National Scholar Updates

To the editor,

I am writing in response to Rachel Tanny’s article, “Religious Jews Leaving Religious Life,” printed on June 14, 2013, and distributed last week via email.

I was raised in a loving Orthodox household in the wonderful Jewish community in Sharon, Massachusetts. But the intolerance I faced at Maimonides School in Brookline and the disinterest I had in continuing a lifestyle with so many prohibitive restrictions on my interaction with the modern world led me to stop leading a religious lifestyle when I left for college. As I made this decision, and as I have continued to work out how I would like to lead my life and raise a family, I have felt accepted and supported by my religious family, friends, and members of the Sharon community.

Rebbetzin Tanny’s article was written in such a way that it would resonate very strongly with relatives and friends of those who have chosen a different religious path, but the tone of the article — which made it sound as though the relatives of religious-turned-non-religious Jews should actively try and bring them back into the faith — was such that anyone who has decided not to be religious would be turned off simply by reading it. When I read the article, I thought it came across as exceptionally judgmental and patronizing of those who have made the active choice not to continue leading a religious lifestyle. Many of the factors that she listed as justification for religious Jews leaving Orthodoxy were accurate — but she failed to mention that sometimes a person chooses to leave Orthodoxy completely of their own volition, and that there is nothing a relative or a friend could do to prevent it or change their mind.

Rebbetzin Tanny’s article had the right intentions, but it should have given the audience one final piece of advice: that it’s okay if someone chooses to practice their religion in a different way. If the author had written that Judaism is a religion of tolerance and acceptance, and that as Jews we must embrace people for who they are, she would have done a service to religious and non-religious readers alike.

I hold no animosity for people who choose to live a religious lifestyle because for me and others like me, choosing how to live my life had nothing to do with ‘going off the derekh.’ It was about choosing to discover my own.

Ari Massefski, 22
Sharon, Massachusetts

Dear Ari,
Thank you very much for your letter sharing your views on my recent article, “Religious Jews Leaving Religious Life.” Please understand that this article is a mere summary of some of the main ideas in the book “Freiing Out,” written by my husband, Rabbi Binyamin Tanny. In the conclusion to his book, he writes, “This entire book is a summary,” thereby giving rise to the challenge of writing a summary of a summary. I apologize if the tone of the article was hurtful to you in any way.

I am glad to hear you hold the Sharon community with high regard. My husband spent a lot of time with people from there and is in fact an Eagle Scout from Sharon’s Jewish scouting group, which is chartered out of the Brookline school. It is possible you even know some of the same people!

I am sorry to hear you had a troubled time in school, an experience with which you are not alone. Problems in the educational system are quite common among people who choose to leave religious life. Please read Rabbi Binyamin Tanny’s book “Freiing Out” and you will see that there are others like you who have gone through similar – or possibly even worse – situations.

You write, “Sometimes a person chooses to leave Orthodoxy completely of their own volition.” I would not say ‘sometimes;’ but rather, ‘all the time.’ Anyone who leaves orthodoxy does so of their own volition. Those who are confident in their decision and happy with their choice and their new lifestyle will take the credit personally. Those who are angry, frustrated, and unsure will blame others, such as their parents, rabbis, religious institutions, etc.

You also write that “it sound[s] as though the relatives of religious-turned-non-religious Jews should actively try and bring them back into the faith.” The religious person should always try to bring their fellow Jews to the beauty of Judaism. The truly religious and spiritual Jew knows how beautiful a Friday night Shabbat meal with the family can be, how much brilliance is transmitted in the Torah, and how much love their can be in a harmonious community. Why should they not want to share this with their fellow Jews? To not share is to not care.

Finally, you say you “hold no animosity for people who choose to live a religious lifestyle.” I am happy to hear this because part of our religious lifestyle is to spend time every day finding Jews who have not experienced a beautiful Judaism and actively try to bring them back. They may not like us for this, but we are okay with that because as long as they feel some irritation there is still a fire burning.

Thank you again for your letter and my husband and I both wish you a peaceful and meaningful life that you find spiritually and emotionally fulfilling.

Rebbetzin Rachel Tanny

Review by Israel Drazin
A Synagogue Companion, by Rabbi Hayyim Angel
Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, 2014, 351 pages

Rabbi Hayyim Angel is a scholar who writes very readable, interesting, and informative books. He presents “a vision of the Torah that is authentic, passionate,
reasonable, and embracing of people of all backgrounds.” He exposes the plain meaning of biblical texts. He raises thought-provoking questions. He shows that many biblical
books do not state what people think they state, and surprises and delights readers by revealing what the Bible actually says.

In his Synagogue Companion, Angel, the National Scholar of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, has brief essays of no more than a page and a half on the 54
Torah portions and the readings from the prophets that are recited with these portions, and short to-the-point articles on many prayers.

Starting his discussion of the Five Books of Moses, for example, he talks about the “clashes between the literal reading of the Torah and the findings of modern science.”
He quotes and explains Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, “the verses do not pretend to teach us science, but rather spiritual ideas,” and Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz that the idea that God “descended on Mount Sinai to compete with the professor who teaches history or physics is ludicrous, if not blasphemous.”

When speaking about the trees in the Garden of Eden, Angel tells us that “Professor Umberto Cassuto found that nearly every ancient mythology had a tree, a
plant, or a fountain of life. The quest for immortality was an obsession of the ancient world.” And Angel shows how this information helps us understand the depth of the Garden of Eden story.

The Bible gives no reason why Moses shattered the Decalogue, and many scholars offered their ideas. Rashbam thought that Moses was tired and dropped them
since he lost the energy to carry them. Nechama Leibowitz disliked his view: “Rashbam, a literalist par excellence, veers far from the plain sense here. There is no clue in the
text for his interpretation.” Professor Elazar Touito of Bar Ilan University suggested that Rashbam was engaged in an anti-Christian polemic. He was denying the medieval
Christian claim that Moses destroyed the tablets to show that God’s covenant with Israel was cancelled. Rashbam deflated this argument by stating in essence: no, he dropped the tablets by accident.

Rabbi Angel mentions the view of Malbim to contrast and later explore the differences between the leadership of Moses and his successor Joshua. When Moses had an experience of God at the burning bush in Exodus 3:5, he removed both shoes. When Joshua had a vision of the presence of an angel in Joshua 5:15, he stripped off a single shoe. “Shoes symbolize human involvement in the world. Jews are required to remove their shoes while in the Temple precincts and also on Yom Kippur to elevate themselves to the level of angels.” Moses reached the highest level. But according to Malbim’s analysis of Joshua’s “one sandal on, one sandal off” leadership he “had one foot in Moses’ ideal world of prophecy, but at the same time kept the other with his people.” Yet, his shortcomings “enabled Joshua to succeed as a leader in a manner that even his master could not.” Moses suffered continually from Israelite dissatisfactions, but Joshua never faced his people’s discontent.

Among much else about the Torah, Angel discusses the enigmatic, indeed incredible longevity of the early biblical people; the apparent revelation that God wanted humans before Noah to be vegetarians, Professor Uriel Simon’s, Joseph Bekhor Shor’s, Yehuda ha-Hasid’s, Abarbanel’s, and Ramban’s explanations why Joseph, who had the ability to inform his grieving father that he was still alive, did not do so; and why the Torah ordered the creation of a hereditary priesthood.

