about Judaism and halakha.

A corollary of this myth is the assumption that there is no difference between teenagers, and those in their twenties, thirties, and forties who are single. Not distinguishing between adolescent sexuality and adult sexuality reflects a failure to see singles as adults who, among other characteristics, are also fully developed sexual beings, with needs and desires that are substantively similar to those of their married counterparts. There is nothing natural about being a “40-year-old-virgin”—and the halakha itself recognized this and therefore encouraged early marriage. Even if halakha today constrains us from endorsing premarital sexual activity, we as a community need to adopt a more empathetic and understanding stance to those who engage in it; the thirty-year-old woman who is physical with her serious boyfriend is different from the adolescent whose hormones have overtaken him. It is time we stop infantilizing singles under the banner of halakha.

***

   The topic of singles in the Orthodox community is complex and is comprised of many different issues and questions, which are often lumped together into the same category. There are the personal crises that individuals are forced to navigate, the interpersonal issues involved in the process of seeking out and building intimate relationships, the family dynamics that arise during singlehood and the wider communal issues, as well as the religious and sexual issues, to name but a few. We are still a long way from fully understanding any of these issues, let alone knowing how to address them. However, I hope that this exercise in myth-breaking will have helped clear the way toward increasing understanding between singles and the broader community and toward opening the conversation.

I always took pride in the pervasiveness of the term “Tikkun Olam.” Of course, having been raised Orthodox, I was taught to resent the primacy other circles in Judaism granted social justice oriented mitsvot. I was told that this amounted to the implicit neglect of other more “real” Divine charges. This Orthodox critique of other denominations, while perhaps compelling, was not strong enough to undue the powerful messages I learned in Tanakh class. It was evident to me, as made clear by the prophets, that social justice was certainly a top Torah priority, no matter the modern socio-religious implications. With this understanding, I was drawn to carry the social justice banner with religious fervor and, not surprisingly, a smattering of self-righteousness as well. And, while we may have disagreed about the ideal balancing act between social justice oriented commandments and other mitsvot, it became clear that social justice was, in many respects, to most Orthodox Jews, a “pareve” cause. While other day-to-day mitsvot do in fact demand the usual attention, who can oppose efforts to feed the hungry and strides at upholding human dignity?

            With this understanding I began to explore the burgeoning world of social justice opportunities – fair trade, Free Tibet, mosquito nets in sub-Saharan Africa, domestic violence, the plight of the Palestinian people, immigration, to name a few. Soon, matters became murkier and questions about the complexities of social justice and Judaism abounded. When my friends and I worked to reinvigorate the Social Justice Society at Yeshiva University, late nights were spent debating the hierarchies of our efforts – Jews before non-Jews, Israel before other countries, New York before the rest of the world? Agunot or Darfur, the terror stricken youth of Sderot or the child soldiers of Uganda, microloans in Calcutta or Manhattan’s homeless? The realization that we could not just open up the Shulhan Arukh and find an answer was even more frustrating. Although Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ writings were great inspiration, we began to feel as if we were treading through unchartered waters. It became clear to us that these and other questions would never be fully resolved. Perhaps instead of bemoaning the fact that there was no clear-cut assur or muttar verdict, we ought to revel in the privilege to grapple with these issues hands-on. Eventually, these halakhic ambiguities empowered us to become the true masters of our deliberations; enabling us to own our decisions in a very real way.

            The dearth of halakhic discourse on these matters of social justice gave us a lot of flexibility. It meant that there was significant openness in terms of the causes that we selected address. Moreover, it hindered outside criticism and dissension; if there were no straightforward instructions, we were free to explore as we pleased; nearly any position or cause was legitimate from a Torah perspective.

It soon became apparent, however, that there were other concerns beyond the purely halakhic that might hamper the Orthodox receptiveness of our social justice efforts. No one will accuse the Orthodox community of being anxious to learn about unpleasant truths. One case in point, which continues to raise eyebrows no matter how delicately the matter is broached, is the troubling state of the commercial sex industry in Israel.

