National Scholar Updates

Angel for Shabbat, Parashat Va'era

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

"And Moshe spoke so to the children of Israel; but they hearkened not to Moshe for anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage."  (Shemot 4:9)

Moses had a great message: ending slavery, beginning freedom, leaving for a Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. But no matter how great the message, it has to reach the intended audience successfully. Many great ideas and plans have cropped up throughout history; but they simply faded into oblivion because they didn’t convince the public.

Moses had a great message, but the Israelites themselves were not receptive due to kotser ruach va-avoda kasha, anguish of spirit and cruel bondage. As slaves, they were physically so strained and exhausted, Moses’ words did not resonate; the message struck them as being impossibly unrealistic. Commentators explain kotser ruach in different ways. The Israelites were short of breath, gasping under the pressures of their labor. The Israelites’ spirit was anguished i.e. they were psychologically unprepared to listen to Moses’ pipe dream.

Dr. Nahum Sarna in his Torah Commentary on Sefer Shemot translates kotser ruach to mean “the Israelites’ spirits were crushed.”   Sarna writes that, “ruach is the spiritual and psychic energy that motivates action.  Its absence or attenuation signifies atrophy of the will” (The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus, page 32).The Israelites could not absorb Moses’s message because the physical and mental toll of slavery plunged them into a state of hopelessness.  

A fascinating interpretation was suggested by the Ralbag (Rabbi Levi ben Gershon, 1288-1344, Provence). He applies the term kotser ruach not to the people of Israel—but to Moses!  Moses did not get his message across because he did not prepare properly, he did not relate meaningfully to the people. He was a loner, a prophet, a spiritual personality who did not grasp how best to win over the public. He was not eloquent enough, not engaging enough. In his own words, he was aral sefatayim, of uncircumcised lips i.e. unable to formulate his words clearly enough.

The Torah is pointing out the vital conditions for a great message to be successful: the messenger must be effective, the audience must be receptive, external obstacles must be overcome. In the case at hand, Moses had to relate effectively with the people; the Israelites had to be open to the message in spite of their slave conditions; and Pharaoh’s opposition had to be overcome. These are the themes that pervade the Torah’s narratives of the Exodus.

The transition from slavery to freedom was not a simple process. It took ten plagues to convince Pharaoh to let the Israelites go—and even then he decided to pursue them with his troops. It took Moses much patience to hone his own effectiveness in reaching the hearts of his people. And it took the Israelites a full generation to internalize freedom and ready themselves to enter the Promised Land.

Turning to our situation today, we have a great message—a Torah way of life that promotes spirituality, morality, idealism…the ways of peace and pleasantness. Yet, the message doesn’t always get through to the large masses of the Jewish community. Sometimes, the problem is external obstacles—the pressures of work, the secularization of society in general, the challenges of an entertainment-based society. Sometimes, the problem is lack of receptivity of the Jewish public to a religious message. Many Jews grow up with little or no deep Jewish education; they are too preoccupied with their businesses and social lives to give much attention to a challenging religious message. And sometimes the messengers—rabbis and teachers—do not relate to the genuine spiritual and intellectual needs of the public.

Kotser ruach in our times may be referring to a diminished spiritual sense. Vibrant religious life needs a vibrant religious spirit. It needs us to be open to the challenges of religion at its best. It needs us to hear the message, to overcome obstacles, and to have leaders who can articulate a sophisticated spiritual framework for our lives.

But kotser ruach might be an accurate description of why many people fail to achieve their maximum potentialities. Their spirits are stunted; they don’t dream big enough; they are satisfied with their day to day lives without imagining they can do better, achieve more, reach beyond. They settle for the status quo without envisioning a grander framework for their lives.

If we are to be our best selves, we need to overcome the kotser ruach that curtails our dreams, imagination and creativity.

There is a feeling among many Jews, including many Orthodox Jews, that worship in the synagogue lacks adequate inspiration and spirituality. Among the complaints: the synagogue ritual is chanted by rote; the prayers are recited too quickly; the prayers are recited too slowly; the service is not understood by congregants; people talk too much in synagogue; the services do not involve everyone in a meaningful way.

Here are some of the “solutions” that have been suggested over the years, along with why they have not achieved full success:

Introduce Hassidic/Carlebach melodies—these may be more lively and inspirational than the usual synagogue music. Yes, for some people, singing such melodies is emotionally satisfying. But for many others, such music seems more like a hootenanny than a vehicle for addressing God.

Make the services more egalitarian. Yes, for some people this seems like a way of getting men and women more involved. Yet, the Reform and Conservative movements have been fully egalitarian for many years—without any perceptible improvement in the overall spiritual life of their communities. Indeed, these movements have been suffering from serious loss of membership, and from generally poor attendance at services. While newly established “partnership” services are popping up in the Orthodox world, it remains to be seen whether this represents a passing fad, or if these types of services will fall into the same patterns that have taken hold in the non-Orthodox egalitarian services.

Make services shorter; include more readings in the vernacular. Yes, for some people this makes the synagogue experience more palatable. But it is doubtful whether it brings people to a greater feeling of the presence of God, or whether it will inspire more people to actually attend services.

Introduce meditation practices. Yes, some people may find this helpful to their spiritual experience. But many others may find these practices an outside imposition on Jewish worship and may be repelled by this mode of spirituality.

Whatever suggestions are offered, one can come up with counter-arguments. Each individual and each community has different needs and expectations.

