National Scholar Updates

*For Anthony Polimeni, on assuming the Vice Presidency

 of Touro College.

1. The Native

            If by chance, a curious stranger were possibly permitted to enter David Mamet’s private study, he would suddenly find himself facing, among an assortment of general works, copies of his host’s many publications, all reflecting his catholic interests and tastes. Those publications consist of 36 plays and five collections of them; six screenplays; three novels; 13 prose works; three children’s books; 15 film scripts; 21 critical and biographical studies of his life; and, undoubtedly, the current and past issues of the Mamet Quarterly, which dealt critically with his life and works.

removed himself from his historic inheritance to become a menace to himself and his people.

            But before tracing that Wicked Son’s estrangement from his inheritance, as Mamet perceives it, the reader might be interested to learn, briefly, some of the story of our author’s family life, as well as his relationship with his own past. His mother’s family came from Warsaw, his father’s from the town of Hrubezow, in Poland, who on arriving on American shores during the early years of the last century, would “rehearse the rituals, perform the rites of their faith,” but generally did so not “without some embarrassment . . . the religious part of their Jewishness was hollowed out.” Of course, they “shared Jewish food, language, and jokes, which consoled them in their strange new land, but never with a conviction of their old religion.” In fact, we learn that his paternal grandfather “divorced his wife before he reached American shores, leaving her to arrive later, alone, with his child.” What they all wished, ultimately, to achieve on these shores was to move into the mainstream of American life by “modifying, omitting, suppressing, and acting their old faith.” Or, in Mamet’s own summation: “assimilation, apparently, was their ultimate goal.”

            Small wonder, therefore, that it became Mamet’s lot to live with that ambiguity: to deny what he was, and to live a life of hypocrisy for much of his youth. Consider this confessional:

It pleased me to think that I was putting myself over in myself . . . living in Vermont and doing things that it seemed were not acceptable behavior for a nice Jewish boy, whose family had the gene of liberalism—spending a lot of time gambling, hunting, fishing, etc. while hanging out in poolrooms, and I enjoyed life there.

Of some other memories of his youth he speaks with uncommon bitterness. Of his bar mitzvah, for instance, he has only this to say: “It seemed to me a watercolor of Jewishness, American good citizenship . . . with a sense of unfortunately Asiatic overtones.” And of his own Reform Jewish parents, he confesses, “they were determined to be so stalwart, so American, so non-Jewish,” that they overwhelmed him. To which he adds, not without some vitriol directed at his own parents: “Reform Judaism allowed faith to become a lifestyle”—including his own parents—“a mere modification of some central cultural truth out of supposedly secular but patent Christian culture.

            A good number of years later, however, something occurred in Mamet’s life that, among other experiences, “shook the foundations of my being.” He attended the bat mitzvah of his niece in apparently a traditional house of worship. While there, it suddenly occurred to him that he “hadn’t attended a synagogue service for some thirty years.” He was chagrined and shocked to find that it had something to do with a sense not only of assimilation, but also of self-hatred that was nobody’s fulfillment but his own. “And I thought I could remedy that.” In fact, in some three of his pays, he actually attempts to accomplish just that: Homicide, The Old Neighborhood, and The Old Religion. And in Some Freaks, another play, he has one of his characters exclaim: “God bless those in all generations who have embraced Jewishness . . . we are a beautiful people and a good people.”

            Obviously, therefore, it is with such people—his people—that Mamet now wishes to belong. So that during a television broadcast with Charlie Rose, he proclaimed: “To deny who you are, to deny what you want, is to live the life of hypocrisy, which leads to self-loathing.” Whether one belongs to the stage, or the movie set, or any other hermetic group, he finds “filial piety—a responsibility to learn and to instruct the heritage of one’s people—of primal significance.”

            And for Mamet, what better place to begin that search of his heritage than the ancient story of the Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt, as described in the Passover Haggadah, with its famous “Four Questions” and “Four Sons”—especially the “Wicked One,” who also becomes for Mamet a metaphor for all that ails American Jewry. He learned all that during the Seder, the “longest continuing ceremony in the history of the world.”

2. The Wicked Sons

            “Modern Epicureanism” as we know it broke out in the “Wild Sixties.” American and world youth, of whatever faith and tradition, and in surprisingly vast numbers, began to assert that the long-trusted beliefs and observances of their respected faiths and practices limited an individual’s freedom. Look instead, their argument ran, to all traditions and practices, since there is much to learn from all of them. The time has surely come, their cry rang out, when we must discard the “old” and adopt the “new,” forgetting, along the way, that such an act of submission to the new has long been known as “DeClarembault’s Syndrome,” usually described “as a condition of individuals and society, characterized by a breakdown or absence of social norms and values, as in the case of an uprooted people.”

            To better understand this condition of modern Jewry, Mamet chose the infamous “Wicked Son” of the Passover Haggadah, who, questioning and rejecting the tradition, rituals, and practices of his people, is moved to “purge the Jew in himself in order, eventually, to identify the Jews as others.” Or, as often proclaimed by these newfound Epicureans: “I’m not observant but my parents were . . . .” Yet, despite all or such similar declarations, “that Son suffers from a self-loathing, never wishing to admit that he is a Jew, that the world is not fond of Jews, and his only choice of safety lies with the Jews.” In his panic to escape his alienated condition of abandoning his Jewish heritage, the Wicked Son “prefers the irrationality of some new faith imported to the danger of his psyche of the truth.”

            In order to clarify how the Wicked Son, without anchor, suffers from, among other sicknesses, DeClarembault’s Syndrome, Mamet proceeds to present him as masquerading in three guises in certain unaccustomed roles, and in a delusional flight from his common past. They are “Apostate,” “Apikores” (or heretic), and “Assimilationist.”

The Apostate

Unlike the “Conversos” of Spain in the fourteenth century, who escaped the Inquisition by identifying themselves as Roman Catholic in public while practicing Judaism in the privacy of their homes, the Apostate  remains Jewish only by identification (“I’m not observant but my parents were . . .) in order to be accepted on life’s stage by the Christian community. Ignorant of all aspects of his religion, the Apostate will argue that because “my ancestors suffered persecution and prevailed, I will renounce their struggle and call my ingratitude enlightenment.”

            Now freed to enjoy an ongoing doctrine of lassitude and privilege by the same fathers whose religion he currently discards, the Apostate begins to believe that “ignorance and his supercilious superiority to its practices is a licensed diversion.” After transferring his fealty to those he considers the stronger group, accepting their authority and many practices, he forgets entirely, Mamet claims, “that his Christian friends and neighbors will never accept him. As a result, he is left with a certain anomie of restlessness, of purposelessness, in order to adopt the views of his enemies, the anti-Semites, so as to be accepted by them.”

            The Apostate may indeed convert, and often does, but he must still “guard himself against the inevitable scorn of those to whom he proclaims his freedom from his despised heritage.” To lessen that threat, he may one day seek his fellow Jews to no avail, for “the world,” Mamet wisely reminds the reader, “hates a turncoat.” Furthermore, in his hasty flight from his roots, the Apostate may one day adopt a new faith, and often does, but his “rejection of the old becomes anomie, a degradation of his self-image. And since the Christian may never accept him, he has adopted a new religion which offers him no peace.”

            And however much the Apostate might think of himself as superior to the members of his tribe because of his detachment, is he not aware, Mamet wonders bitterly, that a significant number of Arab and Hamas leaders, jihadists, and others of their ilk, often declare publicly—and multitudes privately—their plans to annihilate the State of Israel and its people? And that, sad to record, some 65 years after the Holocaust? To individuate himself, if ever, among his own people, “the Apostate must,” Mamet argues, “first deal with the trauma of human savagery. Only then will he be equipped to return to the ranks of his people.”

The Apikoros

In his glossary at the very end of this book, Mamet defines the term apikoros, derived from the name of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, “as a heretic learned in Judaism but rejects it.” Truthfully, however, one is moved to remind Mamet that his definition of this term is entirely different from the one used in classic Jewish sources, with which he may be only marginally acquainted. For the definition found in the Talmud and summarized definitively by Maimonides, among others, in his Book of Repentance 3:8, reads as follows: an Apikoros is anyone who “denies the concept of prophecy, which reaches from God to the heart of man, or, anyone who denies the prophetic powers of Moses; or anyone who denies God’s knowledge of man’s actions, deeds, or works.” Obviously, then, one need not be a “learned person” to be called an Apikoros: It is enough that he dismisses any of the fundamental principles of the Torah.

            One of those principles—the ritual of circumcision—first established by Abraham, the biblical father of Jews and Judaism, has often been declared, by liberal fanatics and their cohorts, as nothing more than a “savage mutilation . . . irrational and ludicrous, an empty ceremony, which is not the continuation of Judaism but may also be some sort of ritual ceremony by a secret society.” But this particular ritual has literally been central to the survival of the Jewish people. Anyone denying its validity and historical relevance Mamet calls an Apikoros, who will inevitably find himself immortalized into nothingness.

            In that world of nothingness, the modern Apikoros commits, in addition, the most heinous of all sins, summarized in biblical terms, as the worship of the “golden calf.” If “modern man cannot control the gods,” his argument runs, “they do not exist . . . how then may I control them, through gold . . . I will therefore worship gold.” The “gold” in that argument, surprisingly, is in Mamet’s considered view the current bar and bat mitzvah celebration. It is standard practice, for the wealthy parents of the young celebrant, aided and directed by a professional “party manager,” to plan the most ostentatious of all such celebrations. And whoever has attended such a Saturday night affair will immediately recall that, on entering the vast ballroom, two blazing orchestras are in full swing, the endless platters of hors d’oeuvres are served by gracious waitresses, the seven- or eight-course dinner, the after dinner refreshments, the dancing girls, the singers, crooners, comedians, the stacked bars every few feet, and even a professional clown for the entertainment of the little ones in attendance. All ends with the rising sun the next morning.

            After that night of revelry, the previous morning’s prayer service, the Torah reading, the confirmant’s speech, the sermon, have long been forgotten in this consuming worship of the “golden calf.” All of which results in Mamet’s bitter reaction to such “idolatry,” with a warning that such celebrations are “not the continuation but the death of Judaism . . . for even if parents mime their devotion, the children are aware of the sham; they will endure as they must, but most will be reluctant to impose that tax on their offspring, which the next generation may likely turn against all things Jewish.”

            To prevent that next generation from renouncing all forms of Jewish life, except perhaps the acknowledgment of their birth, Mamet seriously suggests that all such worshippers of this “golden calf” return to the ancient doctrine of teshuva, or repentance. In fact, Mamet actually devotes a chapter in this work, entitled “Lies or Teshuva” heralding the need for a total transformation of this Apikoros’ personality from his alienated status as a Jew only by a quirk of heredity, who “refers to his forbearer, much as a wealthy man might allude to an ancestor as a horse thief.”

            Repentance for this wicked son must begin, Mamet insists, not in, say, a Temple, where the “members of the spiritually inert may praise each other’s monetary contributions as true Judaism, and still remain an unaligned Jew.” Should this Apikoros truly search for authenticity, he must begin, Mamet strongly recommends, in a “classic shul, or synagogue, without any gilding: no golden pews, gymnasia, organ music, abbreviated services, or mixed choirs.” This Apikoros might even begin his transformation, argues Mamet, in an old-fashioned shtiebel, or small, sometimes even unkempt room, or hall, where wealth is pointless. To be sure, “wealthy support would surely be welcome, but wealth is definitely not worshipped.” Such services are often led by a pious rabbi, who owns a sound knowledge of Bible, Talmud, Midrash, and their commentaries, as well as “a strong sympathetic concern for the underprivileged, the depressed, the forlorn, and the poor.” Were this idol-worshipping Apikoros to avail himself regularly of such an environment, he “might find himself radically transformed into a Jew again, with no false gods, no idols,” and, of course, no mixing of milk and meat.

The Assimilationist

            The “Assimilationist Jew,” as Mamet depicts him is basically a “winter Jew.” Torn between the conflicting claims of the solstice holidays—Hanukka and Christmas—the Assimilationist will argue that we dare never deprive our children of a “deserved treat” by denying them the pleasure of celebrating Christmas, “while posturing themselves before the waning sun, singing heartily a wide variety of carols,” thereby confirming that “Jewish guilt” and “Jewish anxiety” are not necessarily Jewish at all but “rather a universal desire to revert to paganism.” For that hurtful “abandonment of his own race and culture, the Assimilationist will suffer the pangs of his treason. For the trimming of a ‘Hanukka bush’ is really a desire of man to revert to paganism.”

            But religion came into being, Mamet argues, to supplant the anomie and excess of paganism. Humans, individually, and all religions, generally, have always been caught in a “dynamic struggle between reverting or deciding to supersede the pagan.” Hence the answer for the Christian should naturally be Christianity and for the Jew, Judaism. But because the modern Jew, in the main, is less aware of his own religion and “its opportunities for the fundamental,” he may suppose that the “errors he finds in his own religion can only be cured by the embrace of another,” resulting, of course, in a vast increase of current Assimilationsts.

            Of all the many Assimilationists roaming our present American Jewish world, Mamet chose for a healthy share of opprobrium none other than Noam Chomsky, the famous, or is it infamous, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Displaying a special dislike of him, Mamet derides this disaffected Jew, who declares consistently, among other things, that “Zionism is criminal,” and nothing more than a late twentieth-century affirmation that all Jews are “business cheats.” And though Chomsky may argue that “to endorse a vendetta against the innocent based on religion is obscene criminality,” he still sees fit “to understand such vendettas, as long as they are carried out against the Jews generally, and Israel in particular.” Hence, our distinguished academic refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, referring to it only as a “phantom state with no right to exist.”

            Furthermore, though Chomsky would argue that Jews in France, for example, have “a right to live unmolested lives” but that “Israel has no right to protect its citizens.”

Small wonder, therefore, that those who follow Chomsky repeat constantly this jarring assertion: “My parents were Jewish but I do not consider myself Jewish . . . .” To such disoriented negativists, Mamet raises this inevitable question: “Are over four thousand years of cultural, genetic, and religious affirmatives now to be abrogated by the hearty embrace of secularity?” To which Mamet replies: “Should Chomsky and his variety of assimilationists ever find themselves in trouble in either the Arab, French, or in any other country across the globe they so lovingly admire, they should forever know that “Israel would offer them a home under the ‘Right of Return.’”

            Taken together these three “brotherly” representatives of the Wicked Son, seeking to acculturate or assimilate into American life, have willfully separated themselves from the faith of their fathers. The religious past of their Jewishness was, obviously, also hollowed out. How thin and fragile, therefore, their grasp of the old world they left behind and the new world they swiftly adopted. Moving rapidly into the mainstream of American life, they apparently persuaded themselves to modify, omit, or suppress the traditions of their own people.

            This de-emphasis of their heritage, cultural identity, and religious observance actually mirrors, in good part, Mamet’s own life. For he too recognizes that his early disassociation with his people was the “result not only of assimilation but even of self-hatred, something that was no one’s fault but his own.” As indicated above, it took an attendance at the bat mitzvah services for his niece, among some other such experiences, to connect him with his race, people, Israel, his own history, and the wisdom and solace of his own tradition.

            In addition to tradition, one is motivated to ask, is there possibly a cure for the Wicked Sons of our day? Chief among the cures, Mamet frequently suggests, is the element of “belonging.” In fact, he devotes a chapter in this work to the absolute need for the same, entitled “Belonging.” “To me,” he begins with this glowing assertion, “life consists in belonging . . . because the opposite of tribal life is a life of anxiety, loneliness, and loss.” And for him, the ultimate virtue of “belonging,” of course, is the theater, movies, and the arts. Of all the hermetic groups he has ever joined in his life, the theater remains most impressive and consistent because it revolves around “filial piety.” While working there, he constantly experienced its “human language, responsibility to learn, to instruct, and its sense of timelessness and history.” Lessons, too, of how to control “anger, sloth, lust on the one hand, and on the other, acts of kindness, helpfulness forbearance, or even silence,” all of which came naturally to him while on the set.

            Needless to say, however, not everyone could be as fortunate as Mamet. Others can experience similar virtues by joining any of a host of organizations dealing with poverty, health care, senior citizens, orphans, and so forth, all of which confirms Mamet’s own view that the “Jew is not only made and instructed but also commanded to live in the world and enjoy those things God has permitted him.”

            But we also know that, lest we continue raising additional generations of “Wicked Sons,” the Jew is instructed, first and foremost, as mentioned above, to become a Jew. It begins simply, as Mamet agrees, with daily prayer, to be followed ideally with an hour or two of study of some classic Judaic texts, fully translated and annotated, of Bible, Talmud, Midrash, Jewish history, ethics—alone or with friends. And, lest we dare forget—the Passover Haggadah.

            And if Mamet boasts that he never walked through a “stage door or onto a movie set without the thrill of belonging,” he was fortunate in experiencing that thrill while attending, and participating, in the celebration of the Passover Seder. He proudly records that experience for the common reader: “This love of community, this love of knowledge, this joy of immersion in history, this thirst for group approval, for moral perfection, this endless variety of vertical and horizontal connection, these are all open to the Jew as both his right and his responsibility.”

3. Anti-Semitism

            Whatever their present or future orientation on the American and/or world scene, these “Four Sons” will inevitably face a condition that has plagued world Jewry for four millennia, or ever since the birth of the biblical brothers Isaac and Ishmael, and Jacob and Esau. And that, of course, is the question of anti-Semitism, in all its raging and grisly forms ever since then, up to our very own day. For throughout the history of mankind, anti-Semitism “has been inevitable, at times waxing or waning, but always inevitable.” What troubles Mamet most, however, is that it has become so rampant in our own day, especially since the establishment of the State of Israel, some 60 years ago, that it has “morphed into the rhetoric of reason.”

            In fact, Mamet actually categorizes the general arguments of our average Christian neighbors, past and present, in these terms: a) I have nothing against the Jews per se, I am merely speaking against Israel; b) I am merely stating the obvious, for I mean no harm to individual Jews or the Jewish people, but it is a fact that Jews control . . . . I do not say this is good or bad, only that it is so; c) Jews killed the Christian god. I do not say this should influence our contemporary thinking but there it is in the Gospels.” And in the Arab world, Israel is denounced as a modern instance of the “blood libel,” with Muslim replacing Christian blood. And Israel’s response to the constant bombings of its innocent citizens is listed by them as “reprisals and retaliation,” when, in fact, they are made by Israel only in self-defense, or in its unending struggle for survival.

            All of which is not to say that Mamet has in this, and other recent works, suddenly awakened to the ravages of anti-Semitism everywhere in the world, especially in or about Israel. It is the result, in good measure, to the recent awakening of the Jew inside himself, in addition to the continued ferment in his mind of the condition of world Jewry. For, outside the theater and movie set, he has searched his own beginnings to find not only what may be missing in his life but also the life of his fellow Jews in America. For how else explain his extended critique of American Jewry in this work—and under what authority? But when one truly cares, authority may not always be necessary. And Mamet cares.

            Cares enough, in fact, that some 12 years ago, in another volume of short essays, Make-Believe Town, he reasoned more powerfully—for this reader, at least—than in The Wicked Son the shallowness of our general reasoning of the causes of anti-Semitism. It demands a careful reading:

Jew hating is not caused by Jews. It does not even arise out of a misconception. It does not even arise of a need to hate Jews. It arises from a need to hate. We Jews are not the cause of anti-Semitism, nothing we have done caused it. We are just its approved victim . . . . we cannot cure it, and it is not only folly but self-destructive to try. We can only defend ourselves against it. Explanation, reason, and, importantly, tolerance in response to anti-Semitism are disastrous forces . . . . It is not that anti-Semites will make the problem worse, but they will distract us from the danger of defenselessness. Reason is not a defense against anti-Semitism. The least appearance of race hatred is a questioning whose end is murder . . . . anti-Semitism is not ignorance, it is insanity—human rage against a target deemed both allowed and unprotected. It is caused by the victim.

To all that genuine reasoning, the common reader would say “Amen.”

            Mamet, in his sympathetic mood, adds this postscript: “Should the Wise Son ever ask: ‘Why the Holocaust?’ he is expressing a wish that this generation should be spared.”

4. The Exogamist as Wicked Son

            Of all the fascinating titles Mamet assigned to each of the 37 short chapters of this work, none is more intriguing than the one he chose for the thirty-third: “Judaism: the House that Ruth Built.” It moves the reader to wonder at once: What do Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and Babe Ruth have in common with Judaism? Obviously, one realizes immediately: really nothing. For Mamet’s clever reference here is rather to the biblical Ruth, who, after much personal suffering, built a “Ruthian” home of historical and future royalty in Bethlehem, millennia ago. For Mamet, apparently, the biblical Ruth became the paradigm for “exogamy,” or “marriage outside of a specific tribe, or a similar social unit.”

            Deciding to employ this clever metaphor to his promotion of exogamy as a possible solution to some of Jewry’s problems of survival, he apparently forgot to study a little more carefully the Book of Ruth, itself a “little epic and idyllic whole,” with some of its classical commentaries. Had he done so, he would have learned the historical significance of two unforgettable statements Ruth uttered when Naomi, her destitute mother-in-law, suggested sadly that Ruth, in her own widowhood, return to her Moabite people and their past. Ruth refused—utterly! She intoned, instead, her two heartrending replies, after insisting on cleaving to Naomi: “Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God.” By which she obviously meant to convey, of course, her unalterable commitment to His laws given at Sinai, including, as Rashi adds, “all the various punishments for their transgressions.” In other words: no compromises!

            And, if destiny should decide one day that Ruth would marry the “kinsman” who would “redeem” her, he too would be required to observe the laws and customs appertaining to exogamy, as defined in chapter four of her Book. All of which Boaz, her “kinsman,” performed unconditionally, of course, in front of a group of Judges and an assembly of scholarly witnesses.

            What puzzles this reader, however, is why Mamet, lecturing the multitude of “fallen away” Jews on the issue of their Jewish survival, did not first cite those famous earlier lines, uttered by his own favorite biblical figure, the patriarch Abraham, the father of his people? Seriously concerned about his son’s marital life, we need only recall, Abraham uttered his unforgettably restrictive words to his senior servant, before sending him on his way, to search for the appropriate wife for his son. “And Abraham said: I will make you swear by the Lord . . . that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, but will go to the land of my birth and get a wife for my son Isaac . . . . The Lord . . . will send his angel before you and you will get a wife for my son from there” (Gen. 24:1–6).

            And Rebecca, in turn, thinking of her son Jacob’s future married life, cried, in her angst, to Isaac: “I am disgusted with my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries a Hittite woman . . . what good would my life be to me?” (Gen. 27:46).

            So Isaac sent for Jacob and blessed him. He instructed him, saying: “You shall not take a wife from the Canaanite women. Go to Padden-Aram to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and take a wife from the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother . . . . Jacob obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Paddan-Aram” (Gen. 28:1–6).

            And even Esau, the incarnation of the “Wicked Son,” realizing his parents’ objection to exogamy, followed suit and went to Ishmael, and took a wife in addition to those he already had: Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, son of Abraham, sister of Nabaioth . . . .” (Gen. 28:1–7).

            Lest one conclude that the Jewish denunciation of exogamy remained forever buried in ancient biblical times, we are repeatedly reminded that what Abraham rigorously championed filtered down steadily through the ages till all the laws prohibiting exogamy were clearly enumerated at Sinai, as recorded formally in the Talmud and later incorporated in Maimonides and the Codes of Civil Law. And thereafter discussed endlessly, in all of its legal, social, and communal intricacies in the vast responsa literature written and published since then to our very day. What happened in Bethlehem merely reaffirmed what was previously formulated at Sinai and practiced faithfully since then in all instances.

            Nevertheless, Mamet persists in believing that “Ruthian homes,” built on “modern exogamy,” should be spread across America. So that he opens this chapter with a little story he had often heard about a “fallen away Jew,” who when asked “Why did you give it up?” (it meaning Judaism), replies: “I had a bad experience with a rabbi.” And he defends himself further with a tautology: “I left because rabbis are bad; rabbis are bad because Judaism is bad; I know this because I met a bad rabbi.” If “bad rabbis” cause that continuing “falling away of so many Jews,” why then does Mamet continue to quote, approvingly, a formal statement by a large contingent of rabbis, who promote exogamy, to save the many “fallen away Jews,” who continue “to give it up?”