Commenting upon Joshua 2, the prophetical haftarah reading for the Torah portion Shelah, Rabbi Angel points out that the Canaanite woman, Rahab, with whom Joshua’s two spies communicated, referred to God several times when she assured the spies that the Israelites can easily defeat her people and conquer her land. Gersonides felt she was only flattering the spies to seduce them to accept the deal she planned to make with them. However several Midrashim took Rahab at her word; she genuinely accepted God and even converted (Mekhilta Yitro 1 and Deuteronomy Rabbah 2:28). “One rabbinic tradition asserts further that Rahab eventually married Joshua (Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 14b).” Whether one accepts these midrashic statements as historical facts, “our sages make a remarkable point: Someone from the lowest echelon of the most depraved society can convert sincerely and marry a prophet.”

Angel contrasts Rahab’s acts with the misdeed of the well pedigreed Achan of the tribe of Judah who in Joshua 6 and 7 is executed for plundering the city of Jericho against Joshua’s religious ban. The contrast make crystal clear that it is not ethnic or pedigree that is significant, but behavior. “Canaanites such as Rahab who acted righteously were accepted, whereas Israelites who acted wickedly such as Achan were not accepted.”

In his section on prayer, Angel discusses the meaning, purpose, and challenges of prayer; the origin of the leader of the prayers, called Hazan and Sheli’ah Tzibbur; the differences between biblical and pagan prayer; and the meaning of the more famous prayers, such as Shema and Amida. Among much else, he quotes Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik: “The foundation of prayer is not the conviction of its effectiveness but the belief that through it we approach God intimately.”

In short, this book contains a wealth of information presented in a clear and interested manner by a scholar who understands his subject well.

In light of the new Pew study on Jewish affiliation, there will be a lot of hand-wringing about what the Jewish community can do to get people more engaged. My revolutionary
suggestion? Get to synagogue.

People are always telling me that they’d love to come to shul more often, but they’re just not as religious as I am. Its one of the hazards of being married to a rabbi. Strangers think they know my exact level of religiosity, whatever that means. So here’s what I’ll say. You have no idea what goes on inside my head. And I have no idea what you’re thinking, either. Even more blasphemous, I don’t care.

Prayer is a funny thing. Many of us, if pressed, would say that we’ve had our most transformative moments, our most intimate experiences with the divine, when we were alone. When I’m on top of a mountain and see a breathtaking vista, I marvel at the brilliance of the creator. In the moments my children were born, and the pain magically stopped, I looked into their eyes and saw God working, literally through me.
Now let’s get real. I’ve had four children, and I don’t plan on having another one every time I long for a connection with the divine. And who has time to climb mountains on a regular basis!

Any onewho expects those kind of moments continuously, spontaneously erupting out of daily or weekly prayer, is, to put it bluntly, deluded.

Here’s what coming to shul on a regular basis has the power to deliver:

Entertainment

For those of us with children at home, shabbat services provide friends and activities, a free playdate without screens which you need only minimally supervise.
We grownups also get an opportunity to socialize without 12 emails back and forth planning a dinner date/ securing a sitter/ making reservations. Just show up Saturday morning.

Real live community

During the week we focus on friends who tend to fall within a few years of our own age. We get lost in the priorities of those micro communities and forget about the real needs of everyone else. On shabbat at services we are part of a community of all ages/ backgrounds/ experiences. Children chat with elderly couples, empty nesters give new moms a break and bounce cranky babies. You notice someone newly saying Kaddish, and ask about her loss.

Cultural Fluency

Rather than sitting through dry classes on liturgy in school or adult ed, people who regularly attend services attain fluency with the service simply by being there. Children and adults who have achieved mastery over the service feel at home in shul rather than feeling alienated. Circular logic, to be sure, but true nonetheless. These people are more likely to become leaders in all aspects of the Jewish world.

A Wider Focus

There will be many who suggest that the answer to engagement is individualized programming –Torah yoga, shabbat biking clubs, kabbalah for teens. These focused programs may bring people in the building, but they do little for the goal of creating long term connection and community. On the contrary, they send a message that in order for Judaism to be meaningful it must constantly be tailored to your specific needs. Real community is a place where we learn to care about people with decidedly different experiences and perspectives. The more we fracture our programming to
reflect the perceived needs of the few, the more we send the message that Judaism is only interesting to me inasmuch as it confirms the beliefs I already have.

Holiness

Judaism is not a religion based solely on belief. We do not police the thoughts of the souls who walk through our doors. But the ancient requirement that certain prayers need a minyan means that there is holiness embedded in the connection between Jews. It doesn’t come from the unwavering belief in God held by the people in the room. It comes from our connections with one another.

Holiness is in the interactions between the generations. Its in the 15 year old helping the 9 year old find the page. In the inherently selfish middle schooler giving an arm to an elderly man not quite ready to give in to a walker. In the whispers in the pews between a newly unemployed single mother and the business owner who might be able to help her land on her feet. In the collective groan from the room when the Rabbi uses an embarrassingly bad pun. In the unmitigated joy we feel the first time the couple long struggling with infertility brings their new baby to services. In the very act of choosing to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.

One of the questions in the Pew survey was whether anyone in your household is a member of a synagogue. Of the people the survey identified, 60% responded “no.” While a few of the children in these households will undoubtedly become future leaders, most of our leaders will come from the 40%. It is a countercultural choice to be part of a group less concerned with rugged individualism and more with the (gasp!) collective. And those who come to leadership in the next generation will be the beneficiaries of today’s old fashioned joiners, keeping the seats warm and the lights on and the spark alive.

Mountaintops can be transformative. But Jewish community is built by delivering shiva meals and learning a last minute torah reading and even the kvetchers in the back of the room. By looking someone else in the eye. Is there something of the divine there? I literally do not know. Faith is ever changing and intensely personal. Your belief has no effect on me. Your choice to throw your lot in with the rest of the Jewish people? That makes my life holy, every day.

When our Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals was established in October 2007, we knew we wanted to publish a journal--but did not know how we could make this happen.

But then we met Mr. S. Daniel Abraham.

Mr. Abraham immediately understood the need for an Orthodox journal that was high quality, open to new and diverse ideas, and challenging to readers. He promptly "invested" in our Institute, and became the founding "angel" of our journal, "Conversations."

The first issue of "Conversations" appeared in spring 2008. Thanks to Mr. Abraham, we were able to publish and circulate thousands of copies to readers throughout the world. The reception was so positive that we expanded the format of "Conversations" so as to include more articles and generate more reaction.

"Conversations" has been appearing three times per year, and has always been published on schedule. In the spring of this year, we will be coming out with our 19th issue!

We know from the responses of many readers that "Conversations" has had a powerful impact in the community. It has literally changed lives for the better; it has brought readers a vision of an Orthodox Judaism that is intellectually vibrant, compassionate, and inclusive; an Orthodox Judaism that respects legitimate diversity of opinion; an Orthodoxy that has a message for Jews of many backgrounds and viewpoints.

As we complete work on issue 19 of Conversations, we express our profound gratitude to Mr. S. Daniel Abraham for his friendship, support and encouragement. Without his "investment" in our Institute's work, "Conversations" would have simply remained an empty dream. With his investment, thousands of lives have been impacted positively and meaningfully.

Hazak uvarukh, Mr. Abraham. Thanks for being the founding patron of "Conversations" and for setting an example for generous, principled and visionary leadership.

A few years ago, I spoke about domestic violence on Yom Kippur. Afterward, two very sweet members of my synagogue came up to me and said, "Rabbi, you shouldn't speak about such ugly things from the pulpit. That doesn't happen here."

I thought to myself, "Two rows behind you and a little to the left, it does."

