National Scholar Updates

Hasidic song expressed exultation in the Lord. It seemed to celebrate Israel’s marriage to God…

When Russia occupied Poland in 1792, few Jews knew the Russian language. Once a Cossack visited a Jewish homeowner and asked him, “Are you the khazyayen [the owner]?”

The Jew did not understand. His wife translated wrongly: “The Cossack says: ‘Are you a cantor [a hazan]? Sing for me.’”

So the Jew began singing the chant “The sons of the Temple.”

The Cossack lost his temper and began to beat him.

So his wife explained: “He obviously doesn’t like that song. He wants another one! A new song!”

—A Passion for Truth, pp. 284–285

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“I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder and You gave it to me.”

—Abraham Joshua Heschel

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“The central thought of Judaism is the living God. It is the perspective from which all other issues are seen. And the supreme problem in any philosophy of Judaism is: What are grounds for man's believing in the realness of the living God?”

—God in Search of Man, pp. 25–26

These words, penned by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, summarize one of the great challenges facing contemporary Jews. How can one achieve spirituality? Of course, there is the problem of how to properly define spirituality. Heschel does an excellent job when he considers the “realness of the living God.” The essential problem is the difficulty in feeling the proximity of God in our lives.

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1907 to a family of Hassidic rabbis. Following a traditional Jewish education in Warsaw, Heschel went to Berlin, where he studied at the university. He earned his PhD degree in 1933.

In 1938, Heschel arrived in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he joined the faculty of Hebrew Union College in 1940. He later became professor of Jewish ethics and mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City. Heschel was married to concert pianist Sylvia Straus, and they had one daughter, Susannah. Heschel remained at the Jewish Theological Seminary until his death in New York City on December 23, 1972.

Heschel was a pioneer of Jewish involvement in the civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s and early 1970s to end discrimination against African Americans. He spoke out against the war in Vietnam. Heschel met with Pope Paul VI at the Vatican to discuss Jewish feelings concerning Vatican Council II.

Rabbi Heschel presents a blueprint of how to live a life feeling the realness of God. It is a program that is simple to understand, and, at the same time, is quite profound. It is not a simplistic program, as it grapples with serious theological questions and requires considerable thought. It may best be described as “the longer shorter way” based on a story in the Talmud (Eruvin 53b) and popularized by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyadi in the Introduction to his classic work, Tanya. The phrase “the longer shorter way” represents an approach that requires hard work, but will, in the long run, lead to success in helping individuals develop a relationship with God, as opposed to a quick fix that is short lived.

Immediately upon attempting to offer a way to God, Heschel first stops to consider, and then rejects, the possibility that feeling the realness of God is based solely on belief in events of the past. For Heschel, such an approach is too distant and does not reveal the “realness of the living God.”

Heschel asks:

Is it true that Judaism derived its religious vitality exclusively from loyalty to events that

occurred in the days of Moses and from obedience to Scripture in which those events

occurred? Such an assumption seems to overlook the nature of man and faith. A great

event, miraculous as it may be, if it happened only once, will hardly be able to dominate

forever a mind of man.” (God in Search of Man, p. 26)

Heschel distinguishes between memory and personal insight in terms of ways of religious thinking. Both, says Heschel, are required modes for religious development. Heschel does distinguish and even prioritize, when he suggests that first comes the personal insight, helping a person arrive at “This is my God” (personal insight), which subsequently leads to: “He is the God of my father” (memory).

Heschel’s approach to spirituality can be contrasted to the approach presented by his contemporary, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits. According to Berkovits, while the prophets were able to personally encounter God, non-prophets are left with the memory of those encounters as recorded in our sacred literature. Those encounters and their records are powerful enough to craft faith. (It is interesting to note that they both speak of the “Paradox” of the encounter with God as described in the Bible and wonder how it is possible for a human being to survive such an encounter. Their answers are remarkably similar as well).

Heschel was not satisfied with a faith based on someone else’s encounter with God, and he goes to great lengths to devise a system in which a direct encounter with the Divine is available to all. In trying to define real faith, Heschel notes:

What does having faith mean? To follow the path of your ancestors? To carry out what is contained in a creed? Such simple faith is the backbone of all religions. After all, hundreds of generations of Jews have borne testimony to the existence of God. So one may accept their words, their beliefs. Yet the Kotzker refused to be a follower, living on spiritual crumbs left by the princes of the past…” (A Passion for Truth, pp. 187–188)

According to Heschel, faith could not be inherited; every person has to earn it. He warns against settling even on our own ideas and conceptions. Not only must we be original, our very originality must be challenged and fine-tuned.

It is impossible to be at ease and to repose on ideas which have turned into habits, on canned theories in which our own or other people's insights are preserved. We can never leave behind our concern in the safe-deposit of opinions, nor delegate its force to others and so attain vicarious insights. We must keep our own amazement, our own eagerness alive.” (Man Is Not Alone, p. 14)

It is often the case that educators and rabbis direct students to focus on the approaches and insights of others in terms of forming the basis of faith and closeness to God. Heschel is suggesting that in order to experience closeness to God one must be empowered and encouraged to find one's unique and specialized path.

This may be true in the realm of Torah study as well. Perhaps more time can be spent on developing the personal interpretations of Jewish texts, not as a means of supplanting traditional interpretation, but as a means toward greater connection to the text.

The idea that each person has a unique connection to Torah is expressed in the law that mandates a teacher go with his students to an Ir Miklat—a city of refuge when the student kills inadvertently. This is precisely because once the student has found a teacher he can successfully learn from, the halakha is hesitant to separate them.

A similar idea may be behind the prayer “grant us our share in your Torah” that is part of the concluding supplication of the amidah, among other prayers. It also expresses that individuals have a specific “share” or portion in Torah.

In the realm of spirituality, individuals can be given license to develop their unique route to feeling the realness of God. Once that is accomplished, connection via prayer and study may be attainable. Often the reverse method is used, in that individuals are expected to initially connect to God via prayer and study. This is not to suggest that people should not be taught how to pray until they acknowledge a connection to God. Rather, it can serve as a reminder that prayer may not serve the purpose of connecting a person to God. Once a person has developed a relationship to God based on personal insight, meaningful prayer may simply be the symptom of that relationship or a means to rekindle it after a period of diminution.

In focusing on the importance of individual and unique spiritual development, Heschel is echoing a classic Hassidic approach made popular by Shneuer Zalman of Lyadi in Tanya. In the introduction to that work, Rav Shneuer Zalman explains that one of the shortcomings of the written word is that people have different approaches to spirituality and will thereby not necessarily find inspiration in a book written for a general audience. He points out that the challenge of a leader is to be able to relate to the unique personality of each individual. He also notes that the blessing said upon seeing a group of 600,000 people—“knower of secrets”—points to idea that every person is distinctive. All of this boils down to the need for individuals to develop their own spiritual path.

It is important to point out that although Heschel saw the development of the personal God (“This is my God”) as coming before other’s appreciation of God, (“The God of my fathers”), he very much considered the mitzvoth and Torah study as the path to a personal relationship with God.

A heretic, the Talmud reports, chided the Jews for the rashness in which he claimed they persisted. “First you should have listened; if the commandments were within your power of fulfillment, you should have accepted them; if beyond your power, rejected them.”…Do we not always maintain that we must first explore a system before we decide to accept it? This order of inquiry is valid in regard to pure theory…but it has limitations when applied to realms where thought and fact...theory and experience are inseparable. It would be futile, for example, to explore the meaning of music and abstain for listening to music. It would be just as futile to explore Jewish thought from a distance, in self-detachment. Jewish thought is disclosed in Jewish living. (God in Search of Man, p. 282)

Wonder and Radical Amazement

Heschel's key idea in terms of a relationship with God built on personal insight is the notion of wonder or radical amazement. Personal insight as far a feeling God's realness is dependent on wonder.

Rabbi Heschel uses a familiar Midrash as a means to understanding wonder.

How did Abraham arrive at his certainty that there is God who is concerned with the world? According to the Rabbis, Abraham may be “compared to a man who was traveling from place to place when he saw a palace full of light (birah ahat doleket). “Is it possible that there is no one who cares for the palace?” he wondered. Until the owner of the palace looked at him and said, “I am the owner of the palace.” Similarly, Abraham our father wondered, “Is it conceivable that the world is without a guide?” The Holy One, blessed be He, looked out and said. “I am the guide, the sovereign of the world.” It was in wonder that Abraham's quest for God began. (God in Search of Man, p. 112)

Lift up your eyes on high. Religion is the result of what man does with his ultimate wonder, with moments of awe, with the sense of mystery. Heschel warns us not to waste moments of wonder.

It is interesting to note that elsewhere Rabbi Heschel uses this very same Midrash to deal with the problem of evil. He does so by changing his interpretation of the phrase birah ahat doleket, from a “palace full of light,” to a “palace in flames.”

In many ways, Heschel's response to the problem of Evil is the flip side of the coin of his doctrine of wonder. For Heschel, the existence of evil in the world, “living as we do in a civilization where factories were established in order to exterminate millions of men, women and children...” is the result of what can be termed the absence of negative wonder, or what Heschel refers to as “the loss of our sense of horror.” Heschel lays the blame for the Shoah squarely at the feet of humanity when he notes in his rewording of the above Midrash: “The world is in flames, consumed by evil. Is it possible that there is no one who cares?” It is God who declares: “I am the Guide, the sovereign of the world” (God in Search of Man, p. 367).

Divine Care and the Human Encounter

All of reality was a source of amazement for Heschel as every encounter with the world was by definition an encounter with God. “Awe is a way of being in rapport with the mystery of all reality” (God in Search of Man, p. 74).

This is especially true when it comes to the encounter with human beings. Heschel demonstrates exceptional spiritual sensitivity when he depicts the nature of human encounter. 

The awe that we sense or ought to sense when standing in the presence of a human being is a moment of intuition for the likeness of God which is concealed in his essence…The secret of every being is the Divine care and concern that are invested in it. Something sacred is at stake in every event. (Ibid., p.74).

Wonder and Science

Heschel is quick to remind us that he is not referring to the well-known argument from design. “Depth-Theology” is the term he uses to hone in on the distinction between wonder and science. In explaining “Depth-Theology” Heschel writes: “To apprehend the depth of religious faith we will try to ascertain not so much what the person is able to express as that which he is unable to express, the insights that no language can declare.” Heschel quotes F. P. Ramsey and notes that: “We must keep in mind that ‘the chief danger to philosophy, apart from laziness and woolliness, is scholasticism, the essence of which is treating what is vague as if it were precise and trying to fit it into an exact logical category.’”

The difference between science and wonder is that for the prophets “wonder is a form of thinking” and that “the fact that there are facts at all” creates a sense of “perpetual surprise.”

Petition and Thanksgiving in Prayer: Rabbi Heschel and Rabbi Soloveitichik

         The central place of wonder in the thought of Rabbi Heschel is made clear when considering his focus on praise and thanksgiving as the central motif of prayer. The importance of praise and thanksgiving in the prayer scheme of Rabbi Heschel is illuminated when contrasted with the approach of Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik.

         Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik sees petition as the foundation of prayer. He makes this point with great clarity and force in his essay: Prayer, Redemption and Talmud Torah. In this essay Rabbi Soloveitchik defines the ability to cry out to God as a medium toward redemption as well as being a symbol of a free existence.

         Related to the centrality of petitional prayer, Rabbi Soloveitchik remarks:

Therefore, prayer in Judaism, unlike the prayer of classical mysticism, is bound up with the human needs, wants, drives and urges, which make man suffer. Prayer is the doctrine of human needs. Prayer tells the individual, as well as the community, what his, or its, genuine needs are, what he should, or should not, petition God about. Of the nineteen benedictions in our Amidah, thirteen are concerned with basic human needs, individual as well as social-national. Even two of the last three benedictions are of a petitional nature. The person in need is summoned to pray. Prayer and Tsa’ar (trouble) are inseparably linked. Who prays? Only the sufferer prays. If man does not find himself in narrow straits, if he is not troubled by anything, if he knows not what Tsara is, then he need not pray. To a happy man, to contented man, the secret of prayer was not revealed. God needs neither thanks nor hymns. He wants to hear the outcry of man, confronted with a ruthless reality. (Rabbi Joseph B. Solovetichik, Prayer, Redemption and Talmud Torah)

         Rabbi Heschel offers a different focus of prayer.

To worship God means to forget the self; an extremely difficult, thought possible, act. What takes place in a moment of prayer may be described as a shift of the center of living—from self-consciousness to self-surrender. This implies, I believe, an important indication of the nature of man. Prayer begins as an “it-He” relationship. I am not ready to accept the ancient concept of prayer as dialogue. Who are we to enter a dialogue with God?” (“Prayer as Discipline” in The Insecurity of Freedom, pp. 255–256)

This conception of humanity in relation to God leads Rabbi Heschel to conclude that priority in prayer must be given to praise.

This is why in Jewish liturgy primacy is given to prayer of praise. One must never begin with supplication. One begins with praise because praise is the prerequisite and essence of prayer. To praise means to make Him present.... (Ibid.)

         Heschel strengthens his point when he argues that not only is wonder the central religious mood of a Jew, it also requires daily maintenance.

The profound and personal awareness of the wonder of being has become a part of the religious consciousness of the Jew. Three times a day we pray:

                   We thank thee…

                   For thy miracles which are daily with us,

                   For thy continual marvels…

Every evening we recite: “He creates light and makes dark.” Twice a day we say: “He is one.” What is the meaning of such repetition? A scientific theory, once it is announced and accepted, does not have to be repeated twice a day. The insights of wonder must be constantly kept alive. Since there is a need for daily wonder, there is need for daily worship.” (God in Search of Man, pp. 48–49)

How Do We Know?

         One of the basic issue Rabbi Heschel deals with in terms of wonder is the question of how do we know we have experienced it. Interestingly, for Rabbi Heschel, the characteristic of a spiritually developed person is the ability to “draw a distinction between the utterable and the unutterable, to be stunned by that which is but cannot be put into words” (Man is Not Alone, p. 4).

         We are often taught that one can only claim to understand something when it can be put into words. This may be true of knowledge; it is not so, according to Rabbi Heschel when it comes to experiences. “Always we are chasing words, and always words recede. But the greatest experiences are those for which we have no expression...To become aware of the ineffable is to part company with words” (Ibid., pp. 15–16).

