National Scholar Updates

One of the enduring themes of my religious life has been the reconciliation of my Jewish and American cultural identities. As the daughter of a Modern Orthodox rabbi who taught me to look critically at the ways in which religion can be variously used and practiced, I became very aware of the pushes and pulls of different religious factions and how they have informed by beliefs. As a student of science, I gained insight into the importance of empirical knowledge and learned to look critically at the claims of universality and objectivity of research theories. My own framework for understanding differences in religious philosophy has developed over time, and centers around my personal struggles with the resolution of the cultural tension between my experience as an American—steeped in pervasive scientific values based on rational knowledge—and my experience as a Jew—with a set of mores and beliefs about the world that are strongly held but grounded within a framework that seems incompatible with the uncertainty that intellectual analysis brings.

The center of the internal struggle to integrate these seemingly incompatible aspects of myself crystallizes around my understanding of the observer effect. In science, the term observer effect refers to changes that the act of observing will make on the phenomenon being observed. Thus, every experiment is necessarily influenced by the presence of the investigator, and no researcher can be factored out of an experimental system. An elaboration of this discovery has led to the idea that as humans we inevitably try to impose order on a fundamentally chaotic universe; thus the way we structure our studies is implicitly biased and colored by human experience. This radical principle revolutionized the way we think about science and has led to a paradigm shift in the way we conceptualize and study other fields as well, comprising a vital component of postmodern scholarship.

Postmodern ideas now permeate almost every scholarly enterprise, from literature and history to psychology and sociology. Serious scholarship in many fields requires an open acknowledgment of the perspectives that provide the lens through which ideas are given meaning. The intellectual ramifications of the observer effect pervade twentieth-century intellectual thought and are an implicit part of a Western cultural sensibility. Despite its importance to our scholarship, this paradigm has not seriously influenced the way large segments of the Modern Orthodox world think about or treat religion and religious study. This disparity, as I see it, is one of the fundamental problems facing Modern Orthodoxy today. Since Judaism is taught in a factual way, while at the same time uncertainty permeates every other faction of our life, religion can become encapsulated or split off as a result.

In my various experiences growing up and living in different Jewish communities, I have found that Orthodox Jewish thought is often taught and learned in a categorical way that does not take into account differing viewpoints. As students, we are not taught to think critically about religious material or our religious leadership but must learn to do so on our own, outside of traditional educational systems. Religion is taught unequivocally, in a way that leaves out the doubts and subtleties each teacher necessarily brings to the material he or she teaches.

Under the current mainstream yeshiva system, pertinent information is selected and taught by instructors whose students are expected to grasp and apply it without significant evaluation of its merits. Teachers' formulations and interpretations are often implicitly presented and accepted as objective truths to be assimilated by their students. In this educational system, many learning experiences are characterized by acquiescence to the expertise of the teacher-as-authority. This method of indoctrination makes sense for young children as the stability and structure of an educational institution provide a sense of security, granting refuge from an ambiguous understanding of ideas. Yeshiva schooling constitutes a safe environment that provides a secure, though embryonic foundation for the understanding of religious knowledge.

The problem arises when this culture of indoctrination continues into our experiences as adult members of Orthodox communities. The dominant contemporary explanations of Jewish theology are generally given over in a way that precludes open debate or critical assessment of merit. In my experience, many religious leaders tend to be more concerned with making a point than with openly approaching others as an interpreter with a culturally bound perspective; this reluctance to address uncertainty extends to common religious discourse as well.

For many who do not acknowledge their participation in American culture, this does not pose a problem. They are content in being handed over objective knowledge, secure in the truth of their belief. But for those who choose to engage in Western culture and concomitantly adopt its cultural ethos, the struggle to integrate their American and Jewish sides is more difficult. It is not necessarily the content of the religious teachings that makes this challenging, but the way that knowledge is confused with or presented as objective truth. The prevailing methods for the dissemination of Jewish religious thought within communities are definitive and conclusive, as though the injection of any doubt or uncertainty into the discussion could lead the child or layperson astray. This trend can be alienating to those whose belief is influenced by American culture, as it leaves little space for a personal relationship with religious material. This can make it difficult to assimilate meaningful interpretations of religious information—and in effect widens the cultural divide between religious and secular selves.

The first time this conflict came starkly into my awareness was in my freshman year of college, in a humanities class covering a scholarly reading of the Old Testament. I had never before come into contact with this material—and its effects were gut-wrenching. I responded to what felt like an assault on my beliefs by holding on to my religious understanding of the Bible, defending it at all costs. As I listened to myself debate my classmates on the merits of these theories, I realized that I was approaching the issue from within a cultural perspective that was different from many of my fellow students. My only previous experience with the Bible had occurred within the framework of religious study, with an eye for one objective truth.

In this new, intellectual environment, my religious views seemed undeveloped; my beliefs were fundamental to my way of thinking but had never been challenged by the lens of historical scholarship. My previous yeshiva training had formed a secure basis for my religious beliefs but had not prepared me for impingement by the general prevailing cultural standards for critical thought. Because I could not locate my belief within a context, I was not equipped to effectively engage in intellectual discourse on the topic.

Years have passed since that shock of self-awareness, and yet I still find myself struggling with the same issues.  How is it possible to incorporate a fundamental religious belief system with a world based in critical rationality? I believe that the first step in bridging this divide would start with a growing awareness of the subjective nature of our beliefs. We may posit the existence of a set of objective religious beliefs, but as human beings interpreting these truths, our knowledge is necessarily bounded, even flawed. Even objective truths based in religious faith must be filtered through our subjectivity. The observer effect has taught us that because we are a part of the system we are studying, there is no way of standing apart, separate from our cultural milieu.

Acknowledging the biases with which we enter religious debate is never an easy task. Religion is the scaffolding on which our society is built and has provided a vital function for humanity. It forms the underpinnings for Western civilization and the guidelines by which many of us live our lives. Perhaps the centrality of Judaism’s position in our lives makes this struggle such a poignant one. It feels dangerous to subject our faith to critical examination as it may lead to a cynical deconstruction of our traditional Jewish beliefs. On the other hand, denying that our environment informs our perspective closes us off from seeing reality.

Each person must engage in his or her own quest for navigating meaning in religious tradition and modernity. For me, this has involved the reconciliation of the dueling sensibilities of my American and Jewish identities. The observer effect has helped me to locate my religious beliefs within a context. When viewed through a prism of critical rationality, Judaism becomes more complex, and is cast with ambiguity and nuance. And although it is decidedly more multifaceted and difficult, I am at peace with the uncertainty of my perspective, as it feels more compatible with the overarching environment in which I live. As humans our knowledge is necessarily limited; in our fallibility, we may take comfort in having others join in our struggle with uncertainty.

In his Yad haHazakah, Rambam writes:

If someone is bitten by a scorpion or a snake it is permitted to recite a charm over the wound, even on Shabbat, in order to calm the patient and give him encouragement. Although such a thing is of no [objective] benefit whatsoever, since a life is in danger they [the rabbis] permitted it lest the victim suffer mental anguish [should it appear that not every effort was being made]. (Abodah Zarah 11:11)

This ruling of Rambam was adopted by Rabbi Yosef Karo (Shulhan Arukh, Y.D. 179:13)—to the great annoyance of the Vilna Gaon, as evidenced by his following comment:

This opinion is the Rambam’s [as expressed in the latter’s Laws of Abodah Zarah 11: 11–16]. He also wrote [similarly in] Perush haMishnah, A. Z. 4:7. But all subsequent authorities disagreed with him because of the numerous charms recorded in the Gemara. He, however, was drawn by the accursed philosophy, and that is why he wrote that witchcraft, names, charms, demons and amulets are all deception. But he has been thoroughly refuted on the strength of the innumerable stories found in the Talmud such as that of the matron who uttered words and immobilized a ship [Shabbat 81b, Hullin 105b] ... or that of the rabbis who every Friday studied the halakhot of creation, and would create a “tertiary calf” [Sanhedrin 67b] and R. Joshua who pronounced a name and was suspended between heaven and earth [Bekhoroth 8b] ... But philosophy with her blandishments misled him to explain all such stories allegorically and to uproot them from their literal meaning. As for myself, Heaven forefend that I should accept any of those allegorical explanations...” (Biur haGra Yore De‘ah, 179:13).

            The foregoing dispute reflects an age-old clash between two worldviews. Rambam reads the texts of the Talmud in a manner that does not violate reason or contradict the results of empirical knowledge. Rabbi Elijah of Vilna, on the other hand, prefers to uphold a literalist reading of the same texts. Indeed, his evident commitment to literalism propels him to accept superstition! As for the “accursed philosophy,” Rabbi Elijah blames for Rambam’s metaphorical interpretations of difficult aggadot, we cannot be sure what he had in mind. Certainly Rambam himself shows no awareness of being a victim of philosophical deception when he expounds his opposition to literalist readings of improbable aggadot. No, if Rambam is to be believed, his anti-literalism arose from deep convictions regarding the Sage’s essential rationality:

Know that the words of the Sages of blessed memory, are understood differently by three groups of people.

Regarding the first, from observing them, reading their books and hearing about them, they are the largest [group]…. They understand the teaching of the Sages only in their literal sense, in spite of the fact that some of their teachings, when taken literally, seem so fantastic and irrational that if one were to repeat them literally, even to the uneducated... their amazement would prompt them to ask how anyone in the world could believe such things true, much less edifying.

The members of this group are so poor in knowledge that it pains one [to think] of their folly. Their very effort to honor and to exalt the Sages in accordance with their own meager understanding actually humiliates them! As God lives, this group destroys the glory of the Torah and darkens its light, for they make the Torah of God say the opposite of what it intended. God said in the perfect Torah, “The nations who hear of these statutes shall say: ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people’” (Deut. 4:6). But this group expounds the teachings of our Sages in such a way that when the other peoples hear them they say, “How foolish and worthless is this insignificant group of people!” The worst offenders are preachers who preach and expound to the masses what they themselves do not understand. Would that they keep silent about what they do not know, as it is written: “If only they would be utterly silent, it would be accounted to them as wisdom” (Job 13:5).

The second group is also a numerous one. It too consists of persons who, having read or heard the words of the Sages, understand them according to their simple literal sense and believe that the Sages intended nothing else than what may be learned from their literal interpretation. Inevitably, they ultimately declare the Sages to be fools, and hold them up to contempt...

There is a third group. Its members are so few in number that it is hardly appropriate to call them a group—except in the sense in which one speaks of the sun as a group of which it is the only member. To this group the greatness of our Sages is clear. They recognize the superiority of their intelligence from their words, which point to exceedingly profound truths.... The members of this group understand that the Sages knew as clearly as we do the difference between the impossibility of the impossible and the existence of that which must exist. They know that the Sages did not speak nonsense....Thus, whenever the Sages spoke of things that seem impossible, they were employing the style of riddle and parable, which is the method of truly great thinkers. (Rambam, Hakdamah lePerek Helek. Cf. Isadore Twersky, A Maimonides Reader, West Orange, NJ: Berman House, 1972, 407–409)

Rabbi Yehudah Halevi shared Rambam’s fear of the threat to Torah posed by excessive irrationality.

See that we are not any different than our ancestors. If the details of ancient idolatrous practices were widely known today, we would also be lured astray—just like we are [at present] by other popular vanities such as astrology, incantation, talismans, and other actions [alchemy?] that mean to change physical nature—despite the fact that the Torah has commanded us to stay far away from these practices! (Kuzari, end of 4:23. Cf. Sanhedrin 102b; Rambam, Guide, III:37)

It is meet to come clean and state up front that I incline toward the Maimonidean position. That is to say, the Sages’ acknowledgment of nature’s basic predictability and their manifest scientific curiosity do not allow me to think of them as irrational. It is hardly necessary to add that such keen study of nature’s laws in no way debars a person’s openness to miracles and the power of God to change the world. That holds for the Sages, for Rambam, and for us humble latter-day folks. Yet, because they studied nature so closely, the Sages were in the best position to recognize miracles for what they are—the exceptional intervention on the part of the Creator for God’s own moral purposes.

            You may be wondering what this literalist debate has to do with the topic I’ve been invited to write about, namely Torah education from the perspective of a parent. Answer: the debate per se, nothing; its ramifications, plenty. A major pedagogic disappointment I have encountered over and over again is the seemingly indiscriminate way teachers in many Day Schools introduce young children to material far above the average child’s intellectual and emotional age. I know that some parents read Grimm’s fairy tales to their kids in the hope that a child will understand it as mere fancy. Be that as it may, sacred texts are another story. It seems to me that because the child approaches these texts with a different level of receptiveness, the educator needs to exercise extra care about what material to teach. Particular perturbation is caused to children when hard aggadot are set before them in the raw.

Let’s take the following text from Megillah 12b as an example:

“And Queen Vashti refused” (Esther 1:12). Since she [too] was immodest, as the master said above, that both of them had an immoral purpose, why then would she not come? Rabbi Jose bar Hannina said: This teaches that leprosy broke out on her. In a Baraitha it was taught that Gabriel came and made her a tail.

What goes through a teacher’s mind before deciding to share such an aggada with his or her class? Surely the teacher has considered at least the obvious questions it raises: Why did this great miracle of the tail occur—even if Vashti’s vanity was off the charts?! Or was the tail’s advent something less than a miracle? We recall that in the rabbinic corpus, a human changing into an ape is not precluded.

Rabbi Yirmiyah bar Elazar said: They [dor haPalagah] split up into three parties. One said, ‘Let us ascend and dwell there;’ the second, ‘Let us ascend and serve idols;’ and the third said, ‘Let us ascend and wage war [with God].’ The party that proposed…‘Let us ascend and wage war’ were turned to apes, spirits, devils, and night-demons… (Sanhedrin 109a).

So maybe our Sages believed that humans were created with the potential to turn into (revert to?) apes—but back to the question about Vashti. What was the size of her tail? It would have to be imagined as too long and voluminous to hide under the normal train of a queenly robe. What was it about Vashti’s sin that merited so vile a metamorphosis? If, on the other hand, humans were not endowed with simian latency, then why would the Creator choose to revise creation?

Unless the teacher has thought all this through, surely he or she is ill-advised presenting it to impressionable children, even if he or she emphasizes its sociological aspect. (There are those who see this aggada’s point as an attempt to downplay non-Jewish Vashti’s virtue in order to boost our collective Jewish ego.) Still, whether presented as entertainment, myth, or anthropology, this aggada, with its inescapable grotesqueness, is best saved for advanced students who are able to articulate any problems they might have with it.

            Another aggada, though seemingly innocuous, can cause considerable bafflement. Noah is told to provide the Ark with a “tsohar” (Genesis 6:16). This rare word, tsohar, is generally understood as a porthole by writers ancient and modern. However, one aggada identifies tsohar as a light-giving gemstone. Now, although jewels can sparkle and reflect light, they cannot generate it. Therefore telling children that stones can be luminous is plain wrong.

