National Scholar Updates

 It was a Torah lesson on Track 13-W. 

And none of the “teachers” were Jewish.

Settling into my seat, I barely heard the two women, 20ish, speaking across the aisle from each other, one row in front of me, on a southbound Amtrak train, in the second-last car from the rear, one recent afternoon.

But a woman in a seat behind them did.

“This is a Quiet Car," she said firmly but friendly, pointing to one of the ubiquitous signs in the Amtrak car that designated that venue as a respite from cellphone conversations or discussions between seatmates that can be overheard by other travelers. "You can't talk so loudly that other people can hear you,” she added, making her point clear – she had heard them.

The woman, wearing an Amtrak uniform (she was off-duty, enjoying a free ride, one of the perks of an Amtrak job), bore an air of authority.

She was stating company policy. But the train had not started its route out of New York City, it was still taking on passengers in the depths of Penn Station, and I was sure that the two women engaged in audible palaver would take offense or protest that the trip technically had not begun.

Instead, they ceased their talking. Immediately. They did not frown or sulk or cop an attitude.

They apparently understood the posted rules of the space they were occupying, and, caught in the act of violating them, corrected their miscreant behavior. Not a further word was exchanged between them as the train rolled for hours toward Richmond. They had been wrong, they knew it, and sheket prevailed.

They held their tongues. No pilpul about the details of the railway’s etiquette regulations.

Their almost-whispered words had not bothered me; their conversation had been tolerable. But on Amtrak, rules are rules; no almost-Quiet-Car.

I opened a book and started to read.

In the ensuing silence, my mind drifted to synagogue. To several synagogues where I have prayed.

How many times, I thought, have I witnessed people (primarily men, because that is the section of shul in which I always sit) talking loudly and disturbingly in violation of fellow worshipers' kavana and the shul's unwritten and often-written (posted in conspicuous Hebrew signs ) warnings about the halachic impropriety and derech-eretz implications of talking during times of Shemoneh Esrei, leining of the Torah and other times when spoken interruptions are inappropriate.

The signs don't work.

Neither does humor; in one shtiebel I once spotted a sign in Hebrew that stated, “It is forbidden to pray or read the Torah during time of talking.”

Nor rabbis’ frequent reminders and sermons and shiurim.

Nor gabbais’ halting of the Torah reading and/or the chazores haShatz until the buzz in the seats ceases.

Nor the why-not-to-talk-during-davening booklets distributed in many places of tefillah, and various organizations’ similar awareness campaigns.

Nor the stares or glares or "shaa!"s of people trying to pray.

The talkers are usually indifferent to all of this; maybe they are speaking too loudly to pay attention.

What's the difference between Amtrak’s Northeast Regional and our corner congregation? Why do Amtrak passengers obey, literally without a peep (my experience aside, you rarely hear an out-of-line sound in the Quiet Car), especially when corrected?

And it’s not only the Quiet Car.

It’s taken for granted that silence rules in some other places. Like a library. Who would raise his or her voice there? Or a movie theater? Or a classical music concert? Or the fans’ gallery of a major golf tournament where a contending player is lining up an important putt?

Why is a minyan exempt?

Many explanations come to mind: a shul is the daveners’ home, they’re not guests, they determine what goes; the people shushing them are friends, who can be ignored, unlike the strangers sharing a train coach; the people doing the talking aren’t necessarily interested in the worship experience of the morning in shul, unlike the shushers; away from work, the talkers aren’t about to take orders from anyone; they resent the challenge to their machismo; davening is long, especially on Shabbat and yom tov, and maintaining one’s level of concentration for several hours can be a challenge; there’s no penalty for out-of-place talking – no one’s likely to be asked to leave.

Basically, they talk because they don’t think about illicit words’ wider ethical implications, and they know they can get away with it.

Unlike the situation on Amtrak, where Quiet Car talking is not an assertion of one-upmanship.

The capitol’s monthly Washingtonian magazine offered a history of the national carrier’s “silent oasis” a few years ago. A blessedly quiet car has become a feature of every pricy Acela train and its slower-and-less-expensive cousin, the Northeast Regional because of “that greatest of American traditions: mob rule.”