            Here, then, is that statement:

Many contemporary rabbis have written most positively about the benefits of modern intermarriage. It is not, they point out, the non-Jews who dilute and threaten the community with so many ‘fallen away Jews.’ We have seen frequent examples of the non-Jewish partners bringing his or her spouse back to Judaism.

One is tempted to inquire immediately whether one of these “nameless rabbis” may have been responsible for denying him a meaningful bar mitzvah celebration he laments so bitterly. Or maybe one or two of them, or more, ratified his personal experiences with exogamy? And how many of these rabbis may have added, sadly, to the countless “fallen away Jews” who now constitute some 48 to 51 percent of American Jewry and have left the fold permanently? Or, were they motivated to spread exogamy to fill some of their own diminishing membership files?

            And even if, as Mamet argues further, exogamy might encourage the non-Jewish partner to persuade his or her spouse to attend Sabbath services, neither one knows or understands the barest meaning of the prayer book, its traditions, or practices. Even the most modern translation of that book hardly ever results in any greater religious practice, unless one is first taught by competent instructors, or highly educated and concerned teachers of whatever rank the classic meaning of prayers. Otherwise, confusion and uninterest follow. “Belonging” alone, despite Mamet’s advocacy of it, shall not, as indicated above, accomplish any significant change in the exogamist. As everyone should know, the laws, practices, and traditions or any other aspect of Judaism demands consistent study, reading, practice, and meaningful experience.

            Truthfully, need one really have to remind Mamet that even in the House that Ruth built in the Bronx, or in any other of such “Ruthian houses” across America, there exist any number of works—the most current being Official Rules Book of Major League Baseball of some 224-page length—without which nothing could proceed successfully on, or off, the playing field? And woe unto the umpire or baseball executive who, failing to recall consistently—especially umpires—any of those rules during a challenged play or other crisis, would then find themselves threatened, or verbally assaulted, by players and fans, or worse, demoted to the minor leagues, or even to the amateur little leagues. True of baseball, it is no less true—even more so, in fact—of the house that “Ruth” built in Bethlehem. All of which moves this sympathetic reader to conclude that, lest infatuation trump judgment, Mamet, in chapter 27 of this engaging book, finds himself striking out.

            Before returning this book to the shelves of Mamet’s “self-authored” library, this reader was moved to recall, interestingly, Clem Yeobright, the native in Thomas Hardy’s novel The Return of the Native. For Clem, “inwoven” with the heath of his boyhood, severed his relations, with his roots by, of all things, working for a jeweler in Paris, a “place and occupation at the opposite pole from the heath.” In returning to the “heath,” Clem “unconsciously wishes to recover the organic connections with his roots.” But, having acquired radical ideas in Paris, he genuinely aims to educate and modernize the “heath” folk, without realizing that he would, by making them self-consciously critical, destroy the organic community he wishes to rejoin.

            In some ways Mamet, too, left his people to gain national and international acclaim as one of America’s leading playwrights and movie producers. Having acquired some new and radical ideas in Hollywood, theaters, and movies across the country, including “exogamy,” he now wishes to modernize the “heath” folk of his own past with some new ideas, such as advanced in this book, by promoting “Ruthian homes” across the country. All of which would certainly have a deleterious effect on the American Jewish community. The return of this native’s ideas would surely create chaos, a chaos that would sadly rob the Jew of his identity.

            And yet, it becomes abundantly clear to any Mamet enthusiast, if asked to which “House” does our renowned playwright belong, the House in the Bronx, or the House in Bethlehem, should direct the questioner to the following passage in this work: “Judaism as a spiritual, ethical, or social practice has at its core a mystery so deep that not only is its existence hidden from the uninitiated, but its practices are hated, scorned, reviled, and murdered as necromancers. What is the fear the Jew engenders that manifests itself as hatred? Perhaps it is caused by his historical absolute, terrifying with certainty, that there is a God.”

“The seal of the Blessed Holy One is Truth.” As a Modern Orthodox pulpit rabbi, truth— a regular feature of scripture and of daily liturgy, an important benchmark for interpretations of Torah, philosophical truth, scientific truth, psychological truth, a description of the Torah itself— plays an outsized role. Indeed, recent controversies relating to the issue of conversion to Judaism have often hinged on the ability of would-be righteous converts to accept axiomatic truth claims held to be required by the particular court. Converts are often required to affirm the truth of Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles, or to affirm truth claims regarding the age of the universe, evolution, and other issues of perceived tension between religion and science. Simultaneously, the theology and personal beliefs of rabbinic colleagues have been scrutinized by others in the rabbinic community, searching for evidence of insufficient belief in that which our religion presumably holds to be true. In particular, academic study of biblical texts has prompted energetic enforcement of Orthodoxy’s supposed boundaries. Mainly, these uses of the term, “truth” seem to refer to an objective, Platonic sort of truth. They are not dependent on the person or situation, and are held to be either the basis of our faith, or a requirement of its observers, imposed from the outside. In this essay, I aim to describe the role that a very different kind of “truth” has played in my personal faith, and one that I believe deserves more attention and support in observant communities.

Selective Spiritual Autobiography

I grew up in North Bellmore, a small Long Island suburb. The houses on my block were all the same, and the stated life-goals of teachers, guidance counselors, parents, and friends alike remained, to me, monochromatic. What does Hashem, your God, ask of you, but to excel academically, participate in a well-rounded variety of extracurricular activities, gain entry into an elite college, and earn a high salary to pay for your progeny to do the same? Neighbors would casually remark about the importance of earning more money than your parents. Older immigrants would recall how they gave up so much for the sake of economic opportunity. During a regional high school science competition, one teacher encouraged the female students to “show more skin if you need to” in order to subtly influence the predominantly male pool of judges in the hope of earning better results. Proposals to bus in minority students from poorer neighborhoods to our public schools met with widespread protest about the character of the “neighborhood.” Often, status was cemented by public displays of wealth, cars, houses, clothes, and handbags. The plights of the environment, the needy, etc. were merely pro forma features of our discourse. While it might have looked wholesome from the outside, and indeed the cogs in the wheel were almost always earnest and admirable individuals, Long Island seemed to me a modernized version of society in the Great Gatsby.

Religiously, my family belonged to a Conservative synagogue, Temple Beth El of North Bellmore, with a wise spiritual leader, Rabbi Harvey Goldscheider. He was a student of Rabbi Heschel, who often fought against the materialists’ status quo, while warmly modeling the depth of Judaism, practiced sincerely and with a Hassidic-style comfort. I recall fondly his brave critiques of opulent semahot and his love for tradition, text, and the State of Israel. We attended synagogue on the holidays and for celebratory occasions, but not otherwise, gradually increasing family observance from a mainly secular lifestyle to a marginally more observant one by the time I was about to celebrate my bar mitzvah. As one of the rare children who enjoyed and excelled in the Temple’s Hebrew School, I had taken a strong interest in tradition as a source of meaning and connection in a world that seemed too vain; the rabbi learned Talmud privately with me and a few others. He would regularly invite folks for Shabbat meals (always full of songs), lectures of interest, or small study sessions.

Most of my close friends were Jewish. Yet for almost all of them, Jewish practice was peripheral at best, done for the sake of nostalgia, habit, guilt, a requirement of the Hebrew School, or to satisfy grandparents. However, bar and bat mitzvah celebrations were serious business. Regularly costing tens of thousands of dollars (sometimes even more!), children would quietly compete to have the more expensive simha. I still recall a friend approaching me and saying, “[m]y parents said that your bar mitzvah only cost x dollars; mine was twice that!” Presumptively, money was the benchmark for the quality of the affair. With a late September birthday, I attended the celebrations of dozens of peers before celebrating my own, affording me the opportunity to gain some perspective. Almost none had kosher receptions, and most occurred with DJ’s and scantily clad dancers on the Sabbath day itself. The religious ceremony, as it was called, was mocked and derided by peers and parents alike.

Artificially truncated error-filled renditions of small selections of haftaroth were celebrated as monumental accomplishments. I can still hear the generic exaggerated praises, innocently and sweetly proffered by loving parents, permanently colored by my judgmental teenage mind with a cocktail of sarcasm, scorn, and anger. “David, your accomplishments today demonstrate that anything is possible when you put your mind to it. We’re so proud of you and the man you’ve become!” “Susie, that was the most beautiful haftarah reading. You’ve grown up into the proud Jewish woman we knew you could be.” Apparently, the parents had not listened to the same three butchered lines of chanted reading from the prophets, the same prophets who happened to shun materialism and rail against insincere religious practice. To me, the lavish excess of celebration was an end in itself, or perhaps a measure of promoting or maintaining societal status. How else can we explain the loans taken out and the homes refinanced for a party in celebration of a Judaism that remained unknown and unexplorable to the celebrants, in ceremonies filled with more shrimp in the cocktails than words in the divrei Torah.

I found myself approaching my 13^th birthday in a state of dire distress. I was deeply saddened by the monotony of the lifestyle for which I was being implicitly groomed. At each turn its combined lack of self-awareness and purposeful intention left me hopeless. It seemed impossible to me that life was granted for this to be its end, and I knew I wanted something totally other. Increasingly, I turned toward a mix of social action, increased Jewish observance, and the study of the Jewish prophets as avenues of meaning. In my hometown, homophobic attacks on school staff and students led to the adoption of a piloted version of the Anti-Defamation League’s World of Difference curriculum. I participated in training and bonding with other students and faculty on a retreat where we learned and practiced educational tools for tolerance that we later brought back to the entire district. In fact, the techniques learned had demonstrable and obvious positive impact, raising awareness and alleviating the insults and violence that minorities, especially LGBTQ students and staff, were all-to-frequently subjected to. This experience has served me as a regular reminder of how the Divine Spirit urges us to the edge of our own comfort, to listen, to bond, and to serve with love. I also found, for the first time really, a bit of personal authenticity and resonance, pairing a concrete task of empathy with the God of the prophets. Yet the more I reached out to try to discern the boundaries of my life and explore other possibilities, societal cages became surprisingly suffocating. Disapproval and rejection came sweeping in with the volume and subtle force of an ocean at high tide. Attempts at increased Jewish observance and engagement, in particular, were either shunned as being old fashioned, or derided for their interference with those extracurriculars, so important for getting into an Ivy League college.

Transformative Spiritual Experience

I share this background to help explain the foreground for one of the most powerful moments of my life. My turning bar mitzvah was to be celebrated on the first Sabbath after the holiday cycle, my Hebrew birthday falling on erev Sukkot. Yom Kippur began on the eve of September 29, 1998, which happened also to be my Gregorian birthdate. Despite the threat of scattered thunderstorms, I decided to up my observance by walking home from synagogue rather than riding in a car following the Kol Nidrei services. This prompted rather strong criticism from several synagogue-goers, noting that I lived too far (approximately two miles) and that I might get soaked in the rain. I retorted, with sarcasm, that I was unlikely to melt. The criticism didn’t stop, and developed into a full-scale argument. Upset, I stormed off toward home. While clearly of minor importance, this Yom Kippur argument in the lobby of Temple Beth El got my mind racing and stoked a latent teenage anger. “These people spend so much time telling us about the importance of Jewish continuity yet won’t let me observe the laws on Yom Kippur by simply walking home after services. Why do they care what I do anyway? It’s all for show and appearance. Perhaps I make them feel guilty. It’s easier for them to convince themselves that it’s not safe or prudent to walk.” Harsh, judgmental, and self-righteous as they were, these were the thoughts that filled my mind that Yom Kippur eve.

The exertion, solitude, and fresh air on the walk home provided an opportunity to calm down. Feeling guilty about my self-serving harsh thoughts about others, I retreated to my room. I had to make a decision. My soul cried out for a meaningful expression of a connected, purpose-driven life, in stark contrast to the systemic materialism and egoism I often perceived as immanent all around me. Yet even many of the people at the synagogue, let alone in other walks of my life, were actively and forcefully holding me back. I wanted badly to talk to a friend who would understand, but a mix of shyness, the privacy of faith, and a generalized embarrassment prevented me from doing so. Who would understand, anyway? And so I engaged in the first genuine act of prayer in my life. Emotionally in despair, I started to cry and began to mumble to God Himself. On dramatic cue, thunderstorms rolled in, and the flashes of lightning and rolling rumbles of thunder provided a sense of background comfort.

But then my body was seized. Frozen. Unable to move. Physically palpable, with an electricity that pulsed and tingled, I felt present, absolutely, in a way I never had before. Background noise and sensation faded suddenly to the fore, and the gaze of my mind focused intently, as if quickly adjusting binoculars into clear focus after frustrating blurriness. Still visually observing the wood panel of my bedroom wall, my mind moved beyond the sights to another place, a primordial place, brimming with an infinitely deep-seeming sense of sacred life, shrouded in mystery and permeating all things. Oscillating repeatedly between prominent feelings of intense attraction and dread that made me physically shaky and weak, I knew then as never before the awesome power and comforting touch of the Blessed Holy One. With curiosity and horror, I did not want the experience to end. Moments of indescribable clarity ensued from a non-verbal communication that was clearer than anything I’ve ever been told. Grasping on to the feelings, as if clutching the ankles of someone running away, this presence lifted away just as a powerful tornado ascends into the sky, leaving a misleading calm in its wake. I sat at the foot of my bed, staring out the window, noticing the odd combination of previously unnoticed rapid breathing, yet also a sense of sublime calm. I cried profusely, moved by the intense beauty of the moment, perhaps all moments, pained and stabbed by the tragedy of human existence and inescapable suffering too.

On that night, my life changed. I now had the courage to pursue a purpose-driven life; I could do no other. Change was now easier than stasis and required less bravery. All decisions seemed transformed by the desire to serve a greater Whole, to build bridges or connections, or dismantle old ones for the purpose of rebuilding in a different moment in a more suitable way. Nothing was the same for me, and never would be again. It’s hard (likely impossible) to explain, but I still know it as the truest thing I have ever experienced.

Spiritual Experience as a Primary Source of Truth in Orthodox Communities

Rav Kook, in the second chapter of Orot haTeshuva, describes two types of return to the Blessed Creator: gradual return (teshuva hadragit) and sudden return (teshuva pit’omit). When I read his description, I recognized my own experience:

Sudden return comes about as a result of a certain spiritual flash that enters the soul. At once, the person senses all the evil and ugliness of sin and he is converted into a new being; already he experiences inside himself a complete transformation for the better. This form of return dawns on a person through the grace of some inner spiritual force, whose traces point to the depths of the mysterious. . . . The higher expression of penitence comes about as a result of a flash of illumination of the all-good, the divine, the light of Him who abides in eternity. The universal soul, the spiritual essence, is revealed to us in all its majesty and holiness, to the extent that the human heart can absorb it. Indeed, is not the all of existence so good and so noble, and is not the good and the nobility in ourselves but an expression of our relatedness to the all? How then can we allow ourselves to become severed from the all, a strange fragment, detached like tiny grains of sand that are of no value? As a result of this perception, which is truly a divinely inspired perception, comes about return out of love, in the life of the individual and the life of society.[1]

There are a few takeaways worth highlighting in this context. Rav Kook promotes the importance of a thoroughly transformative spiritual experience as a desirable and divinely sanctioned meeting with the divine, through the inner depths of the soul. By delving into the recesses of our souls, we encounter the place where all souls meet, points of increased unity, the divine. Rav Kook also notes that authentic spiritual experience is not primarily isolating but must stem from and ultimately serve at its limit a sense of profound connection. Reading his words provided validation for me through shared experience, and helped me shed some of the insecurity I experienced around admitting, even to myself, that I had been touched by a soul-awakening experience.

My personal experience, though, touches on a deeper problem for me in the “life of the community.” In the Modern Orthodox communities I have tended to call home for approximately 15 years, spiritual experiences are generally viewed with deep skepticism or shunned altogether. Personal spiritual experiences are entirely subjective, and cannot easily be vetted for veracity, either experientially or morally. They tend to reinforce anti-nomian tendencies in a community that prizes strict observance of a comprehensive legal system. “Rabbi Hiyya bar Ami said in the name of Ulla: Since the day the Temple was destroyed, the Blessed Holy One has only one place in His world, the four cubits of halakha (Jewish law).”[2] Spiritual experiences promote questing and exploring, often raising difficult and agonizing questions for mainstream communities with conservative tendencies. Moreover, sudden and transformative spiritual experiences are unpredictable and relatively rare, making them a challenging source of authority and a difficult technology of religious education. Perhaps most importantly, in communities that prize rational deliberation, words like soul and spiritual are anathema and even embarrassing.  

But the times are indeed changing, and for good reasons too. Yes, there are pragmatic reasons for renewed acceptance of spiritual experience as a source of personal truth. Niche communities can ill-afford attrition, and Modern Orthodox communities have experienced the flight of those searching for contemplative and spiritual experience. Since the 1960s and 1970s. Hindu, Buddhist, and other eastern retreat centers across the United States are full of highly educated Jewish participants and teachers. Often, the teachers on silent retreats are all members of the tribe! Last spring, I had the opportunity to give a talk at the Vedanta Society of Providence, a Hindu Temple, on Jewish approaches to spiritual practice, as part of a panel that included a Sufi mystic and a Christian theologian. To my surprise, there were dozens if not hundreds of Jews who populated the audience, singing along to the Bhagavad Gita with knowledge and passion.

Additionally, we live in a society of skyrocketing anxiety, pressure, and insecurity. We have yet to seriously grapple or resolve core questions surrounding the role of an exponentially expansive technological revolution. We are witnessing a dramatic shift in the paradigm that places career and profession as the main or sole source of value for an increasing number of men and women. Many are concerned that humanity doesn’t provide a reasonable response to our own self-destructive environmental time-bomb. Whether we can listen, collaborate, and cooperate with serious effect, even if our own existence might depend on it, is in reasonable doubt.

Against this backdrop, enlightenment notions of Truth are being supplanted by the notion of socially or linguistically agreed upon truths, determined by context and subjective individual and communal experience. Modernism was broadly defined by reason and was ruled by Descartes’ notion of individual thought. What is commonly called postmodernism, while loosely defined, has served as a corrective to very real excesses. Rational thought as the primary feature of human living tends to ignore questions of meaning and spirituality that are deeply ingrained human needs. Rationalism exudes a confidence that turns to hubris, ignoring the limitations of rational and critical modes of thinking. Our ability to determine truth based on rationalism alone has been undermined. There is a change in the way we view truth, from objective to subjective; this is a major shift that must be noted and accommodated in Modern Orthodox communities.

Truths have all too often turned out to be influenced by the people and classes of people who impose their authority. They have failed to bring promised riches, be they material or spiritual, in ways that rightfully accommodate principles of justice, fairness, and responsibility to large sections of the populace. In Orthodox communities of all stripes, a daily litany of sexual, financial, and moral scandals have plagued lay and religious leaders of our most venerated institutions. Reality has increasingly confirmed the postmodernist thesis that altruism is often self-serving, and Truth often just a disguise. Once we admit that the identity of the people that make the rules affect, in intrinsic ways, the nature of those rules, feminist and other critiques grow stronger. If women have been excluded from the class of those with agency to design our system of Jewish praxis, halakha is lacking in a fundamental way. Thus, it is no surprise that the inclusion of female clergy has become the issue with generational ground support and the change with the most traction on the ground.

These changes often started as challenges from the laity, but have ascended and gained a compassionate hearing among many leaders, leading to shifts on a variety of planes. No longer is autonomy vested in the hands of the few, and institutions such as Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, JOFA, the International Rabbinic Fellowship, and the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals have served as a communal counterweight. Explicitly, they have stressed the importance of inclusion, particularly of women, and local autonomy, re-offering local autonomy of diverse Jewish communities.

This shift has been much discussed. But there is an equally important spiritual shift occurring right under our noses. Just as classical models of diversity and local autonomy are advocated for, prior models of spiritual experience and truth are resurfacing. Mussar,,[3] the nineteenth-century movement to rigorously apply Jewish ethics in a lived way, has become pervasively popular, mixed with a tinge of positive psychology and other modern psychological teachings. Hassidut[4] and its profound exploration of the emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs of Jews going through difficult and anxious change resonates once more. Of course, focus has shifted, and certain offensive or untrue elements have been de-emphasized or dropped. Both move out of the head, emphasizing the body, heart, lived experience, and ultimate unity of all things, and are reflections of new senses of human need and of truth.

In an oft-quoted teaching, the Maggid of Mezeritch commented on the talmudic notion of truth. “The seal of the Blessed Holy One is truth. The letters that comprise this word consist of the first, middle, and last letters of the alphabet, alluding to the fact that Blessed Holy One surrounds all worlds, fills all worlds from within, and provides space for all worlds, thus there is no place devoid of his presence.”[5] Yes, this teaching provides support for the notion of transcendent Truth from his perspective. But it also provides the foundation for the immanent truth of the soul. Rav Kook’s notion of sudden spiritual enlightenment is rooted not in reaching above but rather in a deep dive to the depths of the soul, a meeting place of divinity inside each of us, and one that connects us profoundly to all things. This, for him, is the primary way of actually accessing truth. Accessible immanence is only possible if God is immanent. Now, the degree to which the Maggid’s teaching is subversive comes into focus. Truth, often thought of as transcendent and absolute, is brought into our world through immanence and subjectivity; it is inherent in the very spelling of the word!

In the United States, the vast majority of those in positions of Orthodox leadership have chosen, to date, to double down, rejecting and critiquing postmodern notions of truth, usually in unserious and mocking ways. Most often, the critiques have been personal ad hominem attacks, rather than substantive discussions. Rabbi Shagar, by contrast, grappled thoughtfully and intentionally with these issues, paving the way for fair and open-minded responses that are not instinctively defensive or dismissive, albeit in an Israeli religious Zionist context. Describing his own faith, he wrote:

Wittgenstein asserted that “it is not how things are in the world that are mystical, but that it exists.” It is my understanding that his statement refers not to the physical-scientific world, but to a different one. Mysticism is the apprehension of a transcendent reality; it is faith . . . Human consciousness, with its dualism of subject and object, opens up a chasm between the world of belief and the outside world. Hence my assertion that faith is presence, activity . . . And truly, my faith is mystical; it is a wordless, letterless faith. It is my lot to believe without telling others (in this context, I am an Other) that I believe, much as the kabbalists cleaved to the Almighty with ovanta deliba, “the understanding of the heart.” This psychological technique or practice precedes language and grants it its vitality. In its second phase, belief manifests as a life of faith. It is compelled to function in a world of duality and if I overlook its origins in the Real (for instance, by trying to demonstrate its objective truth), I destroy it.[6]

Rabbi Shagar’s description evokes the techniques of mindfulness in his use of the terms “real” and “pre-linguistic.”

Modern techniques of mindfulness train the practitioner to compassionately observe the present moment with awareness, rather than through thoughts, emotions, moods. In mindfulness practice, one does not fight with or ignore thoughts, emotions, and the like when they arise. Rather, the practice is to take note, to turn towards what is, and return, again and again, to compassionate awareness of the present moment. Most frequently, the breath (in sitting meditation) or the physical sensations of the body (in walking meditation) are used as objects of intention, as a pragmatic proxy for returning to the present moment with awareness. As Rabbi Jonathan Slater describes:

This is mindfulness: the capacity to see clearly, with calm and awakened heart, the truth of each moment of our lives . . . When I see my life with the greatest clarity, I experience the presence of God in each moment, even in pain and failure. I feel joy in being an expression of God’s intent in creation. Mindful attention to all life has helped me to know great compassion for other people, for their suffering, and also an expansive love for other people, for their dogged will to make a meaningful life.[7]

In a Jewish context, awareness of the present moment rests its authority in notions of divine immanence central to kabbalastic and Hassidic thought, and to practical notions of spiritual practice prized in the writings of the Maggid of Mezeritch, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, and of Rabbi Kook (as seen above).