Besides choosing their material wisely, teachers would do well to prepare themselves both intellectually and emotionally for questions their students might throw at them. Years ago, my daughter was paying attention to a lesson about kapparot that her elementary school teacher gave in advance of Yom Kippur. When the teacher had finished explaining the mechanics and purpose of that practice, my daughter asked, “If all the sins of a person went into the chicken, was it not unfair to give the chicken to the poor? They would be inheriting all those very sins that had been purged from the first person!” The teacher gave the child a blank stare, and without any response, moved on to another topic.

Of course one is not advocating the sanitization of texts—or even an avoidance of charged ones. Most teachers are responsible, but often labor under the notion that anything found in our sacred literature must be edifying for all and sundry. The Mishnah thought otherwise: “[A child of] five years [is ready] for Scripture, ten years for Mishnah…fifteen years for Talmud…” (Aboth 5:21). Entrusted with the stewardship of Torah for the next generation, it behooves every one of us educators to rethink many current pedagogic practices.

The current world is one of information-overload and hyper-stimulation. In this increasingly changing and competitive world, the stakes are high. Being creative gives you the competitive advantage. The fastest and best innovators thrive and survive, and creativity is the key factor. In this article, I propose and will provide support for the argument that Jews historically have been highly creative, and that they are currently very creative in many endeavors.

Jews are creative and use their creativity to innovate and improve the world. The title of this journal is “Conversations,” discussions among people. The concept of conversation is an example of Jewish creative dialogue and learning. This article will examine how the practice of Judaism leads to high-order thinking and creativity. I will discuss the roles of prayer, Jewish education, and self-examination, as tools to become a better and more creative person. The final section of this article provides methods the reader can use to enhance creativity. Each person reading this article probably uses these methods to some degree already; but by articulating the strategies, readers can consciously apply them and enhance their work and personal lives.

Jews Beat the Odds in Terms of Achievement

I nostalgically recall the 1960s when I attended University of California at Berkeley. It was the end of my senior year, and I was having coffee with two Jewish friends with whom I had grown up. In fact, we three students were the only Jews in our public school class in Sacramento, California. We lived in the Jewish part of town and went to Hebrew School together. In those days Sacramento was a relatively small town, and the Jewish population was small as well. What are the odds of three students getting into and succeeding at one of the most challenging Universities in the United States? In Berkeley they do that thing with freshmen: “Look to the student on your left, and now look to your student on the right. Only one of you will graduate.” Fifty percent of freshman students flunked out before their junior year, and only about one-third of entering freshman graduated. Jews were only about 3 percent of the population of California, yet they far exceeded that percentage at UC Berkeley.

The 1960s was a time of change, and Berkeley students were leading this change. Jewish students were major players in the student movements. These movements were driven by social concerns such as free speech, antiwar efforts, equal rights, and unionization of farm workers. The leaders of the student movement as well as the student activists had vision and determination. They wanted a better world, and they would work toward changing the status quo to make a world that was as fair and just as possible. They were practicing Tikkun Olam. Many of the leaders of these student groups were Jewish, including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Bettina Aptheker.¹

What was true in the 1960s and throughout Jewish history is still true today. Jews are creative and take the lead. Currently Israel, where Jews flourish and prosper, offers so many examples of creativity. Most significantly, Israel is a world leader in the high-tech industry, medicine, and military technology. This little country is in a very dangerous part of the world and has few natural resources. Yet this small Jewish country soars in the marketplace of the world.

The list of Jews and creativity would consume a complete article in itself. Therefore, I am going to choose just a few examples that illustrate Jews and creativity.

Military. In terms of military technology, Israel has developed the Iron Dome and the Eitan. The Iron Dome can intercept short range rockets, and the Eitan is a drone spy plane.

Medical. As for medical technology, my husband and I just benefited from Israel’s innovative and technologically advanced medical services. We were in Hashmona'im, a small Yishuv in the middle of the country. My husband went to the Urgent Care Center in Modiin, which uses the most current technology and Telehealth system.

High Tech. As for the high-tech industry, many of the major international high-tech companies have located in Israel because of the well-educated, highly competent, and intelligent workforce. For overall brain power, just look at the number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners for examples of Jewish outstanding achievement. The Jews have produced many great thinkers and world changers.

Jews can generate creative concepts, and translate them effectively into economic gain and professional achievements. They succeed in the current global market because they are able to produce a high rate of questions and ideas, they have the ability to overcome obstacles, and they have skill set to translate those ideas into marketable products that solve real-world problems. Creativity drives the engine in many areas such as the arts, writing, music as well as business and commerce to mention only a few spheres of interest. Personally, I have found that parenting and family matters benefit from creative thinking.

Jews are economic catalysts not only of the current millennia but throughout the ages. There are many examples where Jews have been invited into countries and usher in an economic Golden Age. When Jews are expelled, the country’s economy goes from boom to bust. Many times the Jews are invited back. Currently, Harbin, China is trying to attract Jews in hopes of regaining economic prosperity for their city. In the early 1900s, Jews were invited to come to Harbin. Jews came and with the Jews came economic prosperity. The Jews were forced to leave in the 1950s, and Harbin has experienced economic decline.²

Why are Jews high achievers and leaders? Lama lo! or in English, why not!

How Practicing Judaism Enhances Creative Thinking

The skill sets and brain power that Jews develop by practicing Judaism can be generalized to achievement in scientific, intellectual, artistic, and business scopes of practice. One of my professors at Teachers College, Columbia, Mel Alexanberg, described the shared cultural underpinnings of Jewish life as Jewish metacognition.³ Jews are exposed to a shared intellectual and value system, which are Torah and Talmud.

Jews have a dialogue with God. It is through speaking to God and debating God’s response that a moral, ethical, and survival system was and continues to be developed. Jews are the “People of the Book.” Books are words and words are symbols. Words have meanings, various meanings. Study Judaism and you are exploring multidimensional symbolic concepts. This includes multiples levels of ideas and information. There is thinking, exploring, and conceptualizing in an ever-evolving interaction of ideas and points of fact. Through this process, Jews developed a highly sophisticated strategy that involves complex reasoning.

Jewish education emphasizes asking questions, learning more, and then refining concepts and ideas. Jewish learning trains techniques in acquiring information, integrating the information, and generating new and innovative thought or concepts. Jews continue to refine their ideas by constructing new interpretations and theories. This is a continual process where existing information and theories inform emerging concepts.⁴

Throughout the centuries, yeshivot and synagogues have been centers where Jews immerse themselves in complicated interactive information systems and challenge the construction of these information systems, accessing their higher-order thinking. Jews are driven with a passion to question and then seek answers through studying the Torah.

Rabbi Marc Angel has often pointed out that “The Torah is an inexhaustible source of wisdom.”⁵ The fundamental basis of talmudic discourse is to question. Each Jew is free to develop his or her own unique multilevel information storage base, skill and mental proficiency to recall symbolic code, and apply and use that information. Each Jew develops innovative conceptual schema, and eventually, new realities. Jews are trained to suspend judgment and live with ambiguity as they think through their ideas and concepts. As time progresses, the examination of text and communicating with God through prayer establishes an ever-evolving value system. In my dissertation, I examined creativity in the Hassidic community in terms of an individual in interactions with mental stimulation, and related this interaction to creative productivity. I was able to document notable creativity in the Hassidic community.⁶

Jewish creative abilities skill sets learned through Judaism can be used in other areas of work. That is why Jewish scholars have soared in many business, academic, and artistic disciplines. Jews are exercising and building their mental capacity through studying Torah. Jews ask questions and wonder why. Jews construct complex mental systems which are reciprocal exchanges between the individual in interaction with environmental stimulation to solve real-world problems.

The next section describes strategies for enhancing creativity. These techniques are taught in traditional Jewish education.

Jewish Techniques for Enhancing Creativity

Immerse yourself . Jews immerse themselves in study. They ask questions. Succeeding in any intellectual frontier requires immersing yourself.

Throw yourself into your  work. Learn as much as possible. Always question. Access the most current information. Acquire as vast a body of facts and opinions that you can. All that you are learning is fascinating. At times you can feel overwhelmed with all the information. Learn to live with ambiguity. The process of generating order out of all the information leads to innovation. You know that you have immersed yourself in the problem when you are engrossed and totally consumed by the question.

Be passionate. Jews historically have been passionate and committed to their religion, to understanding God’s message. The world is fraught with many problems and difficulties. God asks that meaning be sought after through study of Torah and Talmud. Being passionate and intently committed to seeking meaning and truth in life can be applied to any other areas of study.

Take on the study of a topic that is compelling to you. You have strong and intense feelings. The topic cries out to you, and all kinds of question soar in your head as you seek a deeper understanding. There is a problem that can be solved, or just another step can be taken in solving a problem. You know that you are passionate when your mind drifts to the question, concept, problem, uncertainty, or difficulty. You are on a quest and feel a sense of being driven to learn more and more. You are on unconventional ground. You do not know the answers, and there is a thrill to the work. There are more questions than answers.

Attach yourself to a community. Jews build communities, and live and work together. Jews develop support systems and rules and principles which enhance their lives. Jews are always engaged in vibrant groups to learn and reexamine the religious texts. Each person sustains and builds their conceptual understanding by examining multiple and often contradictory concepts from others in the group, from revered wisdom of our sages, and from current thinkers. Jews are life-long learners; and when applied to other disciplines, leads to creativity in those disciplines.

Surround yourself with amazing people. Examine the work of people you admire, and have them review your work. Build your conceptual framework on the shoulders of giants in your area of study. Do not be afraid to hold contradictory theories in your brain at the same time. You know that you are part of a community of amazing people when these people stimulate your thinking. These amazing people have ideas and information that is helping you move your concept forward. When you are with these people in discussions, you feel your creative juices flow. These people do not have to agree with you. If fact, it is far more important that they challenge your thinking than rubber stamp your theory.

Often people are considered successful when they reinforce the status quo in their field. They do not challenge the accepted conceptia. Do not mistake success, such as fame and fortune, for innovation. Most of the time and most people doing creative work have a unique vision. This puts creative people outside the mainstream. Being outside the mainstream can be difficult. Do not measure your work in terms a yardstick from the mainstream. Rather, evaluate your work in terms of the amazing people that you have surrounded yourself with, and measure your success by accomplishing your goals. The best of all possible worlds is to have the support of amazing people, accomplish your goals, and become rich and famous.

Use your mind’s eye. Jews pray as part of their life. When Jews are praying, they are also imagining and envisioning. The Jewish experience is thinking of what I am now and what I can become, as I strive to be a better person in the image of God. Most significantly, Jews are seeking clarification and testing themselves as to the progress that they are making towards becoming a better person according to God’s guidance. Using your “mind’s eye” is necessary for novel ideas and innovative solutions.

You want to envision and imagine; and to do this, you use your mind’s eye. This well-honed skill is transferable to the development of innovative products and marketing. It is a process of taking complex situations and making sense out of them. Essentially, you are using your imagination to see the whole problem and the end resolution to the problem. Once you are able to envision, the abstract problem can be broken down into steps. Each mini-step resonates throughout the complex problem and has an impact. When using your mind’s eye, you can match the impact of the mini-step to the goal of solving the problem. You know that you are using your mind’s eye when each mini-step moves you closer to a solution to your problem. Or on careful examination, the mini-step created obstacles to your solving your problem. Every mistake or misdirection offers you the opportunity to rethink the problem and redesign your next step. It provides you with fuller information, more questions, and guides you on your next step. Each mistake is a gift.

Be aware/be in the moment. Praying is a conscious experience that makes actions intentional. When praying with intention, you are in the moment. Kavanah is praying with intention and being aware. You will be more creative in your work when you are aware, present, and in the moment. You should be consciously aware and use the information that you have to produce a clearer understanding of the concept that you are studying. You should be alert and have your mental faculties at their peak performance. All your actions are deliberate and cognizant. All the information that you have gathered facilitates your knowing as much information as possible. Your mind is aroused. It is a dynamic process. You are interacting with the information and using the feedback to refine your thinking. You are in the moment.

Be resilient. Jewish people have had to struggle to survive. They have had to be better than the average guy. Often they have had obstacles that would overwhelm others. Throughout history Jews have experienced misfortune and have recovered and persisted. Jews do not have a choice whether to be resilient. If they are not resilient, they will be destroyed. For periods of time, Jews have been relatively successful in many countries, which are known as Golden Ages. Then crash, the world comes down around them. Jewish history teaches a series of punishing events. Jews have a long memory of all the calamities, yet they pick themselves up and rebuild their lives. I have heard Jewish holidays described as a narrative: they tried to kill us, we won, and now let’s eat. In the face of overwhelming obstacles and repeated failures, the resilient people go forward and possibly achieve their goals. The choice is be resilient and possibly succeed, or give up and assure failure.

Resiliency is recovering from disappointment and managing frustration. Each failure provides the opportunity to recover and keep going. When treading on new ground, you may come to dead ends. Your strength to bounce back will help you keep going even when you are discouraged. Your will know that you are resilient when you are completely defeated, when you blunder and achieve disaster. Yet each obstacle only makes you more determined. You go back for a deeper understanding of what happened, and what went wrong. Despite the setbacks, you try something different. You are imagining a possible different outcome. If you experience only success, then you are not challenging yourself.

Conclusion

Again, I am brought back to the day I sat with my Jewish childhood friends having coffee in Berkeley 1968. Was it by chance that we all succeeded? No, it was not by chance because the Jewish rate of success challenges the probability it was simply by chance. Was it the Jewish education at Hebrew School, or living in a Jewish community, praying, Jewish family values, or our connection to our synagogue? The answer is all of the above and a resounding yes to the great achievements of the Jewish People. There is a shared metacognition. Jewish metacognition is a shared set of symbols, values, and thinking strategies, that trains creativity.

Take a moment. How has your practice of Judaism enhanced your creativity? In terms of the Jewish concept of always trying to improve yourself, what strategies can you use to be more creative? How does your experience with Jewish thought and creativity help you contribute to improving the world?

Notes

1. Mendes, P., ‘“We are all German Jews”: Exploring the Prominence of Jews in the New Left’,    Melilah 2009/3.

2. Hadassah Magazine February/March 2011, pp. 40-48.

3. Conversations with Mel Alexanberg. He was my dissertation advisor in the late 1970s.

4. Miran, MD, Miran E., & Chen, N., DESIGN OF LIVING SYSTEMS IN THE INFORMATION  AGE: Brain, Creativity and the Environment. Eds. Joseph Seckbach ORIGIN(S) OF DESIGN IN  NATURE: A Fresh, Interdisciplinary Look at How Design Emerges in Complex Systems,  Life [ODIN] volume to be published.