Our Challenges

For Heschel there are two fundamental reasons why it is so hard for human beings to experience the “realness of God.” He first turns his attention to the “Dogma of Man’s Self Sufficiency.” He views both social reforms and technological advance as having failed to replace belief in revelation of God’s will. The development of human power and social awareness are not enough to pacify the human drive to cruelty. We need God, argues Heschel, because we are not great and because God is great. The Dogma of Man’s Self Sufficiency in not only based on the overestimation of humanity's greatness, but on the underestimation of God’s greatness. For the so-called self-sufficient man, the only thing not known is when all will be known. Ultimately, all mysteries will be solved and all obscurities made apparent.

Heschel refers to the perception of humanity’s unworthiness to be in a relationship with God. Referencing the Shoah, Heschel argues that it seems impossible that God wishes any relationship with a species capable of such fantastic horrors. It is the very physical strength of humanity that calls for a spiritual response. In fact, the one being powerful enough to respond to the destructive power of humanity is God. In short, although humanity may not be worthy of a relationship with God, God imposes it, in order to save humanity form itself.

Here too, humanity’s distance from God is based on an inability to recognize greatness. This time, however, it is not God’s greatness that is overlooked, but human greatness in the guise of potential, and in Heschel’s lifetime, realized destructiveness.

In Heschel's comments on wonder and the problem of evil, one can sense a concern for the general inability to experience strong passion. Underlying both radical amazement and the loss of the sense of horror is a generic “Hardness of Heart” as Heschel calls it. For Heschel, it is impossible to ignore a world so full of the magnificence of God and the dreadfulness of humanity.

Seeing the Ultimate

Heschel uses a powerful illustration in regard to living in radical amazement.

Let us take a loaf of bread. It is the product of climate, soil and the work of the farmer, merchant and baker. If it were our intention to extol the forces that concurred in producing a loaf of bread, we would have to give praise to the sun and the rain, to the soil and the intelligence of man. However, it is not these we praise before breaking bread. We say, “Blessed be Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.” Empirically speaking, would it not be more correct to give credit to the farmer, the merchant and the baker? To our eyes, it is they who bring forth the bread… It is not possible to dwell each time on what bread is empirically. It is important to dwell each time on what bread is ultimately. (God in Search of Man, p. 63)

Who Moved?

Paradoxically, although God desires to be in relationship with the world, humanity’s refusal to reciprocate causes God to depart.

Man was the first to hide himself from God, after having eaten of the forbidden fruit. The will of God is to be here, manifest and near; but when the doors of the world are slammed on Him, His truth betrayed, His will defied, He withdraws, leaving man to himself. God did not depart of his own volition; He was expelled. God is in exile. (Man Is Not Alone, p. 153)

The real God is not the hiding God, but the discovered God. Humanity has worked itself into a terrible problem. The challenge for humanity is how to reintroduce God to the world. Heschel offers an important understanding of God’s place in the world: God’s place in the world depends on humanity—not God. He begins with the radical statement that God is lost in His world.

God who created the world is not at home in the world…. Of Noah it is said, Noah walked with God, and to Abraham the Lord said Walk before Me. Said the midrash: 'Noah might be compared to a king’s friend who was plunging about in the dark alleys, and when the king looked out and saw him, he said to him, Instead of plunging about in dark alleys, come and walk with me. But Abraham’s case is rather to be compared to that of a king who was sinking in dark alleys, and when his friend saw him he shone a light from him through the window. Said he to him, Instead of lighting me through the window, come and show a light before me. (God in Search of Man, p.156)

The dilemma is summed up well in the following analysis of the approaches of the Baal Shem Tov and Rav Menachem Mendl of Kotzk.

The Baal Shem constantly reminds us how close God is to man and all things. Reb Mendl perennially recalls how alienated, how estranged man is from truth, from God. The Baal Shem discloses the presence of God, the Creator of the Universe, within the world; he brings heaven nearer to man. But for what purpose; says Reb Mendl, since man’s corruption spurns the Divine…When asked where God dwelt, the Baal Shem answered, everywhere, the Kotzker, where he is allowed to enter…” (A Passion for Truth, pp. 32–33)

Heschel desired to help the world realize the contemporary existence of these two paths. God so very much desires to be in the world and for all intents and purposes God is close to man, but humanity has spurned God’s advances so we must light the path for Him to return.

God and Torah

Heschel points to another potential pitfall in one’s quest to feel the realness of God—halakha.

Through sheer punctiliousness in observing the law one may become oblivious of the living presence and forget that the law is not for its own sake, but for the sake of God. Indeed, the essence of observance has, at ties, become encrusted with so many customs and conventions that the Jewel was lost in the setting. Outward compliance with externalities of the law took the place of the engagement of the whole person to the living God. What is the ultimate purpose of observance if not to become sensitive to the spirit of Him, in whose ways the mitzvoth are signposts? (God in Search of Man, p. 326)

In this passage, Heschel enters into the debate surrounding the telos of the mitzvoth and he comes down clearly on the side of those who believe that the telos of the commandments can be ascertained.

As an antidote to this potential problem, Heschel offers the study of aggada. For Heschel, aggada can save God from halakha.

The preciousness and fundamental importance of aggada is categorically set forth in the following statements of the ancient Rabbis: ‘If you desire to know Him at whose word the universe came into being, study aggada for thereby will you recognize the Holy One and cleave unto his ways’…The collections of aggada that have been preserved contain an almost inexhaustible wealth of religious insight and feeling, for in the aggada the religious consciousness with its motivations, difficulties, perplexities and longings came to immediate and imaginative expression. (God in Search of Man, p.324)

The study of aggada, then, becomes another way to achieve wonder.

Heschel goes so far as to identify an “anti-aggadic” strain within Jewish teaching.

The outstanding expression of the anti-aggadic attitude is contained in a classical rabbinic question with which Rashi opens his famous commentary on the Book of Genesis. “Rabbi Isaac said: The Torah should have commenced with chapter 12 of Exodus, since prior to that chapter hardly any laws are set forth.” The premise and implications of this question are staggering. The Bible should have omitted such non-legal chapters as those on creation, the sins of Adam and Cain, the flood, the Tower of Babel, the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the lives of the twelve tribes, the suffering and miracles in Egypt.” (God in Search of Man, p. 328)

 In a fascinating modification of the positive notion of “lifnim mishurat haDin” generally understood as a legalistic term encouraging additional stricture than those minimally required by law, Heschel writes that this dictum is referring to an aggadic approach to Torah—to not just fulfilling the mitzvoth, but fulfilling them with God in mind.

Is It Possible?

How is wonder supposed to help us overcome the decisive religious and theological questions that we often grapple with? For Heschel, the sense of wonder is so overwhelming that it conquers our doubts and questions about evil and meaning in a world that often seems absurd. Significantly, Heschel is not on a quest to ultimate solutions, but rather “to find ourselves as part of a context of meaning.”

Heschel is willing to let absurdity and wonder go head to head.

We do not need to drink the whole ocean to know what kind of water it contains. One drop yields its salty flavor. Our very existence exposes us to the challenge of wonder and radical amazement at the universe despite the absurdities we encounter. It is possible on the basis of personal experience to arrive at the conclusion that the human situation as far as one can see is absurd. However, to stand face to face with the infinite world of stars and galaxies and to declare all of this absurd would be idiotic. (A Passion for Truth, pp. 294–295)

Potential for All

According to Heshcel perceiving God is a phenomenon, “of which all men are at all times capable.” Feeling the realness of God is not something reserved for the religious genius. In fact, he argues that the absence of radical amazement represents a shortcoming and lack of effort. Subjectivity is the absence, not the presence, of radical amazement. Such lack or absence is a sign of a half-hearted, listless mind, of an undeveloped sense for the depth of things” (Man Is Not Alone, p. 21).

It is important for Heschel to make this point as he is attempting to construct a theology and approach to God that can be implemented. He is concerned with the spirit of humanity and the dangers faced by a society that does not live in the presence of God. In a way, Heshcel suggests that his program is quite simple for those who are willing to be open to a relationship with God as such a relationship is available to us in “every perception, every act of thinking and every enjoyment of valuation of reality” (Ibid., p. 20).

Partial Reading List of Works by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

A Passion for Truth, Jewish Lights Publishing, 1995

God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1955

I Asked For Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Samuel H. Dresner, The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1983

Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1951

The Earth Is The Lord’s, Jewish Lights Publishing, 1995

The Ineffable Name of God: Man: Poems, Morton M. Leifman (Translator) Continuum; Bilingual edition, 2005

The Prophets, Hendrickson Publishers, 1962

The Sabbath, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1975

Biography

Edward K. Kaplan and Prof. Samuel H. Dresner, Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness, Yale University Press, 2007

Edward K. Kaplan, Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940–1972, Yale University Press, 2007

Rabbi Dr. Sabato Morais (April 13, 1823-November 11, 1897) was described by a New York Yiddish newspaper as “without doubt…the greatest of all Orthodox rabbis in the United States.” This encomium was written several years after the death of Morais, when a full picture of his life and accomplishments could be written with historical perspective.

Few today remember this remarkable religious leader; even fewer see him as a model of enlightened Orthodox Judaism whose example might be followed by modern day Jews. Yet, Sabato Morais was a personality who deserves our attention…and our profound respect.

Born in Livorno, of Portuguese-Jewish background, he was raised in the Sephardic traditions of his community. As a young rabbi, he became the Director of the Orphan’s School of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation of London where he served for five years. In 1851, he began service as rabbi of Congregation Mikveh Israel, the historic Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Philadelphia. He remained with Mikveh Israel for nearly five decades, until his death toward the end of 1897.

Rabbi Dr. Alan Corre, who served as rabbi of Mikveh Israel from 1955 to 1963, wrote an appreciation of his early predecessor. He noted that “in everything he [Morais] writes and does, he comes across as a warm, loving, eminently humane individual, with self-respect, yet remarkably free of egotism for a man in public life who was the recipient of much honor, including an honorary degree from the University of Pennsylvania.” Rabbi Morais sought “to live as a Jew without qualifiers, one who revered and loved the Jewish tradition and desired greatly to perpetuate it.”

Dr. Corre has pointed out that Rabbi Morais is somewhat of an enigma to many, in the sense that he cannot be easily classified according to the ideologies and styles of the major branches of American Jewish life today. “Orthodox as he was in practice, he does not fulfill the role model of the Talmudic sage, and has about him a somewhat assimilated air at which the strictly Orthodox might well look askance. For the Conservative, he is insufficiently innovative, to unwilling to take religious risks. And of Reform, he was a life-long opponent.”

Rabbi Morais was a fine representative of the Western Sephardic rabbinic tradition of his time. Western Sephardim valued general culture, refinement, orderliness, social responsibility. They fostered a Judaism that was loyal to traditional ritual, while at the same time being worldly and intellectually open. Personal piety was to be humble, not ostentatious.

Rabbi Morais wrote: “True worship resides in the heart, and truly it is by purifying our hearts that we best worship God; still, the ordinances which we are enjoined to perform aim at this object: to sanctify our immortal soul, to make it worthy of its sublime origin.”

He laid great stress on ethical behavior, on compassion, on concern for others. He worked not only on behalf of the Jewish community, but showed concern for society as a whole. He was a vocal opponent of slavery and an avid admirer of President Abraham Lincoln. He supported the cause of American Indians; he spoke against the Chinese Exclusion Acts during the 1880s. He cried out against the persecution of Armenians in 1895. Working together with Jewish and non-Jewish clergy, he fostered an ecumenical outlook that called for all people to respect each other and to work for shared goals to improve the quality of life for everyone. In all of his work, Rabbi Morais did not seek glory or public recognition. He was compassionate, graceful and idealistic. Perhaps it was his self-effacing style that won him so much admiration and respect from so many. They saw him as an authentic religious personality, not as one who was serving his own ego.

Arthur Kiron, in a fascinating article that appeared in “American Jewish History,” September 1996, observed that “those who knew and loved Morais repeatedly referred to him in their memorial tributes in idealized terms, as a religious role model, a prophet like Jeremiah, a man of constancy, duty, absolute sincerity, piety and humility.”

One of Morais’s memorializers described him as follows: “For the critical eye of man [Morais] has left behind no visible monuments of great achievements, but to the eye of God he has reared a monument far greater than any of those famed by man. That greatness was his goodness, which in point of intrinsic merit will compare with the greatest wonders of genius. Were it possible for man to measure the amount of good he dispensed among the sorrowing and afflicted…the historian would not hesitate to enroll his name among the world’s truest and noblest immortals….To do good was the first duty of his creed, to do it in silence always, and in secrecy wherever possible, was his second.”

Rabbi Morais and his New York colleague Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes were co-founders of the Jewish Theological Seminary. They had hoped that this institution would train American-born Orthodox rabbis to lead congregations throughout America. These two rabbis of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregations of Philadelphia and New York worked closely on other communal projects, always in a spirit of devotion to God and community. They both sought to promote a Judaism loyal to tradition, committed to social justice, marked by dignity and gravitas.

Orthodoxy of today is often characterized by increasing narrowness, obscurantism, authoritarianism, and xenophobia. Orthodox rabbis of the ilk of Rabbi Morais are a vanishing breed. The classic Western Sephardic religious worldview is on the verge of extinction. What a phenomenal loss this is for Judaism and the Jewish People!

Yet, as we remember the life of Rabbi Sabato Morais, we know that the memory of the righteous is a blessing. It continues to influence and inspire. The stature and vision of Rabbi Morais will emerge to guide new generations in an Orthodox Judaism that is faithful to tradition, cultured, refined, genuinely pious, humane, and humble. “Happy the man who has found wisdom, the man who has obtained understanding.”

Does Judaism have a theology of other religions? Emphatically, yes. Judaism has a wide range of texts that offer thoughts on other religions. In my book, Many Nations under God: Judaism and other Religions, I present the broad range of traditional sources bearing on this question of the theological relationship between Judaism and other religions. How does one theologically account for the differences between religions? How do we balance our multifaith world with the Jewish texts? These questions are important for both self-definition and social action.