The “crisis of the synagogue” needs to be viewed, I suggest, in a much broader context. The synagogue is only one factor—and not the major factor—in the real problem we are facing. The real problem is: moderns are losing, or have already lost, their sense of intimacy with God. God is simply not a real presence in many of our lives. Even if we observe the commandments, study Torah and say our prayers, we may still not feel the awesome, overwhelming experience of living in the light of the Eternal.

If we are losing, or have already lost, a sense of intimacy with God, making changes in the synagogue service will not restore that intimacy. Whatever gimmicks we introduce, while possibly helpful to some, will ultimately fail, because they are focusing on symptoms rather than on the malady itself.

To a religious Jew who feels God’s presence in daily life, the synagogue service poses little or no problem. The synagogue is just one of many contexts in which one experiences the Divine. It is not the center of religious life, and certainly not the only place to feel God’s presence. One follows the synagogue ritual out of loyalty to tradition, out of solidarity with generations of Jews who have prayed in this manner, out of a spiritual quest to be part of the community’s prayers to the Almighty. But one also says private prayers any time of the day, in almost any place.

If we have personal spirituality, we can bring this into our public spirituality. If we can maintain, or regain, a living relationship with God in our daily lives, then our synagogue experience becomes much higher and much deeper.

Surely, a synagogue needs to do its best to help congregants re-establish intimacy with God; and it needs to conduct its prayer services in a manner that is conducive to spiritual experience and development. But it also needs to realize that it is an enabler of spirituality, not a substitute for spirituality. God doesn’t dwell only—or even primarily—in the synagogue. God dwells everywhere. Most of our lives are not spent in the synagogue, and most of our lives are deeply in need of relationship with the Almighty. If we can develop a full spiritual personality, we will find the synagogue experience to be a meaningful and vital aspect of our lives. We need to be working on how to become more sensitive to our souls, to our personal relationships with God. We need to imbue our daily lives with Torah and mitzvoth in such a way that these activities resonate within us, and raise our spirits.

When Bil’am blessed the people of Israel, he said: “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob; your dwellings O Israel.” The “tents” refer to our homes, the centers of our every-day lives; the “dwellings” refer to our synagogues and study halls. When we first have our “tents” in order, it is a natural extension to have our “dwellings” in order.

It is far from a simple matter for moderns to maintain, or regain, a sense of intimacy with God. Much of the time-spirit militates against genuine religious experience. Religion is not an easy way to God, and is not a short cut to spirituality. Treating symptoms without going to the root of our problem only makes the problem worse.

If we want our synagogues to be more spiritual, we have to be more spiritual ourselves. If we want our "dwellings" to be spiritually alive, then we first have to be sure that our "tents" are spiritually alive.

In his book, The Perspective of Civilization, Fernand Braudel utilizes a concept that he calls “world-time.” Braudel notes that at any given point in history, all societies are not at the same level of advancement. The leading countries exist in world-time; that is, their level of advancement is correlated to the actual date in history.

However, there also are countries and civilizations which are far behind world-time, whose way of life may be centuries or even millennia behind the advanced societies. While the advanced technological countries exist in world-time, underdeveloped countries lag generations behind; some societies are still living as their ancestors did centuries ago. In short, everyone in the world may be living at the same chronological date, but different societies may be far from each other in terms of world-time.

Braudel's analysis also can be extended to the way people think. Even though people may be alive at the same time, their patterns of thinking may be separated by generations or even centuries. The characteristic of Modern Orthodoxy is that it is modern, that it is correlated to the contemporary world-time. Being part of contemporary world-time, it draws on the teachings of modern scholarship, it is open to modern philosophy and literature, and it relates Jewish law to contemporary world realities.

On the other hand, “non-modern” Orthodoxy does not operate in the present world-time. Its way of thinking and dealing with contemporary reality are pre-modern, generations behind contemporary world-time.

The differences between so-called right-wing Orthodoxy and Modern Orthodoxy are not differences in sincerity or in authentic commitment. Rather, the differences stem from different world views, from living in different world-times.

A Modern Orthodox Jew does not wish to think like a medieval rabbi, even though he wishes to fully understand what the medieval rabbi wrote and believed. The Modern Orthodox Jew wishes to draw on the wisdom of the past, not to be part of the past.

The philosophy of Modern Orthodoxy is not at all new. Rather, it is a basic feature of Jewish thought throughout the centuries. In matters of halakha, for example, it is axiomatic that contemporary authorities are obligated to evaluate halakhic questions from their own immediate perspective, rather than to rely exclusively on the opinions of rabbis of previous generations. The well-known phrase that “Yiftah in his generation is like Shemuel in his generation” (Rosh haShanah 25b) expresses the need to rely on contemporary authorities, even if they are not of the stature of the authorities of previous generations. We are obligated to be “Modern Orthodox,” to recognize present reality and to participate in contemporary world-time.

One of the weaknesses of contemporary Orthodoxy is that it is not “modern” in the sense just discussed. There is a prevailing attitude that teaches us to revere the opinions of the sages of previous generations, and to defer to those contemporary sages who occupy a world-time contemporary with those sages.

Who are the sages of the present world-time, who absorb the contemporary reality, the contemporary ways of thinking and analyzing? To be Modern Orthodox Jews means to accept our limitations, but it also means that we must accept our responsibility to judge according to what our own eyes see, according to our own understanding. It means to have the self-respect to accept that responsibility.