5. Angel, M. Angel for Shabbat, Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, USA, 2010.

6. Miran, E. The Ecology of Creativity. Dissertation. Teachers College, Columbia,

The rabbinic roots of the Fetaya family can be traced back to Hakham Reuven David Nawi (1770–1821). Hakham Reuven was disciple of Hakham Moshe Haim, the father of the Ben Ish Hai, and was described by the latter as “the great scholar, master of the Torah, our master….” Hakham Reuven passed away at a young age, and only one of his halakhic works, Yehi Reuven, has been published. His grandson Hakham Moshe Yeshua Yehezkel Fetaya (1830–1905) was a mystic and a poet. He founded one of the first printing houses in Baghdad in 1866, with his brother Aharon and their partner Rahamim ben Reuven. Fifty-five books were printed by the printing house until 1882, but Hakham Moshe’s own poems, covering a range of themes from mysticism to stories of personal miracles and prayers for redemption, were printed only in 1909 by his son, my great-grandfather, Hakham Yehudah.

I have heard the following story from my grandfather, Hakham Shaul Fetaya, regarding the initiation of his father into the wisdom of Kabbalah. Hakham Yosef Haim, better known as the Ben Ish Hai, who was 25 years Hakham Yehudah’s senior, used to deliver a sermon on Shabbat afternoon at the great synagogue of Baghdad, Midrash bet Zilkha, also known as Slat il-Kbiri. The Ben Ish Hai was a mesmerizing orator, and his sermons lasted several hours and included halakha, Torah commentary, ethical teachings, and Kabbalah.

In 1869, when Hakham Yehudah Fetaya was only nine years old, he came home crying one Shabbat afternoon. To his father’s inquiry, he answered that he attended the Ben Ish Hai’s sermon and felt frustrated that he could not understand the Kabbalah part of it. His father was moved by his son’s genuine interest and promised him that he would teach him Kabbalah. He did so until his son Yehudah turned 12, at which point his father told him that he has taught him all that he knows and that the time had come to search for a greater master. Young Yehudah duly enrolled in the Rabbinic Seminary of Hakham Abdallah Somekh (1813–1889), the most prominent of Baghdad’s rabbis in the nineteenth century.

In 1876, four years into his studies with Hakham Abdallah Somekh, the Hakham asked 16-year-old Yehudah to be the Hazzan for Minha at the Rabbinic Seminary. One of the older rabbis who was present protested, claiming that a Hazzan must be a married man with a full beard, but Hakham Abdallah Somekh insisted that the teenager he chose will be the Hazzan. “I cannot make his beard grow,” he said, “or marry him off right now, but since everyone agrees that a rabbi can serve as a Hazzan, I will now ordain him.” And so young Yehudah Fetaya was ordained, as a rabbi, at the age of 16.

The honor bestowed upon Hakham Yehudah by his great master did not quench his thirst for knowledge. Alongside his studies of Talmud and halakha under Hakham Abdallah, he learned Kabbalah under Hakham Shimon Agassi and the Ben Ish Hai, eventually becoming their colleague.

Hakham Yehudah was a prolific author, who wrote his first commentary on Kabbalah at the age of 23. The book, which he called Afiquei Mayim, is a commentary on Rabbi Haim Vital’s Etz Hayim, and was only published in a facsimile edition. He later expanded the commentary to what has become his magnum opus, the two-volume commentary on Etz Haim known as Beth Lehem Yehuda. This commentary was praised when first published and is still considered by leading scholars in the field as “The Rashi” on Etz Haim. Hakham Yehudah also wrote commentaries on portions of the Zohar, Yain HaReqah, on the portions known as Idera Raba and Idera Zuta, and Matoq LaNefesh on the Zohar of Parashat Mishpatim. He chose to write a commentary on those portion because they were widely studied during anniversaries for the deceased, and he wanted people to better understand what they were reading.

In general, one could say that despite his lofty field of study, Hakham Yehudah was very much down to earth and involved with the people. His house was open for all and he addressed questions and counseled people constantly. In his private diary, which is kept by my family, he describes a period in his life in which he experienced great closeness to God, a meditative state known as Devekut. He writes how his legs would carry him to his destination, while his mind and soul were elsewhere, but when he got to the yeshiva to deliver a class on Talmud, he reconnected with reality. I find that story intriguing not only because of the meditative state it describes, but for the ability of Hakham Yehudah to detach himself from this state of spiritual bliss for the sake of his students.

Among the many books of Hakham Yehudah, there are anthologies of commentaries on the Torah and Pirkei Avot, original prayers, and mystical writings, but the most popular of his works is no doubt the one he calls a notebook. That book, Minhat Yehudah, is basically a kabbalistic commentary on the Bible, but in several places, the author segues to discuss the interpretation of dreams and issues related to reincarnation. In the introduction to the book he writes that his main purpose in writing the book was to inform people of the full spiritual scope of their life in this world and the world to come and to encourage them to repent.

Among the many disciples in the field of Kabbalah were H. Sasson Mizrahi, H. Yitzhak Khadouri, H. Salman Moutzafi, and H. Salman Eliyahu, father of H. Mordecahi Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi of Israel and a very close friend of my grandfather and my family, but although his printed works focus on Kabblah, H. Yehudah’s activism and teachings were not limited to the esoteric. In one of his few halakhic responses that were preserved, he uses harsh words to criticize men who take advantage of women desperate to get married. He calls on the other judges to amend the situation where all the power was in the man’s hand, saying that women should not need to suffer by being summoned to court, or by feeling that they are tied in marriage to a man against their will.

He was also concerned with the physical and mental health of the people who came to him for a blessing or to seek help. My mother, who was eight years old when her grandfather passed away, told me that people used to say about him in Arabic “idou khudhra”—his hands are green—meaning that they felt special spiritual energy when he blessed them. She herself felt it, and I have experienced it as a child when my grandfather, H. Shaul, took care of me after I was frightened by a dog and could not sleep several nights. He sat me on his lap, placed his hand on my chest and recited verses, and I felt a pleasant warmth spreading through my body and soul. Years later, when my own children went through similar experiences, I tried to do the same, thinking that it might have been a placebo effect, but I failed.

There are many stories about H. Yehudah as a miracle worker, but the one that is close to my heart is one that can be emulated by all of us, and does not require an expertise in Kabbalah. The story is about one of his students in Baghdad, whose wife was expecting. H. Yehudah was concerned that the due date had passed, and asked the man about his wife’s health and whether she gave birth already, but his student dodged the question. The Hakham understood that something was wrong and kept pressing, until finally the man admitted that his wife was acting in a strange manner after she gave birth, and so she was sent by the embarrassed family to live with a Muslim foster family in a village outside the city. H. Yehudah asked for the name of the family and their whereabouts, and then immediately left the Rabbinic Seminary and went home. He asked his daughter Lulu, who was 17 at the time to join him, and together they traveled several hours until they arrived at the foster family’s house. They found the woman, who suffered from what today is known as postpartum depression, in a miserable condition. Besides the shock of being rejected by her family and separated from her young daughter, she was weak and emaciated, since she refused to eat non-kasher food.

H. Yehudah promised the woman that he would help her. He then traveled with his daughter Lulu to the nearest Jewish settlement and went directly to the local rabbi’s house. The rabbi was amazed to see the great hakham at his door. H. Yehudah explained that he was traveling with his daughter to Baghdad and that they were very hungry, and asked if the rabbi can offer them a hearty meal. Once the meal was ready, however, Hakham Yehudah said that he cannot delay and asked the perplexed host to pack the food “to go.” The Hakham and his daughter returned to the woman’s bedside where they fed and took care of her until she was strong enough to travel back to the city of Baghdad. When they arrived there, the women in H. Yehudah’s household took care of the woman for several months until she recovered physically and mentally. H. Yehudah then called the husband and reintroduced him to his wife, not before rebuking him for abandoning her at her darkest hour.

This story, which I have heard at a very young age, is engraved in my mind in a way which overshadows all the other stories about miracles attributed to H. Yehudah Fetaya. It is important because it teaches something that we are all capable of doing, even if we are not prodigies or great mystics. The Hakham’s great sensitivity and understanding of human nature shines through this story.

He was concerned not only with the learning of his students, but with the well-being of their families; and when he heard of the crisis he dropped everything and rushed to the woman’s help, but did not rebuke the husband yet, knowing that he would not listen to him. He traveled with his daughter, because he wanted the woman to feel comfortable with Lulu taking care of her. When visiting the rabbi’s house, he did not reveal the real reason he was asking for food, and would rather cast himself in a negative light, barging into a home and asking for food to go, in order not to embarrass the woman who needed the food. Finally, after returning to Baghdad, he made sure that the woman has fully recovered and then orchestrated her reunion with her husband and daughter.

The many halakhot that can be gleaned from this story cannot be found in any halakhic compilation, and they should be for us a guiding light in our dealings with others. This is but one example of his tireless work for the people of Baghdad and Israel.

Hakham Yehudah’s fame reached the Iraqi diaspora in India, and he was offered a position with that thriving Iraqi community, an offer that he rejected since his aspiration was to migrate to the Land of Israel. He settled in Israel in 1905, but returned to Baghdad after several years. He made a second attempt at aliya in 1923, and finally fulfilled his wish in 1934, at the age of 74. He initially lived in Ramat Gan, where there was a concentration of Iraqi Jews, but eventually moved to Jerusalem, where he was actively involved in the study circles of the kabbalist school Beth El, as well as Shoshanim LeDavid and Ohel Rahel, not far from Mahane Yehudah.

Bound by Hope

Hakham Yehudah Fetaya passed away the 27^th of Menahem Av, 74 years ago. My grandfather told me that during the funeral the sky was covered with dark clouds and heavy rain started pouring. Being that this is very atypical to the Israeli summer, people felt that the heavens were weeping for his death. Since then, each year on the anniversary of his death (except between 1948–1967), hundreds of people ascend to his grave on Har HaZetim (Mount of Olives), to read the special prayers he composed for tumultuous times, and specifically the Holocaust. He kept abreast of the news from Europe and conducted prayers for the Jews of Germany years before the Holocaust. When the war started, Hakham Yehudah’s efforts intensified. Besides running, with his son, Hakham Shaul, a center for distributing basic food staples to poor families, he wrote and published special prayers in a booklet he titled Asirei haTikva, Bound by Hope, a name that conveys the message that despite all the difficulties, we are still bound to God by our faith and hope.

The introduction to the first edition, printed in 1940, reads:

The order of prayers in this booklet is what we had to do, with great sorrow, in the holy city of Jerusalem, in the year 1940 (corresponding to the Hebrew date alluded to in the verse: Sound a great shofar and bring forth our freedom), as we were drowning in the tidal waves of disaster [in Europe]. We had to publish it to make it available for all, so we can join together, with one heart, to plead with prayer and supplications before God, and hope that He will have mercy for the remnant of his flock and will not let their blood spill like water….

Those special prayers, which Hakham Yehudah conducted almost daily at Rachel’s Tomb and other sites, were not his only effort in trying to help the Jewish People. At one point, he procured an airplane from the RAF, and with a minyan of kabbalists performed a service of Kapparot over the Land of Israel.[1]

One of the dramatic stories I heard from my grandfather was of the time his father summoned God to trial. Hakham Yehudah gathered all the sages and kabbalists of the famed Beth El and Ohel Rahel academies in Jerusalem, and summoned God to a Din Torah, a trial, with the specific purpose of acquitting the Jews and proving that God must stop the massacre in Germany. In order to have a fair trial, he appointed both a prosecutor and a defense attorney [himself, obviously] for the Jews. My grandfather told me emphatically of the warning his father issued to the prosecutor: “Speak briefly. Do not cast the Jews in a negative light. After all, they all are good people.” The trial came to an abrupt stop when the prosecutor went on a blaming rampage against the Jewish People, and would not stop despite threats and supplications. My mother added to that story that the man lost his sanity afterward. The message of that story guided my grandfather, and since he was my master, guides also me until this very day in dealing with questions of halakha, education, and working with the community. This unique event is typical of Hakham Yehudah, as well of his son, Hakham Shaul, who did not shy away from confrontations with God Himself.

The booklet Asirei haTikva offers an example of his unabated love for the Jewish People, his deep pain for their suffering, and his willingness to argue with God.

When people visited his grave on the anniversary of his death, these gatherings did not include dancing, eating, or lighting candles at the grave. Rather, the prayers he composed were read by the public in what was an awe-inspiring event that left a very deep impression on me as a young child. My grandfather, Hakham Shaul, our cantor, Gurji Yair, and many elders of the Iraqi community would go around the grave seven times, reading the prayers Hakham Yehudah composed during the Holocaust.

Hakham Shaul, following in the pathways of his great father, felt the pain of the needy and the poor, the Holocaust survivors whose spirit was broken, and those who felt imperfect, whether spiritually or physically, and his prayers echoed his pain.

The pinnacle of the prayers at Hakham Yehudah’s gravesite were the special poems he composed in honor of our Mothers, Sarah, Rivka, Rahel, and Leah. He wrote these poems in the early 1900s as an addition to the traditional Haqqafot, which mention only men. One might say that he wrote the first modern feminist Midrash. Hakham Yehudah wrote four poems, one for each one of the mothers, but Rahel received a special treatment. Her poem, Zekhut Rahel, is three times as long as all the others combined. The special affinity of Hakham Yehudah for Rahel was a product of his kabbalistic background, and of the special attention given to her by the prophet Jeremiah and the midrashic literature, but it also had a personal element. His wife’s name was Rahel (affectionately, in Iraqi Arabic: Chahla), and they had lost several children in their infancy. They had also suffered the blow of losing their married daughter Simha and her husband Shimon during the plague of 1914, and had taken the couple’s little orphaned daughter, Haviva, under their wing. The tragic life of our matriarch Rahel, was for him much more than a biblical image and a mystical metaphor for the Shekhina, it was the real-life story of a bereaved father sharing the pain with his beloved wife Rahel.

In the poem, he pleads with God but also argues bitterly with Him, demanding a better treatment for the nation and the individual. Here is the full text of the poem with my translation:

For Rahel’s Sake

 Recall, God, the merit of Rahel, for her wandering children.

She who has brought her adversary under her own bridal canopy in a sleepless night.

She hid under the bed and responded from there [instead of her sister].

Please, from your seat on high, hear her bewail and lament.

Her thundering voice, shattering walls, can be heard from great distances.

She who was buried at the crossroads, is wailing and asking:

“Where is Joseph, where is the one who hugged me? Woe to me for my sweet child!

Where is Ben Oni, who never saw me, who never rested on my chest?”

She went and asked the Patriarchs: “Where are my dear children?”

[They said:] “Go ask ben Amram, who is buried on Mount Avarim!”

“My son Moshe, please speak up, where have you abandoned the flocks?”

From the grave, speaking to her, rose a mournful, lamenting voice: 

“Why are you wandering on the mountains, what are you searching for, dear aunt?”