Almost two decades ago, according to the magazine, some regulars on the Northeast Direct 151, an early-morning run from Philadelphia to DC, “decided they’d had enough of other riders yakking on their cell phones while they tried to sleep.” So the offended riders asked the crew to unofficially designate a noise-free car for the trip. An instant success.

When Amtrak bosses saw how effectively the gang had managed to enforce the silence, they agreed to institutionalize the practice and keep it self-policing.

A Quiet Car was an idea whose time had come. Today, if a passenger is listening to something on an electronic device, the sound must not penetrate beyond the headphones.

Today, nothing above a whisper.

“Nowadays,” Washingtonian reports, “the quiet car is the most prized spot on any train, and its culture is one of strict constructionism. Make a peep and the mob will crush you with icy glares, aggressive shushing, and … a ton of subtweeting.”

To reinforce this, Amtrak has produced “Shhh” cards in English and Spanish to be handed to talkative riders who may not have noticed the ever-present signs.

The Quiet Car’s atmosphere is conducive to silence – subdued lighting like in a classy restaurant; pages of books or magazines are quietly turned; loudness simply seems out of place.

The article also cited, on a bipartisan nature, some previous prominent offenders of the no-talking culture – FBI Director Louis Freeh, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (Republican) and Sen. Al Franken (Democrat).

All were shamed, by fellow riders or by rigorous Amtrak employees, into curtailing their obtrusive remarks or moving to another car, where talking is permitted.

The talkers reluctantly comply with the prevailing respectful atmosphere.

If only public censure and disapproval were as effective in shul.

While the talkers in the pews are selectively deaf to the expressed concerns of their fellow daveners, they decidedly are not mute.

This is not a recent phenomenon. Chazal have been discussing this topic and offering suggestions to counter it -- apparently without success -- for hundreds of years. Articles in heimish newspapers and magazines often offer suggestions.

No panacea has turned up.

This is not a location-specific phenomenon, not only present in big-city congregations.

Several years ago, I davened in a small, "out'-of-town" synagogue that had as members a large number of Jewishly educated men who alternated giving drushas on Saturday mornings. One week, when one of those men returned from shacharit, his wife asked, "Who talked in shul today?" In other words, who was thedarshan de jure?

"Everybody," her husband answered. In other words, it was not a quiet davening.

Common courtesy dictates that one should be still when any noise distracts others. Halacha sets higher standards; our prayers should be audible to ourselves – and to G-d – but not to the person standing next to us. Besides being rude and contrary to Jewish law, talking when silence should prevail undoubtedly hinders one's kavana. How many of us have the power of concentration to focus fully on our tefillot when our neighbors in the pews are talking about the stock market, the previous night's ballgame, their kids, their upcoming trip to Eretz Yisroel or other sundry matters best left for Kiddush time, over a plate of kugel?

I’ve seen some people protest such talking infractions.

A friend of mine in a shul near New York told me he had once proposed a seating plan to the congregation's rabbi: have signs displayed in certain areas, like state markers at a political convention, indicating that area's topic of conversation during davening -- "Sports," "Careers," "Weather," etc. My friend did not get the rabbi's permission, but the rabbi got the sarcastic point. A WWII D-Day veteran who did not consider himself the most stringent of halacha observers, my friend took his time in shul seriously. During davening, he wanted no distractions.

At a large congregation in Brooklyn's Boro Park neighborhood, a young chassid, shtreimel atop his head, will ask his fellow mitpallim, when the decibel level during tefillah becomes intolerable, "If you come here to talk, where do you go to pray?”The question is rhetorical.The answer should be also -- shul is for talking only to the One Above.

A rabbi in a Berlin synagogue where I attended Shabbat services several years ago had an effective idea. In the years after large numbers of Jews immigrated from the Soviet Union, many ended up in Germany, particularly in the country’s major cities.

The rav of the shul, wanting to strengthen the Yiddishkeit of emigres who had spent decades in a culture where any practice of religion, or any education thereof, was strictly verboten, sought to attract the Jewish newcomers -- especially the senior citizens who had some sentimental memories of Judaism in their home -- to his synagogue. But he recognized that they would have little inclination to properly spend time in unfamiliar, hours-long worship services. And if they came, they would talk.