Globalization

As a prelude to encountering other religions, Orthodox Jews need to learn to kick the secularization habit, viewing the outside world as secular. The same forces that allowed the upswing of Orthodox Judaism during the last decades also led to the rise of Christian, Islamic and Hindu traditionalism. In the 1990’s people still thought that traditional religion and religious conflicts were simply a throwback to a pre-modern era. Religion now plays a major role in the entire public sphere of politics, media, and culture.

Currently, as mentioned in a recent issue of the Economist, “everywhere we look, we have religious problems. Globalization has propelled traditionalism as a barrier against change, and for the prosperous suburbanite traditional religion has become a lifestyle coach. In a post 9/11 world, religion in its traditional forms has returned as a force in politics and civil society. Religion is a major role in world conflicts and resolutions, a world where people can compromise on territory but not on messianic visions.”

The debates between proponents of Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations and those of Thomas Friedman’s Lexus and the Olive Tree have replaced the local concerns of the nineteen-fifties. Like modernity and nationalism, globalization has potential for both good and bad, creating a new reality, which demands confrontation and response. Globalization offers very real and very immediate threats. Globalization creates a need to choose greater openness in place of fear and closure, and to choose real politics over academics.

To respond to the current decade, rehearsing old parameters is academic. To rehearse the statements of the tolerance of 1780 or even 1960 is not engagement.
We should be seeking guidance for the contemporary issues. We need to provide sanctity to the world. Social issues need a religious perspective. Not entering the modern world of globalization and dwelling alone is a form of “triumph without battle”. Creating closed ethnic enclaves does not address global issue or make the world a better place.

In order to learn about other religions and to see ourselves through the eyes of the other, we have to acknowledge that when we encounter religious people outside of Judaism we are addressing another religious community.

These encounters occur not just nationally and globally but even locally. Every Sunday my local community center in my predominately Jewish suburb, also containing a strong Christian and Muslim presence, has a continuous stream of Hindu, Buddhist, Sikhs, and Zoroastrian services using the classrooms. Diana Eck, a professor at Harvard University, points out that it is a new religious America. “We the people of the United States of America are now religiously diverse as never before and some Americans do not like it.” She advocates active engagement, real constructive understanding of others, without relativism or abdication of differences.

Whereas in the 1950’s people saw America as Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish, now every county has Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and others. Mosques, halal shops, Bahai Temples, are in my seemingly Jewish neighborhood, and Hindu and Buddhist altars with food offerings are ever present in my local shopping area. Numerically many of these groups are quite small and America remains predominantly Protestant. Similar to the acceptance of Jews in the 1950’s as one of the 3 faiths of America, despite their small numbers, there is new atmosphere of religious pluralism. There was a time when we met others only as foreigners – as travelers in strange locations. In America they are now our co-workers, schoolmates and neighbors.

My starting point is, therefore, not tolerance based on eighteenth-century Enlightenment ideas that would discuss religious encounter in secular terms. Nor is my goal to simply – for pragmatic reasons- to hammer tolerance into the tradition. Presupposing a tolerance outside of religion does not respect religious positions because it claims that all that counts is the secular and it avoids the public dimensions of religion. Using Meiri to construct a liberal vision misreads the Meiri as if he was a Mill or Locke on secular tolerance, and, more importantly, it misreads the other whom we encounter as if they are secular. Others create tolerance by seeking a universal “image of God” (tselem elokim) to respect all humanity. But such universalism remains a universal tolerance of the enlightenment, that is, outside of the specifics of religion.

Current Trends

In order to come to terms with the increasing tensions between forces of globalization and those of tradition, we need to rise to the moral challenge. Religion offers an essential means of providing dignity, sanctity, and spirituality to meet these new challenges.

Rabbi Shaar Yashuv Cohen, the current chief rabbi of Haifa offers a Rav Kook inspired vision. “We need to find the best in each nation….and they need to be able to respect us. A nice garden is not just one flower but a variety …The world is God’s garden- it needs many flowers and we are God’s gardeners.”

Evangelicals have been the biggest supporters of Christian Zionism and have funded mainly Orthodox Jews to move to Israel as part of nefesh benefesh. This rapprochement with Evangelicals has led Rabbi Shlomo Riskin to speak of a double covenant theory with Christianity.

Recently, the chief rabbis of Israel have met with Hindu religious leaders in India and issued a joint statement that “their respective traditions teach that there is One supreme Being who is the Ultimate reality, who has created this world.”

Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks offers a universalism of one God beyond a particular religion based on Jewish texts.

Judaism is a particularist monotheism. It believes in one God but not in one religion, one culture, one truth. The God of Abraham is the God of all mankind, but the faith of Abraham is not the faith of all mankind… There is a difference between God and religion. God is universal, religions are particular.

For Rabbi Sacks, we can witness the piety, ethics, or even God of other religions as a manifestation of the God of Abraham, even while acknowledging that their religion is different from Judaism.

Religion can, and does, serve as meeting place of encounter within our globalized world. Facing others in a post-secular age, therefore, means that we must choose the moderate positions from within our own tradition as a basis for discussion. Traditional Jewish texts offer ample resources to make this possible. At this point the urgent agenda is to construct usable moderate theologies from the traditional religious positions.

Judaism and Other Religions
I have recently completed a work on Judaism and other religions where I set out the classical texts that can be used to address other religions.

Let me make clear that what I am presenting is not dialogue, but rather a precursor to any encounter that I envision between Judaism and other religions. I am laying out the possibilities with which Jewish theology can understand other religions and construct a theology of other religions based on traditional sources.

The first step is to understand some of the basic terms used for categorizing these texts: exclusivist, pluralist, inclusivist, and universalist.

Exclusivism, states that one's own community, tradition, and encounter with God comprise the one and only exclusive truth; all other claims on encountering God are, a priori, false.

Pluralism takes the opposite position, accepting that no one tradition can claim to possess the singular truth. All group's beliefs and practices are equally valid.

Inclusivism situates itself between these two extremes, where one acknowledges that many communities possess their own traditions and truths, but maintains the importance of one’s comprehension as culminating, or subsuming other truths. One's own group possesses the truth; other religious groups contain parts of the truth.

Universalism postulates a universal monotheism; it was widely taught by medieval Jewish philosophers who postulated a common Neo-platonic or Aristotelian truth to all religions.

My book presents the many Jewish texts that take these approaches. Inclusivist texts include: Halevi, Maimonides, Abarbanel, Emden, Hirsch, Kook, Philo, Kimhi, Gikkitilla, Adret, Arama, and Seforno.

The exclusivist texts include Toledot Yeshu, Kalir, Rashi, Abraham bar Hiyya, Naftali Zevi Berlin, Zvi Yehudah Kook, Luria, Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto, and Tanya.

Universalist texts include: Saadyah, Ibn Garibol, Ibn Ezra, Maimonidian commentators, Immanuel of Rome, Nathanel ibn Fayumi, Mendelssohn, Israel Lipschutz, Luzzatto, Mendel Hirsch, Menashe ben Israel, Elijah Benamozegh, Henry Pereira Mendes, Joseph Hertz.

Can we compare other religions to Judaism? Both medieval texts and modern scholars have offered insight into whether we share monotheism, Biblical narrative, or human religious expressions. In addition, many are unaware that there are numerous references in Jewish texts to Eastern religions, especially Brahmins, and Indian religions.

Besides the classical texts, the civil religion of America challenges us to consider that we have a common covenant under one God. Does that work theologically? The book evaluates the clash between the positions of those in favor and those against. It is important to note how the confusion created in recent decades when the word covenant is used for a person’s individual religious commitments rather than a universalism.

The important point of all these texts and discussions is to avoid the false dichotomy between a medieval exclusivism or a modern pluralist individualism. One should learn not to seek a position where everything is equal or a common ground syncretism. Equal legitimacy of everything practiced in another faith is not a pre-requisite for an encounter. Encountering others is not a zero-sum- game of exclusivism or relativism.

I met a young rabbi who in his false humility and modern emphasis of the self, told a group of Imams that he cannot speak about God in Judaism since one can never be certain about God. He emphasized that since he cannot speak about his own tradition then he certainly could not affirm any commonality. For him, all commonality would be existentially false. Rather, for him, we can only speak as humans; God is not part of reality. Each community just lives as its ethnic community. This is not a useful approach for a theology of other religions. Many of those who say that a person cannot know anything certain about his or her own religion, thinking they are thereby creating pluralism, are in effect creating an exclusivism. If all we each have is our own subjective practices without any grounding, then it is a pluralism of human stories, not religion.

Knowing the Jewish texts about other religions means that Judaism does indeed have different rules than other religions. We need to come to the table with the breath and depth of our conviction. There are many positions and many sources. Different situations require different texts. All of them do play a role and all of them continue to be used in the community. We need to appreciate what the wide palette of traditional texts says about other religions and stop thinking that we already know the range of opinions. Our religious community has a robust tradition of varying interpretations of the texts, often yielding competing understandings. We have to be open to the multiple voices that can speak to the various sides of this discussion

We must be humble and honest in the acceptance of who others are and who we are. I reject a simplistic view of all religions in some collective approach where differences are minimized. Rationality and theology are important in accomplishing anything we can transmit and make use of for self-understanding. Theology of the other is not dialogue. To realize that we should not confuse the public policy decision of whether to engage in actual theological dialogue in a given situation, with the theoretical question of whether Judaism actually has a theology of other religions.

Challenge

One of the bigger challenges for a theological position today is to stop apologetics and acknowledge the demonizing exclusivism of many Jewish texts.

For the Jewish exclusivist, the universe is Judeo-centric and the other religions are not relevant; at best we can speak of individual gentiles as righteous and that there is knowledge among the nations, but the overlap remains in the realm of their coincidental adaptation of Jewishly acceptable ideas. Most of the time such a viewpoint remains a form of myopia, thinking that Jews are the only protagonists in the march of history. At its most particular, Judaism has a tribal view of itself as the only possessor of morality and portrays contemporary gentiles as bereft of morals.

The major form of Jewish exclusivism intrinsic to many classic Jewish texts is not merely chosenness, but rather a dualistic sense of separatism. Chosenness and the special status of Israel itself are not the problem. Rather, it is the splitting of the world into two groups, Jews and all others. Exclusivists, tend to consider themselves tolerant when they find grounds to refrain from condemning those outside the system.

However, we also possess horrific texts of demonizing the other. They cannot simply be ignored. This horrific approach moved the exclusivity of the past to a new and potentially dangerous realm. While the influence of Lurianic cosmology has certainly waned with modernity, these texts nevertheless occasionally and surprisingly appear in the rhetoric of contemporary Jewish separatists and are cited by anti-Semites eager to prove the racism of Judaism. Rather than avoiding them, we must acknowledge their existence and then distance ourselves from them. To repudiate a racist text is not necessarily to relinquish exclusivist texts or the concept of chosen Peoplehood.

Cherry picking out the positive statement about gentiles and other religions, the predominant response, is not adequate because it does not acknowledge the problem. It does not lead to fruitful discussion that leads to responsibility. Modern Orthodox apologetics has an implicit supersessionalism, thinking that it already has answers and moved beyond the other positions, which has left it unable to respond to the return of extreme exclusivist positions. The entire spectrum of positions must be represented and honestly presented.

Moving forward
Many Jews still say that Christianity, especially the Catholic Church, was responsible for horrible crimes in the past so how can we trust them? And many have similar feelings about Islam. Jewish participants need to agree to work to overcome their fear and distrust of the Church. Jews need to overcome their sense of minority status and find a new social model for their interactions. We need to move beyond bitterness, both in our relationship with the Church and in our own self-understanding of our place in the world community. And we will need to consider how we have relied on this culture of victimhood even when the other who surrounds us does not wish to destroy us. We should learn to cultivate a self-understanding appropriate for our current confrontations.

Many American Jews who fail to see an immediate purpose to any interfaith encounter with Islam must remember that it is a long-term process. They should also know that extremists on either side are not part of dialogue; rather, dialogue aims to remove the ground from beneath extremists.

Dialogue does not assume that both parties enter dialogue on equal footing with comparable goals and motives. This approach would have guaranteed that the Jewish community would not have been speaking to Catholics or Protestants in the early days of Jewish-Christian reconciliation. Requiring shared motives is unfair and unreasonable.

After the Holocaust, the Christian communities undoubtedly had more work to do in the dialogue than the Jews. Should we not have engaged in that dialogue until we were "on equal footing"? Yet look at the amazing results from that encounter. When dialogue with Catholics started in the 1950s some Christians entered with a problematic
treatment of Judaism. Eventually, the Catholic Church moved from teaching contempt to recognizing Judaism as a living faith. It recognized the State of Israel, and sought to remove anything in Catholicism that can be used to teach anti-Semitism.

Yet, when Jews first engaged Catholics, the immediate narrow focus was
fighting anti-Semitism. Over time, Catholics began to address the very nature of their relationship with Judaism, and the problematic elements were overcome. So, too, with Islam, we need to start with small steps. Islam should be given the same chance to show reciprocity and respect.

Many in the Jewish community resist all such endeavors, and we are similarly aware that not all Muslim leaders are themselves prepared to sit with us. The Saudis may not yet be ready for religious tolerance, but right now, Muslims from Minnesota to Malaysia are seeking dialogue as a means of overcoming Western stereotypes of their faith. We should not kiss every hand extended to us, nor expect every initiative to be successful. But we should not refuse to shake hands with those who have the ability to significantly change the face and future of Islam.

Ethics
The goal should be hospitality, not just tolerance. Hospitality is simultaneously theological and ethical; it teaches us not to make serious misrepresentations of the other and to meet others in a way that makes demands upon us for welcome. The invitation to the other and then the time spent together generates actual familiarity, and a potential for change in ourselves through the activity

In engaging in hospitality in which we receive the other as a stranger in our life (and similar to receiving a stranger in one’s home), in each other’s presence we learn the patterns of behavior of the other. Tolerance offers no insight or encounter with the other. The opposite of intolerance is not necessarily tolerance, but hospitality and humanity. This is not the humanity of putting our religions away, or a subjective humanism that does not make demands on us. But, the opposite of intolerance is a humanism that demands that we cultivate an appreciation of religious difference and diversity.

We can start by thinking of the virtues of peace and reconciliation. Rabbi Moses Cordovero, the great sixteenth century Safed ethicist and Kabbalist wrote, “It is evil in the sight of the Holy One, blessed be He, if any of His creations is despised.”