Domestic violence happens in Jewish homes. This article is the reopening of the conversation, because we need to confront this issue. I wish we didn't have to. But this isn't only an issue in the Catholic Church. It is much closer to home than we'd like to admit.

Abuse happens within Jewish families. Physical and verbal abuse happen in Jewish families.

We don't like to talk about what is ugly and painful. We feel shame in revealing our less than perfect family lives. We don't want the outside world to know. We don't want each other to know. So we remain silent. But we are hurting. Some of us are suffering, right here, in our midst. Others inflict deep pain upon those they claim to love.

Victims of abuse can be women or men, young or old. It has been suggested that, on average, Jewish women stay in abusive relationships for five to seven years longer than non-Jewish women, primarily because they don't want to believe that Domestic Violence happens to Jewish women.

There are aspects of traditional Judaism, present even in modern congregations, that maintain the weak position of the victim in the face of abuse. Here are two:

1) Some rabbis have invoked the Jewish ideal of "shalom bayyit," of maintaining peace in the home, as justification for sending a woman back to her abuser. Some rabbis continue to counsel this way, and have only served to disempower suffering Jews.

2) A get, or Jewish divorce decree, by Orthodox law, can only be issued by a man, who can torment his partner with the get's legal power and its control over the wife's future. This makes the vulnerable woman an agunah, a chained woman, trapped by Judaism's rules.

These two aspects of traditional Jewish life are problems. They make victimization possible within Jewish families, and they must be changed. We must take the deeply Jewish step forward and, together, condemn abuse of any kind in our community.

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Abuse can be physical, sexual, verbal or emotional. It can come in the form of the ongoing use of demeaning words like "you're stupid," or ugly, or crazy. It can be total access to and control over bank accounts and finances. It can be threats to injure children or pets. It can be monitoring and limiting friendships, going out, talking on the phone.

Domestic violence is not about having a bad temper or being out of control. It is about power and control—one person exerting power and control over another. Domestic violence impacts on the entire family, injuring also the children who witness abuse by hearing it or seeing it.

I offer two anonymous testimonies from Jewish victims of abuse. One is physical, and might help those in verbally abusive relationships say, "Oh, that's not me." But the second is a case of verbal abuse, perhaps even harder to escape.

1) "The Jewish Community sees my husband as a respected professional who is educated, talented, outgoing, friendly, loving, caring, and compassionate. They were not witness to what took place in the privacy of our home. No one saw him hit, kick, and choke me. No one heard him tell our child, 'Mommy's dead.' No one was present when he threatened to commit suicide in the presence of our child, wipe me off the face of the earth, and promised that I would not survive the night."

2) "I have a boyfriend who is charming to everyone, a real mentsch, sharp thinker—and everyone around looks up to him. So you can understand how I feel alone in how I am feeling, since everyone thinks so highly of him. It's difficult to talk to him about anything because everything I say is either "stupid" or "crazy." Sometimes I have to lie because I'm afraid of how he'll react to certain things. I don't mean to ramble—today was just a bad day. He says it's my fault that the relationship is going south. I know I have to distance myself from the relationship but, honestly, I don't think I can."

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We bear witness to these anonymous testimonies, wondering whether or not people sitting near us are in similar situations. We wonder, perhaps, what to do with the inescapable knowledge that there is, most likely, someone reading this article who is hurting.

So how do we do that? We can turn to halakha, Jewish Law, for guidance. The following is a brief summary of a lengthy teshuva, a Jewish ruling, by Rabbi Elliot Dorff, entitled "Family Violence (HM 424.1995)":

1) Beating and other forms of physical abuse, such as sexual abuse, are absolutely forbidden by Jewish law.

2) Verbal abuse is absolutely forbidden by Jewish law.

3) An abuser has the responsibility to acknowledge his behavior and do teshuva by getting help.

4) Parents may never cause a bruise to their children, no matter what decisions they make regarding corrective parenting.

5) Children may not beat their parents, even when parents were formerly abusive themselves.

6) The requirement that one preserve not only one's own life (pikkuah nefesh) but others as well, demanded by the laws of the pursuer (rodef) and of not standing idly by when another is in danger (lo ta'amod al dam ra'ekha), not only permit, but require others who discover spousal or parental abuse to help the victim report the abuse and take steps to prevent repetition of it. Jews who suspect that children are being abused must report such abuse to the civil authorities, no matter what the consequences. Saving a life takes precedence over the presumption that parental custody is best for the child.

These policies are halakhically binding. They are not optional. We are commanded by our tradition to protect ourselves and to intervene when necessary for others. There are times when it is necessary to act to protect the vulnerable.

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Opening up darkened spaces is a scary, saddening task, but it is a sacred one as well. We've been taught by our tradition that "anyone who saves one soul, it is said about her that she has saved a whole world” (TB Sanhedrin 37a).

And one person's safety is reason enough for us all to spend the energy talking about abuse.

Perpetrating violence on an intimate partner is an affliction with a spiritual dimension that threatens the welfare of the entire community. We act with commitment to the health of our community when we hold abusers accountable. We act in accordance with halakha's call to pursue justice when we declare that abusers cannot remain in our midst and must dwell outside the camp.

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The fabric of our Jewish homes is tradition's instruction to create spaces of safety. The fabric of our homes is our Jewish ethics, which demand that we pursue justice. The fabric of our homes is our developing liturgies and holy days, which call upon us to heal and create wholeness in our world.

For the welfare of both the individual homes we are blessed to have, as well as the collective one we create together, I pray that we commit ourselves to doing so.

May our homes be safe and healthy.

Four idealistic religious social activists started making the rounds among rabbis and other religious leaders four years ago, to see if perhaps they were missing something. Assaf, Chili, Efrat and Shmuli had grown up together in Jerusalem, been through the religious youth movements, yeshivas, army — but they were troubled. Times in Israel were difficult. Of course they were concerned about the recent Intifada and the security situation, but they were equally concerned about internal social problems: steadily rising poverty, trafficking in women, employment rights. These problematic trends were beginning to characterize their beloved country. And they could not understand why there were no organized efforts or cries of protest from the official rabbinic community, or efforts spearheaded by their own religious spiritual mentors. Where was the voice of Judaism on these issues? Thus was born the concept for a new organization in Israel, Bema'aglai Tzedek, to address the numerous social ills in Israeli society in connection with the millenia-old Jewish ethical traditions, which speak of Tzedek and Tikun Olam. These young and dynamic religious activists strongly believe that Jewish tradition has essential ideas to contribute to the current socio-economic discourse in Israeli society.

And this organization is making waves. Slowly, some rabbis are starting to acknowledge and try to deal with these issues. But why so few, and where were their voices beforehand, and where are their colleagues’ voices now, both here in Israel and in North America?

In Reform synagogues throughout North America, the voices from the pulpits talk about social justice, civil rights and other such issues. Why are these basic humanitarian issues not being regularly addressed from Orthodox pulpits? Surely humanitarian ideas do not conflict with deep-rooted Jewish values. Where is our concern for the commandments regarding social justice repeated many times in the Torah, such as "You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not afflict any widow or orphan" (Ex. 22:21-2), or "If there is among you a poor man, one of your brethren, in any of your towns within your land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him, and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be"(Deut. 15:7-8).

I don't pretend to have answers to why the religious community has separated itself from issues relating to civil rights and social justice. In the current socio-political environment these values have become associated with the secular left. But it is unclear why that has happened. Assaf Banner, the director of Bema'aglai Tzedek, said that when he and his friends started talking the social justice lingo, people were surprised: “We didn't fit the stereotype of the secular Tel Aviv Ashkenazi with round wire glasses…."