Instead, he offered an alternative during minyan time – a social hour or two that would include some schmoozing with their landsleit, some snacks, some divrei Torah and some explanations of the prayers that were taking place, without interruptions, elsewhere in the building.

Everyone gained.

The sanctity of the tefillah was preserved; and some of the ex-Soviet Jews, once they learned about the meaning of the contents of the siddur, in time came to minyan. As worshipers, not talkers.

Some schnapps and herring did the trick. Reminders and scolding and lectures wouldn’t help.

For the short-run, is it better that people interested in being in shul on Shabbat but not in minyan have another option? Literally lo b’shma ba l’shma; they might come eventually for the right reason.

The problem is that minyanim frequented by talkers tend to be friendly, welcoming minyanim, where people feel at home. They’re the minyanim someone would want to join. On the other hand, the quieter minyanim are, I have found, largely cold and unwelcoming. In the former, a stranger is likely to be approached by the regulars, offered a tallit or an aliyah or a Shabbos meal invitation; in the latter, you’re more likely to be ignored.

The friendliness, which is laudable, breeds the comfort to talk.The challenge is to combine the best of both worlds.

The Amtrak example, and some observation of various minyanim I’ve attended, suggests some methods to reinforce the desired behavior:

Display “No talking zone during davening” signs in conspicuous spots throughout the sanctuary so no one can plead ignorance.

Have the gabbai or rabbi announce at the start of every worship service that “this is a no-talking minyan.”

If you’re the person being disturbed by the talking, don’t compound the situation by being rude; simply, and quietly, indicate that you’re in a no-talking minyan. The purpose is silence, not embarrassment.

At least simply establish an official, identified, recognized no-talking zone in the sanctuary or beit midrash where davening takes place, rows of pews where adherence to that policy is the norm. In other words. Make that the prestigious makom in shul.

Make no talking the norm; so the talkers become the outliers.

If someone tries to talk to you during davening, don’t respond; smile, put your finger to your lips and point to your place in the siddur.

Teach these type of gentle reminders to the folks who want to pray, so they can politely but effectively and consistently get the point across.

Provide options – a room where the people who prefers talking to tefillah can go while staying in shul; offer shiurim there so those folks can gainfully spend their time outside of the Beit HaKnesset.

Position non-talkers throughout the pews, so the talkers cannot congregate among themselves.

Make the talkers pay – literally. While a writer in Fortune magazine suggested that a seat in a (coveted) Quiet Car might cost more than one in an undesignated car, the reverse should be the case in shul; charge more to sit in a talkers’ minyan. Maybe the onus, if not the financial penalty, will serve as a deterrent.

Reward the people who refrain from inappropriate gabbing; maybe a frequent-complier certificate.

On the other hand, no aliyot or other honors for habitual talkers.

Thank the people who have changed their gabby behavior.

Finally, institute a penalty for the incorrigibles. A friend, who years ago served as a gabbai in his congregation’s hashkama minyan, pleaded at length with a member of the minyan, a prominent member of the synagogue, to curtail the constant chatter during davening. To no avail. My friend then sent a letter to chatterer, uninviting him from attending the minyan. The chatterer was predictably offended by the banning, but he complied, and the sanctity of the minyan was preserved.

Amtrak has the right idea – there’s a time and place for friendly conversation, but a Quiet Car and a minyan are not the place; a minyan certainly is not the time.

Maybe we don't need rabbis to enforce decorum in shul. Maybe we should invite some Amtrak conductors and passengers to our minyanim.

All aboard?

Is it important to wear a black hat from a hashkafic perspective?

The answer depends on one’s hashkafa! If one thinks it is desirable to have “frum” men all dressed in the same uniform, then it’s important.

However, if one’s hashkafa favors diversity, personal responsibility, individualism…then one must be troubled by the insistence that “frum” boys and men wear black hats and the rest of the “hashkafic” uniform that goes with the hat. Conformity of dress tends to conformity in thought, a surrender of one’s own thinking to the demands of the group and/or the group’s authorities.

