National Scholar Updates

Jewish Holiday Companion
By Rabbi Hayyim Angel
Published originally by the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, and then by Kodesh Press

Rabbi Hayyim Angel has rightly earned a reputation as being one of the great teachers on Tanach in our time. He has authored a handful of books and hundreds of articles on biblical and religious themes, and has garnered a huge following based on his 17 years at Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue and 20 years at Yeshiva University, where he has even taught classes on how to teach Tanach. His new book, Jewish Holiday Companion, is a gem. In a time of year when we are pulled in every direction at once, Rabbi Angel offers guidance and clarity in how to approach the holidays, both intellectually and spiritually.

Jewish Holiday Companion is comprised of brief and insightful essays, each focusing on one specific religious issue. Rabbi Angel is known for his mastery of classical Jewish texts: the Tanach, Talmud, Midrashim, Rishonim and Achronim, but he also freely draws from diverse sources such as ancient Near Eastern literature and classic Chasidic writings. In each article, Rabbi Angel is able to zero in on one discussion at a time for a focused and deep exploration of the religious themes that permeate the different festivals.

One article explores the symbolism of the shofar. He quotes from Saadiah Gaon that “there are no fewer than 10 purposes of the shofar” (p. 20): coronating God as Creator, the Akeidah, the giving of the Torah, heeding the prophets (whose words are compared to a shofar), the wars that exiled the Jewish people, the messianic era, the future Day of Judgment, the resurrection of the dead, inspiring awe, and inspiring repentance. Rabbi Angel then explores, within the theme of the shofar, the presence of silence, and the importance of silence in the context of sounding the shofar. Abraham travelled three days to sacrifice his son Isaac. This journey must have been a time of introspection and quietude; there is no dialogue recorded between the two during their journey. It was said that the jazz pianist Thelonious Monk was a master at getting “in between the notes” and making the audience focus on the silence contained in the melody. The same is true of the shofar: we focus on what is absent as much as we focus on what is there. The tekiah represents fullness while the teru’ah symbolizes brokenness. Both elements are present on Rosh Hashanah.

Another discussion compares the concept of repentance in the thought of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. For these two great twentieth-century luminaries, teshuvah represents two different processes. For Rabbi Kook, teshuvah is a return to self. Each person is created as a tzelem Elokim, but loses himself in the snares of this world, and grows distant from the image of God within him, from his own soul, from his own Godliness. Thus teshuvah – which in Hebrew really means “return” – is when the individual restores himself to his own internal Godliness.

For Rabbi Solovetchik, however, teshuvah is about creation. Through the process of teshuvah, “we create ourselves and our relationship with God” (p. 29). Rabbi Soloveitchik’s thought has some strong existentialist tendencies in it, and this is a powerful example; can we harness the gift of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to recreate ourselves, not with our own divinity but our own humanity?

The Jewish Holiday Companion has articles for every Jewish holiday, and even contains entries for Yom HaShoah, Yom HaAtzma’ut, and Thanksgiving. It is a pleasure to have Rabbi Angel’s writings available for the Jewish holidays. His new work is sure to be a source of wisdom, guidance, and inspiration, for the coming year.

Devil in Jerusalem
By Naomi Ragen

This is a very well-written, gripping, and suspenseful novel that is based on true horrendous events among Jews, Christians, Muslims, Atheists, and indeed all people. Although depressing, the story needs to be told to protect vulnerable and insecure people from falling into the grip of cult leaders who lead innocent victims into believing that the cult leader is a “messiah,” a “god-like” figure, a man or woman who knows the ultimate truth, who is in conversation with angels and God, who is defending his gullible flock from demons, and aiding them to climb to loftier heights, to become what he or she claims God desires them to become.

Some of these cult leaders milk their followers of their wealth or part of it, leaving them to live in harsh conditions that is “better for them,” which “helps clean them,” while the cult leaders live in huge mansions in luxury, even flying in multi-million dollar planes.

Many of these leaders are sick psychopaths who derive unnatural pleasure from being able to control and manipulate people. Some, as the “messiah” in this tale enjoy hurting their followers and getting others to hurt people as they watch, or, as an American cult figure did, he poisoned hundreds of his flock.

While this book does not address it, there are many, too many, “ultra-religious” leaders, who although not reaching the level of a cult leader, also take advantage of insecure, often insufficiently educated people leading them to think that what they are teaching is true religion, while what they are saying is untrue. They attract many followers, even well-educated men and women, and cash in on them by taking donations and ego-bursts. They demand the observance of practices that reasonable religious leaders consider absurd and demeaning, even demonic, behaviors that cut off their congregants from friends and neighbors.

Naomi Ragen’s tale of a Jewish cult leader in Jerusalem is based on some true events that occurred in Israel, but while Jewish it is an unfortunate universal tale. Irony is too weak a word to describe the striking similarities of the Jerusalem cult leader to what occurred in ancient times in Jerusalem’s Valley of Hinnom, called Gehinnom in Hebrew, which came to be the word for “hell,” where pagan priest were able to convince their followers to deliver their children to burn them as sacrifices to their god.

Ragen’s tale is the story of a loving couple, an educated woman and her loving husband who is not as educated as his wife, who is a well-meaning luftmensch, a man with his head in the clouds, who does not like to work. They are Americans from good families who moved to and settled in Israel because of their love of Judaism. He thinks that he should spend as much time as possible studying Talmud for he was told that this is what God wants. However, he soon becomes attracted to the study of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, which he really does not understand, and falls under the influence of the “messiah,” a charismatic, bearded, highly disturbed rabbi with a restricted group of followers who teaches practical Kabbalah. Although the husband spends time “studying,” he finds time to produce children. Soon, with half a dozen kids, and with little or no help from her husband, tired, feeling lost, and confused, she also falls under the “messiah’s” control.

What follows is bizarre, cruel, and unbelievable. She is led to do things no rational person would do. Brainwashed and convinced that what she is watching is good for her and her children, she looks on as her children are tortured, beaten, burned, forced to eat vomit and feces. She allows the “messiah” to do tormenting things to her and to her husband, and to cause her to afflict her husband, and he her.

This is a powerful tale, a story well-worth one’s time to read and enjoy, for Naomi Ragen is a superb writer. But it is also a reminder that there are many in society today, even in Israel, who take advantage of people, and we must beware and not passively and naively trust all that we hear and see even when the words and acts are spoken and performed by a black garbed saintly-appearing rabbi.

Religious mis-education engendered an egregious handicap for second-generation survivors. Theological implications of the Holocaust were typically ignored in yeshiva curricula and teacher-student discussions. Religious instruction consistently disregarded, and even censored, aspects of scripture that could have been utilized to reconcile some negative Holocaust experiences with religious doctrine. Instead, second-generation survivors were subjected to an idealistic religious perspective where God is consistently a just, kind, merciful micromanager, where human suffering is attributed to transgression and guilt. Whereas such an educational stance may be functional for children growing up in a relatively just world, it is definitely inadequate for youngsters from families who had just rebounded from the Holocaust and who confront its traumatic reverberations daily. Coupled with the negativity that permeated their home environments, this lapse in education resulted in disturbing—and often insurmountable—dissonance in many second-generation survivors. Utilizing developmental theory to inform the quality of relationship one has with God, the dissonance of second-generation survivors coming of age is annotated by discordant religious, moral, and psychological worldviews that were not ameliorated by proper education
A Jewish Modern Orthodox second-generation survivor who is a research clinician in trauma, the author highlights clinical insights from the perspective of the psychopathology of trauma and abuse. Paralleling this effort, he charts his own trials and tribulations as a student—juggling a heritage of despair with disparate teachings at home and yeshiva as he trekked through the ruins of his people in search of a kind God.

Introduction

Philosophy is not a central topic in formal education. Viewed as somewhat esoteric and less relevant than other disciplines in modern society, it is rarely offered in secondary schools (even as an elective) and is not in the core curriculum of higher education. Religious colleges and seminaries, of course, do feature philosophy as a required course.
However, religion and philosophy are less central to Judaism than conduct and behavior. Scholars across the Jewish denominations concur that Judaism is primarily a religion of deed, not of creed (Bleich, 1992; Borowitz, 2014). As such, theology and deliberations about the nature of God are not part of the typical discourse among Jews, even in synagogues and institutions of higher learning. Jewish religious instruction is primarily task- or behavior-oriented. Thus, the topics that are seen as “relevant” in religious schools usually relate to daily behavior and religious practices. Theology and religious philosophy are hardly of interest to elementary and high school students. It is therefore not surprising that typical yeshiva curricula paid little attention to theology or philosophy, other than frequent references to a kind, merciful God.
For the post-Holocaust generation, however, The Question of God was a burningly relevant issue. God’s nature was at the crux of the junction of its history and its religion. Religious education magnified The Question to the level of an enigma, since this generation of yeshiva students was exposed to scriptures featuring a host of references to a hostile and vengeful God, all the while being taught that God was merciful.
This educational conundrum left the instruction about God to parents, to the community, and to the media. Since second-generation survivors had parents who were survivors—by definition, a good amount of their theological “home education” was informed by the open sores of recent Holocaust experiences. The “street education” they received from the community at large—typically consisting of Holocaust survivors—echoed and reinforced the discordant perspective they absorbed at home about an unjust world managed by an unreliable God. Rounding out the circle, Yiddish-language media they were exposed to—newspapers, radio, contemporary lyrical music recordings, and library books—cemented the very same unhelpful understanding of God’s role in the world. Absent contravening corrective education in school, this orientation is what second-generation survivors internalized and took with them into adulthood. This internalization was a constant counterpoint to the merciful God icon championed by the religious education establishment.
Yeshiva students were also exposed to scripture references to God as Father. This complicated the internalization of God in this cohort. For many survivors and their families, their understanding of God’s role did not coincide with the imagery of a kind caring father. In another vein, second-generation survivors often had a non-idealized “father image” because of the perceived weakness of their parents during the Holocaust. Developmental theory posits that the God concept that children internalize is very much linked to their formative experience with parental figures. As such, the God-father contextualization negatively affected the ability of their children to establish a secure relationship with God. God as Father is an effective religious educational parallel only when Father is an idealized icon. It is not a functional parallel for those with a weak father image.
In the following sections, each of the above noted factors are detailed and discussed, from social, religious, and educational perspectives. Scriptural inconsistencies, variations in perspectives about God, providence (especially divine micromanagement), and trauma are elaborated, elucidating the plight of second-generation Holocaust survivors as they contended with religious inconsistencies within the context of their education. The cognitive and psychological coping modes of this cohort are elaborated and evaluated. Their challenges in establishing an adaptive relationship with God are explored, in light of an educational system that failed to address—and even exacerbated—the dilemmas and contradictions they faced.

The Environmental Influence

Yeshiva education was particularly crucial to second-generation survivors who immigrated to major American urban centers. In the characteristic absence of discussions with parents about theological/religious significance of the Holocaust, the pervasive input these children were exposed to came from Yiddish media. In a sense, these media became primary transmitters of the Holocaust legacy to our generation.
A number of Yiddish newspapers thrived in the post-war era, and they featured a continuous diet of pieces saturated with interpretations of Holocaust experiences. Needless to say, the content of these pieces, which were usually reactive rather than educational or reflective, shaped the orientation of its young readers in a manner that was not conducive to developing an adaptive perspective.
The public library was an important resource for the immigrant family. With traditional values for the “written word” and minimal expendable income, families took full advantage of the library. My childhood family of four usually checked out seven or eight books each Friday.
The libraries in Jewish neighborhoods offered a large number of Yiddish-language books. In our local branch, the stacks for the Yiddish collection numbered well over a thousand, and the collection was second in size only to English-language fiction. By the time I was in ninth grade, I had to search each Friday for books I had not read yet. I estimate that more than 75 percent of these books were depictions of Holocaust experiences.
As early as I can recall, our radio was always on during waking hours, and it was tuned to WEVD, the Yiddish-language radio station. A good percentage of the programming consisted of songs and lyrics that found resonance among Holocaust survivors. Late evenings, when WEVD stopped broadcasting, the air was filled with the sound of phonograph recordings of contemporary Yiddish music. In retrospect, it seems that radio and records gave voice to the feelings that our parents could not verbalize to us. Indeed, many of my generation were given to humming the tunes of these compositions habitually, perhaps as a confirmation of the message conveyed by the lyrics.
With the limited venue of contemporary Jewish music, it is not surprising that the children soon knew all of the songs and lyrics by heart. One gets a poignant feeling of the mentality of the era in the song Eyli, Eyli (My God, My God; Heskes, 1992, No., 1194; Nulman, 1972, No. 74), written at the turn of the twentieth century, and popularized in the Warsaw Ghetto. The lyrics were disseminated widely when they were recorded by major cantors, especially Yossele Rosenblatt, and played regularly on New York Yiddish radio, rendering it the anthem of suffering of the contemporary Jew. I surely knew all the words of this piece and hummed its tune frequently as a child:

My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?
My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?
In fire and flames we have been burnt
Everywhere they shamed and mocked us
But no one could turn us away from You, my God
And from Your Holy Torah
From Your commandments, My God.
Day and night, I only think of You, my God.
I keep Your Torah and Your commandments with awe.
Save me, oh save me from danger
Like You once saved our fathers from an angry czar
Only You can help.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

The tune left us all with in an atmosphere of confusion: If God helped in the past, why did he not help during the Holocaust? Why did God abandon his people?

Exposure to Confusing Scriptures

Seeking to inculcate us with compassion and kindness toward others, our teachers extolled us to emulate God (Deuteronomy 28:9: “You shall walk in His ways") using two general guidelines:
• You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy (Leviticus 19:2).
• For the Lord your God ... loves the stranger, providing him with food and clothing; and you too must love the stranger… (Deuteronomy 10:17–19).

These guidelines are elaborated by the Talmud into specifics:

Just as God is gracious and compassionate, you also should be gracious and compassionate (Talmud Shabbat 133b). Just as He is called “righteous,” so should you be righteous ... Just as He is called “pious,” so should you be pious (Sifri, Deuteronomy 11:22). Just as He clothes the naked ... visits the sick ... comforts the mourners ... and buries the dead ... so should you (Talmud, Sota 14a). [1]

But, the elaborations ignored verses that pull in the other direction, exemplified by the following:

• The Lord is a man of war (Exodus 15:3).
• The Lord is a jealous and avenging God (Nahum 2:6).
• The Lord is a God who avenges (Psalms 94:1).
• He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations (Exodus 34:6–7).
• Thou hast slain, and thou hast not pitied (Lamentations 3:43).

There are many other biblical passages that feature harsh attributions to a vengeful God (who metes out punishment), passages that hardly coincide with the idealization of a loving God. A straightforward reading of the Bible may well instill within a child a hostile image of God. Indeed, some contemporary authors who take an unfettered look at scriptures have concluded that God, as he is represented in the Bible, is savage and sadistic (Armstrong, 1972). Moreover, there is a distinct Jewish liturgical theme accusing God of atrocities in Jewish liturgy dating back to the Book of Lamentations. While one might expect these discrepancies to be addressed directly in Bible classes, the fact is that students are often put into an untenable position that implicitly coaxes them to ignore any biblical passages that do not coincide with the selective portrayal of God as just and merciful.
It is fairly commonplace for a child in the traditional yeshiva system to be familiar with the entire Pentatuchal text at an early age. Contradiction and implausibility in biblical text are often “explained away” by commentators homiletically by interpreting some texts as being figurative. However, children are not used to allegories, making it likely that children, with their concrete tendencies, will have a hard time disregarding the literal meaning of scripture.
As the Bible was our main focus of study and reading, we were generally raised with the notion of a divine system with rules of fair play. Punishment for misdeed was part of this system, of course. Hence, the dictum we learned in Deuteronomy 24:16, “Fathers shall not be put to death for children, neither shall the children be put to death for fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin” made perfect sense. However, we were also taught about God’s reactions that did not conform to such standards. Take, for example, Exodus 20:5: “For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.” Sadly, such discrepancies were never acknowledged, far less addressed, by our teachers.
Familiar with the Pentateuch in grade school, I remember being particularly struck by Moses’ admonition to the Jews of Egypt, to visibly mark their doors in anticipation of the plague of the slaying of the Egyptian first-borns, so that their children not get caught up in the destruction aimed at the Egyptians. This was explained to us using constructs that imply God’s loss of control over the fury he unleashes: “Once permission has been granted to the Destroyer, he does not distinguish between the righteous and wicked” (Talmud Baba Kama 60a).
The Talmud tells us that when Moses asked God, “Teach me your ways” (Exodus 33:13), he was actually formulating the age-old question: “Why do the righteous suffer?” Various talmudic narratives (e.g., Sanhedrin 27b, Kiddushin 39b) suggest alternate explanations. These include suggestions that wicked parents cause suffering of their righteous offspring, that suffering purifies the soul, and that suffering serves to remove the slightest of sin residues to enable increased rewards in the afterlife.
Another approach in the scared literature is to see God as functioning in two alternative modes: Judgment and Mercy. Rashi, the primary biblical commentator, applies this dichotomy to a dual approach in conceptualizing God’s management of the world: Elohim stands for the God of judgment who judges and punishes the evil of the world, while Jehovah symbolizes kindness and is the chief attribute that was extant at creation (Yitzhaki, 1090, Exodus 20:1). However, these explanations did not clarify my understanding of God nor his role during the Holocaust.

The Enigma of Providence: God as a Micromanager

There are divergent views within the Jewish literature about the degree of God’s involvement in the details of nature (Flavius Josephus, 75, 94). The scope of divine providence (hashgaha peratit in Hebrew; literally, “individual oversight”) ranges from a Personal God, who has detailed oversight of all human events (Talmud Hullin 7b), to the variable oversight of humans based on their level of righteousness (Maimonides, 1180), to the notion that there is oversight of the species but not of the individual (Nahmanides, 1230), to the disavowal of any divine control of human conduct, since it would negate free will (Ben Joseph, 925). The orientation accepted by contemporary mainstream Orthodoxy, however, favors the perspective of God’s detailed control of all human activity. Its essence is encapsulated in the following aphorism:

Know what is above you: an eye that sees and an ear that hears. All of your
activities are written in the book, and there is a reckoning for everything you do (Avot 2:1).

