National Scholar Updates

Not long ago, we celebrated Hag haShavuot, the Festival of Weeks, the holiday that traditionally commemorates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. At that particular juncture in history, the wandering, newly freed slaves went through a transition from being the Sons of Jacob to becoming the People of Israel. Translated into modern terms, they converted to Judaism. Prior to that time, they were halakhically considered to be Noahides, Benei-Noah. Interestingly enough, according to the rabbis, this national conversion was forced upon them. The Sages tell us that God suspended Mount Sinai over the Israelites and said: "If you accept the Torah, then that's all well and good. Otherwise, this is going to be your graveyard." (The rabbis go on to say that at a later point in history, in the time of Mordekhai and Esther, the Jews finally accepted God’s commandments of their own volition.) What the Sages are telling us here is that there was a transition in identity. The Israelites didn't really know what they were getting into; the Torah had not yet been given to them. Nevertheless, the people said, "na’aseh ve-nishma," we will do it, and we will learn what to do.

In this story, the Israelites took upon themselves the obligation to become different people without actually going through any formal conversion, a process we now call giyyur. It is on Hag haShavuot that we also read the story of Ruth, a beautiful tale in which we hear how Ruth takes upon herself a new identity to become part of the Jewish people. As she said in her famous words, "Where you go, I will go, your people will be my people, your God will be my God,” and so forth. Ruth, like the Israelites at Sinai, did not really know what she was getting into. She didn't ask questions as to what sort of commandments she would need to follow, how many sets of dishes she would need, or whether she would need to purchase separate dishtowels for milk and meat. She simply wanted to be a part of the Jewish people, and she took upon herself a new identity.

It is these sorts of sources, along with talmudic discussions, that led Maimonides to his formulation of the requirements of conversion to Judaism. He says that when a person comes to convert, he or she should first be discouraged. We say: “Do you really know what you're getting into? Surely it's easier to be a non-Jew. You can eat whatever you want; you can act more or less as you wish.” However, if the potential convert nonetheless says, "No, this is what I really want," then we teach that person a sprinkling of the laws, some of the more difficult commandments and some of the easier ones—and then we accept him or her as a Jew. The convert goes to a Bet Din, a religious court, which needs only to consist of three laymen (unlike today’s requirement for a convert to attend a Bet Din consisting of three rabbis). Maimonides goes on to say that if after the conversion process, the convert becomes an idolater, he or she has the status of an apostate Jew. In other words: Once a Jew, always a Jew. Maimonides’ position finds different formulations in subsequent sources, such as in a responsum of the Tashbetz, R. Simeon b. Tzemah Duran (vol. 3, no. 44). There is no way to retroactively revoke a conversion, regardless of the actions of the convert.

One of the great authorities of the beginning of the early twentieth century was Rabbi Hayyim Ozer Grodjinsky, the author of the Ahiezer Responsa. Rabbi Grodjinksky argued that the basic requirement for a conversion to Judaism is a renunciation of the convert’s former religious identity. Therefore, a person converting to Judaism need not immediately take on all the commandments; he or she doesn’t even need to know all of the commandments! Indeed, in earlier generations there were no classes for would-be converts. Rabbi Akiva Eger, for example, regarded such classes as inappropriate, since one is not permitted to teach Torah to a non-Jew. Even if nowadays we do not hold such a position, it is clear that in the past, at any rate, such future converts were not expected to have a detailed knowledge of halakha.

The conversion situation today is completely different. In Israel, in Europe, and in the United States, Orthodox Batei Din are very stringent. They make the conversion process an obstacle course for a person who wants to become Jewish: One needs to go through long courses of instruction. One must be adopted, as it were, by an Orthodox Jewish family in order to experience what it means to have a Jewish life. One must prove one’s knowledge and commitment to all of the commandments. And, after all of this work, the would-be convert might be accepted. This process—without a guarantee of acceptance—takes many, many years. 

Let me relate a story. Some time ago in Israel in the city of Ashdod, a woman came to get a divorce, a get, from the local Bet Din. The judges of the Bet Din examined her case, and they noted that the woman had converted to Judaism almost ten years earlier. When asked whether she observed the commandments, the woman answered honestly, "No, not so much nowadays." One of the judges then said, "In that case, your conversion is retroactively annulled." He then wrote a long response, in which he gave all the reasons for his decision. He argued that since the woman’s conversion has been retroactively annulled, she was never Jewish. She therefore was never married by Jewish law and would not require a religious divorce. The woman was shocked. One can imagine how she, who for a decade had believed herself to be a Jewish person, raising a Jewish family, suddenly is told that she and her children are not Jewish—and never had been! The woman appealed this ruling before the rabbinic Supreme Court, which had dissenting opinions. Some of judges in this court overruled the Ashdod decision. But three of the judges confirmed it—and went even further than the original judge in Ashdod, calling into question all the conversions that had been done by the Bet Din of Ashdod where this woman had been converted. This Bet Din was established in 1994; thus fifteen years’ worth of conversions were now cast into doubt. We're talking about more than 10,000 people who had been converted over that period of time in the Bet Din of Rabbi Druckman. The rabbinic Supreme Court judges who wrote this opinion added something I believe is completely preposterous: They argued that one of the reasons the Bet Din was invalid was because Rabbi Druckman was an apostate Jew! Why? Because his position on the issue of conversion was a liberal one, one different from their own. Anybody who knows Rabbi Druckman personally knows that he's a wonderful, warm, pious, charismatic person.

The argumentation put forward by these three judges is problematic. First, slandering another person in a court ruling is unacceptable. Second, it is by no means clear whether one Bet Din can invalidate the ruling of another Bet Din. The reasons the judges gave were largely trivial and can be demolished by any basic rabbinic scholar. Moreover, the whole question of whether it's possible to retroactively annul a conversion is itself also questionable. Still, despite the holes in this ruling, it had an immediate and enormous impact on the Jewish community.

Ironically, this decision came to the public eye on Erev Shabbat of the Parashah in which we read of inui hager, the prohibition against afflicting a convert. Imagine families sitting around the Sabbath table not knowing whether they are Jewish or not; husbands uncertain whether they have lived for a decade with a non-Jewish wife; children who are educated in Jewish schools, not knowing whether they are Jewish or not; young women and men engaged to be married, wondering whether the Bet Din will accept them as Jews—or whether they will need to cancel their weddings. We are not talking about a single family. We're talking about thousands of families, perhaps even more than 10,000, who had undergone this whole process over more than a decade. Rabbi Druckman had been appointed by the government, by the Prime Minister's office to be in charge of the minhal ha-giyyur, the official government organization that deals with conversion. This government institution has two distinct courts that deal with conversion and are independent of the other Batei Din. One comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice, for personal status law; the other under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister's office. There has always been a tension between these two courts. The normal Batei Din always thought of themselves as the sole arbiters of Jewish law, and therefore they felt that they were a cut above the dayanim, the rabbinic judges, who dealt with conversion. Hence, there was political tension as a background to this particular problem; but it came to a head in this particular issue.

This conversion affair created a furor on the part of Modern Orthodoxy. Rav Amar, the head of the rabbinic Supreme Court, is the only person who has the authority to overrule this ruling, and he found himself in a very difficult situation. On the one hand, he was aware of the complete injustice of this court's ruling. On the other hand, he had gotten his appointment through the lobbying and support of the Hareidi community. He therefore felt, in a sense, subservient to that community and its leadership. After much hesitation, Rav Amar came out with a statement that he does recognize all these conversions. Nonetheless, the damage was done. The Hareidi community will not accept these converts or let their children marry Jews from families that include converts from the Bet Din in Ashdod.

In order to get to the heart of this issue, we need to understand what has happened to the rabbinic court system over the past few decades. Judges in the rabbinic court system are appointed by a special committee. This committee has been monopolized by the Hareidi community, since members of this community have a majority of votes. Unfortunately, everything in Israel is politicized—including religion. Over the past several years, this special committee has consistently appointed Hareidi rabbis to serve as dayanim. About a year ago, there were over a hundred young rabbis who had taken the examinations for the dayanut, and who were eligible for a position of dayan. There were only about six places available—and all of them went to Hareidim. This is also true of the previous period of some four years earlier. Representatives of the Modern Orthodox community went to the Supreme Court and argued that this discriminatory appointment process was unacceptable, and they demonstrated that there were other candidates who were no less eligible, according to their examination results. The Supreme Court then passed the issue over to the Minister of Justice, urging him to reconsider these nominations. The Minister did reconsider them, and eventually confirmed them all. After a great deal of pressure from the Modern Orthodox community, other positions were made available. Still, most of Israel’s Batei Din are ruled by dayanim that come from the Hareidi camp and who have very little general secular knowledge.

Many of you are acquainted with the agunah problem, in which women with recalcitrant husbands who refuse to grant them a get, or religious divorce, are “chained” in their unwanted marriages. We know that there are solutions to this problem, and there are solutions in Israel that are readily available because the law permits the exertion of social or monetary pressure to force a husband to give a get to his wife. The recalcitrant husband’s professional license may be taken away; his bank accounts may be frozen; he may even be jailed. However, the religious courts today do not use the authority vested in them because they are afraid of what is called a get me’useh, an enforced divorce. This seems strange, because according to halakha, one is permitted to force a person to give a divorce! Nevertheless, the dayanim, most of whom are functioning under the influence of Hareidi leadership, are not willing to use their authority because the way of Hareidi halakha is one of stringency, of humrot, rather than leniency.

In order to understand even more fully the situation that is emerging, let me relate to you yet another story. The head of the Bet Midrash at the Institute of Advanced Torah Studies at Bar Ilan University brought to my attention a ruling that was published by the rabbinic courts in Israel in the year 2000. The case was as follows: A young woman came to register for marriage. The Bet Din in Jerusalem— and we know who the dayanim are—looked into the case and noted that the bride-to-be’s mother had been a widow. This woman’s first husband had been blown up in a tank during the Yom Kippur War. In the Shulhan Arukh, in the section that deals with the question of agunot, it is stated that if a husband vanishes, and we do not know what happened to him (we do not find the majority of his body, or his face), then he is declared missing, and we cannot definitely declare him as dead. Even if we find his clothing, we cannot identify the corpse by this clothing because it is possible that somebody else borrowed those clothes. The court in Jerusalem that dealt with this subject stated that this former husband who had been blown up in a tank, and whose body had not survived, could not be definitively identified as being dead. Consequently, his wife was now presumed to have been an agunah, and since she had remarried, in accordance with the ruling of the army Bet Din, and subsequently gave birth to this daughter, her daughter has the status of a mamzeret, an illegitimate child. The 2000 ruling declared: “We advise [the mother of the bride-to-be] to go to such and such a court, a Bet Din that has dayanim who are God-fearing people!” Such a slur upon the military Batei Din is absolutely unconscionable.

The dayanim in this case were apparently unaware of what happens in a tank. When a tank is blown up, nothing much remains in that tank: maybe slivers of bone, maybe bits of charred flesh, stains of blood on the metal walls. The soldier's identity tags will probably survive, and there are always at least two, one which he has around his neck, and the other which he keeps in a little slot in his leather boot—but his body and his face will not survive. Unfortunately, I know this all too well because during the Lebanese War, I witnessed first-hand the picking up of the remnants of bodies in blown up tanks. I know how one climbs into a burnt tank, scrapes the walls, and picks up little bits and pieces, and puts them into plastic bags, and brings them for identification. One asks neighboring tank units to give additional testimony, and the bits of body parts that do remain are then examined for their DNA. This is the process of identification—and there is no doubt as to the identity of the killed soldiers. Apparently the dayanim in this “learned” Jerusalem Bet Din had absolutely no idea what the identification process entails. And what did they do? They declared the woman an agunah, and a possible adulteress, and her daughter as a possible mamzeret.

There are two areas in halakha where the law states very clearly that you always should take a lenient position: One of these is in the case of an agunah. Our sages went so far as to change the laws of testimony in the case of the agunah: One can rule on the basis of one single witness and not two. One can accept a woman's testimony, which is normally not accepted. One can receive hearsay as evidence, and so on and so forth. Maimonides states very clearly that even though it may look as though this is a serious issue of arayot, forbidden marriages, and one may justly ask why halakha should have gone so far to change the laws of testimony, it is in order to free an enchained woman, and to do this we must do everything we can to take the lenient path.

The other area in which the halakha goes out of its way to reduce a person's pain, anguish, and stigma, is, of course, the issue of mamzerut. The Talmud tells a story of a woman whose husband went abroad for a year. At the end of that year, the woman gave birth to a baby. How did she give birth to a baby if her husband was not there for a year? We are told to suspect that she was pregnant for the full twelve months. Now, medically this is not a likely scenario. Nevertheless, the rabbis, who were fully aware of this vast improbability, were willing to go so far in order not to create the stigmatic situation of a mamzer. Furthermore, one of the great authorities of the Gaonic period rules that if a man went away from his wife for eighteen months or two years, and she gives birth after that period of time, we should suspect that the husband came back secretly without telling anybody but his wife, unless he states clearly that he did not do so. In other words, the rabbis were willing to go to all sorts of lengths in order to save the child from the situation of mamzerut. Many generations of rabbis would find solutions for cases of suspected mamzerut. But what did this Jerusalem Bet Din do? In one single sentence, based on a complete lack of understanding of the situation in the army, they cast doubt upon the legitimacy and the validity of the ruling of the military Bet Din, they declared the woman an agunah, and her daughter a mamzeret.