Diversity is a positive value. The Talmud (Berakhot 58a) teaches that one recites a special blessing when witnessing a vast throng of Jews, praising the Almighty who is hakham harazim, the One who understands the root and inner thoughts of each individual. Their thoughts are not alike and their appearance is not alike. Respect for individuality and diversity is a sine qua non of healthy human life.

Insistence on the “black hat” uniform leads to artificial stereotyping. People are judged by how they dress, not by who they are. Moreover, boys and men from non-Ashkenazic backgrounds feel pressure to adopt the Ashkenazic “frum” look, leading to needless intra-family and intra-communal tensions. Why not allow people to dress as they think best within the bounds of modesty? Why ostracize those who refuse to conform to an artificial standard of religious garb?

The black hat fedora first appeared in 1882 as a female hat, worn by a character in a French play named Princess Fedora Romanoff. In 1924, Prince Edward of Britain adopted it as a male head covering. It’s difficult to see why the “frum” community would find a hat with this history to be a mark of proper Torah hashkafa!

If a Jew wins the lottery, should he continue working?  Or should he quit his job and study Torah all day?

The real question is: if a Jew—male or female—is wealthy enough, what is the ideal way to spend one’s life? The answer is: each person needs to decide for himself/herself what will be most meaningful, most constructive, most appropriate in the eyes of the Almighty.

There is no one ideal path, not even studying Torah all day. Each person is endowed with particular talents and inclinations, and must find the best path forward based on his/her realities. Some may find their fulfillment by devoting full time to Torah study. Others may find different ways to serve Hashem, based on the gifts that Hashem has given to him/her.

It is obviously desirable for everyone—whether employed or so rich as not to need a job—to spend time each day studying Torah. But it’s also important to follow one’s own path in life.

Should a wonderful rabbi, Torah teacher, kiruv professional quit the job and thereby abandon all those he/she is influencing for the good?

Should a gifted research scientist abandon scientific work that can lead to improvement of the lives of millions of people?

Should a successful business owner close his/her business and thereby deprive employees of their livelihoods?

Should people who genuinely find satisfaction in their work be told to quit their jobs in order to study Torah full time for the rest of their lives?

“If I were a rich man”…couldn’t I do wonderful hessed work, make massive improvements in yeshivot and day schools, finance Torah publications, support the needy here and in Israel etc.? Couldn’t I devote time and resources to art, music, medicine, environmentalism, social justice, world peace?

Suggesting one ideal road for all people is inherently misguided…and unjust.

Is it proper to plan a vacation in a location that doesn't have a daily minyan?

Here are a few things a man must consider when planning a vacation.

Will there be a daily minyan—preferably according to my minhag—in the vacation destination?

Will my wife and children be happy vacationing there? Does my wife have a different preference?

Even if the locale has a daily minyan, is it really a place where I want to spend my vacation time? Is it beautiful? Does it provide proper facilities for rest and recreation?

What if I and my family enjoy camping, where there will be no daily minyan? What if we wish to travel to National Parks or other scenic destinations where we can’t be sure of finding a daily minyan? May we travel to various countries where we will surely learn a lot about other cultures and see world famous landmarks…but where no daily minyan may be available?

The answer to these questions is: each person must make a personal decision. One must weigh the pluses and minuses of each option, and then make plans that will be appropriate for oneself and one’s family.

Whatever decision is reached, please enjoy your vacation…and remember to pray with kavana and gratitude.

n…and remember to pray with kavana and gratitude.

The book of Ezra-Nehemiah (viewed by Jewish tradition as a single book, to be called EN) chronicles some of the final episodes of the biblical era. The Return to Zion and the rebuilding of the Temple lie at the heart of the first period in EN (538–516 b.c.e.). Zerubbabel, the political leader, and Jeshua, the High Priest, lead the community in tandem. These men are generally mentioned together, and they both work closely with the people.

In contrast, the two great leaders of EN’s second period (458–432 b.c.e.)—Ezra, the priest-sage; and Nehemiah, the political leader—model distinct leadership typologies in their attempts to guide their community to a more committed religious life.