When I discussed these issues with a colleague of mine, an intelligent young woman who grew up in the Reform movement in upstate New York, but is now a newly married, religious, head-covering Jerusalemite, she theorized that “halakhic imperatives emanating from the rabbinic tradition stipulate various laws aimed at preserving Am Yisrael, using the strategy of social isolation: inflexible kashrut laws, prohibitions against consuming alcohol in ‘mixed company’, etc. This isolationist approach has given way to the development of an Orthodoxy that is self-absorbed, ethnocentric, and the sociological backdrop to the stunted growth of social justice initiatives in the Orthodox community.” This seems to me a very important insight into our present situation, coming from someone who once sat on the other side of aisle, as it were. And it echoes certain thoughtful academic voices as well. As Menachem Lorberbaum, Chair of Hebrew Culture Studies at Tel Aviv University and a Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, told me: "Part of the problem is that there is no sense of Jewish peoplehood in Orthodoxy, no appreciation of the depth of diversity of Jewish people." He sees Orthodoxy as very insular, and legitimacy has become more important than substance.

Can it be that the Orthodox establishment is more worried about punctilious and zealous application of halakha, and keeping Jews separate from the rest of the world, than about enacting the elemental responsibility to uphold the dignity and basic rights of the disadvantaged and the weak? Why do the two have to be mutually exclusive?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that the Orthodox religious community shows no concern for others. On the contrary, the commitment of Orthodox Jews to Hesed and Tzedakah is on whole exemplary. The ultra-Orthodox community takes care of its own, in a well-organized fashion, somewhat reminiscent of the institutionalized welfare-community infrastructure outlined in chapter one of the Talmudic Tractate Baba Batra. However, it seems that although the Orthodox community certainly practices Tzedakah with a laudable passion, the institutionalized and almost bureaucratic welfare state described in the Talmud has not been adopted.

There is a difference between Tzedakah and Tzedek. This distinction becomes critical in the context of the Jewish State. Tzedakah helps to ease an immediate urgent situation in a specific case, but does nothing to solve the deep-rooted social ailments which are the root of the problem.

Rambam's Tzedakah ladder is well-known. The highest degree of charity, the 8^th level, requires strengthening the hand of one’s poor Jewish brother and giving him a gift or [an interest-free] loan, or even entering into a business partnership with him. In other words, we must help a poor person to get on his feet, so that he can break his dependency and progress on his own. In the context of the Jewish State, perhaps there is a level that is even higher – a 9^th level which requires an institutionalized effort to eradicate poverty, to budget sufficiently to help the weakest citizens adequately, to enforce minimum wages and affordable health-care.

In the summer of 2003, when a series of budget cuts in Israel slashed welfare allocations, the single parents were among those hit hardest. Their summer vigil in an improvised tent-city outside of the Knesset attracted tremendous attention from the media and ultimately from the decision-makers themselves. But where was the organized rabbinic response as this group of (mainly) women fought for the State to help them provide food and shelter for their children? There was silence. This proposed 9th level requires proactive efforts for social change: if the government does not act, its citizens must raise their voices in protest; civil society organizations should not take upon themselves the State's responsibilities.

At the recent opening of a new Center for the Study of Philanthropy at Hebrew University in mid-March, the keynote lecture was delivered by Professor Leslie Lenkowski from the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Although he did not refer to a 9^th rung on the Rambam ladder, he did speak of the 8^th rung, using the classic metaphor of "not just giving the fish, but teaching to fish, and… perhaps even reforming the fishing industry." Interestingly, in the second chapter of Baba Batra, in a discussion of fair business practice, detailed regulations are provided relating to the fishing industry that essentially allow for equal access to fish for all fishermen. This chapter could well be cited by Orthodox voices of social conscience here in Israel and abroad. North American Orthodox philanthropists who generously give to Israel tend to have a knee-jerk, negative reaction to social advocacy organizations – even while fervently supporting the soup kitchens, or their favorite Yeshivas and orphanages. Those causes are indeed extremely important and worthy; but is the exclusive focus on such service-providing charities really in the spirit of Rambam's highest rung?

Bema'aglai Tzedek is running numerous programs to try to wake up the religious Jewish community to the need for strong Jewish advocacy, Tzedek (and not just Tzedakah). Together with Bet Morasha they run a Bet Midrash Program that brings Rabbis and religious leaders together to study texts and develop Jewish responsa to social issues. Rabbi Benny Lau, nephew of the former Chief Rabbi, Israel Meir Lau, has been one of the main teachers in this program. Another leader active in these efforts is Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, Rosh Yeshiva of the Yeshivat Hesder in Petach Tikva and one of the leaders of "Tzohar" (an Israel-based group of religious Zionist Rabbis trying to shape the Jewish identity of the State of Israel, according to principled understanding and moderation). Rabbi Cherlow recently published an article in a journal, “An Introduction to Questions of Social Justice in Halakha."

Among its many interesting activities, Bema'aglei Tzedek's most innovative move thus far has been the creation of the "social seal" (Tav Hevrati). This plays on the authority and status of the required Kashrut certificate. Businesses (mainly restaurants), have to live up to certain standards of employment rights, disabled access, minimum wage, in order to receive the "social seal," which they are then entitled to display in their window. The "social seal" in Israel has caught on and is now prevalent in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Kfar Saba and Be'er Sheva. In the same way that customers routinely ask to see a Kashrut certificate before buying products or services, they may now confirm that a business has conformed to the standards of the the social seal. As Assaf Banner asks, "Shouldn't an observant Jew check first that the eatery has this social seal and then the Kashrut certificate? After all, the social seal concerns requirements that are Torah laws, and a number of the Kashrut standards came only later, as rabbinical laws."

It seems so obvious. I recently came across an article written by Rabbi Haskel Lookstein in 1971, titled "Kosher Lettuce." The reference was to the boycotts on agricultural products that were being harvested by underpaid and abused migrant workers. Given the human rights violations of these workers, he argued that the lettuce was not kosher. Kashrut here has a moral basis. To drive the point home, Rabbi Lookstein cited a moving Hassidic story: “It is told of the great Hassidic sage and saint, Rabbi Simha Bunim, that he once visited a matzah factory and saw the workers there being exploited. ‘God,’ he exclaimed, ‘the gentiles falsely accuse us in a vicious libel of using the blood of gentiles in our matzah. That is false. But we do spill Jewish blood into our matzah--the blood of the exploited workers.’ He thereupon issued a most unusual ruling. He declared the matzah produced under exploitative conditions as being ‘forbidden food,’ i.e. non-kosher.”

In order for social justice to return (and I say return, because I do think it was there in the early stages of the Jewish community, and certainly present in the times of Hillel), there has to be a combination of bottom-up and top-down efforts. The grassroots efforts to establish a society on the great pillar of social justice are many and impressive, but the religious leadership has to get on board, relentlessly teaching their constituents about the importance of social justice as it affects society at large.

Questions of personal status are among the most sensitive issues in Judaism and thus require responsible rabbinic leadership.
That is one reason why there was such an outcry last year when Israel’s Chief Rabbinate refused to allow my teacher, Rabbi Avi Weiss, to vouch for the Jewishness of a couple marrying in Israel. While the Chief Rabbinate ultimately backed down and agreed to accept Rabbi Weiss’ word, there are still unanswered questions regarding this episode.

On Jan. 4, 2014, the Rabbinical Council of America — a leading Orthodox rabbinic association — issued this statement: “Recent assertions that the Rabbinical Council of America advised the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to reject the testimony of RCA member Rabbi Avi Weiss are categorically untrue.”