Conclusion

For me, a renewed practice of mindfulness meditation and a more meditative prayer practice have become the consistent daily practices to remind me, through experience, of the deep spiritual awareness that once froze my body and transformed my life. I try to live the rest of my life, Jewishly and otherwise, however imperfectly, with this at the core. When I find myself drifting from lived awareness with the capacity for compassion, this practice—one of immanence—is the one best suited to change my reaction, in the short-term and long-term, and to help me live with knowledge and meaning.

As Rabbi Shagar noted, “[p]hilosophies and outlooks are, in this context, nothing but rationalizations—apologetics even—whose sole role is to justify what has been arrived at, and which must thus be regarded with a certain wariness. They are not the substance of faith but explanations for it, thus they are ancillary to it and always involve a degree of duality.”[8] True faith, then, is a transformed life that stems from cultivated experiences of awe. It dives not toward isolation but toward unity at the core; it connects people and things in the most real of ways. It is responsive to each moment, latent with divinity, and holds as its motto that which Moses proclaimed to Pharaoh. “Our own livestock, too, shall go along with us—not a hoof shall remain behind: for we must select from it for the worship of our God, and we shall not know with what we are to worship God until we arrive there.”[9]

It is incumbent upon the Modern Orthodox community to consider whether or how it can become a postmodern Orthodox community. Failure to do so will result in divergence from both current mada (academic thinking) and amkha (the expressed needs of so many individuals). Let this essay serve as a vote for spiritual experience as a source of soul-truth, and let us not only welcome but seek to cultivate and share what it means to live these truths together.

Introduction

The serious and very practical question of permitting fertility treatments in general and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in particular has been widely debated among Jewish circles in recent years.[i] Naturally, several opinions that surfaced were subsequently presented in a recent issue of a well-reputed halakhic journal.[ii] We feel, however, that there are a number of points pertaining to the discussion of sex selection within Jewish law that require further clarification. In this piece, we intend to facilitate, or at least initiate, the process of better understanding the moral minefield introduced by the advent of reproductive technologies.

Alleviating Initial Suspicions and Doubts

The arguments hitherto suggested were reminiscent of the debate of several decades ago when, in the summer of 1978, Louise Brown became the first child to be born via in vitro fertilization (IVF) technology. The onset and widespread use of IVF that soon ensued called into question a myriad of ethical, moral, and religious concerns. Some religiously affiliated individuals were quick to voice their opposition to IVF, calling attention to the possibility for mistakes to occur behind the closed doors of fertility clinics and laboratories. Those who managed to document high-profile errors only exacerbated the uncertainty involved and contributed to the general unease of rabbinic decisors who were then beginning to grapple with the new and potentially problematic procedures.

As a result of the increasing ambiguity over the permissibility of assisted reproductive technology (ART), the Puah Institute—a leading Jewish fertility organization in Israel—instituted supervision services at fertility clinics and laboratories in Israel and across the globe. Puah arranged for a trained network of mashgihim (professional supervisors) to oversee the entire fertility process and workup. From initial treatments to eventual birth, the mashgihim ensured that all fertility-related procedures were conducted in strict accordance with Jewish law. As expected, rabbinic decisors followed by developing more lenient attitudes and adopting more permissive approaches in tackling the medical, ethical, and religious concerns incurred by ART.

This implementation of halakhic supervision, endorsed by rabbinic authorities and lauded by the Jewish community, is nothing less than a small revolution within medical-religious arena. A rather simple halakhic solution effectively changed both the perceptions and the nature of rabbinic rulings, thus blazing the path for future progress in similar areas involving an interface between technology and halakha. Rabbinic supervision proved reliable and consistent. Most significantly, it demonstrated that previous suspicions can be allayed with prudent precautions and thorough measures. This sort of pragmatic approach could also be part of a resolution in the case at hand.

Fear of the Slippery Slope

Some of the other opponents to ART were not so much concerned with the potential chaos of mistakes committed in the lab; their worry, instead, was of a more general nature—that is, the fear of the slippery slope. While virtually every innovative technology brings with it the potential for a slippery slope, it is unclear exactly what these critics feared. It could be sensed, however, that there was general unease in the air. Instead of laying claim to specific arguments and coherent propositions, this cohort of critics seemed merely troubled by the permissive atmosphere in and of itself.  They obsessed over the lenient positions being formulated in response to ART and worried that the momentum was heading in a ruinous and disastrous direction.

In one particular conversation with such a rabbinic decisor, he related that although  he had attempted to hold back the “tide,” the people had turned the tide and voted with their feet. In today’s society, he continued, there is very little one can do to change the scenario of infertile couples undergoing IVF and ART despite the initial opposition of certain rabbinic authorities.  The “tide” referenced here—and why its resistance to change was problematic—is ambiguous at best. Again, there appears to be general discomfort emanating from some authorities without any real, transparent arguments or rational explanations for dissent.

It is interesting to note that in a personal conversation with Bob Edwards (the British physiologist and pioneer of reproductive medicine who was instrumental in the first successful human IVF birth) I asked whether in the early days of IVF anyone had accurately conceived of the enormity and impact that ART would have in terms of reshaping our future conceptions of reproduction, procreation, and lineage. He replied in the affirmative, recalling that deep philosophical questions regarding fertility procedures were immediately raised, challenged, and analyzed from the very first drafted paper on the subject. We concurred in our approach to facing problems head-on, opening intellectual forums for reasoned and well-seasoned debate, and seeking necessary precuations to prevent sliding down the slippery slope. Preempting problems, experience continuously confirms, is always preferable to damage control.

There is a vital lesson not to be missed here. The fear of the slippery slope is a valid one. Leon Kass, an American bioethicist, once remarked: “Once you put human life in human hands, you have started on a slippery slope that knows no boundaries.” Indeed, unchecked and unpaved territory is frightening, but only at first. With boundaries intact and cautious measures in effect, the fear and mystery that surround the slope begin to fall away. Human beings advance only through experimentation and trial and error. Humanity reaches great heights only by climbing the stairs, forging ahead, and taking the initial plunge. Had the slippery slope deterred scientists in the past century, many more once-infertile couples would still be yearning for children. If anything, the slippery slope helps to remind us of the important role that boundaries and borders play in our lives, but it ought not to limit and restrict the possibilities for great technological innovations. Our ability and success to create and innovate is far too strong to be curtailed by paying much attention to the argument of the slippery slope.

Obligation vs. Permission

In debating the merits of sex selection—that is, the in vitro selection of either a genetically male or female embryo for subsequent implantation into the gestating womb—there seems to be an unfortunate mix-up of two disparate issues, which are neither synonymous ideologically nor halakhically. On one hand, there exists the question as to whether a man who has children of only one sex is obliged to undergo some form of sex selection to ensure the birth of a child of the opposite sex. In other words, is the man who is commanded to “be fruitful and multiply” obligated to employ sex selection technology to guarantee that his offspring consist of, at minimum, one boy and one girl? On the other hand, there is a distinct question as to whether one is allowed to enlist for sex selection as a valid method of family balancing or for any other desired reason. That is to say, barring any sense of obligation, is one halakhically permitted to make use of sex-selection technology? These are two distinct questions that ought not to be intertwined; obligation connotes something entirely different from permissibility.

The Shulhan Arukh, the primary centerpiece of authoritative Jewish law, as well as other codes of normative halakhic behavior, do not sanction the notion of sex selection—but they do not expressly condemn it either. The absence of any imperative mandating the necessity to take any and every possible step to ensure both male and female sexes among one’s children strongly suggests that there is at least no obligation to undergo a process of sex selection. Therefore, a man with children of only one sex type (only males or only females) dutifully fulfils the mitzvah of peru u’revu.[1] While there were certainly no advanced technologies of sex selection during the lifetime of the author of the Shulhan Arukh, failure to make mention of any such obligation, even if only imaginably conceivable, is quite telling. Obligation may not be the case, but the option of permissibility cannot and should not be ruled out. Previous published matter on the subject, we note, demonstrated a weakness in investing far too much time and effort in the obligation aspect while neglecting to report on the equally, if not more significant, aspect of permissibility[iii].

In fact, in our clinical experience with dozens of couples seeking PGD for sex selection, couples rarely cite the biblical injunction of peru u’revu as an impetus to pursue sex selection. More often than not, couples generally elect PGD for sex selection for reasons entirely unrelated to halakha—be it of social, cultural, or personal preference. Some individuals, for example, express the existential need to have a boy or a girl as their sole motivation. Quite interestingly, and not surprisingly, some religious couples who desire a child of a specific sex have the faulty assumption that it is their absolute biblical duty to produce one boy and one girl through whatever means technologically feasible. Ultimately, they tend to forgo treatment upon hearing an enlightened version of the halakha and are pleased to learn that the halakha speaks in no place of a requirement to defer to sex selection as a means of securing both male and female children. 

Thus, the question of obligation is a moot point.  It is essential that these two aspects—obligation and permission—be separated and filtered out before the application of appropriate halakhic principles. The focus of discussion must shift from obligation to permission in analyzing the use of PGD for sex selection. Of course, when extricating this or any other halakhic inquiry, the approach should be one that assumes permissibility unless demonstrated otherwise. The burden of proof then lies on the shoulders of those who utterly dismiss and disallow the procedure of sex selection. So, what are the halakhic prohibitions, if any, against sex selection?

Jewish Medical Ethics vs. Medical Ethics

It is worth mentioning the following brief points of comment. In the series of articles that appeared in the journal Tradition, one of the articles made reference to widely accepted Western ethical considerations and principles. Although Judaism as a whole accepts, welcomes, and identifies with the major ethical principles (autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice) that govern medicine in the West, there certainly come times when normative Jewish thought and law diverge with classical secular ethics. Such dilemmas, for example, arise particularly in the form of life-and-death decisions that conflict with a patient’s autonomy.  Jewish medical ethics most drastically differs from secular medical ethics in its source of validity and working methodology. Jewish ethics, along with its other commandments, laws, and statutes have their source and validity deeply rooted in the divine, as expressed in the biblical and oral law. In addition, Jewish law strongly adheres to precedent as a basis for formulating a stance in each situation. Whereas secular ethics searches primarily to apply the same major recurring ethical principles to any given scenario, Jewish medical ethics places a large emphasis on evaluating each situation independently, and only then applying the most applicable and appropriate principles, as grounded in Jewish literature. 

Is IVF Dangerous?

Some opponents of PGD for sex selection opine that this procedure is dangerous and therefore unquestionably forbidden according to Jewish law. Indeed, the Torah is very concerned that one must distance oneself from harm and even potential danger. Yet, it has been clearly demonstrated that there is almost negligible danger involved with PGD. The small magnitude of risk associated with PGD is most similar to the risks of IVF (and studies actually show that IVF risks are more commonly linked with the underlying causes of infertility rather than with the procedure itself). Dr. Abraham Steinberg, pediatric neurologist and author of Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics, suggests that crossing a street is statistically more dangerous than any ART procedure and, not shockingly, street crossing has yet to be outlawed.

It should be noted that Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook originally sought to forbid traveling in cars for purely recreational purposes. He considered “joy rides” to be dangerous and buttressed this claim by pointing to the staggering rates of injuries and fatalities caused by automobile accidents. Rabbi Kook only ruled that driving was problematic, however, if it served no teleological reason. His ruling did not extend to instances beyond recreational driving; he outright permitted purposeful driving, even if unintended for fulfillment of a Torah obligation, so long as it was within the framework of normative human behavior.

If the risks of IVF and PGD are indeed comparable to those of pedestrian street crossings, as initially proposed by Steinberg, then we could reasonably assume that ART poses too minimal a danger to ban its meaningful efficacy and success rate. Some may be quick to retort that IVF is unique since it is performed with the intention to fulfill the biblical duty of procreation and, as such, any potential danger may be more immune to warrant prohibition.[2] But it is unclear if one may technically fulfill the commandment of procreation via ART. If IVF is not an acceptable form of carrying out the commandment of procreation, the argument goes, then we might be left with the inclination to forbid both IVF and PGD procedures.

It is widely accepted, however, to permit the use of IVF despite possibility of associated risks. The underlying reason for this allowance brings us to our next point concerning sex selection.

The Definition of Illness

It is fair to say that ART is an elective process. Halakhic technicalities may prevent us from characterizing the outcome as a fulfillment of procreation, and thus the element of risk enters into the equation more potently. There is still ample reason, however, to permit ART despite its elective nature.

The majority of contemporary rabbinic decisors do allow IVF and other methods of reproductive medicine. This touches upon the very notion of how we define illness in the first place. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”[iv] This definition has not been altered since 1948 and has survived accusations that “the perfect definition of health espoused by the WHO is Utopian and removed from reality.”[v] Some posit that the WHO’s version of health is more a definition of happiness than of health.[vi] Understanding the implications of “health” is essential since the manner in which we choose to visit health directly affects our perception of illness.

Is there a unique Jewish or a halakhic vision of illness? Various talmudic sources point to illnesses that come with different degrees of severity and with distinct definitions. The sick person is generally obliged to study the Torah and obey the vast majority of commandments. There are some examples, however, when the ill individual is exempt from religious duties. The sick are exempt from sitting in the sukkah on the holiday of Sukkoth and from the requirement of appearing at the Temple before God on the festivals. Additionally, an ill person is exempt from standing in the presence of a Torah scholar and from donning the ritual tefillin.

Interestingly, the halakha actually differs in its depiction of the ill person from one source to another. The ill person exempted from the sukkah need not be dangerously ill and extends to one “who is in no danger, even if he has a pain in his eye and a headache.” This exemption is derived from the nature of the condition to “dwell in the sukkah as one would dwell in his own house” (“Teshvu k’en taduru”). The ill person who is exempt from trekking out to Jerusalem for the festivals is one who cannot walk.

The ill person who is permitted to remain sitting before a learned scholar is either one who is entrenched in his own pain and unhappiness or one who is lying on his or her deathbed. The ill person who is exempt from tefillin refers to an individual with digestive difficulties (there are other opinions that suggest that general suffering due to any illness exempts one from tefillin due to the impossibility of proper attention and mindset).

Clearly, considerations for defining illness are specifically dependent on the sort of obligation in question. It is also evident that a life-threatening disease or debilitating medical condition is not a necessary condition to exempt an ill person from the abovementioned commandments.

Elsewhere, in a discussion regarding someone who is terminally ill, Maimonides relates: “One who has a headache or a pain in his eyes, leg, or hand is considered to be well for all matters connected to his business dealings. But, the ill person whose entire body is weakened due to his illness or someone who cannot walk outside and is confined to the bed is called a shekhiv me’ra.” Here, Maimonides presents a scenario of an individual who experiences discomfort and mild pain, but whose condition is not sufficiently severe to classify as an illness.

The WHO’s somewhat deficient definition and the above cited halakhic sources indicate that even something as seemingly simple and basic a task as defining illness is more complex than first meets the eye.

In a past article, we explored the opinions of several rabbinic decisors that perceive infertility as an illness. Beyond the physiological incapability of naturally conceiving a child, infertility is often accompanied by serious psychological distress and insecurities. Thus, illness is not merely defined in physiological terms. The halakha sympathizes, empathizes, and acknowledges the internal frustration of the infertile individual and/or couple. Accordingly, psychological distress and discomfort account for a condition to be regarded as an illness within Jewish law.

This mental and emotional pain—indeed, a natural component of coping with the reality of not being capable to conceive naturally—serves as the primary basis to permit this elective surgery and others like it. Though there is no medical necessity, elective surgery in halakha is often grounded in justifications that highlight the relevant psychological factors. Despite lack of medical necessity, there is room to permit virtually any surgery that would alleviate serious psychological suffering (assuming there are no external contraindicating reasons and/or significant possibility of harm in electing the surgery).

Is Sex Selection Permitted in Cases of Psychological Pain?

Sex selection via PGD could likewise be rendered permissible. Most couples that opt to undergo the sex selection process do so because of psychological reasons.   Before outright sanction of sex selection, it might be worthwhile to establish guidelines to determine when and to what degree psychological distress or desire warrants its use. But, then the tricky question obviously becomes: who and how can one adequately determine what amounts to sufficient psychological pain to permit an elective treatment? May parents experiencing an extended period of secondary infertility undergo ART?

Searching for a similar precedent, the Talmud (Shabbat 50b) discusses a man’s removal of a bodily scab. The rabbis debate if this practice is a strictly female activity that would be forbidden for males as a corollary to the general prohibition of men wearing women’s clothing. The Talmud concludes that it is forbidden to remove a scab as a method of beautification (an activity associated with females), but it is within the confines of halakha to remove the scab in order alleviate suffering or pain. The Tosafot commentators question what sort of pain is necessary in order to allow the removal of the scab; does embarrassment of presenting oneself with a scab on the face qualify as “pain”? Tosafot emphatically answer in the affirmative, even going so far as to insist, “there is no greater pain than this” in reference to psychological pain. Emotional pain and psychological stress cannot go unnoticed and unacknowledged. What one experiences as shameful and embarrassing might not register as such with another individual. This fact only tells us that emotions and psychology could be subjective and personal. Indeed, psychological pain may be highly subjective, but is real and valid nonetheless.

This subjective aspect becomes apparent from some clinical cases that Puah has helped mediate. Among the scenarios were the following cases: a kohen who needed a sperm donor and was absolutely unwilling to undergo the procedure unless guaranteed future anonymity (i.e. by selecting for a girl), a woman suffering from depression after having three children of the “wrong” gender, and a couple who had six children of the same gender and were desperate to conceive a child of opposite sex. Invariably, upon presenting these cases, there is always at least one person in the audience who will argue that it is our duty to convince such parties that it is not so terrible not to have a child of the other sex. Skeptics suggest that the kohen must come to terms with revealing the truth of a sperm donation in the case of a male child, the woman must seek psychological help to convince her that having another child of the same gender is not the end of the world, and the couple must accept the reality and plausibility of conceiving a seventh child of the same sex. In a word, critics claim, such individuals must suppress their inner worries, tensions, anxieties, and pressures. Life is fine and elective PGD for sex selection is uncalled for. Seek therapy, work it out, and get over it.

What these critics and naysayers fail to grasp, however, is that our own personal intuitions, or anyone’s individual feelings, are totally irrelevant here. In light of the Talmud’s depiction of shame and embarrassment as a legitimate form of pain, we must recognize that anguish and distress come in all different sizes, shapes, and colors. Where pain—any form of pain, be it physiological or psychological—could be lessened, we must strive to do so through rational and scientifically available means. It is far too easy to quickly dismiss someone’s situation as trivial or petty. It requires a certain degree of fortitude and integrity to see one’s pain for what it is and to acknowledge one’s distress as duly legitimate. Humans do not experience pain equally. Some hurt a little more, others a little less. What makes humanity great, however, is its ability to breed two drastically disparate individuals who nevertheless understand and acknowledge each other’s personal, yet equally genuine, concerns and emotions.

Conclusion

Artificial reproductive technologies, and PGD in particular, call into question numerous moral and halakhic issues. As science continues to innovate and discover, it is vital that the Jewish community not veer away from grappling with the challenges, if any, posed by new reproductive techniques. Instead, we ought to embrace the challenges and engage in meaningful dialogue. For some, it is tempting to brush aside modern technology and cast it as antithetical to the letter and spirit of Jewish law. Through serious research and scholarship, however, more often than not it becomes clear that Judaism invites and welcomes technological and scientific advancement. As we have hopefully demonstrated, there is ample room within Jewish law for permitting the practice of sex selection through PGD.

We are confronted daily basis with choices that require us to consult others before making a decision. We may call a lawyer for advice on a legal issue or an accountant for advice on our taxes. We do this because although we may be very good at what we do, no one person knows everything—and it is helpful to be guided by a professional who deals with the issue at hand on a regular basis. If one has a sink that is leaking or an electrical outlet that is malfunctioning, one might ask an electrician or plumber for advice, and will likely follow the advice if it sounds reasonable. When it comes to issues regarding our health—and specifically issues that have significant impact on life-and-death situations—we likely consult with a physician.

 Interestingly, in serious medical situations, many observant Jews will seek a consultation with a rabbi for advice as well, to ensure that the medical decision they are making is in accordance with Jewish law and ethics. Jewish law is based on the will of God as transmitted through the Bible and understood by our sages. Therefore, all decisions a Jew makes must be in accordance with this law. The law, however, can at times be ambiguous or difficult to apply to modern medical issues. We try our best to extrapolate from what was written by our sages, which often leads to differing views on what Jewish law would prescribe in different medical situations. It is surprising however, that even in situations where the vast majority of rabbis are in agreement with what the law should be, the vast majority of laypeople believe otherwise. This is not because they disagree with the rabbinic judgments; rather it is often because they are unaware of them. Rulings on medical issues do not get published in everyday books that are found in the synagogue, and rumor becomes the most efficient medium to spread incorrect concepts.

 In my practice, I have noticed three possible causes as to why a patient may receive improper advice from his or her rabbi regarding medical decision-making. It is important to note that I have had many positive experiences with the interaction between rabbi, doctor, and patient; however the cases below are meant to illustrate the times the system fails. Although the current system often does work, and provides an excellent service to both doctors and patients, there are still too many times when it does not. The purpose here is to evaluate why some situations are not handled properly and how we can learn from our past mistakes for the benefit of the Jewish community in the future.

The first issue is simply not knowing the law. Often, what the general public believes to be the law, is not actually the law. Consider the following scenario: A Jewish man is in a car accident and is brought to the hospital and placed on a respirator because he is not breathing on his own after hitting his head. The remainder of the body is intact, his heart is still beating, blood is flowing through the veins and all organs are functioning well. A neurologist performs an exam and determines the person to be brain dead. The doctor recommends removing the respirator and all intravenous fluids and sustenance, which will inevitably cause the breathing to stop, leading to cardiac arrest and the death of the other organs. If one took a poll of the general community, one would likely find that many people incorrectly believe that according to Jewish law this person is still alive and the machines cannot be turned off. Most rabbis have accepted that brain death is equivalent to death in Jewish law and that in this case the machines should be turned off. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel (both Ashkenazic and Sephardic) has therefore legislated it into Israeli law and once brain death is determined, all medical intervention should cease, despite a continuing heartbeat, and the body should be buried as soon as possible (ASSIA – Jewish Medical Ethics, Vol. I, No. 2, May 1989, pp. 2–10). The only intervention permissible at this point would be to harvest the viable organs. Leaving the brain dead body on a respirator or continuing to manipulate the body with medical intervention is considered disrespectful to the body and is against Jewish Law. (Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 339:1) It is unclear to me why, although the majority of rabbis have ruled one way, many of lay people believe the other. This often leads to a situation when in an attempt to follow Jewish law, one will actually be transgressing the law by simply not knowing the ruling of the chief rabbinate and going on assumptions based on what popular opinion says the law is.