Modern Orthodoxy and pre-Modern Orthodoxy do not engage in meaningful dialogue because they operate in separate world-times. The sages of each generation are influenced by the social and political realities of their time. If many of our sages in the past believed in demons and witches, if they thought that the sun revolved around the earth, or if they assigned inferior status to women and slaves—we can understand that they were part of a world that accepted these notions. We do not show disrespect for them by understanding the context in which they lived and thought. On the contrary, we are able to understand their words better, and thus we may determine how they may or may not be applied to our own contemporary situation. It is not disrespectful to our sages if we disagree with their understanding of physics, psychology, sociology, or politics. On the contrary, it would be foolish not to draw on the advances in these fields that have been made throughout the generations, including those of our own time.

There is no sense in forcing ourselves into an earlier world-time in order to mold our ways of thinking into harmony with modes of thought of sages who lived several hundred or even several thousand years ago.

One of the nagging problems that bothers many thoughtful Orthodox Jews is how Orthodoxy has become increasingly authoritarian and obscurantist—how it has seemed to lock itself into a pre-modern worldview. There is a palpable drive to conformity—in dress, in thought, in behavior. Independent thinking—especially if inspired by “secular” wisdom—is discouraged or forbidden. It is as though people wish to pretend that findings of modern science may be casually dismissed; that women and men of today must think and act as they did in pre-modern times; that Orthodox life demands a strongly negative posture vis a vis modernity.

Thinking Jews should be standing up for a genuine modern Orthodoxy that insists on functioning in contemporary world-time. While facing modernity has its real challenges, not facing modernity will lead Orthodoxy into a cult-like existence-- out of touch with reality, out of touch with the needs of thinking and feeling human beings…out of touch with Torah itself.

In 2006, Oxford University Press published a book by Chris Lowney, “A Vanished World: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain.” The author asked me to write a blurb, and it was included on the back cover of the book. Here is what I wrote:

“Chris Lowney has written a meaningful book about interfaith cooperation and interfaith antagonism in medieval Spain. While it points to the many failures of those days, it also suggests important triumphs of the human spirit. Can we learn from this story and shape a better, more harmonious world? Can we afford not to learn from this story?”

An underlying theme of Lowney’s book, like so many publications dealing with Islamic Spain, is that Jews and Christians fared reasonably well under enlightened Islamic rule. While life was not always perfect, it was much better for religious minorities in Islamic Spain than in Christian Europe.

Historians refer to a “Golden Age” for Jews of Spain. The Wiki Encyclopedia entry for the Golden Age states: “The nature and length of this ‘Golden Age’ has been a subject of much debate, as there were at least three Golden Ages interrupted by periods of oppression of Jews and non-Jews. A few scholars give the start of the Golden Age as 711–718, the Muslim conquest of Iberia. Others date it from 912, under the rule of Abd-ar-Rahman III. The end of the age is variously given as 1031, when the Caliphate of Cordoba ended, 1066, the date of the Granada massacre, 1090, when the Almoravides invaded, or the mid-12th century, when the Almohades invaded.”

Many authors laud “convivencia”—the generally peaceful co-existence in Medieval Spain that allowed Muslims, Christians and Jews to live in harmony. It is clear that Jewish culture blossomed in Islamic Spain, with the emergence of great poets, grammarians, Bible scholars, talmudists, philosophers, scientists, mathematicians and more.

The blurb I wrote for Chris Lowney’s book reflects my doubts about the extent of Islamic tolerance of Jews and Christians. I wanted to be sure to mention that interfaith antagonism existed and that there were lapses in tolerance. But I also indicated that there were important triumphs of the human spirit, and that we today can learn much of value for maintaining a convivencia in our own times, a respectful and mutually beneficial harmony among people of various religions.

I was right about the failures that occurred under Islamic Spain. But was I right in pointing to that era as a positive model for religious co-existence? Was I too optimistic? Was I engaging in wishful thinking? Was I influenced by the overwhelming praise, by many authors and teachers, of the tolerance of Islamic Spain, and by the ubiquitous lauding of convivencia?

These questions have come to mind as I’ve been reading a newly published book, “The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain,” by Dario Fernandez-Morera, (ISI Books, Wilmington, 2016). The author is Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University.

While various scholars have pointed to problems and low points during Islamic rule in Spain, Dr. Fernandez-Morera goes much further. His bold argument is that the notion of Islamic tolerance of Jews and Christians is a myth—it is simply not true. The idea of convivencia—the mutual cooperation and harmony among Muslims, Christians and Jews in Medieval Spain—belongs more to the realm of propaganda than to history.

The author quotes numerous scholars who shower praise on Islamic tolerance, on the remarkable “Golden Age” in interreligious cooperation. But he argues that these authors were engaging in “political correctness,” the fashionable presentation of a tolerant and benevolent Islam. He draws on writings of people who lived in Islamic Spain, people who described what life was actually like in their times. He draws on extensive scholarly sources, on archaeological discoveries, as well as on the abundant secondary literature of more recent scholars.

Dr. Fernandez-Morera notes that the famed Umayyad dynasty were followers of the Maliki school of Islam which had little love for non-Muslims. The early Muslim conquerors of Spain and their successors systematically razed churches or turned them into Mosques. They imposed Islamic law on Christians and Jews—known as People of the Book—which made it very clear that the minorities were to be subservient to Muslims. Although granted relative freedom to conduct their communities according to their own religious traditions, Christians and Jews were “dhimmis”—an underclass of “protected people” who had to pay a special tax for the privilege of living under Islamic hegemony.