How do we offer hospitality? Conversation, graciousness, and mutual respect are the keys. The art of listening, however, turns out to be a crucial factor in building healthy communities. Careful listening deepens into a discernment that goes beyond words. We come to these events truly knowing nothing about the other side and have to listen to the most basic elements. Interfaith relationships tend to be about friendship, cooperation, and collaboration around shared stories, values, and goals—not about dialogue or a lowest common religious denominator. One grows through experiences that stand out in memory as an encounter outside the normal “safety zone.” When one meets the other faith one seeks to be open to surprise or to be humbled, an experience of healing and hope. Hospitality is a commitment to a character trait and a culture of life. The goal is to learn to respect difference and diversity not just civil tolerance.

If we respect the Orthodox restrictions on dialogue and at the same time we are not seeking to find converts through theological discussion-- then what is our activity? The activity of hospitality offers a twofold answer: to expand our vision and to seek to diminish hatred and derogatory statements of others. Emmanuel Levinas mentions the ethical crime of the tyranny of the same in which I impose my categories on the other. We need to move beyond the smugness of thinking that we know everything about the other religions.

Another opposite of intolerance is to learn to engage in practical work together. Active encounter creates stories, positive stories of possibilities. Even when faiths clash in encounter or practice, we can still tell the story of where things went wrong and how we navigated the troubled times. Political states regularly engage in diplomatic relationships, cordial encounters, and practical negotiations without sharing a common political ideology.

Conclusion

Robert Wuthnow, the leading sociologist of religion, notes that Americans simultaneously give respect to all religions but at the same time harbor exclusivist views denying this very respect. The result, he says, is "a kind of tension that cannot be easily resolved . . . a tattered view of the world held together only by the loosest of logic."
Wuthnow concludes that we need to articulate middle positions between the extremes of a public pluralism and private exclusivism.

The articulation needs to be textual and theological, not just humanist. Any thoughts on these topics will have many ramifications for the Jewish self-understanding of our place in the world.

Jews need to put aside their frightened mentality and recognize the age in which we live. We have a choice of how to see the world: Is Abraham the start of monotheism, a father of many nations, blessed among people, or is he an “ivri” (literally other bank of the river) someone who dwells alone or in opposition? Rabbi S. R. Hirsch gave a model for openness and not dwelling alone:

And I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great; become a blessing (Genesis 12:2)

“The people of Abraham, in private and in public, follow one calling: to become a blessing. They dedicate themselves to the Divine purpose of bringing happiness to the world by serving as model for all nations and to restore mankind. God will grant His blessing of the renewal of life and the awakening and enlightenment of the nations, and the name of the People of Abraham shall shine forth.”

This is a model of Abraham that is open to the world rather than set apart from the rest of humanity. R. Hirsch was not advocating the denial of Abraham’s differences from the religiosity in Ur of the Chaldeans; rather he grasped both elements.

In our age, there are no victories from isolationism, self-absorption, and polite tolerance. If we do not engage the world, our seeming religious victories would be hollow. The diversity of religion in America in the age of globalization will likely serve as one of Orthodoxy’s 21st century testing grounds.

For centuries, Sephardic Jews of Arab lands lived in relatively peaceful coexistence with their Arab-Muslim neighbors. While never perfect, life for Jews in Arab lands never reached the horrible pogroms continuously experienced by Jews living under Christian rule in Europe. Indeed, the Golden Age of Spain took place under Islamic rule, and only after the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims were Jews subject to the brutal inquisition and subsequent expulsion from Spain in 1492.

This relatively peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Jews is a far cry from the state of war between Israel and her neighbors in the modern Middle East. Historians will attribute this change to various political factors in the Middle East and the world, but many today will blame religion as a major stumbling block toward recapturing peace between the two peoples.

But can the voice of religion bring about a positive change? Rav Bension Meir Hai Uziel believed it could.

Born in Jerusalem in 1880 under Ottoman rule, Rav Uziel became the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Jaffa in 1911, and was later the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine (1939-1948) and then of the State of Israel (1948 until his death in 1953). As such, he was a leader through three administrations in the land of Israel, and throughout his career — no matter who ruled the land — he sought peace and reconciliation with his Arab neighbors.

A deep believer in the power of religion as a medium to foster positive and peaceful relations, Rav Uziel issued a powerful message to the Arabs following the United Nation Partition Plan in November 1947:

“To the heads of the Islamic Religion in the Land of Israel and throughout the Arab lands near and far, Shalom U’vrakha. Brothers, at this hour, as the Jewish people have returned to its land and state … we approach you in peace and brotherhood, in the name of God’s Torah and the Holy Scriptures, and we say to you: please remember the peaceful and friendly relations that existed between us when we lived together in Arab lands and under Islamic Rulers during the Golden Age, when together we developed brilliant intellectual insights of wisdom and science for all of humanity’s benefit. We were brothers, and we shall once again be brothers, working together in cordial and neighborly relations in this Holy Land.”

Rav Uziel sought to re-create the atmosphere once lived by his Sephardic ancestors, and he felt that the true message of peace was deeply embedded in religious texts. In April 1948, on the last Passover before Israel declared her independence, Rav Uziel issued a stirring message of peace rooted in the Passover narrative:

“It is not by sword nor by war do we return to our ancestral homeland, as we do not desire war, bloodshed or loss of life. Our sages expressed a deep Jewish value by refraining from reciting the full Hallel (Psalms of Praise) on the seventh day of Passover, for on that day, the Egyptians drowned in the sea, and God declared: ‘My beings are drowning in the sea and you sing Hallel?’”

Rav Uziel then deepens his peaceful message:

“Indeed, Passover teaches us to love all those around us, including our declared enemies, as it is written: ‘You shall not abhor an Egyptian, for you were a stranger in his land’ (Deuteronomy 23:8). This means that we do not bear any vengeful grudge toward Egypt or the Egyptians for the suffering and enslavement we endured in their land, rather we only remember that we were strangers in Egypt. We forget all negativity and recall only whatever positive treatment they gave us.”

Mindful that his Arab audience included present-day Egyptian Arabs, Rav Uziel used the Egypt of the Passover story as a subtle hint for contemporary reconciliation between Jews and Arabs. Despite any negative relations between Jews and Arabs, “we do not bear any vengeful grudge toward Egypt and the Egyptians.”

In a poetic metaphor on Jews having been strangers and slaves in Egypt, Rav Uziel wrote:

“We once again reach out to our Arab neighbors in peace, for our sole desire is to live together with you in this Holy Land that is sacred to all nations. Let us engage together in fruitful labor for the sake of peace for all inhabitants of this land. Let us work together, using all of our diversity in religion, beliefs, customs and languages, so that we can build and assure absolute freedom and equality for all inhabitants in this land. Let us together recognize that only God is the ultimate ruler over the earth, for we are all ‘strangers in God’s world.’”

As a “lover of peace and pursuer of peace,” and as a Chief Rabbi who creatively used his position as a leader and his Sephardic ancestry as a medium to seek peace, Rav Uziel never stopped talking or dreaming about peace between Jews and Arabs.

It’s unfortunate that Rav Uziel was not appointed as a special political envoy to help establish political relations with Arab leaders in 1948. Had that been the case, relations between Israel and her Arab neighbors might have taken a very different course.

Rabbi Dr. Phil Cohen, the rabbi of Temple Israel, West Lafaryette, Indiana, reviews an important book on the thought of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

Jonathan Sacks
Universalizing Particularity
Edited by Havah Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes
(Leiden, the Netherlands: Koninkijke Brill NV, 2014)

Jonathan Sacks, who bears the somewhat cumbersome but well-earned title Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks (to which could be added “Doctor”), is surely one of our most accomplished and thoughtful rabbis. He is a prolific author, including the current bestseller Not in God’s Name. He’s a much sought-after lecturer, a columnist, currently professor at New York University, Yeshiva University and King’s College, London. In addition to having held the aforementioned position of Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth (1991-2003), as his title further indicates, he is a member of the House of Lords.

Rabbi Doctor Lord Sacks has long been one of the Jewish world’s most prominent public intellectuals. He resides intellectually and spiritually in a particular corner of the Orthodox world which has over the course of his career compelled him to become increasingly open to speaking of religious and moral matters to the world.

He is innately open to dialogue with a vast plurality of religious communities within and beyond the Jewish world, enabling him to interact with and write about a number of important universal spiritual concerns, though from his understanding of the particularity of his Jewish self. This is visible in the titles of his books, such as, To Heal a Fractured World, The Dignity of Difference: How to avoid a clash of civilizations, and Celebrating Life: Finding happiness in unexpected places.

His openness comes in part from the general education he received from childhood on, including a Ph.D. in philosophy under the well-known British philosopher, the ethicist Bernard Williams (1929-2003), a degree he received before his semicha. For his writing, Rabbi Sacks has won innumerable awards, including three American National Book Awards.

Published in 2013, one of his most recent publications is Jonathan Sacks: Universalizing Particularity. This book is part of a twenty volume series, the Library of Contemporary Philosophers, conceived by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Director of Jewish Studies and Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Modern Judaism and Professor of History at Arizona State University, and Aaron W. Hughes, Philip S. Bernstein Chair of Jewish Studies in the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester. The book begins with a brief biography, written by Professor Hughes. This is followed by a representative selection of four articles chosen in concert with the author, “Finding God”, “An Agenda for Future Jewish Thought”, “The Dignity of Difference: Exorcising Plato’s Ghost”, and “Future Tense: The Voice of Hope in the Conversation”. This is followed by a substantive interview conducted by Professor Tirosh-Samuelson, and concludes with a select bibliography of 120 pieces. As with every book in this series, the volume devoted to Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks intends to make accessible to the broad audience of intelligent non-professionals the thought of a highly philosophical mind.

Sacks tells an autobiographical story that serves to frame the rest of his life. While working on his undergraduate degree, he took himself on a bus tour of North America with the goal of visiting rabbis. He only tells of his visit with two, whose names kept coming up while in conversation with other rabbis: Joseph Soloveitchik, the scion of Modern Orthodoxy the Rav, and Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher rebbe. Rabbi Soloveitchik challenged Sacks to think deeply about the connections between philosophy and halakah, and Rabbi Schneerson challenged him to lead, to understand the need for leaders. In the character of these two men, he says, “there was something…that was more than them, as if an entire tradition spoke through their lips…In their presence you could feel the divine presence.” (p.32)

Sacks carried away from these two encounters a sense of purpose, a growing understanding of what would become his life’s mission: to be loyal to Orthodoxy, to pursue philosophy, and to speak intelligently and with deep spiritual emotion to the Jewish people and to the world about things that matter.

The biography by Aaron Hughes places Sack’s intellectual career in context, and explicates the impressive claims about him Hughes makes in his opening paragraph:

“Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks represents one of the most important voices in current discussions that concern the plight of Judaism—and indeed of religion more generally—in the modern world. While his vision emerges out of the sources of Judaism, Sack’s inclusive and highly accessible approach ensures that his writings reach a large audience within the general reading public. Although his earliest work dealt specifically with the problems besetting Judaism in its confrontation with modernity beginning in the nineteenth century, his more recent writings examine the importance of cultivating a culture of civility based on the twin notions of the dignity of difference and the ethic of responsibility. Rabbi Sacks writes…as a rabbi, a social philosopher, a proponent of interfaith dialogue, and a public intellectual. In so doing, his vision—informed as it is by the concerns of modern Orthodoxy—is paradoxically one of the most universalizing voices within contemporary Judaism.” (p.1)

Hughes’s “paradoxically” comment at the end of the paragraph above appears to speak to the manner in which Orthodox Jews are often viewed as relatively closed intellectually and socially. Though one can easily point to corners of the Jewish world where Orthodox Jews do cordon themselves off from the rest of the Jewish community, surely this implied claim is significantly untrue. In our day a considerable number of Orthodox Jews have spoken to, served, and led the non-Orthodox community in many capacities. David Hartman, Yitz Greenberg, Avi Weiss, Richard Joel (who revitalized Hillel before becoming president of Yeshiva University), and Barry Shrage, to name only a few, come readily to mind. To these names we must add Jonathan Sacks whose work is by its nature philosophically inclusive.

We gain insight into Sacks’s personality and concerns in the interview conducted by Prof. Tirosh-Samuleson, which stands as the heart of this volume. It is from the interview that the ostensibly paradoxical subtitle of the book, Universalizing Particularity, emerges. Though focused on one specific intellectual problem, the term in a sense is the substrate for the entire interview, as well as much of Sack’s thought broadly speaking.

Defining Jewish philosophy, Sacks argues that the Jewish view of the world is one of intersubjectivity, of one in relation to another, moving toward a future that we bring into existence through our own actions. The way we know God and the way we know each other is through engagement (p.116) God engages humanity through revelation, and Jews talk back to God through prayer, to each other through endless conversations, “arguments made for the sake of heaven.” (p.117)

This is a never-ending process, the unfolding on both the human and divine side of God’s self-identification to Moses as “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh.” Not only does God continue growing and changing in the human mind, but humans, too, in a lesser but nonetheless profound way are in a liquid process of change. We constantly face an endless set of choices we have to make, and out of those choices we become who we become. From this grows what Sacks says are concepts Judaism understands better than “any secular philosophy with which I am familiar: human freedom, human dignity, and hope.” (p.117)

Sacks is asked how to speak philosophically about “difference,” a term referring to the diversity of human thinking and identity and the attempt to grant theological space for all streams of thought. He uses the term “difference” as a means of countering the Greek philosophical preference for universalism. Universalism absorbs the particularity of a thing by understanding what properties all things in a class possess. Greek philosophy prefers universals in thought—all good things must be like all other good things, no difference.