A second problem that arises is when we seek a rabbinic consultation and are only presented with one view of the law and are advised accordingly. When seeking a consultation, one not only seeks the opinion of the person they are consulting with but often expects to be informed of different opinions on the matter and then advised based on the personal views of the consultant. This holds true in many fields of consultation. However, when seeking a rabbinic consultation, rabbis often present the law based on one view without presenting the other opinions available. At times this advice may be following only one view of the law while differing from the majority view. In medicine, there are times when there is disagreement among the experts regarding the best treatment. A responsible doctor will present both sides to the patient and may even explain why he personally believes one view to be preferable to the other. But it would not be appropriate to present the case as having only one solution that all agree on. The same holds true for rabbis. If there is more than one acceptable opinion on the matter, the person who is coming for a consultation expects to be given all the information available. This is especially true when a rabbi gives advice based on a sole opinion, which disagrees with that of the majority. Even if the rabbi chooses to follow the view of the minority position, he should at least inform the patient that there is a majority view that disagrees.  This situation usually arises when most people know of the minority view and it is therefore easy to accept when told to them by the rabbi as it conforms to what they in any case thought to be the law. An example of this situation is the issue of abortion. Again, if one were to poll the average Orthodox Jew on the acceptability of abortion in Jewish Law, the majority would plainly state that the fetus is a life and it is therefore forbidden to terminate the pregnancy according to Jewish law. Some may go so far as to state that it may even be tantamount to murder. Although this is the correct Catholic view, it does not accord with Jewish law. There is essentially no sage that suggests that the fetus is considered a life and aborting it would be considered murder. This would mean that if that were the case, then someone would deserve the death penalty for performing an abortion, since there would be no difference in status before or after birth. In actuality, none of the early sources of Judaism from the Bible through the Mishna and Talmud make any mention of forbidding abortion. On the contrary, it seems from the Torah that if one caused another women to abort against her will, he simply pays a fine (Exodus 21:22). This is not to say we encourage wholesale abortions at anytime in pregnancy for any purpose, but the majority of rabbis do allow abortions in early pregnancy (some allow within 40 days of conception which is the equivalent of about the eighth week of pregnancy while others allow up to three months from conception which is about the 15^th week of pregnancy) for a host of different reasons including medical or psychological stress and the need to abort after a rape or adulterous union. Again, the chief rabbinate of Israel, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, follow the majority view and have ruled as such in Israel. Interestingly, Rabbi Eliezer Waldenburg, a highly respected Ashkenazic rabbi has allowed abortions even in the seventh to ninth month since there is no real source within Jewish Law for only allowing it up to 40 days or three months (Tzitz Eliezer 13:102). These are arbitrary numbers that do not have any significant biological basis. With this introduction one can understand how problematic this can become should someone get improper advice from her rabbinic consultant. Imagine the young girl that is raped, or the married woman who was raped or had an affair that becomes pregnant and goes to her rabbi for advice. I have seen cases of rabbis that advise her that she must continue the pregnancy since abortion is a transgression of Jewish law and hence the will of God. Without providing all the information, this young girl will now have to care for this child her whole life and will always be a reminder of the horrible way she conceived. The married woman will give birth to a mamzer who will be forbidden to marry an ordinary Jew. All this could have been avoided if the woman simply had received the proper consultation.

We see similar problems when dealing with the issue of abortion for a baby with a genetic malformation. Many rabbis have permitted abortion in these situations; even if it is not assured that the baby will be born with a defect but only has a high probability of that likelihood. Different rabbis have varying opinions about when and under what circumstances an abortion is permissible. The most lenient view is that of Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli (Amud Hayemini 32). He permits abortion to prevent potential psychological stress to the mother or the potential child. He goes so far as to rule that even if the sole problem is a genetic malformation that will only affect his looks, an abortion is permitted as it may cause others to look at him in such a way that would produce psychological stress. He states that there is no greater pain than this and he reminds us that in Jewish law, emotional pain is considered even more serious than physical pain. This is very different from the view held by Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. Although Rabbi Feinstein recognizes the importance and need for premarital testing for Tay Sachs, he unfortunately, did not go one step further. He does write that when one's health is potentially in danger, and a genetic test can avert or alleviate that danger, the test must be taken. He therefore discourages carrier couples from marrying since this will lead to a 25 percent chance at each pregnancy of having a child with Tay Sachs (a debilitating progressive disorder that gradually leads to loss of mental and physical function, and at the peak of the symptoms the child goes blind, has seizures, and suffers in a hospital bed as the parents look on helplessly). This is why he appropriately supports premarital testing and admits the need to avoid giving birth to a child with Tay Sachs. However, situations have arisen where premarital testing was not done, or where testing may have been done but the couple felt a strong desire and commitment to each other that they decided to get married in any case. In these situations, the must make a choice on how to proceed with childbearing. They can risk having children with Tay Sachs, or they can opt to perform prenatal testing while the mother is in early stages of pregnancy, so that if it’s found that the baby has Tay Sachs they can abort the pregnancy, within the appropriate time frame as defined by Jewish law, thus saving the future child and the family from this pain. Rabbi Feinstein ruled that families in this situation must go through with the pregnancy, thereby creating a child that is destined to pain and suffering. This ruling seems to contradict his usual mode of requiring us to use medical technology in order to preserve and improve quality of life. What is most surprising is that according to traditional Judaism there is no law against performing abortions even on a healthy baby found in any of the early sources of Jewish law. Rabbi Feinstein forbade the abortion not on legal grounds, but on philosophical grounds. He felt that we are not in a position to play God, and we can always hope for a miracle that this baby’s genes will somehow miraculously change and he will not have the disease. This is again surprising as it seems to contradict what we know from the Talmud, that in general we do not rely on miracles and specifically in pregnancy we are taught by our sages that a baby’s genes cannot change and therefore it is improper to pray for the gender of the baby once this has already been determined (Berakhot 60a, Shulhan Arukh Orah Hayyim 230:1). Rabbi Feinstein also allows and even requires one, to “play God” when it comes to other areas of medicine and treatment, but mysteriously not in this situation.  

In addition to this philosophical issue, Rabbi Feinstein defends his position based on a mystical tradition. According to one view, a soul cannot achieve complete perfection until it has been placed in a body and has been born. In order to assure that this fetus’s soul (if it has one) is able to enter the world to come, Rabbi Feinstein requires a mother to carry the pregnancy to term. Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg took issue with Rabbi Feinstein in a heated written debate (Tzitz Eliezer 14:100). He argued that we do not even know if that mystical concept is correct as it is just one opinion, and that even if that were correct, who gave us the obligation to assure that every soul is born and goes to the afterlife, or even the right to purposefully continue a pregnancy that would ultimately lead to the pain and suffering of the future child and the family? It should be noted, that although, Rabbi Waldenberg allowed abortions in situations such as these even into the ninth month of pregnancy, most rabbis have adopted stances allowing abortions only in the first trimester at various time points. There is no rabbi that has forbidden abortion outright in all circumstances. Although the Catholic religion did forbid abortion in all circumstances as they deemed the fetus a full human life, it is clear that Judaism has never held this approach, as the fetus does not have full human status before delivery. Since the fetus is not an independent human life, and is simply a part of the mother, it should be treated as any other body part that is ill and requires surgical intervention. It is common knowledge that finding the best possible mate is a difficult task. With Rabbi Waldenberg’s approach, even if we discourage Tay Sachs carrier couples from marrying, we at least do not have to ban it completely, and in circumstances where the potential marriage is beneficial for the couple, we are able to allow the marriage and still prevent suffering of future offspring. Again, we can now understand the situations that have arisen where a woman was pregnant with a Tay Sachs baby and went to her rabbi for a consultation who only informed her of Rabbi Feinstein’s view without disclosing the other opinion.

Another common problem is when a rabbi is consulted regarding issues he may not be familiar with and/or may not have full knowledge of. A scenario that has occurred in my practice several times is when a rabbi is consulted and he does not seek out or is not interested in having all the information. As an example, a child has ADHD and has significant difficulty in both his Judaic and secular studies to the point that he is failing and is not progressing academically. This often leads to poor self-esteem and lack of self-confidence. In a situation such as this I have recommended a trial with a stimulant medication that has been found to effectively correct the chemical imbalance, thereby allowing the child to succeed academically. In addition to academic improvement these children typically improve their overall quality of life. This is secondary not only to their improved education but also to improved confidence and self-esteem. These children are sometimes quite impulsive and can often experience physical injury due to their symptoms as well. The decision on whether or not to treat is done only after fully evaluating the child and receiving information from several sources, including the school, on how these symptoms are affecting this particular child. One such patient’s mother subsequent to the medical consultation, called a rebbe in Israel for a religious consultation on whether she can administer the medication to her child. Not willing to discuss the situation with the doctor and without personally knowing the family, the rebbe felt comfortable forbidding the woman from using the medication. This is unfortunate for the child who continues to fail in school and to have a dangerous level of impulsivity, and who has poor social interactions and growth due to these symptoms. Had the rabbi understood better how the disorder is affecting this particular child by getting to know him, through interactions and dialogue with the child’s teachers, family, and physicians, the rebbe may have been able to come to a more comprehensive ruling that takes into account all the factors involved. In another instance, the same rebbe approved a child in a similar situation to take the same medication. The rebbe did not know or meet either child, and yet made medical decisions on their behalf.

One of the most common medical questions asked of rabbis regards circumcision. One such question pertains to possibly delaying the circumcision due to jaundice. The common decision among rabbis and mohalim is to delay the circumcision based even on moderately elevated levels of bilirubin and jaundice. There is no medical reason to delay the circumcision in these cases and one is therefore delaying the circumcision, in these situations, unnecessarily. Medically, circumcisions are done routinely in these situations without adverse events, and there is therefore no justification to delay the circumcision. Within this category, is also the question of metzitzah. In brief, after the circumcision is complete, there is a tradition that the mohel sucks some blood out from the incision site. For convenience this was done with direct suction from the mohel’s mouth without a barrier. This procedure was done for medical reasons that are no longer valid. On the contrary, it is currently medically beneficial not to perform this procedure at all, especially without a barrier, as there is risk of infection from the procedure. This is especially true in situations where the mohel may be infected with the herpes virus and may transmit this to the child. Unfortunately, doctors are rarely consulted prior to the procedure, and rabbis are asked to make the decision on whether this procedure should be performed and how it should be performed. Without the proper precautions, we have seen many cases of children being infected and developing seizures. This is sometimes a permanent condition caused by this procedure. It seems ironic that a procedure that the rabbis instituted to protect our children, is now having the opposite effect; yet rabbis who are not trained in the specialty of infectious diseases can not make a sound decision without consultation with an expert in the field.       

* * *

            In the modern world we are very concerned and are careful regarding who we consult regarding our physical health decisions. When we have a general concern we are comfortable asking our local general practitioner physician for advice. However, when we have a specific concern we would never only consult with a generalist but will make every effort to ask a specialist in the field who deals with those issues often. Even with all that, we will often still seek a third or fourth opinion from other respected specialists in the field who have proven their depth of knowledge in the subject. Unfortunately the vast majority of people do not afford the same importance to their religious and spiritual decisions and well-being. Similar to physicians, we have many generalist rabbis who have made a career around helping the masses. They are available for all general religious needs from attending a circumcision to attending the funeral. These rabbis are much needed and fill an important role in the communities’ lives. Some work from the pulpit, some as teachers in our schools, and some simply offer advice in their free time from whatever other career they are simultaneously pursuing. However, these generalist rabbis cannot be expected to be experts in every single area of Jewish Law and ethics. We expect too much from our rabbis. Even in the time of the Talmud, we find statements of rabbis admitting they are expert in the laws of isur v’heter (forbidden and permitted matters) but not hoshen mishpat (financial law) for example. The semikha system developed at that time even incorporated different examinations for the different categories of Jewish law. There were three general categories at the time: laws for daily living, business law, laws regarding permitting first-born animals (these are known as Yoreh Yoreh, Yadin Yadin, and Yatir Yatir). Rabbis would only advise people in areas of law within which they received their certification. Today, just as the body of knowledge in medicine has made it impossible to master every area in depth, the same holds true for the rabbinate.

In addition to the Bible and Mishna, which the rabbis of the talmudic period had to be experts in, we have 2,000 more years of literature that rabbis need to be knowledgeable about when making their rulings.  In addition to this enormous body of religious literature, before rendering a decision, the rabbi needs to fully understand the medical, financial, technological, etc. issues at hand at well. It is almost impossible for one person to be able to master all this in a lifetime, especially with today’s rapid advancements in science and technology. How can a rabbi decide laws regarding Internet transactions on Shabbat without a complete understanding of the intricate details of the network and the way the financial transactions occur, even if he were a full expert in Jewish business law? Today that is simply not enough. How can a rabbi decide if a genetically engineered fruit or animal can be kosher without having both a deep understanding of kosher laws, and of genetic engineering? Similarly, how can a rabbi make a decision regarding euthanasia, brain death, organ transplantation, genetics, abortion, medical Shabbat laws, and so forth, without having a full mastery of biology, physiology, and the physics and technology that comprise the respirator, the heart-lung machine, the electroencephalogram? It is simply not reasonable or appropriate to expect all this from every generalist rabbi.

One option is for a rabbi to have available a group of experts he trusts in certain fields who also have a strong understanding of Jewish law and whom he can consult when needed. An ideal option that has emerged is specialist rabbi. Many rabbis have taken upon themselves to become specialists in a particular field. There are rabbis who are particularly knowledgeable about Jewish law regarding end-of-life issues, transplant issues, medicine on Shabbat issues, bankruptcy law, Jewish law regarding technological issues, and so forth. Unfortunately the majority of community members will approach their generalist rabbi with all these questions, leading to an answer, which at times may produce unintended and unfortunate consequences. People would rarely go to their generalist physician for a consultation regarding their advanced-stage brain tumor. It would be inappropriate to expect a complete answer from the generalist. Rather the generalist should refer the patient to a neurosurgeon and/or neuro-oncologist for the proper advice. We should treat our religious health with at least the same level of importance and expectations, and when dealing with a specialized issue, a specialist rabbi should be consulted.

            One such example that is often encountered is prenatal testing for Duchene Muscular Dystrophy. Duchene is a devastating disorder in boys that begin as healthy children, but by toddler years have difficulty walking, by teenage years require the use of a wheelchair, and by their late teens require use of a ventilator for respiratory support. This condition leads to death in early adulthood. Throughout this period of motor and physical decline, the patients are cognitively intact and have a full understanding of what is in store for them. This disorder is caused by a genetic mutation on the X chromosome. Every father has one X and one Y chromosome, while every mother has two X chromosomes but no Y chromosome. The sons will all inherit the Y chromosome from their father and either of the mother’s two X chromosomes, while daughter with all inherit their father’s X chromosome and either of the mother’s X chromosomes. When a child has a mutated X chromosome in a certain region, this causes Duchene Muscular dystrophy as described above. These boys rarely have children, as they die so young. Girls however have two X chromosomes, so that even if one is defective the other can almost completely compensate for it. Therefore an adult woman may be a carrier of the disorder, yet can still lead a full healthy life (possibly with some mild weakness). When a couple give birth to a child who is found in early childhood to have Duchene Muscular Dystrophy, she will be counseled that half her male children (the ones that inherit the defective X from her) will have the disease, while the other half will be healthy. In addition, half her daughters will be carriers (the ones that inherit the defective X from her) like she is, and will be in the same situation as she is when they get older. The parents at this point have to make a serious decision that affects the remainder of their life. They can either not have any more children (and this decision is very different for a couple where the first child was found to have Duchene compared to when it is their fourth child) or to continue building their family. If they continue to build their family they have a 25 percent chance of giving birth to another son who will have the disease (and suffer and die young) and a 25 percent chance of having a daughter who is a carrier and will have to make these same decisions in adulthood.

One option available to them is to perform genetic testing during the early stages of pregnancy to determine if the fetus is a boy or a girl and if it has the defective chromosome. This affords the parents the option of aborting the fetus in the early stages of pregnancy and then trying again. This will lead to a healthy family that can continue to grow and fulfill their dreams and religious and spiritual goals. Although this last option appears to be the most obvious choice for many, it is highly underutilized in the Orthodox Jewish community. The main reason for this is the issue described in the prior paragraph. When facing this decision, the family will often ask either their local generalist rabbi or in some communities the rebbe of the entire community for advice and guidance. These rabbis are then expected to make these decisions and rulings without a complete understanding of the situation, the medical information and technology available, all the Jewish laws involved and the overall ramifications of their decisions on the family. Some of the worst cases I have witnessed included a family that was aware of the diagnosis, but was advised by their rabbi that they have a religious obligation to procreate no matter what the situation and must simply have faith in God. This unfortunately left the family with three affected sons, two carrier daughters, and two healthy children. To make matters worse, the eldest sister was not informed of the family genetic condition and was married without informing the groom. They had two affected children before she came to a neurologist, where she was finally informed of the genetic situation, and that all the suffering that her two children would go through over the next 20 years could have been easily avoided, had her mother received the appropriate advice from her spiritual leader. Luckily this young woman was more open to help, and I was able to show her that using current technology, she can be tested in such an early stage of pregnancy that would allow her to abort the affected fetuses within her acceptable window for early abortion.

 This true event is only one of dozens in which I have been personally involved, and there are obviously many more in which I have not been involved. It is unclear to me (as the rabbi refused to discuss the issue despite my sincere effort at a respectful discussion) why this particular rabbi, and others make such unfortunate decisions in these life-changing situations. It may be that they are not experts in the laws of abortions, where the vast majority of rabbinic authorities allow at least early (first trimester or 40 days) abortions in these types of situations; it may be that they misunderstood the situation and its ramifications caused by a lack of communication with the physician; it may also be a lack of familiarity with modern medical breakthroughs that are literally occurring daily, that they were not able to come to a more sympathetic decision. How many people have asked their rabbi for advice but were referred to a specialist rabbi instead? It seems to occur very rarely. It is human nature for the rabbi to feel the pressure of coming up with the solution to the problem himself. Many doctors behave the same way and will try to answer a patient’s questions to the best of their ability, even if they are not experts in the field. This is simply human nature. What is important is not whom to blame, the laypeople for expecting too much of their rabbi, or the rabbis for not referring the laypeople to a specialist rabbi. Rather, the important issue at hand is how to fix a broken system that doesn’t want to be fixed. Rabbi Yosef Caro ruled that someone who is not an expert in a particular field is not permitted to give medical advice or treatment—and if he does he can be considered a murderer (Yoreh Deah 336:1). The Aruh haShulhan adds that according to halakha, one must be licensed in the field of question and approved by the state (in whichever governing body has jurisdiction) to offer such advice. These rules apply to doctors and all the more so to rabbis who may not have such training or certification.

At what point do we decide to stand up to our leadership and demand a better system? How much suffering must continue in vain before we fix this broken system? There is a current concept based on a misunderstood passage in Pirke Avoth that is held in high regard, which is “Ase Lekha Rav,” make for yourself a rabbi (Avoth 1:6). This is commonly understood today as stating that every Jew must pick one rabbi and always follow that rabbi. It is considered inappropriate to ask another rabbi other than your own, a question of Jewish law. This is absurd and has never been the way our ancestors operated. This new rule, of only asking one rabbi every type of question, is not founded in halakha. Even the rabbis of the Talmud understood that some rabbis had expertise in business law, agricultural law, marital law, etc. and specific rabbis had differing authority based on their area of expertise. Why is it that we expect a rabbi who may have not even studied basic biology to understand the intricacies of complex genetics? The majority of doctors, who went through rigorous medical training, still do not comprehend cutting-edge medical genetics. It wasn’t until 1953 that Watson and Crick famously described the structure of DNA and it wasn’t until many years later and even until very recently that we are beginning to understand how to test and manipulate genes. My grandfather, Dr. Albert Moghrabi, for example, a first-class physician, studied in medical school in the 1940s, prior to the discoveries of Watson and Crick. Although he is an expert in general medicine and has kept current in his knowledge of genetics, he admits not to be an expert in genetics and would refer to a specialist for genetic counseling.

It is important to realize that there is no one that is “at fault” here. Both the rabbis and the community want what is best for our physical and spiritual health. However, it is the current system that is failing, as it is not structured to keep up with developments of modern life. I believe the best way to address these issues is to have the rabbis, laypeople, and doctors sit down together to openly discuss ways to fix the system. It can’t be stressed enough that the problem does not stem from the rabbis, the laypeople, or the doctors. Rather, it stems from the defective interaction between these three groups that leads to the problems mentioned above. As a start, one possible solution may be to publish a book listing both generalist and specialist rabbis in different fields so that one can easily be referred to the appropriate authority who can handle the question for which they are seeking guidance. This is a simple and effective way to help both the community, and the rabbis that are being asked questions that are outside their expertise. Doctors can also use this resource to direct their patients to appropriate authorities, and rabbis would also have a resource open to themselves to assure what they are doing is in accord with Jewish law. Many doctors already have a specialist rabbi that they consult; this would provide a list of rabbis in different specialties as well. This may also lead to training programs where rabbis are specifically trained in different fields of medicine so that they can have a better understanding of the situations they are being asked to advise. It would be helpful to have some rabbis attend a neurology clinic, or a cancer clinic, or an intensive care unit once per week or for a six-month training period. We need the appropriate leaders to organize this with our local hospitals and yeshivot. For every case mentioned above where there was inappropriate advice, I can name ten cases where the interaction between the rabbi, the patient, and myself was invaluable. In many of these high-stress situations, open dialogue with rabbis complements the medical treatment by encouraging and supporting the patient from a religious standpoint. This engenders more confidence in the doctor and the treatment leading to better outcomes for the patient. Without a rabbi’s involvement, a religious patient may be scared and untrusting of the modern treatments. A rabbi who has the medical knowledge and spiritual leadership can support the treatment and the patient in ways the doctor never could. It is time that we demand the same level of treatment of our religious and spiritual well being that we demand for our physical and medical well-being. In this time of health care reform, it is appropriate to look into rabbinic care refinements as well.

“But We Are Guilty for Our Daughters”: Lessons Learned from the History of Jewish Girls’ Education in Germany and Eastern Europe in the Nineteenth Century

by Laura Shaw Frank

(Laura Shaw Frank is a doctoral student in Modern Jewish History at the University of Maryland, College Park.  She is also on the Judaics and Jewish History Faculties at the Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community High School in Baltimore, Maryland.  A former corporate litigator, Laura holds degrees from Columbia College and Columbia University School of Law.) 

            The nineteenth century witnessed radical transformation in the area of girls’ education. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, formal education for Jewish girls, whether in Jewish religious studies or secular studies, was virtually non-existent in both Germany and Eastern Europe. Over the following century, the situation saw major changes in both locales. By the mid-nineteenth century, formal education—both secular and religious—for Jewish girls was nearly universal in Germany. By the dawn of the twentieth century, significant numbers of Jewish girls in Eastern Europe were enrolled in modern schools and receiving secular, but not religious, educations. The process of transformation that occurred throughout the nineteenth century with respect to girls’ education was similar in certain ways in Central and Eastern Europe, but in other ways it was profoundly different. Although both German and Eastern European Jews began educating their daughters during this time, the point of time at which they began to do so, their reasons for doing so, the type of education they chose to give the girls, and the Jewish communal reaction to, and involvement with, their schooling differed significantly.  These differences are important, not simply as lessons in Jewish history, but as models that continue to play out in the way the Orthodox Jewish community addresses the changing status of girls and women in their surrounding societies. 

In Germany, where Jews were more accepted into German society and consequently adopted certain values and norms of that society, the Jewish communal attitude toward both reform of Judaism and gender roles in society led to the earlier development of Jewish education for girls. However, in Eastern Europe, where Jews were less integrated into society, and where the external society remained less modernized than that of Germany, Jews largely viewed religious Judaism as an alternative to modernity, not a system that could itself engage in a process of modernization. Due to this societal structure, girls’ education remained an enterprise focused almost entirely on secular studies, leaving Eastern European Jewish women largely lacking in Jewish knowledge. It was not until the era of the First World War that significant numbers of Eastern European Jewish girls began receiving a formal Jewish education.

            In the pre-modern era, the only type of formal education received by Jewish children throughout Europe was Jewish education. As Jews lived in corporate Jewish communities, virtually cut off from the societies that surrounded them, there was no need for secular studies.  Furthermore, the only children who received that education were male children. A prominent opinion in the Talmud stated that teaching a woman Torah was equivalent to teaching her tiflut, licentiousness. Thus, girls’ education consisted of learning at their mothers’ skirts the knowledge they needed to run a Jewish household. Boys, on the other hand, attended heder beginning at age three, and many continued on to study in yeshiva until their teenage years. The beginnings of the lifting of Jewish legal infirmities and the advent of the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment in Germany, changed this reality.

Girls’ Education in Germany

            In response to the seventeenth-century secular Enlightenment, which brought values of reason, rationalism, and secularization to Western Europe, the Jewish community of Western Europe engaged in its own enlightenment, called the Haskalah.[1] The movement, born in the late seventeenth century, advocated integration with, and acculturation to, the surrounding gentile society, as well as the injection of rationalism and intellectualism to the Jewish religion. The father of the Haskalah, Moses Mendelssohn, believed that Judaism was a faith of reason, containing eternal truths. It should not be coercive and was not monolithic. Mendelssohn strongly identified with German culture and language. At the same time, he remained a loyal Jew who believed in the binding nature of Jewish law. The writings of Mendelssohn and other German maskilim, or proponents of Enlightenment ideas, set the stage in the German Jewish community for the religious reform movements of the nineteenth century by opening the philosophical possibility for change and modernization within the Jewish religion.