[She answered:] “Now is not a time for idle talk, as I have to mend the broken wall.”

Moshe, in deep sorrow, answered: “I have handed them to your son, Yehoshua.”

 [She told him:] “Yehoshua my son, please answer me, where are the tribes?”

Faced with her agony and lament, he responded with his own tears

And the voice of their crying and wailing rose to the heavens.

“Please mother” [cried Yehoshua], “please stop, before I die and perish;”

“I have handed them to the elders and to the shepherd kings of the House of David.”

 She left him and rushed to the grave sites of the city of Zion.

[The kings] told her: “On the Temple Mount, there they shall be sought and found.”

Alas, when Rahel saw that there are no walls nor fences,

And the Temple has been burnt to the ground,

And that there are no priests nor Levites, and no Ark nor Cherubim,

She shrieked in agony, and cast away her shoes.

She tore the striped robe, and her scarf, and her dresses.

She wore sackcloth and rolled on the rocks,

Slapping her flesh to mourn her lost son.

Clad in sorrow for God’s people, she was howling in grief.

 Hurriedly she leapt above, towards God, sitting on high,

Speaking for the People of Zion, and raising her voice with tears, [she demanded:]

“Please Father, see my pain, and heed my plea with mercy!

 My Rock, My Hope, will Your people be forever lost?

How could You tear a bride from her husband’s lap and send her into exile?

How could You shoo the nesting mother, but not take care of the fledglings?

How could You abandon Your sheep among devouring lions?

How can you remain quiet while the People of Edom [Germany] turn them into sacrifices?

Were they not punished enough, were they not engulfed by vicious waters?

Are a thousand years not enough for You?

The sun is already setting on the second millennium, and the pain is not letting.

Where is the miraculous sign? When is the Time of Times?

When will you have mercy? When will you console us?

You keep putting us away, day after day!

Almighty God, redeem us already! Do not soothe us with words!”

 A voice was then heard from the Divine Throne: “Hush my daughter, oh bride of the mighty!

Let your eyes stop crying; Let your voice rest from supplications.

Because of your tears and lament, the heavenly worlds are now in exile.

And He rose up above, and mercy has been invoked.

 I shall not rest until I revenge the spilled blood of my servants,

And shortly I will sever and destroy the wicked.

I will cut the stone, smash the idol, breaking it to shards.

I will open the sealed coffers and release the swallowed souls.

Rise up, shake away your sorrow, and wear your precious clothes.”

I hear the voice of my nation saying:

“Though we are sinners, do for Your great name’s sake!”

The Midrashic Origin of Rahel’s Merit

This poem, in which Hakham Yehudah Fetaya casts Rahel as a defense attorney for her children, is based on two midrashic sources, which are in turn inter-connected. The first Midrash[2] has been made famous by Rashi, who included it in his commentary on Genesis,[3] in order to explain the mystery of how Yaakov was tricked into marrying Leah instead of Rahel. According to that Midrash, Yaakov and Rahel suspected that Lavan would attempt a deception, and so decided on a secret password to enable Yaakov to identify his bride. At the last moment, however, when Rahel realized that her father was determined to lead her sister down the aisle, she felt sorry for her and gave her the password so as not to shame her.

The second, less-known Midrash, is found in the introduction to Eikha Rabbah,[4] the midrashic commentary on the Book of Lamentations, and is based on a verse from Jeremiah[5] which describes Rahel’s agony after the destruction of the Temple:

A voice is heard in Ramah [also: a strong voice is heard]. It is the sound of wailing and bitter tears. It is the voice of Rahel, mourning her children, refuses to be consoled for her sons who are now gone!

In the dramatic narrative of the Midrash, Abraham, Yitzhak, Yaakov, and Moshe are pleading with God on behalf of the Jewish People. Each of the men steps forward and asks God that as a reward for his many sacrifices and dedication to God, the Jewish People will be forgiven and redeemed, but none of them is answered. Rahel then jumps the line, apparently uninvited, and speaks to God about her own experience with her sister. She describes how despite her great love for Yaakov she was willing to let her sister Leah take her place because she did not want her to suffer disgrace, and then levels this question at God:

I am but flesh and blood, dust and ashes, yet I was not jealous of my rival [Leah] and did not cause her shame and disgrace! You, Eternal and Merciful King, why were You jealous of idolatry, which has no value? How could you send my sons go in exile, be killed by the sword, and handed over to their enemies to do with them as they wish?

Unlike God’s treatment of the men who spoke before Rahel, He hears her request and promises redemption, using the subsequent verses in Jeremiah:[6]

Let your voice mourn no more, let your eyes shed no more tears, for your deeds are rewarded… they shall return from enemy lands… your destiny is filled with hope… as the exiled sons will come back home….

Feminine and Masculine Perspectives

At first glance it seems that Rahel’s argument follows the same pattern as the men, and that the only reason the midrashic author makes God answer her and not the others, is that Jeremiah spoke of the dialogue between Rahel and God. A more thorough and comparative reading, however, will reveal deep insights on the nature of men and women and on our understanding of divine justice.

Abraham, Yitzhak, Yaakov, and Moshe, appear before God as if they were in court. They maintain decorum, and each one presents a similar argument: “I did this and that, so I deserve a reward.” Each one of them is ignored, and they interpret it as a sign that their request is turned down, and do not argue any more. Rahel, the bereaved mother, breaks the rules. Like a wounded lioness, she pushes her way past the men and speaks uninvited, as if rebuking them for giving up and retreating.

Rahel is not asking for a reward, but rather lectures God, telling Him that He should learn from her. She suggests that she, a mortal woman, was able to overcome her natural selfishness and jealousy, and that God should follow her example and not be jealous of the “second wife” of the Israelites—the idols.

The audacity of the author of the Midrash is shocking. He questions one of the fundamental prohibitions of the Torah, arguing that God should not punish His children so harshly for worshipping idols. The author speaks more as a loving mother than as a disciplinary leader we know from the stories of the judges and the prophets. I am certain that my great-grandfather understood the pain of all mothers, and of course of his own wife Rahel, and that he took the role of defender of the Jewish people to new levels.

Mother Rahel = Hakham Yehudah

Hakham Yehudah uses the midrashic Rahel to present his theological dispute. From behind Rahel’s mask we can hear the voice of Hakham Yehudah, who conveys both his personal pain and his shock at the terrible massacre of Jews in Europe, while emphasizing the different approach of the forefathers and the one mother.

The poet uses Rahel as a symbol for the nation, and in few lines, sketches Rahel’s tragic life. He speaks of her grief for her lost descendants, and simultaneously of the grief of her immediate sons Joseph and Benjamin. Joseph is described as a toddler who is very close to his mother. In the original Hebrew, he is said to be hovering, conjuring the image of a mother and child huddling together, deriving comfort and joy from each other’s company. Benjamin is referred to here as Ben Oni, the name given to him by Rahel at birth. The name has a double entendre; it could mean the son of my sorrow, or the son of my [last] strength. Rahel is lamenting not being able to breastfeed her son, depriving him, as if it were, of the important role of the mother for the child, that of a nurturer and giver of life. Finally, as if to add insult to pain, she is buried at the crossroads, as if she were not important enough to be have proper burial.[7]

After her initial shock and mourning, she rises from the dust and takes action, going from one male leader to another to inquire about her children. In the original Midrash there is no interaction between the men and Rahel, but Hakham Yehudah creates a dialogue which intensifies the image of Rahel the bereaved mother. She uses terms of endearment when talking of her children, and includes not only her direct descendants, Joseph and Benjamin, but all 12 tribes. She uses harsh words when talking to Moshe, first accusing him of abandoning his people, and then telling him that he is wasting his time in trying to calm her.

In Rahel’s encounter with Yehoshua there is a new element. Not only does she exchange words with him, but her tears and mourning affect him so powerfully that he pleads for his life, even though the readers are aware that he speaks from the grave. The protagonists address each other as direct relatives: aunt, mother, son, showing that a true leader cares for the people the way relatives care for each other, with unconditional love. The poem shows gradual progress as Rahel moves from one man to another. The patriarchs shake away the responsibility and refer her to Moshe. Moshe tries to talk her out of worrying but she would not hear of it. Finally, Yehoshua is influenced by her emotions but it is too much for him to bear and he pleads with her to stop.

Rahel finally arrives at the Temple Mount and witnesses the destruction and desolation. Her spirit broken, she expresses her grief by slapping her flesh, a practice mentioned in the Bible[8] and still common in the Middle East. She tears her striped robe, a reference to Joseph, as well as the attack on Tamar by her brother Amnon.[9] The robe embodies the suffering of Rahel as a mother whose son was torn from her arms.

The following stanza is a turning point in the poem, and it is based on the line in the Midrash which describes Rahel as “jumping” and speaking out of turn.

 Hurriedly she leapt… she demanded… Father, see my pain, and heed my plea with mercy… How could You tear a bride from her husband’s lap and send her into exile? How could You shoo the nesting mother, but not take care of the fledglings?

Unlike the men, who remain passive in their grief, Rahel is able to rise from the crushing pain and take action. She approaches God with harsh words that are, of course, the words of Hakham Yehudah Fetaya. He again uses the language of blood relations, as he makes Rahel address God as “Father” and speaks of the Jewish People as a bride who is driven away. Of all the arguments presented here, the boldest is the analogy Hakham Yehudah draws between the people in exile and the nesting bird. This analogy refers to the commandment of sending away a nesting bird while taking its eggs or fledglings.[10] Obviously, the Torah did not mean to say that one is obligated to separate the mother from its offspring, but rather that if one needs the eggs or fledglings, he should spare the mother. The analogy Hakham Yehudah makes is bold and daring because the talmudic sages specifically said about this commandment that one is not allowed to use it to invoke divine mercy:[11]

If [the one leading the services] says: May You show mercy to us as toy did to the nesting bird… he must be silenced.

The Talmud offers two explanations that seem to suggest that the rabbis feared that such statements will encourage a discussion of theodicy, or divine justice, which was a very sensitive issue for post-destruction Judaism. Not only does Hakham Yehudah Fetaya not shy away from this issue, practically accusing God of treating Jews unfairly and of abandoning them, he very cleverly changes the dynamics of the analogy, making it more dramatic. Whereas the commandment calls for releasing the mother and taking the eggs or fledglings for consumption, in the analogy the mother is sent into exile and the fledglings become the responsibility of the hunter, which in this case is God.

Here, the evolution of Hakham Yehudah’s Rahel is complete. She first transitioned from a bereaved mother to a wandering mourner, and she now becomes a fierce advocate for the Jewish people, firing a rapid succession of 14 arguments against God’s treatment of her children. Through Rahel, Hakham Yehudah speaks of his deep pain over the Holocaust, using midrashic Edom to refer to Germany. He pleads with God but does not hesitate to use an accusatory tone, saying that God has abandoned us and that He does not keep His promises.  

The poem concludes with a promise of redemption with many mystical elements, but its essence is a replay of what has transpired between Rahel and Yehoshua. Just as Yehoshua begs Rahel to calm down because he is overwhelmed by the emotions she stirred in him, God now tells Rahel to stop crying, using the verse from Jeremiah. The reason for that request, according to Hakham Yehudah, is that her powerful prayers caused the Divine worlds to commiserate with her suffering and as a result they are now in exile. Using Rahel as a mask, Hakham Yehudah issues a call to all Jews to be relentless in their efforts to usher in the redemption.

The way to do it, as he signaled in his poem about Rahel, as well as in his teachings and leadership, is to be active and not sink into depression, indifference, and apathy. He taught us that we cannot keep quiet when people suffer and that we must constantly challenge ourselves, and God, until we have a perfect world.
 

Halakha and Kabbalah

Hakham Yehudah Fetaya is considered one of the leading kabbalists of the twentieth century, both in terms of his outstanding disciples and colleagues, and his very important commentaries. It is therefore extremely important to hear his view on the role of Kabbalah in Jewish law, as was conveyed by his son, Hakham Shaul Fetaya. My grandfather explained that halakhot influenced by or instituted by Kabbalah were never meant for the public, but rather only for the true kabbalists. That is because the idea at the basis of these laws and practices is that by performing a certain act in this world, one impacts and changes the divine worlds. Let us consider a famous example of a practice stemming from this kabbalistic approach.

Sweetening the Harsh Judgment

The Talmud says in the name of Rava that one must add water to the wine of Kiddush, or else it will be undrinkable and undeserving of being called wine.[12] Rava’s rationale is that without adding water the wine is too strong. Rava’s opinion was not accepted as binding but rather as a recommendation, and Rabbi Yosef Karo writes that one is allowed to make Kiddush with a very strong wine. He does add that it is preferable to dilute the wine, as long as it is done properly, meaning that the final product is better than the original. Rabbi Moshe Isserles, the Rema, comments on that: “Our wines are better as they are, without diluting.”[13]

According to both Rabbi Karo and the Rema, the practice of diluting wine with water should have disappeared in the modern age, as most wines are drinkable, without any addition of water. This is indeed the case for most Ashkenazim; but the Sephardic world, under the influence of Kabbalah, took a different course. The practice of adding water to wine was explained by kabbalists as an act which weakens, or sweetens, the harsh judgment, as water represents mercy and wine represents rigor.[14] To avoid extreme dilution of the wine, the Kabbalists recommended adding three drops of water to the Kiddush cup, a practice kept in many Sephardic households.

The idea that a person can change God’s mind by adding three drops of water to the Kiddush cup could be deeply disturbing to anyone who is familiar with Maimonides’ principles of faith, and specifically the one that states that God is immutable.

There are several ways to reconcile this contradiction. One is to reject all Kabbalah-influenced practices, while another is to find deeper symbolism and meditative tools in the kabbalistic principles. In the case of water and wine, for example, when one adds the water to the wine, he should contemplate his behavior and decide to make a special effort to override his anger and be more kind and sensitive.

The third approach, that of Hakham Yehudah Fetaya, is that there might be a way in which humans induce change in God’s world. However, this is a role reserved for people with a very high spiritual level, namely the true kabbalists. Hakham Shaul, faithful to his father’s teachings, taught us not to add water to wine and not to wash our hands with Last Water, another practice that would have disappeared if not for Kabbalah. In general, Hakham Shaul was uncomfortable with the popularization of Kabbalah study, as he felt that the study is technical and superficial, and that no attention is paid to spiritual growth and interpersonal relationships. He was also opposed to the phenomenon of seeking blessings from “kabbalists” and rabbis who charge for their services. He told me that Hakham Yehudah Fetaya had a very clear opinion on this issue, which is that one is not allowed to seek advice, guidance, blessings, or prayers, from anyone who expects something in return for those services.

He explained that God does not need middlemen, and if there exists a person who was invested by God with special powers or access to Him, that person should care enough for others as to offer prayers and blessings without asking for a penny. My grandfather added that even if the rabbi does not ask for a payment, but says that he will bless a couple with a child on the condition that he will serve as the Sandak, one should decline the offer.