The problem with this statement is that when I visited the chief rabbi’s office with Weiss’ attorney, we were told directly that the chief rabbinate was acting upon the recommendation of RCA officials.

We may not know who is telling the truth in this case, but we do know that the RCA has not been candid about its recent approach to conversion.
In 2007 the RCA drafted a new centralized policy on conversions. This policy brought conversions under the auspices of a new and more stringent approach. At the time, there were some who warned that this new policy could lead to retroactive annulments of previously accepted conversions.

But the RCA protested loudly that it would never retroactively reject conversions and that to do so would be a blatant Torah violation. In 2008, the RCA’s Rabbi Steven Pruzansky dismissed suggestions that the new policy would lead to the reevaluation of all past conversions by RCA rabbis as “an especially despicable falsehood, as it serves only to make generations of converts in the Jewish community anxious about their status and acceptance in the community at large.”

“The reality is that not one past geirus is being reviewed by the RCA or the Beth Din of America, and such was never contemplated,” he wrote, using a term for conversion. “To even suggest otherwise is to blatantly violate the Torah’s numerous admonitions against tormenting the ger.”

Yet we now know that the RCA is casting aspersions on prior conversions by its own members. We know this thanks to Karen Brunwasser, who last month wrote about her personal ordeal in The Washington Jewish Week.
Brunwasser spelled out how, despite her Orthodox conversion nearly 35 years ago, she was rejected by the Israeli chief rabbi’s office in her initial attempts to establish her Judaism and thereby marry her beloved fiancé. She wrote movingly of the emotional turmoil she went through and how she was concerned that it might affect forever her relationship with the new family she was hoping to join.

The RCA, through its Beth Din of America, played a crucial role in actively hindering Brunwasser’s effort to marry.

Brunwasser converted as an infant with a beit din made up of Orthodox rabbis who were graduates of Yeshiva University’s rabbinical school and RCA members. Rabbi Bernard Rothman, a former RCA vice president, wrote a letter to the chief rabbi’s office vouching for Brunwasser’s conversion. In this letter, Rothman praised the head of the beit din that converted Brunwasser, Rabbi David Wachtfogel, as an Orthodox rabbi of the highest standards.

However, as was the case with many RCA rabbis of that era, he was for a time a rabbi in a synagogue in which men and women sat together. Many of these rabbis took jobs at synagogues with mixed seating after receiving explicit guidance on the matter from Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, mainstream American Orthodoxy’s leading authority.

In the past, conversions by Orthodox rabbis who had served in mixed-seating congregations were routinely accepted in the Jewish community. But now, thanks to the direction of the current leadership of the RCA, such decades-old conversions are being rejected.

Thus, on Aug. 11, 2013, Rabbi Michoel Zylberman of the RCA’s Beth Din of America wrote the following in an email to Israeli chief rabbi’s office regarding Brunwasser’s conversion: “We are unable to approve the conversions done by a rabbi who serves in a synagogue without a mechitza.”

Zylberman continues: “Of course, one can argue with this position and if you want to be lenient here on the basis of other authorities you can do that which is right in your eyes.”

Responding to apparent confusion on the part of the chief rabbi’s office regarding Rothman’s current status with the RCA, Zylberman concludes: “With respect to the letter of Rabbi Rothman in which he is signed as a ‘former Vice-President of the RCA,’ that was twenty years ago and he did not sign in the name of the organization.”

Despite what the RCA promised in 2008, it is retroactively negating and rooting out converts who were for decades fully integrated into the Orthodox Jewish community. In doing so, it has set a dangerous precedent that should make every convert afraid and all of us angry and disappointed in its leadership.

(A Devar Torah relating to Parashat Shemini - Leviticus 9:1 - 11:47)

There are times when the Torah tells us a story that serves as a metaphor for issues that we face today. This week's Torah Portion - Parashat Shemini - relates the strange story of Aaron's sons Nadav and Avihu. As sons of the first Kohen Gadol (High Priest), Nadav and Avihu were also Kohanim who received instructions from their father on how to conduct the sacrificial services inside the newly inaugurated Mishkan. When they entered the sacred space designated for the Kohanim to offer sacrifices, the Torah relates a peculiar incident:

Aaron's sons, Nadav and Avihu, each took his fire pan, placed fire on it, and then incense on it. They offered it before God, but it was unauthorized fire which God had not instructed them to offer. Fire came forth from before God and it consumed them, so that they died before God.

The Hebrew word for "unauthorized fire" is "esh zara," which, in addition to "unauthorized," is also translated as "foreign." Both of these translations point to the fact that Nadav and Avihu entered the House of God and introduced foreign elements that were strange to Judaism and Jewish tradition. By introducing these foreign practices, they tampered with the traditional flow of the services, and doing so was considered such a grievous offense that they were consumed by fire.

I read Jewish newspapers as much for the advertisements as for the articles. A quick scan of the advertisements by synagogues and Jewish organizations tells you what's really going on in the Jewish community. Synagogues that are desperate to "draw in the big crowd" will resort to anything these days. In recent months, I have seen advertisements for "Buddhist Shabbat Meditation Services" and "Gospel Shabbat Concerts," and a colleague recently told me how shocked he was that a synagogue held a "St. Patrick's Day Purim" event.

What can we say about this growing - and in my opinion disturbing -- phenomenon in the Jewish world? Perhaps we have, in fact, failed to make a compelling case for "old school" Jewish tradition, but are these wild, quick fix alternatives really the answer to our problems? Is the introduction of Buddhism, Gospel choirs, St. Patrick's Day revelries, or any other "esh zara" into our services the only way to infuse new meaning into tradition? Do those who lead or attend such spins on Jewish spirituality actually feel that they are participating in something with Jewish meaning?

Our transmission of a meaningful, compassionate and relevant expression of Jewish tradition certainly leaves a lot to be desired. But there are limits to where we can and should search for answers to our pressing questions. Judaism is a rich, vibrant and fascinating tradition. It is intellectual, spiritual, cultural, communal and personal all at once. We have a vast treasure of Jewish literature, along with 3000-plus years of history. Shall we give all of that away in the name of filling seats one Friday night at a gospel performance in synagogue? True creativity lies in the ability to infuse ancient traditions with modern meaning. Conducting a Shabbat service with a Buddhist twist is hardly creative. It's a cheap imitation.

Nadav and Avihu brought an "unauthorized offering" whose spirit was alien to Jewish tradition. The foreign flames that they introduced in the services came back to burn them. Indeed, a powerful metaphor for many rabbis and congregants today.

There is probably no sentiment as fundamental to Judaism as recognizing the good that others do for us and expressing our gratitude to them (in Hebrew, “hakarat ha-tov”). God is reputed to have created the world in a burst of loving-kindness for which humanity and all living creatures should intuitively praise Him, and the Jewish people’s special relationship with God is predicated on His kindness in having redeemed the Jews from Egypt. The very word for Jew in Hebrew, Yehudi, comes from the verb le-hodot, to thank, and hearkens back to our foremother Leah thanking God for giving birth to her fourth son. Therefore, I was not surprised to recently come upon a poster in Har Nof (a largely Haredi, Jerusalem suburb) proclaiming that this Jewish calendar year is the year of Hakarat Ha-tov.