Dr. Fernandez-Morera writes: “In short, Islamic Spain enjoyed no harmonious convivencia; rather, Muslims, Christians, and Jews had a precarious coexistence. Members of the three communities had to come into contact now and then. Sometimes they did business, or collaborated with one another, or dwelled near one another.” (p. 117) Of course, as in all societies, kinder people interacted more kindly with those of the other groups. And of course, there are examples of periods of relative quiet. And there were individual Jews and Christians who rose to positions of power and influence. Nonetheless, the massive reality was that “dhimmis” were subject to ongoing humiliation, segregation, and violence.

The “dhimmi” regulations imposed a special tax on Christians and Jews. Various rules were intended to humiliate “dhimmis” and remind them of their subservient positions. Writing about restrictions placed on Jews in Islamic Spain, Dr. Fernandez-Morera notes that Jews “must not ride horses. They must show deference to Muslims. They must not give court evidence against a Muslim…They must not proselytize….They must not dress in such an ostentatious manner as to offend poorer Muslims….” (p. 180)

While Jewish communities continued to exist in Islamic Spain, Christian communities declined and ultimately disappeared. “By the end of the twelfth century, as a result of flight (or ‘migration’) to Christian lands, expulsions to North Africa, executions and conversions, the Christian "dhimmi" population had largely disappeared from al-Andalus. When Christians entered Granada in 1492, there were no Christian "dhimmis" in the city.” (p. 208).

Professor Fernandez-Morera’s book has a clear point of view. He is especially interested in highlighting the strengths and virtues of Visigothic Spain before the arrival of the Muslims in 711. He praises the Christian re-conquest of Spain. Had it not been for the “Reconquista,” Islamic rule might not only have prevailed over all of Spain, but might have spread further into Europe. This would have led to the fostering of religious discrimination, the low status of women, the inhibiting of intellectual freedom; it would have precluded the emergence of the Renaissance, and would have left the Western world in the same general condition as the rest of the Muslim world.

While some of the arguments of Dr. Fernandez-Morera seem over-stretched and even polemical, the overall impact of his research and his book must make one stop to think more carefully about the “Andalusian Paradise” and convivencia. Are scholars and politicians perpetuating this myth because it serves a useful purpose, because they—and we—want to believe it? How nice it would be to know that there was a time and place when Muslims, Christians and Jews worked side by side in mutual respect and kindness. How nice to think that it is possible for Islamic rule to be tolerant and benevolent.

President Barack Obama, in a speech at Cairo University, June 4, 2009, stated: “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition [sic].” Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote (“Foreign Affairs, January/February 2007): “The standard-bearers of tolerance in the early Middle Ages were far more likely to be found in Muslim lands than in Christian ones.”

These politicians, relying on wishful and mythological thinking, seek to appease the Muslim countries and to glorify Muslim achievements. Perhaps they think they will thereby convince current day Muslim leaders to embrace the myth of Islamic tolerance, thereby creating bridges between the Muslim world and the West.

Dr. Fernandez-Morera has pointed to the unpleasant and politically incorrect reality that Muslim rule was “tolerant” to Christians and Jews, but only if the "dhimmis" were in a clearly defined inferior position, subservient to Muslims. This is hardly a framework for mutual respect and equal rights.

When I wrote my blurb for Chris Lowney’s book, I wondered: “Can we learn from this story and shape a better, more harmonious world? Can we afford not to learn from this story?” When I wrote those words, I obviously harbored the belief—the hope—that there was a period of convivencia that can be a model for us today. I thought that it would be foolish for us to ignore the positive aspects of life in Medieval Spain.

After reading Dario Fernandez-Morera’s book, I could write these same words, but with a very different meaning. Rephrased, my blurb for today would read: Can we learn from the story of religious persecution and humiliation that characterized Islamic Spain? Can we learn to shape a better, more harmonious world by insisting on genuine respect, equality, decency, and theological humility among all religions? Can we afford not to learn these lessons?

            Human identities are like categories: Invented from the outside, they rarely capture the essence of our personalities, commitments, and sparks that animates us. My father is definitely someone who doesn’t fit the categories; indeed, he often writes that we too often apply the wrong categories, especially in our religious lives. Just as we wouldn’t speak of a “pound of Beethoven,” surely, we should not try to measure the spiritual grandeur of the Sabbath. My father never called himself a Conservative Jew, nor labeled himself in any way. He grew up in Warsaw, stemming from one of the most distinguished Hassidic families, with a royal lineage, and already as a small child, he was expected to become a rebbe. Yet he wanted to study, and in the 1920s, it was not as unusual for a pious young man to attend university. My father had already received semikha from Rabbi Menachem Zemba in Warsaw before he left for Berlin, which he viewed as a city at the center of the intellectual universe. In addition to his doctorate at the university, he took classes at the two rabbinical seminaries, Orthodox and Reform, because he wanted to understand the outlook of each school.

          My father appreciated what he learned, but he was also terribly disappointed with the kind of approach his professors were taking, and he felt that none of his teachers, experts in Jewish topics, understood the nature of religious life. For his doctoral dissertation, he wrote about the Hebrew prophets. For decades, German biblical scholars, mostly Protestants, had denigrated the prophets as “ecstatics,” or described them as rural country bumpkins whose messages of peace and an end to war were naïve and ridiculous when presented to urban centers, kings, and priests. No, my father wrote: The prophets were not ecstatics; they were people of extraordinary inner lives who resonated with God’s own pathos and compassion. Their message was not at all naïve, but a demand for justice and a hope for ultimate peace that should guide our own lives.