Sex slavery, a global phenomenon, is categorized by the UN Palermo Protocol as a form of human trafficking. Trafficked persons are recruited by force or coercion and exploited in various ways. One form of exploitation is through sex and prostitution, which has come to be termed “sex slavery.” The state of sex slavery in Israel is especially troubling; Israel’s inaction in combating this injustice continues to compel the US State Department to give Israel poor marks in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP), which measures every country’s anti-trafficking efforts. The TIP Report maintains that Israel is not in full compliance with international anti-trafficking standards and urges Israel to become more diligent in these efforts.

            Due to the very clandestine nature of sex trafficking, the precise number of sex slaves in Israel is unknown. However, some estimates by the Israeli government maintain that there are 3,000 sex slaves in Israel, while NGOs approximate that 3,000 new sex slaves are illegally trafficked into Israel each year alone. Machon Toda’a Awareness Center reports that most of these sex slaves come from the former Soviet Union. In their countries of origin they are recruited by traffickers promising them that low-paying jobs in the food, modeling and massage industries await them in Israel. These women are then trafficked into Israel through a variety of ways. Sometimes they are smuggled across the Israeli-Egyptian border, though due to increased security, this method has become less popular. Recently, traffickers have succeeded in smuggling women into Israel through seaports and even through Ben Gurion International Airport by using the stolen identities of Jewish women in the former Soviet Union.

According to the Task-Force on Human Trafficking, once in Israel, these exploited women are sold in auctions to pimps and brothel owners at a value between $5,000 and $10,000. At this point they serve as prostitutes, often paid little or nothing, are deprived of their rights, underfed, compelled to work 6-7 days a week, receiving between 15 and 20 clients each day, with whom they are forced to have unprotected sex.  Many of these women end up locked into discrete apartments and brothels, left with little outside contact and often find themselves with no way out. In fact, there are approximately one million visits per month to prostitutes in Israel, to both sex slaves and non-sex slaves. For a population of not even seven million, this number is staggering.

The facts speak for themselves; the state of sex slavery in Israel is appalling. NGOs bemoan what they call the Israeli government’s inaction and apathy in combating this pugnacious industry. Nevertheless, few, particularly Orthodox Jews, are willing to confront this reality. This hesitancy is often due to a confluence of concerns, specifically the issue’s inescapably unsavory nature. Beyond this, however, the conventional approach is to shy away from criticism of the State of Israel, especially if coming from a Diaspora Jew. Further, some claim, why focus specifically on Israel, when in fact sex slavery is an international injustice? Having taken on this issue, my colleagues in the YU Social Justice Society and I are intimately familiar with these concerns. And yet, it seems that precisely for these reasons – that it is distasteful and especially insidious in Israel – sex slavery ought to be a top priority of the Orthodox community.

Sex slaves are forced into having unwanted sex. They are essentially the victims of rape. Rape is undeniably a uniquely horrific phenomenon, the veracity of which is emphasized by the Torah. The Torah is arguably progressive in its redress to the incidence of rape; calling for the rapist to marry the victim. While perhaps traumatic for her, this in a sense protects the victim, insuring that her basic necessities will be met. On a more conceptual level, the Tanakh appears to go out of its way to record incidences of rape. Three rapes in particular, that of Dinah by the hands of Shekhem, the Concubine at Gibeah and Amnon’s rape of Tamar, are recorded in detail. Given that the Tanakh is selective with its words, the attention it accords rape is very suggestive. Perhaps because of rape’s insalubrious nature, the Torah accords it particular attention, urging us to overcome our own discomfort. This is, in a sense, a wake-up call to address rape; to confront sex slavery head-on.