Doubtless, we have many things to be thankful for—continued good health, a strong economy, some respite from our enemies--but this poster did not mention any of these issues. It loudly proclaimed that all and sundry should go to the grave of the illustrious Rabbi Yitzhak Ze’ev Soloveitchik (R. Velvel) and ask his forgiveness for not having stringently followed his halakhic ruling that one must recite the guest’s blessing for his host during Grace After Meals. Failure to do so, so the poster claimed, is clearly a lack of gratitude. Furthermore, the poster advised everyone to seek halakhic guidance to determine whether they need to request forgiveness for not having said the host’s blessing at the wedding of a friend or at their yeshiva (with the intent of thanking the donors). In particular, the poster stressed that one should ask forgiveness of one’s parents for not having recited the blessing on their behalf, as even six year old children eating their sandwiches at school should recite the host’s blessing for their parents. Technically speaking, their parents, who are kind enough to feed them and/or pay their tuition, are their hosts (Ketubot 65b). (Indeed, the poster adds, even a husband should thank his wife and a wife her husband—the more gratitude expressed the better in these tough economic times.)

At first I was astounded that this was the hakarat ha-tov the poster was talking about. While the process of mending our ways must begin with the small things that are more likely to touch us personally, effect our psyches, take root, and blossom, making this blessing the sole focus of Hakarat Ha-tov seemed to miss the bigger picture. However, when I re-read the poster, I realized that the crime committed by not reciting this blessing was not merely one of poor manners or of lax moral standards, it was actually a form of theft! R. Velvel, ztz”l, declared that his students should “demand (titba) of them that they recite the host’s blessing” because not doing so actually incurs a monetary loss. The author of the poster deduces this from the fact that the word “demand,” in Hebrew, implies that the host may actually sue the guest in court, and this would only be true if he caused a significant monetary loss by failing to recite the blessing.

The reason for this loss is the fact that the blessing includes a prayer that the host’s “property” or business dealings be successful; the poster explains that failure to make this request causes the host financial loss. In fact, the failure to say Grace in a group of ten men—thus, increasing the power of the prayer as “when the community prays, God does not reject their prayers” (bAvodah Zarah 4b, author’s source)—probably requires a special request for forgiveness for undermining the financial well-being of the yeshiva where one said Grace. Undermining another Jews’ livelihood is certainly a serious crime, so R. Velvel’s ruling makes sense.

However, what is lost in this attention to detail and the laws of damages is the simple matter of saying thank you. As R. Bahya Ibn Paquda writes at the beginning of Duties of the Heart being thankful is a religious duty and desideratum. We do not thank God for creating the world because we owe Him something or because, heaven forbid, He needs us to. We thank God because it is the right thing to do, because we intuitively sense that someone who bestows a kindness on us should be thanked. This is even true of a slave expressing gratitude to his master or a child to a parent, where clearly the giver’s beneficence is not without self-interest. How much more should we thank God or other human beings whose giving is truly selfless or close to it.

This having been said, the true irony of this poster is that the difficult economic times mentioned in this poster as an especially good reason for saying this blessing are the result of the Israeli government cutting back on subsidies and welfare benefits to, among others, the Haredi community. These “economic decrees”—treated by the Haredim like those of the Russian Czars’ of yesteryear—are partially a result of balancing the budget and partially a result of the secular state’s being fed up with sectors of society (particularly, the ultra-Orthodox) that do not produce economically, consume vast resources, and do not even say “thank you.”

When a secular Israeli tax payer who serves in the army looks at Haredi society, he sees a parasitic growth that produces nothing, contributes nothing tangible, and complains about not getting enough subsidies or welfare benefits to prop up its enormous families and enable its men to sit and learn comfortably without having to work. While the Haredim may argue that they have built up many not-for-profit organizations that benefit the entire population and that their learning protects the country, as much if not more than the army does, these arguments do not really hold water, since the secular and religious Zionist sectors of the population, generally speaking, work, serve in the army, study Torah (especially, the religious Zionist), and build up not-for-profits too. Furthermore, the very claim that learning Torah is comparable to giving up one’s life to protect fellow Jews is both inherently absurd and possibly inconsistent with Torah values, as the Talmud itself says, “Why do you think your blood is redder than mine?”

Ultimately, the poster makes sense. The Haredim should declare a year devoted to giving thanks. As a sector of society, they have been consistently unwilling to thank the rest of Israeli society for protecting and supporting them. Furthermore, as a group they have been unwilling to recognize that God has created a (secular) Jewish state that supports more yeshivot and Torah learners than have ever existed before in the world at one time! (Indeed, for this very reason the late R. Ovadiah Yosef ruled—unlike most Haredi rabbinic decisors—that it was permissible to say Hallel on Israeli Independence Day in order to thank God for the creation of the state). Most recently Haredim have been attacking the government for having the audacity to lower their welfare payments and have even been physically attacking other Haredim who have joined the army to protect them! Even R. Ovadiah’s Shas Party has recently attacked the state for attempting to destroy the Yeshiva world by considering drafting yeshiva students into the army. Since the government has explicitly stated that it is not attempting to destroy the Yeshiva world, the deliberate use of inflammatory rhetoric to misrepresent the government’s plans is the height of ingratitude. It is definitely time for Haredi society to read this poster and say thank you to those at whose table they dine.

I would suggest that this Hakarat Ha-tov campaign begins by instituting R. Shlomo Goren’s ruling regarding the host’s blessing. R. Goren (the first Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defence Forces and the third Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel) ruled decades ago that a blessing for the Israel Defense Force and the State of Israel should be recited in Grace After Meals at the place where the host is thanked. As he wrote, we are all supping at the table of the IDF and the State of Israel, (for if not for the government and the army we would be annihilated man, women, and child by our enemies and the country would be in a constant state of chaos). [Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren’s Passover Haggadah, Am Oved, 1974, p. 58] The Haredim would do well not to forget this.

The mid-nineteenth century was a heady era for Reform Judaism in America, with a strong influx of German Jewish immigrants for whom the modernity of Classical Reform resonated. By the middle of the twentieth century, the whole world seemed to be moving toward Conservative Judaism—certainly Orthodox Judaism was the odd man out, or so it appeared. The Jewish community fully embraced suburbanization, and whether in the city or in the suburb, new synagogues being built were almost entirely without mehitsot (partitions between men and women) and with large parking lots. In fact, in many parts of America in the 1950s and 1960s there was no question about the survival of mainstream Orthodoxy as a force—that was easily dismissed out of hand. The question was whether the Traditional movement, a type of “advanced” Orthodoxy where men and women could sit together and hear a hazzan with a microphone and a state-of-the-art speaker system would be able to compete long term with the Conservative movement.

On the one hand, Conservative and Reform proved to be far more resilient than the short lived Traditional, quasi-Orthodox movement. On the other hand, over the past four decades, Orthodoxy has come roaring back, and, at least according to the newest Jewish population survey in the New York area, is returning to a demographic dominance it might have not had since the millions of Eastern European Jews came to America at the turn of the nineteenth century. Moreover, the Orthodox Jews who are increasing their share of the Jewish pie today, are not just Orthodox in name, but they are observant and seem to be passing observant Judaism down to the next generation. By any measure, the Orthodox community—from its most Modern and Open elements to its most Hareidi sectors—should feel confident that it is growing in influence and stature within the established Jewish world and even within the powerful corridors of American power. Whereas in the past we could look to senators and members of the Cabinet who were merely Jewish, now many of them are outright Orthodox—Treasury secretary Jack Lew, Senator Lieberman, Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, just to start.