My grandfather, Hakham Shaul Fetaya (1910–1982), refused to serve as a rabbi, and instead dedicated his life to help people from all walks of life. He was a member of the Etzel underground and helped organize caravans to Jerusalem during the War of Independence. He fought for the inclusion of Iraqi and Sephardic Jews in the administrative offices of the newly born State of Israel, and continued his father’s tradition of helping the poor and needy.

He took care not only of material needs, by personally delivering supplies to immigrant families, but also of spiritual needs, counseling and advising thousands in his little store-office near Mahane Yehuda. His method of dream interpretation was studied by Dr. Yoram Bilu, who was astounded to discover a whole world of symbolism in the mystical teachings of Hakham Shaul and his father.

In the late 1970s Hakham Shaul launched a new initiative with his daughter Simha, my mother, and Dr. Hannah and Israel Openheimer, who were Holocaust survivors. That initiative was an occupational habilitation center in which people with physical and mental disabilities learned new skills or revived old ones, in order to integrate into the regular work market. My grandfather’s motto was the verse from Job (31:15): “His maker made me as well, and we were formed in one womb.” Hakham Shaul extended his belief in equality to the religious realm as well and taught his disciples and grandchildren not to use words such as religious and secular to describe factions in Israeli society. To our question what term to use, he replied that all Jews are observant, but each one chooses to observe different mitzvoth. He taught us that religiosity is not judged by external elements, and that there is much we need to learn about others. In the spirit of equality, he also encouraged my older sisters to have a Bat Mitzvah, as early as 1969, when this was not a popular practice among observant Sephardim in Israel.

My grandfather was the epitome of a Sephardic Hakham. He knew the Bible by heart; he read and wrote poetry; he was an activist, a philanthropist, and a philosopher. He did not believe in leading from above, and preached for loving and respecting one another. His approach to halakha was accommodating and understanding. He never forced anyone to drink wine or eat matzah on Seder night, and he tried to avoid Kabbalah-influenced practices.  I remember very well how on Yom Kippur, when I was seven years old, when speaking about Shabbat observance, he said that he knows that many people watch television on Shabbat, and that he just asks them not to switch channels or play with the volume. His approach of understanding and respect has guided me in my halakhic writings and my community work.

Here is a passage from his book Hirhurim (Musings), in which he addresses the religious elected officials and Knesset members, whom he viewed as enslaved to their seats:

…Enough PR, arguments, and animosity… instead of the noise and storms, come down to the people, walk with the people. It will not take away from your honor, it will only augment it. Didn’t God Himself come down on Mount Sinai, and doesn’t it say that Moshe came down to the people? But you… you rest on the comfortable chairs in your offices and never come down… and when you do you go to synagogues and study halls, but not to the “commoners”…

Please, if you ever decide to come down to the nation, don’t go only to those who know the values and principles, who apparently do not keep them, and who despite all this are called holy people…

Because this nation is wise, intelligent, and willing to listen, they will understand you, they are thirsty for knowledge, especially the youth, the knowledge of Jewish insight, the principles, values, and Israeli tradition. Speak to the youth. Speak to their heart. Explain gently, with love, sensitivity, and attention, and they will listen…

Teach the rabbis, the newly minted and the veterans, to be wise and not use the Torah as a tool to aggrandize themselves, so people will learn from them noble and worthy values.

Talk to the rock—it will give forth water… do not cause pain…

These words epitomize my grandfather, Hakham Shaul Fetaya. My grandfather’s love for scholarship, Bible, poetry, and music, as well his activism has deeply influenced me and my siblings, who all continued aspects of his legacy in one way or another. My oldest sister Haviva Pedaya is a professor of Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah and a poet, and the second, Hannah, is the founder and manager of the Firqat al-Nur orchestra, and she spearheads the revival of Sephardic music and liturgy in Israel. My brother Yehudah is the rabbi of my grandfather’s synagogue in Jerusalem, Minhat Yehudah, and he teaches and maintains the unique Baghdadi traditions of Hakham Shaul. My sister Ayyala is an activist, a playwright, and a poet.

As a family, we feel now that there is an awakening, a thirst and longing for the legacy of Sephardic and Mediterranean Jews, and we hope that this legacy will contribute to the creation of bridges of understanding and mutual respect.

“It’s All Relative: The Contemporary Orthodox Jewish Family in America”

by Chaim I. Waxman

(Chaim I. Waxman is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Jewish Studies, Rutgers University, and lives in Jerusalem. He specializes in the sociological study of Jews and Judaism, including, America’s Jews, Orthodox Jewry, Jewish identity and identification, Israeli society and culture, and Zionism. He is the author of numerous books and articles.)

I recently received an inquiry for an interview from a journalist who was writing a story about the Orthodox Jewish family. The interviewer assumed that Jews “used to live together in one place for generations in previous generations,” and was interested in “what changed and why.” Although I should be used to it by now, I am regularly struck both by the prevalent assumptions about the idyllic nature of the Jewish family in Eastern Europe and by the assumption that the imagined Eastern European Jewish family is the model of the “authentic” Jewish family.

All too frequently, discussions of “the Jewish family” are based on the assumption that there is one single model of that family and it is typically that of the stereotypical Jewish family in Eastern Europe. Actually, there is no one single model of the Jewish family. From as early as 598 b.c.e., Jews have been and continue to be “a nation spread out and separated among the nations.” In every society that they have dwelled, Jews acculturated to one degree or another and internalized cultural patterns from the larger society. That is a major source of the differences in the traditions of Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Jews from North Africa, Asia, and so forth, and between those of the various groups among all of them. Hence, the Polish Jewish family was different from the German Jewish family, the German was different from the Turkish, the Turkish from the Moroccan, and so forth. (This raises an interesting and important question that cannot be discussed here, as to whether one can speak of “Jewish culture” and even “Jewish identity” as if there are such things when there are actually different Jewish cultures and different Jewish identities.)

            One more point about many discussions of the Jewish family, is the tendency toward nostalgia, to romanticize “good old days” that, in many ways, as the late Prof. Nathan Goldberg would consistently remind his students at Yeshiva College, were actually not so good at all. Nor were most Jewish families there like the stereotypical large, extended family in which people married young, were cared for by parents and in-laws while they had many children, and all of the extended-family members lived near each other and shared warmth and bliss.

            Shaul Stampfer, for example, rejects the notion that the Eastern European family was patriarchal. As he convincingly demonstrates, women had active and independent roles in economic matters; very many if not most wives worked to help support their families; and wives made the most important daily decisions for the family, including what household items should be purchased; disciplining children; and finding spouses for the children (“How Jewish Society Adapted to Change in Male/Female Relationships in 19th / Early 20th Century Eastern Europe,” pp. 65–84 in Rivkah Blau, ed., Gender Relationships in Marriage and Out, Orthodox Forum 17 New York: Yeshiva University Press, 2007). He likewise shows that the age of marriage among Eastern European Jews rose during the nineteenth century, and rose even more significantly during the inter-war years of the twentieth century (“Marital Patterns in Interwar Poland” pp. 173–197 in Yisrael Gutman, ed., The Jews of Poland Between Two World Wars, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England/Brandeis University Press, 1989). If that is not enough, evidence also indicates that there was a high level of divorce in Eastern Europe traditional Jewish society.

That having been said, I turn now to the American Jewish family, in general, and the American Orthodox Jewish family, in particular. (I omit any discussion of the frequency and impact of intermarriage, as that topic is beyond the scope of this article.) Until recently, evidence indicated that, although Jewish men and women in the United States married somewhat later than non-Jews, this was not a reflection of a declining significance of marriage and family for Jews. Jews were more likely than non-Jews to eventually marry, less likely to divorce and remain divorced and, at almost every age, a lower percentage of Jews than non-Jews were either previously married or widowed. The most recent evidence questions whether the Jewish values of marriage and family remain as strong as they were. According to the 2008 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life/U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, the gaps between Jews and Christian white Americans have narrowed and, in some cases, are non-existent. Thus, on the one hand, the percentage of people who are divorced/separated among Jews (9 percent) is lower than that of Mainline Protestants (12 percent), Evangelical Protestants (13 percent), and Catholics (10 percent). On the other hand, the percentage of married people among Jews is the same as for Mainline Protestants (57 percent), but lower than Catholics (58 percent) and Evangelicals (59 percent), and the rate of never-married among Jews (19 percent) is higher than that Mainline Protestants (15 percent) and Evangelical Protestants (14 percent) as well as Catholics (17 percent).

            At least since the nineteenth century, Jews in the United States have had lower birth rates than those of non-Jews. Jews marry later, want and expect fewer children, have the most favorable attitudes toward contraception, and have been its best practitioners. Data from various studies show that U.S. Jewish families today have fewer children than the minimum necessary to maintain group size, that is, zero population growth.

            That being said, it must be stressed that, primarily because they are such a small percentage of the U.S. population, most surveys of American Jews do not distinguish between the various wings or denominations within American Judaism and the American Jewish population, and there are almost certainly significant differences among them on all of these issues and more. Indeed, the Pew Religious Landscape Survey did indicate differences between Reform and Conservative Jews, and their data indicated a higher rate of marriage for Reform (61 percent) than for Conservative (53 percent) Jews, but higher divorced/separated rates for Reform (11 percent) than for Conservative (7 percent) Jews.

We have very limited data generally for Orthodox Jews in the United States because, among others, their numbers are so small, relatively, and many of them are reluctant to reply to surveys and interviews. The U.S. census is unhelpful in this respect because it has no religion question and, thus, we can’t even get data for American Jews in general from it, let alone for the Orthodox segment. The 2001 National Jewish Population Survey did contain a reasonable sample of Orthodox Jews, and those data indicate a significantly higher marriage rate, a lower divorced/separated rate, as well as a lower single/never married rate than those of Conservative and Reform Jews. Since Orthodox Jews marry at a higher rate and do so at a younger age, it is not surprising that they are more likely that the non-Orthodox to have children age 17 or younger living in the household. Over one-third (34 percent) of Orthodox Jews have a child living in the household, which is more than double the rate of the non-Orthodox. In terms of future denominational trends, it is especially notable that the Orthodox are considerably younger than the total American Jewish population; about 40 percent is comprised of children, as compared to 20 percent for the non-Orthodox. More than half (52 percent) of all American Orthodox Jews are younger than 45 years of age, as compared to 44 percent for the total American Jewish population. All of these figures reflect a continued strong emphasis on marriage and family formation among the Orthodox. Unquestionably, there has been an increase in divorce among the Orthodox. However, the absence of divorce, especially in previous decades, was not necessarily an indication of a stable and healthy marriage. In any event, the Orthodox divorce rate is still significantly lower than that of the non-Orthodox.

Needless to say, not all Orthodox Jews have strong marriage and family values, nor do they manifest them in the same way or even positively. We do not have hard data on spouse abuse for either the broader American Jewish community or for the Orthodox community, Modern or Hareidi and, in her study of responses to it in Hareidi communities, Roberta Rosenberg Farber (“The Programmatic Response of the Ultra-Orthodox American Jewish Community to Wife Abuse: Social Change Within a Traditional Religious Community,” Contemporary Jewry 26, 2006, pp. 114–157) reports of professionals who believe that spouse abuse is as common among Jews as it is in the general population. Likewise, with respect to sexual abuse within families, Michelle Friedman reported of her study of over 400 observant Orthodox women in the United States and Israel (“On Intimacy, Love, Kedushah and Sexuality: Reflections on the 5th Annual YCT Rabbinical School/Community Yom Iyyun in Conjunction with Congregation Ohab Zedek,” Milin Havivin 2, 2006, p. 187), “Sadly, we found the same statistics for sexual molestation and abuse of girls and teens as in the secular population.” Neither Farber and Friedman nor any other studies suggest that there has been an increase in either spousal or sexual abuse of minors within families among Orthodox Jews. What is significant here is that there is likewise no evidence of any decrease in either of these horrible sins.

            Be that as it may, there have clearly been American social and cultural changes, including technological changes, that have affected the Orthodox Jewish approach to family and family behavior. To begin with, sex is much more public than it was just several decades ago. Not only are words and scenes that were previously taboo on television now normal prime-time fare; the Internet has broken all barriers. There are no longer any taboos, and it is increasingly difficult not to be bombarded with pornography. Whatever one thinks of the freedoms of the press, the airwaves, and the web, they impact on religious behavior, especially for young adults. Some parents refuse to allow television and some refuse to allow the Internet into the home, while others implement various net filters, but none of these is fool-proof and nobody is immune. Of course, none of us was ever totally immune, and the Orthodox community is struggling to adapt as best as it can. It appears that the only ones who are talking publicly about the problem are those who have decided to completely ban the new technologies, but not too many appear to be following them.

One social pattern that is apparent, especially among the Modern Orthodox, is a growing tendency of later marriage. There has been a noticeable growth of singles communities such as the one in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem (which is the subject of the popular Israeli television series, Serugim) and on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. These communities raise challenges even as they resolve others. Some twenty years ago, Calvin Goldscheider pointed to the rising Orthodox divorce rate and suggested that the primary challenge is the potential religious alienation of the divorced individuals that results from their not being in families. Likewise, he pointed to the growing pattern of later marriage as challenging in that it results in increasing numbers of Jews who are rejected due to their unmarried status and become religiously alienated (Calvin Goldscheider, “Family Changes and the Challenge to American Orthodoxy: The Implications of Recent Social Science Data,” Tradition 23:1 (Summer 1987), pp. 71–81). The new Orthodox singles communities undoubtedly serve as a buffer against the religious alienation upon which Goldscheider focused, but on the other hand they may be making it increasingly acceptable and less inconvenient to remain single longer. The growth of these singles communities potentially challenges the Orthodox growth rate, and, assuming that there has been no significant change in libido patterns—I know of no studies indicating any such change—challenges ritual observance with respect to a number of sexual matters.

Abstinence from all sexual activity prior to marriage has been a Jewish religious norm for at least the past 2,000 years, and presumably, it was always difficult. Anyone who says otherwise has forgotten what it was like to be a teenager. Also, as was indicated, late marriage is not new, nor are some of the religious challenges it presents. What has changed is the frequency and openness of male-female interaction and, perhaps even more significant, the religious, ethnic, and sexual statuses of the males and females in the interaction. Their increased social and cultural equality often removes social-psychological barriers that prevented the development of intimate interaction. Today, those barriers are no longer supported externally and, thus, there appear to have been changes even among the Orthodox.