My father was rescued “as a brand plucked from the fire” from Nazi Europe, and he arrived in the United States in March of 1940. After five years at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, he moved to the Upper West Side of New York City and taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary until his death in 1972.

            There was always something extraordinarily moving and also terribly ephemeral about the Hassidic rebbes my father took me to visit when I was growing up in New York. These rebbes were relatives, refugees from Europe, elderly men of tremendous gentleness and exquisite refinement. The air in the room felt alive when we entered their small studies; there was an intensity in those encounters because they were a small taste, for my father, of what he had lost in Europe: family, friends, a special Jewish world that he describes in his book, The Earth is the Lord’s.

            My father wanted the whole world to know Judaism, to know the Jewish spirit that he had experienced in Poland, and he wanted American Jews to understand what they were missing with what he called the “vicarious davening” of the cold formality of the suburban Conservative and Reform synagogues. He railed against the “religious behaviorism” of Orthodox Jews who focused on the punctilious observance of the Shulhan Arukh, as if that law guide was a substitute for Torah. Judaism was in decline, he wrote, not because of the challenges of science or philosophy, but because its message had become insipid. It was time to recapture the greatness of the Torah and the Talmud, but we can only do that, he wrote, if we know what questions to ask. Jews, he said, had become messengers who forgot the message. Studying Torah and Talmud superficially brought the exile of the Shekhinah. How can we recapture the questions, the insights, and the greatness of the Torah? That was the goal of his three-volume Hebrew book, Torah min HaShamayim.

            My father was a person who always brought people together. He was full of warmth, enthusiasm, great humor, and he filled a room with his personality. He was also the most gentle and compassionate and loving person I have ever known. I had the feeling I could tell him anything, discuss any problem. He was always open to ideas, but critically: He was never satisfied, but always wanted to know more, and move to the next step in addressing a problem. He was passionate, studying all the time, and had no interest in entertainment, relaxation, or anything that was superficial. Conversations were also intense, and so was his concern with the world.

            When my father returned from the Civil Rights march in Selma, Alabama, he said, “I felt my legs were praying,” a very Hassidic statement. He added that marching with Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded him of walking with Hassidic rebbes in Europe. Before he agreed to meet with Pope Paul VI and Vatican officials in Rome concerning the formulation of Nostra Aetate, the Church’s statement regarding its relations with the Jews, he talked with his brother in law, the Kopycznitzer rebbe. His concern about Jews who were stranded in the Soviet Union, unable to leave and unable to practice Judaism, led my father to deliver strongly worded lectures and encourage his friend, Elie Wiesel, to visit Moscow, which led to The Jews of Silence, Wiesel’s book about the Soviet Jews. Dr. King and my father lectured to Jewish groups together, speaking about racism, Zionism, and freedom for Soviet Jews.

            In his last years, my father was brokenhearted over the war in Vietnam, which had become a political stranglehold on the presidency, and seemed to be deteriorating into a series of atrocities without clear military objectives. Dropping napalm on children, destroying villages, killing civilians: This left my father sleepless with horror. He spoke out because, he wrote, “in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.” It was impossible, he said, to be a religious Jew and not protest the atrocities committed by our government and in our name.

            My father cannot be categorized. His heart was Hassidic; his life was that of a scholar and teacher. What is clear, though, is that he preserved the heart and soul of Judaism, both in his writings and in the life that he led.

            My father’s voice was one of “moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.” He spoke out in the prophetic tradition, and we are proud that he represented the Jewish people to the world. After the devastation of Europe, he gave us back our souls, reminding us of the greatness of Judaism and urging us to study more deeply, pray with greater intensity, and always remember what we stand for.

"Across the Expanse of Jewish Thought," by Rabbi Hillel Goldberg

Reviewed by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

Archilochus, an ancient Greek poet, observed: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Sir Isaiah Berlin used this line as a metaphor for different kinds of thinkers. Some, like the fox, know many topics, have wide-ranging intellectual concerns. Others, like the hedgehog, have one central idea that dominates their thinking.

Rabbi Dr. Hillel Goldberg draws on the fox and hedgehog imagery in his new book, Across the Expanse of Jewish Thought (Ktav, 2022). He notes that he, like the hedgehog, has one central focus—Torah Judaism. But, like the fox, he also has a wide range of intellectual interests including science, history, philosophy, literature and more.

Rabbi Goldberg’s book is a classic example of the combined focus of a hedgehog and the expansiveness of the fox. He has a fine eye for detail. His studies in biblical texts and prayers hone in on words, patterns, and nuances. But they reflect the larger vision of works that put us in relationship with the Almighty. So it is with the structure of the book as a whole. He addresses particular themes in a penetrating manner…but also explores the larger meanings and implications of each topic.

The subtitle of this book is From the Holocaust to Halakhah and Beyond. This gives the reader an idea of the scope of material covered in this book. Rabbi Goldberg writes about holocaust theology and what we can learn from the survivors themselves. He explores themes in prayer, biblical commentary, musar, Jewish law, philosophy; and he offers biographical studies of Rav Kuk and Professor (Rebbe Dr.) Isadore Twersky.