Sacks sees in Judaism the reversal of that value, the preference for the particular, for meaning is expressed in the particular. (p.26)

In that vein, in defining Judaism, Sacks wished that he could argue the importance of being Jewish out of the matrix of chosenness, but initially found chosenness a difficult topic to broach in our age. Chosenness indicates difference, particularity. In an age in which everything worth discussing must be seen as universal, “the concept of a chosen people sounds racist.” (p.122) This led to a problem: He could not discuss the meaning of Judaism without chosenness, but could not “use the idea of chosenness without sounding racist and supremacist.” (p.122)

Sacks resolves this intellectual conundrum by a move he calls universalizing particularity (the book’s subtitle), incorporating the notion of “the dignity of difference,” the title of one of the articles in this book (and, as well, of one of his books). Jewish chosenness, Sacks realized, did not actually marginalize others, since God is the God of all humanity. The God of the Jews enters the world at the conclusion of the Flood by making a covenant with all people. Thus, “The God of Israel is the God of all humanity, but the religion of Israel is not the religion of all humanity; it is something unique to the Jews.” (p124)

This realization is liberating. It allows for the particularity of the Jews, their teachings, chosenness, their covenant, while granting others significant theological space in this world through their own difference. It means that Jews can understand their existence among many peoples as sharing a home (Sack’s word), in which all people seek common good, everyone contributing, but from within the matrix of their own particular religious identity. We can see God in the face of the other without either individual in the dyad required to surrender their religious individuality. “Universalizing particularity”, then, is the view that bundles all particularist thinking into one sphere, honoring their separateness by not placing any one outside the sphere, and not obliterating the collective into one amorphous whole.

In the essay “The Dignity of Difference,” Sacks clarifies this point. Jewish particularity exists, he says, to teach the meaning of difference. The unity of God, refracted through Jewish existence, does not shut out everyone else. The Jewish covenant does not transcend the Noahide covenant. Rather, unlike Christianity and Islam, which teach that salvation comes only from within their group, the Jewish covenant acknowledges the universal covenant, teaching that all peoples share in divinity and hence the possibility of redemption. God, Sacks says, “turns to one people [the Jews] and commands it to be different in order to teach humanity the dignity of difference.” (p.46) The twin notions of the dignity of difference and the interplay of universalism and particularism means that Judaism can both possess its own domain, but at the same time can teach to the world, and learn from it. This twin concept informs much of Sack’s work both as a thinker and a leader. Understanding and formulating a means of working with the bifurcations in our world provides Sacks with a method of both seeing these bifurcations, but also knowing how to bridge them in intellectual and spiritual conversation.

This thinking arrives at an interesting juncture when asked about applying the notion of the dignity of difference within Judaism. As an Orthodox, Jew Sacks cannot surrender Orthodoxy’s halakhic worldview. Sacks cannot write off the non-halakhic community. Jews are bound together by fate, he says, regardless of belief. Yet philosophy of Jewish unity, he says, cannot be constructed in the current state of the Jewish community; too many variables divide it. The best we can do is address the current Jewish condition with two principles. 1) Jews ought to work together on issues that do not concern religion. 2) When religion enters the conversation and threatens to become divisive, Jews must respectfully understand the differences between them. Given Sacks’s presence in the world, these two principles appear sufficient at least to him.

Another area of Sacks’s interest is the unnecessary separation of religion and science, a phenomenon over which he grieves. The rise of the impressive Jewish participation in the sciences parallels the decline of Jewish interest the Talmudic tradition. Presuming that religion and science ought to be partners, Sacks refers to the thinking that stipulates either Talmud or science as a cerebral lesion, “where the two hemispheres of the brain are in perfect working order but they’re not connected.” (p.128) This creates a disjunction that constitutes a “massive problem” (p.129) among Jews. In the interview, he is unable to prescribe how to bridge this particular gap. He is asked, “Is it [the disjunction between Judaism and science] treatable?” To this all he says is, “I think it is.” (p.129)

Toward the conclusion of the interview, Sacks admits the Jews face a surfeit of serious issues all requiring our attention. The primary challenge facing the Jewish people, the one transcending all others is whether we can “develop that…sense of self-confidence that comes from faith.” (p.133). To Sacks faith is the idea that God believes in the Jewish people, even if the Jewish people lack sufficient belief in themselves.

Faith of course is that place where living Judaism begins. In our time accepting the existence of a God with whom the Jews have a relationship, indeed are group chosen from among all of humanity, is a much battered concept, among the Jews and non-Jews as well. Sacks’s thought makes room for a chosenness not radically exclusive of others. But the challenge to Jews to accept what underlies chosenness, a Living God who chooses, who cares for and believes in the Jewish people, is difficult.

This is the faith that undergirds all of Sacks’s work. Beginning with his youthful encounters with the Rav and the Lubavitcher Rebbe, he has spent his life pursuing this faith and articulating its meaning. Though difficult for many to accept as their own faith, Sacks has shown formidable intelligence and creativity to speak about it in ways that are exceptionally noteworthy and which have drawn the attention of the world.

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

When I served as President of the Rabbinical Council of America (1990-92), I asked Rabbi Moshe Tendler to develop a health care proxy for the RCA, that would take into consideration issues relating to halakhic organ donation. An internationally renowned authority in halakha and medical ethics, Rabbi Tendler concluded that brain-stem death constitutes halakhic (as well as medical) death; that organ donation is permissible and praiseworthy according to halakha; that Jews faithful to halakha should arrange for a health care proxy form, that will assure that decisions will be made in consultation with proper medical and halakhic authority.

Rabbi Tendler's report and health care proxy form were discussed at an RCA convention, as well as in other study forums sponsored by the RCA. There was substantial controversy at the time, but the consensus of the RCA rabbis was to adopt Rabbi Tendler's position and to issue a health care proxy form in line with his recommendations. In spite of strong pressure from right-wing Orthodox groups, and intense opposition from some rabbis within the RCA, we succeeded in making a decision that was halakhically and medically sound, that provided for halakhic organ donation that could save lives. This was, to my mind, a very proud moment for the RCA. It demonstrated that the modern Orthodox rabbinate was capable of making an important decision in a responsible way--and that it had the courage to withstand external--and internal--pressures.

Once we took our position, the attacks on the RCA's decision increased. I wrote an article for Jewish Action Magazine, published by the Orthodox Union, that I reprint below, presenting our arguments in favor of our position.

During the past few years, a committee of the RCA has revisited the issue of halakhic definition of death and the permissibility of organ donation. The committee recently issued its lengthy report. While not taking a formal position, the report backed away from the RCA's previous stance, and seems to tilt away from the brain-stem death definition of death. By not upholding the earlier position of the RCA, the current RCA leadership has decided it was most prudent for the RCA not to make such important decisions for the public, but to back away from taking a formal stand. The modern Orthodox rabbinate has again shown itself unable or unwilling to assume halakhic leadership and responsibility. It would prefer to straddle the fence, and let others make the important and controversial decisions.

An important article on "Death by Neurological Criteria" by Dr. Noam Stadlan offers a critique of the RCA's new report. It is available at torahmusings.com, and I recommend it highly. I also suggest that readers visit the website of the HOD Society for more information on the topic.

My article, going back to spring 1992, is printed below. I believe that the basic points of that article continue to be valid today. It reflects an optimism I had then about modern Orthodox rabbinic decision-making--an optimism which has been much dampened in recent years.

THE RCA HEALTH CARE PROXY
PROVIDING RESPONSIBLE HALAKHIC
LEADERSHIP TO OUR COMMUNITY

WHAT IS A HEALTH CARE PROXY?

A person, Heaven forbid, may become critically ill and be physically or mentally incapable of responding to doctors’ questions concerning continued treatment. Who then will have the right to make these life and death decisions? If an individual has prepared a health care proxy form, the person named in that form as his proxy would be empowered to make these decisions. If an individual has not designated a proxy, the medical staff will decide.
Obviously, a Jew who wishes such decisions to be made in consonance with halakhah should appoint a trusted person to be his or her health care proxy and should prepare the necessary health care proxy form. Federal law now requires health care providers to inform patients of their right to a health care proxy.
Religious Jews should utilize this right to assure that their treatment will conform to halakhic standards.

The Rabbinical Council of America has issued a health care proxy form, prepared by Rabbi Dr. Moshe Tendler, Chairman of the RCA’s Medical Ethics Commission. Members of the RCA have received a copy of the health care proxy, as well as material relating to the medical and halakhic issues involved. A Yom Iyyun was held on November 21, 1991, which included presentations by Rabbi Tendler and two world-renowned medical experts—Dr. Dominick Purpura, Dean of the Albert Einstein Medical College of Yeshiva University and Professor of Neurology; and Dr. Fred Plum, head of the Department of Neurology of the New York Hospital and Cornell University Medical College. The RCA has taken the responsible position of responding to a pressing communal need, providing vital information to the rabbis of the RCA so that they might guide their congregants wisely.

THE BRAIN-STEM DEATH ISSUE

A significant feature of the RCA health care proxy form is that it accepts brain-stem death as the definition of death.
This definition allows for the possibility of transplants of vital organs. Organs may, with the proper permission and safeguards, be taken from brain-stem dead individuals and transplanted to save the lives of others.

When the brain-stem dies, a fact that can be determined with absolute certainty by means of various tests, a person no longer can breathe independently—the brain-stem controls respiration, as well as other vital life processes. Brain-stem death includes respiration death and is irreversible.
At the RCA Yom Iyyun, Dr. Purpura and Dr. Plum both indicated that the brain-stem death definition today is accepted universally in the medical world. It is policy in all fifty states of the United States. It is defined specifically and can be determined with complete accuracy.

Dr. Purpura, in his lecture to the RCA, pointed out the historical background relating to brain-stem death. Ancient teachers thought that life was centered in the heart and that the brain was useless. By the mid-seventeenth century, researchers discovered that the brain controlled various aspects of the body. During the past several centuries, it has become clear that the brain is the center of life, that it controls all aspects of the living organism. Modern research has demonstrated how each part of the brain controls specific functions, with the brain-stem controlling respiration and other vital functions.
The brain simply cannot be equated with other vital organs. It is unique. Our brain defines who we are.

WHAT BRAIN-STEM DEATH IS NOT

Much of the confusion surrounding the brain-stem definition of death derives from the popular, unscientific use of the phrase “brain death.” If a person is in a deep coma, if his upper brain is not functioning, if he is in a persistent vegetative state—he is not brain dead. Death occurs only with the death of the brain-stem, not with the non-functioning of the upper brain.

THE HALAKHIC BASIS
The brain-stem definition of death was accepted by the Chief Rabbinate in Israel after thorough discussions with halakhic and medical authorities. The text of the Chief Rabbinate’s decision was published in Tehumin in 5746 (1986) and in English translation in Tradition, Summer, 1989. Based on this decision of the Chief Rabbis, organ transplants do take place in Israel under halakhic supervision. Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, in evaluating the issues involved, concluded that the decision of the Chief Rabbinate was sound and that the arguments of opponents were halakhically unfounded (Barkai, Spring 5747, pp. 32—41).
Rabbi Moshe Feinstein already had accepted the brain-stem definition of death in a responsum dated 5736 (1976). He ruled that when a patient showed no signs of life—e.g. no movement or response to stimuli—then the total cessation of independent respiration is an absolute proof that death has occurred (Iggerot Moshe, Yoreh De’ah, 3:132). If a person cannot breathe any longer due to brain-stem death, then a respirator attached to the person is merely pumping air into a dead body. Even if the heart continues to beat, the person is deemed to be dead. Indeed, after death, it is possible for individual organs to move spasmodically. Rambam, in his commentary on Mishnah Aholot 1:6, discusses the case of decapitation, and notes that pirkhus, movement of limbs after death, is not to be construed as a sign of life. Rabbi Moshe Tendler has referred to brain- stem death as “physiological decapitation.” With the death of the brain-stem, the control center of breathing and other vital functions has been cut off totally and irreversibly.

In a letter dated May 24, 1976, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein wrote to Assemblyman Herbert J. Miller, Chairman of the New York State Assembly Committee on Health. Rabbi Feinstein stated clearly, “The sole criterion of death is the total cessation of spontaneous respiration. . . the total cessation of independent respiration is an absolute proof that death has occurred.”

Opponents of the brain-stem death definition have attempted to confuse the public as to Rabbi Feinstein’s position. Although they are free to disagree with Rabbi Feinstein’s pesak, it is unconscionable that they should try to misrepresent his clear and consistent view, i.e. that brain-stem death is the true definition of death. Rabbi Mordechai Halperin (Assia, December 1989) researched the issue carefully and concluded that the evidence was clear that Rabbi Feinstein definitely accepted the brain-stem death definition. This position was confirmed by Dr. Ira Greifer of the Albert Einstein Medical College, who had spent several days discussing the issue in great detail with Rabbi Feinstein. Rabbi Feinstein’s acceptance of the brain-stem death definition also was confirmed by others who had discussed the question with him. In short, the RCA health care proxy is corroborated by the authoritative decisions of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. It is based on the very best scientific knowledge available.

SOME IMPLICATIONS
Those who reject the brain-stem death definition consider it murder to remove vital organs from a person who is brain stem dead, but whose heart is still beating. The implication of this position is that organ transplantation is forbidden. A doctor would not be allowed to remove vital organs from the brain-stem dead body; nor would it be ethical for a patient to benefit from an organ which had been the result of “murder.” I asked a rabbi of my acquaintance who opposes the brain stem definition of death what he would rule if a Jewish doctor asked him whether he could remove the heart of a brain-stem dead body to save the life of another person. The rabbi answered: “Let the doctor rely on Rabbi Tendler!” When I pressed the matter, insisting that he give the pesak and not defer to others, he refused to do so. In other words, he publicly went on record opposing the RCA position; and yet, privately, if confronted with a life and death situation he would rely on the RCA [i.e. Rabbi Tendler's] position.

Rabbi Mordekhai Eliyahu, in a recent discussion with the RCA, told us that a number of rabbis who publicly oppose the Chief Rabbinate’s ruling, nevertheless send their friends and relatives to receive organ transplants—organs which can be taken only from a brain-stem dead body. Several leading rabbis from Israel recently issued a brief statement opposing the brain-stem death definition. We have politely requested a responsum, fully argued and reasoned, so that we might study the basis of their pesak. No reply has been forthcoming to date.

Unfortunately, the brain-stem death issue has become a matter of public controversy and confusion. Since life and death decisions hinge on this matter, it is imperative that the public have lucid and accurate information. People may choose to follow the RCA’s decision—based on the finest halakhic and scientific authority—or they may choose to reject it. There are serious arguments in opposition to the RCA’s position, but everyone should understand what the case for the RCA is and should not misrepresent its position.