This is the view favored by the yeshiva system, and this is what was taught to the children of Holocaust survivors.
In his interpretation of providence during the Holocaust, Rabbi Soloveitchik views the Holocaust as a period when God actually removed himself from managing world events (Besdin, 1993). Labeled Hester Panim (literally, “Hiding the Face”), this theological maneuver does “explain” horrors of mass extermination, if one can accommodate a God who is absent from world events. [2]
Paralleling God’s judging role and merciful role, there is yet another persona of God in the hearts of Holocaust survivors that seems startling: one of capricious hostility. Analyzing the internal religious icons of survivors, we sometimes encounter a volatile figure with a bad temper—a mercurial God who can get “carried away” in his vengeance. This is a God who regrets his mistakes at times (Lawliss, 1994). Yet, during times of harsh judgment, He seems unapproachable. Consider the yearly liturgy recited by Jews for centuries during the Ashkenazic High Holiday service, depicting the torture and murder of Israel’s sages some 2,000 years ago. Addressing the complaints of Israeli leaders about His actions, God responds:

If I hear another sound, I will transform the universe to water, I will turn the earth to astonishing emptiness—this is a decree from My Presence! (Yom Kippur Prayer Book, p. 643).

The Holocaust, in particular, is easily construed by some survivors—as it surely was perceived by many of my cohort—as an instance where the destructive forces unleashed by God “simply got out of control.” As children, the notion that the Jews needed to protect themselves from God’s wrath which was directed at their Egyptian oppressors seemed ungodly, leaving us with the unspoken understanding that our benevolent God sometimes gets “carried away” and overreacts in an unfair fashion—hardly a God one would be inclined to trust.
As one means of reconciling perceived divine harshness with the image of the benevolent God, I have been stunned to hear survivors (when they let their guard down) referring to God as “crazy” for instigating horrors. I am reminded of the adaptive attribution I see in the family members of Alzheimer’s patients who become uncharacteristically violent toward loved ones. “This is not the husband I know,” I often hear. “He has changed into another person. It’s as if he were possessed!” The tenor of this “explanation” resonates starkly with the various “excuses” by family members of a molesting parent: “It wasn’t his fault;” “He was under horrible pressure;” “He was not himself;” “It’s the drugs that made him do it.”
It has been suggested that an inconsistent God may be easier for people to relate to than a God with strict standards. Interpreting Cain’s understanding that God favored his brother Abel inappropriately, Goldin (2007) elaborates:

The reality of a thinking God, who demands compliance to His will, is too frightening to [Cain]. It is easier to believe in a Deity Who chooses favorites
by whim than to deal with the burden of God’s true demands. (p. 20)

Perhaps, then, it is not surprising that children growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust, given no rationalization of the horrors while being exposed to inconsistent depictions of God in the daily biblical studies, might revert to viewing God as willful, capricious, or apt to lose control.
There is a poignant finale to the Selihot (forgiveness prayers) of Ne’ilah (the concluding Yom Kippur service):

May it be your will, You who hears the sound of weeping,
That you place our tears, in your vial permanently.

As a person for whom the Holocaust is alive and current in my conscience, I have—at times—felt that this prayer adds insult to injury, so to speak. In my mind, it evokes the following excerpt from the analytic protocol of a patient with a history of childhood emotional neglect:

I cried, and my Mother did not come to help. I thought it was because she was
an evil mother. Then I found out it was because she could not hear me. That felt better….I always explained away the fact that my father failed to protect me or rescue me when it all happened. I thought to myself: He probably does not know, he does not realize what is really going on. It’s like he was deaf, maybe even dead. But when I finally realize that he was there all along, hearing me cry, and he did nothing—that really hurts!

Coping with Divine Dissonance

Left with a subjectively palpable presence of a dissonant God, the child is forced to grapple with a perceived discrepant duality. The viable options are to try to reconcile them or to take the perspective that they are inherently irreconcilable and resign oneself to an unsettled stance.
De-synthesizing is common in early childhood (when the child has not yet learned to reconcile behaviors that seem incompatible). However, it is also utilized by older children and adults as a regressive defense mechanism when faced by betrayal or extreme interpersonal disappointment. Referred to clinically as splitting, it can engender a pathological condition when it manifests in adulthood and results in two different inconsistent relationship styles toward the same person, with no attempt to reconcile them.
Viewed logistically, splitting is the most expedient approach to deal with incompatible representations of God. Consider the similar circumstance in which a child finds himself at the mercy of an all-powerful parent who behaves inconsistently toward the child—at times kind and understanding, and at other times vicious and harsh. In cases where the child has not had an opportunity to experience this parent previously in a consistent manner, splitting will be invoked by the ego. The child essentially learns to relate to the parent as if there actually were two parent figures here—a good parent and a bad parent. This orientation frees the child from dealing with contradictions. The parent is thus experienced as “wholly” benevolent when he or she is behaving in a kind manner, and “wholly” terrible when behaving poorly. I propose that this is exactly how the Orthodox Jewish child of Holocaust survivors—and survivors themselves—first related to God.
Survivors split God into two antithetical motifs. The split, engendered by the introduction to God in their early Bible studies as two different personas, was originally synthesized by positing that God is vengeful toward those who violate his commands and merciful to those who heed his rules. Yet, various scriptures and prayer texts contradicted this simplistic explanation.
Children, especially those who recognize inconsistency despite apologetics, manage to relate to God by splitting Him into two entities. Especially from the perspective of Holocaust survivors and their families, the God who perpetrated the Holocaust is not the merciful God they have known since childhood (and still cling to as damaged adults). [4]
Along with others in my cohort of second-generation survivors, I interpreted these “god variants” in a literal sense—with a distinct polytheistic flavor. Our “working model” of theology resembled Greek mythology. God existed as a good force competing with negative God-forces, based on our literal readings of biblical citations in the Prayer Book, which describe God as being “above all gods” (Psalms 135:5) or as punishing other gods (Jeremiah 46:25). As I saw it, the god of horrors actually had a different persona—and even a different name—than my God. Our God needed to be distanced from the divine aberration that brought indiscriminate destruction upon our families.[5]
It is noteworthy that de-synthesis actually has been posited as an intrinsic Jewish solution to eternal suffering. Some scholars elaborate a dialectic perspective, suggesting that the splitting mode adopted by children to deal with parental discrepancies is the preferred Jewish response to cope with the chronic societal oppression. From an adaptive perspective, the oppressive conditions of Jews in various European communities gave rise to distinct brand of humor, which was predicated on the promotion of illogic as a means of dealing with circumstances that were objectively insurmountable. In their brand of adaptive humor, Jews “defend” their future and their hope of survival by renouncing logic; as such, they refuse to be over-powered by the implications of a harsh reality (Juni & Katz, 1988; Juni, Katz, & Hamburger, 1996; Juni, & Katz, 2001). And that is no joke!

Our God, Our Father: Parallels and Repercussions

God was a constant part of the daily life of the Orthodox European Jew for many centuries. Yiddish vocabulary is permeated by direct references to God as a familiar player in all events, from the mundane to the colossal. In the Yiddish of Orthodox Jews, statements about the future are always qualified by the phrase “If God wills it.” When responding to a question about one’s welfare, the usual response is an unelaborated “Thank God,” with an occasional variation of “Thank God, well.” [6]
Developmentally, young children have a difficult time dealing with a parent who must, by definition, assume supportive and disciplinary roles at different times. Lacking the sophistication of adult reasoning and contextualizing, the child sometimes deals with this perceived contradiction by utilizing the aforementioned defense mechanism of splitting (Klein, 1935); this entails the effective de-synthesizing the parent as having two irreconcilable personas: one supportive, the other hostile. Klein posits that unless (and until) the child learns to synthesize different aspects of a parent into a meaningful whole, his or her internal world literally contains two separate representations of the same individual—a good Mother and the bad Mother, for example. Though they are, in truth, part objects (i.e., different aspects of the same object), these “mothers” are seen as distinct entities. [7]
Only if the child is fortunate enough to have a secure and supportive childhood, can he or she learn to synthesize these part objects and come to relate to a parent as a single entity whose characteristics vary based on situational contexts. This process and its challenges form the crux of the child’s assimilation of a healthy and positive ability to relate to others. [8]
If we recognize the relationship to God as a developmental process, it is reasonable to assume that the template of child-parent relations is relevant here as well. [9] For the child who is raised with God as a real feature of daily life, notions of a compassionate God must seem inherently incompatible with those of a vengeful and destructive God. Clearly, the God the child idealizes is the omnipotent benevolent God. The vengeful and punishing God is the one who deals with evil-doers and sinners. But, can the child deal with these intuitive incompatibilities any better than he or she can deal with the incompatibilities of the good mother and bad mother?
Fostering the notion of God as a kind father may seem disingenuous at the rudimentary level. At the very least, it deserves elaboration and qualification. I wish my High School administrators and staff, who included eminent masters of Jewish philosophy, had been forthright enough to discuss this imagery with us at a basic and honest level. While the image of kind father might be reconciled with harsh punishment, it certainly is incompatible with vindictiveness.[10] The intent of vengeance is not to help the one who is being punished; instead it is designed for the motive of the punisher. Mercy implies that punishment is withheld precisely in instances where it would be warranted. Not punishing, when punishment is unwarranted is not kindness—it is fairness. From a Western perspective, punishing children is not a means for a father to vent his rage; rather it is intended “for the good of the child” (i.e., educating, a lesson for the future.) Although the Western orientation may not be totally applicable to traditional Jewish culture, it seems that we, as children of the Holocaust, certainly deserved an honest discussion of the incongruity that this imagery engendered within us. Furthermore, coupled with a weak father image who was unable to help his family, and was himself brutalized during the Holocaust, this image of God resulted in an unwholesome conceptualization of God as well.

The Educational Failure

What are the cognitive options for an individual who is faced by a seemingly unkind God? The most salient option is disbelief:

It seems obvious that an omnipotent, omniscient, moral God would not allow injustice. Upon witnessing inequity, it is therefore perfectly natural to doubt God’s existence. (Kelemen, 1990, p. 91)

I wish to take issue with Kelemen’s conceptual formulation of the predicament of dealing with an apparently unjust God. For the child who was raised with God as a virtual feature of his formative environment, doubting God’s existence is not an option.
One might suggest that, unlike parents who constitute an undeniable concrete feature of the child’s world, and unlike the blatant anti-Semitism that Jews slammed into repeatedly—God’s relevance to the world of the child is unobservable and therefore dispensable, particularly when the role of God becomes so problematic to the child. How much simpler would it be to simply negate the entire god construct, and be rid of philosophical quandaries and emotional misgivings? Alas, the child who has been raised in a household where religion is part of daily life has no freedom of religion—at the functional level. Belief in God is part of his or her developmental paradigm. For one who was raised in the social crucible of Orthodox Judaism who is faced by this dilemma, the belief in God is imprinted indelibly on his or her soul.
In families identifying as Orthodox Jews, the icon of God is fixed in early childhood. It is part of the emotional structure that is socialized into the child by his parents as agents of the Orthodox Jewish culture. Children raised in this environment can no more easily disbelieve in God than they can disbelieve in Mother. It certainly becomes a major portion of his relationship repertoire with significant others, as the child is taught that his actions always entail a virtual interaction with an ever-present God. While a child may isolate from others when necessary, one can never escape the presence of God.
Although the child will certainly have the option of deciding whether to follow the dictates of religion at the behavioral level, he or she can no easier excise his beliefs in God than he or she can excise other basic tenets of reality that were inculcated in his formative years. Belief in God is essentially an emotionally implanted construct. To posit a cognitive rationale that can be utilized in choosing not to believe in a God who has been part of one’s life in early childhood is an oxymoron. Religious belief is not exclusively a logical operation. Rather, it is an orientation toward the world that is closer to emotion than it is to cognition. As a rational human being, one can certainly liberate oneself from the behavioral repercussions or dictates of childhood religious beliefs. However, emancipation from behavioral dictates does not incur freedom from an ingrained religious mindset that features an omniscient deity. [11]

It is interesting to note, in this context, the cultural connotations of the apostate, as the construct is formulated in the traditional orthodox Jewish literature. The Talmud (e.g., Avoda Zara 6b) divides apostasy into two categories: Those who violate Jewish law because they are tempted (by greed or desire), and those who do so for spite (where the spite is directed against religious authority figures—and perhaps even at God!). A blatant omission here is the option of one who rejects the very belief in God.
This omission, we argue, entails a cultural testimony that such rejection was not at all a viable option for children who are raised with the God construct as a household reality.
For those who are unwilling (or unable) to react to perceived divine injustice by relinquishing their belief in God, Keleman (1990) encourages them to consider the likelihood that there exists an explanation that we cannot comprehend:

Any rational person will admit that, in theory, the ways of God could be so complex that they defy human understanding. Man might simply be incapable of comprehending and morally evaluating the behavior of an omniscient, omnipotent Being. Just as appropriate actions taken by a parent can sometimes seem unjustified to young children, God’s actions might sometimes strike us as indefensible, despite their absolute righteousness. Our occasional inability to discern God’s goodness is not a repudiation of His existence as much as a confession of our own intellectual finitude. (p. 95)

As plausible as this option may be, it is a fact that it generally gets a poor reception among survivor families whose hurt is scarcely ameliorated by such a non-specific formulation. The same can be said of the approach to interpret biblical text non-literally, as is often seen in theological justifications of divine wrath.
The yeshiva curriculum has traditionally focused on Hebrew language skills,[12] transitioning toward the mastery of biblical texts after grade 2 or 3, shifting toward talmudic text mastery as students progress from elementary school to high school. As a rule, mastery of Talmud was the ultimate purpose of the traditional yeshiva.[13] While some schools also incorporated character development into the curriculum during high school (and this has endured through current practices), theology is noticeably absent.[14] This was the rule, rather than the exception, and was definitely the norm until the late 1960s, which was the period when second-generation survivors were educated.[15] At the least, this absence yielded students unequipped to deal with religious challenges they might encounter. However, for students who faced profound questions and theological contradictions in their own lives, this lack was resounding and profound.
As second-generation survivors, we experienced acute dissonance in the ethics classes we endured in high school. Although theology was not addressed directly, a “proper” concept of God was clearly intended to be internalized in the course of our education.[16] Values were taught as a form of Godliness, in accordance with the principle of imitatio dei (the imitation of God), by citing verses that exemplified the positive characteristics of God. For years, it baffled me that none of my classmates ever challenged the selectivity of these characteristics. We were all well versed in the scriptures cited in the Standard Prayer Book, and could enumerate alternate divine attributes that surely would not be idealized as models for our behaviors and traits. Furthermore, as a second-generation survivor, my immediate associations veered toward the horrific abuse my family had suffered (as we were taught—it was by the ever-present hand of God), and a host of biblical citations in the Prayer Book that championed another side of God’s path.
Unfortunately, the standard of accepted theology in yeshiva tends toward a micromanaging God. While only a few philosophically minded students inevitably become troubled reconciling divine control with the postulate of free will, this radical interpretation of Providence induces acute distress in those who come from a heritage of horrors—Holocaust survivors and their families. If God is posited to micromanage all human history and events, then the Holocaust is clearly not only condoned—but actually perpetrated by God. One can question whether the educational decision of yeshivas to adopt this version of providence made sense when second-generation Holocaust survivor students were cornered into seeing God as actually having perpetrated the Holocaust. [17]

Summary

The yeshiva education system failed second-generation Holocaust survivors by failing to address the theological implications of the Holocaust and by its selective teaching of concepts that preempted religious understanding of the Holocaust by the students. An inadequacy of commission featured the unequivocal presentation of God’s providence manifesting total causality for all human actions, which inevitably engendered negativity toward God by some of these students. Remarkable was the consistent inattention to textual descriptions of God as vengeful and angry, which may have been useful to the students in their coming to grips with a Jewish perspective of the heritage of suffering and injustice they were born into. To a child who was raised in the shadow of the death camps, God’s role during the Holocaust resonated with the censored “unkind” references to God in the scriptures. Many second-generation Holocaust survivors thus emerged from their educational experience with de-synthesized views of God, which yielded unwholesome religious functioning.

References

Ainsworth, M. D. S., & Bowlby, J. (1991). An ethological approach to personality development. American Psychologist, 46, 331–341.

Bell, M. (1991). An Introduction to the Bell Object Relations and Reality Testing Inventory. Los Angeles, CA: Western Psychological Services.

Besdin, A. R. (1993). Reflections of the Rav. Hoboken, NJ: Ktav Pub. Co.

Bleich, B. (1992). Understanding Judaism: The Basics of Deed and Creed. Northvale NJ: Jason Aronson.

Borowitz , E. B. (2014). Rethinking God and Ethics. H. Tirosh-Samuelson and A. W. Hughes (Eds.) Boston: Brill. Quote in “The need for Jewish philosophy,” p. 43.

Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1954). An Object-Relations Theory of Personality. New York: Basic Books.

Freud, S. (1910). Leonardo da Vinci and a memory of his childhood. Standard Edition of the Complete Work of Sigmund Freud, Vol 11. J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.). London: Hogarth 1957, pp. 59–137.

Hall, T. W., & Edwards, K. J. (2002). The Spiritual Assessment Inventory: A theistic model and measure for assessing spiritual development. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41, 341–357.

Juni, S., Katz, B., & Hamburger, M. (1996). Identification with the aggressor vs. turning against the self: An empirical study of turn-of-the-century European Jewish humor. Current Psychology, 14, 313–327.

Juni, S., & Katz, B. (1998). Creative pseudo-reality as a defensive factor in Jewish wit: A dialectical perspective. Journal of Psychology and Judaism, 22, 289–300.

Juni, S., & Katz, B. (2001). Self-effacing wit as a response to oppression: Dynamics in ethnic humor. Journal of General Psychology, 128, 119–142.

Klein, M. (1935). A contribution to the psychogenesis of manic-depressive states. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 16:145–174.

Kernberg, O. F. (1976). Object Relations Theory and Clinical Psychoanalysis. New York: Jason Aronson.

Mahler, M. S. (1963). Thoughts about development and individualism. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 18, 307–324.

Modell, A. H. (1975). A narcissistic defense against affects and the illusion of self-sufficiency. International Journal of Psycho-analysis, 56, 275–282.

Piaget, J., & Inhendler, B. (1966). The Psychology of the Child. New York: Basic Books.

Yitzhaki, S. (1090). Rashi’s commentary on the Bible. In D. Bromberg (Ed. & Trans.), The Great Scriptures [Mikra’ot Gedolot] [Biblia Rabbinica]. Venice: Daniel Bromberg Press.