While the other movements are engaged in soul-searching on how to deal with dwindling and aging membership in synagogues, the challenges to Orthodoxy are how to deal with its burgeoning numbers: how to cost-effectively educate the hordes of children the Orthodox are having, how to expand ever-growing synagogues, and where to establish new communities where housing costs—for large homes—are low. But from college campuses, to urban communities of singles and young couples, to suburban communities with families and empty nesters—the numbers all show that Orthodoxy is an attractive type of Judaism, one that is easily replacing any fall-off, and is actually expanding through a relatively high birthrate and an expanding professional outreach movement.
It would stand to reason that Orthodoxy’s greatest challenge—in America, Israel, and around the world—would be having too much self-confidence and sense of triumphalism.

If there is any competition between the denominations, and there certainly is, then Orthodoxy would be expected to feel a sense of pride and smugness after having made an incredible comeback in the past 50 years. However, although the world Orthodox community does have a sense of zeal for its principles, and a loyalty to its leaders and its religious goals, it is stunning that in most sectors, it retains the same fear of destruction and unraveling that it had 50 years ago. Orthodoxy feels vulnerable and susceptible to challenges from feminism, liberalism, foreign influences, and temptation from the worst of American culture. The same fears of legitimating Reform or Conservative rabbis, or women wearing tefillin, or people whose conversions might not be as pure as others pervade the Orthodox community.

Think about it: Why should the huge Hareidi community fear a few women—on the women’s side of the Kotel wearing a tallit and singing and dancing once a month for an hour? Do they really think that all women will start wearing tallitot and tefillin and will start coming to the Kotel all the time and daven all the time? Do they see a revolution on the part of Hareidi women about to take off? All the fears on women’s and gender issues on the part of many in the Orthodox community point to a general fear that the slope is slippery, and the Orthodox world in general is on the verge of slipping off that cliff to religious anarchy. In fact, one Rosh Yeshiva at a prominent rabbinical school was quoted by his student that allowing for same sex civil marriage was the beginning of the end of heterosexual society as we know it! If we legitimize two men or two women starting a family together, why will anyone want to start a heterosexual family? Similarly, when in my own neighborhood I tried to team up with a Conservative rabbi to give a joint kosher supervision—an attempt that failed for other reasons—I faced tremendous opposition from the Orthodox establishment who were mainly afraid of the Conservative world taking over supervision. What is the basis of this fear, when every single national kosher supervision—even the ones that are not entirely reliable—are in the hands of Orthodox rabbis and organizations? It is stunning that with all the measurable, incontestable successes of the Orthodox community—and with all the momentum that the numbers show into the next generation—the Orthodox community is still scared and lacks the self-confidence necessary to take on the role it now has as a dominant force in American Jewish life.

As a Modern and Open Orthodox Jew, I realize that one of my most important tasks is to help give the Orthodox community as much self-confidence as possible. Self-awareness is critical to self-fulfillment—and for the Orthodox community to assume the responsibilities it should take on in its position, it needs to realize that it is strong and successful. In fact, I think the Modern and Open segments of the Orthodox community, along with the many people in the Hareidi world engaged in outreach, have a unique role in bolstering the self-confidence of our brothers and sisters in the Centrist and Hareidi communities. The more open to contemporary concepts and the more aware of contemporary realities and trends that we are, the more we have to bond with those who are not part of Orthodoxy to assure them that they are no threat to traditional Jewish values: women clergy, gay members in shul, women wearing tefillin, Jews who may not be halakhically Jewish but are part of our community, and even interfaith work are all not going to cause our mesorah and our Torah—the pillars that Orthodox Judaism is built on—to come crashing down. Over a decade ago, Rav Yehuda Amital, zt”l, said that Reform and Conservative Judaism were no longer threats to the Orthodox community, but, rather, they had become gateways to people to get closer to Judaism and the Jewish community. In a recent article in Commentary, Professor Jack Wertheimer quotes Hareidi outreach professionals saying the same thing. These people get it—they understand how powerful Orthodoxy is today, and that thinking that the other movements are a threat to Orthodoxy is from a by-gone era. In fact, Rabbi Ilan Feldman wrote a powerful article in Cross Currents, a Hareidi publication, where he calls on the frum Orthodox community to not focus on the fear of the “other” coming in and contaminating our communities, but, rather, to model the community upon the home of Abraham and Sarah, which was open and welcoming to everyone, convert or idolator. It is the responsibility of those in the outreach community and the pluralistic Orthodox community, who are comfortable counting Conservative, Reform, or Renewal rabbis as mentors and teachers, to find a way to show other Orthodox Jews that pluralism is only going to strengthen an already strong Orthodoxy, not destroy it.

How successful the Modern and Open Orthodox community will be at convincing the rest of Orthodoxy to be more confident and less scared, I’m not sure. I do know that it will only happen if we are able to create a big-tent Orthodoxy, which is based more and more on a desire to include, based on self-confidence, and less on a fear to exclude. The more Modern and Open elements of the Orthodox community need to be the advocates and architects of that big tent because they are the ones who feel most comfortable bringing in more and more elements into the tent. The Modern and Open Orthodox parts of the Orthodox community do feel less fear of the world around them, and fit in well with the American environment. But even though that sense of ease has all the advantages of avoiding harmful fear, it presents its own challenges:

Easier to be Religious: Need to have more rigor, not less!

Just three months ago, a fantastic kosher (CRC supervision—the best!) BBQ restaurant and bar opened smack in the middle of Lakeview, a trendy urban neighborhood in Chicago with a 400 family Modern Orthodox synagogue. Suddenly there was no excuse for people to eat in non-kosher restaurants; Milt’s BBQ for the Perplexed even has an impressive vegetarian menu. Jews and non-Jews have poured into the restaurant: Hareidim from Peterson Park along with local Modern Orthodox Jews are eating within inches of men and women from the heavily gay and hipster community. Everyone loves it. As a frum, Orthodox Jew in America you can have it all: great eating options, eruvs to carry on Shabbat and build community, kosher cruises, kosher bed and breakfasts in Maine, etc. Most people have no problem at all getting off early on Friday afternoons for Shabbat, or taking off the Holidays, or getting their co-workers to either order in kosher or have the office lunch at a kosher restaurant downtown. The synagogue has an early quickie Shabbat minyan, a slower regular minyan, five groups for the kids every Shabbat, and free ice-cream sponsored by the shul in the local ice-cream shop almost every Shabbat. It is easier than ever in America to be fully observant and fully successful—fully Orthodox and fully American.

The challenge is, will this ease make us more complacent and numb, or make us more rigorous and passionate Jews? In Los Angeles, where it is even easier to be Orthodox than Chicago, there is the Happy Minyan. Yes, those attending are living the happy American life. However, they channel the ease in a healthy way: they push themselves to be more rigorous, more passionate, more elevated on Shabbat—they don’t take the easy way out. Likewise, do we allow the easy, ready make Passover experiences in bungalows in Florida to make us forget about the homeless and the poor even more, or do we use the ease and joy in being Orthodox in America to push us to be at the forefront of advocating and working with the homeless and the underprivileged? Will people take advantage of kosher food to commit to eating strictly kosher and to inviting more strangers over to their homes for Shabbat? Or will they let the consumer culture of America drag them away from the values of thoughtfulness and care in our food that kashrut is all about? In the past people kashered their own meat in the bathtub (removing the blood), or at least went to the butcher to get the right cut. Now that it is all done for us, are we going to spend more time learning the laws of kashrut, saying the blessings before and after eating, or donating to food drives and food pantries—both Jewish and non-Jewish? We have an incredible opportunity to enable our children to get involved more in civics, or to take time off before or after college to work or study in Israel: will we take this God-given opportunity to find more rigor and passion in Judaism and the Jewish community, or will we be lulled to sleep by the ease and success that we have achieved? Will we become leaders and pilots of a new and exciting, reinvigorated Orthodoxy—pushing issues that we believe in—or will we go on auto-pilot and ignore the opportunities that we have been blessed with?