People should not intellectualize and abstract the issue; rather, they should see it in personal terms. If a loved one, Heaven forbid, needed an organ transplant in order to live, would you rely on the RCA decision to allow transplants from brain-stem dead bodies? Or would you let the loved one die? Or would you choose the morally repugnant position of allowing the transplant even though you believed that halakhically it entailed murder?
The RCA position is not only well-founded on halakhic and scientific authority. It also is humane, responsible and compassionate. It is a demonstration of responsible halakhic and moral leadership to our community.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Rabbinic Statement Regarding Organ Donation

We, the undersigned Orthodox rabbis and rashei yeshiva affirm the following principles with regard to organ donation and brain stem death:
First and foremost, the halakhic definition of death is a long-standing debate amongst gedolei ha-poskim, and it should not be forgotten that, among others in the U.S. and Israel, the former Chief Rabbis of Israel, R. Avraham Shapira and R. Mordechai Eliyahu, zikhronam li’vracha, and, yibadel li’chayim, Rav Gedalia Dov Schwartz, the av beis din of the Beit Din of America, are strong proponents of the position that brain stem death constitutes the halakhic definition of death.
Both positions, that brain stem death constitutes death, and that only cardiac death can define death, are halakhically viable. This remains so even in light of the findings of the President’s Council on Bioethics in 2008.
With regard to this long-standing debate, and its critical implications for organ donation, we affirm our position that:

1. Brain stem death is a halakhically operational definition of death. As such, organs may be removed for transplantation under strict halakhic supervision and guidance.
2. In light of the serious moral issues and profound lifesaving potential presented by the possibility of organ donation, we strongly recommend that rabbis who are rendering decisions for their laity on this matter demonstrate a strong predisposition to accept the halakhic view of the gedolei haposkim who define the moment of halakhic death to be that of brain stem death, or that they refer their laity to rabbis who do so.

3. Even as we adopt the brain stem definition of death, we emphasize that the greatest of care is needed in applying this definition in practice, and that safeguards are necessary to insure the organ removal is done in accordance with halakhic principles. Each person should consult with his or her rabbi and appropriate medical professionals to understand how this determination of death is made, and how to ensure that the appropriate procedures will be in place.

4. Rabbis and laity who follow the position that brain stem death is not considered to be halakhic death should be aware that it is medically possible to donate certain body parts after cardiac death and that it is a mitzvah to do so. Thus,

<>a.It is both halakhically permissible and desirable and ethically mandated for every Jew to be an organ donor consistent with his or her definition of halakhic death.

<>b.Rabbis and community leaders must do all in their power to communicate this responsibility to the community, and to encourage all Jews to sign organ donor cards, in line with their halakhic definition of death.

5. To adopt a restrictive position regarding donating organs and a permissive position regarding receiving organs is morally untenable. Such an approach is also highly damaging to the State of Israel, both internally and in regards to its relationship with the larger world, and to the Jewish People as a whole. This approach must thus be unequivocally rejected by Jews at the individual and the communal level.

Signed:

R. Shlomo Riskin, Efrat, Israel

R. Yuval Cherlow, Petach Tikva, Israel

R. Binny Lau, Jerusalem, Israel

R. Yoel Bin Nun, Israel

R. David Bigman, Ma’ale Gilboa, Israel

R. Yehudah Gilad, Ma’ale Gilboa, Israel

R. Binyamin Walfish, Jerusalem, Israel

R. Dr. Avraham Walfish. Israel

R. Herzl Hefter, Jerusalem, Israel

R. Haskel Lookstein, NewYork NY

R. Yosef Adler, Teaneck, NJ

R. Dov Linzer, Riverdale, NY

R. Avi Weiss, Riverdale, NY

R. Barry Gelman, Houston, TX

R. Asher Lopatin, Chicago, IL

R. Yosef Kanefsky, Los Angeles, CA

R. Benjy Samuels, Newton, MA

R. Chaim Marder, White Plains, NY

R. Yaakov Love, Passaic, NJ

R. Nati Helfgot, Teaneck, NJ

R. Ysoscher Katz, New York, NY

R. Marc Angel, New York, NY

R. Hayyim Angel, NY

Is it appropriate for a man to wear cologne?

The Talmud (Berakhot 43b) and Rambam (Hilkhot De’ot 5:9) indicate the impropriety of Torah sages “going abroad while scented.” Perhaps such behavior was deemed to be too hedonistic or effeminate; perhaps it could have led people to suspect inappropriate behavior.

Attitudes have changed dramatically over the centuries. In our times, it is fairly common for men to use after shave lotion or cologne, and few—if any—would deem this to be hedonistic, effeminate or suggestive of immoral conduct. An industry study of several years ago found that 63% of American men aged 18-64 wear fragrances at least occasionally, with 23% indicating they use it all the time. In many cases, the scents are used as antiperspirants. Or they simply make the man feel more cheerful or more presentable.

Using colognes/scents is a personal decision which affects each man and those with whom he has regular contact at home or work. It is appropriate to let each man decide what is best for himself and his immediate family and friends.

Is it ever appropriate for a husband to put his foot down with his wife or a wife with her husband?  (Or is compromise the answer no matter what the issue is?)

Husbands and wives must always strive to deal with each other with love, respect, patience…and a good sense of humor. They must be able to communicate their feelings and their needs, and must be sure that their spouse genuinely listens and understands. With these ingredients, couples will be able to negotiate almost every area of conflict. Almost…but not all.

Sometimes there are deep differences that cannot simply be ignored or laughed away. But when such differences arise, authoritarian attitudes seldom result in satisfactory conclusions. You don’t “put your foot down” if you treat your spouse as an equal partner in marriage. On the other hand, compromises are not always workable or appropriate.

If a couple cannot reach a satisfactory resolution to their differences, they should consult their rabbi or a marriage counselor. It sometimes is helpful to have a trusted professional help the couple work through the issues and come to a mutually acceptable way forward.

The goal is not to have either spouse say: “I won, you lost.” The goal is for both to be able to say: “We won.”

  Should a person daven a long Shemoneh Esrei if others around him might consider him arrogant (or holier than thou) as a result?

A person should pray humbly and sincerely. Proper prayer puts one into relationship with the Almighty; it is a sacred time, a quiet and transformative time.

When one prays, one focuses on being in the presence of Hashem.

True religiosity is marked by personal, private devotion. Yuhara—pretentiousness—is a violation of the essence of religious experience. Tradition speaks of 36 hidden righteous people upon whom the world depends. They live piously and inconspicuously. They do not seek—or want—to flaunt their piety.

When one prays Shemoneh Esrei (or any other parts of the service) one should do so in a way that combines these two principles: 1) sincere personal outpouring of heart; 2) inconspicuous devotion.

One should pray Shemoneh Esrei as long as it takes for him or her to do so properly. No one should stand in judgment of how much time another person takes for his or her prayer.

If a person is the rabbi or shaliah tsibbur of the congregation, he should not elongate his prayer so as not to cause excessive delay to the worshipers. But a private individual may take as much time as needed, as long as he/she does not disturb other congregants.

If a person is indeed trying to appear “holier than thou” let Hashem be the judge. We are better off concentrating on our own prayers and not worrying about how long it takes for our neighbor to complete the Shemoneh Esrei.

Should you give money to a panhandler on the street (or a subways car) if you have no idea if the person really needs it or not (e.g., he may take the money to buy drugs)?

The mitzvah of giving charity has two goals. One is to provide assistance to the recipient. The other is to develop a charitable personality in the donor. Ideally, both goals are accomplished when one generously gives to a genuinely needy person.

When one is asked for funds from an unknown individual, a charitable person will tend to donate without asking questions about how the recipient will use the charity.

When one is asked for funds from someone of dubious character, even a charitable person might choose not to donate. Why give one’s hard earned money to someone who may be a con artist, or a drunk, or a drug addict? The dilemma is exacerbated when there are so many requests from beggars on the streets and subways. It is natural to become mistrustful and to avoid giving alms to such individuals.

We should give charity when we feel it will genuinely help the recipients; and when we feel that our donation will help us in our own moral development. When in doubt, it’s best to err on the side of being too charitable.

Sephardic Book Talks with Rabbi Marc Angel

Mondays beginning Oct. 19th

7:30pm ET / 4:30pm PT

In 1969, a very precise and intelligent law student approached me in a rather confused state of mind. He had just studied the proofs for the existence of God as presented by Maimonides in the Guide for the Perplexed. These proofs were disappointing to him, as they said little to his practical twentieth-century Western mind. Did I read them, he asked. Yes, I answered, but they also said little that resonated with my way of thinking. At least all but one (the proof from design) lacked the punch that one expects from such “proofs.”

Both of us were young and saw ourselves as scientific, accepting only what was clearly proven to us. My confession allowed him to ask, rather sheepishly, that if I found the proofs generally so meaningless, why was I an observant and practicing Jew.

My answer surprised even me: ”I believe because I just completed as part of my ophthalmology residency training a full time six-month course in the anatomy, physiology and pathology of the eye”. He eyed me at first with a skeptical tilt, but I explained.

The eye is one of the most beautiful creations that I know. It is a wonder and a marvel, dwarfing even our most sophisticated human inventions. You would probably agree with the above, but with the in-depth study that I had just completed, I found that this sensory organ was indeed most awe-inspiring. I saw that every part of its anatomy and function were nothing short of astounding—and this even though we know but few of its inner secrets.

Basics: the eye is a one-inch sphere that is bombarded with electromagnetic light rays from a radiant object. The cornea and lens focus the image, which is then projected on the retina where it is converted into an electrical signal and this electrical wave is transmitted a few inches to the occiput, the rear of the brain. We then “see” an object in all its beauty, with the color, perspective, depth, relationship to other sights and a lot more. Other parts of a brain then incorporate this into our past memories and give this electromagnetic signal a full world of relationships.

Sounds easy! Well it is not.

Every step in the process, and there are many steps, screams loudly of the work of a Creator. Please follow closely as we explore just a small sample of some of the wonders of the eye and see how they attest to the glory of the Almighty Creator.

First, the external anatomy: the eye is protected on five sides by a bony pocket in the skull. These bones are in turn surrounded in many areas by air-filled sinus cavities. Further, the eye sits in a cushioning bed of soft fat, a shock absorber. A bony protruding front rim protects the front of the eye from large projectiles.

The front surface of the eye is indeed exposed, but the complicated eyelid protects it. You take this lid for granted. Do not, for even small lid problems can cause major ocular problems. The lid has multiple muscles and tendons as well as a full moistening and draining lacrimal system. In the lids are several types of glands that secrete the many components of the tears. Brushes on the lids, the lashes, function to avoid excess light and foreign bodies. The tear drainage systems with its glands, drainage, nerves, arteries, even the chemistry of the tears are all a shocking wonder.

In addition, the tears are not just a layer of water. Several sets of glands produce a highly complex thin layer. In this later are found antibodies and electrolytes. One can indeed spend a lifetime just studying the chemistry of the tears.

Do not think that the tears afford just an added bit of comfort. Not at all. Very many people are actually blinded by tear deficiencies.

And I can go on and on. The eye muscles, the miracle of the cornea, the very complex fluids inside the eye, the amazing lens, the miraculous retina, optic nerve and the visual components of the brain. The six muscles around each eye that are in constant coordination with each other. The biochemical, immunologic, and regenerating systems, the color and depth perception abilities, dark adaptation and so very much more. The sub-cellular components, the enzymes, proteins and nucleic acids, the electrical systems and the anti-microbial systems.

Each of these components has been researched ad infinitim. Book after book is available on every micro component of the eye. Moreover, every day I read of a new discovery, a new enzyme, new cellular components, and new genetic controls.

Ma rabu maasekha Hashem. How awesome are your creations, God.

There are those who peer into deepest space to see the glories of creation. But I find that we do not need a Hubbell Telescope to see God’s creation, rather, a microscope will do just fine. There is a whole world in each of us that can serve as witness to Creation. Lo Bashamayim Hi, it is not in heaven.

But wait, what silliness is this? How many science teachers have we had who did everything that they could, either openly or by innuendo, to convince us that religion, or more specifically, that the whole God concept is primitive nonsense? How many times have we read that the concept of Intelligent Design is just plain wrong, that the theory of evolution can prove it all, and I mean all of it. How many of us get cold sweats when we read a Times article “proving” that our most basic religious concepts are silly? How many high school and college students fall into obsessive doubt, even depression, when they study evolution and learn that the Torah is wrong in describing Creation, that the whole thing is but a myth?

Yes, the study of evolution, both macro and micro, anatomic and physiologic, cellular and sub cellular can argue quite convincingly that it all just came about by itself. No God, no Creator, all just spontaneous development over fourteen billion years.

Nevertheless, the message that I am conveying is that if one looks through the microscope, studies and observes, one becomes overwhelmed and convinced that the Proof from Design is indeed correct. There was a Creator. Many scholarly books have been written, some by evolutionary scientists, that stress that science “proves” that there is a God. We should not be on the defensive. Science is really the clergyman’s best ally.

However, you complain, “science is just not Jewish.” After all, we know all about dinosaurs and evolution, a non-geocentric universe, and concept after concept that disagrees with our talmudic and rabbinic literature.

I say,“NO.” Science is not religious or irreligious, not Jewish, not Buddhist, no. Science describes. And from careful observation, it allows for accurate prediction. It can measure the speed of an electron, what effect penicillin has on a bacterium, or how my anatomy compares to that of a monkey. But as far as the why of nature, science has no way of knowing if God guided the evolution and development of the universe over the billions of years, or if human’s evolution was spontaneous, by random chance. It is for you and me to look at the world, to study in depth both the astronomical universe and the sub-microscopic particle and after unprejudiced thought to decide if we think that this all just came about. And for me, with the bits of knowledge that I have, particularly from my ophthalmic studies, the answer is heavily on the side of a planned and guided Creation.

In traditional Jewish circles one often hears adherents complaining that many of our modern findings contradict the science of the Torah, of the Talmud, and of the rabbis of the past, some of them who were outstanding scientists in their times. But I say that if you believe these sages who had no microscopes and no telescopes, no spectrophotometers and no cyclotrons, if you believe that if they were here today and had our knowledge, that they would still accept that the sun circles the earth, and that the world is less than 6,000 years old, then you insult these intellectuals to the core. No, I think that if Hazal were here today they would rejoice over our new knowledge of the Almighty’s handiwork. They would of course correct what they wrote in error about Nature.