Thus far, we have seen the way the Hareidi leadership has delegitimized the  conversion system of the rabbinate and the decisions of the military rabbinic courts. We have also seen how the Hareidi authorities have instituted halakhically unnecessary stringencies in cases of agunot and possible mamzerut. And again, just as an example of what is happening now: less than a year ago, at the onset of Sabbatical year, the Hareidi authorities created a situation that caused numerous Jews to transgress laws of Shemitah. Rav Kook came out with a ruling in 1912 to bypass the problems presented by the Sabbatical year, problems that would create enormous social and economic hardships, and probably endanger the continuity of the yishuv. He permitted the selling of the arable land in Israel to a non-Jew during the Shemitah year. This ruling, called heter mekhirah, has been accepted for nearly a century. Every seven years, the government of Israel sells the arable land of Israel to a non-Jew in order to avoid the problems of working the land during the Shemitah year.

For the recent Sabbatical year, for the very first time, the longstanding policy of Rav Kook was challenged. When the current Chief Rabbi was appointed through a majority that came about through the lobbying of the Hareidim, there was a condition made that he had to accept, namely that he would not sanction the heter mekhirah. Thus, when the Shemitah year came along, the Chief Rabbinate could no longer carry out this particular rabbinic procedure. You have to understand what the implications for the people of the State of Israel would be if there were no heter mekhirah. In the Diaspora, one may not be so acquainted with all the ins and outs of the Shemitah. But in Israel, without a heter mechirah, any produce that is grown during the Sabbatical year is deemed to have the status of kedushat shevi’it, the sanctity of the Sabbatical year. There are numerous laws regarding kedushat shevi’it. One cannot buy produce of the land in a regular way. One cannot pay for it in a normal fashion in a supermarket. One cannot even weigh this produce in the normal fashion. One cannot cook the food as one usually does. The leftover Sabbatical produce cannot be simply thrown away, but must be put in a separate receptacle and disposed of in a special fashion.

At least 80 percent of the population of Israel has no understanding of Shemitah. Whether Orthodox or non-Orthodox, most Jews haven't learned these complicated laws; Jews in Israel have previously functioned according to the heter mekhirah. The direct result of not having a heter mekhirah is that the majority of the population of Israel would be doing more and more sins on a daily basis. Every time they bought, every time they paid, every time they weighed, every time they cooked, every time they threw away leftover food products, there would be a ritual transgression connected in some way with kedushat shevi’it. This is a completely unacceptable situation.

Again, in this instance, there was a considerable outcry from the Modern Orthodox rabbis who felt that the halakha had been hijacked by the Hareidi leadership, and that the rabbinate was not functioning in the best interests of all Jews. We have here an anomalous situation. Non-Orthodox Jews are generally not interested in the rulings of the Chief Rabbinate. If fact, the Batei Din and their rabbis all too often act in such a way that they repel many non-Orthodox people. The truth is that many Orthodox Jews would also prefer not to have to go through the Hareidi Chief Rabbinate’s procedures. The Hareidi community itself does not need the Chief Rabbinate; it has its own community rabbis and local Batei Din. So the only people who are truly affected by the State Batei Din and Chief Rabbinate are members of the Modern Orthodox community. Ironically, this community is not serviced by the Chief Rabbinate, whose stance on most issues reflects a Hareidi outlook and a rejection of Modern Orthodox ideology and halakhic principles.

In fact, Modern Orthodoxy in Israel feels itself beleaguered on all sides. It has been marginalized and delegitimized by the Hareidim, while at the same time, the non-Orthodox community and governmental authorities are not exactly friendly toward it. It was only a few months ago that the Minister of Education, Professor Yuli Tamir, declared that there would be no funding for the Sherut Le’umi program, a national service program for Modern Orthodox women in lieu of army service. The program would need to be cancelled. Over two and a half thousand Sherut Le’umi women, who every year for the past many years have been serving the community in a remarkable fashion, in hospitals, in schools, in all walks of life, would no longer be able to function. Fortunately, in this particular case, there was sufficient pressure brought about within the governmental framework by relevant parties that at the last moment they agreed to find the necessary budget. Although this problem was averted, it is clear that the Modern Orthodox community and religious worldview is being attacked from all sides.

One should bear in mind that this problem is not only an Israeli one. The Council of European Rabbis met a few months ago, after the scandalous conversion affair in Ashdod became publicized. These rabbis came to a decision that only those Batei Din that are sanctioned by the Edah Hareidit, headed by Rabbi Eliashiv, would be acceptable to them. Therefore any conversion that was carried out by a Bet Din that was not recognized by the Hareidim and their leadership would not be recognized in Europe. Many American rabbis are also taking increasingly stringent positions on conversion. Hence when any Diaspora Jew comes to Israel with a document of conversion, if the rabbi who was involved in the conversion is not on the “approved list,” he/she will find himself/herself with considerable problems. Children will not be able to register for marriage. There will be a question as to their status as a Jew.

 Basically, this issue threatens Modern Orthodox society all over the globe.

To some extent, we, the Modern Orthodox, are at fault for these woes. We are at fault because we have not been sufficiently stalwart in our own convictions. We have not given our Modern Orthodox rabbis sufficient support. We have not been sufficiently unified, unlike the Hareidi community which functions largely as a unified mass, politically and in other ways. We are not proud enough of our own convictions, and perhaps we are not always certain that our ideology is the correct one. We need to be much more definite that our way of halakha, our way of religious life, is a completely legitimate one, one which should be supported and confirmed and affirmed. We do not have strong, authoritarian leadership, perhaps because we are too individualistic. We have to support those institutions that propagate Modern Orthodox ideology. I think that Bar-Ilan University is probably the largest single organization or institution in this world with an ideology that promotes Modern Orthodoxy. That does not mean that all the students are Orthodox; not even all the teachers are. But its ideology is one of inclusiveness, one of welcoming everybody within our congregation, one in which everybody should and can feel at home, in a pluralistic, religiously oriented environment. We need to develop a cadre of learned and well-educated independent-thinking rabbis, who will lead their congregations along this path of "client-friendly" halakha, and whose voice will be heard even more strongly and forcefully as a counterbalance to the Hareidi juggernaut.

We, at the Institute of Advanced Torah Studies, at Bar Ilan University, are involved in just such an initiative, through training and placing brilliant young academically qualified students with a rich Torah background in key communities, hoping they will be models to be replicated throughout even more congregations. Bet Morashah in Jerusalem is involved in similar such activities on a lesser scale. Such initiatives require massive support in order to succeed and really stamp a new cultural imprint on Modern Orthodox society. If we do not support organizations such as Bar-Ilan, and Tzohar, an organization of over 400 independent Modern Orthodox rabbis in Israel (and such efforts as the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals and the International Rabbinic Fellowship in the United States)—if we do not give them the full and massive support they require, then we will not be able to confront with strength and with authority the challenges that are being placed before us by the monopolizing Hareidi leadership which is marginalizing and delegitimizing us, our congregations, our leaders, our schools, our courts, and our religious authority. For must we really buy and eat only food products with a Hareidi hekhsher? Isn’t the hekhsher of rabbanut Yerushalayim equally acceptable for us? The Hareidi community is bombarding us with “kosher” cell phones, and is deciding which kind of music we are permitted to hear. Avraham Fried will no longer receive their hekhsher, and his discs will be banned! Must women be told the absolute requirements for the length of their sleeves and the height of their collars?

It lies with us, the people, the grassroots to create a new awareness of the dangers, to confront those dangers, and to support a leadership that will be able to bring us out into the right and proper light. Then we will be able to have a religious leadership that will be welcoming, inclusive, a leadership that will not repel people, pushing them away from Orthodoxy, but one that will draw them in. And, as I reiterate, it is up to the grassroots community to create the infrastructures, whatever they be, to ensure that future generations will be able to successfully confront this major challenge for the Modern Orthodox community.

Many years ago, the parents of a young man who was thrown out of yeshiva high school reached out to me for help. They recently discovered that their son, who never went back to any school ever again, and instead took his GED and was now college-aged and living on his own, was no longer shomer mitzvot—no longer observing the precepts of our Holy Torah. They were beside themselves with grief. Their worst fears from the time when he was forced to leave the yeshiva in the middle of his senior year had come true.

I went to see the young man, a boy whom I have known since his early childhood, and we spent hours talking in the park about Judaism, Hashem, and Torah. The conversation was warm and open and natural—a respectful intellectual conversation. Until he broke down crying.

When he finally recomposed himself, he reached into his pocket and to my surprise pulled out a kippah. And this is what he said to me as he clenched that kippah tightly in his hand:

“I know what you want, and I know what my parents want. They want me to put this back on my head. But that will never happen again. I will always carry it with me, because this is my heritage. But I don’t get to wear this. The rabbis who gave up on me, and who give up on so many of my friends, have made that perfectly clear. And don’t get me wrong; I respect them. I respect the Torah with every fiber of my being. I get it.

“But that’s just the thing,” he explained as he held up his kippah. “I know what this stands for. And I know what I am. And I am not this.

“And when I look into my soul, and search as hard as I can for the potential to live up to this, I know that I don’t have that ability. DON’T YOU SEE,” he exclaimed as tears welled up in his eyes again, “I don’t GET to wear this!
“I never will.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Since that time, nearly 20 years ago, I have counseled scores of men and women and boys and girls who have strained relationships with their Judaism—teenagers, singles, married individuals and couples, parents, and even rabbis. Furthermore, via TheLockers.net, an anonymous online community for Jewish teens that I administered from 2003–2011, I had the privilege of being the proverbial fly on the wall as thousands of young Jews openly discussed their most intimate lives. Today I lead JamShalom, a grassroots Jewish outreach movement that provides Shabbat experiences for the 16- to 30-year-old attendees at rock music festivals, wherein I have engaged with over 1,000 young Jews of various backgrounds.

One of the most heartbreaking truths I have realized is that the majority of individuals I have encountered who were raised observant, but who are not anymore, have not left Judaism because they dismissed the Torah and our heritage. Rather, they have left because they have dismissed themselves as candidates to keep the Torah and to live up to our heritage. It is not Judaism they have given up on. It is themselves.
And as I have sought through the years to regain ground and close the painful chasm that left these beautiful and caring souls separated from their Judaism, it was imperative for me to understand how and why this was happening.
Here are my observations.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A Crisis of Faith

We have been in exile for 2,000 years. This exile has left scars upon us. Among those scars is a double-pronged insecurity. The first prong is born of a defensive fear—a fear for the continued preservation and continuity of Torah Judaism in the face of overwhelmingly negative odds. And this leads us to defend the traditional or “preserved” form of Judaism fiercely, and to “push” that rigid Judaism. Hard.
The second prong of this insecurity is born of centuries of anti-Semitism, forced conversions, and assimilation, and it causes us to fearfully struggle to minimize our children’s exposure to outside faiths and philosophies. This, despite the fact that sages such as the Rambam specifically allowed and practiced the incorporation of non-Jewish philosophies into the teachings of Judaism.

Yet in a modern world of digital and social transparency, our defensiveness and isolationism projects an air of deep insecurity to our children, an insecurity that ultimately conveys as a fundamental lack of emmunah, faith: We do not trust the Torah to resonate on its own merit.

We convey a fear that if a Jew were exposed to an outside faith, and that faith was placed side-by-side with Judaism, the alternative faith might be the winning choice.
Of course, one can argue the merit and demerits of more open exposure to outside ideas and ideals all that one wants to. But those arguments, in today’s information age, are largely irrelevant—because our youth already are exposed to outside faiths and values. We can shut down our personal conversation with them if we don’t like the topic, but we cannot shut down their search.

We live in an information age, an age where every value, temptation, religion, and ideal is on the table before our youth, and before any seeking or religiously unsettled person in the Jewish community. The circled wagons of yesterday’s Jewish community have suddenly collapsed. And today, the question we must answer is: In a world with every idea and every value and every temptation on the table, why would our children—why would we—choose Judaism?

We must dig deep to find compelling answers. We must rise to the challenge, because in a world of open dialogue, you either get relevant, or you die.
Most importantly, we must reclaim our own faith in the everlasting relevance of our divine heritage. Because the Truth—any genuine Truth—does not need to be afraid of questions.

Recognizing the Presence of Truth

The very essence of Truth is that by its nature of being True, questions only serve to strengthen it, by proving its ability to stand up to “less-true” challenges.

How interesting it is that the Jewish holiday ritual whose entire purpose is to convey our heritage from one generation to the next, the Passover Seder, is geared to provoke our children into asking questions. The process of proving the relevance of our great spiritual dynasty to another generation is to throw down the gauntlet and say “Bring it on! We challenge you to start asking questions!” This is because questions, once answered, only prove a stronger Truth. And the fearless invitation to our children to ask their questions conveys an absolute emmunah in the timeless relevance of Torah.

Each and every one of us must ask ourselves: Do I truly believe there is a God? Do I truly believe there is such a thing as a Jewish Soul? Do I truly believe that the Torah is the very word of God revealed to that type of Soul for that Soul’s own good?
If so, then the Torah should not require any salesmanship! The connection of that Soul to that Source through that Word should be the most intuitive experience of connection in the world! It should be the greatest drug in the world!