While the Tanakh’s unprecedented regard for rape speaks volumes, the details of these episodes are even more powerful and instructive. In the narrative of Dinah’s rape, the action or inaction of the characters is particularly poignant. Dinah is completely passive, she has no voice. She is the victim of Shekhem who “took her and raped her” (Gen. 34: 2). Jacob too is entirely passive, he learns of the rape, yet does not react. Instead, due to his inaction, Simeon and Levi take action by cunningly massacring the city’s men. Their response is a violent, calculated, emotional one.

In the story of Dinah’s rape the complexities of responding to sexual coercion emerge. Jacob does nothing, “he kept silent” (Gen. 34: 5), whereas Simeon and Levi take matters into their own hands, and are later chastised by Jacob for doing so. And yet, their motivations are recorded, suggesting that they were not misplaced, for, as they declare, “should our sister be treated as a harlot?” (Gen. 34: 31).

The episode of the Concubine at Gibeah begins with the book’s recurring phrase “in those days when there was no king in Israel” (Jud. 19: 1). This prelude sets the stage for what will transpire, suggesting that not only did these occurrences happen because there was no king, but that because of this leadership vacuum, their was no legal recourse for the victims. Instead, the victim, or her memory, must be defended by personal initiative.

In this narrative, the Concubine, like Dinah, has no voice. Rather, the Lodger, in an act eerily similar to Lot in Sodom, gives over his own daughter and his guest’s Concubine to the mob instead of ceding the Concubine’s master, the Levite. The Concubine is then raped by the mob and consequently dies on the doorstep the following morning. Her master, in response to the rape, cuts her body up into twelve separate pieces, sending a piece to each tribe. “Everyone who saw it cried out ‘Never has such a thing happened … Put your mind to this; take counsel and decide.’” (Jud. 19:30). The Levite, like Simeon and Levi, responds to the rape emotionally, violently, which eventually leads to the extermination of the tribe of Benjamin.

The rape of Tamar is more layered than those of Dinah and the Concubine. Amnon’s actions are clearly premeditated and the rape itself is incestuous. Further, unlike Dinah and the Concubine, Tamar has a voice and cleverly, albeit unsuccessfully, tries to dissuade Amnon from raping her. In the aftermath of the rape, David, like Jacob remains silent. Absalom, Tamar’s brother, follows in the footsteps Simeon and Levi, responding violently, a response that leads to more bloodshed and the eventual undoing of David’s throne.

What emerges from these three rape narratives is the thorniness of responding to the crime of rape. It seems that none of these responses are ideal – neither the silence of Jacob and David nor the violence of Simeon and Levi, the Levite and Absalom. And yet, as a community, in responding to the tragedy of sex slavery, we remain silent, passive and inactive. Perhaps its time for us to internalize the Tanakh’s message and actively confront this vile reality.

People often ask me why I’ve chosen to devote time, through my work with the Task-Force on Human Trafficking, to combating sex slavery particularly in Israel. They also wonder about the denigration of Israel implicit in my efforts. These questions frequently transport me to the many hours we’ve passed in the Social Justice Society deliberating about the prioritization and hierarchies of our advocacy. Though we may never arrive at a conclusion, our unique connection and responsibility towards Israel is evident, especially in matters of sexual coercion. The Torah itself identifies the distinctive link between the heinousness of prostitution and Israel’s sanctity. “Do not degrade your daughter and make her a harlot, lest the land fall into harlotry and the land be filled with depravity” (Lev. 20:29). While sex slavery is indeed a global problem, as Jews, we have a distinctively religious, moral responsibility to combat this evil especially in the Holy Land. And, while these efforts may suggest a somewhat unfavorable view of the State of Israel, is it better to stand idly by in silence?