During the 1960s, Rabbi Irving (“Yitz”) Greenberg was a very popular professor at Yeshiva College, and in an interview that appeared in the college newspaper, The Commentator, on April 28, 1966, he made some remarks that were interpreted by some as his advocating “a new value system and corresponding new halakhot about sex” for non-married as well as married men and women. This caused somewhat of a storm and, in the May 12^th issue, Greenberg wrote a lengthy letter to the editor in which he adamantly disavowed any such notion, clarified his views, and apologized for being insufficiently clear and precise in the interview. Despite his clarification, he was taken to task by Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein in his lengthy letter to The Commentator, in the June 2^nd issue. (I thank Menachem Butler for providing me with copies of those letters. This episode and the much broader Greenberg-Lichtenstein debates are astutely recounted and analyzed in David Singer, “Debating Modern Orthodoxy at Yeshiva College: The Greenberg–Lichtenstein Exchange of 1966,” Modern Judaism 26:2 (May 2006), pp. 113–126.)

In their mid-1980s study of varieties of Orthodox Jews, sociologists Samuel C. Heilman and Steven M. Cohen (Cosmopolitans and Parochials: Modern Orthodox Jews in America, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989, pp. 173–179) found, across the range of Orthodox people they studied, “younger respondents consistently reported more indulgent attitudes toward the practice of premarital sex than their older counterparts”; that almost a quarter of those they labeled as “centrists” (not to be confused with what scholars at Yeshiva University term “centrist”; see David Berger’s highly critical review of the Heilman-Cohen book, Modern Judaism 11:2, (May 1991), pp. 261–272) do not disapprove of sexual relations between couples who are dating seriously, and as many as 40 percent do not disapprove for those who are engaged to be married; and that among younger centrists, only about half disapproved sexual relations for those dating seriously, and less than half disapproved for engaged couples. Although these figures reflect attitudes, it is hard to imagine that there was a highly significant gap between attitudes and behavior. The popularity of the expression “tefilin date” also apparently reflected a reality of otherwise observant Orthodox Jews who spent the night with their dates but prayed wearing tefilin the following morning.

Most recently, Zvi Zohar (“Zugiyut al-pi haHalakha lelo hupa veKidushin,” Akdamot 17 (Shevat 5767), pp. 11–33) argued, based on the opinions of Nahmanides (1194–1270), Rabbi Abraham ben David (Rabad, 1125–1198), and Rabbi Shelomo ben Aderet (Rashba, 1235–1310), as well Rabbi Jacob Emden (1697–1776) that there is no prohibition against sexual relations without marriage so long as the relationship is not illicit, that is, it is consensual and monogamous, and the woman observes the laws of niddah and mikvah. His thesis was strongly rejected (in the same issue of Akdamot) by Rabbi Yehuda Herzl Henkin, Shemuel Ariel, Mikhal Tikochinsky, and Rachel Shprecher Frankel. Despite their rejections of its halakhic legitimacy, sexual relations among the unmarried was apparently perceived to be significant enough of a phenomenon in the Orthodox and traditional communities that the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Yonah Metzger, issued a ban on allowing unmarried women to use mikvaot. The effectiveness of that ban is anyone’s guess.

Relatively recent technological developments have had significant impact on Jewish family life in that for the first time in history human beings can conveniently and effectively control reproduction. This has had major impact on attitudes toward sexual behavior, making it less threatening to the unmarried and those married who do not currently want to bear children. It also has fostered new medical techniques that enable previously infertile couples to bear children. With all of these developments, however, come a myriad of halakhic issues. One of the first and most controversial addressing the problem of infertility was that of artificial insemination.

Beginning in the late 1950s, concerning different types of artificial insemination—one in which the donor was Jewish, one in which he was not, and the third in which the husband was the donor—Rabbi Moshe Feinstein issued lenient rulings and was staunchly attacked by numerous opponents, including Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe. Since then, a body of literature has emerged not only on matters of fertility and halakha (see, for example, Richard V. Grazi, Overcoming Infertility: A Guide for Jewish Couples. New Milford, CT: Toby Press, 2005, and all of the sources to which he refers), but also on the much broader question of the role of the posek, including the extent to which his own perspectives and sentiments, as well as social and psychological forces, have a place in the process of halakhic determination. With respect to the specific issue at hand, in his Masters thesis analyzing Rabbi Feinstein’s method of ruling in a series questions related to childbearing (“Rabbi Moshe Feinstein’s Rulings Regarding Questions of Fertility, Contraception, and Abortion,” Talmud Department, Bar Ilan University, 5766 [Hebrew]), Baruch Finkelstein argues that R. Moshe’s lenient rulings on artificial insemination “were motivated by his compassion for the infertile woman.” Going further, in an address at a conference at the Ramban Synagogue in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem, on the occasion of a the publication of a Hebrew translation of Richard Grazi’s book (Horut nikhsephet: Etgar haPiryon beMabat rephui veHilkhati. Jerusalem: Magid, 2009), Rabbi Benny Lau emphasized the impact of hashkafa on halakha, and he lauded the declaration by the rabbinic head of a leading fertility institute that, “There is no halakhic infertility,” and “We will go the entire route with this couple in order to resolve the problem,” as a leadership declaration. By contrast, in a review essay of the Grazi volume (“Technology in the Service of the First Mitzvah,” Ḥakirah, the Flatbush Journal of Jewish Law and Thought 6 (Summer 2008), pp. 259–267), Gideon Weitzman rejects the notion that compassion figured in to R. Moshe’s pesak halakha. He asserts that, for R. Moshe “and all other posekim,” it is halakha that influences their approach to ethical problems, rather than vice versa, and the halakhic decision is based on the careful analysis of the sources.

As indicated, the issue is much broader than that of infertility and artificial insemination. As I indicated elsewhere (“Toward a Sociology of Pesak,” in Moshe Z. Sokol, ed., Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy” Orthodox Forum 1, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1992, pp. 217–238), there are those who argue that “authentic” or “pure” pesika is that which is rendered by a posek in a computer-like manner, solely on the basis of characteristics inherent to the specific case involved and impervious to psychological and/or social forces, while others see a role for those forces in the halakhic decision-making process. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “the Rav,” seems to suggest an intermediary position when he wrote,

. . . the mutual connection between halakha and an event does not take place within the realm of pure halakha but rather within the depths of the soul of the halakhic man. The event is a psychological impetus, prodding pure thought into its track. However, once it begins to move in its specific track, it performs its movement not in surrender to the event, but rather in obedience to the normative-ideal unique to it. . . To what is this comparable? To a satellite that was launched into a particular orbit. Although the launching of the satellite into orbit is dependent on the force of the thrust, once the object arrived at its particular orbit, it begins to move with amazing precision according to the speed unique to that orbit, and the force of the thrust cannot increase or decrease it at all.

The Rav’s approach has echoes of Max Weber and his approach to the place of values in sociological research, namely, that the sociologists’ values surely influence the choice of subjects whom they study. However, once the research has begun, the rules of scientific research take over, and evaluation is made solely on the basis of the empirical evidence. Value neutrality, in the sense of excluding one’s own preconceived values in the subject of one’s studies, is a cardinal requirement. Of course, anyone who has studied the social sciences knows that the goal of value-neutrality is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. We are, after all, human, and we are influenced in many ways of which we are unaware. Similarly, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein cites the Rav’s distinction between the “psychological impetus” and “pure thought” in the halakhic process and suggests, “It is a nice distinction, and I confess that I am not certain it can be readily sustained in practice.” (“The Human and Social Factor in Halakha,” Tradition 36:1 (Spring 2002), p. 12) it might be argued that Hazal recognized it’s unsustainability in practice, and therefore decreed that certain type of people, such as very old people, eunuchs, and the childless, should not be appointed as judges to a Sanhedrin. Maimonides (Hilkhot Sanhedrin 2:3) provides the reasons, namely, that very old people and eunuchs should not be appointed because they have a cruel streak, and the childless should not be appointed because the judge should be merciful. In other words, it was recognized that judges have an impact on “the orbit” of the law.

In an article published a year earlier, Rabbi Lichtenstein had already indicated the human element in the decision of the posek, and he averred that

A sensitive posek recognizes both the gravity of the personal situation and the seriousness of the halakhic factors. In one case, therefore, he may tend to view the points of contention in one way, while in a second case exhibiting slightly different details, he may tilt the decision on these points in the other direction. . . He might stretch the halakhic limits of leniency where serious domestic tragedy looms, or hold firm to the strict interpretation of the law when, as he reads the situation, the pressure for leniency stems from frivolous attitudes and reflects a debased moral compass. This approach is neither evasive nor discriminatory. The flexibility arises from a recognition that halakhic rulings are not, and should not be, the output of human microcomputers, but of thinking human beings; a recognition that these rulings must be applied to concrete situations with a bold effort to achieve the optimal moral and halakhic balance among the various factors. (Aharon Lichtenstein, “Abortion: A Halakhic Perspective,” Tradition 25:4 (Summer 1991, p. 12)

Abortion is another issue where the question of whether the perspectives of the posek have any influence on his halakhic decision-making came to the fore. To support his argument that a halakhic decision is immune to the perspectives of the posek, Gideon Weitzman (referred to above) cites as evidence R. Moshe’s pesak (Iggrot Moshe, Hoshen Mishpat 2 (1976), 69, p. 300), in which he rejects a more lenient pesak by Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg (Tzitz Eliezer 9 (1967), 51:3, pp. 239–240) and prohibited an abortion for a women carrying a fetus with Tay-Sachs disease. “Can we possibly claim that Rav Feinstein did not have compassion on those unfortunate couples who are both carriers of Tay-Sachs?” Weitzman asks. To him, it is obvious compassion had nothing to do with R. Moshe’s rulings on abortion, artificial insemination, or any other issue. Interestingly, Rabbi Benny Lau cited the same halakhic decisions of R. Moshe as well as that of Rabbi Waldenberg and their respective arguments as proof that the perspective of the posek does influence his halakhic decision. He argued that the reason R. Moshe took such a strict stance on abortion was to counter what he perceived as the larger social and cultural patterns in which abortion was becoming too commonplace. Indeed, in the final paragraph, R. Moshe explicitly states that he wrote the entire responsum in light of “the huge breach in the world that the governments of many countries have allowed the killing of fetuses, including Israeli heads of state, and countless fetuses have already been killed, such that at this time there is a need to make a fence (safeguard) for the Torah . . .”. In other words, under other social conditions, he might have ruled differently.

In line with R. Moshe’s wishes, though more as a result of greatly improved and much more widely used contraception methods, the number of abortions worldwide has decreased during the past decade and more. However, abortion is readily available and used in Israel and, more to the point, it has increased in the religious community there. Over the past decade, awareness of the possibility of abortion has increased in the religious community. According to estimates by several medical professionals, religious women don’t speak of it publicly but at least 70 percent of the religious women do an ultrasound to detect Down syndrome and, if detected, at least 90 percent have an abortion. For more serious defects, where the fetus will not survive, even Hareidi women will abort. Also, not all religious women, Hareidi and not, seek rabbinic advice; some decide on their own, as has always been the case. The difference, according to the head of the ultrasound unit of Hadassah University’s Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, is that there has been a revolution in the medical knowledge of rabbis. They now understand the complexities better, are more sensitive to all of the issues, and are better able to help the pregnant woman decide to abort. Prof. Simcha Yagel claims that religious women cope better with that difficult decision because they have religious authority assisting them with it. (Yifat Ehrlich, “Beten Meleia,” Dyokan Magazine, Makor Rishon, May 8, 2009, pp. 10–14).

The Internet has had impact on the entire area of halakha and Jewish family life with the introduction, especially in Israel, of a relatively new phenomenon: Internet responsa. Indeed, it is an interesting question why the phenomenon is so prominent in Israel and yet is relatively absent elsewhere. Perhaps it has to do with the differences in the nature of the role of rabbi in Israel and elsewhere. Also, Israeli Orthodoxy is more pluralistic because of the much wider ethnic mix there and because of the non-denominational character of Israeli Judaism.

Be that as it may, in Israel the Internet has dramatically altered the role of the rabbi, in a number of vital ways. The anonymity of those engaged in the discussion allows people to ask very intimate and demanding questions that they might not have asked if their identity was known. In addition, the limits of the community that a rabbi serves have been expanded from finite physical boundaries to almost infinite virtual ones. Finally, for our purposes, the Internet provides greater public awareness of a particular rabbi’s decisions, which, on the one hand, makes him more vulnerable to criticism but also, on the other hand, enhances his stature as prominent rabbi.

An examination of topics covered in Internet responsa reveals that family and sexual issues play a major role among the questions raised. Thus, of the three volumes of such responsa by Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, the head of Yeshivat Hesder of Petah Tikva and the most prolific of the Internet rabbis, the largest volume, Reshu”t HaYahid, is wholly addressed to issues concerning modesty, couples and family. In published Internet responsa on the leading Internet site for the dati-leumi/Modern Orthodox communities, www.kipa.co.il, as well as on a range of other Jewish religious Internet sites and blogs, family issues are central. Among the issues discussed there are: early marriage—a concern especially for students in yeshivot hesder; singles; premarital sex; agunot whose spouses refuse to give them a get; gays and lesbians in the Orthodox community; and others.

An issue related to the artificial insemination matters that R. Moshe discussed (but not specifically discussed by him) is one that also addresses an aspect of the singles phenomenon, namely, voluntary single motherhood. One of the earliest sociological studies of the phenomenon (Jane D. Bock, “Doing The Right Thing? Single Mothers by Choice and the Struggle for Legitimacy,” Gender & Society 14:1 (February 2000), pp. 62–86) focused only on the Reform branch of Judaism and found it to be basically accepting. Since then, Conservative Judaism has become likewise increasingly accepting. Mainstream Orthodox Judaism opposes voluntary single motherhood on social policy, if not “pure” halakhic grounds, but it is gaining acceptance at least among some Modern Orthodox. Dvora Ross, herself a voluntary single mother, has not dispassionately reviewed the “pure” halakhic and social policy aspects and staunchly defends single motherhood (Dvora Ross, “Artificial Insemination in Single Women,” in Micah D. Halpern and Chana Safrai, eds., Jewish Legal Writings By Women Jerusalem: Urim, 1998, Hebrew Section, pp. 45–72). Most of the Orthodox criticism of Ross’ article is not on grounds of pure halakha but on the basis of the phenomenon’s negative consequences on the Jewish family unit (See for example, Rabbi Aharon Feldman’s scathing review-essay, “Halakhic Feminism or Feminist Halakha?” Tradition 33:2 (Winter 1999), pp. 61–79. The reference to Ross’ article is on p. 74). To many, as Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein points out in his seminal essay on the role of social factors in halakha (cited above), such concerns are within the purview of the halakhist. Others, such as Rabbi David Stav, one of the heads of the Yeshivat Hesder of Petah Tikva, argues that the only halakhic issue is that the father’s identity is unknown and that might, conceivably, present a problem when the child wishes to marry. Other than that, “on the halakhic level, there is no argument between the posekim that there is no prohibition for a woman to become pregnant through artificial insemination…. This is not a halakhic question but one that is in the realm of social policy.” When weighing the anguish of single women who yearn to have children against the fear that women might not want to get married—and include the admittedly remote halakhic complication from not knowing the identity of the father—leaves Stav unable to decide. However, his colleague, Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, is reported to allow artificial insemination for single women who unsuccessfully sought to marry by the age of 37.