Notes

[1] There are numerous similar references to God’s benevolence throughout Psalms; e.g., “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalms 34:18);
“Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you (Psalms 50: 15). When I recited these Psalms in the past, I sometimes sensed an inner voice that forced its way into my consciousness with a sardonic rejoinder: Why not tell it to the folks crying out for help in the crammed cattle cars on the way to Auschwitz?
[2] A crucial requisite to developing a trusting relationship with the caregiving parent is to realize that the parent continues to care for the child, and that the parent-child relationship can continue, even when the parent is absent. This reflects the principle of object permanence (Piaget & Inhendler, 1966) as it is accommodated within the general rubric of Attachment Theory (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991). The construct of Hester Panim (Besdin, 1993), represented by “I will hide my face from them; I will see what their end will be…, Deuteronomy 32:20), disrupts the sense of object permanence and mitigates the development of secure attachment with God.
[3] It should be noted that splitting is adaptive in early childhood but becomes more problematic if it is not gradually abandoned in favor of a synthetic understanding of others. I offer the following familial illustration of de-synthesis in normal development: My wife and I were exploring with our boys (a third and fifth grader, respectively) how they felt when we used to leave them in earlier years in the care of au pairs while we were off at work. When I asked specifically about Jeanine (a young woman who had worked with us for a number of years), both children spoke up simultaneously, asking “Which one?” It emerged that this imaginative young lady apparently had an effective method of dealing with child discipline. When the children misbehaved, she would announce that she was leaving, and that Mean Jeanine would be coming instead; she would then say Goodbye and leave the house. Moments later, the bell would ring, and Mean Jeanine—wearing her cap backwards and speaking in a high pitched voice—would appear. The children remembered Mean Jeanine as a no-nonsense woman who was a strict disciplinarian. In fact, Jeanine (the kinder version) would often warn the children not to push limits, because she would only take “so much” before she would get Mean Jeanine to take over. It was fascinating to watch the amazement of these two, rather intelligent and usually insightful youngsters, as reality dawned upon them. “You mean to say that there was only one Jeanine?!” the eleven-year-old exclaimed? “Wow, she really had us fooled,” was the reaction of the nine-year-old.”
It is posited that in situations where the children were actively encouraged to view a caregiver as consisting of two different caregivers, de-synthesis would remain a feature of object relations for some time. If, for example, a mother would inadvisably “explain” to the child that there are actually two mothers—a good mother and a bad mother—and that their personalities are separate and distinct from each other, that the child would have a hard time synthesizing the two significantly beyond the age (where part objects are typically united into realistic object representations). Similarly, in terms of Theistic Object Relations, it is suggested that the “theological diet,” where two distinct God personas (a kind God vs. a vindictive God) are used differentially in daily lessons, prayer, and liturgy, militates against their synthesis into a unified object representation of God.
[4] Those of us who have a considerable patient population of Holocaust survivors have been referring informally to the stance of coming to terms with irreconcilable God aspects as Theological Schizophrenia.
[5] Splitting of God into kind and vicious entities was reinforced, for us, by the references
in scripture and prayers to Satan as a separate force. For example: the first two chapters of Job, for example, quote interchanges between God and Satan; in the quintessential prayer of the cantor on Yom Kippur (Hineni), there is a direct plea to God to banish Satan from impeding with the prayers.
[6] While the dynamic relationship with God is also emphasized in Fundamental Christianity, the author has found in his work with patients that the construct is far more entrenched in the formative psyche of individuals raised in the Orthodox Jewish milieu.
[7] This view of development is the basis of modern day conceptualization of interpersonal relationships. It conceptualization represents the confluence of Attachment Theory and Object Relations Theory (Bell, 1991; Bowlby, 1969; Fairbairn; 1954; Kernberg, 1976; Mahler, 1963; Modell, 1975).
[8] This reflects the general understanding of the development of interpersonal relations as formulated in Object Relations Theory.
[9] Developmental theorists have argued that—for religious people—an entire facet of the developing ego becomes devoted to a template of man-God relationship which is an intrinsic to personality structure as interpersonal (Hall and Edwards, 2002). In our work with religious patients who are conflicted about their relationships with God, we coined the term Theistic Object Relations to elaborate the contradictory valences of trust and fear that typify the developmental process of religious identity formation, as it parallels the development of secure interpersonal attachments in general Object Relations Theory.
[10] E.g., “God is jealous, and the Lord revenges; the Lord revenges, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserves wrath for his enemies (Nahum 1:2).
[11] I have met many survivors who became non-observant due to their Holocaust
experiences, but still showed strong beliefs in, and relationships with, God.
[12] See http://chinuchathome.info/index.php/Homeschool/Curriculum/Limudei-Kodesh- Curriculum.html.
[13] See http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/yeshiva/The_yeshiva_before_1800
[14] See, for example, the high school curriculum of a current American yeshiva high school that champions talmudic proficiency and personal ethics (http://ftiyeshiva.org/education/judiac-studies-curriculum/).
[15] Particularly egregious for second-generation survivors was the explicit sanction we often heard about some questions which may not be asked, where children’s requests for explanation were viewed as heretical and subversive in nature. Subsequently, however, some schools did begin to include opportunities for students to have discussions with staff about Hashkafah (a construct that can encompass theological ideas), as exemplified in http://www.ohryisrael.com/curriculum/.
[16] The crucial need for theological input in the religious education of second-generation survivors is particularly crucial from the perspective of Developmental Theory. Using this lens, children gradually transfer (with understandable modifications) aspects of their naive image of reliable all-powerful parents (or father, in traditional cultures) to a developing image of a reliable all-powerful God (Freud, 1910). Many children of survivors, however, attribute weakness and frailty—and often incompetence—to their parents, and certainly do not see them as supports to be relied upon under duress. The assimilation or internalization of God as a source of strength and stability in second-generation survivors is therefore totally dependent on the educational institution.
[17] It is suggested that dissonance may have been minimized had we been indoctrinated with the idea that God’s ways are mysterious and unfathomable. I would argue that such a position would have little traction for young adults who are intent on clear formulations of God’s role in negative world events rather than a seemingly vague deflection of God’s accountability (or even culpability).

Change is necessary

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks published “Lessons in Leadership” in 2015. Professor Ronald Heifetz who wrote the Forward points out that the rabbi is stressing that people of all religions and cultures should not sit passively and rely on the decisions of authorities and even God, and that Sacks encourages “a change of people’s attitude, values, and behavior.” This requires thought, action, and perseverance. “One has to sift through what to keep (as part of their lives), what to discard and which innovations will enable (them) to survive.” Progress “demands not just someone who provides answers from on high, but changes …. As Sacks put it… (we need to) become God’s partner in the ongoing work of creation.” God, or we might say the Torah, also changes. “Sacks suggests that since the partnership between God and humankind is real, perspectives flow both ways. Deliberation takes place – top down, bottom up. God (wants us to change and) changes the (divine) plan based on dialogue (between humans and the divine). We must learn to listen; God listens too.”

Jonathan Sacks is one of the great leaders of Jewry today. He served as Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregation and the Commonwealth for twenty-two years from 1991 until 2013. While this recent book focuses on the lessons that each of the 54 biblical portions teach about leadership, he writes that he is speaking about a general ongoing approach to life. He speaks of all kinds of leaders, of countries, communities, families, parents, as well as leadership of one’s personal life, becoming what the Torah wants individuals to become. “The Lord may be our shepherd, but no Jew was ever a sheep.” He writes: “Applying inflexible rules to a constantly shifting political landscape destroys societies,” and to do so in our personal lives, destroys our lives and makes it impossible to be all that we can be. He notes that “the Torah does not contain a word that means “obey” because blind obedience is not a virtue in Judaism.”

Maimonides

This stress on change and not authority may appear to be an improper view, especially of a religious leader. But the wisest Jew Maimonides said the same thing in the twelfth century. He wrote that this is why God placed eyes in front of our faces, not in back. While the term “tradition” is used frequently in discussions about Jewish values and practices usually in a praiseworthy fashion, Maimonides warns us to be skeptical of traditions, no matter what their source and no matter how many people insist that the tradition is correct. He writes in his Commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates that people must test all traditions, whether they are medical treatments taught by the famed physicians Hippocrates (c.460-c.370 BCE) and Galen (129-c.200 CE) or Jewish values by learned rabbis, and examine whether these traditions are logical, help improve people and society, and conform to science. No one would rely on medical advice that is over two thousand years old without examining modern scientific findings; other traditions are no different.

Reliance on God is wrong

Sacks warns us not to “leave everything to divine intervention…. It is not what God does for us that changes the human situation. It is what we do for God.” People need leaders, who are “unafraid to face the challenges of today and build for tomorrow instead of, as so often happens, fighting the battles of yesterday.” One cannot rely on yesterday’s decision; “no two generations are alike.”

We dare not sit passively while alive and seek God in a realm beyond life. We must seek God in life and in how we live. God gave us a mind, a body, and society, and we must treasure them and constantly seek to improve them. We are not defined by what happens to us but by how we respond to what happens to us.

What do the Bible and others say?

The failure of leadership, whether of others or of oneself results from a failure to act, “Judaism is God’s call to human responsibility.” According to the Bible commentator Rashi to Genesis 6:9, God whispered to the patriarch Abraham, “Don’t wait for me. Go on ahead.” When God called out to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, after they ate the forbidden fruit, “Where are you,” it was a call “not directed only to the first humans. It echoes in every generation.” Righteousness is not leadership.” True leaders have “the courage not to conform…. They have a vision (of the future), not what is, but what might be. They think outside the box. They march to a different tune…. Dead fish go with the flow. Live fish swim against the current.”

Rather than repeating ancient mistakes, following the traditional practices of old, people need to change. Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, said, “since the world never stops for a moment, and the pattern of power changes like the movement of a kaleidoscope, you must constantly reassess chosen policies towards the achievement of your aims.” The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote that his aim in philosophy is “to show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.” Sacks explained: “The fly is trapped in the bottle. It searches for a way out. Repeatedly it bangs its head against the glass until at last, exhausted, it dies. Yet the bottle has been open all the time. The one thing the fly forgets to do is to look up. So, sometimes, do we.”

“Why did God call on Abraham to challenge Him (regarding God’s decision to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18)? Was there anything Abraham knew that God did not know? The idea is absurd. The answer is surely this: Abraham was to become the role model and initiator of a new faith, one that would not defend the human status quo but challenge it.” Exceptional as many societies were, one of the most remarkable phenomena in history is that, according to the Torah, God chose the very people who challenge heaven itself.

“What is it that made Jacob – not Abraham or Isaac or Moses – the true father of the Jewish people?” Jews are called “Children of Israel,” one of Jacob’s names. Because more than the others, Jacob faced repeated crises, stumbled at times, and suffered. “But Jacob endured and persisted…. To try, to fall, to fear, and yet keep going: that is what it takes” to grow.” Winston Churchill wrote: “success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” The Lubavitcher Rebbe said, we need to recognize that a descent can lead to an ascent.

Women

Unlike many of his Orthodox rabbinic contemporaries, Jonathan Sacks emphasizes that women should, like men, be leaders, not just acquiescent wives. The Torah teaches that there were “six courageous women without whom there would not have been a Moses”: Moses’ mother, his sister, two midwives, Moses’ wife, and Pharaoh’s daughter who adopted Moses. Four of these women were not Abraham’s descendants. Leviticus Rabba 1:3 states that Pharaoh’s daughter acted so well “that (she, among nine others) entered paradise in their lifetime.” There were also seven female prophetesses: Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah, and Esther (Megilla 14a) and great female Torah scholars “from the Mishnaic period (Beruriah, Ima Shalom) until today.” Without women there would have been no Moses and no Abrahamic faiths. Women changed the world in the past and should do so today.

This is a great book that opens the mind and frees individuals from improper stultifying traditions. It is filled with wisdom, and generally contains more than one wise statement on every page that encourages us how to live.

June 26th, 2015, marked the triumph of the LGBT community over political detractors in a drawn-out battle for social liberty. This victory was ushered in by what is arguably one of the most consequential decisions of social reform since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Constitutional right to same-sex marriage. As a 23-year-old observant Jew living in the United States, this ruling has deep ideological implications. A profound paradigmatic conflict has risen to the surface. Torn between two opposing philosophical perspectives, I have become the generational victim of a cognitive dissonance that I cannot simply slough off, and in the absence of an existential ecdysis, I am forced to confront the discord of my beliefs.

As a member of the global community, I support the inherent human right of two consenting adults to concretize a union based on mutual love, unfettered by restrictions imposed by political, legislative, or religious institutions. However, as a member of the observant Jewish community, I fundamentally believe in the restriction of this union, purely on the basis of my acceptance of the didactic value of the Torah. I suspect I am not alone in experiencing this clash of cultural perspectives. This is a dilemma that affects many individuals in the Jewish community; individuals who are caught at the cusp of two conflicting moral codes; one delivered from the firm hands of tradition, and the other by the soft voice of modern culture. This dissonance is by no means a novel phenomenon. In fact, it is a struggle that we as Jews have historically faced throughout the millennia. It involves the challenge of finding equilibrium between modernity and tradition, between progressivism and halakha.

The very perpetuity of this challenge is a testament to our inability to fully and finally address it. Can the observant Jewish community once and for all reconcile modern-day values with its traditional moral standards? How can we, as a constantly evolving Jewish nation, synthesize the immutable words of our sages with the unrelenting force of social reform? In recent years, it seems the chasm between conventional religious wisdom and modern ideology has expanded into a yawning crevasse. This makes the effort to justify traditional Torah values in an ever-changing Western society increasingly difficult. Now, more than ever, it is important that we hold our beliefs at arm’s length and assess them with all the intellectual honesty and objectivity that our age-old value system deserves.

The rift between modern-day values and traditional Jewish beliefs might be far greater than we tend to think. The problem is exemplified by a certain mentality that many modern Jews have adopted. This “pseudo-modernist” worldview is one of shortsightedness that ignores the fundamental issues inherent in seeking harmony between modern and traditional beliefs. In what seems like a desperate effort to find favor in the public eye, pseudo-modernists subscribe to simplistic, short-term solutions to the problem of philosophical dissonance and often skirt tremendous ideological issues that deserve much deeper attention than they are given.

One example of this evasive approach to reconciling philosophical discord pertains to the aforementioned ruling in favor of same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court’s decision to sanction same-sex marriage under the Constitution spurred a great deal of unrest within the more right-leaning national community. In an effort to quell this vexation, some Jewish thinkers have championed a modern, and somewhat disingenuous, interpretation of the biblical restriction against homosexuality.

The interpretation to which I refer is based on the existence of two different types of biblical commandments: hukim and mishpatim. Mishpatim are rational laws that are based on clear moral or practical reasoning. These laws include refraining from stealing, murder, and other antisocial acts. Hukim, on the other hand, are laws that transcend rationality. The genealogy of hukim remains hidden from human understanding.[1] Classic examples of hukim are the laws pertaining to the red heifer (parah adumah) and dietary laws (kashrut). It has recently been suggested that the prohibition against homosexuality is mentioned in the Torah as a hok (singular form of hukim), i.e., to be viewed as a law for which there is no clear moral reasoning presented in the Torah. However, even a cursory glance at the placement and presentation of the Torah prohibition against homosexuality reveals that it is likely not intended to be a hok. It is included among laws against incest, bestiality, and adultery, all of which seem to have clear moral implications. In fact, the inclusion of homosexuality among other capital offenses speaks directly to its status as a morally reprehensible act according to Jewish law. It is a tremendous feat of intellectual self-deception to claim that the Torah presents the restriction against homosexuality as a hok. This type of elusive rhetoric in religious apologetics is found all too frequently today, and it is representative of the disingenuous form of modernism mentioned above.[2]

Pseudo-modernists hope that these tenuous resolutions will endear the disenfranchised and stave off criticisms against traditional Judaism until, one day, Torah values find their home at the forefront of moral philosophy. It is a perspective that touts progressive thinking and denies deeply rooted fundamentalism. Its adherents blindly follow the crowd of progressive thinkers, while holding a philosophical compass that is pointing in the opposite direction. These individuals ignore the fact that, if their position was followed to its logical conclusion, he or she would be exposed for the traditionalist ideologue that popular culture so vehemently condemns. There will inevitably be a point at which the philosophical synthesis they boast will not be sustainable, and a deep divergence will emerge.

So where is this point of divergence? Let us begin with what is possibly the most fundamental divergence, which is political. I do not mean right-wing versus left-wing or liberal versus conservative; these views are far too reductionist (and oversimplify political issues that are vastly more complex than either side acknowledges). Rather, I am asking whether we, as observant Jews, believe in a Constitutional democracy or a biblical theocracy? Furthermore, is the biblical theocracy of the Torah one that is in line with the modern-day values held by many observant Jews? To further explore this question, let us consider a few other examples of philosophical dissonance between Torah and modern values. In order to do so, it may be worthwhile to elucidate the implications of a Messianic age according to Jewish tradition.

A quintessential tenet of Judaism is a belief in the coming of the Messiah. So essential is this belief, in fact, that it is included among the Thirteen Principles of Faith outlined by the Rambam (Maimonides). The relevance of a Messianic age to our conversation is in its far-reaching political implications and its focus, according to Maimonides and many other commentaries, on a restoration of the full scope of Torah observance (much of which is not currently applicable, in the absence of a Temple in Jerusalem and a theocratic Torah-based dominion in Israel). According to many of our sages, the time of Messiah will be an era that ushers in enlightenment, peace, and a restoration of Torah governance to the world. Based on this view, the reinstatement of Torah law is of cardinal importance to the culmination of the Messianic age. The Rambam writes in chapter eleven of Hilkhot Melakhim in his Mishneh Torah,

The Messianic King will arise in the future and restore the Davidic Kingdom to its former state and original sovereignty. He will build the Sanctuary and gather the dispersed of Israel. All the laws will be re-instituted in his days as they had been before; sacrifices will be offered, and the Sabbatical years and Jubilee years will be observed fully as ordained by the Torah.[3]

In the abstract, and in our time, there is little need to acknowledge the disparity or dissonance between our Messianic vision and contemporary reality. A modern, observant Jew can comfortably believe in a Messianic time and maintain his or her current conceptions of Western morality and democracy—that is until the time of the Messiah actually arrives. The real clash arises in exploring the implications of re-installing a Torah government in the state of Israel and in the world. A Torah-based government is essentially theocratic. The laws have been divinely ordained and are upheld by the Sanhedrin, who are the mandated legal body and earthly arbiters of divine law. This means that observant Jews are fundamentally theocratic, as well. If we explore the various laws of a Torah-based theocracy, we begin to run into a series of ideological and legal principles that seem patently undemocratic and clash with our modern conceptions of morality and social justice.