I still believe that the Orthodox community does value Tikkun Olam. However, as I’ve discovered through my anti-sex slavery advocacy, and efforts in the Social Justice Society, there is often a discord between our theoretical regard for these issues and our ability to effectively translate these beliefs into action. The challenge is to help ourselves hear the cry of the prophets to “speak truth to one another, render true and perfect justice in your gates” (Zech. 8:16), with the comparable immediacy we approach the bugs in our broccoli. In so doing we ought to facilitate conversations that may not be palatable to the typical Orthodox ear, to embrace even the unsavory, to be critical of ourselves and our homeland. Let it not be said that we have made a harlot of our values.

Professor Chaim Waxman, a prominent and highly respected sociologist of contemporary Orthodoxy, has made a superb assessment of the history, development, and current and future situation of Orthodoxy in his relatively short but comprehensive 178-page book, “Social Change and Halakhic Evolution in American Orthodoxy,” with 48 additional pages of bibliography and index. The book is published by The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization in association with Liverpool University Press. Readers will receive a wealth of information from the book and much in it will surprise them, especially the finding that Orthodoxy is changing, and different styles of Orthodoxy exist in different countries. The following is a summary of a few of the many insights that he offers in his insightful book.

A few statistics of Jews in the US

Waxman quotes the Pew Center Survey that estimates that 1.5 percent of US citizens, about 3,638,000, are Jews by religion. Pew also estimates that about 12 percent of this number, 437,000, are Orthodox. Of these 12 percent, 66 percent, about 291,000 are ultra-Orthodox, and half this number, 33 percent, about 146,000, are Modern Orthodox. Orthodox Jews have an average income lower than non-Orthodox Jews, and ultra-Orthodox have a lower income than Modern Orthodox. Pew found that the percentage of divorced or separated Orthodox Jews, 9 percent, is lower than that of Mainline Protestants, 12 percent, and Catholics, 10 percent. Pew also found that among Jews with no denominational affiliation, only 31 percent had a Jewish spouse, while the figure for Orthodox was 98 percent. Surprisingly, while 79 percent of ultra-Orthodox are married, only 52 percent of Modern Orthodox are married, a slightly lower rate than that of Conservative Jews.

The origin of Orthodoxy

The term Orthodox did not exist before the nineteenth century. It was invented by Reform Jews in eastern Europe who used it to disparage what they considered backward, old style, more observant Jews. Soon thereafter, the more observant Jews accepted the title as a badge of honor. The term Orthodox is based on Greek words: ortho = right or true, and dox = belief or opinion. Despite what Orthodox means, many Orthodox Jews in the past and today are not literally people who agree with the traditional “beliefs and opinions.” They are Orthopractic, Jews who have decided to continue all or many of the traditional “practices” of Judaism. They accept many ancient Jewish laws and traditions “but not meticulously or rigidly so.”

Among Ashkenazi Orthodox Jews, those descendant from Europe, there are two main groups today, each divided into sub-groups: Ultra-Orthodox and Modern Orthodox. The former is subdivided into yeshivish who contend that Jewish males should separate themselves from modernity as much as possible and spend their life studying Talmud, and hasidish who follow the demands of Hasidic leaders called Rebbes. Modern Orthodox is subdivided into Centrist Orthodox and Open Orthodox, with the last adopting less restrictions and being more open to the involvement of women in the synagogue.

The Orthodox in America have a stronger attachment to Israel than do non-Orthodox American Jews. Orthodox Jews place greater emphasis on the law focusing on humans, bein adam ladam, while the ultra-Orthodox emphasize laws that focus on God, bein adam lamakom. 56.9 percent of Modern Orthodox feel that homosexuality should be accepted by society, but only 35.6 percent of ultra-Orthodox agree.

Rabbis

Contrary to what people suppose, ancient rabbis did not have a significant role in synagogues, they were “viewed as talmudic scholars and halakhic experts. Particularly in the area of isur veheter, ritual law, which includes kashrut, sexual conduct, sabbath observance, and so on. However, when it came to questions relating to broader matters, such as issues of communal policy, most people gave no special weight to the rabbi’s opinions and did not consult with them.” Rabbis “did not reign supreme” as they sometimes do today. The current notion that rabbis are elite individuals whose views must be followed did not exist in America until the twentieth century, is not a traditional teaching, but a copy by Orthodox Jews of the Hasidim and the Hasidic Rebbe.