And if it is not, it means one or more of these four things is true:
1) There is no God (and there is!).
2) There is no such thing as a Jewish Soul.
3) The Torah is not the True Word of God for that Soul.
4) Someone—our teachers, our rabbis, or we ourselves—has unwittingly corrupted the message or forgotten it somewhere along the way, so that it no longer resonates on its own merit.

Of course, items 1, 2, and 3 are not the problem. The problem is item 4, and it is representative of the scars of 2,000 years of exile.

The good news is, that one does not have to look far into Jewish spiritual literature, from the Ramchal to the Grah to Sifrei Kabbala, to know that it is the natural desire and yearning of the Soul to return to and unify with its Source. And with this in mind, we can reframe our entire notion of what it means to work to bring a Jew closer to his or her Judaism.

For if the Soul naturally wants to return to it’s Source, then the challenge is not in preventing Souls from wandering away or keeping them fenced in (with high walls and razor wire), but rather in bringing down the barriers and walls that stand between a Soul and Hashem; to identify and remove those elements that are obstructing a Jewish Soul from finding its way home—especially when that obstruction is our method of education itself.

We must contemplate this thoughtfully. For it becomes clear that the key to keeping people close to Judaism and in bringing them back lies not in keeping the outside elements outside, which today is impossible. Rather, it lies in understanding what is obstructing between that Soul and his or her Source, and helping to bring those barriers down. And this requires listening and deep personal connection.

We must understand and have Faith, that when the broadcast becomes clear, the Soul will know its way home. And it will migrate naturally and joyfully in that direction.
Someone once asked Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, zt”l, how he made so many tens of thousands of Jews become religious again. Reb Shlomo got very angry and said that he “never made anyone become anything!”

“I simply shared my love of Hashem and of Torah and Authentic Jewish Experiences with them, and accepted them as they are and without any agenda,” he explained. “After that, whatever happened came naturally from within themselves.”

The Fall of the Rabbi

There are rabbis out there who are jerks. There. I said it. And we have all met one or two on our own personal journeys.

The problem is, so have the vulnerable and spiritually frail Jews of our generation. And very often, one encounter like that was all that a frail Soul can take, and the pain of that experience then locks that Soul outside the Garden of Hashem forever.

There was a time when earning ordination as a rabbi was a rare and select thing. Moshe Rabbeinu only gave it to one person. And Rabbi Akiva, despite having tens of thousands of students who all were on the most saintly of levels, still only bestowed ordination upon five of them.

Indeed, throughout Jewish history, we have many stories of would-be rabbis who traveled all across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East as they sought the one rebbe who was meant to be their rebbe—the one that they would apprentice to for many years in the hope of one day having that rebbe rest his holy hands upon the head of the would-be rabbi and bestow upon him ordination.

But something changed, to my observation, after the Holocaust. In the aftermath of that horrible destruction, many of our remaining great sages set up new houses of study in the United States, Israel, England, and other parts of the world. During the time they were alive, most of these saintly rabbis personally knew every student who was accepted to his yeshiva and whom he ordained. There was still a “resting of hands” that took place between rabbi and apprentice, and any young man who went out with the status of rabbi was, indeed, a reflection of the quality, integrity, and the middot of the holy rabbi who ordained him.

But then these great rabbis died.

And several of the schools they created became “institutions.” And becoming a rabbi at these institutions became the equivalent of receiving a master’s degree in halakha.
Today, there are individuals with the most abrasive bedside manner and who are absolutely lacking in any spiritually intuitive skills, who still receive ordination from the Israeli Rabbinate or from any number of major rabbinical schools around the world. In fact, one can conduct most of his ordination from the Israeli Rabbinate via the Shema Yisrael email correspondence program, appearing before them only once among dozens of other applicants, for a final exam.

Personal character and the capacity to be a spiritual guide are no longer the carefully enforced prerequisites to become a rabbi. A good technical mind and hearty memorization skills, coupled with a pleasant demeanor when sitting before the admissions panel will often do the trick.

The evidence of this is highlighted all too well in a recent experience I had.
A moderately observant couple I was speaking with on a flight from the United States to Israel asked me in all sincerity why a person needs a rabbi nowadays, other than for funerals and weddings, when one can find all the answers to halakha that they need via Google. Their sincere question bespeaks all there is to say about what we have done to the lofty title of “rabbi,” and how badly our major rabbinical schools have allowed the standard of what a rabbi is to become degraded from what it historically stood for.
This couple was simply reflecting what most people experience today—that a rabbi is not by definition a spiritual guide; he is simply a source for halakhic facts and rulings, and a person to perform the functional component of lifecycle ceremonies (with no heart or passion required).

This encounter broke my heart. If their perception and experience was as it should have been, they would have known that a rabbi is much more than a human halakhic search engine. They would have experienced their encounters with a rabbi as an encounter with Torah spirituality and Hashem. They would have encountered a person of God, who, before seeing the law, saw the people in front of him and connected with them on a personal level. They would have encountered a person who, by his very being, took the time to understand them and where they were on their journey, before ever quoting any halakha to them. And when finally being given a pesak halakha, this couple would have encountered a guide who would present the opportunity to observe the halakha (a mitzvah of Hashem!) in a manner that would have connected those Souls in front of him to that Word from that Holiest Source—Hashem.

Looking back, when we think of the rabbis whom we most connect to throughout Jewish history, whether it was Moshe Rabbeinu, the Nevi’im, Rabbi Akiva, or even our own rebbe (if we are blessed to have one), we don’t think of them first for their halakhic rulings on how to kasher a pot. We think of them as spiritual guides.

But in a the modern era of impersonal halakhic rabbis, a catastrophic impact is manifest: Laypeople still believe rabbis to be the representative of the Jewish God and the Torah, and these laypeople judge themselves by the harsh and absolute attitudes of this newer generation of overly intellectual and lacking-in-spiritual-intuition rabbis. They are no longer drawn to the God and the Book of these rabbis. Rather, they are driven away—because if the person feels small, religiously inadequate, or not-quite-up-to-par when standing before the rabbi, then the person concludes that he or she is surely an irrelevant speck before God.

And so, in the place of a rabbi being the one who opens the doors and brings down the walls between a seeking Soul and Hashem, the emotionally disconnected halakhic rabbi becomes an armed guard at the gates, wielding an unforgiving and absolute sword of Torah, making it intimidating for a lost neshama to even approach.

All or Nothing, or Is It?

Most of us are taught Torah in absolute terms. Here are the 613 mitzvoth. Do them. Do them all. Do not fail.

Here are the teachings and guidelines of the rabbis. Do them. Do them all. Do not fail.
There are those who feel suffocated by what they perceive as a smothering mountain of humrot, stringencies, and halakhic fences. These humrot have been put around the mitzvoth of the Torah and directives of our sages in order to protect the observance of those mitzvoth. But of much greater concern is that for most people today, including among many of our teachers, the hierarchal distinction between what observances come from the Torah, which come from the rabbis, what is a syag, and what is a minhag (custom), has been totally overlooked or lost. The damage of this is threefold:

1) People often will violate a deOrayta mitzvah of the Torah for the sake of observing a minhag, and other such mistakes of incorrect prioritization. For instance, many yeshiva students will refuse to tuck in their tsitsith when asked by their father to do so, inadvertently violating a mitzvah deOrayta for the sake of a hiddur mitzvah.
2) Individuals who are not capable of taking on all of the mitzvoth are often intimidated or scared off by the overwhelming body of the “whole ball of wax” of all these combined components, and cannot separate between what is inherent to Hashem’s intentions, and what are the hiddurim (extras) that should only be practiced by an advanced servant of Hashem.
3) As a result, we surely have violated the spirit, and perhaps even the letter of the command of Hashem of Al Tosef (do not add to the Torah), for we have added to His Torah in a manner that has ultimately obstructed His Revelation from his nation.

But when we consider it closely, it becomes clear that any suggestion of the Torah as an all-or-nothing endeavor actually suggests a denial of the Torah as the Revelation of God. For if God is infinite, so too is His Word.

And the very nature of an Infinite Torah is that no person will ever “do it all.”
In fact, we all know very well that if we approached any great tsaddik or gadol, and asked him if he were doing “everything,” he would smile at us and say: “Not even close!”

Such is the nature of God’s Word.

But this confuses many people. What, one may ask, is being suggested here? Is the argument being made that Torah is a half-time commitment? That individuals can pick and choose? That a suggestion is being made that “Since no one can do everything, I’ll just do what I want!?”

Well...sort of.

Because that is what the revelation at Har Sinai was all about.

Na’aseh veNishmah—A Euphemism for the Ages

It is a bit crazy to suggest that we merited the Torah by saying, “We will do, and we will hear.” Okay, so God basically decided to give His Holiest Torah to a nation of consumer suckers? To the people who put their entire life savings on door number three, even though they had no idea what’s behind it?

And apparently this God does not want to deal with any circumspect customers that actually want to read the label on the package before buying it and taking it home. Strange.

But it actually is not strange at all, when we consider the ubiquitous perseverance of the expression “Na’aseh veNishmah” right up through the spoken languages of today. Think about it.

Imagine that someone you love—your parent or spouse or best friend—came up to you and asked: “Hey can you do me a really big favor?” How would you respond?
You would say, “Sure! What is it?” Na’aseh! veNishmah...

But if a total stranger came up to you on the street and made the same request, you would most likely respond: “It depends... What is it?” Nishmah... oolai Na’aseh...
So what does this mean?

It means that Na’aseh veNishmah is an expression that we reserve, to this very day, for people we love and trust. And it conveys two things:

1) Whatever you need, I want to do it 100 percent.
2) I trust you that whatever you have to ask, it can only be good for me. It will never compromise me or harm in any way.

In other words, the phrase communicates absolute commitment and absolute trust.

With a stranger, I am not certain of either of these things, and so my response is tentative and measured.

Therefore, we merited our Holy Torah because of our deep relationship with Hashem as evidence by our “Of course! What is it?” reply to Him. Total commitment. Total trust.
But now let us go back to our example of a loved one, and imagine that you were incapable of actually fulfilling the request, either for physical or emotional reasons. For example, perhaps you were asked to pick up your friend’s car from the mechanic next week, but you will be out of town. Does that make your statement of trust and commitment to your friend any less authentic or sincere?

Or perhaps your spouse asked you to clean the drain gutters on the roof, not knowing that you had a deathly fear of heights and might get vertigo and fall! Does that emotional limitation in anyway contradict your absolute love and devotion to the needs and wishes of your spouse, and your trust in him or her?

And so we come to an amazing hiddush: There is an absolute delineation and distinction between our Trust in Hashem, coupled with our commitment to doing what He asks of us on one side, and our actual capacity at any given moment to act upon that trust and commitment. And this is true whether that limitation is of an emotional or physical nature.

In other words, I can have perfect emmunah in Hashem, and accept the entire Torah, and still possibly not even be ready to say the first word of Shema or sit at a Shabbat table.

And there is no inherent contradiction in this.

But let’s go further.

A Fence around the Torah, God-Style

There is another peculiar element of Mattan Torah, the giving of the Torah. God tells Moshe to build a fence around the bottom of the mountain, lest the people come running up the mountain. For if they run up the mountain they will surely either burn up in fire, or it will cause the world to crash down on them (fire or stoning, and not by man, but as a spiritual event).

Moshe does as God instructs, and then climbs all the way up the mountain to meet Hashem. Upon arriving, Hashem tells Moshe to go down and warn the people again not to cross the boundary!

Moshe argues a bit with Hashem, reassuring Hashem that he has already set up a fence and the people already know very clearly not to cross the boundary. But Hashem insists that Moshe go down again and deliver this message one more time, and then he can come back up the mountain.

Very strange business.

First of all, Hashem gave Moshe the instructions the first time without Moshe having to climb a mountain for no apparent reason. So why have him come all the way back up, just to send him down again? Second, Moshe was correct: The people had been warned, a fence was in place, and there was no sign of any potential problem. Third, we know from the next events of the Torah that not only did the people not seek to climb the mountain, they sought to get as far back from it as possible!

So why would Hashem make such a production over something that He obviously knew was not ever going to be an actual issue?

The most obvious answer is that this explicit condition by Hashem that predicated Mattan Torah was meant to send a message to the Israelites. Hashem went as far as having Moshe climb up and down the mountain just to dramatically and powerfully drive this message home!

Imagine everyone’s faces, when, after three days of intense preparation Moshe ascends the mountain into the smoke. And then comes down many hours later and nothing has happened?! “Uh, Moshe... why are you back?” “Um, God really does not want you to cross the boundary that is here, because He wants to keep you from getting hurt while receiving His Torah. He is really concerned that in your enthusiasm to receive His Torah, you might rush your ascent toward Him, and ultimately bring spiritual self-destruction upon yourself.” “Uh, Okay. I mean, I think we already got that. But wow; if God sent you all the way back down here to tell us that, it must be pretty seriously important. This fence against over-enthusiasm and running too quickly up the mountain to Hashem must be fundamental to our receiving HaShem’s Torah. Got it.”

Want-To Judaism

When one examines the Torah’s expressions of Hashem’s desired relationship with us, it is startling how firmly love is emphasized. In fact, nearly all the times that awe (yir’ah) or service (avodah) of God is mentioned it is preceded by the foundation of love.