            Beginning in the early nineteenth century, the German states engaged in various degrees of emancipation of their Jewish populations. This improvement in the legal status of Jews led to their greater integration into surrounding society and a move away from traditional Jewish communal authority. Until this time, the authority of the rabbinate was hegemonic in the Jewish community. In a non-integrated Jewish community, the rabbinate controlled all legal decisions—both religious and secular—for the members of the Jewish community. Jewish religious courts issued rulings that were controlling in their communities. However, once emancipation took place, secular governments wanted secular state-run courts to dictate the law to all citizens of the state. The power of religious courts dropped dramatically and the rabbinate lost its ability to exert its authority over all members of the Jewish community. Rabbinic rulings were no longer binding on all Jews, but only on those Jews who chose to be bound by them. This drop in traditional rabbinic authority opened the door for religious reform.

            Hand-in-hand with emancipation and the weakening of Jewish communal bonds came assimilation and secularization of the Jewish population in Germany. Jews integrated into the surrounding society economically, culturally, and even socially. A drastic move away from traditional observance of Jewish law occurred.

            At the same time, the German states began engaging in varying degrees of oversight of the rabbinic profession. An 1812 Prussian law required rabbis to prove that they finished a three-year course in the study of philosophy. Rabbis were required to undergo examination to prove competency in philosophy. Yeshivot that would not comply with this requirement of secular study were forced to close. This change in rabbinic education, albeit imposed externally by the state, began a process of modernization of the rabbinate that continued throughout the nineteenth century. This oversight went together with a meteoric rise in the importance of university education in Germany. Humanistic liberal education, a result of the secular Enlightenment, had a powerful effect on the Jewish community, and Jews increasingly wanted their rabbinic leadership to have extensive secular education in addition to Jewish knowledge.

            The combination of these societal and political forces with Haskalah philosophy led to efforts toward religious reform in the Jewish community. Initial religious reforms were aesthetic and related to decorum, not ideological in nature. Reformers wanted to make Judaism more appealing to the assimilating masses, so they sought to make Jewish prayer services more dignified and formal to resemble the current fashions in German Protestant churches. The most common reforms included the introduction of sermons given in German on moral rather than legalistic topics, choirs to sing during synagogue services, requirements of formal attire for both clergy and congregants in synagogue, and the advent of confirmation ceremonies either replacing, or in addition to, bar mitzvah ceremonies. These religious reforms had an enormous impact on the development of Jewish girls’ religious education in Germany.

            As noted above, formal education for Jewish girls, whether secular or religious, was virtually non-existent in Germany prior to the late eighteenth century. As Mordechai Eliav describes in his seminal work on Jewish education in Germany in the era of Haskalah and Emancipation,[2] there is a record of a handful of hederim, or traditional Jewish schools, that admitted girls as well as a handful of hederim that were solely for girls, but these were few and far between. Such hederim taught Hebrew reading, how to pray, reading and translating of the Pentateuch into the vernacular and knowledge of key Jewish laws. A greater number of Jewish girls, albeit only those from wealthier backgrounds, received at least a rudimentary secular education beginning in the seventeenth century. Wealthy German Jews hired private tutors to teach their daughters languages, mathematics, and music, recognizing that such subjects would be important for the girls’ future role as mistresses of the home. Such education was even supported by some in the rabbinical establishment. Rabbi Yonah Lendsofer from Prague, for example, wrote that girls should be taught to read in German and that fathers should aim to marry their sons to women who were literate in German. At the same time, rabbis continued to object to the teaching of Torah to girls. Rabbi Y. Watzler, for example, instructed his followers not to teach girls Hebrew and Bible, but only to give them enough Jewish education so that they could read the prayerbook. He gave this ruling although he knew that girls were being taught German and foreign languages such as French.[3]

            Over the course of the eighteenth century, traditional Jewish education for girls, minimal to begin with, continued to diminish. With the advent of the Haskalah, the tendency of wealthy Jews to hire tutors to give their daughters a secular education grew in response to similar practices in the general society. Maskilim were supportive of the practice of giving girls a good secular education. Moses Mendelssohn’s daughters studied French and music. Initially, the maskilim did not recognize the danger of educating girls only in secular subjects. In 1786, certain maskilim even mentioned with special pride that Jewish girls could speak fluent and elegant German but did not know Hebrew. However, within a short number of years, the results of the maskilic emphasis on German and not Jewish education for girls became clear. Girls had little to no Jewish knowledge. They could not read the prayer book and were ignorant of their role in Judaism. As one maskil wrote in the pages of the Haskalah journal haMeasef, “Instead of dedicating their souls on Sabbaths and festivals to the words of a Living God, they read worthless books and salacious love stories in foreign languages which arouse their desires and corrupt their souls.”[4]

It was at this time, during the late eighteenth century, that discussion regarding the need for educational reform in the German Jewish community began. Education reform had been a topic of discussion in general German society since the mid-eighteenth century. The professionalization of teaching and the beginning of a theory of pedagogy influenced the development of a modernized schooling system, which included classes divided by age, standardized school books, and a demand to teach girls like boys. In response to changes in education in the surrounding society as well as dissatisfaction among Jewish youth with their education, maskilim argued that Jewish studies needed to be conveyed differently than they had traditionally been. They felt that, rather than the intensive Bible and Talmudic studies taking place in boys hederim and yeshivot, and rather than the solely secular studies enjoyed by only wealthy Jewish girls, Jewish children needed a modern Jewish education that would address the needs of the times. Such an education would be based upon a catechism-style curriculum, the way Christian children were taught. In addition, they recommended that Jewish education culminate in a confirmation ceremony similar to that used in Protestant churches.

In the last years of the eighteenth century and the first decade of the nineteenth century, schools began to be established by maskilim and reformers for the purpose of giving poor children in the Jewish community both a secular and a Jewish education.[5] One example of such a school was the consistorial school founded in Cassel in 1809. The consistory intended that the school, serving poor Jewish boys, provide a model for other elementary schools to be established throughout Westphalia. The Jewish education received by these boys was meant to transmit the “principles and obligations” of Judaism rather than to concentrate on text-based study.[6]

During this same period, confirmation ceremonies took hold and became accepted in the reform-minded sector of the Jewish community. The first known confirmation ceremony, which was only for boys, took place in 1803 in Dessau. The first confirmation ceremony to include girls took place in 1814 in Berlin.[7] From this point forward, confirmation ceremonies became more and more widespread in the Reform Jewish community of Germany. Such ceremonies more often than not included girls, and the classes in preparation for them thus also had to include girls. Thus, the adoption of the confirmation ceremony led to an increase in girls’ education in the German Jewish community.

Part and parcel of the discussion of the maskilim regarding educational reform was a discussion specifically about education for girls. One Berlin maskil, David Friedlander, described at length the neglect of religious or moral education for girls. He emphasized that in addition to the study of the German language, girls needed to have religious instruction in order to help prepare them for their responsibilities “as the not less important half of the human race.”[8] Maskilim began to establish schools to educate Jewish girls. Initially, as it was with boys, these schools were aimed at poor Jewish girls whose parents could not afford private tutoring in the home. The hope of the maskilim was that ultimately such schools would serve the daughters of the wealthy as well, but in most cases, the schools were unable to shake their reputation of being schools for the poor, so wealthy girls stayed away. The first such school was established in 1797 in Breslau. The girls in the school studied an integrated Jewish and secular curriculum, including catechism-style religious studies, Hebrew and German.

In the next twenty-five years, other similar girls’ schools were established in many German cities, including Hamburg, Dessau, Berlin, Koenigsberg, and Frankfurt. The curriculum of each of these schools varied slightly, but for the most part, they all included religious instruction in the catechism style, reading and writing in German, a small amount of Hebrew, mathematics, literature, and fine handiwork. Some of the schools included additional subjects as part of their curriculum, among which were Yiddish writing, prayer, Jewish history, and Bible. Schools that catered more to poorer girls had more of a focus on vocational training, while those that catered to the wealthy emphasized the arts and foreign languages, knowledge of which would be expected of an upper-class German young woman.

By the 1830s, it was widely accepted throughout the maskilic and Reform Jewish community in Germany that Jewish girls attended school, whether single-sex or coeducational. Girls’ education was not seen as significantly less important than that of boys. By the mid-nineteenth century, education for girls from this sector of the Jewish community was virtually universal in Germany. Most girls were enrolled in Jewish community schools that gave them a basic, if somewhat rudimentary Jewish education in addition to a secular education.[9] However, a significant sector of the German Jewish community still had not grappled with the issue of girls’ education—the Orthodox community.

Orthodox Judaism did not exist as a movement prior to the birth of Reform. Due to the widespread changes brought upon the Jewish community by Reform thinkers, traditional-minded Jews felt that the traditional observance of Judaism was threatened. They reacted to this threat by engaging in several innovations, including leaving the unified Jewish community to create separate Orthodox institutions and adopting the strictest standards with respect to religious commandments and customs. These innovations were meant to create an environment that existed separate and apart from the Reform Jewish community and the surrounding society in order to keep modernity at bay and tradition vibrant. A key innovation embraced by the Orthodox community in terms of impact on girls’ education was its heightened suspicion of modern culture, including secular education and schooling for girls. Orthodox girls did not participate in the Reformers’ Jewish schools that were common in Germany by the mid-nineteenth century. Rather, they continued to be tutored at home, if they received any education at all.

Even Orthodoxy, however, was not monolithic in its beliefs and practices. A reform-minded stream of Orthodoxy later called Neo-Orthodoxy was founded by Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch in the mid-nineteenth century. Hirsch, the rabbi of the Orthodox community of Frankfurt am Main, espoused a philosophy of Torah im derekh erets, Torah study together with participation in the modern world.  One of Hirsch’s most significant legacies was his influence on girls’ education within the Orthodox sphere. Indeed, as Mordechai Breuer, a scholar of the Orthodox movement in Germany wrote, “The most significant and far-reaching success of Orthodox education proved to be the complete reorganization of education for girls.”[10]

Girls’ education was a charged topic for Orthodox Jews. As reformers built a system of elementary and secondary schools for girls that taught both Judaic and secular studies, Orthodox Jews were fearful. Reform leaders had made it clear that the reasoning behind such schools was not only the education of women, but also women’s social equality and the eradication of the denial of their rights under Jewish law. These concepts were dangerous to the Orthodox mindset. However, opposing girls’ religious education, Orthodox leaders realized, was potentially even more dangerous. They noticed that the lack of Jewish education led girls to immerse themselves in the secular world and its general education and culture. This led to their resenting Judaism and possibly assimilating out of the Jewish community. Thus, Orthodoxy had to create a rubric for Jewish girls’ education in order to keep their girls Jewishly affiliated. Without being given answers to their existential questions about Judaism, simple adherence to the faith of their parents would fall by the wayside. At the same time, changes in Orthodox synagogue practices in response to Reform also heightened the need for girls’ education. The sermon in the vernacular that became widespread in Neo-Orthodox synagogues at this time led to increased synagogue attendance on the part of women. Once they were able to understand and enjoy what the rabbi spoke about, they wanted the education to fill out their knowledge.

Thus, rather than opposing girls’ education, German Orthodox Jews embraced it, but reshaped it to suit their specific needs. Orthodox thinkers quickly began to portray girls’ education as having “intrinsic religious value,” and as being critical to the transmission of tradition to the next generation.[11] Adopting from the surrounding society’s bourgeois cult of domesticity, Hirsch argued that women were the more moral sex, and had a critical position as mistress of the home, responsible for their children’s loyalty to Jewish tradition.[12] Der Israelit, the Orthodox community’s newspaper, cried out that “Our mothers have to save Judaism as in biblical times.” Even the developing world of Orthodox fiction addressed the issue of girls’ education. Sara Hirsch Guggenheim, the daughter of Samson Rafael Hirsch, published a number of stories in the Orthodox journal Jeschurun, in which a woman’s lack of Jewish education led to her downfall.[13] Such a widespread philosophy led to significant improvement in Orthodox girls’ education.

Hirsch’s first foray into creating a modern school for the education of Orthodox Jewish girls came with the founding of his elementary school in Frankfurt in 1853. Not meant only for poor children, this school was meant to compete with the prestigious Philanthropin School. Hirsch wanted to put the ideology of education and culture into a school that would also have a strong Jewish component. The school admitted girls from the beginning, albeit in separate classes from the boys. Hirsch’s son, Mendel Hirsch went on to create a Hirschian secondary school in Frankfurt. Mendel Hirsch believed that religious instruction should be as similar as possible for boys and girls. He theorized that “doing” was more important than “knowing” with respect to both sexes’ relationship to Judaism. He thus focused the curriculum in his secondary school on education regarding religious duties. This led to greater equality of education between the sexes by lessening the Talmud instruction received by the boys, and increasing the Bible instruction received by the girls.[14] At the founding of this school, there were not sufficient pupils to hold separate sex classes, so boys and girls studied in a coeducational environment, a particularly unusual circumstance for Orthodox society of the time. However, as soon as the student body was sufficiently large, the boys and girls were separated.[15]

Other Orthodox schools for girls were established in Hamburg and Mainz in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Additionally, supplementary educational models were created in certain places to provide both boys and girls with a Jewish education separate and apart from their general schooling. One such school was founded by the Neo-Orthodox rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer in Berlin in 1869. Hildesheimer found that 25 percent of Jewish children in Berlin were not receiving any Jewish education whatsoever. He began a co-ed supplementary school in his synagogue, Congregation Adass-Isroel, with separate classes for boys and girls. Hildesheimer felt very strongly about girls’ education, stating that the prevailing notion that superficial religious knowledge was sufficient for Jewish girls was wrong and unacceptable. Like Hirsch, he also believed that the Jewish woman was the central figure in the Jewish home, and she thus needed a deep knowledge of Judaism in order to fulfill her role. The girls’ curriculum in Hildesheimer’s school took into account differences in women’s and men’s roles and responsibilities in Orthodox Jewish society. Girls had added responsibilities that boys did not, including helping out with chores at home and attending to their music and arts education. Thus, girls only had two-thirds of the weekly study hours of boys. However, even in their more limited curricular time, girls studied Hebrew language, Bible, and Jewish law and customs. Beginning in the 1870–1871 academic year, they also studied Ethics of the Fathers, which was a portion of the Oral Law—an area of Jewish study generally forbidden to women. Like the Hirsches, Hildesheimer’s objectives were to prepare girls for occupying a central position in the Jewish household and for imbuing their homes with a “true religious spirit.”[16]

Orthodox education of girls in Germany had enormous impact on the Orthodox community. Female graduates of Hirschian-style schools were well-educated both secularly and Jewishly, and because of their knowledge of Judaism, were often stricter in religious observance than their own mothers. The German Orthodox community was proud of its accomplishments with respect to girls’ education, especially when those accomplishments were laid side-by-side with the situation of girls’ education in Eastern Europe. “As superior as the average Eastern European Jewish man was to his Western European Jewish acquaintance in the knowledge of Torah, so the Orthodox woman, educated in Germany, often outdid her acquaintance from Eastern Europe.”[17]

Girls’ Education in Eastern Europe

            The structure of the Eastern European Jewish community and the way the community interacted with the surrounding gentile society had a deep impact on the way girls’ education developed there. Unlike Western Europe, Eastern Europe did not emancipate its Jews until the twentieth century. The greater legal and political disabilities suffered by the Jewish community of Eastern Europe led to its being more separate and traditional in nature than its counterpart in Germany. Although individual Jews could, and often did, assimilate into secular society, the community as a whole remained wedded to traditional observance. As historian Paula Hyman points out, “In the Russian Empire of the late nineteenth century, the process of assimilation can best be described as secularization that avoided both denationalization and religious reform.”[18]

The option for religious reform did not exist to any significant degree in the Eastern European context due to a confluence of circumstances. Since the Jewish community was not integrated into the general surrounding society, the external society was unable to significantly influence Jewish religious practices as occurred in Germany. Additionally, since the external society itself did not engage in religious reform, whatever impact it might have had on the Jewish community did not occur. As Hyman argues, whereas Jews in Western Europe assimilated just as Jews in Eastern Europe did, “the importance assigned religious sentiment in the dominant bourgeois cultures of Western societies encouraged the fashioning of modern versions of Judaism that officially submerged Jewish ethnicity.” In Eastern Europe, there was no pressure as there was in Western Europe “to reform their religion and assert an identity based upon it alone.”[19] Thus, when the Haskalah occurred in Eastern Europe, decades later than it did in Germany, it did not initiate a process of religious reform; rather, it encouraged a process of Jewish assimilation.[20]

Without religious reform, the education of Jewish girls ended up in a strange position. The Eastern European Jewish community continued to abide by traditional prohibitions against teaching girls Torah, thus leaving them almost entirely without Jewish education. On the other hand, the influence of secular society on individual Jews led to increased secular education for Jewish girls. The dichotomy of the secularly well-educated and Jewishly ignorant woman proved to be a difficult one for both the women and the Jewish community to integrate.

            It is important to note at the outset, that as historian Shaul Stampfer has argued, there is a widely held misconception that Eastern European Jewish women were entirely lacking in Jewish knowledge. Although widespread formal schooling in Jewish subjects did not exist for girls in Eastern Europe until the twentieth century, Stampfer cogently points out that many girls did receive some Jewish education through a variety of means. First of all, hederim for girls did exist in small numbers. One such heder was located in Tyszowce and the girls were taught by an elderly widow called “Binele the rebetzin.” The girls in the Tyszowce girls’ heder studied the siddur, reading and writing Yiddish, arithmetic, writing addresses in Russian (useful for the girls’ future role as breadwinners for their families), and sewing. Additionally, some girls, usually those from a wealthier background, were taught at home, either by their mothers or by a learned woman tutor. Sometimes, girls would attend a boys’ heder, although once basic reading skills were mastered, boys moved on to higher Jewish education and girls dropped out. Some girls learned to read Yiddish on their own and obtained Jewish knowledge through the reading of Yiddish religious texts such as Tzeina U’Reina, a Yiddish collection of Bible stories and commentary for women.[21]

            Stampfer acknowledges that both men’s method of learning (in a communally sanctioned school setting) and the content of what they learned (Jewish religious texts in Hebrew) were more prestigious in Eastern European Jewish culture than how and what women learned. He argues, however, that this system was actually appropriate for the realities of this society. Eastern European Jewish women typically worked outside the home in addition to having a high birthrate and a correspondingly high amount of housework. If they were expected by societal norms to engage in study of difficult Hebrew texts, the situation would have simply maximized frustration for them. As Stampfer argues, “Lack of ‘school education’ was part of a system that functioned to condition women to accept their role in the family and society with a minimum of conflict—just as the fact that most men were unlearned (and knew it!) was one of the ways that led them to accept communal authority.”[22]

            Historian Iris Parush, in her groundbreaking work “Reading Jewish Women,” is critical of Stampfer’s conclusions. She points out that Stampfer proposes what she calls a “functionalist and harmonicist” account to explain the differences in education of boys and girls in Eastern Europe that allowed women to “identify with their gender roles and reconcile themselves to their marginality.” Parush argues that this argument is problematic because there are many ways that a society could structure itself to keep frustration among its members low. Stampfer’s argument, albeit unintentionally, allows justification of an educational structure that was discriminatory toward and exclusionary of women. Additionally, Parush argues that Stampfer attributes “paternalistic motives” to those who created and upheld the educational system that evidence concern about women’s welfare and frustration levels. “In a roundabout way,” she argues, such an argument “shuts out consideration of other possibilities, less harmonistic or generous, which may have been behind the discrimination of women in the educational system.” Lastly, Parush points out that many women remained illiterate in Eastern European Jewish society. Had societal leaders really wanted to prevent women’s frustration, they would have ensured that all Jewish girls were minimally literate in Yiddish so as to enable them to read Tzeina U’Reina and other such texts. Moreover, even if all women had been literate in Yiddish, this would not have solved the inherent contradiction in their lives—that they were expected to negotiate the public sphere in their work lives, but excluded from the public sphere in their religious lives.[23]

            Although there is significant dissent regarding the degree of Jewish education obtained by girls in Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century, historians do agree that improvement in Eastern European Jewish girls’ education occurred during this period. Daughters of wealthy Jews studied foreign languages in their homes with nannies or private tutors. Girls of lesser means began to attend secular schools such as those founded in Warsaw in 1818 and Wilno in 1826. By the 1860s increasing numbers of girls were studying in modern schools, both public and private, that were founded across Eastern Europe, especially in large cities. Furthermore, rising marriage ages left wealthy girls with idle time in teenage years to devote to education and the surrounding society’s increasing commitment to girls’ education influenced higher numbers of Jewish girls to pursue schooling. By the end of the nineteenth century, the number of girls enrolled in formal modern schools was still small, but it was significant. An 1899 survey of such schools in the Tsarist Empire found 193 girls’ schools, 68 coeducational schools (most of which had separate classes for boys and girls) and 383 boys’ schools. There were a total of 50,773 students enrolled in these schools according to the study, and approximately one-third of those students were female. However, although girls were finally receiving formal education in significant numbers, the education they were receiving was entirely secular. The curriculum in these modern schools was devoid of Jewish content; girls were educated in Russian and French as well as in the arts and music. Indeed, although boys’ modern schools were supervised by the Jewish community and rabbinical establishment and had to allocate hours of classroom time each week to Jewish studies, girls’ schools were totally secular and unsupervised by Jewish communal authorities.[24]

            Parush argues that the absence of Jewish education for girls in Eastern Europe was due to a marginalization of women in a male-dominant society. The rabbinical establishment cared about two things: first, that boys receive a good Torah education, and second, that girls be prevented from receiving any Torah education. Thus, as long as girls were not transgressing the prohibition against their study of Torah, their education was of no interest to the rabbis. They could pursue high levels of secular studies without approbation or even concern. Parush concludes:

Whereas men’s education reflected the manifest efforts of the rabbinical leaders to exercise absolute controls and hermetically seal the society from foreign influences, the education of women transpired through gaps in this system of controls, in the region left abandoned by the oversight apparatus in consequence of women’s inferiority.[25]

This policy of neglect of the content of girls’ education had significant ramifications both for the girls themselves and for Jewish society in Eastern Europe. Certainly, all historians agree that the lack of formal Jewish education placed side-by-side with increasingly intense secular education led to a secularizing of Jewish girls. Historians differ as to how this process of secularization affected the Jewish community. Parush argues that it led to Jewish women bringing enlightened ideas into the Jewish community and thus acting as the conduits for Haskalah and modern ideals in their world.[26] However, others have a different take. Paula Hyman and Rachel Manekin argue that the secularization of Jewish girls led to a fundamental disconnect between them and their communities—a disconnect that often had devastating consequences for the girls, their families, and the Jewish community as a whole. Some Jewish girls assimilated into the surrounding society and were lost to the Jewish community; many others went so far as to convert to Christianity. Even those girls who remained within the boundaries of the Jewish community could not be counted upon to transmit Jewish tradition effectively to the next generation.[27]

In a few different articles, Manekin explores multiple aspects of the phenomenon of Jewish girls’ conversion to Christianity in Galicia in the nineteenth century and shows the Jewish communal debate that arose over this problem. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a significant number of Jewish women in western Galicia converted to Christianity. Indeed, during one fifteen-year period beginning in 1887, over 300 women converted in Krakow alone, representing 68 percent of the Jewish converts during that time period. Interestingly, almost all of these women converted at the convent of the Felician Sisters.[28]

Because the laws of the Habsburg Empire required that converts submit certain personal data to a municipal clerk, a socio-economic profile exists for many of these converts. According to this data, the vast majority of the converts were Jewish young women between the ages of 15 and 20 who came from families of middle-class merchants and shopkeepers. The women’s signatures on the forms they filled out show that they were familiar with Polish writing. Through analysis of this data in conjunction with historical accounts of individual conversions as well as depictions of such conversions in Jewish literature and the Jewish press, Manekin concludes that the lack of Jewish education for girls coupled with their more extensive secular education played a significant role in the conversion phenomenon:

These young women were not provided with the means by which they could preserve their Jewish identity in their confrontation with Polish society. The dissonance between life at home and in the outside world became greater as they grew older, with the conflicts becoming deeper and more pronounced. The climax would come when the parents expected them to marry a young man from the ‘old world,’ with whom they shared no language.[29]

This moment of facing a life with a man with whom such a young woman had nothing in common except that they were both born Jewish and had parents committed to the continuity of the Jewish people was often the breaking point that led the young woman to escape to the convent to convert.[30]

             The Jewish community of Galicia had some limited recognition of the problems caused by the failure to give its daughters a Jewish education. Indeed, the issue came up quite a bit on the Jewish communal radar screen in the early years of the twentieth century. In 1902, the subject was addressed at length in the pages of the religious newspaper Kol Mahzikei HaDat. In an article entitled “But We Are Guilty for Our Daughters,” a writer bemoaned the seduction of Jewish girls by secular society due to their lack of Jewish education. In a play on words of a famous rabbinic quotation, he wrote, “Ten measures of external education descended upon the daughters of Israel in our land; nine of them were taken by the city of Krakow.”[31] The article discussed the failure of the marriages of such girls to yeshiva boys and the fact that some of them ended up leaving the Jewish community entirely. It was not a coincidence, the author pointed out, that girls from strict Hassidic families would leave their families and convert to Christianity. Hassidic fathers would pay a fine rather than send their sons to secular public schools, but they were willing to send their daughters to Catholic schools. He recommended the institution of Jewish girls’ schools in Galicia to solve this terrible problem. In a harsh moment of reflection, the author noted that girls’ Jewish education in Galicia is the equivalent to what had existed in Germany an entire century before.[32]

            The issue of girls’ Jewish education in Galicia also arose at the Congress of Rabbis in Krakow in 1903. One of the attendees, Rabbi Landau, rose to speak and bemoaned the fact that even among the “God fearing,” girls receive the finest Western education and remain woefully ignorant about Judaism. He spoke of the rash of conversions and noted that even those young women who do not leave the community, “their hearts are not among the Jewish people anymore.” Such girls would not be capable of raising the next generation of Jewish children. Rabbi Landau even spoke of the worst casualties of the failure of Jewish girls’ education in Galicia—those girls who turned to a life of prostitution. The rabbis attending the conference requested that he cease speaking of this painful subject in order to prevent the desecration of the name of the Jewish people.[33]

            Rabbi Landau put aside the issue of white slavery in the Jewish community, but returned during the conference to the issue of repairing girls’ education. He argued that the only solution to the fundamental lack of knowledge and failure to observe commandments among even the most Orthodox of girls was to teach them Torah. When one of the lay leaders present at the conference suggested the establishment of a Talmud Torah school to educate girls in prayer and laws of the Jewish home, one rabbi responded, “God forbid we should educate girls in Torah!” Although other suggestions were presented for the improvement of girls’ Jewish education in Galicia, all were tabled for a later date. This, Manekin argues, was the nail in the coffin for bringing change to Jewish girls’ education in Galicia.[34]

            Ultimately, the solution to the dilemma about girls education in Galicia came from a young woman in Krakow. Sarah Schenirer, with the support of the rebbe of the Hassidic sect of Belz, created the first Bais Yaakov school dedicated to the Jewish education of Orthodox girls in 1917. This school became the model for Orthodox girls’ education and was duplicated throughout the world. Until Sarah Schenirer’s efforts to create Bais Yaakov, however, the idea of girls’ Torah education was an innovation that Eastern European Orthodox society simply could not stomach, even when faced with the devastation that the lack of this education caused. This stands in direct contrast to the German Orthodox model of integration of modern and Jewish ideals resulting in the far earlier and more extensive Jewish education for its girls.

            The radically different development of the Jewish communities of Germany and Eastern Europe during the nineteenth century period of modernization had a powerful impact on girls’ education in each society. German Jewish society, due to more successful integration with external German society, adopted some of the ideologies and practices of that society, which enabled the development of formal Jewish education for girls. Eastern European Jewish society, on the other hand, remained excluded from western bourgeois ideas and was therefore unable to integrate modern philosophies of religion and education into their worldview. German Jews adapted and modernized their Judaism while Eastern European Jews reacted to modernization by either “circling the wagons” in defense of tradition or assimilating to the society around them. The inability of Eastern European Jewish society to engage in a process of religious reform ultimately sounded the death knell for the development of girls’ education, a failure which had lasting consequences for their community. The German Jewish community solved the problem of girls’ education by the third quarter of the eighteenth century; the Eastern European community did not solve it until the First World War. In the intervening decades, numerous Jewish girls were lost to Judaism, as they were prevented from having a stake in the future of the Jewish people due to a rabbinic refusal to educate them.

Conclusions for Today

            The story of the development of Jewish girls’ education in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Germany and Eastern Europe has particular resonance for the Modern Orthodox community today. The battle for Jewish education for Orthodox girls is thankfully long over, particularly in the Modern Orthodox community, where women have the opportunity to learn all Jewish texts at the highest of levels. However, unlike their male rabbinic counterparts, up until recently, Orthodox women received no standard and universally accepted title to certify their learning. Such a title is far from mere semantics. For a woman who wishes to devote her life to Jewish communal service, the title of “rabbi” carries along with it communal respect, job opportunities, and significantly higher salaries. Furthermore, in a world in which women are able to access the highest levels of academic and professional credentialing, the absence of a title for Orthodox women leaders was particularly glaring. Despite all of this, when the issue of women’s ordination was raised in Orthodox circles, mainstream rabbinic leadership called it an impossibility and a dangerous break with tradition. Given that women’s achievement at the very highest levels did not yield any professional titles or status, it is unsurprising that many of the brightest and most talented young Orthodox women chose careers outside the Orthodox community.

            But the picture is not all grim. In the past decade, a select few synagogues have appointed women as “congregational interns” or “madrikhot ruhaniot” (spiritual advisors), giving women positions essentially comparable to rabbinical student interns or assistant rabbis in Modern Orthodox synagogues. Such women are able to give sermons, engage in pastoral counseling, and teach Torah in their synagogues. However, no more than a handful of Orthodox synagogues have created such a position. The mainstream centrist Orthodox world continues to view such positions as inappropriate. Furthermore, many critics have pointed out that whereas a “rabbinic intern” is training to become a rabbi, a “congregational intern” is not training for any permanent position at all. Even a madrikha ruhanit could not hope to lead an Orthodox congregation on her own.  

In the Spring of this year, however, a transformation occurred in Modern Orthodoxy, when Rabbi Avi Weiss announced that he planned to establish a school to train Maharats, women leaders in halakhic, spiritual, and Torah issues. Like Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch in nineteenth century Germany, the rabbinic leadership behind this new initiative understands that we can incorporate certain ideas of modernity without breaking halakha or destroying our traditional values. And, like the German Orthodox leadership of the nineteenth century, this leadership knows that Orthodoxy must make changes in its own way and on its own timetable in order for such changes to take root among both the rabbis and the Orthodox laity. As our history has shown us, the path we now take will have massive consequences both for individual Orthodox Jews and for the very future of Orthodox Judaism.

During the spring semester of 2011 I was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill in Barbados lecturing on Brazilian Culture and researching Caribbean film. The opportunity also allowed me to study a subject that has interested me since high school, the outcome of the Sephardim who left Portugal for the New World.  In addition to Barbados, I wanted to visit the communities on two other islands, Curaçao and Jamaica, and see the famed sand floors of their synagogues. As a Portuguese scholar fascinated by the Judeo-Spanish tradition, I sought to find out if these languages were still used in the services or spoken by descendants of the early Sephardic settlers.  Intrigued by the history of colonization, I asked myself which European power allowed the Sephardim the most freedom religiously and economically, and how that may have affected their situation today. Having grown up in the Midwest where intermarriage was common, I also wanted to see how the Caribbean Jewish communities addressed this issue. Ultimately, I wondered if the Sephardic experience on the islands offered a key to the overall survival of Jews in the Diaspora.

Though an Ashkenazi Jew by heritage, my interest in Sephardim stems from being a high school exchange student in São Paulo, Brazil. At the age of sixteen I went to live with a family in South America’s largest city. Their origin, however, was Recife, Pernambuco and I discovered later that they had chosen me because they thought they were descendants of Jews who had lived amongst the Dutch. They were excited to have me in their home and always treated me with respect, asking question about my faith though they had not practiced it for centuries.

After college, where I became fluent in Portuguese, I returned to Brazil and traveled to the Northeast where I visited the area known to have been the first Sephardic community in the Americas. At the time, the synagogue on Rua Bom Jesus (Good Jesus Street) had not been restored, nor its mikvah excavated. Still, I was amazed at how the visit spurred in me the desire to trace the path of the Sephardim both to their source in Iberia and then to the New World.

My formal education intertwined perfectly with my project. As a graduate student doing a dissertation in Portuguese at the University of Wisconsin-Madison I earned my first Fulbright Scholarship to go to Portugal in 1994-95.  Though my official research was on the Lusophone or Portuguese African Diaspora, during my time off I went around the country looking for signs of the Sephardic Diaspora. A regular at Shabbat morning services at the main synagogue in Lisbon, Shaarei-Tikvá, I became friends with a Scottish Jew who took me to Belmonte, one of the only villages that has practiced a form of Secret Judaism for over 500 years. I was amazed by its history, especially the importance of women in maintaining rituals within the home as synagogues were prohibited and men could not openly show their faith. I learned that the community had first been breached in the early twentieth century by a Russian miner who happened to be in the region and discovered that the Belmonte Jews considered themselves to be the only Jews left in the world.  Only when he said the Shema did they believe that he, too, was a member of the faith. I wondered how the Belmonte community survived for so long under the harsh threat of the Inquisition. They lived in a very isolated region of Portugal, the Beira Alta or Upper Beira that was hard to reach. They pretended to eat the foods that non-Jews ate by making recipes using chicken instead of pork. The “alheira” or garlic sausage was one such delicacy eaten in the region. Most of all, they regulated the community through marriage. Sometimes people of the same family would marry—such as first cousins, though there may have been even closer connections such as uncles and nieces. As a result there were birth defects that I actually saw during my visit.

In addition to Belmonte and the synagogue in Lisbon I traveled to the Alentejo, Portugal’s southern breadbasket. There I visited places that no longer had a living presence but rather street signs such as “judaria” where the Jews were once forced to live. Overall, I found that few people in Portugal knew much about Jewish ritual or religion, rather that many who had names linked to flora and fauna may have been descendants of New Christian. After nearly a year living in Iberia I, too felt a little isolated as a Jew and looked forward to leaving.

I did not forget my experience searching for remnants of a Sephardic past in Portugal, and though I eventually earned my doctorate and moved to New York, my interest in learning more about their journeys continued. In the fall of 2010 I presented a paper in London on nineteenth century Sephardim of Great Britain, then two weeks later flew to Singapore to lecture on the Jews of India.

By the time I left Barbados to start my teaching and research, I was exhausted and looking forward to the opportunity of living in the tropics . Before arriving on the island I had learned that there were two synagogues, both Ashkenazi. On my first Friday night I went to a hotel and asked if they had any information on religious services. The concierge immediately put me in touch with Rose Altman, who at 88 was the oldest member of the Jewish community. She had all the information I needed regarding the synagogue and even more about the people who attended it. I learned that during the hot summer months people went to a house that was turned into a synagogue for practical reasons—it had air conditioning. In the winter some of the community, now numbering a few dozen families, and tourists many from cruise liners, go to the newly renovated Sephardic synagogue, Nidhe Israel or “the Scattered of Israel.”

My first Kabbalat Shabbat service was memorable.  I entered a thick gate and walked past two buildings, one I learned was a state-of-the-art museum dedicated to the history of the Sephardim and the importance of sugar cane, a crop brought over by the Jews of Recife. There was also a mikvah that actually has a spring fed well. I noticed two cemeteries, with neatly arranged gravestones lying horizontal on the ground. Looking closely I could see that the headstones had inscriptions in a variety of languages; Portuguese, Spanish, Hebrew and English. Carved cupid figures and hands chopping down trees adorned some of them. When I saw people moving into the synagogue, I went in, too, looking for the women’s section. After seeing men and women sitting together, I sat down on a wooden bench and admired the building. The interior was beautiful, with a grand reader’s desk in the middle of the room with four pineapple shaped carvings symbolizing the tropics. There was a balcony, though it went unoccupied. An Israeli man in his mid-40s led the Conservative-style service and afterwards there was a small Oneg Shabbat in the back.  A couple of women served cake and soda, greeting the members and guests.

Over time I got to know some of the Barbadian Jews, the pride they felt towards the synagogue as well as the difficulty they had maintaining the community.  The structure was refurbished in 1987 on the site of a synagogue originally constructed in 1654 and rebuilt after it was destroyed by an 1831 hurricane. By the second decade of the twentieth century there were no longer Sephardim left on the island and the synagogue was closed, its religious articles sent to England in 1929. In the 1980s the post-colonial government wanted to use the property for a courthouse but Paul Altman, a descendant of the Polish Jews who had arrived on the island in the 1930s, led efforts to preserve and renovate it. Though the ancient artifacts were never returned from London, there are several Torahs in the Ark and the community is relieved that its future on the island is secure. The building has also become a major tourist attraction bolstered by the Barbados National Trust that gives lectures on Sephardic history and leads tours around its grounds. Yet, those who actually attend services know that fewer and fewer members show up. Intermarriage is considered a major problem and over the years it has broken up a few families. As a result, children are often sent overseas to boarding schools, usually in England or Canada, with the hope that they will find a Jewish spouse. But it does not always work because those raised on the islands sometimes feel more of a kinship with non-Jews in the Caribbean Diaspora and end up marrying outside the faith to the dismay of their parents.

The second island I visited was Curaçao in the western Caribbean.  I had just received an extension on my scholarship to attend a Caribbean Studies conference in Williamstad and it offered a wonderful opportunity to see the Sephardic synagogue there. Getting from Barbados to Curaçao in the Lesser Antilles islands was not easy and my “island hopping” by way of Trinidad took hours. But the trip was well worth it. Curaçao was so much different from the former British island I was living on. First of all, the climate was arid and instead of palm trees and green brush, there were cacti everywhere. The architecture of Williamstad, the capital, was colorful, lining an inlet crossed by a moveable pedestrian bridge. 

I went to the Sephardic synagogue, Congregation Mikvé Israel-Emanuel twice during my stay on the island. The first time I visited a museum that was in the courtyard of the synagogue.  It proudly displays religious artifacts that had been used by the community through the centuries. There is also a memorial to George Maduro, a young man who went to Holland to help fight the Nazis in WWII and was killed in Dachau near the end of the war. Molds of gravestones saved from a large cemetery affected by the acid rain from a nearby oil refinery line the outside walls. They feature some of the same carvings as the headstones in Barbados though one had a hand with four fingers split reminiscent of a blessing by a Cohen. In addition to the permanent collection, there was a recent exhibition, “Keys to My Heritage”, featuring keys that were saved by Sephardic Jews who fled the Inquisition.

A few days later I went back to the synagogue to attend Shabbat services. Walking into the stately synagogue, dating back to 1732, I was amazed by its mahogany interior, blue stained glass windows, and sand covered floor. I thought about the reasons given for the sand—to remind us of the years the Israelites spent wandering in the desert or the attempt to muffle the sounds of prayer in fear of the Inquisition. As in Barbados I looked around to see where I should sit and noticed that there were women seated alongside men. Joining them, I took a prayer book and began to follow along. Though the people around me spoke accented English and Dutch, the rabbi sounded as if he came from the United States and at one point during the Torah service read a prayer in broken Portuguese. I was surprised to hear the language that I had studied since high school. After nearly four hundred years the Caribbean Sephardim did not forget the idiom spoken by their ancestors in Iberia. After the services there was a celebration for the children who had just finished another year of Hebrew School. Taking turns, each child, both girls and boys, climbed to the reader’s desk and gave thanks to their teacher for another year of learning. I was impressed by the fact that there was a school catering to the next generation, though small in size.

Once the service was over, the congregation gathered in a community hall across the courtyard. There was a Kiddush and people talked to one another about the upcoming summer. I asked a few people some questions regarding the Mikvé Israel-Emanuel and learned that it was a combined congregation of two synagogues that had split during the mid 1860s when the Reform Movement was sweeping Judaism in Germany and the United States. Decreasing membership led the two to join together in the 1960s using a combination of traditions from both.  The Sephardic community went through another, more extreme change in 2000 when it became egalitarian allowing women to participate in services and sit alongside the men. Not all were in favor of this and some joined the Ashkenazi synagogue on Curaçao, Shaarei Tzedek.

My visit to Curaçao made me think of the difficult choices that Jews everywhere make to continue their traditions. Combining synagogues and deciding which prayers to keep or omit during a service was not easy. Nor was the decision to become egalitarian, a move that divided the community and is still an issue for discussion. Yet people still revere their heritage and invest in the next generation’s education. One of the major concerns they have is intermarriage and a majority of children study abroad in the Netherlands, England or the United States. As in Barbados, this does not ensure that they will marry Jewish, but at least they will have a greater opportunity to do so given that the community numbers around 115 households or 350 members.

Once I returned to Barbados, the last trip I planned in my Sephardic Caribbean sojourn was Jamaica. Having received an invitation to visit the island from Ainsley Henriques, a leader of the Jamaican Jewish Community who I had met at a conference in New York, I decided to go in July. Jamaica, like Curaçao fascinated me because I had heard that it still had a Sephardic “essence” to it as opposed to Barbados that had become completely Ashkenazi aside from its synagogue building. Going to Shabbat services in Kingston, however, showed me how the traditions could evolve with the influence of different colonizers and peoples. For example the synagogue itself, Shaare Shalom, is a large, white colonial style building with sand floors. People of various ethnicities worshiped together in a style that to me was reminiscent of the British Protestants who once ruled the island combined with what Mr. Henriques described as “Sephardic liturgy and music”. After services there was a Kiddush and I noticed that the attendees were somewhat older, though some were accompanied by grandchildren from abroad. As Mr. Henriques gave me a tour of the museum that also serves as a community center, I looked at photos of earlier community presidents from a different era. Now, only 200 Jews are affiliated with the United Congregation of Israelites though it is quite active for its size. There is a Hebrew School, Hillel Academy, as well as a home for the aged, synagogue sisterhood and B’nei B’rith. A new rabbi was hired in September 2011 and international groups help maintain the nearly 23 cemeteries around the island.  The United Congregations of Israelites is also committed to educating both visitors from abroad and local Jamaicans about the Jamaican Jewish heritage. Each year hundreds of school children visit the center to learn about the important contributions made by Jews to the island country.

My time on the islands ended in August and since then I have thought a great deal about my visits to Barbados, Curaçao and Jamaica.  I traced the remnants of the Sephardic communities from Portugal to Brazil to the islands imagining the difficulties they must have faced as they tried to survive. What I found was that there was something in common—something that Jews everywhere could learn from.  First of all, numbers matter. A community will have a difficult time surviving if its members leave en masse or completely assimilate into a host nation. In the case of Barbados, the entire Sephardic population had disappeared by 1929 either through intermarriage or emigration to other countries such as Canada and Great Britain. Curaçao and Jamaica have both seen their young go abroad and not return or marry non-Jews. Secondly, rifts between synagogues need to be put aside in order to stabilize the population. In the case of Curaçao, decreasing numbers forced the communities of Mikvé Israel and Emanuel to join together after a century-long split, though the decision to have egalitarian worship prompted some members to leave the community once again.  Jamaica also formed the United Congregations of Israelites. A third factor is the education of the young. Both Curaçao and Jamaica have Hebrew schools for their children and though they may leave when they reach high school or college age, their children will have a Jewish identity.

In conclusion, for Jewish communities to remain viable in the Diaspora, a minimum population committed to education and cohesiveness is essential, though outside factors such as politics and economics may ultimately affect the conduciveness of some locations.

When exploring certain topics in the Talmud a discussion can be opened by use of a particular verse from which a principle that underlies an entire subject is learned. For example

…
Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani introduced this passage with an introduction from here… (Megillah 10b). 

This approach came immediately to mind while reading Rabbi Hayyim Angel’s new book, Keys To The Palace: Exploring the Reglioius Value of Reading Tanakh from Kodesh Press. This work consists of twenty essays from Rabbi Angel on a variety of topics ranging from academic Bible study, to the afterlife, to perspectives on several of the Psalms. What cuts across and unites the work is Rabbi Angel’s mastery of Tanakh and his courageous pursuit of pshat. 

Perhaps I should back up a bit to provide some context. Having been a product of more right-leaning Yeshivot, for years I had lamented my lack of having a good grasp of nach. Fortunately, I recently stumbled across what I would term a revolution in the teaching and learning of Neviim and Ketuvim in a serious way, for adults. One of the pillars at the center of this movement is Rabbi Angel. 

The current work provides the reader with an entree into this world by offering numerous and variegated keys throughout these essays, which have been culled from a number of other works or scholarly publications, into parts of Nach and matters germane to academic Jewish studies today. Each chapter stands on its own, though several reference common topics, such as David’s taking of Batsheva.   

Each essay serves as a key to the topic at hand. In a few short pages Rabbi Angel poses powerful questions, covers the responses of many of the traditional and non-traditional sources, and provides a helpful summary and concise endnotes. The essays are too brief to be exhaustive of the topic, but instead whet the readers curiosity to learn and explore further.  

In his even-handed presentation of how to approach and incorporate academic and non-Jewish sources into the traditional study of Tanakh, Rabbi Angel exposes the reader to some of the towering and influential work that has been generated in Israel and, outside of the scholarly community, may not be well known to the English speaking audience.  

Perhaps as an inversion of Maimonides aphorism to accept the truth from whatever source it comes, Rabbi Angel rejects unconvincing solutions, no matter who proffers them. The author provides many viewpoints on a question and discusses the relative strengths and weakness so that the reader has a clear understanding of where the truth lies.  In his search for pshat and the most reasonable explanation the author presents Tanakh unvarnished,  and in so doing challenges the reader to think deeply, appreciate nuance, and continue to seek the “keys to encountering God in his Palace”.

(Rabbi Hayyim Angel's book can be purchased through the online store at jewishideas.org)

            I am a convert. There can be no question that I am halakhically Jewish, at least if you trust the Lubavitchers to know halakha. I am writing to protest the downright shameful treatment of converts by the Orthodox community, which so conveniently forgets the explicit commandment to not oppress the ger.

            First, let me state my background—though I will omit identifying details for reasons that will appear later. I was raised as a Christian in the Bible Belt to believe that the Bible was the word of God. Nobody explained to me why “God’s Word” did not include the laws in the first five books, which today are observed only by Jews. Due to my parents’ severe opposition, I could not do anything toward converting to Judaism until I went away to graduate school in a small college town.

This was more than 35 years ago. At that time, I took instruction from the only Orthodox rabbi in the state, who could be described as Modern Orthodox. In those days, I knew nothing of Modern/Hareidi distinctions among Orthodox Jews; in fact, there were no Hareidi Jews in my immediate vicinity. The Bet Din consisted of my rabbi; the only Conservative rabbi in that town (he was a Sabbath observer), and one other person. As I started meeting other Jews for the first time (I had had no significant social Jewish contact before my conversion), I started getting questions about this conversion. I had met a community of Lubavitchers by this time, and they decided that although they believed my conversion was valid, they would redo it just to remove all question. They even placed a call to New York and got a ruling that I should not say God’s name in the blessing for this re-run. This second conversion took place about a year and a half after my first conversion.

            I did not meet and marry my husband until nine years later. His entire family is Hareidi, and he is yeshiva-educated. We are Shomrei Shabbat but not “yeshivish,” and live in a small college town with a bare minyan for our Orthodox community. We have one child, a son, who is also Shomer Shabbat.