Rabbi Goldberg is an engaging writer with a distinctive style. His prose is modulated. It gives the reader time to think, to digest the words. In discussing Abraham and the Akeida, Rabbi Goldberg writes: “This is the paradox: Abraham finds his own way to God’s way. Actually, however, Abraham transcends paradox. He does not have two separate sides. Now he is submissive, now he is creative: it is not this way. Abraham melds the will of God and the will of man. As much as possible for any human being, Abraham unifies Infinity and finitude.” (p. 171)

As a hedgehog, Rabbi Goldberg focuses on the detailed mandates of the halakha. As a fox, he seeks the meanings that undergird the details and that soar heavenward.  He writes: “By His love and grace, God issued halakhah as the sovereign over all ritual, ethical and social necessities; equally, by His love and grace, God endowed the human being with the capability and curiosity to unveil secrets of the universe.” ( p. 210) Rabbi Goldberg notes that halakha “creatively juxtaposes divine knowledge and human knowledge of the natural world. It shapes social reality and embraces other disciplines of divine knowledge.” (p. 212)

On a personal note, Rabbi Goldberg and I were fellow students at Yeshiva College during the 1960s. Even then, I learned to appreciate his soft-spoken, thoughtful manner of communication. Over these many years, I have learned much from his writings, and have enjoyed his masterful articles and editorials in the Intermountain Jewish News. When I read his works, I somehow feel that I am hearing his voice…calm, thoughtful, precise, challenging. More than a hedgehog, more than a fox: Rabbi Goldberg is a thinking rabbi who incorporates and transcends both.

Angel for Shabbat, Parashat Shemot

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

Moses was raised by Pharaoh’s daughter who had saved him as a baby floating in a basket in the Nile river. Moses was nursed by his own mother, but once he was weaned he became the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Moses lived in the Egyptian court.

The Torah informs us that when Moses grew up “he went out to his brothers,” i.e. the Israelites. How did Moses know they were his brothers? How did he identify himself as an Israelite if he had been raised as an Egyptian?

When God told Moses to go to Egypt to lead the Israelites to freedom, He told Moses that his brother Aaron would meet him and help him. How did Moses know he had a brother?

Later, when Moses assumed leadership of the Israelites, he spoke an eloquent Hebrew. When and where did he learn Hebrew?

The answer to these questions leads back to one person: Pharaoh’s daughter. (The Torah never tells us her name, only identifying her as Bat Par’oh, Pharaoh’s daughter.)

Bat Par’oh saved baby Moses even though she knew that Pharaoh had ordered the death of all Israelite baby boys. While this might have simply been one spontaneous act of mercy, perhaps it reflected something more about Bat Par’oh. Although an Egyptian, she felt a bond with the oppressed Israelites. Although a daughter of Pharaoh, she had humanitarian instincts that transcended her father’s palace. She saved Moses not only as an act of compassion, and not only as an act of defiance against her father’s cruel policies; she saved the Israelite baby boy because of her own identification with the suffering of the Israelites.

When she raised Moses, she apparently wanted him to know that he was an Israelite. She must have kept him in touch with his family members. She must have made sure he learned Hebrew…and she herself must have learned some Hebrew. When she first named him, she called him Moses; in Egyptian Mose means son. The Torah, though, gives a Hebrew derivation for the name: “ki min hamayim meshitihu,” for I drew him out of the water. Scholars ask: Did Bat Par’oh actually know Hebrew? Surely she gave the baby an Egyptian name, and the Torah “Hebraized” the source of the name. But maybe Bat Par’oh actually did know Hebrew and consciously chose a name that had both Egyptian and Hebrew resonance.

Midrashic sources suggest that Bat Par’oh left Egypt with Moses when he fled to Midian. The Talmud identifies her as Bithiah, mentioned in I Chronicles 4:18; Bithiah married Mered who is identified as Caleb, one of the righteous spies (Sanhedrin 19b).  Even though these identifications may be far-fetched from a historical vantage point, they underscore the essential righteousness of Bat Par’oh and her choice to become part of the Israelite people.

The Torah includes just a few lines about Bat Par’oh, not even providing readers with her name. Yet, the entire exodus story could not have happened without her heroic actions. She literally saved Moses’ life as well as imbuing him with an Israelite identity. Without her, Moses would never have developed as he did.

The Torah is teaching that even seemingly minor characters can have tremendous impact on the unfolding of history. Even people whose deeds are hardly noticed, whose names we don’t even know—even such people may be courageous beyond measure.

Rabbinic tradition identifies Bat Par’oh as Bithiah…a name meaning daughter of God. In effect, she wasn’t a “daughter” of Pharaoh, whose policies she rejected and defied. She was indeed a daughter of God, a woman of wisdom, compassion, and remarkable heroism.

There are surely Bat Par’oh personalities in all ages, including our own. They often pass their lives in relative anonymity. Their heroic actions generally go unnoticed and unappreciated. But their quiet deeds impact powerfully on their families, societies, and the world at large.

Memoirs of a Sephardic Rabbi: A Book Review by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

“A Rocky Road,” by Rabbi Abraham Levy (with Simon Rocker), Halban Publishers, London, 2017.

Rabbi Abraham Levy has been associated with the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of London for nearly six decades. Those of us who have known him over the years have been impressed with his energy, optimism, single-mindedness, devotion, British elegance…and more.

And now, he has written a volume of memoirs in which he offers candid reflections on his long service as a Sephardic rabbi. Rabbi Levy highlights his many achievements, especially in the area of Jewish education for children and adults. He writes warmly of those congregants who supported his work, who shared his ideals, and who were genuine friends to him and his family.

But he does not shy away from the less pleasant aspects of his rabbinic life. He openly discusses conflicts between himself and others of the synagogue religious and lay leadership. Indeed, the book seems to jump from one crisis to the next, some within the congregation itself and some involving other factions in the Jewish community.