LeAhavah u’leYir’ah et Shemekha

LeAhavah et Hashem Elokeikhem, u’le’Ovdo

We are taught by our Sages that the world, in its very existence, is a manifestation of God’s love.

Our Shema prayer, the first words on our lips when we awaken, the last words when we go to bed, and the last words we are meant to utter in life, emphasizes loving Hashem with all our heart, Soul, and “umph”! And of course, the central observance of our faith, Shabbat, is an expression of God’s love.

But love is a funny thing. Because you can’t force it. You can only grow it. It has to call to you; to draw you in. As soon as someone pushes, love starts wilting.

And this perhaps helps us understand why our Mishkan, the first house of Hashem in the world, the precursor of the Synagogue, Church, and Mosque, has the root word M-Sh-kh—to draw in. Because if you want to see Hashem dwelling in the hearts of people (veShakhanti beTokham), you must create a space or experience that draws them in.

True spirituality, and true Judaism, is a “want-to” experience. Period.
How do you get the people to build a place for Hashem in their lives? “Kol NeDiv Libo”—help them open the doors of their hearts. The answer is already inside them.

Defining “Religious”

As I have matured in life, I have grown to wonder more and more about our definition of a Torah-observant or religious Jew. Certainly, our emphasis has become corrupt.
When asked, most people will identify an observant Jew as a person who keeps Shabbat, keeps Kosher, studies Torah, prays regularly, and observes the laws of family purity. But here’s the problem. All of those mitzvoth fall squarely in the category of ben adam leMakom—between people and God.

We have two categories of mitzvoth: Those that are between humans and their Creator, and those that are interpersonal.

So it would seem logical that it is absolutely outside our purview as human beings to be pulling out our spiritual yardsticks and measuring our fellow human beings according to those mitzvoth that fall under God’s jurisdiction! Right?

And how much more glaring and corrupt does this invasive arrogance become, when we play in God’s territory, while pretty much entirely under-emphasizing our own jurisdiction—the laws that govern human relationships!

After all, we all know that if we had a wonderfully humble and sweet Jew who devoted his entire life to social justice, tikkun olam, charity, helping the poor, and volunteering in orphanages—but did not keep Shabbat or kashruth—we would probably say: “Oy, someone should be mekarev that guy!”

But if we have a person who keeps kosher, keeps Shabbat, and keeps the laws of family purity, but is stingy, selfish, and obnoxious, we would still consider him or her quite frum.

In fact, that person might even be able to get ordination from a major rabbinical school.
When someone asked Hillel to teach the Torah while standing on one foot, the ikar (main thing) was how one treats other human beings.

The great Torah principle that Rabbi Akiva is most remembered for highlighting is based on how one treats other human beings.

Tens of thousands of Rabbi Akiva’s students missed this point, however, and for that baseless hatred between human beings we mourn 33 days, while the destruction of both Temples only gets three weeks.

When we sinned against God so many millennia ago and went into our first exile, it lasted 70 years. For sinning against our fellow human beings we are at 2,000 years and counting.

On Yom Kippur, our holiest day, God reassures us that any sins we committed against Him are forgiven without hesitation. But regarding our sins against another human being God is much more reserved, and tells us that we may not even approach Him until we have made it right with those we have harmed.

So what does it mean to be a religious Jew? How is true Jewish Torah observance defined?

Hillel seemed pretty clear. Rabbi Akiva seemed pretty clear (although his students missed his point). Yom Kippur is pretty clear. And our exile—the one we are trying so desperately to get out of—is pretty clear, too. But are we too much like Rabbi Akiva’s students to hear the message?

Is it the boy with tears in his eyes and a kippah in his fist who needs outreach? Or is it the rabbi who locked him out of Hashem’s garden with unforgiving judgment and readiness to throw away one Jewish Soul?

A Missing Relationship

To wander off topic for a moment, I love nature. I care a great deal about the environment, and seek to encourage others to be sensitive not to harm the fragile world in which we live.

But here’s the thing: You can talk all you want about the facts and statistics related to carbon emissions and the ozone, clean water, preserving natural resources and recycling. But if the person you are talking to does not have an existing sense of personal connection to nature—a relationship—then that person is not going to care too much about what you are saying. And that person is not going to make any serious lifestyle changes because of it, no matter how compelling the facts are.
Moshe Rabbeinu knew this. That’s why in Parashat VaEt-hanan he told us that “you should know today and bring to your heart that Hashem is God.” As my college rebbe, Rabbi Yitzchak Cohen, explained: “If it doesn’t get from your head to your heart, you aren’t going to change.”

In business they know this, too. They teach it as a component of every MBA degree. People don’t make business decisions intellectually; they make them emotionally, and then back them up with their intellect.

In other words, you have to care about something to change your life for it.
And at the essence of it all, this is what we have lost in the modern transmission of Judaism: A cultivation of a relationship with Hashem.

And it’s strange, because until the second or third grade we actually cultivate a very loving and joyous relationship, only to suddenly abandon this approach. I have done straw polls of hundreds of Jewish school alumni, and all seem to agree on this. Until about the third grade connecting to Hashem is fun and joyful, and that joy carries over into finding expression in the observances of daily mitzvoth, holidays and Shabbat. But then, for reasons unfathomable, the celebration comes to a screeching halt, and all education turns towards a growing list of “have-to” demands ascribed to a rather harsh and demanding God.

And the relationship dies.

We must ask ourselves why the Torah goes out of its way to predicate the service and awe (yir’ah) of Hashem with the prerequisite of loving God. And we must ask ourselves why our siddur, before discussing in the Shema our obligation to love God and serve Him, introduces the Shema with blessings that emphasize God’s abundant love for us.
In marriage, we subscribe to the disciplines and sacrifices involved because we love our spouse. And so too with parenthood.

Love gives the “have-to’s” of doing things for another person wings. Feeling compelled to serve another without a relationship has a word, too: It’s called slavery.
In so many ways, the Jewish educational experience has replaced our marriage to Hashem with a cold and harsh indenture to an Absolute and Cold Master. And we have convinced ourselves that the intellectual explorations and philosophies of mitzvoth are enough.

But learning that parks itself in the mind of the listener, by its very nature, does not translate into sustained action. A person is only moved a limited amount of distance by fear or argument. A lifestyle change requires an emotional connection. It requires a relationship.

The Power of Prayer

Every relationship depends upon communication. The ability to hear and be heard is where every relationship lives and dies.

Think about it. You cannot commence a relationship with someone, from a friendship to a first date, without first greeting the other person.

But let’s go deeper. Let’s imagine there was a person with whom you got along amazingly, except for one small annoying thing that the person did that drove you crazy. Yet you could not communicate with this person at all. Eventually, you would stop spending time with this person over their annoying habit, because there would be no way to fix it.

In contrast, imagine you knew someone with whom you had many, many differences. But the communication between the both of you was exceptional and you were always able to hear and share ideas with one another. You would love spending time with this person and the friendship would be strong, because you would always be growing together and learning from each other.

So too with HaShem. A relationship with Hashem starts with being able to talk to Him. If you can’t talk to Him, then He is still just an intellectual idea. A God you cannot talk to is not the All-Hearing and All-Knowing and All-Loving God of whom we teach.
If we want to give our children and ourselves a relationship with Judaism and Torah, it starts with a relationship with the Giver of that Torah and Faith. And a relationship with that Giver starts with being able to talk to Him. It grows when we know that He listens. And it thrives when we feel His response.

And if you found yourself wondering how we could ever know that He listens and responds, it is only because you, the reader of this article, have yet to make it a practice of talking to Hashem. Because if you did, you would already know that the rest flows quickly thereafter.

Last week at my Friday night Shabbat table, a young man stopped by after dinner to hang out. We have a very open home, and many young people drop in on Friday nights. This particular young man has been drifting away from his Orthodox upbringing for some time, but thankfully still feels very comfortable within our home on Shabbat.
Because it is Elul, the month we say is an acronym for the passage of Shir haShirim of “Ani leDodi veDodi Li—I am devoted to by Beloved, and my Beloved is devoted to me,” I spoke a bit about this essence of a loving relationship that is core to (re)approaching God on Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur.

This young man, we’ll call him David, sat down next to me a bit later to speak privately. He asked me: “If I wanted to start rebuilding a relationship with Hashem, how would I do that?”

So I explained to him about conversation being the cornerstone of any relationship, even with God. I pointed out to him that if we are interested in building a relationship with someone, we set a time to meet. And if we really like them, we will seek to make those meetings regular. So we agreed he would begin again with Hashem by setting a steady time a few days a week to talk to Hashem. I told him he could use his own words, for which I could give him a beautiful structure, or we could find some excerpts from a siddur.

And I cautioned him NOT to commit to too long a block of time to talk with Hashem (at least 10 minutes in order to have enough time to focus, but after that whatever feels comfortable), and not to commit to doing it too many times a week. Because the yetser haRah loves to get us to overcommit and burn out, and a good rebbe sometimes helps his students the most by holding them back and tempering their fire, rather than pushing them too hard and seeing them burn out. After all, it was Hashem Himself who had Moshe Rabbeinu put the first fence against a too-fast approach to Torah around Har Sinai.

So this week, for the first time in his life, this young man is talking with Hashem from his heart. And while for over 20 years he was observant, he called me this week to tell me that it is the first time in his life he has felt that Hashem is really there and really interested in him.

And from there it will grow. Naturally. Because the Source is real, the Torah is real, and the Jewish Soul is real. And the Soul naturally wants to swim to its Source. It just needs us to lower the obstacles and help it to hear its own voice.

Opening the Garden Gates

Judaism is a lifelong journey, not an array of perfunctory tasks. Our connection to God is a relationship, not an intellectual idea. The mitzvoth are a gift from God to enrich our lives through their meaningful observance, not to somehow entertain Him through their hollow performance.

We must cultivate true spiritual leaders who deserve the noble and great title of rabbi, and who are deserving representatives of a loving God and His loving and wise Torah.
We must trust and believe in the power of the Torah to prove itself against the world’s challenges, and its inherent ability to speak to and resonate within the individual Jewish Soul.

We must decouple the foundations of trusting God and believing in the infinite truth and beauty of all of His mitzvoth from the capacity to observe any specific mitzvoth at a given moment in an individual’s Journey.

We must encourage patient and graduated growth in the practice of mitzvoth, rather than creating an overwhelming feeling that everything must be fulfilled at once and nothing less is adequate.

We must find the approaches to engagement that cultivate desire, replacing the tools of intimidation that compel obedience.

We must become religious about the foundation of our Torah that emphasizes the mitzvoth of how we treat one another (ben adam leHaveiro), and avoid judging the stature of another Jew by the aspects of their Judaism that belong to God and the individual.

We must cultivate and openly celebrate personal relationships with God and the mitzvoth we practice, first in our own lives, and then in the way we share Judaism with our children and our students.

And we must learn to talk to God as we would talk to our closest friend. And discover as individuals how much He has always been waiting to hear from us, and how much He cares to be part of our lives.

The Garden of Judaism is beautiful. Let us re-open the gates for our children and for ourselves.

LAMENTATIONS

PUTTING THE MOUTH BEFORE THE EYE

INTRODUCTION

         For over forty years preceding the destruction of the first Temple (627-586 B.C.E.), Jeremiah incessantly warned his people that Jerusalem, the Temple, and their lives were in the gravest jeopardy. The people mocked, threatened, and physically mistreated the prophet. Most scorned his message, thereby sealing their own doom.

          Finally, Jeremiah’s nightmarish visions became a reality. The Babylonians breached the walls of Jerusalem, killing and plundering, and burning the city to the ground. Other nations, including spurious allies, mocked Israel, looted her wealth, and even turned Jewish captives over to the Babylonians. The Temple was destroyed, and most of the humiliated survivors were dragged into captivity, wondering if they would ever see their homeland again.

         The Book of Lamentations describes this calamity from the perspective of an eyewitness. It contains five chapters. Chapters 1, 2, 4, and 5 contain twenty-two verses each, and chapter 3 contains sixty-six verses (three verses per letter). Chapters 1-4 are arranged in aleph-bet acrostics. There is meaning in the content of Lamentations, and in its structure. Both make the book particularly poignant.

          Chapter 1 casts the destroyed Jerusalem as a woman whose husband has abandoned her. While this initial imagery evokes pity, the chapter then adds that she took lovers and therefore deserved this abandonment. Israel admits that she has sinned and asks for mercy and for God to punish her enemies.

         Chapter 2 asks: how could God be so harsh? The tone shifts from one of shame and despair to one of anger. There also is a shift of emphasis from Jerusalem as a victim to God as the Aggressor. At the end of the chapter, there is another plea for God to help.

         Chapter 3 presents the voice of the individual who begins in a state of despair but who then regains hope. He expresses a desire to restore order and return to the pre-destruction state.

         Chapter 4 is a painful step-by-step reliving of the destruction. It also contains lamenting over how the destruction could have happened, and it curses Israel’s enemies.

         Chapter 5 depicts the people left behind as looking at the ruins, absolutely miserable. They call on God for help, but conclude with disappointment and uncertainty as to what the future will bring.

REFLECTIONS ON THE TRAGEDY[1]

        Chapter 1 acknowledges that the destruction of Jerusalem is God’s work (1:12-15). While the main theme of chapter 1 is mourning, the author repeatedly vindicates God for the disaster, blaming it squarely on Israel’s sins (see 1:5, 8, 14, 18, 20, 22).