            The basic problem a convert faces in the Orthodox world stems from the following mind-set: If you observe one mitzvah more than I do you are a fanatic, and if you observe one mitzvah less you are an apikores, or heretic. This is hard a enough mind-set for a ba’al teshuva to navigate and to figure out what is essential halakha and what is less essential minhag, or custom—and even more so for the convert. If a convert is at all less stringent than the person he or she is speaking to, the logic seems to extend that the convert has not accepted all of the mitzvoth, and therefore the validity of the conversion is in question. I’ve even had an Orthodox rabbi say this to me in those very words!

I recall an occasion when I asked: Why, if there is one law for the convert and one who is born Jewish, that converts are automatically classed with prostitutes as people kohanim may not marry? That’s when I learned that questioning is not permitted. Another “learning experience” I had was when I became friendly with a young man—and our friendship was disapproved of by people in the community, who forced him to end the friendship. I obviously hadn’t accepted that the only permissible relationship between a man and a woman was marriage to that person, so therefore I wasn’t “really Jewish.” I even got into trouble when I expressed secular political views that differed from those of the person I was speaking with. I didn’t elevate “what’s good for the Jews” (including the State of Israel) over all other considerations. This showed that I had not really become part of the Jewish people, and therefore I wasn’t considered to be Jewish.

            My point is that the only way for a convert to be “accepted” is to become SuperJew: to be more stringent than anyone else, and to totally block out the former non-Jewish self. I have known of a few such people, though I have never become close enough to them to tell if this is real or an act they put on for self-preservation. Sorry, folks, I’m not SuperJew, nor are the vast majority of converts I have known—though they and I feel pressure to be so. If you can be “accepted” only by putting on an act, you’re not really accepted.

            In the culture in which I grew up, the cardinal sin is forgetting where you came from. I’ve often had Jews tell me that they assume I wouldn’t want my children to know my parents, and that since my parents are not halakhically my parents I owe them no obligation. I’m afraid that I’ve never bought that, and it has been the source of many problems. Does this mean I’m not really Jewish?

            And I wish I had a dollar for every remark I’ve heard made by Jews about “the goyim.” I can’t stand such remarks about me (I’m still the same person I was before) and my family and my former co-religionists (whom I do NOT consider to be idolaters!), and it’s no excuse that the speaker didn’t know my background. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 94a) recognizes that this is painful for the convert and explicitly forbids such comments lest the convert regret the conversion. Believe me, I’ve heard much worse about non-Jews from Jews than I’ve ever heard about Jews from non-Jews. I’m afraid that this does not exactly solidify my identification with the Jewish people, whom I encountered only after my conversion to the faith.

            The effect of all this on me (and I’ve only related a few examples) was very nearly to drive me away from Judaism. When people do things to you in the name of religion, it becomes hard to separate the people from the religion. In this case, it is also very hard to separate halakha from minhag. When a demand is made on you that you simply can’t fulfill, and you are told that this is an essential part of the package, how do you not then reject the whole package? I very nearly did. If there had been a way to undo my conversion, I might well have done it. But when I give my word, I keep it. I believed I was now obligated to observance and couldn’t get out of it. What really saved me Jewishly was that I was now living in my present small college town, where all Jews are accepted without question (because, for one thing, we can’t afford to be very particular). This tolerance allowed me the space to recover after my experiences with larger and more rigid Orthodox communities.

            Most of my problems of the sort I’ve described occurred before I got married. Since then, my husband’s yihus (religious lineage and connections) has largely protected me, coupled with the decision we made to hide my ancestry where at all possible. This started with my mother-in-law, a Polish immigrant who probably subscribed to the “can the leopard change its spots” view of non-Jews that I have also heard (primarily from members of her generation). She was deeply embarrassed about her son having non-Jewish in-laws, but she wanted her son to be happy. She solved the problem by pretending to everyone (and herself) that my parents were Jewish, and ordering us to say nothing to the contrary. She has been dead many years now, but my husband, with his greater knowledge of the Orthodox world, convinced me that it would be better for our son if my background still was not known. We have all become very good at giving the misleading impression that I was born Jewish, while at the same time not saying anything that isn’t true. I do not have sufficient Hebrew language skills to pass as someone who was born into a Jewish, religious home, but we allow the impression to exist that I am a ba’alat teshuva. Although our son knew my parents (now long-deceased), to outsiders we emphasize my husband’s family and de-emphasize mine. I am not comfortable having to deny who I am, and I hope that someday my son will decide that denying half his heritage is not good, but I’ve acquiesced because it’s best for him. If my status becomes known, he will be forever under the same cloud that I am. I wouldn’t wish my experience on anyone, especially my own son.

            My latest problem, which has reawakened all of these memories, is that my son has started looking for a shiddukh, a wife, in the Orthodox world. We recently had a very bad experience. The girl signaled interest on a computer site, knowing of my background. Her mother took over and forbade her to meet my son until I was investigated. The result was very unpleasant for me: the matchmaker, in the course of her Inquisition, persisted in thinking that it was for the sake of marriage, that the re-conversion was at my husband’s insistence (never mind that both conversions took place long before I met him), and even asked whether our son had conversion papers! Their rabbi then called us to explain that it was his synagogue’s policy to have copies of conversion papers on file, and asked us to send them. (All of this was before my son could even talk with the girl to see if the match was worth pursuing.) I was going to refuse unless the same demand was made of the other parents; before it came to this point, my son refused the match. He agreed with me that proof of my Jewishness should not be halakhically necessary (especially at this stage), since it was not in question that I had long been observant, and further, it sounded like a bad in-law situation. It still left me very upset. I don’t mind the asking itself as much as I do the unwillingness to accept my answers. I am hoping that in whatever shiddukh he makes, my background can remain hidden (except to the girl herself) until after the wedding, because I can foresee a repeat of this unpleasant suspicion directed at me and only me. I don’t know whether this will be possible.

            This brings me to one of my long-standing grudges. Converts are asked to show papers at every instance, from day school enrollment (either their own or their children’s) to weddings. The same is not asked of people who claim to be born Jewish. I resent being singled out for this suspicion. I don’t care how politely it is phrased or what reasons are given. (“Standard synagogue policy” certainly doesn’t cut it.) I find it offensive and discriminatory to constantly have to prove myself, to know that there will never be a time when I am simply accepted as a Jew without strings attached.  Perhaps the larger community is simply unaware of the impact this practice has on a convert’s feelings. But it’s past time that this was realized and these policies reexamined.

            These actions may actually violate an additional negative commandment, beyond oppressing the ger. Maimonides, when talking of “cheating with words,” gives an example of someone who tells a convert to “remember your origins.” He may have meant that someone who while in negotiations with a convert assumes a superior position because of his Jewish birth is cheating, by taking for himself something to which he isn’t entitled (since Jewishness should be equal for all Jews). These demands for proof of conversion in return for shiddukhim and Jewish education may qualify.

            I will now refuse to provide papers for any reason unless the same is required of non-converts as well. (I can tell you that my husband has no such paperwork to prove he is Jewish.) If one needs to be sure I am Jewish, one should apply the same criteria for people who claim to be born Jewish. To me (and my yeshiva-bred husband agrees), this discriminatory treatment is a clear violation of the commandment not to oppress the ger. One convert I know got so fed up with this practice that she tore up her papers. I haven’t dared go that far, but I’m sorely tempted. Whatever happened to the halakhic presumption that if you are observant of mitzvoth, you are Jewish? I’ve been Shomeret Shabbat for 35 years. Shouldn’t that suffice? (The yeshiva community actually may be better on this point than non-yeshiva people; my Hareidi sister-in-law and her husband immediately and totally accepted me with no questions asked.)

            I have been told that I should not feel offended by these procedures because, especially these days, people need to make sure that both parties to a Jewish marriage are Jewish. First, I don’t think anyone should tell me how to feel. The commandment not to oppress the ger only makes sense in light of the ger’s own feelings. Second, why are the same requirements not made of the parties who claim to be born Jewish? Ba’alei teshuva aren’t asked for papers; but even for them, isn’t it forbidden to shame a ba’al teshuva by reminding him or her of past non-observance? Third, I don’t think one should downgrade the explicit commandment not to oppress the ger.

            So what if an occasional mistake is made? I’m afraid that with my background I can’t consider this the worst thing that could happen. I can hardly take the position that any non-Jewish ancestry is a blot on the Jewish people. Actually, I believe there is an opinion that if it should transpire that a maternal ancestor wasn’t Jewish, it would not negate the Jewish status of observant mikva-going descendants. But if that doesn’t suffice, do a conversion to make sure—and I don’t mean making an already observant person start from scratch. This problem is fixable. Elijah the Prophet is going to have quite a job sorting us all out anyway; what’s a few more, especially when weighed against the commandment not to oppress the ger? Personally, I’d go with this Torah commandment as against concerns with the purity of the Jewish people. Unfortunately, however,  the Orthodox community seems to have taken the other position. I think a number of so-called religious Jews will have a few things to answer for on the Day of Judgment.

            The situation today is even worse than it was 35 years ago. With the Orthodoxy’s move toward the right, standards for converts have been raised. It is forbidden to refuse a sincere convert. In the effort to weed out the insincere, has the bar been raised so high as to also exclude many sincere converts? In my day, the “Big Three” mitzvoth were Shabbat, kashruth, and taharat haMishpahah (family purity); anything more was desirable but not a deal-breaker. It was not required that the convert know all of halakha. And at least where I did it, anyone who did not have a Jewish fiancé(e) was automatically accepted. In addition, if a problem was later discovered with the procedure, redoing it was no big deal. Now, to judge by the experience of newer converts in our community, one must have to commit to a higher level of observance and must live in a large Orthodox community (which, as a resident of a small community, I disagree with—it is quite possible to live halakhically without a lot of large local Jewish institutions). Additionally, there is a reluctance to simply redo questionable conversions. One Shomer Shabbat person in my community is in halakhic limbo with his questionable prior conversion, which nobody is willing to redo as long as he lives here. The point about questionable conversions that appears to be overlooked is that although the conversion may be invalid, it also may be valid. The current focus seems to be on the possible invalidity, with the result that these converts are treated as if the conversion never happened. What about the possibility that it may be valid? If it is, aren’t we committing several serious sins, from oppressing the ger to discouraging further observance?

            The religious leadership in the State of Israel adds to the problem by only accepting certain rabbis’ conversions. Where would that leave me? I doubt such a list even existed 35 years ago; if it did, I don’t know whether my rabbi would have been on it. Put it this way: My son knows it would be probably too complicated for him to consider making aliyah.

            Even outside the State of Israel, there is a problem with local autonomy. A conversion that is accepted in one community may not be accepted in another. One person in our community converted 50 years ago. No problems arose until now, when her daughter was refused membership in one European synagogue, and her grandchildren were denied a Jewish education in that community. Since the (Orthodox) converting rabbi has long been dead, he could not be asked for information. The daughter is accepted as Jewish in some Orthodox communities but not in others. What is a convert to do, especially when it is long enough after the fact that all witnesses have died?

I have read the Rabbinical Council of America’s new conversion policies, which are intended to address at least the uniformity problem. Aside from the fact that these policies are only prospective, I am afraid that in implementation they will be used to institutionalize a very high bar for converts and justify retroactive rejection of converts such as myself. I fear that the prescription that converts should tell their local rabbi of their status merely invites the sort of social problems I’ve described above, unless said rabbi is both trustworthy and sensitive (which, unfortunately, not all are).  We do, after all, know the halakhic implications of our own conversions! I for one (and I suspect others as well) prefer not to emerge from the closet now.

            It appears that no convert can ever be secure in his or her status as a Jew, no matter how much time has elapsed. Ignorance of the halakha involved, coupled with prejudice against non-Jews, makes it all too easy for a Jew to consider a convert to be insufficiently observant, hence non-Jewish, and to feel no qualms about expressing this. It should be absolutely forbidden for a Jew to raise this issue about a conversion once validly performed, and it also should be forbidden to reexamine decades-old conversions that were done by Orthodox rabbis. Otherwise, there will be literally no end to the suspicion surrounding a convert.

It may not be too farfetched to draw an analogy with the “purity of blood” concerns of Spanish Christians at the time of the Inquisition. “Old Christians” constantly suspected “New Christians” of being secret Jews, even if generations of the New Christian family had been devout Christians. This entailed serious social and political repercussions against the New Christians, who became a permanent and inferior social class. Only if one could prove “purity of blood,” that is, unadulterated Old Christian descent, could one rest easy. I am afraid that the present-day Orthodox Jewish social structure may be developing into a similar caste system, with converts at the bottom of the ladder and with decreasing possibilities of social integration. The tales I hear from outreach organizations about the problems ba’alei teshuva face in Orthodox communities indicate this—and, of course, converts have even lower status than ba’alei teshuva. Rambam would be appalled.

            When people ask to convert, they are warned about persecution from non-Jews. Nobody ever warns them about persecution from Jews. Perhaps this is simply not on the radar screen of conversion rabbis, very few of whom have ever experienced it themselves. However, this has been the experience of nearly every convert I know. Frankly, if I had known 40 years ago everything I know now, I doubt I would have found becoming Jewish to be worth the struggle, despite my theological convictions. Is this the message we want to give converts—that they will never be fully accepted by the Jewish community? I can never fully belong, nor can my son if the truth about me were made public. At least my child is a male, so the problem should die with him. As for me, there is nothing more that I need from the Jewish community. I only want to protect my son, who did not choose his situation, from having to go through the same experience. It is past time for someone to remind Jews that the commandment not to oppress the ger is still part of the Torah.

The Bible has topped the best-seller list every week since the invention of printing. It has directed the course of human civilization and has served as the foundation of faith for billions of people. Its content and style are recognized by believers and non-believers alike as the most profound and inspirational writing in the history of humankind. For observant Jews, Tanakh is nothing less than the Word of God. With these credentials, one might expect that teaching Tanakh would be an easy sell.

            However, as in all teaching, bridging the gap between the subject and the student is a task that requires careful thought and continual reimagining. Students must overcome not only a language barrier when studying Tanakh in Hebrew, but also historical, cultural, and philosophical differences between the world of Tanakh and that of modern Western civilization. The teachings of Tanakh are certainly eternal; but their relevance is not always obvious to children and teenagers immersed in the digital age.

            In previous generations, teaching Humash and Rashi sufficed to imbue students with the fundamentals of Jewish faith and law. Advanced students would also study the Ramban and—especially in Sephardic lands—pride of place was given to Ibn Ezra. However, I believe that our students today deserve and require a greater range of commentaries and methodologies. We have already seen this expansion of the canon take place in the past few decades in Modern Orthodox education, primarily through the writing and influence of two people:

1. Professor Nehama Leibowitz has opened up for us the full range of traditional Jewish commentaries, ancient and modern, with a talent for zoning in and clarifying the differences between them on various exegetical issues and their methodological considerations. Nehama also had a unique ability to make those issues relevant to modern society to the point where her classes could be appreciated by a wide range of Israeli society—both religious and secular.
2. The effort spearheaded by Rav Yoel bin-Nun and continued by the many talented faculty members of Yeshivat Har Etzion and Makhon Herzog to bring a literary appreciation for Tanakh in terms of structure, themes, and parallels within a context dedicated to peshat.

These are but two prominent examples of individuals who have advanced our understanding and appreciation of Scripture through their innovative methodologies that successfully combine traditional and modern sensibilities. Many others have similarly made remarkable contributions to our understanding of Tanakh in a way that is respectful of its integrity. This is especially true in the recognition of the value of setting Tanakh in its ancient Near Eastern context, not only for the similarities but more importantly for the differences. The revolutionary messages of the prophets of monotheism and morality shine when viewed on the background of ancient paganism. Such efforts abound in the halls of Yeshiva University, Bar-Ilan University, and many other institutions.[1]

These developments have opened a pathway toward selectively integrating modern Bible scholarship into mainstream Judaism. It is true that biblical scholarship presents certain challenges to traditional Orthodox belief, and recent thinkers have proposed a number of ways of dealing with these challenges. However, these issues are mostly irrelevant in a yeshiva high school setting where the goal is to inspire students about the eternal lessons of Tanakh and provide them with a basis upon which to build a lifelong commitment to Judaism and continued study.

Rather than focus on the problems of academic Bible, the approach of the writers mentioned above is to take advantage of the array of ways recent scholarship can enhance our appreciation and teaching of Tanakh. David Berger has argued that literary analysis of the Bible can help deal with problems of the morality of the Patriarchs as well as issues of higher criticism.[2] But we should teach such literary approaches not only in order to “provide the cure before the calamity” but also because it reveals more of Tanakh’s prophetic depth.

Unfortunately, these wonderful discoveries and helpful methodologies developed in academic circles in recent decades do not always trickle down into traditional educational settings. Nehama Leibowitz has certainly transformed generations of Modern Orthodox teachers and Makhon Herzog is also making a major impact on teachers who study there and who access their resources. Nevertheless, there is much more to be done in this regard, and there is especially a need to create curricula specifically designed with a classroom teacher in mind and that can guide a teacher as to how to transform this material into a structured and effective lesson.

Curriculum Development

            A few years ago, I started a project to prepare curricula for teaching Tanakh in high school. So far, my colleagues and I have written teacher’s guides for all or parts of Shemot, Devarim, Yeshayahu, Yirmiyahu, and Tehillim. Each lesson includes a step-by-step guide of suggestions for how to present the material, including worksheets, source sheets, PowerPoint presentations, and other multimedia resources. All of this material is freely available at www.teachtorah.org, and many dozens of teachers in schools around the world have successfully made use of this material. Below, I present a small selection from these lessons that highlight the approach we have taken to integrate use of multimedia, derive insights from archaeology, make the subject matter relevant to contemporary sensibilities, and use analysis of structure to discover the essential lesson of a given chapter.

Using Multimedia

            With most high school classrooms now equipped with projectors and Smart boards, teachers can enhance their lessons with pictures, music, and interactive presentations. One way to vivify Tanakh is to show medieval paintings of biblical scenes.

The Finding of Moses by Orazio Gentileschi (1633)

For example, Shemot 2:5 narrates: ^“The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe in the Nile, while her maidens walked along the Nile. She spied the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to fetch it.” The question arises, what role do the maidens play in this story? A wonderful trigger for this discussion is The Finding of Moses by Orazio Gentileschi (1633). This painting depicts tension between the princess and her maidservants. While the princess and one of the maidservants point to the circumcision as evidence for the need to murder the baby, the maidservants on the other side show caring and seem to plead for compassion.

Compare this painting to the Gemara at Sotah 12b, which says that all but one of the maidservants were punished for encouraging the princess to follow her father’s orders and murder the baby. Sforno explains that by God’s providence, the maidens, who would have murdered the baby, did not see the ark; instead only the princess saw it and she sent her personal maidservant to save it. While most Christian paintings of this scene depict a reluctant princess who is urged by her compassionate maidens to save the child, Jewish commentators take the opposite position. This viewpoint can lead to a conversation about peer pressure and doing the right thing even when those around us may encourage us not to.

It is noteworthy that one opinion in the Gemara takes amatah to refer not to her maid but to her arm, which stretched forth to take hold of the ark. This is a creative poetic way to portray the enthusiasm of the princess in wanting to save the baby and the miraculous nature of the event. However, this is obviously not the peshat, as Rashi and Ibn Ezra prove.

            When learning Tehillim, we should emphasize their performative aspect. Just as one cannot appreciate the experience of being at a live concert if all you have are the lyrics, we have to try to reconstruct what it must have been like to experience the Leviim performing Tehillim in the magnificent Bet ha-Mikdash, Temple. Archaeologists have actually found the earliest musical notation in ancient Ugarit and have reconstructed what is sounded like. They have also uncovered mosaics with pictures of ancient instruments and figurines playing those instruments. Here, for example is a kinor, an eight stringed lyre, as depicted on a Bar Kokhba coin:

A kinor depicted on a Bar Kokhba coin

            By playing recordings of ancient world music, as well as Tehillim chanted by modern Hazzanim according to the te‘amim, one can get some sense of how Tehillim may have been sung in the Bet ha-Mikdash. Modern musicians have also set many Mizmorim to music and playing these recordings in class can help make the study of Tehillim not only intellectually interesting but also emotionally inspiring.

Archaeology

            Archaeologists in the Middle East have made amazing discoveries in the past century—both of material remains and inscriptions—that can help shed light on the Tanakh. These findings can also be a valuable pedagogical tool for filling in the context of biblical times and making the events come to life.

A drawing at Beni-Hasan from the tomb of Khnumhotep, who served in the royal court of pharaoh Senusret II in the nineteenth century BCE. This drawing depicts a group of Semitic people entering Egypt.

To cite a couple of examples, the Hyksos were a conglomeration of Semitic people who infiltrated Egypt starting from the twenty-first century BCE. They then gained supremacy in 1700 BCE and ruled Northern Egypt until 1550 BCE, when the Egyptian Pharaoh Ahmose I chased most of them out of the country and reestablished native Egyptian rule. Although these events are too early to identify the Hyksos with the Israelites, as Josephus did, this history nevertheless does help fill in the context for several aspects of the biblical story:

• The migration of Jacob’s family to Egypt was part of a larger movement of Semites making the same trip.
• Hyksos rule of Northern Egypt explains how Joseph, a foreigner, could rise to great power and marry an Egyptian noblewoman since he was a Semite just as they were.
• It further explains why Pharaoh was so paranoid about the Israelite nation increasing and joining enemies to conquer the Egyptians. Such an event had already happened with the Hyksos and the memory of their revolt would still be prominent in his mind.

            The second example is from Dr. Shawn-Zelig Aster’s teacher’s guide for Yeshayahu and is based on his own original research. Isaiah 6 has the prophet experience the sights and sounds of God’s throneroom. Isaiah sees God seated on a throne and six-winged angels attending Him and pronouncing His holiness. One of the angels purifies the prophet by touching a hot coal from the altar to his lips. What is the meaning of this deep prophetic vision?

            In 879 BCE, King Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria built a magnificent palace that was still in use over a century later in Yeshayahu’s time. Like all other nations in Assyria’s power grip, Israel and Judah had to send emmissaries to the Assyrian palace with protection money if they wanted to avoid being conquered. Such an emmisary would have been impressed by the many scenes of Assyrian battle victories etched in the palace hallways. In the Assyrian throneroom, he would see this relief:

Drawing from throne room of Ashurnasirpal II

• In the center is the tree that represents the world. At its top is a winged image of the god Ashur, the chief Assyrian god. The message is that the god Ashur is in charge of the world.
• On either side of Ashur is an image of the Assyrian king (with beard), whom the Assyrians consider king of the world.
• On either side of the Assyrian king is the four-winged figure that protects the king from impurity.

The emmisary would probably have concluded that the Assyrian king is more powerful than Israel’s God and would have reported this when he returned home. This would lead the nation to give up its hope, faith, and identity. Isaiah’s prophecy counters this false impression. In fact, it is Hashem who sits on the throne and is king of the world: “His presence fills all the earth” (Isaiah 6:3). Significantly, while the Assyrian king is himself susceptible to impurity and requires protective angels to keep him pure, the angels in Isaiah’s prophecy are necessary only to remove Yeshayahu’s impurity. Hashem requires no protection for He is Eternal, Holy, and beyond all human power.

            Dr. Aster suggests that teachers connect Yeshayahu’s prophecy to their own lives. Teenagers can often feel a sense of sensory overload and be impressed by the power of technology, movies, rockstars, international politics, and big business. This prophecy of Yeshayahu, however, which the rabbis incorporated into the daily siddur, can help students re-evaluate their priorities and loyalties and thereby reset their moral compass.

Contemporize

Every lesson in a high school setting should have an enduring understanding so that students can relate it to their own lives and contemporary society. By contemporizing the Tanakh we not only ensure that students will internalize its teachings but we also provide a motivation for studying Tanakh and a way to make it relevant to their life concerns.

Studying the opening chapter of Shemot provides a fitting opportunity to understand dictators, ancient and modern alike. As Ramban points out, Pharaoh gradually enacts harsher and harsher decrees against the Israelites in order to slowly turn the Egyptian populace against their Israelite neighbors. How can people who were on good terms with their neighbors for generations suddenly become enemies? We see the same phenomenon occur in our own times in the Bosnian war and in Nazi Germany.