He entitled his book “A Rocky Road,” as an allusion to his upbringing in Gibraltar with its famous rock; and also to the fact that his years in the rabbinate were “rocky,” with plenty of ups and downs. Throughout his long rabbinic tenure, he stayed focused on his mission to provide religious leadership to his people. His Sephardic upbringing and worldview served him well.

Growing up in the warm Sephardic Jewish community of Gibraltar, he learned to love his Judaism and its many mitzvoth. “The Judaism we experienced was never a burden nor driven by anxiety or fear. It was part of our natural habitat.” (p. 11)  The happiness and naturalness of his childhood Judaism has imbued his religious life ever since.

He also learned that a religious leader must identify with his community and must strive to create a sense of family among the various members. In a sermon he delivered in 1977, Rabbi Levy “reflected that a rabbi can only be effective in his work if he is prepared to identify with congregants in their times both of joy and festivity and of sorrow and calamity. A rabbi could not be a detached spectator.” (p. 42) 

In a sermon he gave on Rosh Hashana in 1987, marking his 25^th anniversary with his congregation, he stated that “while there had been quiet and productive years, a few had been tempestuous and unhappy. I compared the role of the rabbi to that of a shofar. The protracted single blast of tekiah was a wake up call, urging people to think what more they should do to improve the religious lives of themselves and their children. It didn’t always make the rabbi popular…The broken three-note sequence of shevarim, the sound of lament, represented the rabbi’s sharing in the troubles of his congregants and holding their hand in times of need. The staccato burst of teruah—blown in biblical days as a rally to war—was a summons to action. For if I believe that something needs doing I will continue to blow the notes of teruah into everybody’s ears until hopefully it gets done.” (p. 62)

Rabbi Levy, like most (all?) rabbis, had to deal with various synagogue leaders who were less than ideal. “When it came to lay leaders, I always made a basic distinction: there were those who brought honour to the office and those who sought honour from the office…I prayed for honorary officers who were successful in their careers and happy at home because if they were frustrated or unfulfilled, they tended to make the rabbi’s job more difficult.” (p. 116) How difficult it is for a rabbi—and for the congregation as a whole—if synagogue leaders are rude, egotistical, control-freaks. Improper leaders, bent on seeking honor for themselves, end up causing vast damage to the spiritual and material health of the congregation.

Rabbi Levy’s Sephardic ideology shines through his book of memoirs.  He expressed pride in the fact that Sephardim “can present a religious interpretation of Judaism which does not have an ideological adjective such as Orthodox or Reform attached to it…We Sephardim, with a little give and take, have always managed to have only one Jewish community.” (p. 143)

In looking back on his rabbinic career, he confessed: “I have tried not to deviate from the values I inherited from my parents and their family before them. We all remain sentimentally attached to the traditions we grew up with, but I continue to espouse the classical Sephardi outlook out of conviction that it remains important in a polarized Jewish world…I remain a defiant centrist.” (p. 235)   As the religious ground has shifted to the right, “I came to occupy a lonelier position in the middle of the road.” (p. 233)

Rabbi Levy broods over the growing dissension within the Orthodox community, and within the larger Jewish community. Factionalism is rife. Extremism increases. Harold Levy, the former warden of Jews’ College, once remarked: “We are becoming a dumb-bell religion.” He meant, we are becoming thin in the middle and heavy on the extremes. (p. 111) Rabbi Levy takes genuine pride in the school he established and which has provided strong Jewish and general education to its students. Many families have become more religiously observant thanks to the influence of the school. Yet, some of the graduates have gone on to become more “right wing” Orthodox, and have turned away from the classic Sephardic religious moderation.

    In reading Rabbi Levy’s “A Rocky Road,” we call to mind another road mentioned in a poem by Robert Frost, The Road not Taken.  “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--/ I took the one less traveled by,/ And that has made all the difference.” Rabbi Abraham Levy, as a young man, could have chosen many roads to live a happy and fulfilling life. He chose the rabbinate, a road less traveled by—and that has made all the difference to him, his family, and his community.

Book Review

Rabbi Dr. Marc D. Angel, Sephardim Sephardism and Jewish Peoplehood (Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals: 2022), 266 pages.

By Rabbi Hayyim Angel

          Imagine an authentic vision of Judaism fully rooted in tradition. A vision that properly represents the particularistic covenant between God and Israel through the Torah and halakhah. A vision that properly represents the universalistic aspect of God as Creator of the entire cosmos, where Israel has a role to play in the community of nations. A vision that learns from the best of traditional Jewish thinkers—Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and beyond, so that we may broaden our discourse in discussing complex contemporary issues. A vision that learns from the best of human wisdom. A vision that embraces the classical Jewish values of questioning, critical-mindedness, and diversity. A vision that demands that Jewish communal institutions be faithful to halakhah, while incorporating all Jews, regardless of background or level of observance. A vision entirely true to the axioms of Judaism, while being humble enough to recognize that the rest of humanity may pursue its own religious worldviews.

          For over half of a century, Rabbi Marc D. Angel has taught that we can realize this vision. After a long and distinguished career as Rabbi at Congregation Shearith Israel in New York, he founded the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals in 2007 to promote his religious worldview to a much wider audience.

All but one of the essays in this volume have been published previously in various books and journals. This collection reflects many of Rabbi Angel’s “greatest hits” in representing his grand religious worldview, his Sephardic role models, and the central tenets of the ideology that animate us at the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals.