EN introduces Ezra with an extended pedigree tracing all the way back to Aaron the Priest (Ezra 7:1–5). Ezra emigrates from Babylonia to Israel in 458 b.c.e., bearing a document from King Artaxerxes of Persia according him virtually unlimited halakhic authority over the people (Ezra 7:11–26). Given this remarkable introduction, one may expect Ezra to dominate the narrative and exert power over the people, both as a priest and as a sage. Yet, the opposite proves to be the case.

The first half of Ezra 8 lists those who returned to Israel along with Ezra. Ezra involves others and gives them credit for their participation. At the conclusion of the roster, Ezra invites others to help bring Levites to Israel (Ezra 8:15–20). A certain Levite named Sherebiah is a particular success story for Ezra. He remains prominent throughout EN after having been empowered by Ezra (see Ezra 8:18, 24; Neh. 8:7; 9:4–5; 10:13; 12:8, 24). Ezra similarly appoints twelve other priests—though he is one himself—to care for the Temple treasures (Ezra 8:24–30). Despite the immense power and authority granted to him by King Artaxerxes, Ezra involves others and is surrounded by name lists. These features of Ezra’s leadership set the tone for his transferring most of his authority to the people.

Ezra’s reaction to the scourge of intermarriage follows the same pattern. Upon learning of the problem, Ezra pulls his hair in grief and prays on behalf of his people. Members of the community spontaneously join him:

When I heard this, I rent my garment and robe, I tore hair out of my head and beard, and I sat desolate. Around me gathered all who were concerned over the words of the God of Israel because of the returning exiles’ trespass…. (Ezra 9:3–4. All biblical quotations are NJPS translations.)

While Ezra was praying and making confession…a very great crowd of Israelites gathered about him…the people were weeping bitterly. (Ezra 10:1)

After the completion of this prayer, the people propose and implement the solution, with Ezra simply endorsing their plan (Ezra 10:2–4).

According to Ralbag on Ezra 10:44, Ezra was a brilliant strategist. He realized that confrontational top-down rebuke would not be effective, and he therefore contrived an alternate plan to bring members of his community into the process. However, one could argue that Ezra believed in this model of leadership as the ideal. He was not an authoritarian leader. He wanted others to take active leadership and participatory roles. He also wanted to create a leadership that could perpetuate itself, rather than forcing the community to become entirely dependent on him. Ezra is an exemplar of the dictum attributed to the Men of the Great Assembly in the first Mishnah in Avot: Ve-ha’amidu talmidim harbeh— raise up many disciples.

Nehemiah also is a strong God-fearing leader, but he is characterized differently from Ezra. When Nehemiah comes from Babylonia to Israel in 445 b.c.e., no other names are listed with him. Nehemiah dominates the narrative and forcefully exerts his own power and authority.

When Ezra had come to Israel thirteen years earlier, he declined a military escort, since he wanted to sanctify God’s Name to the King of Persia:

I proclaimed a fast there by the Ahava River to afflict ourselves before our God to beseech Him for a smooth journey for us and for our children and for all our possessions; for I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us against any enemy on the way, since we had told the king, “The benevolent care of our God is for all who seek Him, while His fierce anger is against all who forsake Him.” So we fasted and besought our God for this, and He responded to our plea. (Ezra 8:21–23)

In contrast, Nehemiah accepted a military escort:

The king also sent army officers and cavalry with me. (Neh. 2:9)

            We have seen that Ezra pulled his hair in sorrow upon learning of the intermarriage in his community. In contrast, Nehemiah threatens and uses physical force against the people:

Also at that time, I saw that Jews had married Ashdodite, Ammonite, and Moabite women; a good number of their children spoke the language of Ashdod and the language of those various peoples, and did not know how to speak Judean. I censured them, cursed them, flogged them, tore out their hair, and adjured them by God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters in marriage to their sons, or take any of their daughters for your sons or yourselves. (Neh. 13:23–25)

Ezra tears out his own hair; Nehemiah tears out others’ hair.