A teacher can provide to the students a few sources on the history of the Holocaust and ask students to find parallels in Shemot. For example, Goebbels refers to the Jews in Germany as “guests” who are “misusing our hospitality,” and Julius Streicher spreads propaganda that the Jews are responsible for World War I and are enemies of the state. This reminds us of Pharoah’s accusation in Shemot 1:9–10: “The Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us.”

We must be vigilant in recognizing propaganda whenever we read a newspaper, watch television, or listen to speeches. A teacher can easily find examples from current events whether relating to local news, Israel, or pop culture. Politicians, businesses, religious leaders, and intellectuals of various kinds constantly try to convince us that their view is correct and all other views are wrong. It is up to us to distinguish between the sincere and the self-serving, between good and evil, between accuracy and propaganda.

It might seem that nothing could be further from the lives of American teenagers than Moshe’s prophetic encounter in the middle of the desert at the burning bush. In fact, however, this can be a foundational lesson for students about finding themselves and achieving their own leadership potential. Many elements went into the emergence of Moshe as a leader: his family, background, birth and childhood, a strong sense of justice, and passion to take action. While these attributes took many years to develop and mature, there was one single moment at which they all came together. In Shemot 3:4, we read that Hashem only calls to Moshe after He sees that Moshe turns to examine the bush. In order to hear the divine calling, one must be attentive and on the lookout for it. This is when the hero finds his calling and resolves in earnest to follow a plan to accomplish his or her set goal.

Although we are not prophets, each of us can receive a divine calling at his or her own level. A teacher can ask students to identify issues in their own schools, communities or in the world where there is injustice or something that needs attention. What talents and tools would someone need to help that problem? How can we develop ourselves to develop our own talents and be sensitive enough to take notice of the “burning bushes” all over the world today? How can we develop the confidence to step up and become leaders?

Structure

            Mizmor 145, known as Ashrei, is a highly structured alphabetic acrostic. That it is missing a pasuk for nun therefore stands out as a glaring omission. The classic answer given in Berakhot 4b explains that nun is omitted because it represents the fall of Israel as seen in Amos 5:2, “Fallen is the virgin of Israel,” which begins with a nun. This answer is not convincing for a few reasons. Just because there is a negative verse in Amos which begins with nun does not mean that nun is forever tainted. There are many positive verses that begin with nun and many negative verses that begin with other letters. If nun really is unusable, why is it found in other acrostic Psalms such as 111, 112, and 119? As I explain further in the teacher’s guide, this midrash is not meant as a commentary to psalm 145 as much as a way to deal with a difficult verse in Amos.

Most scholars think there was originally a verse for nun but it was mistakenly omitted by sloppy scribes. For evidence, they point to a copy of this Psalm found in the Dead Sea scrolls, which does include a verse for nun: “ne’eman Elokim bi-dvarav ve-hasid be-khol ma`asav—God is trustworthy in His words and faithful in all His works.” However, it is highly unlikely that this is the original missing nun verse considering that its second half is a duplicate of verse 17. More likely, an overzealous scribe invented this verse to “correct” what he thought was a mistake.

Rather, we should seek out a literary explanation for why this psalm intentionally omitted a verse for nun. This emerges upon analysis of the structure of this Psalm. This Psalm begins and ends with the word tehillah/tehillat. Verses 1 and 2 both end with “Your name forever and ever” and the last verse similarly ends with “His holy name forever and ever.” The verb brk–bless occurs four times in the mizmor in vv. 1, 2, 10, and 21. Taking all these words together, we find that the first two verses and the last verse form an envelope around the rest of the psalm. Since the only other occurrence of brk is in v. 10, this middle verse too is linked to the opening and closing. Once we compare these pesukim side by side we find that there is a progression from one to the next:

¹ I will extol You, my God and king, and bless Your name forever and ever.

²Every day will I bless You and praise Your name forever and ever.

¹⁰All Your works shall praise You, Hashem, and Your faithful ones shall bless You.

²¹My mouth shall utter the praise of Hashem, and all creatures shall bless His holy name forever and ever.

In the first two verses, the singer blesses Hashem by himself. In the middle verse, a small group of faithful ones bless Hashem. By the end, all creatures bless His Holy Name. We can picture someone beginning to sing by himself, then being joined by a few devotees, and finally rallying everyone to sing together. These four verses act as a refrain at the beginning, middle, and end of the Psalm.

There are four sections in the mizmor: two before the refrain and two after it. Section 1 consists of vv. 3–6 and focuses on God’s greatness. The key words in this section are: greatness, might, glorious majesty, splendor, wondrous, and awesome. All of these words praise the great works of God in creation and nature. They relate to God as transcendent, powerful, and beyond reach.

Verses 7–9 comprise section 2, which is a celebration of God’s goodness. The key words in this section are goodness, beneficence, gracious, compassionate, kindness, and mercy. Verse 8, in particular, paraphrases God’s 13 attributes of mercy (Shemot 34:6). In this section we feel Hashem’s closeness to us, His care, and His accessibility.

Section 3 spans vv. 11–13, and its key words are: majesty, kingship, might, majestic glory, and dominion. This section shares many of the words and themes from section 1 but emphasizes God’s kingship in particular. Like section 1, this section also gives off the sense of Hashem as transcendent just like a human king is beyond the reach of the ordinary citizen. Remarkably, the three verses of this section begin with the letters כ, ל, and מ. When read backward, these letters spell מלך—king!

Section 4 is the largest section at vv. 14–20 and parallels section 2 in its theme. This section describes how God provides help and sustenance to the needy (vv. 14–16) and responds to and protects the deserving (vv. 18–20). The middle verse of this section sums up its central message—“Hashem is beneficent in all His ways and faithful in all His works” (v. 17). The predominant word in this section is “kol­–all,” which is repeated 10 times. It emphasizes that Hashem is not just selectively good to some people sometimes but rather all-good all the time to all living beings.

Some philosophers speak of God as a transcendent, infinite, all-powerful being about whom we can know nothing and from whom we would not expect special favors. Others think of God as a close, ever-compassionate father-like figure who thinks about us and cares for our every need. In philosophy, it is difficult to reconcile these two conceptions. However, when meditating or when in a state of prayer, our emotions can often shift from one to the other and back. The four sections of this mizmor similarly vacillate between these two extremes. Sections 1 and 3 conceive of God as transcendent and therefore call to proclaim His greatness and kingship. Sections 2 and 4, on the other hand, consider God to be near at hand as they praise His goodness.

We can now trace the movement of the reader as he or she experiences this mizmor. At first alone, the reader begins by thinking of God’s greatness and awesomeness in section 1 but does not feel close to Him. Once the reader begins to fathom God’s mighty acts in creation, the reader begin to think of acts He performs for the world. In section two the reader begins to sense God’s mercy. The reader now reaches a higher level where he or she feels connected with a group of “faithful ones” in the refrain. We then think about God as an infinite king in section 3. But even a king must take care of his subjects, and the infinite king provides infinite care for all beings. It is significant that the last section is the longest and most detailed. It is clearly the climax of the mizmor and contains its most essential message.

            Getting back to the missing nun, we now see that this verse is omitted right at the juncture between sections 3 and 4. This omission makes the reader pause and serves as a literary device to indicate a section break. In fact, as we saw from the structure above, section 4 is the climax and essence of the mizmor and so it is fitting to mark a section break between it and everything that precedes it. In fact, vv. 1–13 are also marked off as a unit by the envelope created by the word melekh in v. 1 and the repetition of the same word in section 3, vv. 11–13. Furthermore, when reading the acrostic backward from the end, the absence of the nun verse calls attention to the beginning letters of section 3, mem, lamed, kaf—king.

The main idea of the mizmor is a total praise of Hashem by all people at all times. This is summed up in the progression of the refrains and in the repetition of the key word kol. The psalm takes the form of an alphabetic acrostic in order to poetically convey this message. By using every letter of the alphabet, we sense that we are praising God using all possible language. It is complete praise from A to Z. This is a truly magnificent example of how appreciating structure, even—or especially—when it deviates from our expectations, is a necessary and inspiring method for uncovering the wisdom and perfection of Tanakh.

I hope that this selection of lesson summaries will suffice to prompt the reader to visit www.teachtorah.org. I would further request that readers provide feedback on this material and I invite teachers to join in participating in and contributing to this project.

Notes

Are there any Jews in Ghana?' I was asked this question numerous times after my return from Sub-SaharanAfrica in January, 2008. I had participated in a service trip with the AmericanJewish World Service (AJWS) through which 25 rabbinical students from acrossthe denominational spectrum, together with group leaders and ascholar-in-residence (Rabbi Rolando Matalon of Congregation Bnei Jeshurun inNew York,) had visited a village in Ghana to work with the local community andto learn about the challenges facing people there. We mixed cement, carriedwater, learned the local language, visited a herbal doctor, trekked through ajungle, met people of all ages and occupations, spoke to doctors, visited arefugee camp and had discussions for hours on end. But we did not meet anyJews. There are Jews in Ghana, but hundreds of miles from Gbi-Atabu, our host village inthe North Eastern region of Ghana. I would love to meet them one day but the short durationof the trip meant that we did not have time to visit them on this occasion.

'Arethere any Jews in Ghana?'What is the assumption behind this question? I was on a trip, to help and tolearn, with rabbinical students. It was led by the American Jewish WorldService. For many, an obvious inference is that our hosts must have beenJewish. At first, this conclusion was baffling to me, or even offensive. Justbecause I am Jewish does not mean that I am only interested in other Jews. AndAJWS, which is dedicated to the goal of alleviating poverty, hunger and diseasein the developing world, is Jewish because it is run, funded and supportedlargely by Jews who believe in the Jewish principle of pursuing justice for allpeople, whatever their religion. The assumption that I could only have been inGhana to visit the Jewish community pushed the same buttons in me as another questionI am also sometimes asked: 'How many people live in your building?', by whichthe (inevitably Orthodox) questioner means 'Are there any Jews in yourbuilding,' but has overlooked the fact that there are people in the world whoare not Jewish.There is,however an argument behind these assumptions that does deserve to be addressed.They represent a serious and challenging set of questions about charity andpublic policy in the Orthodox Jewish community in the United States and elsewhere. What are the concerns of Orthodox Jews? Athome, there is anxiety over the cost of kosher food and Jewish education,supporting the Jewish poor and elderly. Abroad there is the matter of Israel and its relationship with other countries, and the plightof vulnerable Jews the world over. And there is ongoing fear of anti-Semitismand unease over inter-marriage. That is a lot to deal with. So where does Ghana (or El Salvador, Thailand, or any other developing country) fit into this picture?Once it has dealt with its own issues, can the Orthodox Jewish community reallyspare the financial or organizational resources to dedicate to infant mortalityacross the globe? Do we care more about someone dying in Vietnam than someone being shelled in Sderot? And isn't the Jewishcommunity small enough that it has to look after itself first and foremost? Weare limited by our size and besides, there are plenty of non-Jews in the worldwho can deal with the problems of other non-Jews.Gbi-Atabuis a village of a few hundred people. Its inhabitants live in smallsingle-story houses with dirt floors, no running water and intermittentelectricity. Some recent technology has made its way into the village - somevillagers have cell phones, for example - but it has not made any significant differenceto the way of life there. Water has to be drawn daily from the river or a well.Goats and chickens roam freely along the dirt tracks. Trash is burnt, notcollected. People wash themselves outdoors behind partitions made out of cinderblocks. Employment is scarce and the village has been in the process ofconstructing a small community building for several years as it is dependent onforeign aid and the physical labor of the community itself (and visitingrabbinical students.)Despitethese challenging circumstances, people seem happy, at least at first sight.Children, though often shoeless, laugh and play in the fields. Familystructures are very tightly knit which creates a sense of belonging. There arefrequent sessions of drumming, dancing and singing, often in connection withthe local church. Indeed, my initial impression was that despite the physicalhardship of everyday life, the people of Gbi-Atabu are free of the anxietiesand stresses of the typical New Yorker. Perhaps they are even happier than weare.Butthis impression was short lived. A number of factors contribute to placing thetypical life in Gbi-Atabu in perpetual crisis. The public health situation inthe entire region is dismal. The local hospital has three doctors treating 50,000people (that number of people in the USA would on average be served by 275 doctors) and even thesefacilities are difficult to access because transport to the hospital is oftenmore than people can afford. (As a result, the local 'clinic' treats anythingfrom headaches - a symptom of hypertension which is very common there - tobroken bones, often with herbs and a hacksaw on a dirt floor in the proximityof free roaming farm animals.) The water supply carries a number of lethaldiseases that have been eradicated in many other parts of the world such aspolio, meningitis and TB. Most of the population is unable to afford mosquitonets, leaving them vulnerable to yellow fever and malaria. The food supply isseverely deficient in calories and both children and adults are perpetuallymalnourished. Many suffer from respiratory problems resulting from the cloudsof red dust carried by the dry season winds from the Sahara Desert. Women especially suffer from spinal problems as a resultof carrying water in huge containers on their heads, often for miles every day.And then there is HIV-AIDS which has infected 7.5% of the population ofSub-Saharan Africa (compared with 0.6% in the USA). In the absence of easy access to affordable drugs andthe option of caesarian births which help to avoid infants receiving theinfections from their mothers (there is one obstetrician in all of Ghana), HIV-AIDS often passes onto children through childbirth.The average life expectancy in the region is about 57 years (in the US it is about 77). Children die daily from diseases thatcould be cured with cheap, easily administered drugs if only there was theinfrastructure to distribute them.Otherdeficiencies in the local strated and pessimistic about their future. One ofthe villagers that I met, Mamata, has made her way through high school thanksto the recent innovation of free schooling throughout Ghana. She is intelligent and energetic and she wants to be anurse. But here is where the road stops for this 18-year-old woman. She lacksthe funds to buy the textbooks she needs to complete her high school exams. Herextended family depends on her labor to support them. Transportation to the nearestuniversity is also unaffordable. So she remains unemployed, drawing water,cooking and washing for her family. She is frustrated at her lack of options.Another child that I met, Eric, was orphaned at an early age and has come tolive with Mamata's family in the absence of anyone else who could support him.On the day I met him he was upbeat and optimistic and told me of his hopes tobecome a doctor. But one evening he spent hours with another member of ourgroup. He had been drinking - alcoholism is a common side effect of thefrustrations in the community - and cried about his lack of future prospects,his loneliness and his poverty. He literally begged to be taken to America.This isonly a glimpse into the endemic crisis that Ghanaians need to endure. But whatdoes this have to do with us, Orthodox Jews in wealthier countries? There arealso people in crisis in the Bronx, Sderot and elsewhere who are closer to us by virtue ofgeographical proximity or their being Jewish. As I am frequently asked when Iteach or speak about Ghana, surely we need to prioritize? I first need to make clearthat I do not advocate an approach to tzedaka or social action that requires atotal dedication to one cause only. 'One should only study what he or she findsfulfilling' and the same thing goes for tzedaka. It is important that everyindividual identify the goals and causes that speak to him or her. But whatabout the community as a whole? Considering the multiple concerns of the Jewishcommunity that I outlined at the beginning of this article, some feel that theplight of the developing world, however severe, simply is not a cause for Jews.It is this argument that I resist. In today's world, Jews have a moralobligation to concern themselves with vulnerable people who are outside theirreligious community. And beyond the moral obligation, an orientation outward,as well as inward, is ultimately essential for the wellbeing of the Jewishcommunity itself in the long-term.On asimple level, it is a fallacy that because our community has other concerns,the developing world lies outside of our sphere of obligation. Even if we couldidentify the single most important issue, it should not monopolize communityfunds or other energies. That is why governments fund theaters and parks eventhough hospitals and schools are short of money. It is a mistake often made inthe Orthodox community that because we have pressing concerns of our own, thereis no room in our over-anxious minds and no further we can thrust our handsinto over-stretched pockets in the service of other needs. This is a dangerousline of thinking. Notwithstanding the pragmatic necessity to prioritize in theallocation of resources, a moral obligation is a moral obligation irrespectiveof other obligations that may compete with it.I alsowant to go beyond this logical and ethical argument and to point out that evenwithin traditional schemes of hierarchies of charitable priorities, it is notat all obvious that causes outside of the Jewish community come last. One keyTalmudic text that outlines a hierarchy is found in Bava Metzia 71a where RavYosef considers who should be lent money first:

'A Jew and a non-Jew – a Jew has preference; the poor or therich – the poor takes precedence; yourpoor [i.e. your relatives] and the [general] poor of your town — your poor comefirst; the poor of your city and the poor of another town — the poor of yourown town take priority.'

RavYosef's text ostensibly supports the conventional view of the hierarchy ofobligation. Jews come first, gentiles second. Relatives first, strangerssecond, and so on. And yet, his statement also implicitly challenges this samehierarchy, not by what is said but by what is not. Who comes first if you facea choice between a Gentile in your town and a Jew in another town? A rich localJew and a poor foreign Gentile? By maintaining a silence on most of thepermutations of these factors, Rav Yosef invites us to question thecomprehensiveness of his system.Thesame challenge is implicit in the formulation of R Yosef Karo in the section ofhis Shulhan Arukh dedicated to charity:

'Relatives take priority over everyone else...and the poorof one's own household over the poor of one's city, the poor of one's city overthe poor of another city, and the inhabitants of the Land of Israel over thosewho live outside it.' (Yoreh Deah 251:3)

Againwe are invited to explore the gaps in the hierarchy. This challenge is taken upby a number of poskim who explore the ambiguities in the approach of a stricthierarchy of priorities. R Moshe Sofer, for example, maintains that a verygreat need overrides the hierarchy altogether (see Hatam Sofer on Yoreh Deah234). Someone in immediate danger of death demands our help irrespective ofwhether he/she is our relative or not. It could certainly be argued that theplight of many in the developing world is more urgent than any other issue inthe world today. Quantitatively (in terms of the vast number of peopleaffected) and qualitatively (the alternative to intervention is nothing shortof death on a massive scale) the situation in Congo, Sudan, Thailand, ElSalvador and many other places dwarfs the urgency of other demands for aid.Although I am not advocating the priority of one charity over others for everyindividual, I do believe that this question of urgency should at least beseriously considered in our own decisions about charitable priorities.Anothergreat posek, R Yehiel Michel Epstein also questions the hierarchy:

'There is something about this that is very difficult for mebecause if we understand these words literally – that some groups take priorityover others – that implies that there is no requirement to give to groups loweron the hierarchy. And it is well known that every wealthy person has many poor relatives(and all the more so every poor person) so it will happen that a poor personwithout any rich relatives will die of hunger. And how could this possibly be?So it seems clear to me that the correct interpretation is that everyone,whether rich or poor, must also give to poor people who are not relatives, andgive more to those who are relatives. And the same would apply to all the othergroups on the hierarchy.' (Arukh ha-Shulhan Yoreh Deah 151:4)

Ifeveryone takes care only of their own, points out R Epstein, many people willgo without. His insight is evinced by a cursory look at the distribution ofworldwide wealth. Massive disparities in global income mean that 85% of theworld's wealth is held by the wealthiest 10%. Almost all of this 10% (about 90%of it) lives in the US, Europe and in high-income areas of Asia andOceana. If everyone takes care of their own first and foremost, countries like Ghana with very limited resources and a halting nationalinfrastructure, will get very little. And this is what happens today. Mamata'srelatives cannot help her to finish school and neither can her religiouscommunity or her government. If she does not receive attention from outside ofthe conventional charitable hierarchies, she will not receive any attention atall.Theseinsights, then, are challenges to the hierarchy even on its own terms. Anothercomplication in is that in today's world the categories within the hierarchyhave also become very ambiguous. At the time when the R Karo was writing, Jewslived in self-contained autonomous communities within larger Gentile societies.The Jewish community (like Christian and Muslim communities) supported theirown poor who almost always came from nearby. Although there were business andsocial relations with people outside the Jewish community, nobody expected theJews to provide support, charitable or otherwise, to those living outside ofthe community, and the Jews did not expect to be supported either. Besides, itwas unusual for Jews to encounter people outside of their community, andcertainly outside of their own towns, who needed their assistance.Allaspects of this picture have changed today. In the modern world, neither Jewsnor any other group lives in a self-contained community. The state builds roadsand utilities which are used by Jews. It contributes to Jewish charities andhelps to support the Jewish poor through social security and (one would hope)national health insurance. And not only are Jews in a strong mutualrelationship with the countries in which they live; we are also integrallylinked with the social and economic realities in the developing world. Most ofthe clothes that we wear and the toys we buy for our children have been made bysome of the 3 billion people who live on less than $2 a day. The Jewishcommunity (like all people) today is socially and economically enmeshed withthe rest of the world to a far greater degree than in the middle ages. This isnot to say that Jewish communal ties are not important - I of course believe theyare - nor that it is inappropriate for us to feel closer to those in the Jewishcommunity than to others. It is, however, wrongheaded to continue to constructa hierarchy of charitable priorities as if nothing has changed in the past 500years.Andthat is not all. We now know more than ever before about the state ofvulnerable human beings all over the world. We participate in service trips,see live pictures, read statistics and meet immigrants. The fact that from ourown houses we can see live pictures of people all around the globe seriouslychallenges a paradigm that is based on a difference between the local and thedistant needy. Indeed, the philosopher Peter Singer makes a powerful case thatin today's world our obligation to someone dying in Africa is nodifferent from our obligation to someone dying right in front of us, becausewith toady's communications, everyone is essentially right in front of us. Thenearly 30,000 children who die every day because of poverty may have lived inremote villages we have never been to; but they also breathe their last in ourown homes.Furthermore,the status of Jews in today's world is different than at any other period.Notwithstanding anti-Semitism, attacks on Israel and all our other concerns, Jews in America are, on the whole, wealthier, more secure and moreinfluential than ever before. This position brings with it a responsibility touse our wealth and our influence for the good of all. And this is not anexhortation only for the very wealthy. In the democracy we live under, lobbyingand organized campaigns can really make a difference. We have theresponsibility not just to give money to charity but also to volunteer our timeand to contact our representatives to voice our concern for the world's poor.I havetried to argue on halakhic, moral and pragmatic grounds that as a community weneed to take very seriously our responsibility to those outside of ourgeographical and religious communities. But I want to make an even morefundamental argument, which is that doing so is not a diversion from ourcommunal goals, however necessary, but a fulfillment of them. Judaism has avery fine balance between particularism and universalism. Our mission as apeople is, literally, to save the world. God promised Abraham that 'all thefamilies on earth will be blessed through you.' But this promise was also ademand. We are charged to bring about blessing for all other peoples. To dothis, we need to be a strongly constituted people ourselves. And by the sametoken we become a strong people by reasserting our divine mission. We are to bea 'mamlekhet kohanim' - a nation which is a conduit of God's message into theworld. Both sides of this description are vital. To achieve our divine missionwe need to be a people, just as we need to be a people in order to fulfill ourdivine mission.All ofthis means that we treat with the utmost importance our responsibility to thephysical and spiritual wellbeing of our own community. But that is not all; thegoal of our community is to go outside of itself, to improve and perfect theworld. And this goal is not external to the existence of the community, butconstitutive of it. We simply are not the Jewish people properly conceived ifwe cannot see beyond our own noses.

This is true from a very pragmatic point of view. As I learnt serving in Ghana with Jews from many other denominations, worldwide social justice is a cause that can strengthen the bonds within the wider Jewish community. Jews who cannot pray together can still do justice together. Thissolidarity across the Jewish community will help us all, and in turn help us todo more good in the wider world. Furthermore, the formulation a strong visionof the divine Jewish mission in the world that goes beyond self-preservation isan essential step in the strengthening of the Orthodox community itself. 'To continue your tradition', or 'because of the Holocaust' are not compellingarguments to those considering marrying out of the Jewish community. But a very compelling argument can be: 'Because part of being Jewish is to bring blessing to all people in the world'. Our dedication to those outside of our owncommunity as well as those within it will result not in a distraction from ou community but a strengthening of it. 'Are there Jews in Ghana?' There certainly are, and I feel a special bond withthem. But there are also many others who need my attention in Ghana and beyond and I have the obligation to dedicate myself to them. Not despite being, but because I am, a Jew.