Let us take, for instance, the laws of Shabbat observance. Many observant Jews relish learning the intricacies and complexities of the laws pertaining to Shabbat. However, seldom do we consider the talmudic law in any realm other than the abstract. I introduced the idea of a Messianic age to illustrate that we cannot simply look at these laws in the abstract, since we as a Jewish community are ultimately expected to reestablish Torah law in the time of the Messiah. Let’s compare the more comprehensive dictates of the Torah to our modern-day values and think critically about what we believe. In Jewish law, as transmitted by the Torah and elaborated upon in talmudic texts, the desecration of Shabbat is punishable by death. Many modern-day rabbis reassure us that the circumstances under which one might receive the death penalty upon breaking Shabbat are very limited. In fact, there is a discussion in the Talmud regarding the frequency of capital punishment in general, stating that a Sanhedrin that carried out even one death penalty in seven or 70 years, depending on the opinion, was considered “a bloody Sanhedrin.”[4]

This is certainly reassuring, assuming the death penalty is a legitimate reaction to the desecration of Shabbat. But why assume that the death penalty is a justifiable response to the violation of Shabbat at all? Is it reasonable to believe that such a legal stipulation should be reinstated, even if under such rarely occurring circumstances? The rarity of such a penalty perhaps minimizes, but does not eliminate, the issue. Even the restrictions on the application of capital punishment imposed by the rabbis fall short of reconciling the underlying contradiction with modern social norms. This legal stipulation raises a whole catalogue of questions. Would a re-instituted Sanhedrin have the power to further attenuate the severity of such a punishment in response to Shabbat, if not abolish it altogether, or is this an inexorable component of halakhic legislation? How are we expected to take this law, which is stated explicitly in the Torah, and understand it through the lens of a modern Constitutional Democracy and Western moral standards? And, most importantly, could we ever conceive of a time in the future in which this law is reinstated? By today’s standards, this law would be considered draconian and unconscionable. To punish someone who has broken Shabbat by death is a radical departure from our modern-day conception of moral thinking.

This is not the only example of unsettling applications of capital punishment under biblical Jewish law. Another classic example of a violation of the Torah for which one is expected to receive the death penalty is idolatry. In theory, this means that a Jew under a Torah inspired government who experiences a religious transformation and is convinced of the legitimacy of a human god, for instance, is liable to receive the death penalty under certain legal circumstances. Again, I reiterate that the rabbinic authorities of the Mishnah seemed resistant to the very notion of capital punishment as a whole. For this reason, the rabbis of the Mishnah went to great lengths to limit the application of capital punishment, or believed that the law was intended to be interpreted quite differently than it is presented in the text. There are a number of barriers placed by our sages in tractate Sanhedrin between the applicable crime and the execution of capital punishment. First, there have to be two witnesses, who need to fit a very specific legal criteria of competence and objectivity (which happens to include being a male, another point of contention with modern-day beliefs). They need to have warned the guilty party of the consequences of committing the crime, and the guilty party must have committed the offense immediately following the warning.[5] Again, despite the restrictive parameters placed on the practice of capital punishment, the death penalty imposed by the Torah seems grossly disproportionate to the offense.

We do not need to envisage a Messianic age in order to bring light to the chasm between modern-day beliefs and Torah values. There are many other examples in the Torah of divine mandates and laws that directly conflict with egalitarian and humanistic ideals advanced in Western society. One such example comes from Parashat Matot with regard to vows taken by women. The Parashah discusses the legality of vows and oaths in general, as well as the circumstances under which a vow may be annulled. Oaths taken by a woman are expressly limited to the authority of the men in her immediate life. While a woman retains the right to make a vow, it is at the discretion of her husband or father whether the oath will be legally effective. Over the years I have heard many attempts to rationalize what seems to be patent sexism in the Torah and elsewhere in Judaic literature. However, there is clearly an issue of denying a basic human right based on gender alone.

It seems that an air of misogyny looms over the entire narrative of the Torah, specifically the legal discussions therein. From the sexuality of a woman to her marital status, the Torah often contextualizes women within the parameters of property rights. In fact, one of the Asseret haDiberot, or Ten Commandments, is specifically addressed to men in stating that they may not covet their neighbor's house, wife, manservant, maidservant, ox, donkey, or any other of the neighbor’s belongings.[6] Note the striking placement of the neighbor’s wife after the house in a list of his property. The fact that the manservant is also listed as property does not detract from the patent androcentricity of this excerpt. Even the use of grammatical markers in the Torah most often identifies God in the masculine grammatical form, thus promoting a male-oriented worldview.

Last, I would like to discuss what I believe may be the most glaring example of discordance between contemporary ethical thinking and the values championed by the Torah; the conquest of the land of Canaan. In order to explain this dilemma, I will briefly turn to an eye-opening study on Israeli school children conducted by sociologist George Tamarin in 1963. The study that Professor Tamarin conducted—which ultimately cost him his chair at Tel Aviv University—goes as follows: Two groups of Israeli school children were told to read two separate stories of conquest; one group was given the story of Joshua at the city of Jericho, and the other of General Lin, who established the Chinese Kingdom some 3,000 years ago. The two stories were chosen because the features of both are almost identical. In both stories a leader is impelled by God—for General Lin the Chinese god of war—to conquer a land and annihilate its unbelieving inhabitants. Both groups of school children were asked to assess the moral judgement of the characters in the story they had been told, and, despite the stories similarities, the responses of the school children were quite dissimilar. For the story of Joshua at the gates of Jericho, about 60 percent of the school children agreed that the plan implemented to overtake the city was justified. However, for the story of General Lin, about 75 percent of students disapproved of the conquest. [7] The controversy that Tamarin’s study engendered speaks to a whole constellation of psychological phenomena; the categorization of groups of people, the human propensity to draw moralistic lines, and endemic biases that stem from cultural pressures. But most importantly, this study puts two fundamental beliefs in conflict.

As Jews, we believe strongly in a God of Israel and in the historical, religious, and spiritual importance of a national home. However, as a nation that has been the victim of pogroms, historical democides, and the Holocaust, we bear a deep sensitivity to the concept of a mass execution of an entire people. For this reason, we must be mindful that there are places within the Tanakh that feature divinely mandated national exterminations. Events of this nature, as recorded in our religious history, demand our attention, even if they are beyond our powers of understanding.

In 1944, the term genocide was coined by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in a report on Nazi Germany that would later contribute to the prosecution of Nazi’s at the Nuremberg Trials. In 1948, Lemkin influenced the United Nations to approve a Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which recognized genocide as a crime for the first time in history.[8] The past century features some of the most cataclysmic acts of horror perpetrated against humanity; from the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, democides carried out by the Soviet Union and China, to genocides in Bangladesh and Rwanda. More deaths were racked up in the twentieth century than any other epoch of human history. Professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii, Rudolph Rummel, puts the estimate at about 262 million in the twentieth century alone.[9] As a result, the global community has gained a disconcerting insight into the destructive capabilities of humanity. This newly acquired sensitivity forces us to assess our history as a nation and as a people. The conquest of the land of Canaan is replete with instances of communal exterminations. Time and again the Jewish people are commanded to leave no trace of a civilization in cities they overtook. In the book of Joshua, Achan was stoned to death for salvaging any remains of the city of Jericho upon its siege and destruction.[10] The same is true when Shaul spared King Agag. [11]

Of course, there is no better justification for these events than that they were commanded by God. But this is a post-hoc rationale that belies the implications of an explicit commandment to wipe out an entire nation; from its women and children, all the way to its livestock. Today, we would call this course of action “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing,” and there is no amount of equivocation that could justify such atrocities. Is it good enough to say that God commanded it? Can this excuse allow us to brush off the ashen debris of countless forgotten civilizations and turn a blind eye to history?

Over the centuries, the global evolution of moral philosophy has forced us to reassess parochial notions of mass extermination. The commandment in book one of Samuel to “utterly destroy” the nation of Amalek has been reinterpreted and stripped of its historical teeth by biblical commentaries and thinkers such as the Rambam. [12] Maimonides interprets the commandment allegorically, stating that we are compelled as a nation to extricate the nature of Amalek from humanity.[13] However, one is forced to ask whether this is a modification of the original commandment in light of our inability to identify individual members of the nation of Amalek, making it an alteration based on convenience as opposed to ethics.

The trend of attenuating fire and brimstone moral philosophies of the Torah is not restricted to the case of destroying Amalek. In addition to the aforementioned cases, namely Amalek and various instances of capital punishment, there are many laws mitigated by rabbinic authorities of talmudic literature. One of the best-known instances of this mitigation is the case of the “ben sorer umoreh,” or “the wayward son,” mentioned in Parashat Ki Tetzei in the Torah. The case of the ben sorer umoreh is an adolescent that is so refractory, the court of the city ratifies his public execution. At face value, the resulting law might implicate a good number of teenagers today. However, the interpretive acrobatics performed by the legal authorities in tractate Sanhedrin make it almost impossible to identify an example of such an adolescent. The Sages limit the application of ben sorer umoreh to such an extent that it is understood purely as a theoretical case from which we may derive homiletic value alone. The circumstances necessary for someone to be categorized as a ben sorer umoreh are so numerous and obscure that it leaves the realm of the possible and enters the realm of the mythological. In order for someone to be considered a ben sorer umoreh the child must commit a certain set of crimes within a specific duration of time, he must be warned multiple times by both parents using the same words, and it must be approved by a governing body.[14]

These instances of rabbinic mitigation display the dynamism of Jewish law and practice. Moreover, they are a demonstration of the great interpretative power granted to the Sages by the Torah.[15] Rabbinic exegesis is encoded into the very DNA of the Pentateuchal genome. Arguably the most fundamental component of Jewish law is human interpretation. Dr. Jose Faur, a prolific writer and Professor of Law at Netanya Academic College in Israel, articulates this point in his essay Law and Hermeneutics in Rabbinic Jurisprudence: A Maimonidean Perspective:

Indeed, Judaism owes its very existence to exegesis. Through exegesis, Judaism was able to grow and develop in the most adverse and diverse circumstances, without having to lose its connection with Scripture...there is purposeful ambiguity in the Law designed to allow for adaptability and development. [16]

The Talmud relates a famous allegory in which Rabbi Eliezer opposed a position held by the majority of other Sages. Rabbi Eliezer attempts to assert the validity of his own position by invoking miraculous events as a form of divine evidence. Despite Rabbi Eliezer’s invocations being met with heavenly approbation, the opposing Sages remained assiduous in their position. Rabbi Yehoshua responded to Rabbi Eliezer’s dissent by saying that the ruling was “not in heaven.” [17] Rabbi Yirmiyahu, a second-generation Babylonian scholar, provides an explanation for this story, stating that we no longer rely on divine providence in order to understand the Torah. Instead, halakha is determined by the majority opinion.[18] The culture fostered by our sages is one that is contingent on the human faculty of interpretation and reason. This is what allows for the fluidity of biblical interpretation, legislation, and the evolution of halakhic practice.

As cultural circumstances change, our Sages are granted the power to deviate from the strict letter of the Law in order to satisfy an evolving social and cultural perspective. An example of this is the Torah principle of ayin tahat ayin, or “an eye for an eye,” which the Sages interpreted to mean monetary compensation.[19] This reframing of the classic notion of ayin tahat ayin reflects a changing moral code that renders certain biblical injunctions incompatible with changing beliefs.[20] Built into the very system of Jewish law is a level of philosophical and legal adaptability that accounts for large-scale cultural shifts. In light of the capacity for the Jewish system of exegesis to accommodate these shifts, it seems reasonable to believe that we can always meet the demands of an ever-changing moral environment. Even the 13 rules of hermeneutics outlined in the Talmud itself are broad enough to allow for a whole spectrum of interpretations and semantic connections.[21]

It seems that the Torah has granted our sages an almost infinitely wide berth for scriptural interpretation. However, this raises an issue that is important to consider. Based on the precedence of rabbinic interpretation as a source for understanding biblical texts, Judaism today has become almost unrecognizable as an extension of its Torah origins. Should we be concerned that rabbinic law has taken on a life of its own, far beyond the Scripture from which it was formed?

Let us consider the broader issue of the factors involved in scriptural hermeneutics. Although the following is conjecture, it is a sound basis for understanding the process of interpretation in general. Often times a commentator will identify an inconsistency emerging from external information that stands in conflict with statements presented in the Torah. The commentator is then faced with the challenge of reconciling contravening pieces of information. This means one of three courses of action: 1) reinterpret the biblical statement in order to align it with the external information; 2) reject the external information and preserve the initial interpretation of the Torah; or 3) investigate further in order to find additional information that eliminates the contradiction altogether. In the absence of additional information, our Sages are typically left with the first two choices. Additionally the often indisputable nature of the external information compels us to accept their implications. As we have seen, many commentators are forced to reinterpret Scripture. Note that I have excluded the option of rejecting Scripture, since rendering biblical text null and void as a function of interpretation is one of the few limitations of biblical hermeneutics.[22]

An example to illustrate the foregoing point comes from the Rambam, who opines that the six days of creation described in Genesis do not represent six calendar days, based on the irreconcilability of this information with astrophysical evidence.[23] To an Orthodox Jew, this might seem like a viable approach to many seemingly flagrant deviations from natural law mentioned in the Torah. However, to the unfamiliar, but capable, lay-reader, this statement seems more like an attempt at whitewashing inconsistencies in ancient, sacred texts.

If our Sages can tamper with the word of God wherever it does not reflect demonstrable, conventional wisdom, one might be led to the conclusion that this dampens the authenticity of scriptural texts. Some might attempt to rationalize these instances of contradiction by saying that the Torah did not intend for these contravening statements to be interpreted literally, that they are rather intended to be interpreted metaphorically. This position, however, assumes that we can know the intent of the Author; that an underlying principle is being communicated via metaphorical representations. How can anyone claim to know the intentions of God, let alone discern between statements that are intended to be taken literally and metaphorically? As Dr. Faur notes, and other scholars agree, this is a patently un-rabbinic approach. Rabbinic interpretation is unconcerned with ‘uncovering’ the word of God, so to speak. Rabbinic hermeneutics is concerned with drawing contextual connections, which give the text interpretational flexibility. In his essay, Dr. Faur refers to this approach as the “stoic” exegesis found in Jewish literature, which assumes knowledge based on interpretation, as opposed to the “platonic” form of exegesis found in Christian literature, which assumes an ideal that is to be uncovered.[24]

This statement has far reaching implications. We, as Jews, view the Torah as a contractual agreement between two parties. Like any legal document, the stipulations contained therein are subject to interpretation. As is true in any contract, one cannot infer the intention of either party, only interpret what is expressly communicated from one party to the other. This, on a fundamental level, reflects the nature of all communication, interaction, and relationships. As subjective beings, we can do no more than interpret the world around us. The many dimensions that constitute our physical, psychological, and spiritual existence limit us to one locus of perception, beyond which we cannot extend our knowledge. To uncover would imply the ability to remove the curtain between one being and another, and this is fundamentally impossible. Therefore, the Torah was delivered with the built-in assumption that its principles are to be interpreted, not uncovered. It seems that to Rabbi Nathan Lopez Cardozo, this is what is meant by the talmudic dictum “Elu ve-elu divre Elo-him hayim”—“these and those are the words of the living God.” [25] As Rabbi Cardozo writes in his article On the Nature of Future Halakha in Relation to Autonomous Religiosity, “Each person receives the Torah individually, according to his or her own personality and exceptional circumstances.” [26] The subjectivity of the Torah is undeniable. The Torah, and the statutes contained therein, are as fluid as they are inviolable, molding to the cultural and historical context in which they are expressed, colored by the lens through which they are seen, and understood by each and every mind independently. The continuity of the Torah is a function of its adaptive and fluid nature.

So what about issues of today? Can we no longer make interpretive inroads in order to address contemporary philosophical and moral questions? It seems as though today we have run up against certain unbridgeable gaps. But why must we draw the line here? Despite the immense interpretive power that we have been granted, there are limitations. One such limitation is our inability to reject statements in the Torah, and there are certain implications carried by biblical assertions that no level of exegetical savvy can ignore. Calling the restriction against homosexuality a hok might assuage our Western conscience, but one would be hard-pressed to find that apologetics such as this do much more than act as a moralistic balm. Rather, the right response to such dissonance is to acknowledge the conflict and accept the facts on the ground. I am inspired by rabbinic leaders who demonstrate an appreciation for the gravity of the issues the Jewish community faces today, while displaying tremendous intellectual honesty. I recall sitting in on the class of a rabbi, for whom I have particularly great respect, and hearing his response to a similar question posed by a student about the struggle of the religious, gay community. He didn’t seem to feel the urge to jump through fiery interpretive hoops and walk an apologetic tightrope to save face. Instead, he gave an honest, simple answer. He made it abundantly clear that the Torah, for whatever unknown reason, moral or otherwise, prohibits homosexuality. He then explained that he nevertheless profoundly admired the courage it takes to adhere to religious authority, despite these Jews harboring a deeply human desire for an intimacy that cannot be realized. And this is truly all that can be said. The negative commandment against homosexuality may be built on moral grounds or it may not be. It might be that our modern Western moral intuitions are simply not in line with the ethical principles presented in the Torah, and we may need to simply accept this. It may even be that to view the Torah through a moral lens at all might be illusory, and we must be prepared to accept this, as well.

Although observant Jews may be obligated to accept these principles and injunctions, it is equally as important that we understand the basis of our acceptance. This is the “nishma” in the classic biblical dictum “na’aseh venishma”—“we will do and we will listen” (Exodus, 24:7). I have heard the notion expressed on many occasions that Judaism is a religion of deed not creed. However, we cannot deny that there are fundamental principles upon which we base our lives that deserve to be explored. In this article I attempted to cast many of these fundamental principles into doubt. In so doing, many questions were raised, and many questions remain unanswered. I do not claim the authority to speak decisively or conclusively on any of the issues touched upon in this article. All I can do is raise what I believe are legitimate inquiries about my own religious ideals. The intention of this piece is not to rabble-rouse, but to urge readers to think more objectively about their beliefs. In recent years, I have been exposed to a battery of anti-religious sentiments in literature, social media, and elsewhere. Prominent scholars such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and others have become increasingly vocal about their distaste for religion and the damage they believe it has done to the global community. It is an affront to our own creed not to take these criticisms seriously. We must weigh the principles of our beliefs on a balanced, objective scale, and draw honest conclusions about our own ideology, whatever they may be.