Also contrary to what many think, “customs start with the masses, and go from the bottom up, sometimes to the point where they become actual laws.” Thus, despite the recent powers given to rabbis, we can expect that the more educated Orthodox Jews of today will bring about changes in laws and behavior. Many Orthodox Jews are dissatisfied with how Orthodoxy is practiced today and this will prompt change. “The 1990 National Jewish population survey indicated that ‘among those raised Orthodox, just 24 percent are still Orthodox.’”

In the recently published “Megillat Esther Mesorat Harav,” Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik recognized this phenomenon. He is reported as recognizing that Purim was instituted as a holiday by common people, not rabbis nor Jewish leaders, and it was only after the people instituted the practice that the rabbis accepted it. He is right. This is how the book of Esther portrays what happened.

Turning to the right

Just as the Orthodox swerved to the right in copying the Hasidic view concerning rabbis, they did so also regarding education. While Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik is highly respected in Modern Orthodox circles, and despite his co-educational classes in his Maimonides School in Boston, many Modern Orthodox day schools today separate boys and girls in different classes. Similarly, because the ultra-Orthodox insist on their own “higher” standards for the laws of kosher, many certifying agencies require food sellers to bow to their requests to obtain their certification resulting in much higher prices for kosher foods. Still another radical change was pioneered by ArtScroll and Mesorah Publications which publishes many books on Judaism and Jewish history, “Critics have argued that ArtScroll censors its books to present only Orthodox accounts and Perspectives.” Also, lamentably, many Orthodox synagogues have recently rejected the teaching of Maimonides, who quoted the Greek non-Jew Aristotle in his writings, and who explained that “The truth is the truth no matter what its source,” and replaced the highly respected “Pentateuch” by Chief Rabbi J. H. Hertz with the ultra-Orthodox ArtScroll Chumash because Rabbi Hertz included explanations of the Torah from non-Jewish scholars. Many other examples of mistaken turnings to the right can be cited, such as the new stringencies that the Chief Rabbinate in Israel have placed on conversions.

Waxman states: “The ‘turn to the right’ in American Orthodoxy was in large measure, a reflection of the broader turn to the right and the rise of fundamentalism in a variety of different countries and continents.” This seems to put the lie to the claim of many Orthodox Jews that they are not affected by non-Jews. “Much as many might deny it, Orthodoxy is affected by and does respond to its social environment. This is why American Orthodoxy today is different from what it was a century ago, and it is different from Orthodoxy in the United Kingdom, Europe, and even Israel.”

Torah from heaven

As late as fifty years ago, Orthodox Jews were united in believing that both the Written Torah and the Oral Torah were given by God to Moses at Sinai, with some, “such as Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Moshe Tendler, [who] went so far as to axiomatically assert a literal version of both parts of the credo, while others simply expressed a general allegiance to the credo itself without discussing the detailed implications.” But, “Today the situation is dramatically different.” Orthodox Jews in America, and even more so in Israel, are accepting many critical views about the Torah, as can be seen on the website “The Torah.com.” Waxman attributes the change to “the emergence of a generation of college-educated Jews” in the second half of the twentieth century. Orthodox schools, including yeshivas, in the past were like the Catholics of the Middle Ages who prohibited the translation of the Bible because they felt that when the masses read the Bible, they can be misled away from Catholicism. Like them and for the same reason, Orthodox schools did not teach Torah, only Talmud and selected books on ethical behavior in the past. But now, there is an “increase in the [study of the] Bible within the religious and traditional communities since the 1960s.”

Similarly, while Orthodoxy rejected the idea of evolution and even called it heresy, most Orthodox Jews today accept it as a fact: “in 2005, even the [Orthodox] Rabbinical Council of America issued an, admittedly very guarded, pro-evolution position.”