        Throughout chapter 1, the author adopts a rational, transcendent perspective. Reflecting an ordered sense of the world, the aleph-bet order is intact, poetically showing a calculated sense of misery.[2]

          While chapter 1 acquits God, chapter 2 adopts a different outlook. Suddenly, the author lashes out at God:

How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not His footstool in the day of his anger!...He has bent His bow like an enemy...He has poured out His fury like fire... (Lam. 2:1-4)

          Chapter 1 gave the author a chance to reflect on the magnitude of this tragedy: death, isolation, exile, desolation, humiliation. In this context, the point of chapter 2 is clear: although Israel may be guilty of sin, the punishment seems disproportionate to the crimes. Nobody should have to suffer the way Israel has. The deeper emotions of the author have shattered his initial theological and philosophical serenity.

          This emotional shift is reflected in the aleph-bet order of chapter 2. While the chapter maintains the poetic acrostic order, the verse beginning with the letter peh precedes the verse beginning with ayin. Why would Lamentations deviate from the usual alphabetical order? At the level of peshat, one might appeal to the fluidity of the ancient Hebrew aleph-bet, where the order of ayin and peh was not yet fixed in the biblical period. If this is the case, then there is nothing unusual or meaningful about having different orders since each reflects a legitimate order at that time.[3]

          On a more homiletical level, the Talmud (Sanhedrin 104b) offers a penetrating insight. The Hebrew word peh means “mouth,” and ayin means “eye.” The author here put his mouth, that is, words, before what he saw. In chapter 1, the author evaluates the crisis with his eyes, in that he reflects silently, and then calculates his words of response. But in chapter 2, the author responds first with words (peh) that emerge spontaneously and reflect his raw emotions.

          In the first section of chapter 3, the author sinks further into his sorrow and despairs of his relationship with God (verses 1-20). However, in the midst of his deepest sorrow, he suddenly fills with hope in God’s ultimate fairness (3:21-41). The sudden switch in tone is fascinating:

And I said, My strength and my hope are perished from the Lord; Remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul remembers them, and is bowed down inside me. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. The grace of the Lord has not ceased, and His compassion does not fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in Him. (Lam. 3:18-24)

The final section of chapter 3 then vacillates between despair, hope in God, and a call to repentance:

Let him sit alone and be patient, when He has laid it upon him. Let him put his mouth to the dust—there may yet be hope. Let him offer his cheek to the smiter; let him be surfeited with mockery. For the Lord does not reject forever, but first afflicts, then pardons in His abundant kindness. For He does not willfully bring grief or affliction to man…Let us search and examine our ways, and turn back to the Lord; Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to God in heaven: We have transgressed and rebelled, and You have not forgiven. You have clothed Yourself in anger and pursued us, You have slain without pity. (Lam. 3:28-43)

          In chapter 4, there are further details of the destruction. Horrors are described in starker terms, climaxing with a description of compassionate mothers who ate their own children because of the dreadful famine preceding the destruction (4:9-10). The author blames God for the destruction (4:11), blames Israel for her sins (4:13), and expresses anger at Israel’s enemies (4:21-22). In both chapters 3 and 4, the poetic order remains with the peh before the ayin, reflecting the author’s unprocessed painful feelings. The author’s conflicting emotions create choppiness in the thematic order and logic:

Those who were slain with the sword are better than those who are slain with hunger; for these pine away, stricken by want of the fruits of the field. The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people. The Lord has accomplished His fury; He has poured out His fierce anger, and has kindled a fire in Zion, which has devoured its foundations...It was for the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, who have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her. (Lam. 4:9-13)

          Chapter 5 opens with a desperate appeal to God, a profound hope that He will restore His relationship with Israel. After further descriptions of the sufferings, the book ends wondering whether the Israelites would ever renew their relationship with God:

You, O Lord, are enthroned forever; Your throne is from generation to generation. Why do You forget us forever, and forsake us for so long? Turn us to You, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old. But You have utterly rejected us; You are very angry against us. (Lam. 5:19-22)

Such a painful confusion leaves the reader uneasy. The author does not propose any solutions or resolution to the state of destruction. Reflecting this passionate plea, chapter 5 has no aleph-bet acrostic at all. With no clear end of the exile in sight, the author loses all sense of order. Perhaps the fact that chapter 5 still contains 22 verses suggests a vestige of hope and order amidst the breakdown of the destruction and exile.

          To review: the aleph-bet pattern goes from being completely ordered in chapter 1, to a break in that order for three chapters. The last chapter does not follow the controlled aleph-bet order at all, signifying a complete emotional outburst by the community. The book ends on a troubling note, questioning whether or not it is too late for Israel to renew her relationship with God.

CONCLUSION

          Although Lamentations attempts to make sense of the catastrophe of the destruction, powerful and often conflicting emotions break the ordered poetic patterns. This sacred work captures the religious struggle to make sense of the world in a time of tragedy and God’s ways and the effort to rebuild damaged relationships with God following a crisis.

          Our emotional state in the aftermath of tragedy often follows the pattern of Lamentations—we begin with an effort to make sense of the misfortune, but then our mouths come before what we see—that is, our deeper turbulent emotions express themselves. Ideally, we come full circle until we again turn to God. Our expression of persistent hope has kept us alive as a people.

          In the wake of catastrophe, people have the choice to abandon faith, or hide behind shallow expressions of faith, but even while emotionally understandable, both are incomplete responses. We must maturely accept that we do not understand everything about how God operates. At the same time, we must not negate our human perspective. We must not ignore our emotions and anxieties. In the end, we are humbled by our smallness and helplessness—and our lack of understanding of the larger picture. Through this process, the painful realities of life should lead to a higher love and awe of God.

  Is enrolling in a secular college ever appropriate in today's day and age?

 The Talmud (Hagiga 12b) records a statement by Rabbi Yosei: “Woe unto people, who see but do not know what they see; who stand, but do not know on what they stand.”

Rabbi Yosef Hayyim, of 19th century Baghdad, interpreted this statement:  “One who does not know what occurs on the earth below will not succeed in understanding what occurs in the heavens above. A lack in the wisdoms of the world is a bar to knowledge of the Torah”(Imrei Binah, 1:2).

Knowledge of the sciences and humanities enables us to see…and know what we see. It enlarges the scope of our thinking; it prods us to reach a greater “wholeness” in our religious worldview.

Today, the university is the institution that fosters advanced general knowledge among the young generation. By studying the humanities and sciences, students are exposed to the best that has been thought and said over the centuries. Moreover, a college degree is a prerequisite for many professions and occupations.

For observant Jews, negative factors exist—anti-religious professors, lax moral standards among students, difficulties in maintaining an Orthodox lifestyle.

I was fortunate to have attended Yeshiva College, where Torah and college education are conducted in an intellectually and religiously proper environment. But not all students can attend YU for various reasons.

Students may choose universities best suited to their talents, or best in line with their professional goals. Some opt for public universities where tuitions are more affordable.

It is appropriate—and necessary—for students to have access to university education. But choices should be limited to campuses with a thriving Orthodox Jewish community. 

If we want Jews to function successfully in our society, college education is a sine qua non. The alternative is to condemn Jews to live in physical and spiritual ghettoes.

Is it appropriate to eat kosher imitation bacon, crab, or any other such food?  (The question assumes the food is 100% kosher from a halachic point of view.  The question is if there's anything wrong with eating fake bacon etc. from a hashkafic point of view.)

Some years ago, my wife and I were eating in a kosher vegetarian Chinese restaurant. A Hassidic couple sat at the table next to ours. When the waiter asked for their orders, the Hassidic man said in a loud voice: “I’d like the pork ribs.” His wife chimed in: “And I’d like the eel.”

Surely, everyone present knew that the food served by the restaurant was 100% kosher. There was no question of mar’it ayin. Indeed, we ourselves were eating there, albeit sticking to the vegetarian chicken options.

There is no halakhic problem with eating kosher food, even if the food looks and tastes like non-kosher food. The famous Gemara (Hulin 109b) cites Yalta, wife of Rav Nahman, who stated that for any item the All Merciful One prohibited to us, He permitted to us a similar item.

Kosher consumers have grown accustomed to non-dairy milk and cheese served with meat; and with vegetarian “meat” served with dairy products. In the not too distant future, we’ll be dealing with artificially produced “meat” that may be deemed to be kosher and parve.

Having said this, it still struck me as odd to see a Hassidic couple order pork and eel…and to order with an obvious sense of glee. On the other hand, why shouldn’t they have derived satisfaction from eating an otherwise forbidden product, as if to say along with Yalta: we are not deprived of the various cuisines and tastes available to the non-kosher world.

Although such foods are kosher, some will have a visceral negative reaction to being served “fake pork” or “fake crabs.”  I think that each individual will make a personal decision on what is and is not comfortable to consume.

Should a G-d-fearing Jew have the Internet at home?

If a person indeed fears God and feels God’s presence at all times, he/she should indeed have internet access at home. Such a person will draw on the vast repository of Torah sources available on the internet and will have access to a tremendous array of information in a matter of seconds.

The problem is for a person who is not God-fearing, or for one who doesn’t trust himself/herself to use the internet in appropriate ways. The internet has much content that is antithetical to the values of Torah…and to the values of all honest and decent people. Moreover, it is possible to fritter away hours of life on nonsense…and surfing the net can be “addictive.”

Every effort must be made to use the internet in a God-fearing way.

Those who forbid the internet are essentially asking Jews to disconnect themselves from the major means of communication among the people of the world. They want to march us back into the pre-modern era, thinking that if we only close our eyes and plug our ears, all the evils of the modern world will somehow vanish. This approach consigns us to the backwaters of human civilization, living as an isolated sect with no message to and no engagement with humanity?

The internet is “neutral”—and can be used for good and for ill. The correct strategy is to take advantage of its immense powers and to avoid its negative elements. To do this requires that we develop genuine yirat Shamayim!

Leaving aside any halachic considerations that may be involved, is it a Jewish value to have a large family?

It depends on who defines what a “Jewish value” is.

For some, it is a Jewish value to worry about over-population in the world. With 7 billion people and growing, the world population runs the risk of food shortages, environmental damage, water and air pollution etc. Some would argue that it is a basic Jewish value to safeguard humanity and the environment by having fewer children.

For others, it is a Jewish value for Jews to have large families in order to replenish our numbers after the Holocaust. Jews represent an infinitesimal percentage of humanity, and we need to vastly increase our numbers to offset assimilation, intermarriage etc.

And yet for others, it is a Jewish value to allow couples to decide for themselves how many children they want to bring into the world. Each couple should have the right to decide—free of external pressures—what makes most sense for them. Their decision will factor in their financial situation, their physical and emotional preparedness to raise children etc.

The Talmud (Yevamot 61b) cites the opinions of Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai as to how one fulfills the mitzvah of peru u’rvu. Both sides agree that the minimum is to have two children. Rambam and Shulhan Arukh follow the opinion of Bet Hillel that one fulfills the obligation by having at least one boy and one girl.

It is a Jewish value to be inclusive and respectful to others, regardless of the number of children they have.  The non-judgmental approach applies to those who, for various reasons, are unable to have children, as well as to those who have smaller or larger families.

Is it appropriate for a Jew in America to have an English first name?  If yes, is it appropriate for him or her to use this English name in daily life?

If American Jews have English first names and use them in their daily and business lives, that’s fine. If they prefer using Hebrew names, that’s also fine. No one should stand in judgment about how people are named or what names they prefer to use.

Throughout Jewish history, Jews have had non-Hebrew names. In Talmudic times, great sages went by the Greek names of Antigonos, Avtalyon, Tarphon, Dostai, Dosa, Pappa and others. Akiva is the Greek form of the name Yaacov. Alexander was a popular name among Jews of antiquity.

Gaonim had non-Hebrew names such as Saadia and Natronai. Maimon is an Arabic name.  In the modern period, rabbis with non-Hebrew first names have included Rabbis Abdullah Somekh, Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Herman Adler… and many others.

If all these learned and pious Jews had non-Hebrew first names, it would be chutzpah to cast aspersions on them.

People name their children (or adopt names of their own) for a variety of reasons. One should have the decency to respect the choices of others.

A Midrash teaches that each person has three names: the name given by parents, the name given by fellow human beings, and the name which one acquires for him/herself.

The name given by parents represents their hopes for the child and reflects their values and traditions. The name given to us by fellow human beings represents our reputation in our community and world. The third name is what we acquire for ourselves. Inside each of us is our own "name", our own real being. Whatever name we are called by others, our main concern should be to acquire our own good name in the eyes of the Almighty. And that name transcends any particular human language.

Is there anything wrong with a frum Jewish man looking super stylish?

The way people dress is a reflection of their own psychological makeup.  Some people like to appear sloppy and unkempt as a way of showing disdain for “middle class” values. Some like to dress to impress others with expensive designer clothes, thinking that by so doing they demonstrate their level of “success.” A man (or woman!) who seeks to be “super stylish” probably has a lot of personal issues to sort out, including feelings of insecurity, competitiveness, arrogance, and exhibitionism. This is true whether they are “frum” or not, although I think we would expect a “frum” person to have a more modest sense of personal dignity.