Having said that, I derive tremendous hope from the fact that every day I see an increasingly inquisitive and thinking Jewish community. There is no doubt that deeply entrenched biases certainly exist among observant Jews, and many choose not to explore their own beliefs with any considerable level of sophistication and impartiality. However, as a whole, the Jewish community seems to be expanding its circle of acceptance, tolerance, and understanding.
Although the first half of the twentieth century marked a time of cataclysmic tumult and unrest, the global community has since seen an unprecedented shift in moral, philosophical, and social attitudes; the expansion of human understanding; and an exponential rate of technological advancement. The magnitude of these changes in societal currents has drastic implications for the Jewish community, implications that we perhaps cannot fully fathom. Judaism in 20 years may look very different from the Judaism we know today. However, over the course of history, Judaism has been evolving, branching, and blooming into a variegated panoply of rich approaches to religious life. From Hasidut and Modern Orthodoxy to the Reform and Conservative movements, history has given birth to a diverse spectrum of worldviews rooted in the Jewish tradition. To envisage a practicing and observant branch of Judaism that captures the complexity of modern beliefs seems to be in the foreseeable future. Based on some of the sources cited herein, this evolutionary progress would appear to be a hallmark of the Jewish faith and a testimony to the adaptive powers of our ideology. One of the quintessential tenets of Jewish thought is to challenge the very pillars upon which our belief stands. In this way, we are a people that is ever-engaged in the pursuit of truth. Now it seems appropriate to reiterate our original question: Will we ever reconcile modern beliefs with traditional values? Progress will always present us with novel challenges. The dissonance we feel today is part and parcel of change and the initial tension that accompanies it. To imagine the absence of these challenges is to eradicate the possibility of religious and communal growth.

I do not believe we will ever totally reconcile the age-old principles of the Torah with the ever-changing values of the society around us. However, I do believe a thriving and burgeoning Judaism will only come through critical investigation of our worldviews. Although the Observant Jewish community, by definition, accepts a basic Torah-prescribed structure within which it operates, our approach to religious life must henceforth be objective, critical, and honest. This is no easy feat; it may mean abandoning old ways of thinking that contemporary knowledge has rendered obsolete, and expunging biases that have been etched into the stones of our beliefs. We should not shun ideological change, but embrace it. There are those who fear that a paradigm shift may cause Judaism to lose its grounding; that adopting an ideology of progressivism places the citadel of Jewish tradition on a foundation of stirring sand. Rabbi Cardozo poetically notes that “one must never forget that one does not discover new lands by losing sight of the shore from which the journey had begun.”[27] The Jewish people are anchored to an historical narrative, a communal memory, a collective thread of consciousness strung through the members of a nation undivided. We are connected by a line that cannot be severed, and it is the rich tradition and culture of our people that has so effectively contributed to our survival. However, while it is our duty to preserve the liturgy of our people, we must not forgot that it is both our strict adherence to tradition as well as our adaptability to a changing milieu that has allowed us to exist over time. Although we must never lose sight of the shore from which our journey began, it is the glimmering sea of progress that draws our gaze in the direction of the future. In this great ocean, bathed by the radiating light of our individual perspective, an eternal truth awaits. We embark on this journey because an indefatigable desire for understanding is woven into the very fabric of our existence, as a Jewish nation and as individuals. In the words of the renowned scholar and philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel, “We sail because our mind is like a fantastic seashell, and when applying our ear to its lips we hear a perpetual murmur from the waves beyond the shore.”[28]

Notes
[1] Haber, Sender. "Rules and Reasons—Understanding The “Chok”.” TorahLab. N.p., 21 Mar. 2014. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.
[2] Boteach, Shmuley. "Gay Marriage and the End of Days." Observer. N.p., 01 July 2015. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.
[3] Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim, 11:1.
[4] Elon, Menachem. "Encyclopedia Judaica: Capital Punishment." Capital Punishment. The Gale Group, 2008. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.
[5] Sanhedrin 4:5.
[6] Exodus 20:17.
7] Tamarin, Georges R. "The influence of ethnic and religious prejudice on moral judgement." New Outlook 9.1 (1966): 49–58.
[8] Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature (USA: Penguin Books, 2011), 335.
[9] Rummel, R.J. 2002. 20th century democide. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20th.htm.
[10] Joshua 7:26.
[11] 1 Samuel 15:10.
[12] 1 Samuel 15:3.
[13] Moreh Nevukhim, 3:41
[14] Sanhedrin 70a
[15] Deuteronomy 17:8–11
[16] Jose Faur, Law and Hermeneutics in Rabbinic Jurisprudence: A Maimonidean Perspective (USA; The Cardozo Law Review, 1993), 8.
[17] Sanhedrin 59b.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Baba Kama 84a.
[20] Jose Faur, Law and Hermeneutics in Rabbinic Jurisprudence: A Maimonidean Perspective (USA; The Cardozo Law Review, 1993), 9.
[21] Ibid., 10.
[22] Ibid., 11.
[23] Moreh Nevukhim, 2:29.
[24] Faur, 9.
[25] "Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Eruvin." Babylonian Talmud: Eruvin 13. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.
[26] Nathan Lopez Cardozo, On the Nature of Future Halakha in Relation to Autonomous Religiosity (USA, The Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, 2015), 4.
[27] Ibid., 11.
[28] Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion (USA, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1976).

I must admit that I was taken aback when called upon to argue the case of the Bible. It has always seemed patently obvious. The Book of Books has stood the test of time for thousands of years, continuing to inspire multitudes irrespective of race, color or creed.

The inherent universal messages are conveyed with literary artistry and religious sensitivity. Words, the very rubrics of communication, discourse and understanding, contain fugues of meaning and cascades of nuances. Figures of speech dance before readers, igniting intellectual curiosity and evoking creative interpretation. The impressive collection of genres addresses fundamental questions of human existence including prayer, theology, philosophy, ethics, concern for others, and personal development. By confronting challenges, heroes and heroines in the narratives demarcate between good and evil. Whether they succeed or fail their decisions and behavior serve as powerful object lessons.

The Bible, a magnum opus like no other, directs the course of human history and provides the foundation of faith and inspiration for billions. It is both larger than life and a book to live by. It celebrates life and teaches us how to mourn. It fosters wonder and amazement. The Bible welcomes our endless questions and our search for answers. It helps us navigate our individual and collective quests for truth, inviting us to internalize ideas and make them our own. Soren Kierkegaard, in a journal entry encapsulates the significance of this endeavor:

“Truth that matters is truth that edifies for otherwise how near man is to madness in spite all his knowledge. What is truth but to live for an idea?” ( Journals of Kierkegaard (1835), pg. 45)

Professor Shalom Carmy has contributed invaluable insights on the religious directives and goals of Bible study. He provides the bottom line: “The aim of Jewish Tanakh study is to encounter the word of God.” (Shalom Carmy, “Always Connect”,Conversations 15 (Winter,2013), p. 1)

Bible is my passion. I have had the privilege of teaching women Tanakh for 40 years. My area is biblical interpretation, a field which spans thousands of years. Intriguingly, biblical interpretation demonstrates the ability of Scripture to address contemporary issues of relevance, while shedding light upon perspectives which transcend time and place. I have taught in a vast array of contexts from Scotland to Vilna, New York to London, Troyes to Amsterdam, Stockholm to Portland, Moscow to Berkley. Today I teach Tanakh in the city of Jerusalem in Israel --the Land of the Bible. Many of my students, women from diverse cultures and walks of life, have trained as teachers in the Joan and Shael Bellows Graduate Program in Bible and Biblical Interpretation at Matan: The Women’s Institute for Torah Study. I have the ongoing pleasure of seeing the far-reaching ramifications of biblical education, and its awe-inspiring impact on communities, families and individuals.

Of late, women’s interest in exploring and mastering the study of Talmud and halakha has gained momentum. While I applaud advancement in every field, it saddens me to hear people relate to Bible study as “démodé”. Alfred North Whitehead once said that all philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato. In like fashion, the rich legacy of Jewish literature is a series of footnotes to the Bible.

This article is directed to those who cherish Bible. It is for the curious and the scholarly. The challenge for those who teach Bible is to make the Tanakh accessible to all so that its influence radiates through concentric circles and women and men think, live and labor in its light .The enduring essence of the Bible presents a wealth of potentiality. Yet the task is far from simple. Mastering the art of the Bible is a spiritual, intellectual, and experiential endeavor requiring academic rigor, spiritual momentum, boundless creativity and discipline. The experience is a collaborative effort and a personal responsibility.

Professor. Nechama Leibowitz, perhaps the greatest woman Bible teacher of all times, notes in her article "How to Read a Chapter of Bible":

“When contemplating the title of this essay, I realize that it reflects a degree of foolishness, not merely because it is not my place to teach others how to read a chapter of the Bible since the keys to this book were not given to me. Rather, because it is highly doubtful whether any individual can determine for others how to read the book. Each and every individual much delve into their own reading, a reading that is compatible with his singular spirit and her unique soul. For their essence has never before been and will never again be. Therefore, their reading and understanding of the Bible is unique, totally their own, not mimicking anything that has ever been thought before.” ( Lilmod ulilamed Tanakh, 1998, p.1)

The Rabbis portray the challenge of mastering the Torah as difficult even for Moses our teacher:

“R. Abbahu said the entire forty days that Moses spent on high, he learned Torah and forgot it. After forty days he said, ’Master of the Universe, I spent forty days and I know nothing!” What did God do? He gave the Torah to him as a gift.”(Shemot Rabbah 41:6)

Forty years later, in a moving poetic passage in the Book of Deuteronomy (30:11-14) Moses declares the clarity and accessibility of Torah even when it appears beyond our grasp.

“Surely, this Instruction which I enjoin upon you this day
is not too difficult for you, nor is it beyond reach. It is not in
heaven, that you should say, "Who among us can ascend into heaven
and get it for us, and impart it to us, that we may observe it?" Neither
is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who among us can
cross to the other side of the sea and get it for us and impart it to us,
that we may observe it?" No, the thing is very close to you, in your
mouth and in your heart, to perform it.”

In effect, Moses is saying that Torah is not an esoteric teaching intended exclusively for prophets, priests, and scholars. The words “lo bashamayim hi” have generated centuries of discussion about truth, authority, and interpretation. (We will return to that discussion later). Simply stated, the verses neutralize the daunting challenge of learning, 0understanding and upholding Torah - Lo bashamayim hi…ki karov eilecha hadavar meod bficha ublvavcha lasoto . It is not in heaven - No, it is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to perform it.

I would like to suggest that as true as that may be, one can argue the opposite -- ‘kein bashamayim hi’ “it is in Heaven”. The study of Torah is a lofty enterprise, which elevates us heavenward.

The following stories illustrate this interpretation of Moses’ poignant and compelling words and implicitly and explicitly reflect passages from the Book of Books.

On January 16, 2003, Ilan Ramon became the first and only Israeli astronaut to enter outer space. He decided to take several treasured items on the Columbia Space .Shuttle. Among them was a miniature Torah scroll. He explained:
"Being the first Israeli astronaut -- I feel I am representing all Jews and all Israelis. I am the son of Holocaust survivors (his mother and grandmother both survived Auschwitz). I carry the suffering of the Holocaust generation, and I am proof that despite all the horror they went through, we continue to move forward."

The small Torah scroll, merely four and a half inches high, represented a giant step for mankind. It was given on loan to Ilan Ramon by his professor of astrophysics, Yehoyachin Yosef. This Torah scroll had already embarked upon an amazing journey. Rabbi Shimon Dasberg, the chief rabbi of Groningen and Amsterdam, had brought it to Bergen Belsen and used it to prepare Yehoyachin for his Bar Mitzva. Yehoyachin celebrated his Bar Mitzva clandestinely before dawn on Monday March 31, 1944. After the ceremony, Rabbi Dasberg gave the Torah as a gift to Yehoyachin who protested, asking what he would do with a Torah. The Rabbi feared that he himself would not survive the war and requested of the young boy to share its story with the world.
Rabbi Dasberg died in Bergen Belsen. Yehoyachin Yosef was liberated in February 1945. He was 14 years old and weighed 42 lbs. Months later, he was reunited with his family and sailed to Palestine to become part of the a generation of refugees determined to build the Jewish state.

The Torah too survived the war and was kept in a small wooden ark in Yehoyachin’s office. During one of their many meetings, Ilan Ramon inquired as to the ark’s contents. Upon hearing the story, he fell silent and subsequently asked if he could take it into space, thereby illustrating the Bible’s ability to raise humanity from the abyss of despair to the pinnacle of hope. Yehoyachin consented. His family expressed their profound sense of joy in that the Torah had traveled the road to eternity. Yehoyachin exclaimed, ”I never could have imagined that I would be able to uphold my vow to Rabbi Dasberg to such an extent in this world and in worlds beyond.”

On January 2l, 2003, Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut, held the scroll aloft during a live teleconference aboard Space Shuttle Columbia,let it float, then took hold of it again and shared its transcendental message:

"This Torah scroll was given by a rabbi to a young, scared, scrawny, thirteen-year-old boy in Bergen Belsen. It represents more than anything else the ability of the Jewish people to survive and go from periods of darkness to periods of hope and faith in the future."

This moving statement was .Ramon’s testimonial to kein bashamayim hi. For sixteen days he united the Jewish people and made them proud. He could have done it with the Israeli flag or his air force insignia. However, he chose something of universal value, an item of monumental significance, to communicate the message of unity: “We have to find a way to bring our people closer together, to show more patience and understanding," Ramon said.

The tragic end of the Space Shuttle Columbia took place eleven days later. The shuttle disintegrated on its reentry to the Earth’s atmosphere, and Ilan Ramon and the other members of that crew did not return. Neither did the Torah. However, the story does not end there. Physics professor Henry Fenichel heard the news and immediately contacted Rona Ramon. A miniature Torah written by the same scribe had accompanied him throughout his horrific incarceration in Bergen Belsen. Fenichel offered the Torah to Rona Ramon who asked astronaut Steve MacLean to take it with him on Space Shuttle Atlantis, the next shuttle sent by NASA. MacLean’s connection to the Bible stemmed from his Christian upbringing. He wholeheartedly agreed. For him, taking the Torah and returning it safely was completing Ramon’s mission of hope.
. .
As astounding as the survival of the diary pages is, their content is even more remarkable. One page contained two biblical passages – one from the Book of Genesis, the second from the Book of Deuteronomy. Both are prayers which Ilan copied into his diary to recite in heaven. The first is the Friday evening Kiddush that ushers in the Shabbat:

“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done.” (Gen.2:1-3)

In the biblical context these verses are God’s summation of creation. The Almighty surveys all His works that were completed in six days and arriving at day seven, “blesses and sanctifies it as the day of rest. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in The Sabbath its meaning for modern man (1995) explains the significance of the sanctification of time:

“Unlike the space-minded man to whom time is unvaried, iterative, homogeneous, to whom all hours are alike, quality-less, empty shells, the Bible senses the diversified character of time. There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious. Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time, to be attached to sacred events, to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year… One of the most distinguished words in the Bible is the word kadosh, holy; a word which more than any other is representative of the mystery and majesty of the divine. Now what was the first holy object in the history of the world? Was it a mountain? Was it an altar?

“It is, indeed, a unique occasion at which the distinguished word kadosh is used for the first time: in the Book of Genesis at the end of the story of creation. How extremely significant is the fact that it is applied to time: "And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy." There is no reference in the record of creation to any object in space that would be endowed with the quality of holiness.” (ibid.pp.3-9)

“One must be overawed by the marvel of time to be ready to perceive the presence of eternity in a single moment.” (ibid.p 76) Through reciting the Kiddush, Ilan Ramon blessed Divine creation, sanctified the day and all that is holy. The triumph of his spirit filled outer space. (Challal in Hebrew, the word for outer space, also means void). Ramon understood that Sabbath is the touchstone between man and the Creator. “The six days stand in need of space; the seventh day stands in need of man. “.(ibid. p. 52)

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel concludes his treatise with a soul-stirring passage:
“There are few ideas in the world of thought which contain such spiritual power as the idea of the Sabbath. Aeons hence, when of many of our cherished theories only shreds will remain, that cosmic tapestry will continue to shine. Eternity utters a day. “(ibid. p.101)

The visceral shock of the sudden disappearance of Ilan Ramon and the crew of Columbia is palpable eleven years later. As a student of Bible I find solace in biblical text, in the unforgettable story of Elijah and the fiery chariot. It offers us yet another image of “kein ba-shamayim hi.” That is, although Moshe assured us that it is readily accessible to each of us it contains additional registers that reach exalted heights.

“As they kept on walking and talking, a fiery chariot with fiery horses suddenly appeared and separated one from the other; and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind”. (2 Kings 2:11)

In his last hours on this earth, Elijah strolls with Elisha and passes on his mantle to him. They walk engrossed in discussion. What were they were discussing? The Rabbis (Yerushalmi Berachot 5:1) use the expression “walking and talking” (haloch vedaber) as an exegetical springboard and offer a variety of answers. They were talking Tanakh.
One suggestion in the Yerushalmi is that they were discussing the Creation; another view suggests they were discussing the vision of the throned Chariot of God. (Maaseh merkabah - Ezekiel Chapter 1) Very possibly, they were exploring the most sublime secrets of the universe – mysteries of the creation and the Creator. Before departing, the master disclosed these supernal notions to his protégé.

Yet another position is that the two were pondering prophecies of consolation, post-destruction (nechamot yerushalayim) .of Jerusalem. Elijah was sharing. a far-reaching vision of the end of days and the assurance that ultimately things would be right with the world.

The final midrashic opinion is that they were studying the Shema. The recitation of Shema Yisrael is the last religious act performed before death. The Rabbis cleverly interpreted the phrase “Veshinantem Levanecha VeDibarta Bam….Uvlechticha VaDerech“. (You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall speak of them when…you go on a journey). Indeed the two, teacher and student, were deep in discussion as they traveled on their journey - Elijah’s last mile.

Perhaps there is a deeper meaning. At this critical juncture, Elijah was unpacking the fundamentals of religious dogma contained in the Shema. Elijah the master teacher reviewed with his student the new young leader these essential values.

Into his diary, on the same page as the Kiddush , Ilan Ramon copied the verse from Deuteronomy 6:4 and as the Columbia passed over Israel, he recited the declaration of Jewish faith: "Shema Yisrael – Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one”.
Why did Ilan Ramon recite the Shema at that moment of utmost solemnity? We will never know, however the prayer will reverberate forever.

“It is not in Heaven” (lo ba-shamayim hi), (Deuteronomy 30:12), refers to the cogent and accessible nature of Torah. It takes on additional significance in rabbinic Judaism in the celebrated story of "The Oven of Achnai" (tanur.shel achnai), found in the Talmud Bava Metzi'a 59a-b. The story makes a number of salient points about the nature of the Jewish legal system. For students of biblical interpretation, it is a wondrous demonstration of the outer -limits of the discipline.