Conclusion

Waxman concludes: “As has been shown throughout this book, American Orthodoxy is anything but static. It has changed and will continue to do so…. Although we cannot know precisely what the group will be like in the future, one thing is certain: it will not be the same as it is now.”

Building an Environmentally Sensitive Religious Community

Inspiring a culture change in the Jewish community or even in a single synagogue is never an easy task.  In order for the Orthodox community to assimilate the values of the environmental movement, there will need to be a paradigm shift in the way that people think.  That change in attitude will likely take a generation.

Allow me to first outline three macro challenges that we face in broader Orthodox community.  After that I will talk about the challenges from the perspective of a single Orthodox shul – Kehilat Kesher: The Community Synagogue of Tenafly and Englewood.  Once we have an idea of what we are trying to overcome, I will share a few strategies that can work in a congregational setting.  I will conclude with a vision for a “green” future that must be embraced by every faith community if we want to change the world in which we live.

1. Challenges that the “green” movements faces in the broader Orthodox community:

The first hurdle that we have to overcome is making this an Orthodox issue.  The reality is that the liberal Jewish community started the ball rolling and we are following them.  For the Orthodox community, that is always a scary reality.  We have to be able to get over our fears that bringing in great ideas from other denominations, or faiths, is dangerous.  The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (www.COEJL.org), a pioneer in this field, has been articulating a vision of environmental stewardship in the language of the liberal Jewish Community.  Canfei Nesharim (www.CanfeiNesharim.org) has been translating this into traditional language and has shown tremendous leadership within the Orthodox community.  Their website is filled with helpful source material, essays and shiurim.

A second challenge, no doubt related to the first, is that there are no lines in the Shulchan Aruch or teshuvot that we can point to and say, “See, you must do this because of that!”  The Jewish conceptual basis grows from aggadic texts, values and broad concepts.  Many people are working on this and trying to produce a literature grounded in Halakha that can be the basis for future action.  Some of the most obvious halakhik concepts that can be mined are: ba’al tashchit (wanton destruction – see Rambam, Laws of King and War 6:8,10, Sefer Hachinuch #529 and Seforno on Deuteronomy 20:19), tza’ar ba’alei chayyim (causing animals needles pain – see: Exodus 23:5, Shabbat 128b, Bava Metzia 32b, Rambam, Hilkhot Rotzeach 13:1, Shulkhan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 272:9 and the limitation of Rema Even ha-Ezer 5:14)) and harchakat nezikin (moving certain damaging industries out of the city center – see Bava Batra 22b, Rambam, Hilkhot Shechanim 11:5, Shulkhan Arukh, Chosen Mishpat 155:41).   

Finally, many of the issues that we are dealing with are still emerging from the world of research.  While there are studies that show, for example, that household cleaning products contribute to cancer growth, there are also studies that contradict these findings.  The Orthodox rabbinic community has to cultivate relationships with experts in the field of environmental science so that we can have a more complete picture of the issues at hand.  Just as we seek the counsel of doctors in issues of medical ethics we must find people who are leaders in their field and ‘make for ourselves a teacher.’ 

2. Challenges within the congregational setting

When addressing these issues on the synagogue level there are a few additional hurdles.  First, the question of economics.  The reality of congregational life is that every dollar spent has to be justified.  When spending communal money nothing less should be accepted.  People have to imbibe the notion that spending money, time and volunteers on projects like recycling makes a difference.  Even when it might be the law on the city, people have to be inspired to take the extra step and separate all the different materials.

Second, shuls need strong leadership in this arena.  Since there are very few working models of what a ‘green’ shul should look like, this requires creative people who have an understanding of what is possible within the confines of daily shul life. 