Finding the Passion—and the Difficulty Finding a Way of Relating to It

Actually, the Orthodox community does have a lot of passion and commitment, but it is usually coming from the right-wing groups, and frequently the more modern, centrist Jews (of, let’s say, Teaneck, Scarsdale and the Upper West Side) see that passion as either misplaced of foreign. The passion of the Hareidi world is admirable, but it gets mixed up with protesting women at the Kotel, or avoiding army duty, or asking the government of Israel—or of the United States—to pay for things that the Modern and Centrist Orthodox communities believe individual families should pay for themselves.

This disconnect—between the beauty of self-sacrifice and the ugliness of the politics behind it—is tragic: those who have perhaps the most serious sense of self-sacrifice are not able to impart its beauty to the community that needs to adopt it in their lives because they are challenged by Jewish life becoming too easy and to convenient. One group is enjoying kosher meals at Disney World, while the other group is rejecting any form of secular education for their children so that they are not corrupted by the world around them. Moreover, it is specifically the Hareidim of Israel, those who are even more extreme in their avoiding the Western world and Western education who are the most profound example of self-sacrifice. It is true that a typical middle class Modern Orthodox family is sacrificing tens of thousands of dollars—at least—every year on their children’s education; but as difficult as that is, it is not necessarily instilling passion, or a sense of sacrifice for Torah, in the life of the family. My wife tells the story of her parents taking out a home equity loan in order to make a substantial donation to the day school’s capital campaign because their rabbi asked them to: how often do we see that today in the Open, Modern or Centrist Jewish community? Perhaps not even in the American Hareidi community.

So we have passion in some parts of Orthodoxy, and we have the ability to integrate Orthodox observance with the Western world, American life, in other parts of the Orthodox community. The challenge is to bring the two together. To succeed, I believe the Modern and Open Orthodox community has to make an effort to understand the Hareidi community better. Not by compromising values such as pluralism, gender sensitivity, openness to the entire world—Jewish and not-Jewish—and prioritizing inclusion, but, rather, by reaching out and making the first steps for our students and children to meet with Hareidi families, for our rabbinical students to meet with Hareidi rabbinical students, and for the leaders of all the communities to make more of an effort to come together on issues that concern all of us—education, caring for the poor, Israel, and other important issues.

Are We Truly an Open Tent?

Earlier I mentioned Rabbi Ilan Feldman’s critique of the Orthodox community for stressing preservation of the community over reaching out and welcoming outsiders. He is correct that the fear of the “other”—ideas, people, cultures—which we also discussed earlier, has the more right wing members of the Orthodox community circling the wagons in preservationist mode rather than open up the tents in “modeling” mode as Feldman calls it. However, the other side of the Orthodox community, the more Modern and Centrist, is also not opening up their homes, and not even their shuls as much as they should, because of the complacency and easy living that we discussed earlier. Why should they bother to take in a guest who is not a friend or a relative? Why should they bother speaking to someone they don’t know at kiddush? Why should they make their shuls comfortable for people who know less than they do? Even in Israel this is an issue, and I have heard of congregants who complain to the rabbi for announcing pages—the most basic of welcoming acts—because it bothers them—suddenly they feel the shul as catering to the outsider! Orthodoxy, then, as strong as it is, is facing the perfect storm in not doing its work in opening up the tent: fear of the outside meets up with disdain for the work necessary to welcome the outsider, and, together, this united front of Orthodoxy is not reaching out to thousands, if not millions, who would love to be exposed to the gifts that Orthodoxy has to offer. If we didn’t have the model of Abraham and Sarah, maybe we wouldn’t think this kind of Open Tent Orthodoxy was important; we know better.

It is worth noting that there are small signs of changes in the Hareidi community regarding opening up: first there is a growing professional group of Hareidi kiruv (outreach) rabbis and families who do see it as their responsibility to connect with the rest of the Jewish community—as Chabad has been doing for decades. But even more significant, I have been told that regular Hareidi families are requesting these professionals to send non-observant Jews to their Shabbat dinners and lunches. This is not true pluralism in the Hareidi world; the families don’t necessarily want to learn about Kant or feminism from their guests, but they do what to connect with them, and it is an encouraging first step towards the openness of Abraham and Sarah’s tent.

Rav Avi Weiss has pushed the Open Orthodox community, and the students of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, to specifically seek out ways of connecting, as Orthodox rabbis and Orthodox lay people, to the broader Jewish community, on college campuses, in hospitals and especially in Orthodox synagogues that are frontier and outreach synagogues, where many of the members are not Orthodox but are open to learning and growing. My own synagogue, Anshe Sholom, in Chicago has been made up of many members of all ages who would not classify themselves as Orthodox, but they choose an Orthodox synagogue to a great extent because of the efforts my wife and I make to reach out and connect with them and make sure synagogue regulars are connecting with the new people and guests. Orthodox communities are uniquely positioned to reach out and welcome and connect outsiders to insiders and create community—just like Abraham and Sarah—but only if Orthodoxy is not afraid and not complacent will it make the effort and take the seeming risks (which are more imagined than real) to make it happen.

It may be that Open Orthodoxy’s niche, and the important role of the hundreds of future ordainees of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, the Modern and Open Orthodox yeshiva in Riverdale, New York, will be not only to open the tents of Orthodoxy to anyone interested—and in a sense of mutuality, learning from each other—but to go beyond welcoming to actually making the journey to where our fellow Jews are. Both Hareidi and Chabad outreach welcome all Jews to come to Orthodox homes, Orthodox Shabbat tables and Orthodox places of prayer—and that is admirable connecting. A confident, self-assured Orthodox community will be able to go even further and connect with students, young adults and families where they are. This means learning together with Reform, Reconstructionist, and renewal teachers and students; it means being willing to be on panels even with other rabbis or leaders who will be saying things that are not consistent with Orthodoxy; it means being willing to have Orthodox students spend time with non-Orthodox students, and then Orthodox families find ways of going to the non-Orthodox homes for Shabbat. All without compromising the beliefs or the practices of Orthodoxy! Beit Hillel in Israel produced a brochure outlining how religious Jews could “safely” go over for dinner with more secular Jews—on the one hand this was not a revolution in halakha, but on the other hand, how many Orthodox Jews in American synagogues are doing that? Either we don’t feel safe or we are lazy. Shabbat, Holidays, kashrut, Torah: all these pillars of Orthodox Judaism are strong, and we have to have the confidence that they can all survive—nay, thrive!—when experienced with less observant, non-Orthodox Jews. This might be the frontier which Open and Modern Orthodoxy can move to, and, by so doing, inspire the rest of Orthodoxy to follow suit.

Orthodoxy is reaching a golden age in America, and all the statistics suggest that it will continue to gain strength and prominence. This era should be offering Orthodoxy great opportunities to make a difference and fulfill its destiny, which is really the destiny of the entire Jewish people begun with Abraham and Sarah. But Abraham and Sarah, when they were true to form, displayed self-confidence and passion—loyalty to a difficult life, but joy in knowing it was the will of God. My hope is that Orthodoxy in America, and throughout the world, can follow their model of understanding how strong we are, but using that strength go make us more rigorous, more passionate, more Open and welcoming and filled with the courage and confidence to go that extra mile to connect with our fellow Jews and with a world that needs us and the entire Jewish people so much.