The Talmudic dispute concerns Rabbi Eliezer ben Horkanus whose illustrious status as a rabbinic sage won him the title of Rabbi Eliezer HaGadol. He is in the beit midrash arguing over the purity of an oven with his rabbinic colleagues. Ovens and vessels generally transmit impurity. Broken vessels do not. The oven of Akhnai is made of broken pieces cemented together. Is it an oven, or is it a broken vessel? Is it pure or impure? R. Eliezer says it is pure. The rabbis disagree.

On that day R. Eliezer made all the arguments in the world which, however, the rabbis did not accept. He performs miracle after miracle without succeeding to win his case. Finally, logic and miracles having failed, R. Eliezer appeals directly to Heaven. And the Bat Kol -- a voice from Heaven declares: “Why are you disputing with R. Eliezer, for the Halakhah is in accordance with him everywhere”. Rabbi Yehoshua rose to his feet and said, “It is not in Heaven!”

That is the main story. There are several addenda. One explains R. Yehoshua’s retort: “Torah was already given on Mt. Sinai as it says; “Follow the majority ruling.”(Exod.23:2) Therefore, we do not obey voices from Heaven. Another reports that R. Natan met Elijah and asked what happened in Heaven at that time: God, he is told, smiled and said, “My children have defeated Me, my children have defeated Me.”

R. Yehoshua’s ruling was adopted; a public demonstration of the impurity of the food cooked in the oven was made, and R. Eliezer, despite his stature, was excommunicated for rebelling against the elders. The authority that promulgated the law had spoken. The text does not question the authenticity of the Bat Kol. which establishes unequivocally that R. Eliezar is right.

But the Oven of Akhnai case takes the opposite view. The biblical
verse, “it is not in Heaven” is transposed rabbinically to mean that interpretation of Torah is by majority rule. R. Eliezer is deemed wrong because he insists on a particular result in violation of the basic procedural principle. This recognition causes God to smile. His children have understood that the process is more important than the result. Maintaining the integrity of the interpretive system grounded in the Bible and cultivated through methodological debate and persuasion is far more important that whether or not the oven is kosher.

Interestingly, in a fascinating midrashic passage, the rabbis sketch a dynamic portrait of R. Eliezer and his reputation. By divine affirmation the claim of ‘lo bashamayim hi’ which brought calumny upon him is essentially rescinded:

“Rabbi Yossi the son of Rabbi Hanina said, when Moses ascended to heaven he saw the Holy One Blessed be He studying the portion of the red heifer quoting halakha in the name of R Eliezer…He said Master of the Universe all of the worlds [celestial and terrestrial life] belong to you and You are quoting halakha in the name of a mortal! He said to him “ In the future there will arise a zaddik in my world whose name will be Eliezer and he will [solve the riddle] of the red heifer. .. Moses responded , “May it be Thy will that he issue forth from my loins, to which God responded indeed he will issue from your loins as it says “and the name of the one is Eliezer – the unique one is Eliezer.”( Tanhuma B Hukkat 25)

On a simple level the midrash is predicated upon the verse relating to Moses’ son Eliezer “and the name of the one .was Eliezer. for he said, “My father’s God was my helper; he saved me from the sword of Pharaoh.(Exod. 18:4).”

Digging deeper it is noteworthy that the theme is the study of purity and impurity, the very issue that did Rabbi Eliezer in. God Himself is, as it were, studying the ultimate conundrum of purity and impurity of the red heifer, whose ashes purify the defiled and defile the pure. God employs the Torah of R. Eliezer to decipher the mystery. Moses is aghast until God affords Rabbi Eliezer unsolicited testimonial. Moses wishes that Rabbi Eliezer be his descendent. Playing on the words of the verse relating to Moses’ son Eliezer, God tells Moses that his wish has been granted. A beautiful message emanates from this midrash – we are all Moses’ spiritual children. Even the greatest of rabbis draw their spiritual grandeur from Moses, our teacher.

However, there is more. In the midrashic theater Rabbi Eliezer is vindicated. A tikkun takes place. The midrash makes a powerful statement “kein bashamayim hi!” The Torah is in Heaven. In the Yeshiva shel ma’ala, Rabbi Eliezer is right. There is absolute truth. It may be reserved only for a select few like Moses and Rabbi Eliezer. But there can be no denying it. The Holy One Himself confirms it.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik writes:

“ … Judaism considered the study of Torah as the most sublime kind of worship, a way of meeting God, of breaking through the barrier separating the Absolute from the contingent and relative. Human intellectual engagement in the exploration of God’s word, thought and law is a great religious experience, an activity bordering on the miraculous, a paradoxical bridge spanning the chasm that separates the world of vanity from infinity”. ( Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik,Worship of the Heart :Essays on Jewish Prayer, ( 2003 ), p.5).

In a fascinating article about the oven of Akhnai, “The Coiled Serpent of Argument: Reason, Authority, and Law in a Talmudic Tale” [(2004), Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works. Paper 151, pp. 1-40)], Law Prof. David Luban analyzes the story from legal, humanistic, and philosophical vantage points and concludes with candor and humility:

“I cannot understand the Oven of Akhnai story at all. It is not written for me. It is written for readers within a tradition that I merely peer at from outside. I never studied Gemara or experienced the intellectual rigors of the cheder…To grasp the story is to realize that it concerns the impossibility of grasping it merely through reading. Akhnai tells us to disregard the bat kol and follow the majority. Those within the tradition understand that the story's real meaning is for members only. It does not disclose itself to modernist readers who privilege their own one-on-one relationship to the printed text over the many-on-many relationship between text and readers that makes up the form of life the text itself celebrates.”

Luban’s incisive comment on rabbinic literature can relate to the Bible as well. The study of Bible is an awe-inspiring enterprise of theological reflection and textual analysis that does not happen in a cultural vacuum. We develop a “one-on-one relationship” to the Bible, as well as a “the many-on-many relationship” We become part of the continuum of biblical interpretation linked through an unbroken chain to Moses. The challenge is overwhelming. The more we learn the more we are aware of what we know not.

We are humbled and encouraged by Moses’ reassurance that ‘lo bashamayim hi’, and urged toward due diligence by his student Joshua: “This book of Torah shall not depart out of your mouth; but you shall meditate therein day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then you shall be prosperous, and then you shall have good success.” (Josh. 1:8). Still and all, there is much cause for pause before undertaking such an overwhelming endeavor because, as we have tried to argue, “kein ba-shamayim hi”;

Prof Shalom Carmy offers us perspective. He eloquently explains, in the context of Torah study, the following lines from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets.

“For language with which to speak of the daunting challenge of how to articulate authentically, in one’s own voice, the dimensions of human existence in the face of a seemingly overwhelming burden of tradition, we again quote Eliot:

“And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

“The thinker of whom we speak is embarked on a spiritual quest, the search for a way of seeing and living, that can never be fully expressed, a Truth that cannot be mastered, a Love whose Name we cannot utter, though He possesses ours from Eternity.” (Shalom Carmy, “To Get the Better of Words, An Apology for Yir’at Shamayim in Academic Jewish Studies" Torah Umadda Journal 2, (1990), pp 7-24).

Both in Israel and in the world at large there is serious need for outstanding teachers of Bible. Teachers, who not only transmit information, but also inspire by probing the mystique of Bible and teaching its lessons and values.

It is my hope that this article communicates my passion for Tanakh and encourages worthy students to enter the field and become inspirational teachers. The formidable task of teaching Tanakh requires embracing both courage and modesty- oz v’anava.
Courage will spur us to mine Scripture, again and again, to discover the many gems still waiting to be unearthed. It will enable us to develop a sincere, coherent and sophisticated approach to the content and contours of the Bible. Modesty will help guide us in how to share our spiritual odyssey with others.

Lest we despair that “kein bashamayim hi” we need only remember - “Ah but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for?” (Robert Browning, Andrea del Sarto)

1 My sincere thanks to Rabbi David Shapiro for his valuable insights.

One of the great problems any religious person must struggle with is whether or not it is actually possible to be religious. What, after all, is the essence of genuine religiosity?It is no doubt the cognizance that one lives in the presence of God and feels and acts accordingly. To do so, however, is nearly impossible.

Avraham Joshua Heschel once made the profound observation: “Religion depends upon what man does with his ultimate embarrassment” (1). While we may not agree with Heschel that embarrassment lies at the root of religion, we agree it is unpretentiousness combined with deep humility that moves genuine religion. What lies at the root of all religions is the awareness that it is extremely difficult to live up to the awe of the moment. Our ultimate concern should be to grasp – emotionally and intellectually – that we are the contemporaries of God, and to experience this in the most elevated way.

But for the majority of us it is an impossible mission. How can man ever encounter the Divine otherness? It is the task of religion to guide us through this almost desperate situation.

Paradoxically, admitting the impossibility of this undertaking, and responding to it in a responsible way, is what makes our humility a genuine religious experience. How can one live in God’s presence and not be humble? Live in the shadow of greatness and not sense it? Be part of the great miracle of existence and ignore it? Yet, who among us is in fact spiritually uncomfortable? We have become so insensitive that we are not even embarrassed by our lack of self-consciousness. This almost turns the religious lives of millions, including our own, into a farce. We may sincerely convince ourselves that we are religious, while in fact we are guilty of self-deception.

For religious Jews this may be an even greater problem than for those who follow other religions. Judaism’s constant demand to follow Halacha may give the impression that the religion depends solely on the need to “observe,” or carefully perform, all of Halacha with its nearly obsessive requirement to follow all rituals and laws down to the minutiae. How often do religious Jews believe that they are religious because they are observant? This is one of the major pitfalls of Jewish observant life.

In truth, Halacha is not to be observed, but rather experienced as a way to deal with one’s lifelong existential awareness that one lives in the presence of God. It is a response to our question of how to live with spiritual discomfort. A remarkable feature of Halacha is that it often asks us to act as if we are deeply provoked by living in the presence of God, while in reality we aren’t. This begs the question whether such an act can be authentic as opposed to downright hypocritical. It is here that Judaism is not completely comfortable with its own demands. Should it ask the Jew to act as if he is moved and therefore do as if he is filled with the deepest religious feelings? Or, should it ask the Jew to act according to his real feelings and not pretend?Judaism is fully aware that whichever road it suggests, there will be a heavy price to pay. The Jew may feel hypocritical, or he may not even be aware that he lost his dream since there is nothing that reminds him of it.

In a notable discussion (2) between the great mishnaic schools of Beit Shamai and Beit Hillel, the question is posed whether it is better to light all eight candles of the menorah on the first day of Chanukah, or on the last day. Beit Shamai suggests that one should begin with lighting all eight, subtracting a candle every subsequent day until only one is lit on the eighth day. Beit Hillel’s opinion is that we should light only one candle on the first day and slowly build up to eight lights on the eighth day. What is this conflict all about?

I suggest that the disagreement between these two schools is rooted in the question of whether people should express their religious commitment through these acts when they honestly reflect where they stand at that hour, or when these acts express where they would like to be in the future (3). Is Judaism better served by making us act as if we are on a level of high spirituality, while in fact we are not, or does it prefer that we express our religious feelings “ba-asher hu sham” – “where he is at that moment” (4) – reflecting our often middle-of-the-road religious condition?

Beit Shamai’s suggestion that one should light all eight candles on the first night is, for the most part, an honest expression of our feelings. We are more excited on the first day than we are on the last. For most of us, the notion of novelty is felt at the start, never at the end. Hence, eight lights on the first day. But such excitement comes with a price. It does not endure. Like the sexual act that wears off after a moment when not accompanied by the binding of souls – Post coitum omne animal triste est (5) – so all religious acts, when experienced solely as novelty and excitement, lose their impact as the exhilaration slowly dissipates. It is therefore logical that on the second day only seven lights be lit and on the last day only one. It is Beit Shamai’s conviction that we should not put on a show and pretend that we are more than what we are.

Such an approach is thoroughly honest but lacks a dream and vision of what could be. Beit Hillel therefore believes that if we do not inspire man with his potential and give him a taste of what could be, he will not even strive to achieve higher goals. As Robert Browning said, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp – or what’s a heaven for?” According to Beit Hillel, we should start with only one light on the first day, since this reflects the condition of our soul at the beginning of Chanukah. We need to warm up and slowly strengthen our soul until it bursts with spiritual depth on the eighth day when we reach the fullness of the festival. The lighting of the menorah should be a transforming act, and that can take place only when it is accompanied by an inner experience that touches the deepest dimensions of our souls, step by step. True, we may not feel this way, but we must awaken and educate ourselves toward this goal. The last day should be the greatest. We should act as if, so that one day we may reach this spiritual level. We taste the future in the present.

Novelty is often just a brand new form of mediocrity, while excellence is rooted in the old but revitalized on a higher plain. It is not the honest mediocrity of today that we need, but an exalted dream of tomorrow. It is between these two positions that Judaism operates – a balancing act, as in the case of a tightrope walker. Most of the time, it requires a compromise. Sometimes Jewish law will opt for a realistic understanding of the here and now; other times it will choose the dream. It is a difficult position to be in, not always clear why Halacha will decide a certain way in one case and a different way on another occasion. The problem is that in the end it may not satisfy anyone. But it is the realistic understanding of “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” that seems to move Judaism.

Beit Shamai will sometimes have to agree that there is a need to go for the dream, and Beit Hillel will on occasion have to go by the facts on the ground. Such differences are even found within the Torah, as well as among other Sages and later authorities (6). Judaism cannot survive by opting for only one of these ideals. It would be suicidal. Most interesting is the fact that there is one opinion in the Talmud (7) that says Beit Shamai continued to follow its own view, even after the Halacha was decided in accordance with Beit Hillel. According to this opinion, it seems that Beit Shamai continued to light eight candles on the first day of Chanukah, although everyone else followed the opinion of Beit Hillel (8). This makes us wonder. Tradition tells us that Halacha will only follow Beit Shamai once the messianic times will have begun. There is, however, no source for this in the Talmud (9).Could it mean that for exceptional souls it would be possible to follow the views of Beit Shamai even today?

No two souls are the same. It is this fact that makes religious life a far from easy task. Even if man knows that religion is his response to his ultimate embarrassment, as Heschel would have it, he still will not know how to act. Shall he be honest so as not to pretend, or shall he pretend so that one day he will be honest to his dream?

________________________________________ (1) A.J. Heschel, Who is man? (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1965) p. 112. (2) Shabbat 21b. (3) See also: Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, Michtav Me-Eliyahu, Vol. II (Jerusalem, 1963) pp.120-122. (4) Bereishit 21:17. (5) “Every animal is sad after intercourse.” (6) See for example the Torah’s toleration of slavery (Shemot 21:1-6) and the complete rejection of this institution as the ultimate dream to which it seems to aspire (Vayikra 25:55). See also: Eruvin 65a concerning prayer, and Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim, (98:2). (7) Yevamot 14a. (8) See also Shabbat 21b where the story is told that some people followed the custom of Beit Shamai on Chanukah long after a divine voice instructed that the Halacha is according to Beit Hillel (Eruvin 13b). The Biur Halacha in Mishne Berura, Orach Chayim, 671:2, makes an interesting observation that the Halacha is only according to Beit Hillel when it lays down the strict Halacha, not in the case of mehadrin min hamehadrin, the beautification of the Halacha beyond its basic requirements (one light each day of Chanukah). Biur Halacha cautions that such should not be done in practice. This essay, however, argues that such practice may be an actual option. (9) The first source for this is a statement by the Ari z”l, which is quoted by Malbim in Torah Ohr, Bamidbar 19:2.

When I graduated Rambam Torah Institute, a Los Angeles Orthodox High School, in 1978 (Rambam closed in 1979, giving way to the opening of YULA and the Simon Wiesenthal Center), I was about to enter UCLA with a schizophrenic approach to my own Jewish identity. On the one hand, I had grown up in the Sephardic-Ladino community where I was about the only one to receive a formal Jewish education from middle school on. Being “shomer shabbat” was very old-country and unheard of in “Rodesli-L.A.” (the community of Jews descended from the Island of Rhodes who established the Sephardic Hebrew Center in L.A., where we were members). The only ones who admired or understood why I chose a more traditional path for myself were the senior citizens born in Rhodes, toward whom I tended to gravitate.

Being an only child to a mother who was an only child, and having lost my father when I was a baby, my “playdates” typically were in the living rooms of elderly Rodesli immigrants, who told stories and jokes in Ladino, entertained with dulce (homemade preserves) served in beautiful silver bowls with silver spoons along with coffee, biskochos (round sesame or cinnamon covered cookies), and assortments of burekas or pastelikos (savory turnovers), reshas (homemade pretzels), hard cheese, olives, and abidahu (dried, wax-covered fish roe that was a delicacy), or salado (salted, cured mackerel or tuna). There were no chicken nuggets or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at these afternoon gatherings! These visits often took place on Shabbat afternoons; most of the community lived either on the same block or within a few minutes’ walk or drive of each other. This was South Central L.A.—or Leimert Park or the Crenshaw District—where I could go trick or treating on Halloween night and ask for burekas instead of candy, and get them!

Today this neighborhood is mostly African American with not a Jew in sight for miles. The synagogues have long been sold and converted to churches, still displaying the original stained glass Stars of David in the windows. The lifestyle has also disappeared; no one lives near each other anymore in “Rodesli-L.A.,” and the community has dissipated and spread to the four corners of the Greater Los Angeles Basin. Most of those special people from my “playdates” have gone to the next world, and their children or grandchildren may have remembered a few words in Ladino, have kept a few of their mother’s or grandmother’s recipes, and have for the most part sadly strayed from what was once a tight-knit and traditional community.

In Rhodes, it was the norm to keep the laws of kashruth, observe Shabbat and holidays, and keep close to our Jewish traditions. The members of the community didn’t, however, identify as “Orthodox” Jews, nor did other Sephardic communities in the Mediterranean Basin or the Middle East identify as such. Some families were known to be more religious and knowledgeable, others much less. All, however, went to the same synagogue and followed basically the same customs and practices. This lifestyle was reproduced to an extent in America, when these immigrants established their community in Los Angeles. But the forces of assimilation and acculturation meant English first, American culture first, and work first, even on Shabbat.

The traditions of the “old country” began to fade with the next generation, especially given the choices that America offered, including meat and chicken that looked much cleaner and cheaper than the products from the kosher butcher. That’s why it was unusual for me to wind up in a Jewish Orthodox school, eventually keeping kasher and observing Shabbat. And it wasn’t because my mother was predisposed to that direction. My maternal grandfather was born in Bulgaria, and in the late 1800s emigrated to Palestine, where he was religiously educated and spoke many languages, including Hebrew and Arabic, before coming to the United States in 1920. He met my Rhodes-born grandmother in Seattle, the motherland of Ladino immigrants on the West Coast. My grandmother kept kasher, as did most of her contemporaries. When she was hospitalized, our community rabbi, Solomon Mizrahi, who was revered by all, went to visit and admonish her that she could not refrain from eating in the hospital because the food was not kasher, insisting that her health came first.