          Jewish diversity is celebrated by Jewish tradition, which mandates the blessing Barukh Hakham HaRazim, the one who understands the root and inner thoughts of each individual, upon seeing throngs of Jews (Berakhot 58a). In contrast, the Talmud ascribes forced societal tyranny and conformity to the wicked City of Sodom, which used the notorious Procrustean bed on its visitors to ensure conformity (Sanhedrin 109b).

          Teaching Sephardic thinkers, customs, and history to all Jews is vital on many levels. Halakhic decisors must consider the learned opinions of both Sephardic and Ashkenazic responsa before reaching conclusions on today’s complex halakhic questions. Educators must be informed of Sephardic traditions and convey them as part of the wholeness of the Jewish people. Rabbis and teachers cannot be expected to know every custom or legal opinion throughout Jewish tradition, but certainly can be held to the standard of teaching an openness to diversity and willingness to learn new ideas and customs. On the negative side, Rabbi Angel cites several painful personal experiences from when he was a student, where several rabbis and teachers negated the validity of long-standing Sephardic practices and traditions.

          When people shut down other valid opinions, Judaism itself is harmed and the Jewish community suffers. Overly dogmatic, authoritarian, or superstitious worldviews likewise compromise the grand religious tradition of the Torah which instills a pursuit of truth, embraces debate, teaches openness, critical-mindedness, and humility, and grows closer to God through arguments for the sake of Heaven.

          Many of Rabbi Angel’s articles were previously published in our own journal, Conversations, or in other publications largely of the Orthodox world. However, his reach extends far beyond that. One essay, entitled “Sephardim, Sephardism, and Jewish Peoplehood,” was published in a collection of essays by the Central Conference of American Rabbis of the Reform Movement. Rabbi Angel expresses the need for all Jews to highlight the strengths of their respective communities and come together under the Sephardic communal model where institutions are committed to halakhah while people represent the range of observances. He even dares to dream that

The day will surely come when all Jews—of whatever background—will come to view each other as “us”—as one people with a shared history and shared destiny…I think that not only will ethnic divisions become increasingly irrelevant, but the division of Jews into religious “streams” will also decline. A century from now, I don’t think it will be important for Jews to identify as Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal or any other subdivision (16).

Another essay, entitled “Theological Unity,” is based on the remarks of Rabbi Angel at a conference at the United Nations on “Religious Pluralism and Tolerance” under the sponsorship of the Kingdom of Bahrain. We are part of one humanity, all created in God’s Image, who have much to learn and appreciate from one another.

          Through over 53 years in the rabbinate, Rabbi Angel has consistently advocated these principles and has articulated models of how the entire Jewish community can benefit from this worldview. This new collection of essays is a wonderful entry point into Rabbi Angel’s vision—and with that an entry point into several of the great luminaries and ideas that Judaism ever has produced.

We thank all of our members and supporters at the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, for helping us promote and realize this vision in schools and communities worldwide.

Angel for Shabbat, Parashat Vayhi

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

Among Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik’s lectures was one that dealt with the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. “A grandfather stands before his newly born grandchild filled with paradoxical thoughts. Feelings of renewal merge with fading memories of the past.”

A grandparent gazes at grandchildren with a sense of wonder. Fifty, sixty and more years may separate them. The grandparent is part of the “old generation,” while the grandchildren are part of a new world with new challenges and opportunities. Yes, the grandparent feels a sense of family continuity—but also a sense of anxiety. Will we—of different generations—feel a sense of harmony, a common history and destiny? Will we be able to talk to each other heart to heart? Or will alienation set in? Will the grandchildren have different life agendas than we have?

The larger question is: how can we hold our community and culture together from generation to generation? How do we avoid the ubiquitous problem of “the generation gap”?

The Mishnah (Eduyot 2:9) cites the opinion of Rabbi Akiba, who stated that parents transmit 6 characteristics to their children: physical appearance, strength, wealth, wisdom, longevity. The sixth quality is “mispar ha-dorot lefanav”, the number of generations before them. But what exactly does this mean?

Children are not born into a historical vacuum. They are heirs to the generations of their family going back through the centuries and millennia. In the case of Jewish children (and grandchildren), they are not only heirs to their particular family’s traditions, but “inherit” all the previous generations of the Jewish people going back to the time of Abraham and Sarah.

The challenge to the older generations is to transmit to the new generations a feeling of connectedness with the past. We introduce our children and grandchildren to “the number of generations before them”, so that they come to see the biblical characters of thousands of years ago as part of their own group of close friends. We teach them that “we” were slaves in Egypt; that “we” were redeemed; that “we” built the Temples in Jerusalem; that “we” went into exile. Rashi and Rambam “are” our teachers. Our earlier generations continue to live in our memories, and are a presence in our lives. We want our children and grandchildren to understand that they are engaged in a life-long dialogue among all the generations of their family and of their people. What a wonderful gift to give children! And what a tragedy when this gift is not conveyed!

In a traditional religious setting, there need not be a generation gap where alienation sets in between the generations. In some unique, mysterious way, the different generations see themselves as contemporaries. We share a spiritual outlook, a set of ideals, a style of living according to the mitzvoth. We have the gift of “the number of generations before us”.

In this week’s Parasha, Jacob gives his blessing to his grandchildren, Joseph’s sons, praying that “the angel who redeemed me from all evil will bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.” Jacob wanted continuity from generation to generation; he wanted the grandchildren to cherish the names and ideals of their grandparents and forebears; he wanted the family to grow and prosper, spreading the word of God throughout the land.

These are the blessings we pray for our own children, grandchildren and generations yet to come. Od Avinu Hai, Am Yisrael Hai.