Maimonides writes: “And what is the way that one comes to love and to be in awe of Him? At the time that the individual studies His amazing creations and His large creatures he will at once apprehend from them His wisdom, which is unappraisable and endless—immediately he loves and extols and praises and craves a great craving to know the great Almighty (MT HYT 2:2).

Imagine if our sages of old, if Maimonides, the talmudic rabbis, even the rabbis of the last century, could experience our world today. How very appreciative they would be of today’s scientific discoveries. They would write and modify their philosophies utilizing our new knowledge.

As we know, national prophecy ceased before the second Temple was destroyed. But I wonder if it really did; I wonder if the exponential growth of the knowledge of nature that has come about in the past decades is not in fact a new form of prophecy. Are these recent discoveries of the last years really God’s prophesying to us an additional canon, a canon of His blueprints, a canon that aids us to more love and revere Him?

Go to an operating room, witness an ophthalmic surgery; you would be stunned to see what man hath wrought. Instruments, chemicals, computers—all were unknown but a few years ago yet today are our basic surgical tools. To me these are not just human discoveries and inventions; to me these speak of the presence of God in an ascending spiral toward His showing us His being, if not essence.

We can now do angiograms of the eye’s finest vessels, and we can open the eye and correct these vessels. We can use a concentrated light beam, a laser to repair retinal problems without opening the eye. We can even thread a catheter in from an artery in the groin and guide it into the finest brain vessels and when in the desired vessel, we can cause a clot or we can expand the vessel—all without ever opening the skull. Indeed a few years ago, I was involved in such a case and I must say that I never felt God’s presence as I did during the course of that patient’s cure.

Yes, humans have done wonders, but it is Almighty God that has guided them, given them the abilities and aided them in seeing the presence of the Creator.

Open up the books of science if you really want to see Ma’aseh Bereshith.

Sephardic Rabbinic Approaches to Zionism

Rav Baruch Gigi, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion (Israel’s largest Yeshivat Hesder), served as scholar-in-residence at Congregation Shaarei Orah, the Sephardic Congregation of Teaneck, on Shabbat Parashat Vayikra 5778. One of Rav Gigi’s outstanding presentations was a fascinating lecture on the topic of Sephardic Rabbinic approaches to Zionism.

The Anti-Zionism of the Satmar Rav

Rav Gigi began by presenting the anti-Zionist approach of the Satmar Rav. This approach is rooted in the Gemara (Ketuvot 111a), which states that God imposed an oath upon us that we would not take Eretz Yisrael by force (“shelo ya’alu Yisrael b’ḥoma”).

Rav Meir Simḥa of Dvinsk (the author of the Meshekh Ḥokhma and the Ohr Same’aḥ) reacted to the League of Nations’ ratification of the Balfour Declaration, which granted the Jews a national home in Eretz Yisrael, with three words: “Sar paḥad haShevua”—the concern for the oath not to take Eretz Yisrael by force no longer applies, since permission was granted by the international community. The Avnei Nezer (Teshuvot, Yoreh De’ah 456) agreed with this assessment.[1]

In contrast, the Satmar Rav insisted that the oath remained in effect even when permission for Jews to reside in, and eventually govern, part of the land was granted by the League of Nations and the United Nations. The Satmar Rav regarded the political pressure placed on the League of Nations and United Nations delegates by Zionist leaders as constituting returning to Eretz Yisrael by force.

This represents a fundamental opposition to Zionism, not simply a feeling of unease with cooperating with non-observant Jews. Rav Gigi argues that such fundamental opposition to Zionism is virtually non-existent among leading Sephardic rabbis.

Rav Yehuda Alkalai

Rav Yehuda Alkalai (1798–1878), a great Sephardic Rav from Serbia, is counted among the founders of modern Zionism. His work espousing large-scale Jewish settlement in Eretz Yisrael, Minḥat Yehuda, predated Theodore Herzl. Moreover, in his Goral LaHashem, Rav Alkalai presented a detailed plan for the reestablishment of the Jewish State in Eretz Yisrael, which is said to have greatly influenced Herzl’s extremely influential work, The Jewish State.

Rav Alkalai argues that natural redemption precedes the supernatural redemption. He refers to this as the Mashiaḥ ben Yosef preceding the Mashiaḥ ben David. A central idea of Rav Alkalai (that appears in Minḥat Yehuda) elaborates on the statement of Rav Eliezer (Sanhedrin 97b, codified by the Rambam, Hilkhot Teshuvah 7:5): “En Yisrael nigalin ela beTeshuvah,” “The Jewish People will not be redeemed without teshuvah (repentance).” Rav Alkalai distinguishes between teshuvah of the individual and teshuvah of the community. The individual must repent in the most straightforward manner; one must correct any lapses in Torah observance. In contrast, national teshuvah refers to our nation returning to Eretz Yisrael. Rav Alkalai proves this point from the etymology of the word teshuvah, which means to return to one’s original place of residence, as in the pasuk, “U’teshuvato haRamata ki sham beto” (“And his return was to Ramah, for there was his house,” Shemuel I 7:17).

After Rav Alkalai made aliya in 1874, he moved to Jerusalem, where he engaged in major debates with the rabbis of the Yishuv HaYashan, the traditional Jewish community in Jerusalem, which opposed activist settlement in Eretz Yisrael.

Support for Zionism among Great Moroccan Rabbanim

The great Moroccan Rabbanim, ranging from Rav Shalom Messas to the famous Baba Sali, were enthusiastic supporters of Zionism. Indeed, Rav Gigi recalled from the years in which he was raised in Morocco that there was widespread support and enthusiasm for Zionism in all circles. Rav Shalom Messas maintained that one should recite Hallel on Yom HaAtzma’ut with a blessing. However, out of respect to the ruling of Rav Ovadia Yosef, he ruled that Hallel should be recited without a blessing (Teshuvot Shemesh U’Magen 3:63:6). 

The Baba Sali asserted that the State of Israel was created in the merit of the poem composed by his son, the Baba Meir, called “Degel Yisrael Herima,” “The flag of Israel has been raised.” When the Baba Sali was told that secular Jews were building the State of Israel, he replied by citing the Naḥem prayer, which we recite on Tisha B’Av: “Ki Atah b’esh hitzata, uva’esh Atah atid l’vnota”—with fire Yerushalayim was destroyed and with fire it will be rebuilt. He explained that just as Jerusalem was destroyed by the fire of idolatry, it will sadly be rebuilt by idolatry.

Israeli agents for aliya were well received in Morocco. Rav Yitzchak Abuḥatzeira, the Chief Rabbi of Ramle, is remembered for allowing his house to serve as a place of transition for Jews making aliya. Although there was great debate in Moroccan communities about the Alliance schools, which brought secular studies to Sephardic communities, the debates related to the fact that these schools influenced their students to abandon Torah ways; they had nothing to do with Zionism.

Finally, Rav Amram Aburbeh was a noted Moroccan Rav who was an enthusiastic supporter of Zionism and predicted Israel’s massive victory in the Six Day War with God’s help, months before his passing in 1966.

Rav Ovadia Yosef

Rav Ovadia Yosef recited a MiSheberach prayer for the soldiers of Tzahal (the IDF) each time the Ark was opened to remove the Torah on Shabbat morning. Rav Ovadia expresses his strong support for the State of Israel in one of his Responsa (Yabia Omer 11: Ḥoshen Mishpat 22), where he explains his position permitting the exchange of Israeli land for peace. Members of Kenesset from the Shas party, which was guided by Rav Ovadia, are permitted to serve as cabinet ministers in the Israeli government, unlike the Ashkenazic Ḥareidi members of Kenesset, who join the governing coalition but are forbidden by their rabbinic leaders to serve as cabinet ministers. The Yalkut Yosef—written by Rav Ovadia’s son, Rav Yitzḥak Yosef—is replete with instructions for Israeli soldiers, something that is (sadly) anathema in many Ashkenazic circles.

A contrast between Rav Ovadia’s reaction to the great Entebbe rescue in 1976 with that of the Satmar Rav is most instructive. Whereas the Satmar Rav reacted with condemnation (based on the Mishna in Gittin 45a),[2] Rav Ovadia reacted with the utmost enthusiasm (Yabia Omer 10: Ḥoshen Mishpat 7; Yeḥaveh Da’at 2:25).

Rav Ovadia rules (Yeḥaveh Da’at 5:63) that one must fully comply with Israeli tax regulations. In this responsum, Rav Ovadia even endorses Rav Kook’s ruling that a government accepted by the Jewish People in Eretz Yisrael enjoys the status of a king in certain regards. Rav Ovadia frequently cites Rav Kook in his Responsa in the most respectful and reverential manner, which unfortunately in not always the case among Ashkenazic Ḥareidim. 

Sephardic Rabbinical Opposition to Zionism

Rav Gigi noted that there were Sephardic rabbis who opposed Zionism and even issued proclamations to refrain from voting in Israeli elections. He observed, however, that their opposition was not rooted in a fundamental opposition to Zionism, but rather stemmed from disapproval of nonobservant members of the Israeli government and the improper pressure placed on Sephardic olim to enroll their children in secular public schools, which encouraged the abandonment of a Torah lifestyle.

Rav HaLevy, Rav Uziel, and Rav Hadaya

Rav Gigi concluded by noting two great Sephardic rabbis who were enthusiastic supporters of the State of Israel and Religious Zionism, Rav Ḥayim David HaLevy and Chief Rabbi Ben Tzion Meir Ḥai Uziel.

Rav Ḥayim David HaLevy, who for many years served as the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, makes his support for Religious Zionism clear in his works, such as his Teshuvot Asei Lekha Rav. His Kitzur Shulḥan Arukh, Mekor Ḥayyim has served for decades as the basic halakhic work taught in Religious Zionist schools.

Rav Ben Tzion Meir Ḥai Uziel served as the first Sephardic Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel and composed, together with Chief Rabbi Yitzḥak Herzog and Shai Agnon, the Tefillah L’Shlom HaMedina (prayer for the State of Israel). Rav Uziel wrote: “A great and miraculous merit has been revealed in this generation, to fulfill the words of the prophets to establish a Jewish State in Eretz Yisrael.” Rav Uziel proceeded to implore all Jews “to return to full Torah observance and to guard the people and State of Israel.” 

We should add that Rav Ovadia Hadaya, a major Sephardic mid-twentieth century halakhic authority, describes the establishment of the State of Israel as “teḥilat haGeula,” the beginning of our redemption (Teshuvot Yaskil Avdi 6:10). He describes the miracles of Israel’s War of Independence as comparable to the miracles of Ḥanukkah and the splitting of the Red Sea. Although he believes that a blessing should not be said on Hallel recited on Yom HaAtzma’ut, his enthusiasm for Medinat Yisrael is presented unambiguously.

Conclusion

Support for Zionism is quite strong among Sephardim, even in Ḥareidi circles.[3] Fundamental opposition to the State of Israel, such as was voiced by the Satmar Rav, is virtually unheard of in the Sephardic community.[4] Thus, I was not surprised to hear that Rav Eli Mansour, a Sephardic Ḥareidi leader in Brooklyn, strongly encouraged his followers to attend the AIPAC policy conference in Washington in 2018.^[5]

*****

Four Distinct Elements of Yemenite Practice

            The most cogent way to describe Yemenite Jews and their halakhic practice is “very distinctive.” Their pronunciation of Hebrew,[6] appearance,[7] and halakhic rulings mark them as a unique segment of the Jewish people.

There are four elements of Yemenite practice that give it its unique flavor.

Element #1: A Very Conservative Bent

            Yemenite halakha is the most conservative of all of the streams of our people; Yemenite Jews adhere closely to the original practice recorded in the Talmud and Rishonim. Yemenites are virtually the only Jews who still read the Targum Onkelos during Torah reading (as per Megilla 23b). In addition, unlike other Jews who have a ba’al keri’a read the Torah on behalf of those who receive an aliya at the public Torah reading (a practice already noted by Tosafot, Megilla 21b, s.v. tanna), Yemenite Jews preserve the original custom for the oleh to read the portion himself.

            Other examples are the Yemenite practice to eat meat during the Nine Days until the se’uda haMafseket, the pre-fast meal, as is the original practice recorded in the Mishnah and Gemara (Ta'anit 26b and 30a). Many Yemenites do not perform the ritual of Tashlih, as it doesn’t appear in the Talmud, Rambam, or Shulḥan Arukh.[8] On Rosh Hashana, many Yemenites sound only 40 kolot (shofar blasts), the original practice in the time of the Talmud (as described by the Rambam, Hilkhot Shofar 3:10), as opposed to the 100 kolot sounded by most other Jews. Yemenite Jews are the only Jews who still practice atifat haRosh (covering the head with a tallit) and ḥalitzat katef (exposing the shoulder) during shiva, as is the original practice presented in the Gemara (Moed Katan 22b).

            The most famous example of Yemenite halakhic conservatism relates to Ḥerem D’Rabbenu Gershom, which prohibited marrying more than one wife. Whether de facto or de jure, Yemenite men did not accept the practice to refrain from marrying more than one wife. Until their arrival in Eretz Yisrael, they continued the original practice to marry more than one wife.[9]

Element #2: Maintaining Traditions

            There is a distinct advantage to the ultra-conservative bent of Yemenite Jews. As a result of their extraordinarily strong inclination to preserve the past, they have succeeded in preserving many of our traditions (mesora) that have been lost by most other Jews over the centuries.

Rashi (Vayikra 11:22) already notes the loss of the tradition as to how to distinguish between kosher and non-kosher grasshoppers. Yemenite Jews have kept this tradition alive. The same applies to the processes of nikur ḥelev and gid hanasheh (removing forbidden fats and sinews from slaughtered animals). Rav Eliezer Melamed explains:

The accepted custom in Israel today goes according to nikur Yerushalmi, i.e., to be very stringent and to perform nikur on everything that is close and similar to ḥelev and the branches of the gid hanasheh and its fats, to the point that approximately 13–25% of the weight of the hind flesh is lost. Only the immigrants from two communities, Yemen and Morocco, meticulously guarded the tradition of nikur, according to which only about 5% of the weight of the hind flesh is lost.[10]

Similarly, although many Sephardic Jews maintained a tradition to bake soft matzot, the Yemenites are the most renowned for their fidelity to this practice.