But the immigrant generation did not instill a religious lifestyle in the new generation of Americans. There was too much at stake in “making it in America” to have religion hold them back. No, the reason I landed in an Orthodox Day School in the seventh grade in 1972 was that my working single mother who had put me in private grammar school through the sixth grade could not have me to go to a public school that would dismiss the students at 3:00 P.M.—when she didn’t get home until after 5:00. And in the L.A. public schools of the 1970s, there were stories of knifings in the bathrooms and tough characters to deal with. Remember, I just grew up hanging around a group of sweet old ladies and had no training in self-defense against the ruffians roaming the halls of John Burrows Jr. High or L.A. High. “Leshos!” (Keep it far away!), as we would say. Hence, my introduction to the Orthodox Day School system was more for my protection than my religious education, and it developed into my personal road back to my religious roots.

So I did not grow up in an Orthodox family. Such a word was never even familiar to Sephardim. They could be kasher, pray regularly, adhere to all the holiday rituals, and not know what “Orthodox” meant, or if they did, it didn’t refer to them. I grew up in a “traditional” Los Angeles Sephardic family—what we considered traditional in the 1960s and 1970s, that is. (I add Los Angeles because the community was less observant than those Ladino communities in Seattle, New York, even Atlanta). The difference was that while we did have our large extended family Shabbat and holiday dinners, always with one or two “old-timers” who knew how to lead the Kiddush or the Rosh haShana “Yehi Ratsones” (in Hebrew and Ladino) or the Passover “Haggada” (in Hebrew and Ladino), I still enjoyed my pizza with pepperoni just as much as I loved my burekas. We still went to homes for a very different kind of American dinner on Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving.

That doesn’t mean we would think of missing out on celebrating Jewish holidays with all the prayers, whether Rosh haShana, Yom Kippur, or Simhat Torah with the honored “hattanim”—and our services would surely be considered “Orthodox” by any observer familiar with the various Ashkenazic Jewish movements. English translations eventually crept into the services, but the prayer books never changed, nor did the patterns of traditional Sephardic services.

When I had my first Orthodox exposure entering Hillel Hebrew Academy in seventh grade, I came home yelling and complaining that I had to wear a kippah all day and pray so often and at a speed I could not keep up with. My mother thought I wouldn’t last a week. I had to “fake” pray that first year since I couldn’t possibly make it through the entire Amida with my limited Hebrew knowledge. My prior formal Jewish education consisted of Talmud Torah afternoon school (at an Ashkenazic synagogue because our Sephardic synagogue was too far and offered little in terms of Jewish education). I made (Orthodox) friends, and soon I was tolerating this “super Jewish” environment I had been thrown into.

When I started being invited to bar mitzvas almost weekly and didn’t want my friends to know that I drove on Shabbat, I would have my mother drive me up nearby alleys, crouching under the glove compartment so that no one would see me in a car, and when the coast was clear, I’d jump out and walk the last block to the Orthodox Synagogue, Beth Jacob, in Beverly Hills where all the bar mitzvas of my classmates took place. This was a regular paranoid ritual that I practiced, for I feared what my friends or rabbis would think if they only knew! In time, I learned to appreciate the Jewish education I was receiving and the Orthodox Jewish lifestyle of my friends to the point where I soon started my own journey toward what would be considered an Orthodox lifestyle.

I started by giving up pork products around the age of 14. After controlling my taste buds in that category (though my mom thought there was definitely something emotionally wrong with me to give up something I loved so much!), I moved on to eliminate shellfish, then milk and meat, and so forth. It was a gradual process of several years until I eventually stopped driving on Shabbat and holidays and took up the Orthodox lifestyle being taught in my school. I figured that this was the way my grandparents or great-grandparents lived their Judaism, and I could reconnect that chain of tradition, which likely went back generations from what I learned about Sephardic history. I continued my communal connection to my Rodesli synagogue, the Sephardic Hebrew Center, where I became the youngest board member and was part of the small youth group established. I learned to take part in the religious services as a “junior hazzan” on Shabbat and High Holidays.

In my high school, though, I was one of maybe two or three Sephardic students (none of whom came from a Ladino-Sephardic background), and I was the only one with a strong Sephardic identity, having become active in the local Sephardic youth groups that also participated in the national American Sephardic Federation youth conventions of the 1970s. (In 1977, when I was in the twelfth grade, and my Talmud teacher, whom I really liked, made one of his typical anti-Sephardic remarks in class like “Sephardim remind me of Arabs,” that was the last straw. I stormed out of my class, slamming the door behind me, and marched to the school office with the rabbi running behind me promising he was “just joking.” I called the director of the American Sephardi Federation in New York (a “toll call” no less), whom I had met recently on an ASF youth convention and asked if he could come on his next visit to L.A. and speak to my school about Sephardic history and contribution to Judaism. He gladly agreed. I informed my principal in a stern tone that there would be an assembly for the entire school and “every rabbi and student better be there!” They indeed all attended a very interesting lecture, and I was transformed into the Sephardic poster child for the school.)

As I went through four years of Orthodox Yeshiva High School, I was developing two distinct personas, one the Orthodox student who was a member of the Bnei Akiva youth movement, a counselor at the summer and winter Bnei Akiva camps, and the founder of the first chapter of Bnei Akiva at a Sephardic grade school in L.A.; the other a “non-kippah wearing” member of the Sephardic community. By the time I graduated high school and went to UCLA, where I knew both friends from my Sephardic community as well as from my Yeshiva High School, I didn’t know whether to wear a kippah or not and was ashamed and conflicted either way. I ended up wearing a cap for my entire freshman year! I was worried about what my Orthodox friends would think of me if they saw me sans kippah and what kind of fanatic my Sephardic friends would think I’d become if they saw me with one.

This is where I started to appreciate the difference between an Orthodox approach to Judaism and a Sephardic approach to Judaism. I started to attend Magen David Congregation, the Syrian synagogue in L.A. (since I could no longer drive to the Sephardic Hebrew Center with its mixed seating and a microphone, which I now felt uncomfortable with). The walk to Magen David was 45 minutes, but I did it weekly. I started to make friends who were typical of the Syrian Sephardic communities: Shabbat- and kashruth-observant, but not kippah-wearing and not hung up on the “Orthodox look.” They blended into the non-Jewish world just fine, but still kept a very strong Jewish identity. They may have kept strictly kasher at home but felt comfortable eating in non-kasher restaurants, just keeping away from the meat and shellfish. To some, they wouldn’t be considered Orthodox at all; to others they would be considered very Orthodox, based on their regular synagogue attendance, men praying every morning with their tefillin and not driving on Shabbat. And mixed dancing?something that was taboo in those days at any Orthodox event, whether for young or old was never an issue! That was my “aha” moment; the point where I had the realization that Sephardim did not easily fit into a category of Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform. We were all over the place, and everyone was fine with it.

As I became more observant, my Sephardic community embraced me as “hahamiko,” a young learned person. I wasn’t denigrated as a religious fanatic, nor was I looked down upon for not wearing a kippah all the time or not fitting the “Orthodox” compartment perfectly. My Sephardic community didn’t judge me; I think they admired me or at least that is how I felt, even though they didn’t always understand why I could no longer attend services at the synagogue I grew up in. I was able to break away from the stigma of fitting the look and practice of Orthodox Judaism, even though I admired and related to their level of observance. While I tried to parlay my activism in the Orthodox Bnei Akiva youth movement, which I still admire to this day, I realized that Sephardic kids, as different as they were in their religious backgrounds, just couldn’t be form-fitted to an Orthodox Jewish youth movement where every boy was expected to wear a kippah, every girl a skirt, act a certain way, dress a certain way, pray three times a day plus birkat haMazon (grace after meals), refrain from attending mixed dances, and basically fit the mold.

But Sephardim didn’t fit such a mold. We were all unique and different to certain extents, even though we generally felt comfortable praying under the same roof. And no one judged us; no one looked at us funny for wearing or not wearing a kippah in the street; women could be very religious and still wear pants or what the Orthodox would call “immodest” clothing; no one felt uncomfortable whether we ate strictly kasher or “pseudo” kasher; no one really minded if you got to synagogue by foot or by car, as long as you got there. And if you didn’t go to synagogue regularly, that was also fine. Shabbat dinner was still to be shared with the family, and major Jewish holidays were spent in synagogue from start to finish, if you could make it.

This Sephardic Jewish identity really created a wider tent for all of us to fit under, and it felt good to be together and not critical of others who observed more or less than we did. The summer of 1980 found me half way through my UCLA career and I decided to join my Orthodox friends from high school who made study in Israel either after high school or during college a commonplace rite of passage. I signed up too and ended up in Jerusalem at Hebrew University with a group of friends, where we immediately gravitated to the other Yeshiva high school grads from across the United States who were also on their Junior year abroad program, coordinating Shabbat dinners together and living the “Orthodox” life in Jerusalem. I wore a kippah all the time, and it felt okay. After all, I was in Israel. The summer of 1980 also happened to be the first summer of the Sephardic Educational Center (SEC) program, founded by Dr. Jose Nessim (z”l) from L.A., who had told me before I left to make sure and visit the program once I got to Jerusalem. I did, and it was life-altering—not because of the experience to be with Sephardic young adults my age from five different countries, but to see rabbis leading the program who were what we would consider “Orthodox,” yet not forcing anyone to wear a kippah or dress in a certain way, other than out of respect for holy places visited or during meals or prayers or classes.

Rabbis Moshe Shamah and Sam Kassin of the Syrian Sephardic community of Brooklyn, and Rabbi Benito Garzon of Spain, forever changed my attitude toward religious life, opened my eyes to Sephardic halakha, and the “live and let live” approach that made all feel comfortable while studying and believing in the same approach to Judaism, just at every individual’s own pace.

In the past 35 years, my Jewish identity has been shaped more by my involvement with the SEC than my Orthodox high school education, with exposure to those Sephardic rabbis and others I met subsequently who with moderation and tolerance kept alive the spirit of the Classical Sephardic approach to Judaism and opened my eyes to a non-denominational approach that echoed the lives of my ancestors who lived in places like Rhodes or Bulgaria and back to the Iberian Peninsula. Theirs was a Judaism that was a natural part of their everyday lives, with one basic approach that centered on a fervent belief in God, traditions that were celebrated by all, synagogues where the entire community worshiped without “membership ID’s” that distinguished what kind of Jew you were.

There were some weak links in the chain of tradition as Sephardic Jews relocated from the Old World to the new but there is certainly hope for a renaissance in Sephardic life as many find that this classic approach to Jewish life is far more comfortable and meaningful that what is offered by choosing an identity that just doesn’t always form fit among Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Hasidic, or Hareidi approaches to Judaism. At our annual SEC Shavuot Retreat for young families in Palm Desert, CA, last May, we held a town hall discussion as part of our Shavuot night study program, entitled “What's Wrong with Organized Religion, and How Can We Fix It?” It was led by another product of the Orthodox educational system, Rabbi Daniel Bouskila, who has also come to embrace and symbolize the Classical Sephardic approach to Judaism. The young families present attend Sephardic synagogues across the L.A. community, synagogues that would appear “Orthodox” but for the fact that not all attendees walk to synagogue, and not all keep strictly kasher, and not all wear kippot outside the synagogue—but all feel a common cause and belief in God and the Torah, along with the centrality of the State of Israel. Suggestions ranged from how to balance the old traditions with the needs of the younger generation and how to attract and hold the attention of synagogue goers. Here were the young leaders who have or will occupy the positions of leadership in our Sephardic communities, and none were shy about introducing changes and suggesting approaches within our traditional halakhic approach that would ensure the survival of these synagogues and communities.

I felt proud as a Sephardic Jew to be able to discuss these issues without fear of backlash or judgment, and proud that I am not judged nor do I feel the need to judge others on their observance. We are all in the same boat and recognize that some will always be more observant and some less and our jobs as Jews are to make all feel comfortable and welcome, maintain a common set of beliefs, and not check ID’s at the door of Judaism. That is the Sephardic approach; it is the vision and identity I gained from many years of following Dr. Nessim’s philosophy: Only God can judge us. This is why I have shied away from identifying myself with the “O” word. I just don’t fit into a denominational compartment and if you feel the same way, you might want to join a Classical Sephardic community—regardless of your bloodline!

Did I mention that my father was Ashkenazic? If you ask an Orthodox Jew, I should “halakhically” follow the tradition of my father. But I don’t, not as an insult to him but as a way of life that I was raised with and came to love and connect to. I don’t find the unity, warmth, and “big tent” feel in the Orthodox world that I do in the Sephardic world. But that’s just me, and I respect and admire you if you are Orthodox or Modern Orthodox or any other Jewish identity as long as it works to bring you closer to God, Israel, and the Jewish People. That’s just the Sephardic way.

Now a look at the next generation. I have two sons and a daughter. My oldest son (20) went through middle school and high school at a Modern Orthodox school in L.A. My middle son (17), only attended Middle School there, and then went to public high school along with my daughter for a number of reasons, not the least being the high cost. I appreciated the Modern Orthodox education and great social bonds that the school offered. I also appreciated the love for Israel that the school incorporated into its curriculum. The alternative Yeshiva high schools in our area have a more right-wing reputation, which wasn’t the direction I wanted for my family. However I did not see a passion for Judaism or the practice of mitzvoth develop in my sons or their friends that I had once experienced myself. My children’s religious connection still came from home, and the example we tried to create of a traditional Sephardic family, not from school, which surprised me.

The feeling I had when I went to high school was that we had a “religious contract” to keep Shabbat, kashruth, etc., even after we graduated. The students I observed in my sons’ classes over the past few years didn’t seem to have that commitment. University life poses challenges to keeping Shabbat and kashruth, praying every day, and taking off class for holiday observance that, for me, went without question but today seems to be a different story. While I never retreated in my religious observance, nor did most of my classmates, the graduates of today’s Modern Orthodox high school, if my own sons are an example, do not seem to feel the same religious obligation we did upon graduation, and that’s a problem. University and the “outside world” appear to have overtaken whatever commitment for practicing a level of Orthodox Judaism they were taught in high school.

Luckily for my children, they have their connections to the SEC, whether through trips to Israel or local holiday celebrations like our Shavuot Retreat to keep them excited about Judaism and Israel. Otherwise, they would be left empty-handed without any follow up from their high school rabbis, which is a shame. My wife and I wonder whether the financial investment in their Jewish education was worth it and if it will keep them committed as observant Jews. We took the approach more typical of Sephardic families of trying not to force them to practice their Judaism, though I try to continuously prod and plead that they pray, come to synagogue, remember kashruth when they are away from home. It is not easy, though. I often wonder if they would have been more passionate about their Judaism if we went down a more strictly Orthodox path than a moderate Sephardic one. Hopefully we did make the spiritually healthy decision in the long run.

But knowing what Jewish path is best for today and tomorrow is not necessarily what worked for my generation. There is no question that there needs to be a shakeup in the Modern Orthodox educational system to bring back the passion of Judaism, and there also needs to be more emphasis on Jewish commitment in the Sephardic world if that branch of Judaism is to be strengthened in the Diaspora. For the achievement of a moderate and observant next Jewish generation, there will need to be a synthesis of all the best qualities and approaches of these and other Jewish like-minded approaches, from Modern Orthodox to Sephardic and beyond, creating a Jewish lifestyle that is neither extremely stringent or oppressive nor exceedingly indifferent to religious observance. I hope our religious leaders are up to the task.

It was only a short while ago in America that there were those predicting the death of Orthodox Judaism in this country. A large segment of Orthodoxy included the generation of survivors ravaged by the trauma of a Holocaust they had barely survived. They were learning to adapt to a new society, a new language, and a new culture. The children of those survivors, Baby Boomers of today, were opting out of Orthodox Judaism in droves to join the fast-growing Conservative and Reform movements. The more liberal movements offered much to attract first-generation native-born Jews: services in regal and refined English, a rabbi whose only accent inflecting his sermons was a
Northeastern one, pews that allowed families to sit together, lively social programming with regular dances and parties, and much more. It is no wonder then that some of the greatest Orthodox authorities of the first half of the twentieth century spent much time and a lot of spilled ink in defining borders between Orthodoxy and the rest of the denominational world.

Chief among those busy with the task of separating Orthodoxy from the other movements was the great halakhic decisor, haRav Moshe Feinstein. Rav Moshe was one of the most creative, insightful, and brilliant rabbinic minds of his generation. His genius and erudition were widely acknowledged. He also lived, taught, and offered rulings in the heart of the American immigrant Jewish experience: the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan. When Rav Moshe offered his halakhic rulings, he did so not from a safe and comfortable distance inside a Bet Midrash removed from the ordinary person; he was very much a part of his community and understood intimately the challenges of the day.

Rav Moshe worked tirelessly to free agunot from abusive relationships (E”H 1:43; 1:48; 1:79, et cetera). He grasped the new socio-political reality that American Jews found themselves in and urged people to vote and take part in the civic process (in a letter from 1984), and recognized the government of the United States as a trustworthy and reliable source for oversight so that he permitted halav stam (Y”D 1:47). He perceived the value of the labor movement that was advancing the rights of working Americans and he permitted strikes and negotiations (H”M 1:59). He also forbade any official recognition, interaction with, or participation together with the Reform and Conservative movements (Y”D 1:160; E”H 1:76: E”H 4:13; O”H 2:50; O”H 3:21; O”H 4:91, et cetera).

Furthermore, not only did he draw a clear line in the sand when it came to the non-Orthodox religious Jewish community, he also utilized their practices and customs as a proof and source for what Orthodoxy ought not to do. If the Conservative movement sanctioned a practice then it must be forbidden, even if it was permitted on purely halakhic grounds. A striking example of this is his ruling on the impermissibility of conducting a Bat Mitzvah ceremony inside a synagogue. In his ruling he states: “The ceremony of the Bat Mitzvah is definitely only an optional matter (divrei reshut) and only vanity (hevel), and there is no way to permit such a thing in the synagogue; and all the more so since its root is in the Reform and Conservative movements” (O”H 1:104).
One need only to contrast Rav Moshe’s ruling on Bat Mitzvah to that of haRav Ovadiah Yosef to see the difference between a posek who is occupied with waging a battle against the denominations and one who is not. Rav Ovadiah rules (Yabia Omer, O”H 6:29) that the Bat Mitzvah festivities are a seudat mitzvah, a meal infused with religious significance. Furthermore, he offers the opinion that a parent may recite the traditional blessing recited by Ashkenazim of Barukh shePetarani, albeit without shem malkhut, upon a young woman reaching the age of Bat Mitzvah. Nowhere does Rav Ovadiah reference the Reform or Conservative movements in this ruling. He only states briefly that he was aware of Rav Moshe’s strident opinion against Bat Mitzvah but did not find it compelling.