This issue is surely one of a group of contemporary issues in which the extent to which the halakha can remain in its own orbit and its unique speed without being the force of the thrust increasing or decreasing it, to use the Rav’s analogy, in cases that involve major cultural clashes, is somewhat dubious. We saw this with the issue of women’s prayer groups and the “pesak” of the “RIETS 5,” which was clearly much more about the role of women in society than about the laws of tefilla. The issue of voluntary single motherhood, likewise, is one that is controversial and emotionally charged in American society, in general. Even at the highest levels of analysis, there are some scholarly works that view it as very harmful to the children involved and, ultimately, society as a whole (See, for example, David Popenoe, Life Without Father: Compelling New Evidence that Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for the Good of Children and Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999). There are other works (see, for example, Rosanna Hertz, Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice. New York, Oxford University Press, 2008) that present evidence indicating that although some women became mothers in a “radical” way, they were motivated by normative family values and aspirations, and their family lifestyles are actually very conventional. In terms of Orthodox voluntary single mothers, although the rabbis and others may debate the halakhic and meta-halakhic issues involved, the meager evidence available suggests that the many of the women involved are making their choices individually, without careful consideration of those issues.

Perhaps the most emotionally charged family and sexual issue of our time is homosexuality. In terms of its prevalence, recognizing the difficulty in determining rates due to the variety of definitions of homosexuality and the unwillingness of many people to offer information about their sexual behavior, the empirical evidence suggests that there has not been any significant increase in homosexuality in the past half-century and more. We have no studies of it prior to the 1940s, so we really do not know if there has been any increase in the behavior. Shaul Stampfer found hardly any references to it among Eastern European Jews during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but it is difficult to believe that the phenomenon was non-existent. In fact, it is reasonable to assume that there actually has not been any significant increase in homosexuality. Rather, the phenomenon is now much more open, primarily because of the rise in identity politics in Western society and culture during the 1960s and 1970s. On the other hand, perhaps it has actually increased because the tolerance of it allows those with surmountable homosexual tendencies to avoid undertaking the effort to change. (I thank Prof. Martin Lockshin for this suggestion.)

Judaism across the spectrum incorporated the biblical condemnation of homosexuality as an abomination (“to’eva”) and had, until recently, not only vehemently censured the act but ostracized the offenders as well. With the growing acceptance of homosexuality in the broader society, Reform Judaism was the first branch of American Judaism to alter its stance, when, on March 29, 2000, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) overwhelmingly approved a resolution giving rabbis the option to preside at gay and lesbian commitment ceremonies. Not long afterward, the movement’s temple and synagogue organization, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now called the Union of Reform Judaism) called for full legal equality for homosexual couples, including legal recognition of their relationships. 

During that same period, on March 25, 1992, Conservative Judaism’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) voted in favor of a lengthy responsum written by Rabbi Joel Roth that reiterated the traditional stance of homosexuality as an abomination. It also rejected castigations of some social activists who labeled the decisors as callous, and proclaimed, “It is possible for a decisor to be understanding, empathic, sensitive, caring, and without irrational fears, and yet conclude that the halakhic precedents are defensible, warranted, and compelling.” In a postscript, Roth went on to distinguish between halakha and civil law and, in the realm of the latter, saw “no justification for civil legislation proscribing such acts.” Thus, while the Rabbinical Assembly reaffirmed its traditional prescription for heterosexuality, it supported complete civil equality for homosexuals; deplored violence against them; reiterated that they

are welcome as members in their congregations; and called upon the entire movement to

increase “awareness, understanding and concern for our fellow Jews who are gay and lesbian.”

Awareness of homosexuality in the Orthodox community increased by the award-winning documentary, Trembling Before G-d (2001), which portrayed the conflicts experienced by Jewish gays and lesbians between their strong bonds with God and the Orthodox Jewish tradition, on the one hand, and Judaism’s very strong condemnation of homosexuality, on the other. A number of Orthodox rabbis, Hareidi as well as Modern Orthodox, have expressed compassion for individual homosexuals while, at the same time, affirming the condemnation of prohibited homosexual activity, and have urged that those violators not be shunned any more than are other sinners, such as Sabbath desecrators. Among the more Hareidi of those who profess compassion, one senses an outreach approach that aspires to enlist them in programs aimed at reorienting them from their homosexual tendencies (See, for example, Avi Shafran, “Dissembling Before G-d,” Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, Feb. 21, 2002). There is much debate in society at-large as to the feasibility of such reorientation, based on the question as to whether homosexuality is hereditary or learned behavior.

For the Orthodox community in particular, the publication of Steven Greenberg’s Wrestling With God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004) had the potential to create a real stir and perhaps even change some attitudes. Greenberg, after all, has ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University, and considers himself as part of the Orthodox community. However, as Asher Lopatin elucidates in his extensive sympathetic yet forthright critique (“What Makes a Book Orthodox?” Edah Journal 4:2 (Kislev) 5765/2004), the book is not and will not be seen as an Orthodox work because the author is admittedly not fully committed to Orthodoxy; because its methodology and style are not those of Orthodox works; and it is insufficiently creative halakhically. That and the facts that it was published by a university press with limited distribution and, even more, that has an erotically suggestive painting on the cover, have made it a non-event in the public Orthodox community. How widely it was read under wraps in that community is anyone’s guess. Not surprisingly, Greenberg replied to Lopatin’s critique (Edah Journal 5:2 (Sivan) 5766/2006), stating that his intent

was not to settle the thorny halakhic issues, but to set the stage for richer halakhic engagements that in time will follow. It is my view that a full-fledged halakhic “solution” to the problem of homosexual relations is premature. . . .There is still too little understanding, let alone empathy, in the Orthodox community for the gay religious person and too much entrenched fear about the consequences of any partial, let alone full-fledged acceptance, of embarking on such a project.

If one were to assume from this that there has been little change in the Orthodox community, one would be very mistaken. There definitely has been change. There are now several openly gay Orthodox groups in Israel. One, Havruta, held its first anniversary event in Jerusalem recently, where the guest of honor was none other than Rabbi Yaakov Medan, who is one of the heads of Yeshivat Har Etzion. A number of other prominent Orthodox religious personalities participated as well (Yair Ettinger, “Of Pride and Prayer,” Haaretz, Feb. 26, 2009). Also, the second season of the Israeli television series, Serugim, will include homosexuals, and there are even several gay Hareidi web sites (such as Mendy’s Blog and Homo Hareidi).

            Does all of the change documented lend support to Blu Greenberg’s famous assertion that, “Where there's a rabbinic will there's a halakhic way?” As a historical statement it may. Orthodox Judaism is, by definition, conservative, and all conservative religious groups manifest stronger family values that the non-traditionals do. On the other hand, no group is immune to the broader social and cultural patterns, and their families of today are not quite what they were a half-century ago. However, if the assertion is taken to be a political call to action, none of what has been discussed should necessarily be taken as supporting that assertion. All too frequently, such calls backfire and lead to a reactionary impulse, because they are seen as undermining halakhic authority, and serve to make it even more difficult to achieve the very objective intended by the call. As several of the issues discussed above suggest, working with halakhic authorities, rather than attacking them, is much more productive.

            As the world shrinks—and technological innovations assure that it does—broader social and cultural patterns will change even more rapidly, and they will increasingly impinge on the Jewish family, including the Orthodox family. Nor is there anything novel about it. As R. Yehudah Hehִasid (c. 1150–1217), the author of the Sefer haHassidim, recognized centuries ago, “As is the custom of the gentiles, so are the customs of the Jews in most cases.” How Orthodoxy will respond to these new challenges is anyone’s guess. It is increasingly obvious that digging one’s heels in, furthering the “she’erit haPeleta” (“saving remnant”) approach, and trying to ignore the changes does not work, as a look at the rising divorce rates among the Orthodox, including Hareidim, indicate. Perhaps increasing numbers of Orthodox rabbis and other communal leaders will decide to learn more about the broader societal and cultural patterns, to work with experts in society-at-large, as well as with each other in attempts deal with the changes within a halakhic framework. The latter, of course, presents a formidable challenge of agreeing on an appropriate halakhic framework. One might be tempted to say that only Mashiah will be able to bring that about, but unless he arrives shortly, we may not be able to wait.

Daily Birkat Kohanim in the Diaspora

By Daniel Sperber[1]

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Question: May Kohanim outside the Land of Israel give the priestly blessing (Birkat Kohanim, or Nesiat Kapayim) on weekdays and on regular Shabbatot?

Answer: The Torah explicitly requires the Kohanim to bless the people (Numbers 6:23), but does not tell us where or when they should do so. Rambam (Sefer haMitzvot, Mitzvat Assei 26) gives no details, but refers us to B. Megillah 24b, Taanit 2b, and Sotah 37b, to work out the details. However, there are versions of the Rambam's text (edited by R. Hayyim Heller and R. Yosef Kefir), where there are the additional words "every day,” and this, indeed, is his ruling in the heading of his Hilkhot Tefillah and Birkat Kohanim. (See further ibid., chapter 14; this also is the ruling in Sefer haHinukh, Mitzvah 367). However, there we find the additions that "the mitzvah applies in all places at all times…". Hagahot Maimoniyot, to Rambam Hilkhot Tefillah 15:12 note 9 writes, on the basis of R. Yehoshua ha Levi's statement in B. Sotah 38b, that any Kohen who does not bless the people transgresses three commandments, splitting as it were the biblical verse in Numbers thus: "So shall you bless the children of Israel: say unto them,” adding verse 27 ibid., "And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel…". The Hagahot Mordechai modifies this by adding that if the Kohen has not been summoned to bless the people, he does not transgress by not doing so, referring to the Yerushalmi text, and this view is accepted by the Beit Yosef, Orah Hayyim 128. There is also a minority view, rejected by mainstream authorities, that of Rabbenu Manoah, that even if the Kohen was not called, if he did not bless the people, he transgresses at least one commandment.

Outside Israel it is the practice in many congregations for the Kohanim not to give the priestly blessing, and for the congregation not to request that they do so—with the exception of musaf on the foot-festivals and Yom Kippur—even during Neilah. The Beit Yosef was very perturbed by this practice. He writes (Orah Hayyim 128):

The Agur wrote that Mahari Kolin [the Maharil] was asked why the Kohanim do not give the priestly blessing every day, since it is a positive commandment. And he answered that it was the custom of the priests to make a ritual ablution [in the Mikvah] before blessing, as is recorded in Hagahot Mordechai, and to do so every day in the winter would be very difficult for them. Hence, the custom evolved to do so only on the festivals. Furthermore, [doing so] would curtail the business activities (mi-taam bitul melakhah), and in any case if the Kohen is not summoned he does not transgress.

However, the Beit Yosef continues:

He forced himself to justify his local custom; but the reasoning is insufficient. For that which he said that they were accustomed to make a ritual ablution every day, this is a stringency—i.e., it is not really required—which leads to leniency… Since ritual ablution as a requirement for the priestly blessing is not mentioned in the Talmud. And even if they took upon themselves this stringency, why would they cancel three commandments, even if they were not transgressing since they had not been summoned. Surely it would be better that they carry out these three commandments clearly and not make the ritual ablutions, since there are not required, and by not doing so they could fulfill the three commandments.

He ends by saying:

And praise be to the inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael and all Egypt who give the priestly blessing every day, and do not make ritual ablutions for it.

Indeed there are some congregations that still follow the Beit Yosef's position. Thus, the Syrian community has birkat Kohanim every day, (see H. C. Dobrinsky, A Treasury of Sephardic Laws and Customs, Hoboken N.J., New York 1986, p.168). This, too, was the Amsterdam custom of the Portuguese community (Shemtob Gaguine, Keter Shem Tov, vol.1, Kédainiai 1934, pp. 222–227, note 268, who also quotes Even Sapir, that this was the practice in Yemen, and possibly in some Moroccan congregations), while in Djerba they did it on Shabbatot and festivals (R. Moshe HaCohen, Berit Kehunah, Orah Hayyim, pp.101–102, and note 30). Thus, there are ample precedents for this practice.

However, the Ashkenazi Rema, R. Mosheh Isserles, in his Darkei Mosheh, ibid., 21, seeks to justify the Ashkenazi custom. He writes:

Because [doing so] would curtail business activities for the people in these countries, for the Kohanim are struggling to support themselves in the exile, and they can barely support their families, other than the bread they gather by the sweat of their brows daily, and they are not happy. And it is for this reason that they do not carry out the priestly blessing, which leads to bitul melakhah la-am. And even on Shabbat they do not do so, because they are troubled and concerned about their future…, and they are only joyful on the festivals. And thus the custom evolved only to bless the people on the festivals. So it would appear to me.

The notion that the Kohen must be joyful when blessing the congregation has its roots in the early Rishonim (in Rash's teacher, R. Yitzhak ben Yehudah).

The Mateh Efraim, of R. Efraim Zalman Margaliot, added that this was an ancient practice, even more than 500 years old, going back to the Tashbetz haKatan, a disciple of the Maharam Mi-Rothenberg, and the Kol Bo sect. 128, and accepted by the Maharit, the Agur, the Darkei Mosheh, etc., "and one may not stir from this custom." He also gives additional reasons to support this custom.

The Sephardic Kaf haHayyim, R. Yaakov Hayyim Sofer, on the other hand (Orah Hayyim, ibid., note 16), cites French R. Yaakov of Mervais, (in his Shut Min-ha-Shamayim no. 38), who writes that

In a place where there are suitable Kohanim to bless the people, and they do not do so even once a year, both the congregation that do not call them to do so, and the Kohanim themselves, who do not make the blessing, transgress, also because they seem not to be relying on their Father in Heaven.

This was cited by the Egyptian Radbaz, R. David ben Zimra, and especially the Hesed leAvraham of R. Avraham Azulai, who writes at length censuring those who do not bless the people, enumerating the negative effects of their flawed thinking, concluding that "it is proper to do so in every place, and not to seek out strategies to avoid doing so."

And even the Ashkenazic Hafetz Hayyim, in his Mishnah Berurah 128:12 in the Beur Halakha wrote:

It is only because of weakness that the Kohanim can go out and not go up [to bless the people. For if not so, certainly they are not acting well to needlessly nullify a positive commandment.

Indeed, there are some Ashkenazic congregations where they do carry out the priestly blessing at least once a month, as we learn from the Sefer haMitzvot, or even every Shabbat, as is mentioned in the Mateh Efraim.