 Rabbi Eliezer Papo of 19th century Sarajevo wrote a classic musar volume, the Pele Yoetz, in which he offered the following sensible advice:  Follow a middle standard in clothing. Do not wear elaborate and expensive outfits even if you can afford them. Moderation in clothing is proper. One’s clothing should be neat and clean.

 We need to remind ourselves not to participate in the rat race of one-upmanship. When we really know who we are and have confidence in who we are, we gain a fine sense of our own freedom. We can be strong unto ourselves; we can stop playing games of who has more, who has better, who has control. When we are free within, we have the confidence to live our own lives, not the counterfeit lives that others would impose on us; we are free of the real or self-imposed rat race.

We don't need to be "super stylish" in order to be super good.

Is the music at frum weddings too loud?

According to the Deafness Research Foundation, about one in three cases of hearing loss in the United States is not about aging—but purely about noise! And much of the noise is self-inflicted. We literally are making ourselves deaf! Noise can cause permanent damage to our ears when it reaches about 85 decibels. A typical rock concert is around 120 decibels.

Music at “frum” weddings (and also at “non-frum” weddings!) tends to be excessively loud. The musicians think that this is what people want…and many people do seem to want very loud music. They think it adds to the joy of bride and groom. They don’t seem to mind that they are damaging their hearing and are making it difficult (impossible?) for people to carry on conversations.

At the wedding of one of our daughters, the band was playing overly loud music as is customary. We asked the band leader to lower the decibels, but he said that people wanted loud music. Fortunately, our in-laws agreed that the music was too loud, so our cousuegra (the Ladino equivalent of machatenesta) also asked the band leader to quiet down the music. He again refused. So she told him: if you want to get paid tonight, you’ll lower the music. He did!

It’s up to the hosts of the weddings to set the rules for the band…not to be victimized by “what everyone does” or “what everyone wants” and not to be coerced by the band leader.

One can have lively music for dancing and everyone can have a wonderful time…even when the music is at a moderate and healthy decibel level. During the meal itself, the music should be soft background music so that guests can actually speak to each other…and hear each other.

Is it appropriate for young men and women from more sheltered backgrounds to attend singles events if they haven't met their bashert after three or four years of dating?

I would like to frame this question in a different way. We are discussing a decision to be made by young men and women who are of marriageable age—who will be trusted to establish their own households, deal with their own finances, have children etc.  The question is: why shouldn’t such individuals have the right—and responsibility—to decide for themselves whether to attend whatever event they deem relevant? They are adults! Even if they have been raised in “more sheltered backgrounds,” doesn’t a time arrive when they must take responsibility for their own lives? And isn’t approaching marriage such a time?

It seems to me that religious young men and women should have wholesome occasions to meet each other and socialize within a group of like-minded individuals.  Opportunities should be created where young women and men can meet in a natural, respectful and religiously appropriate context. “Singles events” of this nature can be valuable for participants.

While attending “singles events,” even those of a religiously appropriate nature, can be a source of anxiety for “sheltered” young men and women, they have to grow up some time. They must develop the social skills of responsible adults and not see themselves—or be seen by others—as infantilized individuals.

The late United States Supreme Court Justice, Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, once observed:  “Three mysteries there are in the lives of mortal beings: the mystery of birth at the beginning; the mystery of death at the end; and, greater than either, the mystery of love. Everything that is most precious in life is a form of love.”

We pray that men and women who are looking for their bashert will experience the mystery and preciousness of love in the near future.

National Scholar

Sixth Year Report

June 1, 2018—May 31, 2019

            To our members and friends,

            I now am completing my sixth year of working as the National Scholar of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. It has been an honor and privilege working to promote our vision nationwide primarily through teaching and teacher training, and also through writing and online classes. This report summarizes my various projects and activities over the past year.

            My major areas of focus have been:

Communal Symposia

This year, we reinstituted communal symposia, which is a wonderful way to bring our conversations to the broader community. Hosted by Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan, the two events were well-attended and both were videoed and are posted on YouTube. We look forward to bringing more of these events to communities throughout the country in the coming years.

On Sunday, October 21, we held a symposium on Conversion to Judaism, featuring our Founder and Director, Rabbi Marc Angel, Rabbi Yona Reiss (Head of the Chicago Beth Din and the Director of the Rabbinical Council of America’s conversion courts), and myself. The event was exceptional, and you can watch the presentations on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG17aaahdPQ. As of this writing, we have had over 1600 views!

On Sunday, February 10, we held a wonderful symposium on the need for our schools and communities to do more to promote ethical behavior as a basic Torah teaching. Our program featured Rabbi David Jaffe, a National Jewish Book Award Winner for his book, Changing the World from the Inside Out; Dr. Shira Weiss, author of several books on ethics; Rabbi Daniel Feldman, a Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University who has authored several books on ethics in halakhah; and myself. You may now view the symposium on YouTube, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjL_o2e4B68.

Teacher Training

• • One of our central goals is to train rabbis and educators to spread our vision of Torah to schools and communities. We build bridges with people in the field to work together, and have a greater impact on students and communities across the country and beyond.

• • I have been serving as the Tanakh Education Scholar of Ben Porat Yosef Yeshiva Day School in Paramus, New Jersey. I have worked closely with the senior administration and faculty to develop a more rigorous Tanakh curriculum that encapsulates our Institute’s core values.

• • I also give monthly adult education lectures in conjunction with this curriculum for parents to see how these values can be applied.

• • Our new Sephardic Initiative created a very successful program this past year in Paramus, New Jersey, and held another program in Los Angeles. We bring educators together to discuss means of incorporating the best of Sephardic and Ashkenazic teachings in a robust way. Participants used our materials in their classrooms, and shared reports on their methods of implementation. We also provide educational materials and are creating a network that currently numbers at 122 educators throughout the country and beyond. We look forward to expanding this program in the coming years so that educators throughout the country and beyond will help further our work.

Community Education

• • There is a serious thirst for the kind of learning represented by our Institute, and a sizable number of communities have invited me to give lectures, Shabbat scholar-in-residence programs, and classes in Tanakh and Jewish Thought. Through a combination these programs, we reach thousands of adults directly each year.

Below is an itemized listing of the various classes and programs I have given over the past year in my capacity as National Scholar of the Institute:

June 24-25: I gave five classes at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah’s annual study days on Bible and Jewish Thought.

Shabbat, July 6-7: Shabbat scholar-in-residence for the Sephardic Community Alliance in Deal, New Jersey.

July: Three-part series at Lamdeinu, Teaneck.

September: High Holiday lecture at Lamdeinu, Teaneck.

September 30-October 1: Scholar-in residence in the DAT Minyan, Denver Colorado for Shemini Atzeret-Simhat Torah.

October: Four-part series on the religious significance of the Land of Israel in the Bible. These lectures, done in partnership with the Sephardic Community Alliance, are available on our website https://www.jewishideas.org/online-learning/classes-lectures.

November: Four-part series at Lamdeinu Teaneck.

Shabbat, November 30-December 1: Shabbat scholar-in-residence at the Young Israel of Teaneck.

December: One lecture at Lamdeinu, Teaneck.

Shabbat, February 22-23: Shabbat scholar-in-residence at the University of Pennsylvania.

March-April: Three lectures on Purim and Pesah at the Young Israel of East Brunswick, New Jersey.

March: Pre-Pesah lecture at CareOne, Teaneck, New Jersey.

March-April: Six-part series at Lamdeinu Teaneck.

Shabbat March 22-23: Shabbat scholar-in-residence at the Boca Raton Synagogue in Boca Raton, Florida.

Shabbat, May 3-4: Shabbat scholar-in-residence at Congregation Ohav Sholom in Manhattan.

May: Keynote speaker at Annual Breakfast for the Beit Midrash of Teaneck, New Jersey.

• I also continue to teach courses to advanced undergraduates at Yeshiva University, something I have done since 1996.

• This past year, I also taught at the newly established Beit Midrash of Teaneck, New Jersey. This program meets twice weekly. This program, open to retired men, has been a remarkable success in every way. We have created a learning community that has involved over 100 participants thus far.

Publications  

I am the guest editor for Conversations 34, which will feature a collection of Rabbi Marc D. Angel’s essays in celebration of his fifty years in the rabbinate. I also wrote an introductory essay, “Battling for the Soul of Orthodoxy: The Essential Teachings of Rabbi Marc D. Angel.” The essay outlines my father’s central teachings, and represents our core values at the Institute. We also plan on holding several events in honor of this momentous occasion in the coming year.

I also am working on a pamphlet on Tanakh and Sephardic Inclusion in the Yeshiva High School Curriculum, to be published and distributed through our Institute as part of our Sephardic Initiative. The goal of this pamphlet is to make Sephardic Bible interpreters from the 16^th-19^th centuries a meaningful part of their Tanakh curricula without any radical changes to their preparations or lesson plans. Additionally, the pamphlet calls attention to the need to bring Sephardic and Ashkenazic customs into the Tanakh classroom.

            University Network

I had the privilege of coordinating the University Network and the Campus Fellowship again this year. Our fellows ran a remarkable gamut of programs to promote our vision and Institute on their campuses. You can read the most recent report about our campus fellows and their contributions on our website,

https://www.jewishideas.org/article/campus-fellows-report-may-2019

Looking Ahead

We reach thousands of people each year with our many classes and programs, teacher trainings, Conversations, our website, and our University Network. Looking forward, we will be expanding and streamlining our focus more into teacher trainings through our Sephardic Initiative—where we will work with Jewish Studies teachers to teach a more holistic picture of the Jewish People and their ideas.

We will continue to develop larger symposia and conferences where we can promote greater conversation and dialogue within our community as we build bridges between people who hold different religious viewpoints.

Our view is that we always must keep conversations alive, rather than allowing those who dogmatically espouse one or the other side of a debate to shut down dissent or alternative viewpoints from within tradition.

I am very excited about these developments and believe we will greatly increase our impact in the Jewish community through these new focused efforts. Stay tuned for upcoming reports!

As always, I am grateful to all our members and supporters, who generously make our work possible and who give so much hope for a better Jewish community of tomorrow.

Thank you all for your support and enthusiasm, and I look forward to promoting our Torah vision for many years to come.

Rabbi Hayyim Angel

National Scholar

Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until the early twentieth century, women in most countries
had limited roles in civic life. In 1917, for example only
five countries in Europe allowed women to vote—
Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Soviet Russia. The women’s suffrage
movement in the United States and Europe was ultimately successful
in gaining the vote for women, but victory came only after a period of
protracted social and political agitation.

The issue of women’s right to vote and to be elected to office were subject
to heated controversy among the Jewish community in the land of
Israel beginning in 1917. Zvi Zohar, in an article about the debates concerning
women’s suffrage which raged in the land of Israel 1918-1921,
noted that the rabbinical leadership of the Ashkenazic Old Yishuv was
generally opposed to granting women the rights to vote and be elected to
office. On the other hand, the Sephardic leadership generally favored these
rights for women. (see Zvi Zohar’s article in Sephardi and Middle Eastern
Jewries: History and Culture, edited by Harvey Goldberg, Indiana
University Press, 1996, pp. 119-133.)

Zohar pointed out that the leading Ashkenazic rabbinical figure,
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, was adamantly opposed to letting women
become involved in political life. He argued that the Torah tradition relegated
civic authority to men, and that women were to remain in the private,
domestic domain He rejected the “modern innovation” of allowing
women political involvement, believing that this was a threat to traditional
Jewish morality and family life. (See Rabbi A. I. Kook, Ma’amarei ha-
RaAY’aH, Jerusalem, 1984, pp. 189-194.)

Zohar views Rabbi Benzion Uziel as the most articulate spokesman of
the opinion shared by most of the Sephardic rabbis of the time. Rabbi
Uziel’s approach differed substantially from that of Rabbi Kook (Piskei
Uziel, no. 44; Mishpetei Uziel, 5700, no. 6.)

Rabbi Uziel rejected the opinion that innovation was necessarily an
evil. On the contrary, innovation may be embraced where there was no
clear Torah prohibition involved. Concerning the question of whether
women should be allowed to vote, Rabbi Uziel argued that
we have not found any clear foundation to forbid. It is unreasonable to
deprive women of this human right, since in these elections we choose our
leaders and give our elected representatives the power to speak in our
names, to arrange the affairs of our settlement and to tax our property.
Women, directly or indirectly, accept the authority of those elected, and
obey their rulings and communal and national laws” (ibid.).

Rabbi Uziel said that it was unjust to expect women to follow the decisions
of the elected officials if they did not even have the right to participate
in the election in the first place.

Some opponents found rabbinic sources indicating that women’s
understanding was limited. Therefore, they reasoned, women should not
be allowed to vote. To this, Rabbi Uziel stated that there were many men
with limited understanding: Should they too be deprived of the right to
vote? Moreover, Rabbi Uziel indicated that women were endowed with
intelligence and sound judgment, no less than men. Simply looking at the
actual situation today would prove that women were quite capable and
competent to vote. (For more on women’s intellectual capacities see
Sha’arei Uziel, vol. 1, pp 124, 200.)

Rabbi Uziel dismissed the argument that allowing women to vote
would threaten morality and family life. What immorality could ensue
from allowing women to go to the ballot box to register their votes? If the
worry was that men and women would mix together in a public venue,
then we would have to prohibit people from walking in the street or going
to a store where men women might be together. We would have to forbid
any business conducted between men and women. But no one had ever
made such ridiculous suggestions. Why then did they raise this specific
argument when it came to voting?