Another significant contrast between the two leaders arises during the one occasion they are seen together: the religious revival and covenant recorded in Nehemiah 8–10. The people gather together and invite Ezra—their accepted teacher—to read from the Torah. Ezra is not the one who initiates the ceremony. Ezra is flanked by thirteen other people (Neh. 8:4), again highlighting his allowing others to initiate and share center stage in every aspect of his leadership. The people voluntarily turn to Ezra because they respect him as a teacher, not because he exerts his authority over them.

Despite the narrator’s assertion that the people initiated the reformation and covenant (Neh. 8–10; cf. 12:44–47; 13:1–3), Nehemiah casts himself differently in his first-person report (Neh. 13). He repeatedly gives himself credit, almost as a poetic refrain:

O my God, remember me favorably for this, and do not blot out the devotion I showed toward the House of my God and its attendants. (v. 14)

This too, O my God, remember to my credit, and spare me in accord with your abundant faithfulness. (v. 22)

O my God, remember it to my credit! (v. 31)

And also:

O my God, remember to my credit all that I have done for this people! (Neh. 5:19)

Nehemiah’s repeated stress on his personal accomplishments stands out starkly, especially after the narrative in EN, which credits the people for their initiatives. Additionally, Nehemiah makes it appear that the religious state of the people was entirely dependent on him. He attributes the spiritual decline and other woes on the fact that he had left the community and returned to Babylonia (Neh. 13:6).

            To summarize, Ezra was given immense authority—but deliberately moderated it. Instead, he raised new leaders and engaged the members of the community to take active roles in their spiritual development. He surrounded himself with people and shared or transferred authority to others. He raised many disciples, thereby broadening the base of the leadership and also ensuring continuity rather than dependence on him. In turn, the people voluntarily gravitated to him for guidance and teaching. Nehemiah, on the other hand, tended to occupy center stage. He gave orders to others, and often threatened them and used physical force to implement his goals. He credited himself for his accomplishments, even though the narrator credits the people for their initiatives. He portrayed himself as an indispensable leader whose community failed as soon as he left them.

Both Ezra and Nehemiah were God-fearing individuals dedicated to rebuilding Israel physically and spiritually, and both were effective to a large degree. There are no explicit evaluations of either Ezra or Nehemiah by the narrator, typical of biblical narrative. Several rabbinic traditions give clear preference to Ezra, while showing ambivalence toward Nehemiah.

Rabbi Yosei said: Had Moses not preceded him, Ezra would have been worthy of receiving the Torah for Israel. (Sanhedrin 21b)

When [Hillel] died, they lamented over him, “Alas, the pious man! Alas, the humble man! Disciple of Ezra!” (Sotah 48b; cf. Sanhedrin 11a, Sukkah 20a)

By likening Ezra to Moses and by using Ezra as a paradigm for their beloved Hillel, these Sages enshrine Ezra as one of the greatest biblical figures.

Working on the assumption that Ezra and Nehemiah co-authored EN, the Sages wondered why the book was called only “Ezra” (as they referred to it). One responded that Nehemiah was penalized for his self-aggrandizement by having his name excluded from the title of the book:

The whole subject matter of [the book of] Ezra was narrated by Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah; why then was the book not called by his name? R. Jeremiah b. Abba said: Because he claimed merit for himself, as it is written (Neh. 5:19), “O my God, remember to my credit.” (Sanhedrin 93b)

Another believed that Nehemiah viewed himself as indispensible, while denigrating all other leaders as ineffective, though some of his predecessors certainly were righteous and competent:

R. Joseph said: Because he spoke disparagingly of his predecessors, as it is written (Neh. 5:15), “The former governors who preceded me laid heavy burdens on the people, and took from them bread and wine more than forty shekels of silver, etc.” (Sanhedrin 93b)

            It appears that the aforementioned Sages have balanced Nehemiah’s positive and negative traits when compared and contrasted with Ezra. These exceptional individuals from the biblical period, as interpreted in traditional rabbinic sources, have much to teach contemporary Jewish leaders about leadership.

For further study, see my article, “The Literary Significance of the Name Lists in Ezra-Nehemiah,” Jewish Bible Quarterly 35:3 (2007), pp. 143–152; and Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, In an Age of Prose: A Literary Approach to Ezra-Nehemiah (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988).

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 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.

  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.

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.”

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