Most shuls operate on a status quo model.  Much of what we do has been and has worked well for several generations.  Therefore, anytime a shul is asked to do something different, justification is necessary.  In order to affect a paradigm shift in the operations of the shul the rabbis and lay leadership must be educated and inspired themselves so they can educate and inspire the broader community.

3. Affecting a culture change - one shul at a time

Allow me to attempt to lay out a systematic approach as to how one can go about greening a shul.

Step 1: Cleaning Materials.  This is an area in which there can be a serious change made and for very little money or effort.  Though above I mentioned that there are conflicting studies on the impact of house hold cleaners, I tend to be strict on matters of potential life and death (pikuach nefesh).  At this point, green cleaning supplies, when bought whole sale are not more expensive than the standard toxic cleaner on the market.  What could be more important than displaying sensitivity to those people who clean the shul?  In addition, the youngest members of the synagogue, who crawl on the floor and breathe in these toxins, are certainly a high priority for most synagogues.

Step 2: Lights.  Changing to high efficiency lighting and CFL bulbs is typically something simple to sell.  Though there are associated up front costs, the payback over the life of the bulb is visible on the energy bill.  This is something that can be done in a very public way, perhaps even associated with Hannukah.

Step 3: Recycling. The reality of most Orthodox shuls is that we just don’t take this seriously, even when it is the law.  The only way for this to work is to make sure that there are recycling bins for paper, metal and glass in as many places as possible.  They have to be prominently displayed with creative signs as well as reminders through out the building.  If there is janitorial staff they must be trained.

This is the first area in which there are potential conflicts with halacha.  If we are going to take recycling seriously, we have to look carefully at what we choose to bury as shemos and what we recycle.  Also, when we make copies or sheets to hand out, there is no reason to print God’s name so that all paper being produced by the shul should be able to be recycled.

Step 4: Energy Conservation.  There are three areas where this can be most effective: water, power usage and power sources.  Water can be managed with low flow faucets and toilets as well as lowering the temperature on the hot water heater to 110.  Grey water can be re-used from within the building for irrigation and toilet flushing. 

In order to maximize power usage a power audit is necessary.  Most audits will save money for the institution very quickly.  Placing thermostats on seven day timers and using timers for lights is good both for Shabbat as well as the environment.  Many power companies will now allow you to purchase power from renewable sources like windmills.  It is generally more cost effective to purchase this power from someone who is producing it on a larger scale than to generate power with on sight generators like solar panels.

Step 5: Construction.  This is the area that can be the most impactful.  The key to constructing an energy efficient building is hiring the right architect and contractors.  Most major architectural firms have the infrastructure to provide LEED (The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building rating system was established by the U.S. Green Building Council in 1998) certification at only a minimal cost to the client.  For a synagogue to accomplish this there must be a strong desire on the part of the community, as there are associated costs.  However, the statement that it makes to the wider community is extremely important.  When places of worship of any kind display the courage of their conviction it send a message to members of the wider community of what can be done.

These fives steps – cleaning material, lighting, recycling, energy conservation and construction – are meant to be a model of how to move a community along the path of lowering their environmental footprint.  There may be additional steps to add along the way, but if you are walking this path, then you are moving in the right direction.

4. Looking forward to a “greener” future

We are living in a society that is changing at an alarming rate.  Moore’s law tells us that the processing speed of the computer doubles every eighteen months to two years.  Population growth has been exponential.  The industrial revolution and the age of technology has elevated mankind in some parts of the world to unprecedented heights.  Global climate change is a reality that we are, for the first time in human history, able to impact.  And so we, the religious community, must ask ourselves what that impact should be?

We could choose the path of least resistance and continue the process of displaying our dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:26).  Alternatively, we could seek to embrace the command to work and guard her (Genesis 2:15).  It is my sincere hope and prayer that the Orthodox Jewish Community is able to show leadership in reclaiming the mandate of chapter two of Genesis.  Through our actions we can teach the world what it means to live the ethics of the garden of Eden.