One opponent wrote that women should not be allowed to vote
because they were excluded from official status in Biblical times. Rabbi
Uziel brushed this objection aside, noting that it had no bearing on the
question at hand. Women, as well as men, were created in God’s image.
They had a basic right to be able to vote for those who would have authority
to pass laws which they would have to obey. Not only was there no prohibition
to letting women vote, said Rabbi Uziel, but depriving them
would be unjust and would cause them humiliation and pain.

Having resolved that women should be granted the right to vote,
Rabbi Uziel then turned to the question of whether women had the right
to be elected. Halakhic literature includes the notion that women should
not be in positions of authority over men. Rabbi Uziel analyzed these
sources carefully, concluding that there was no objection to a woman
being in a position of authority—if the community willingly accepted her.
Thus, women could be elected to office, since their very election demonstrated
that the public accepted their authority. Rabbi Uziel further argued
that when women and men sat together in public deliberations, this did
not constitute a threat to morality and family life. These were not social
events but serious conversations and debates on major issues.

In conclusion, Rabbi Uziel ruled that women were permitted to vote
and to be elected. This view obviously came to prevail in the land of Israel.
In another responsum (Piskei Uziel, no. 43; Mishpetei Uziel, 5700, no.
5), Rabbi Uziel found halakhic grounds to permit women to serve as
judges as long as the community accepted their authority to judge. Yet, he
harbored doubts as to whether a woman should serve as a judge, even
though she might be permitted to do so. Rabbi Uziel felt that women were
innately compassionate and sensitive and that their judgments would be
colored by their emotions. Moreover, he thought that women should
devote their time and talents to raising their children rather than to
assume the burdensome responsibilities of a judge. Although he personally
did not approve of women serving as judges, he was intellectually honest
enough to present the halakhic justification to permit women judges.
Those who disagreed with his personal feelings could still find halakhic
authority in his arguments to allow women to serve as judges.

Rabbi Uziel likewise found halakhic grounds to accept women as witnesses
in civil cases when the public agreed to this practice. However, he
ruled unequivocally that women could not serve as witnesses in matters
of marriage and divorce since no communal ordinance could overrule the
Torah law prohibiting female witnesses in these areas. (Rabbi Uziel’s statements
are included in R. Herzog, Tehukah le-Yisrael, vol. 3, pp. 66—67.)
The newly established state of Israel passed legislation guaranteeing
the equal rights of men and women. Women were granted economic
equality, including the right to inherit. Halakha, though, does not grant
full economic equality to women nor does it generally allow women to
inherit. Rather, Halakha provides its own ways of protecting the economic
interests of women while at the same time granting women the full
opportunity to devote themselves to their families. Indeed, women had
the essential role of seeing to the well-being of their children and were
therefore exempted from certain financial responsibilities which would
interfere with child rearing.

In these areas, Rabbi Uziel argued that the Halakha was far better for
the interests of women than the modern legislation granting economic
equality. He felt that rabbinical courts, following the teachings of Halakha,
should be authoritative in cases of financial disputes involving women. He
called on the government of Israel not to attempt to force the rabbis to cast
aside Halakha: They would never do so; they would struggle courageously
to maintain the halakhic standards. (See ibid., pp. 68—72; and Shaarei
Uziel, vol. 1, pp. 124, 200—201; and vol. 2, pp. 203ff.)

From the above discussion, it is clear that Rabbi Uziel blended his profound
traditionalism with a remarkable sensitivity to modern conditions.
His rulings were animated by the view that halakha was the sine qua non
of proper Jewish life and that the interests and needs of women—and
men—were best met by fidelity to the classic teachings of Jewish law.

In 1998, I wrote a paper in which I presented a number of sociological factors that inevitably lead Orthodoxy in modern society to greater ritualistic stringency. I then referred to the process as “hareidization,” but because some of the patterns are very different from what is typically associated with Hareidim in Israel, I subsequently suggested labeling the process as “humrazation.” Recent developments in American “Centrist Orthodoxy” seem to validate both my original thesis and my relabeling the process as “humrazation.” What I am referring to is not hareidization because American Centrist Orthodox Jews, by and large, do not deprecate general education. Most value higher education, even if largely for its utilitarian value. Also, most are engaged to one degree or another with the larger Jewish community and the larger general society. They are overwhelmingly not only pro-Israel but view the State of Israel as having religious significance and, thus, pray in synagogues that recite the prayers for the Welfare of the State and for the Israel Defense Forces. At the same time, some leaders of Centrist Orthodoxy have become increasingly assertive and acerbic, and they attempt to define Centrist Orthodoxy in more rigid terms.

Let me begin with the observation that, strange as it may initially seem, American Orthodoxy is more rigid than its Israeli counterpart. We are used to thinking of Israeli Orthodoxy as more rigid, primarily because of the greater gap there—qualitatively and quantitatively—between the Hareidi and religious-Zionist communities. Indeed, the gap is greater in Israel because of several key factors:

1. Whether or not one views the State of Israel as having religious significance, it is located in Erets Yisrael, which has religious significance even to the staunchest anti-Zionist Orthodox Jew. What takes place there has religious significance, even if the state has none.

2. Religious significance aside, Israel is a Jewish country by virtue of its population and governance. It is therefore home even to non-Zionist Jews. Individuals behave much more openly, freely, and passionately at home than they do in an environment where they do not feel completely at home. That is one reason that ultra-Orthodox Jews in the United States feel free to hold demonstrations in New York but would not in the Midwest.

3. The primary issues that divide in Israel are economics and the military. In both cases, there is much more of a zero-sum relationship between the Hareidim and the religious Zionists than there is between "right-wing" or "ultra" or "yeshivish" or "hassidish"
Orthodox and the Centrist Orthodox in the United States. In the United States, Jews are a very small percentage of the overall population, and Orthodox Jews are less than a third of one percent of the American population. Whether or not a Jew or group of Jews earns a living and pays taxes is much less of a direct concern to most others than is the case in Israel, where Orthodox Jews—“hareidim” and “dati’im”—are almost 20 percent of the population. According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, 8.8 percent of Israel’s Jewish population are “ultra-Orthodox” (hareidim), 10 percent are “Orthodox” (dati’im), and another 15.1 percent are “Traditional-religious” (masortim dati’im).[1] All three groups are relatively large ones. They are somewhat in competition with each other over control of the political offices and financial budgets that define the religious standards of portions of both the public and private spheres, and they are significant proportions of the population whose behavior affects the entire society.

As a result, the gap, including the ideological antagonism between the Hareidim and religious Zionist communities, is much deeper and louder in Israel than it is in the United States.

At the same time, however, non-Hareidi Orthodoxy in Israel is considerably broader and more inclusive than is Centrist Orthodoxy in the United States. There is nothing in American Orthodoxy akin to the openness of, for example, the “Shabbat” literary supplement of the “Makor Rishon” newspaper. Almost every Friday, the “Shabbat” literary supplement contains articles, reviews, and letters from a wide variety of knowledgeable writers; these pieces frequently challenge and probe in depth a range of issues of interest to religious/observant Jews. The candid public discussions of religion-related matters by respected religious personalities with a range of perspectives is almost unthinkable in American Orthodoxy. Perhaps it exists in Israel precisely because neither Makor Rishon nor its literary supplement are, formally, religious publications, even though the majority of their readership is religious/dati.

Israeli Orthodoxy’s broadness was made even more evident to me when, about five years ago I wrote an article in this very publication in which I wrote that the second season of the popular Israeli television series about Modern Orthodox Jews, Serugim, would include homosexuals, and that there are several openly gay Orthodox groups in Israel.[2] In fact, I wrote, one such group had recently held its first anniversary event in Jerusalem and the guest of honor was one of the heads of a very highly respected Hesder yeshiva, and a number of other prominent Orthodox religious personalities also participated in that event. Shortly after my article appeared, I received a message from a friend who is a scholar and a professional in the Jewish community and who writes regularly on developments in the Orthodox community. He said that he had been unaware of a number of matters on the Israeli scene of which I had written and, in particular, the Rosh Yeshiva attending a gay Orthodox gathering. “This is impossible to conceive in the U.S. and shows that at least some sectors of Israeli Religious Zionism don’t have the inferiority complex vis-à-vis Hareidim that Modern Orthodoxy in the U.S. does,” he wrote. Being a sociologist, I suspect that there is more than American Modern (Centrist) Orthodoxy’s inferiority complex involved. There are also structural factors that account for the greater openness in Israeli Orthodoxy than in the United States.

Not only is American Orthodoxy more rigid than its Israeli counterpart, but it is becoming increasingly so. I am not referring only to the institutional shift in the major rabbinic organization, the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), which, as Rabbis Marc Angel and Avi Weiss have argued, is currently more restrictive than it once was, especially with respect to the area of conversion. [3] They point to a letter sent to the Office of the Chief Rabbinate in which the Beth Din of America, founded by the RCA, averred that “we cannot accept the conversion of any rabbi who served in a synagogue without a mehitza [a partition between men and women].” Such a policy flies in the face of the not-uncommon practice prior to the 1980s, of Yeshiva University-ordained and placed rabbis in good standing within the RCA, serving in mixed-seating congregations. As Gerald/Yaacov Blidstein points out, even Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the Rav, who “uncompromisingly rejected synagogues that did not seat men and women separately, . . . did not insist—as far as I know—on excluding rabbis who served such synagogues from the Rabbinical Council of America.”[4] Although previously accepted, the conversions of any of those rabbis are now rejected, and that can have horrible consequences for the children and grandchildren of and of those converts.

That is an institutional shift that parallels and, indeed, reflects the shift in the Chief Rabbinate in Israel. As the Israeli Rabbinate has become dominated by Hareidim, their conversion policies have become more restrictive—which is why there are now intense political efforts to remove conversion from the exclusive control of the Rabbinate. The RCA and the Beth Din of America fear that their conversions will not be accepted by the Rabbinate, so, rather than challenge it, they accede to its demands.

But the shift in American Centrist Orthodoxy goes beyond issues related to the Israeli Rabbinate and was starkly apparent in the recent controversy concerning a letter implicitly reprimanding a semikha-ordination student at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS). The letter, sent by the sent the (then-Acting) Dean, asserts that graduates of RIETS

"are certainly expected to discuss sensitive halakhic issues with their rebbeim muvhakim [established teachers] and look to the psak of individuals who would be recognized by their Roshei Yeshiva as legitimate poskim [decisors]. Following the halakhic opinion of a scholar or rabbi who is not recognized as a posek would represent a fundamental breach in the mesorah [tradition] of the establishment of normative halakhah."

The letter continues to assert that “the communal authority vested in each musmakh [ordainee] demands that decisions, and certainly decisions in controversial areas of Jewish thought and practice, be made in consultation with the proper authorities” and “they are expected to defer, in matters of normative practice, to the opinions of recognized poskim.” Finally, the student was requested to respond “in writing, affirming or denying [his] ability to agree to these principles.” The issue which prompted the letter was sanctioning and participating in a so-called partnership minyan. Leaving aside the matter of whether such minyanim are halakhically legitimate—they have received more approval than mixed-seating congregations—the requirement that a student at RIETS sign a document affirming the principles spelled out in the letter is unprecedented. Following strong public reaction to the entire incident, Yeshiva University (YU) and its RIETS affiliate issued a statement assuring that the student in question would be ordained along with 225 other at the forthcoming Hag haSemikhah. The statement explained that the letter was in response to previous discussions with the student over issues that raised questions about his views of the halakhic process, and the student asked that the expectations of the yeshiva be set in writing so he could carefully consider his commitment to them.

The statement did not, however, dispel the perception that there are afoot in RIETS both a retrenchment process and an attempt to expand the area of exclusive control. The RIETS letter asserted that, “Following the halakhic opinion of a scholar or rabbi who is not recognized as a posek would represent a fundamental breach in the mesorah of the establishment of normative halakhah . . . even when there are no purely halakhic issues at stake.” To some this was seen as the Hareidi-like assertion of exclusive authority over all arenas under the banner of “da’as Torah.”[5] Hitherto, Modern Orthodoxy has dissented from the relatively recent Hareidi assertion that rabbis have authority over all areas, even non-halakhic ones. To see affirmation of this concept stipulated by RIETS as a prerequisite for receiving semikha was very surprising, to put it mildly.

The threat to withhold ordination over the issue of sanctioning and participating in a partnership minyan may have also been a reaction to an institutional issue. Some faculty and graduates of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) have expressed their approval of partnership minyanim, and, since YCT is viewed as competition to RIETS, RIETS may have been wishing to distinguish itself entirely from YCT and implicitly disparage it in terms of its halakhic competence. Ironically, the empirical evidence suggests that, in fact, YCT is not a threat to RIETS. According to a press release from YU, the 2014 Hag haSemikhah was comprised of the largest cohort ever, more than 230 musmakhim (ordained rabbis). This just a few months before YCT celebrates its tenth Hag haSemikhah. The 10 years of YCT’s existence obviously have not had any negative impact on the RIETS semikhah program.