Element #3: Allegiance to the Rambam

            As is well-known, Yemenite Jews had a very close relationship with the Rambam. The Rambam’s grandson, Rav David HaNagid, reports that Yemenite Jews posed more questions to the Rambam than any other group of Jews. This special bond is maintained to this day, although to varying degrees.

Yemenites follow rulings of the Rambam that most other Jews do not accept. One example is the practice to recite a blessing upon entering a sukkah even if one is not going to eat in the sukkah (as per Hilkhot Sukka 6:12). Another is allowing reheating of liquids (such as soup) on Shabbat that were cooked before Shabbat. Many Yemenites follow the Rambam’s ruling (Hilkhot Shabbat 22:8) that the rule of “en bishul aḥar bishul” (once a food is fully cooked, there is no further cooking process) applies even to liquids.[11]

Most famously, Yemenites respond “Halleluya” to each section of Hallel, for a total of no less than 123 times, in accordance with the Rambam’s ruling (Hilkhot Ḥanukkah 3:12). Yemenites similarly follow the Rambam’s requirement (Hilkhot Ma’akhalot Assurot 6:10) that meat be boiled (ḥalita) after salting to seal in any remaining blood. The Shulḥan Arukh (Yoreh De’ah 69:19), by contrast, does not require ḥalita. 

Interestingly, many Yemenite Jews recite a Borei Peri HaJofan on all four cups of wine at the seder, in accordance with the ruling of the Rambam (Hilkhot Ḥametz U’Matza 8:5, 10). This stands in contrast to Sephardic Jews, who follow the Shulḥan Arukh’s ruling to recite Borei Peri HaGefen only on the first and third kosot (Shulḥan Arukh, Oraḥ Ḥayyim 474:1, 480:1).

The custom accepted by the Shulḥan Arukh (Oraḥ Ḥayyim 46:1) is to recite all the Birkot HaShaḥar (early morning blessings) at once, so as not to forget one of them. However, the original enactment of Ḥazal was for the Birkot HaShaḥar to accompany the process of arising in the morning and for everything to be blessed adjacent to its benefit (Berakhot 60b). This is how the Rambam (Hilkhot Tefillah 7:9) ruled in practice—but only in the Yemenite community do some still follow this custom to this day.

Element #4: Unique Practices

Yemenites maintain some unique practices. Whereas the Ashkenazic and Sephardic shofar is made from the horn of a domestic ram, a Yemenite shofar is made from the horn of an African kudu and has an elongated and curvy body. Interestingly, Yemenite Jews developed the practice to use this type of shofar in light of the preference to use the horn of a ram in order to invoke the memory of the Binding of Isaac (see Rosh Hashana 16a).

The Yemenite etrog is a classic example of a type of etrog with a highly respected tradition that ensures it was not grafted with a lemon. The Yemenite etrog is distinguished by its lack of pulp. Yemenite Jews typically use a very large etrog, somewhat reminiscent of the story recorded in the Gemara (Sukka 36b) about the extraordinarily large etrog that Rabbi Akiva brought to his synagogue.[12]

Many Yemenites tie their tzitzith in a manner consistent with that which is set forth in the Rambam (Hilkhot Tzitzith 1:6).

Many Yemenites eat roasted meat at the Seder. The Mishna (Pesaḥim 53a) records the differing communal practices as to whether roasted meat is consumed on the first night of Pesaḥ. The potential concern is the appearance that one is partaking of the Korban Pesaḥ (which was roasted) outside of the Temple. The Mishna Berura (476:1), Arukh HaShulḥan (Oraḥ Ḥayyim 476:1), and Rav Ovadia Yosef (Teshuvot Yeḥaveh Da’at 3:27) all record that the Aḥaronim agree that the custom is to refrain from roasted meat on the night of Pesaḥ. Despite this, the Yemenite community is the only Jewish community that still consumes roasted meat on the seder night! 

Conclusion

            One’s knowledge of Jewish practice is not complete without awareness of Yemenite practices. When noting Jewish practices, one should be cognizant to note Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and Yemenite practices. Although outside of Israel Yemenite congregations are relatively few in number, in Israel their presence is keenly felt. Most Israeli communities boast not only Ashkenazic and Sephardic synagogues, but a Yemenite one as well. Our investment in discovering Yemenite practice is well worth the effort, as only when including Yemenite practice is the picture of Jewish practice complete.

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Rav Mordechai Eliyahu: A Major Twentieth-Century Sephardic Posek

Many Jews outside the Sephardic orbit think that three individuals constitute the corpus of Sephardic Halakha: the Rambam, Rav Yosef Karo, and Rav Ovadia Yosef. Of course, the Rambam was far from the lone Sephardic great Rishon, and Rav Yosef Karo is joined by a phalanx of great Sephardic Aḥaronim, such as the Peri Ḥadash and the Ḥida. Rav Ovadia Yosef, in turn, was far from the only great Sephardic posek of the second half of the twentieth century. In this chapter, we discuss another twentieth century Sephardic “superstar,” Rav Mordechai Eliyahu.

Three Distinctions from Rav Ovadia

Rav Eliyahu, who served as Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi from 1983 to 1993, adopted a very different style from that of Rav Ovadia Yosef. We can point to three significant differences.

Rav Ovadia did not emphasize Kabbalah, and his rulings famously differed quite often from those of the great nineteenth-century authority the Ben Ish Ḥai, Rav Yosef Ḥayim of Baghdad, who incorporated a great deal of kabbalistic thought and practice in his rulings. Rav Ovadia even composed a multi-volume work entitled Halikhot Olam in which he defends his deviations from the Ben Ish Ḥai’s rulings.

By contrast, Rav Eliyahu retained a fierce loyalty to the rulings and approach of the Ben Ish Ḥai. For example, Rav Eliyahu’s edition of the siddur, Kol Eliyahu, and his sefer Darkhei Taharah are replete with references to the Ben Ish Ḥai. This is hardly surprising, considering that Rav Eliyahu’s father and grandfather were close to the Ben Ish Ḥai and Rav Eliyahu’s wife, Mazal, was the Ben Ish Ḥai’s great-niece. One can fairly assert that Rav Eliyahu presented a contemporary version of the Ben Ish Ḥai’s rulings, which are characterized by its infusion of kabbalistic influence and an orientation to accommodate a broad base of opinions.

Rav Eliezer Melamed describes Rav Mordechai Eliyahu’s approach to halakha:

Rav Yosef Ḥayim of Baghdad was unique in that he merged and incorporated all the significant opinions in his halakhic rulings. The base of his rulings was the Bet Yosef and Shulḥan Arukh. However, in addition he considered the other great posekim, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic. Rav Eliyahu remarked that at times the Ben Ish Ḥai followed the [Ashkenazic] Magen Avraham and the Shulḥan Arukh HaRav.

Rav Eliyahu continued in this path. He would remark that it is not our role to discover lenient approaches and follow them. Rather, we should find the path to satisfy the consensus opinion, and only in case of pressing need (sha’at haDeḥak) rely on the lenient opinions.[13]

            This stands in stark contrast to Rav Ovadia Yosef, whose halakhic rulings are renowned for their lenient orientation. This difference in orientation is specifically pronounced with regard to taharat haMishpaḥa (laws of family purity). Rav Ovadia’s three-volume work on this area of Halakha, entitled Taharat HaBayit, adopts a far more lenient approach than Rav Eliyahu’s Darkhei Taharah.

            A third difference relates to the attitude toward the State of Israel specifically and modernity in general. While Rav Ovadia certainly adopted a positive approach to Medinat Yisrael, Rav Eliyahu was more of an ardent Zionist. He thus captured the loyalty of Israel’s “Ḥareidi-Le’umi” (scrupulously observant Zionist) community. He served as a soldier in Israel’s War of Independence, enthusiastically embraced Jewish settlement of Yehuda and Shomron, and often visited soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces to offer encouragement.

            With regard to modernity, one example highlights a difference between Rav Eliyahu and other great rabbis. Rav Eliyahu wrote (Teḥumin, vol. 3, p. 244) that under current circumstances, religiously observant judges can make a positive contribution to the Israeli civil court system.[14] This is quite a contrast with the stance of Rav Shalom Messas (Teshuvot Shemesh U’Magen 3: Even HaEzer 44), who invalidated a wedding because one of the witnesses served as a judge in the Israeli civil court system. Although the witness was a practicing Orthodox Jew, Rav Messas claims that anyone who serves as a judge in civil court is considered a thief, because he forces people to pay money even when the halakha does not necessarily require the payment. 

            Rav Yisrael Rozen, in his dedication of Teḥumin vol. 31 in memory of Rav Eliyahu, writes:

At Machon Tzomet, we have stored numerous rulings of Rav Eliyahu regarding security in settlements and the Israel Defense Forces on Shabbat, as well as other government and communal service providers, such as hospitals, fire departments, and allied sectors. All of these rulings were thoughtful and effective.[15] 

Three Specific Areas of Disagreement

            Three disputes regarding prayer bring to life the difference in approach between Rav Mordechai Eliyahu and Rav Ovadia in terms of conflicting fidelity to the Ben Ish Ḥai and the Bet Yosef.

One who Omits HaMelekh HaMishpat

Rav Ovadia (Teshuvot Yeḥaveh Da’at 1:57) rules that a Sephardic Jew who omits “haMelekh haMishphat” during the Aseret Yemei Teshuva (the days from Rosh Hashana through Yom Kippur) must repeat his Amida, in accordance with the ruling of the Shulḥan Arukh (Oraḥ Ḥayyim 582:2). Rav Mordechai Eliyahu (Siddur Kol Eliyahu; Teshuvot Ma’amar Mordechai, Aseret Yemei Teshuva 19), on the other hand, rules that one should follow the ruling of the Ben Ish Ḥai (year 1, Parashat Nitzavim 19). 

She’asa Li Kol Tzorki on Tisha B’Av and Yom Kippur

            Rav Ovadia for many years ruled that one should not recite the early morning blessing of She’asa li kol tzorki on Tisha B’Av and Yom Kippur. Since this blessing is an expression of thanks for shoes (Berakhot 60b), this blessing would appear to be inappropriate for Tisha B’Av and Yom Kippur, when we are forbidden to wear leather shoes. However, later in life, in his Ḥazon Ovadia (Yamim Nora’im, p. 320), Rav Ovadia disagreed with the Ben Ish Ḥai and ruled that a person should indeed make the blessing of She’asa li kol tzorki even on Tisha B’Av and Yom Kippur.[16]

Among Rav Ovadia’s explanations are that since there are Jews who legitimately wear shoes on Tisha B’Av (for example, a pregnant woman or the elderly), all Jews may say She’asa li kol tzorki on Tisha B’Av and Yom Kippur. Most important for Rav Ovadia, Rav Yosef Karo does not distinguish between Tisha B’Av and Yom Kippur and all other days with regard to this blessing. Thus, She’asa li kol tzorki should be said even on these two days.

Rav Mordechai Eliyahu (Siddur Kol Eliyahu) remains loyal to the ruling of the Ben Ish Ḥai (year 1, Parashat Vayeshev 9) that we should follow the Ari z”l, who urged that She’asa li kol tzorki should not be recited on Tisha B’Av and Yom Kippur.[17]

Reciting the Amida Audibly

Finally, Rav Eliyahu and Rav Ovadia disagree as to which is the proper way to recite the Amida—silently or audibly. The Shulḥan Arukh (Oraḥ Ḥayyim 101:2) rules that when praying the Amida, one must move his or her lips and enunciate the words; thinking the words in one’s mind does not fulfill the obligation. This is indicating in the verse describing the prayer of Ḥannah, mother of the prophet Shmuel: “Only her lips were moving…” (Shmuel I 1:13). This view of the Shulḥan Arukh is shared by all authorities.

There is, however, disagreement among the authorities as to how loudly the Amida should be recited. The Shulḥan Arukh rules that people should recite the Amida softly enough that those standing near them will not hear their prayer, but loudly enough to allow them to hear their own prayer. Among the Kabbalists, however, we find a different tradition in this regard. The Ben Ish Ḥai (year 1, Parashat Mishpatim 3) cites from the Zohar that while people must enunciate the words of prayer, they should not be audible even to the extent that the one praying hears the words. The Ben Ish Ḥai cites from the Ari z”l’s student, Rav Ḥayim Vital, that if one’s prayer is even slightly audible, the “ḥitzonim” (harmful spiritual forces) are capable of disrupting the prayer’s efficacy and preventing it from reaching its destination.[18]

Nonetheless, the Ben Ish Ḥai, in his work Od Yosef Ḥai (Parashat Mishpatim 3), rules that the halakha on this issue depends on the individual’s ability to properly pronounce the words and concentrate on prayer. People who feel that they can accurately enunciate the words and pray with concentration when reciting the Amida inaudibly should do so, in accordance with the approach of the Zohar and Rav Ḥayim Vital. If, however, one suspects that he or she might swallow words or experience difficulty concentrating, should follow the Shulḥan Arukh’s ruling and pray the Amida loudly enough to hear the words.

Rav Mordechai Eliyahu (Siddur Kol Eliyahu) rules in accordance with the Ben Ish Ḥai. By contrast, Rav Ovadia Yosef (Halikhot Olam 1:157; Yalkut Yosef, Oraḥ Ḥayyim 101:2:1) writes that the halakha follows the position of the Shulḥan Arukh, that the Amida should be recited audibly. Of course, those who recite the Amida audibly must ensure to recite it softly enough that only they—and nobody else in the synagogue—can hear their prayer, in keeping with the example set by Ḥannah.

Conclusion

Rav Mordechai Eliyahu unfortunately does not get much attention, even among Sephardic Jews in the United States. However, his influence in certain circles in Israel, especially in the Ḥareidi-Le’umi community, is profound.[19] While his halakhic style may not suit every individual or every Sephardic community, his voice must be considered in rendering decisions, especially for the Sephardic community.

Far from detracting from the greatness of Rav Ovadia, considering Rav Eliyahu’s opinions actually enhances Rav Ovadia’s influence. A great musician, l’havdil, is enhanced when teamed with other great musicians. The symphony of Sephardic halakha is similarly upgraded by including the entire cast of great players in the orchestra. 

Notes