The denominational war for the heart and soul of American Judaism is over. The struggle of the early generation of Eastern European Jewish immigrants to instill a love of traditional Judaism to their American-born children enchanted with the more American milieu of the other denominations is over. This is not our central struggle, and this is not our battlefield.

We live in a different zeitgeist than Rav Moshe Feinstein. Our struggle is not with the other streams of religious Jewish expression in America. While the predictions in the first half of the twentieth century foresaw an America without Orthodox Jews, this proved dramatically false. The youngest movement in Judaism is Orthodoxy. The only movement in Judaism not experiencing massive rates of assimilation and intermarriage is Orthodoxy. (This is not to say that an intermarried family ceases to connect with the Jewish community, but by definition it will be an attenuated connection with competing religious interests.)

One need only attend the convention of any major Jewish communal organization to witness the sea change. Whereas it was only a decade or so ago that if you kept kosher at most of these large gatherings you were served your food in a plastic box triple wrapped; now almost all of these gatherings are completely kosher with dedicated room for each tefillah. A professional at an organization whose major annual convention I recently attended remarked to me how her organization has had to make major changes to adjust to the influx of Orthodox attendees and lay leaders. The unfortunate reality is that this does not mean a net growth in attendance; rather, this is occurring at the same time the rate of participation and lay leadership of the non-Orthodox continues to decline.

What then is the great challenge of our era? Where should our attention, our communal energy, our rabbinic leaders, our thinkers and activists be focused? I believe it comes down to one distinct issue: We are no longer merely the chosen nation, but rather the nation that chooses. This has been true for some time, but has not been felt as intensely than in the millennial generation (and perhaps will be felt even more so in the generations to come).

As Modern Orthodox Jews, we invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in the formal Jewish education of our children. A year of kindergarten can cost upwards of $20,000 alone in a Jewish day school in a major metropolitan area. With the rise of the Orthodox Day Schools in America combined with the nearly universal year or more in Israel studying in yeshivot or seminaries prior to college we are experiencing one of the most well-educated and well-versed Jewish populations in Jewish history. Countless Modern Orthodox young men and women in their 20s and 30s can turn to a daf of Gemara and translate it and work through the accompanying commentaries of Rashi and the Tosafot. How many of them experience a passion in their daily tefillah? How many of them relate to the teachings of Hazal and can distill the wisdom within? Orthodox Judaism today is not struggling against the allure of a more Protestant Americanized ethos. It is struggling with the great challenge of relativism and postmodernism.

Postmodern influence on the religious worldview of today’s Modern Orthodox millennial generation is profound. Whether it is deconstructing previously held core theological tenets such as a belief in God, the theophany at Sinai, or the election of Israel as a chosen people; or being unconvinced that there are any truth claims, the postmodernist critique of society, culture, and literature has shaken up the Modern Orthodox community in ways we are only beginning to recognize.

How can one become passionate about something that is no more or less true than any other competing value and belief system? How can one find inspiration in the narrative of one’s people if it has been deconstructed through literary criticism and voids in the archeological record? What relevance does Jewish peoplehood have in an era of universalism and global solidarity?

These are the most monumental challenges facing our community now and in the years to come. In a similar vein to the breathtaking life work of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik to bridge the world of Torah with the world of twentieth century modernism, we need today intellectual religious leaders who can stake out intellectual and theological positions that resonate with the millennial Orthodox generation. Just as Lonely Man of Faith inspired a generation of Orthodox Jews, a new Lonely Person of Critical Doubt could have the potential to bring about a similar process in today’s generation.

From my time as an Orthodox rabbi on a college campus, I saw firsthand the impact of the postmodernist approach on Modern Orthodox young people. The intellectually curious young person finds little guidance to help resolve the tensions arising from a deconstructionist method, or to confront more nuanced definitions of truth in a world of competing truth claims. More often than not, they are told that their questions are without merit or their struggles are a test of their faith in God. It does not take long for that young person to opt out of active engagement and to maintain, at most, only an external fidelity to the rituals and lifestyle of Orthodoxy.

Where do we start in addressing this challenge? The first step is to acknowledge that young people today choose their lifestyle, their religious commitments, and their beliefs. People today feel less of a need to maintain what previous generations believed or felt than perhaps in any generation prior. The tremendous growth of the “nones” in the American religious landscape is testament to this fact. If we internalize the reality that people today choose to affiliate, to identify and to practice their faith, then we have an obligation to respond with integrity and thoughtfulness to the critiques people in their 20s and 30s are bringing to the communal table.

Additionally, we have to rethink the way we do business. Michael Perman, the Dean of Global Innovation at Gap, Inc., said it clearly in an interview for Forbes in 2013 when he was Senior Director of Global Marketing at Levi’s: “With Millennials, we have to let go a lot. As a brand, I think we were a company, among others, who felt that tight control of the brand and saying what our voice is was crucial up until probably a couple of years ago. We’re essentially a brand now that is based on co-creation….” Any serious attempt to address the intellectual and theological challenges millennials are grappling with must be done in collaboration and coordination with millennials themselves. There is an expression in special needs inclusion that boldly says “nothing for us without us” and the same is equally true with the millennial population. People in their 20s and 30s have a strong desire to be a part of the conversation and anything that is produced without that joint conversation will not have the same impact and resonance.

If our rabbinic and intellectual luminaries can rise to the time and begin to address the monumental theological and religious challenges posed by this generation, we face the prospect of reinvigorating and infusing a new era of meaning and depth into Jewish discourse and Jewish life. This will take bravery and courage to go where no rabbi has gone before in wrestling with the profound implications of a critical approach to belief in God, in the origins of Torah, in the place of religious obligation in a world of choice and a host of other areas. This conversation must be done with those most directly grappling with these topics. It cannot seek to rebrand and impose twentieth-century solutions on twenty-first-century problems. However, as Calev defiantly declared in the face of overwhelming challenges, “aloh na’aleh,” we can surely accomplish this too if we truly commit ourselves to the task.

In recent years, there has been an attempt in some circles to introduce various aspects of academic Talmud study into the world of the traditional study of Gemara. Not surprisingly, there has been at times vociferous opposition to the introduction of this material. It is worth briefly reviewing some of the academic methodologies and their potential positive contribution to the denizens of the traditional Bet Midrash. We will also consider some of the objections to the introduction of such methodologies, as well as possible responses to those objections.

Three things might commonly differentiate the study of Gemara in the Bet Midrash and the study of Talmud in the academy:

1) The goal of study
2) The attitude toward the authority of the text and the Sages therein
3) The methodologies employed

1. The Goal of Study

Putting aside the question of what might stimulate the academician’s interest in the text in the first place, the academician is typically interested in the text either as a body of literature worthy of study as such, or for its value as a primary source that sheds light on the history or sociology of the context from which the text emerged—the Babylonian Jewish community of the middle of the first millennium CE. The student in the Bet Midrash, however, is generally interested in the text as a foundation for normative halakhic practice and moral instruction; the text is not only the vestige of a bygone era or primary source for the history of the Classical period, but one very much relevant to day-to-day life.

2. Attitudes

The academician does not necessarily regard the text with reverence. It is not different in its inherent value from any other text from any particular period. The academician does not (again, necessarily) have reverence for the Sages of the Talmud—either as people or as moral guides for his or her life. The traditional student however, regards the text as sacred, and the Sages are major figures in terms of the masorah—the chain of Jewish tradition going back to Sinai. While one can acknowledge that the Sages were human in every sense of the word, the student of the Bet Midrash holds these individuals in the highest of esteem and is reluctant, if not completely unwilling, to cast aspersions upon them or attribute ulterior motivations to their rulings.

3. Methodologies
The academician and the student in the Bet Midrash have different interests, and their methodologies typically reflect those varied concerns. The academician who is interested in history will typically be more interested in historical background, in determining what is fact and what is legend, and in understanding the realia—both physical and cultural—implied in various talmudic passages. And certainly, the history of interpretation of the talmudic text in subsequent eras is generally of little interest, as it does not necessarily reflect on anything about the original context of the Talmud. The student in the Bet Midrash, on the other hand, is more likely to be interested in concepts and values that can be extrapolated from the text and that will be relevant in life; there is a great deal of emphasis on the subsequent interpretation of the Talmud found in the rishonim and aharonim.

Of course, there is frequently a great deal of overlap between the interests of the two individuals. Certainly, the historian will be interested in concepts and values expressed in the texts—at least for the purposes of intellectual history. And the student in the Bet Midrash certainly will (or should) want to understand the talmudic realia so as to able to properly extrapolate to contemporary circumstances. Nonetheless, the differences between the interests of the two are usually fairly obvious. The academician is more likely to be interested in what Rava ate, whereas the student of the Bet Midrash is more likely to be interested in what blessing he recited over the food.

In discussing the relevance of academic talmudic study to the Bet Midrash, it should be obvious that it is only the third area (i.e., that of methodology) that is of interest to me here. Clearly, a student of the Bet Midrash should not have any less reverence for the Sages due to new methodologies in the study of Torah, nor should the broader agenda be any different—even with new methods, one is still interested in bringing the Talmud into life as a religious and spiritual force.

It should also be noted that in the spirit of King Solomon’s observation that there is nothing new under the sun, there is very little truly new in academic Talmud study. That is to say, virtually every tool in the academician’s toolbox was already employed at times by the rishonim. [1] The difference, however, is one of priority or emphasis. While an academician may be focused on splitting the Talmud apart into its historical layers as a matter of course, the rishonim who employ such a methodology do so sporadically, and only because textual problems or difficulties in the sugya, both internal and external, have forced them to do so.

What follows are a number of differences in methodology that typically (or sometimes stereotypically) distinguish between the interests of the academy and that of the Bet Midrash. The list is not meant to be comprehensive, but will focus on those methodologies that are of greatest relevance to the student in the Bet Midrash and often enhance the study of Torah.

1. Girsaot

The question of ascertaining the correct text, logically speaking, is equally relevant to the academic scholar and the talmid hakham. However, both because of the relative difficulty of access to other textual witnesses, as well as the effect of the printed text (especially the Vilna shas) in leaving some with the impression of its fixed and unchanging nature, most students in the Bet Midrash are either unaware of questions of textual accuracy, or not terribly interested. Recent printings of the Talmud have started to bring some of these textual variants in the margins, and the dikdukei soferim has been available for almost a century and a half. Nonetheless, these issues are usually not on the minds of most students in the Bet Midrash. In truth, most of the significant textual variants have already been mined and noted by the rishonim and aharonim—they frequently serve as the basis of dispute between earlier authorities. Certainly there are cases where awareness of alternate texts will solve problems that arise for the student in the Bet Midrash, but most of the unnoted variants are probably more relevant for issues of language and scribal practices.

2. Texts of Interest

Academicians are often interested in a broader set of rabbinic texts than the typical member of the Bet Midrash. Study in the Bet Midrash, in most cases, focuses (or at least until recently has focused) primarily on the Talmud Bavli. To the academician, the other bodies of rabbinic literature often offer alternative perspectives on the same issues, or may hint to the historical development of ideas found in the Bavli. Of course, this interest is not fundamentally new. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed a resurgence in interest in the Talmud Yerushalmi as well as the various collections of rabbinic Midrashim. Both of these bodies of literature have been the subjects of many commentaries, especially in the last two to three centuries. Much of this literature was known to the rishonim, and certainly was the subject of study, but very little in the way of commentaries (to the extent that they were even composed) have survived, perhaps a reflection of the peripheral nature of those texts with respect to study in the Bet Midrash.[2] (That peripheral nature of the texts is also indicated by the tendency to harmonize those texts with the Bavli—which generally entails both reading the Bavli’s presentation of ideas into those texts, and reflexively leveling the actual texts themselves to match the parallels found in the Bavli.) There is little doubt, however, that reintroduction of other works of rabbinic literature has served to broaden the horizons of the Bet Midrash and enrich the study of Torah.

3. Layers

One of the major tools of the academician is the parsing of the text into historical layers. In particular, there is an assertion (correct on the whole) that a differentiation can be drawn in the Bavli between the Amoraic layer, or the meimra, and the anonymous material in the Talmud, which usually reflects a later editorial or redactional stage of interpretation. The significance of this assertion is that it raises the possibility that while the anonymous editorial layer of the text offers one understanding of an Amoraic statement, an alternative possible understanding of the statement may exist. (Sometimes this alternative is actually found in the Yerushalmi, or in another sugya in the Bavli.)

This is perhaps the most controversial aspect of academic Talmud study—the assertion that the understanding of the anonymous layer of the Talmud may not reflect the only possible meaning, or perhaps even the original meaning. This possibility presents two kinds of religious problems—the theological and the pragmatic. Theologically speaking, how do we have the audacity to claim greater understanding of what an amora said than the later (anonymous) sages who compiled the Bavli? Pragmatically speaking, what does this mean for normative purposes? If one asserts that the amora meant something different from the explanation offered by the Talmud, what would that imply for contemporary practices?

In truth, neither problem need be regarded as particularly compelling. On the pragmatic level, the impact on halakha is non-existent; legal systems generally do not burrow back into the past to travel paths not taken. Once the law has taken a certain course, it continues on that path. Put differently, we pasken not based upon the rulings of the amoraim but rather by how they were understood and implemented by the redactors of the Bavli, the Mesadrei haShas.

Regarding the question of how we might possess a greater understanding of the words of the amoraim, two points should be considered. First, frequently the editors understood everything that we understand, but may have been taking into account other factors and information in their interpretation (or perhaps better, reinterpretation), including other contradictory texts and alternative versions. Second, we usually have insight into alternatives only because we have information that wasn’t necessarily in front of an individual editor—i.e., we possess either other sugyot in the Bavli, or parallels in the Yerushalmi. The analogue would be to the famous medieval aphorism, “pygmies on the shoulders of giants.” It is also worth noting that instances in which one can assert with any degree of certitude that an interpretation other than the one offered by the editors is more correct are rare—in most cases one can, at best, only speculate.

Most significant, however, is that this methodology was not invented by modern scholars. The Ba`alei HaTosafot in numerous places in their commentary note the distinction between what the amoraim said, and how the Gemara (or a particular Gemara) interpreted their words. Tosafot in a number of places [3] observe that the solution to a contradiction between two sugyot that cite an amoraic statement differently is to distinguish between what the amora actually said and how the Gemara in each place (immediately following the amora’s words, which often looks as if it is actually the end of his statement, rather than an explanation of it[4] ) understands his statement. The actual statements are identical, but the differing explanations reflect a debate between the two sugyot in how to understand the amora.

4. Realia

Understanding the historical and cultural context in which the Bavli was composed is of great interest to academicians, both in terms of the history itself and because it may shed light on the meaning of some texts. The tendency in most contemporary Batei Midrash is to be much more interested in concepts and theory than in any realia. (In its extreme form, consider those who study the laws of shehitah while never having seen a living cow.) Of course, many situations demand an understanding of realia in order to make heads or tails of various statements. Obviously, one cannot understand the passages in Shabbat that deal with weaving or knots without understanding how a loom (from the talmudic era) worked or what sailors knots look like.

But sometimes, lack of appreciation of realia stems from being unaware of how different their world was from ours. Takes for example the practice of vatikin, those who begin shaharit at sunrise, of which the Talmud speaks glowingly. Most contemporary students of Talmud assume that the greatness of those who pray with the sunrise is the fact that they awaken so early in the day. However, such an interpretation is almost certainly incorrect. In the preindustrial world, people generally went to bed shortly after dark and usually woke up well before sunrise.[5] Most people were already at work in the fields by the time the sun rose. (In light of this point we understand the Mishnah in Berakhot [2:4] that speak of workers reading the shema and praying while up on a scaffold or in a tree.) If anything, the greatness of those who prayed with the sunrise was that they delayed going to work until they could say the Shema and pray at the ideal time. Alternatively, one might consider the greatness of vatikin as having the good fortune to be able to time one’s Shema to come out at sunrise—recall that they had no means of telling time the way we do today as there were no watches or clocks. Thus, when attainable, a greater awareness of the realia of the talmudic era is not merely an enhancement of traditional study, but also a sine qua non for a correct understanding of many passages.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, the bread and butter of study in the Bet Midrash remains the havayot of Abaye and Rava. Whether the study be for the purpose of ascertaining the halakha, or for a more theoretical clarification of talmudic concepts, the traditional approach still will occupy the bulk of the student’s labor. Nonetheless, there are many occasions where methodologies, whose roots are in traditional talmudic interpretation but which have been adopted as the primary tools in the Academy, can prove quite useful in traditional Talmud study. Sometimes they address issues not raised by the traditional commentaries, and on other occasions they offer alternative possibilities to solving problems raised by those commentaries. The question of approach need not be an either/or proposition; new methodologies can supplement the old, without supplanting them. Adopting additional methods serves to enrich our understanding of the Talmud and expand the vistas of students of Torah. When utilized properly by those who dwell in the Bet Midrash, and who possess the appropriate reverence for Hazal and respect for talmudic authority, these tools serve to illuminate and to glorify Torah.

[1] The only obvious exception that comes to mind is the use of literary analysis in the study of aggadah in particular.
[2] This is true not only for the commentaries, but for the texts themselves. The Talmud Yerushalmi survives, more or less, in one manuscript (ms. Leiden). Any chapter in the Yerushalmi not preserved in that manuscript (e.g., the last three chapters of Y. Shabbat, the third chapter of Y. Makkot and the last seven chapters of Y. Niddah) are completely lost to us. Similarly, the Tosefta survives in one complete manuscript (ms. Vienna) and one that covers just beyond the first four orders (ms. Erfurt).
[3] Bava Batra 176a s.v.goveh, Bava Metzi`a 112a s.v. ’uman, Shabbat 10b s.v. sha’ni. Also note the textual instincts of Tosafot Shabbat 4a s.v. de’amrinan.
[4] Usually the simplest way to distinguish is that the meimra is usually in Hebrew whereas the explanation is typically in Aramaic.
[5] For an extensive treatment of night and sleep patterns in the pre-industrial world, see Roger A. Ekirch, At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, 2005.