Apparently there is more than just institutional competition at play, a sense that is strengthened when one looks at the handling of the two most recent episodes in what is perceived as the gender status quo, namely, partnership minyanim and women putting on tefilin, phylacteries. Aaron Koller, an Associate Professor and Associate Dean at YU, asserts that the opposition to both of these by Rabbi Herschel Schachter, a leading Rosh Yeshiva and halakhic authority at RIETS, as expressed in his two responsa on them, is essentially sociological and political.[6] He argued that Rabbi Schachter asserts that halakhic authorities have the ability and right to determine the validity of partnership minyanim and women wearing tefilin, that they have determined them to be unacceptable.[7] Rabbi Schachter also argued, he continues, that they are dangerous and part of the threat of Conservative Judaism, which is the contemporary “Korach rebellion.” This threat, according to Rabbi Schachter, is as serious today as it was in the mid-twentieth century when the Rav vociferously condemned deviations from Orthodox practice advocated by Conservative Judaism. Koller responds that those who sanction both of the innovations for women rely on their own halakhic sources and do not automatically submit to the authorities recognized by Rabbi Schachter. As for prohibiting innovations due to the threat of Conservative Judaism, that may have been valid a half-century ago but may now produce diminishing returns and thus be counterproductive.

The two major published responses to Koller did little to detract from his basic arguments.[8] The first was oblivious of the history and sociology of pesika, halakhic decision-making, but was significant for its title, which indicated the structural underpinning of the controversy. This response, “The Boundaries and Essence of Orthodoxy” is reflective of the concern in Centrist Orthodoxy to establish boundaries. Lest it be assumed that this was simply one individual’s concern, an opinion piece in the Jewish Week several weeks later highlighted what its author sees as the necessity of “Determining the Parameters of Modern Orthodoxy.”[9]

Why, one may ask, this fixation with setting boundaries and establishing parameters? That may have made sense for Judaism in mid-twentieth-century America, when it was comprised of competing denominations, each of which claimed legitimacy and authenticity and threatened the others.[10] In such a situation, there may well be a need for each to develop techniques of boundary maintenance, to clearly distinguish itself from other denominations. But this is the twenty-first century, and the denominational character of American Judaism has changed dramatically. As the recent Pew report indicates, the biggest challenge is the increasing number of Jews who do not identify religiously, period. Orthodoxy is growing—among those who identify as Jewish by religion they are now 12 percent, up 2 percent since the 2001 and 6 percent since 1990, according to the National Jewish Population Surveys for those years. Moreover, the Pew study indicates that the fact that American Orthodox Jews “are much younger, on average, and tend to have much larger families than the overall Jewish population, . . . suggests that their share of the Jewish population will grow.”[11] Orthodoxy thus has little to fear from Conservative Judaism, a movement that is apparently shrinking quickly, and there is no longer (assuming there once was) any need build a solid barrier against other denominations. Quite the contrary, those for whom Judaism is meaningful are seeking to intensify their religiosity and many want to identify with Orthodoxy. Does Orthodoxy need to fear that people who might not otherwise daven, pray, will now do so in earnest? It also appears that, with respect to the issues under discussion, Orthodoxy need not fear the old “slippery slope” that legitimated so many humrot in the past. Why, then, the concern about boundaries? [12]

This, of course, does not mean agreeing with everything that passes or tries to pass as acceptable. There are many things that other observant people do that I don’t care for. One may have no desire to daven in a Shira Hadasha-type congregation and even feel uncomfortable doing so without questioning the religious sincerity of those who do. Similarly, there are Modern Orthodox women who have neither need nor desire to don tefillin, but can readily understand that there are sincere, religious women who do. Indeed, castigating them derisively contrasts with the sage and constructive advice of Kohelet (9:17), “The words of the wise are heard [when spoken] softly,” and will almost certainly not bring them any closer what their detractors view as “authentic” Orthodoxy. A concern solely with what is deemed to be “authentic,” regardless of what consequences that may have for others, is much more characteristic of the Hareidi “saving remnant” approach, i.e., the “purists” who view the majority as hopelessly lost and concern themselves with solely with preserving their own purity.

Ironically, although the emphasis is on establishing boundaries on the left, the real issue is on the right. Looking at the numbers, my friend may well have been correct when he referred to Centrist/Modern Orthodoxy’s “inferiority complex” vis-à-vis Hareidim. Much to the chagrin of most of its constituents, the proportion of Centrist/Modern Orthodoxy is decreasing. Until recently, it was estimated that the Modern Orthodox comprise as much as two-thirds of American Orthodox Jewry. The ratio has apparently now changed. According to the 2011 UJA-Federation of New York’s Jewish Community Study of New York, in the city with the largest Orthodox population in the country, the Modern Orthodox are a minority, comprising only 43 percent of the city’s Orthodox population. The majority, 57 percent, are “Hasidic & Yeshivish.”[13] Further, the Pew Center found the proportion of Modern Orthodox to be even lower in the country as a whole. Of those identified as Orthodox, two-thirds are “Ultra-Orthodox” and one-third are “Modern Orthodox.” [14]

If Centrist/Modern Orthodoxy’s increasing minority status is the reason that has an inferiority complex, one might expect it to be much more open and welcoming to those on its left flank. It is the traditionalists in non-Orthodoxy that are the most likely candidates for joining Modern Orthodoxy, but they would only do so if they felt welcome. That does not mean that Centrist/Modern Orthodoxy needs to agree with everything that some of its constituents do. No one is forced to join a partnership minyan, and no women are forced to don tefilin. At the same time, it is counterproductive to dispassionately and sneeringly castigate and reject those who sincerely want to be draw closer to God and do mitzvoth as they view them.

In earlier times, Modern Orthodox manifested the credo of Rabbi Akiva,
“Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Modern Orthodoxy was much more open and, indeed, reached out to the non-Orthodox with compassion. Ironically, as Adam Ferziger has shown, it is now the products of Lakewood who, in addition to Chabad, are the ones engaged in outreach.[15] Modern Orthodoxy has pulled back from outreach and many seem to have adopted the interpretation of Rabbi Akiva’s 24,000 students, whose death is commemorated during the days of the Counting of the Omer. They allegedly interpreted their teacher’s credo as, “Love thy neighbor when he is as thyself,” when he thinks and acts as you do, but not when he thinks and acts differently.

[1] Statistical Abstract of Israel 2013, p. 340, Table 7.1.
[2] “It's All Relative: The Contemporary Orthodox Jewish Family in America,” Conversations, No. 5, Autumn 2009, pp. 1–17.
[3] Rabbi Marc Angel and Rabbi Avi Weiss, "‘And you shall love the proselyte,’” Jerusalem Post, April 22, 2014, p. 13.
[4] Gerald J. Blidstein, “Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s Letters on Public Affairs,” Torah u-Madda Journal 15, 2008–09, p. 15. A Hebrew version appears in Yosef Da'at: Studies in Modern Jewish History in Honor of Yosef Salmon, Yossi Goldstein, ed., Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2010, pp. 67–84.
[5] On the ideology of Da’as Torah, see Lawrence Kaplan, "Daas Torah: A Modern Conception of Rabbinic Authority,” in Moshe Sokol, ed., Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy (Orthodox Forum Series), Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1992, pp. 1–60.
[6] “Women in Tefillin and Partnership Minyanim: A Response to Rabbi Herschel Schachter,” The Commentator, Feb. 19, 2014.
[7] http://www.rcarabbis.org/pdf/Rabbi_Schachter_new_letter.pdf and http://www.joshyuter.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/RHS-on-Women-Wearing-Tefill….
[8] The Commentator, Feb. 21, 2014 and March 4, 2014.
[9] The Jewish Week, March 24, 2014.
[10] Another reason that there is greater tolerance among dati’im in Israel is the much greater ethnic heterogeneity among Israel’s Jews and the fact that Ashkenazim are the numerical minority there. In contrast to Ashkenazi denominationalism, Sephardim, the Edot Mizrah, Yemenites, and others never experienced denominationalism in their cultures.
[11] Pew Reseach Center, “A Portrait of Jewish American,” Oct. 1, 2013, p. 10.
[12] Some are so fixated on boundaries that they are ready to exclude from Orthodoxy an entire movement that is arguably contributing more to it than any of its other components.
[13] UJA-Federation of New York, “Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011, Comprehensive Report,” Exhibit 7-1, p. 212.
[14] Pew, “A Portrait of Jewish American,” p. 48.
[15] Adam Ferziger, "From Lubavitch to Lakewood: The Chabadization of American Orthodoxy," Modern Judaism, Vol. 33, No. 2, May 2013, pp. 101–124.

We are thrilled by the creative programming of our Campus Fellows across the country and in Canada. Here is a brief summary of their latest activities.

Thank you all for your support,

Rabbi Hayyim Angel

National Scholar, Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals

Yona Benjamin, Columbia

On Shabbat April 12-13, I will be co-sponsoring a small Shabbaton for Columbia students with the Moishe House of the Upper West Side. We thought it would be nice to bring together some undergraduates from Columbia and some of the young professionals on the UWS (many of whom are Columbia grads) to spend time together over Shabbat. There will be a number of peer led shiurim throughout the weekend surrounding the theme of "how we can understand the laws relating to Avodah Zarah in our contemporary lives."  There will also be a Melaveh Malka which I am helping to organize.  I will be pitching the University Network to all participants and hope to bring some copies of the publication to distribute. 

Corey Gold, Harvard

This semester we hosted Sarah Cheses, a graduate of Nishmat's Yoetzet Halacha Program. She gave a shiur to undergraduates and community members on Sunday, February 3 titled "Assisted Reproduction and Gender Selection: Playing G-d?” It was really successful. Everyone enjoyed welcoming her and hearing her teach Torah.

Then, February 8–10 we hosted an off-campus shabbaton for Orthodox undergrads. Though we have a strong and broad Orthodox Minyan community at Harvard Hillel of grad students, young professionals, etc. and a dynamic, pluralistic Hillel undergraduate community, this was a unique opportunity for just the Orthodox undergraduates to spend Shabbat together. 27 undergraduates came––a significant increase in the number of participants since last year when we started the program. Throughout the weekend, students enjoyed Shabbat, reflected together, and learned Torah from a fellow student.

Mikey Pollack and Aryeh Roberts, University of Maryland

At UMD, we are planning on running the following two events. 

On March 31, we hosted a a “Chessed and Chabura” learning event, cosponsored with Kedma. Together we packaged $700 worth of food to be disturbed to DC families who need it via Jewish Social Services. We then had three separate charburas to learn about different aspects of chessed. Overall about 30 people showed up. 

The second is UMD's annual Sermon Slam, a Jewish poetry slam centered around a Jewish theme. It is always a really powerful event. 

Yoni Gutenmacher, University of Pennsylvania

I hosted a Shabbat lunch with 25 guests during which we explored the topic of family history with a particularly Jewish perspective. Everyone shared snippets of his/her family history and heritage before we entered a discussion on the values of Jewish history and questions arising from it.

I also hosted a Shabbat lunch together with two other students who are particularly passionate about Chassidut. At the lunch, we sang zmirot, shared divrei Torah and spoke about how Chassidut both informs and is informed by our contemporary culture.

Devora Chait, Queens College

This semester, we are running two mishmar events called "Pop-Up Mishmars", where 2-3 students each give a 10-minute dvar Torah followed by a group discussion and socializing. One will be a week before Pesach, and one will be the last Thursday night of the semester.

Jakob Glogauer, Ryerson University

Event 1:  Discussion on History of Jewish people. Participants gained a new understanding of the history of the Jewish people in a modern context. Major detail on Exodus from Egypt and exile from Israel eras. 

Event 2: Purim in the 21st Century. Conversations on how the story of Purim exists in 2019. Participants debated and conversed in their opinions on this matter. Emphasis was put on how religion plays a big part in daily life. 

Ari Barbalat, University of Toronto

In the past months, I undertook a few attempts at holding programs. The program topics were:

A) The English Renaissance Play “The Jew of Malta” by Christopher Marlowe

This topic intended to discuss this controversial play from Shakespeare’s time which has generated analogous controversy to its more famous counterpart The Merchant of Venice. Is the play bad as scholars say it is? What lessons can we learn from both the text and the conversation surrounding it? What is the true character of racism? 

B) Stories of Self-Harm in Judaism that Most People Don’t Know 

This lecture examined texts from the Apocrypha depicting the psychology of self-harm: Tobit, Sirach, Fourth Maccabees, and others. What can these texts teach us about this psychology? How do they challenge contemporary conceptions of self-harm? Why are they on the periphery of Judaism?

Last term I did two programs.

A) Jewish Philosophy and the Yemenite Children Affair

What happened during the infamous Yemenite Children Affair in Israel? How can we philosophically and theologically come to terms with it? I did this during Parashat Vayechi during the Joseph story saga and tried to connect the kidnappings to the Joseph story.

B) What Can Medieval Jewish and Islamic Philosophy Teach the Contemporary World?

What similarities exist between Jewish and Islamic philosophers in the Middle Ages? How can the differences and similarities between them address contemporary concerns over psychology, sociology and politics?

Yonatan Abrams and Ora Friedman, Yeshiva University

On April 9, Shira Hecht Koller gave a Tanach shiur called "Texts that anchor, texts that fly" about the 28th chapter of Genesis. She made a pitch to join the 929 program, and everyone walked away with various Conversations journals.

Our next event is coming up on Tuesday, May 7. It is with Rabbi Chaim Hagler, Head of School of Yeshivat Noam, who is speaking on the topic of the latest issue of Conversations, “The Impact of Jewish Education on Moral Character and Development.”