Finally, we may cite the words of R. Yehiel Michel Epstein, in his Arukh haShulhan, Orah Hayyim 128:4:

And behold, it is certainly the case that there is no good reason to nullify the mitzvah of birkat Kohanim the whole year long, and [it is] a bad custom. And I have heard that two great authorities of former generations—probably the Gaon Eliyahu of Vilna and R. Hayyim of Volozin—each one wished to reestablish birkat Kohanim daily in their location, and when they decided on a given day [to begin], the issue become confused and they did not succeed, and they said that from Heaven it was thus decreed.

In view of all the above we may state that Birkat Kohanim does not require ritual ablution, and in present-day diaspora countries, blessing the people will not affect or curtail any business activities, and people in the diaspora are not downtrodden, nor do they live in permanent misery so that they cannot be joyful enough to bless the congregation. And according to some opinions (e.g., the Pri Hadash) even if they are not called to give the blessing, they may/should do so, (see e.g. Piskei Maharitz, Orah Hayyim vol.1, Bnei Brak 1987, pp. 259–260, with the note of R. Yitzhak Ratzabi ibid., Note 7, ibid., Be’erot Yitzhak). Thus, the reasons given for avoiding giving the priestly blessing are for the main part largely irrelevant in present-day diaspora conditions.

On the other hand, not doing so means not carrying out three positive biblical commandments, and according to some, albeit minority, opinions this is also the case when the congregation does not summon the Kohanim. Some, somewhat mystical sources also stress the great spiritual benefits of the priestly blessing, and the considerable negative effect of their absence. Furthermore, we have seen evidence that in some Ashkenazic communities Birkat Kohanim was practiced on Shabbatot or monthly, and not merely on the festivals.

Taking into account all of the above, I would think that nowadays, there is little justification for not carrying out the priestly blessing daily in our diaspora congregations.

I would like to end by again referring to the Hesed le-Avraham:

…The Kohen who fears the word of the Lord and desires His commandments will not transgress by refraining to give the blessing to give satisfaction to his Creator, for it is good in the eyes of God to bless Israel. How good and pleasant is the practice in some places, where the Kohanim give the priestly blessing each day. This is the fitting way to practice in all places, and not to seek excuses for annulling a positive commandment from the Torah.

To summarize:

1. It is a biblical commandment that obligates the Kohanim to bless the people.
2. Not doing so means not fulfilling that biblical commandment, and, according to some authorities, even transgressing three biblical commandments.

Here we may add yet another element to our discussion. There is a well-known opinion of R. Eliezer Azikri, in his Sefer Haredim chapter 4 (with the commentary of R. Yitzhak Leib Schwarz, Kunszentmiklos 1935, p. 19), that "those who stand before the Kohanim in silence and direct their hearts to receive the benedictions as the words of God, they too are included in the mitzvah as parts of the 613 [mitzvot].”

The commentator, ad loc. (note 18–19) discusses this opinion, pointing out that it is a subject of considerable controversy among the greatest of authorities, but he quotes the author of the Haflaah, R. Pinhas ha-Levi Horowitz, (in his notes to Ketubot 24b and Rashi ibid.), that just as there is a commandment to the Kohanim to bless Israel, so too is there a commandment to Israel to be blessed by the Kohanim. He states that there are other examples where the Torah, explicitly commands only the active partner and not the passive recipient, but nonetheless both are obligated. He brings as one example to mitzvah of yibum, which devolves both on the levir (yavam) as well as the sister-in-law (yevamah), even though the Torah commandment is directed toward the levir alone. The Sefer Haredim's novum was widely accepted, even though his source remained unclear to many.

This being the case, surely we should not deprive Am Yisrael in the diaspora from having opportunity to participate in this important mitzvah.

The reasons given by the various authorities for not fulfilling this mitzvah regularly in the diaspora are in and of themselves problematic, but in any case quite irrelevant to present-day diaspora communities. There exist precedents in different congregations, even outside Eretz Yisrael, for daily, weekly, or monthly priestly blessings.

In Jerusalem and in some parts of Eretz Yisrael the priestly blessing is carried out daily.

In view of all of the above, it follows that the daily, or at least weekly, blessing on the part of the Kohanim be performed in diaspora communities.

We continue to reach thousands of people annually through our National Scholar program, combining classes, teacher trainings, and publications to promote the core values of our Institute.

            There are several upcoming classes and programs in January and February:

On Wednesday, February 14, 7:30 pm, there will be a book reception for my latest book, The Keys to the Palace: Essays Exploring the Religious Value of Reading the Bible. It will be held at Ben Porat Yosef Yeshiva Day School, 243 Frisch Court, Paramus, New Jersey. I will give a talk on “Building Bridges and Mending Rifts through Tanakh Scholarship.” Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Since the beginning of September, I have served as the Tanakh Education Scholar at Ben Porat Yeshiva Day School, in Paramus, New Jersey. I am developing a new Tanakh curriculum for grades 1-8, that reflects our core religious values at the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. I also have given lectures to the Ben Porat Yosef parent community in this capacity.

On Mondays January 8 and 15, and Wednesday January 24, 8:00-9:00 pm, I will be teaching a three-part series at the Young Israel of Scarsdale (1313 Weaver Street, Scarsdale, New York):

Torah Study in a Modern World: Conflict & Resolution

Monday, January 8: Orthodoxy and Confrontation with Modern Biblical Scholarship

Monday, January 15: Traditional Commentary and Biblical Archeology: Friends or Foes?

Wednesday,  January 24: The Bible, as a Book of Literature vs. The Torah, as a Sacred Text

Copies of my new book, The Keys to the Palace, as well as several other titles, will be available for purchase and signing at the final lecture on January 24.

The classes are free and open to the public.

On Shabbat, February 9-10, I will be a scholar-in-residence at the Baron Hirsch Synagogue in Memphis, Tennessee (400 South Yates Rd, Memphis, TN).

The classes are free and open to the public.

On Sundays, February 18 and 25, 7:30-8:30 pm, I will teach a two-part series at the Young Israel of Jamaica Estates in Queens (83-10 188^th Street, Jamaica, New York) on Megillat Esther.

The classes are free and open to the public.

Our University Network, which I now coordinate, continues to do incredible work to promote our religious ideology and vision on campuses across the United States and Canada. We have added several new campuses and fellows this semester. Please see my December report on our Campus Fellows on our website: https://www.jewishideas.org/article/campus-fellows-report-december-2017

As always, I thank you for your support and encouragement, and look forward to promoting our core values through these and many more venues in the coming year.

Rabbi Hayyim Angel

National Scholar

Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals

Classical Judaism vs. Romantic Judaism

The difference between the cultures of the Romantic and the Classical periods is well known.[1] This can be seen in style, thought processes, and the various aspects of life on which they focused. Sephardic Judaism has been characterized as Classical Judaism, as opposed to Romantic Ashkenazic Judaism.[2] Sephardic Judaism emphasizes different fundamental points that can be designated as Classical: (a) Tradition – that is to say the continuity of the heritage; concepts of loyalty, a sense of belonging to the general public, and mutual responsibility both in the present and in relation to earlier generations. (b) Compatibility – that is, balance and harmony between the Torah's requirements and those of our lives, between the individual person's work and his integration into society, between the unique Jewish world and the wider world in general, between the traditions handed down through the generations and the new and changing present, between the internal Jewish knowledge and general knowledge. (c) Simplicity and Structure – a methodical and logical structure, preserving the spiritual framework both in style and formulation (grammar and language), in the types of works written (codification projects) and in educational approach (order and progression, rules and methods, and keeping away from all kinds of unfounded scholasticism and abstractions).

Of course, it is not our intention to describe all Sephardic sages here, but only to present general examples that represent Sephardic culture as a whole.

The Written Torah Precedes the Oral Torah

Through the ages, the Torah has been transmitted in two different ways that complement each other.[3] On the one hand are the books and the written tradition, and on the other is 'life learning', experiential and verbal, as it was passed on from the Hakhamim, the community, and the family. Traditionally, the living commentary and oral study have always guided the learner in his understanding of the written text. Changes in Ashkenazic Judaism in the second half of the 20^th century led to a preference for the written path of transmission rather than the living one. Thus, we have become the people of the book, not necessarily in the positive sense of the phrase: we have become a society that clings to the written word, to the book, and minimizes the value of the living tradition as an essential path for transmitting Jewish culture. This phenomenon is characteristic of the Hareidi community, which sanctifies the book even at the expense of well-founded, living family tradition; and also those who seek to skip tradition altogether and to connect directly to the cardinal texts of Jewish culture. As opposed to the Ashkenazic countries, where the conditions for these developments were bred, Sephardic communities continued to transmit the Torah in its two paths (until the last generation, where we witness the adoption of Ashkenazic characteristics by Sephardic Sages). Furthermore, sometimes for these Sephardic Sages, there is even a preference for the living tradition over the written one.[4] In fact, the basis of the preference for a living tradition is a different perception of culture in general, which sees Judaism as a living, dynamic, complex culture in which the living, human element is what gives life to the culture. This is the Torah that has been passed on to us, that has been passed along from generation to generation, and was not invented by us through direct contact with the written word.

Behind this cultural outlook there are also important emotional characteristics such as loyalty, humility, and the constant presence of He Who Gave the Torah among those who transmit it. This too is one of the meanings of the living Torah: a Torah that was first the source of life, before it became the source of learning.

We will now move on to the fundamentals of the Sephardic Sages Torah learning, divided into three categories: the scope of their intellectual wisdom, their methods of action, and their spiritual character.

The Scope of their Wisdom

In this section we will outline the cultural perspective of the Sephardic sages, the spiritual and human world in which they lived, and how their relationship with this world – whether stated or not – shaped their works. We will divide our discussion into three sections:

1. The Scope of the Jewish Cultural World

As opposed to a simplified approach, which focuses on Jewish learning of the Talmud and Halakhic concepts, the Sephardic sages remained loyal to a very broad Jewish culture. To a certain extent, this value is a continuation of the world of the Sephardic Sages in Spain, who created their works in all fields of knowledge, all subjects of the Torah, from the Bible to the wisdom of the Kabbalah, through Talmud and Jewish law, commentaries, conceptual research, grammar and poetry.

Up until the present era, traditional study in the Sephardic world began with a broad familiarity with the Bible. This course of study was implemented early on in elementary school, by memorization of the five books of the Torah, the books of the Prophets and the Writings, through traditional melodies. The basic concepts of Yirat Shamayim (humility before God) and ethical texts of the Bible (such as Proverbs) were taught in a natural, pleasant, enjoyable way. This course of study was characterized by placing the textual perspective in a place of honor in Sephardic culture: mastery of the Hebrew language, including familiarity with grammar, the rules of the language, poetic expression, and writing styles, as the necessary basis for all creative works and the study of Jewish culture. From this comes a love of Hebrew poetry based on, among other things, the foundations of the Scriptures. In particular the classical Hebrew poetry from the Golden Age of Spain was privileged to enter the prayer book. These Sephardic communities continued to write poetry, and poetic expression served as the typical way they expressed their artistic sensibilities. But in addition to language and poetry, this textual perspective created a spiritual closeness to various topics from the Bible that relate to the fundamentals of faith and contemplation wherever they appear (such as the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job), topics that served as introductions to many Derashot (sermons). Indeed, the public sermon was one of the most important ways in which the Hakham took responsibility for his community and for current affairs, based on principles from the Bible, on Jewish commentaries through the ages and his own creative development in order to derive from them spiritual content on all questions that might arise. From here it was a short step to begin learning Midrash and the general Jewish philosophical literature; and as a direct continuation of Midrash and its meditations comes the Sephardic Sages' study of Kabbalah alongside other Torah studies.

Of course the Talmud holds a central place, but what is unique about the Sephardic Sages' world was that they stayed faithful to the ancient teaching that Torah study should be geared toward practical purposes. Their style of study included deep examination of the literal meaning of the text and a reliance on the commentaries of the Rishonim, the early Sages, in order to clarify the different opinions on which the Shulhan Arukh based its halakhic decisions. The next step was to examine the halakhic literature, both from the commentators of the Shulhan Arukh and the responsa literature. The abstract methods of study that arose among Ashkenazic rabbis in recent generations did not develop in Sephardic countries. In the eyes of the Sephardic Hakhamim, the Torah study of the Lithuanian batei midrash was perceived as divorced from the Talmudic issues and their halakhic applications. For the Sephardic Sages, text study focused on the literal meaning of the sugia (the particular passage) through an examination of the halakhic implications of each question. Even in places where a preference was developed for in-depth examination of a sugia rather than focusing on the halakhic ruling, for example the famous Tunisian study method, the sages did not overemphasize abstract analysis of the Lithuanian yeshiva sort, but rather stayed close to the meaning of each word and each sentence of the Talmud by examining its connection to the issue as a whole. Furthermore, these Sages did not differentiate between Halakhic issues in the Talmud that are discussed in the Beit Midrash and Aggadic issues from the Talmud that are not usually studied. Sometimes the text study even focused on the Aggada, as we see in the collection Ein Yaakov, whose study was popular among Sephardic communities.

Because the goal set for Talmud study was to establish halakhic rulings, one of the characteristics of the Sephardic Sages, as opposed to the Ashkenazic ones, was to rule decisively on halakha from among different approaches, and not only to take into consideration all halakhic positions and to decide on a ruling out of concern for stringent opinions, as is often found in the Ashkenazic countries. Rabbinic training for a Sephardic rabbi aimed to provide the rabbi with the tools for him to decide on halakha. This is in contrast to the education of the Lithuanian yeshivot, which provided their students with the tools for abstract, in-depth study of a Talmudic topic, but not the tools for making a ruling in Jewish law. This characteristic is one of the foundations of a Sephardic rabbi's work to this day.

It is important to note that, when we outline the main points of the cultural perspective by looking at the spiritual and educational world of certain Sages, the purpose is not to argue that all Sages in the Sephardic world dealt with all the areas we have mentioned, but rather that they operated in a cultural world with wide perspectives, while each of them was characterized by his own special creative works.

2. The Scope of Human Relationships

Beyond the cultural wealth that characterized the Sephardic sages' works, there is another element that is no less important, and that is the human factor. By this we mean the relationship of the Hakham not just to the authoritative sources, but also to the dynamic sources of human life. The human factor is a central element in the deliberations of a Hakham when he decides the halakha and in his sermons to the community. Often one can sense that the Hakham relates to the person who asked the question, to his feelings, his personality, and sometimes also to his weaknesses. The Hakham knows the person asking the question, loves him, and understands his distress. He does not see his job only as an authority figure who sets norms and laws, but as someone who is responsible for shaping the person before him, so that this person will become more responsible and will better recognize his Jewish and human obligations. It is not a rabbi's job to set the standard for the ideal, abstract person; rather the rabbi must set the ideal in relation to the individual who is standing before him. The halakhic learning of the Hakham allows him to establish the letter of the law and not just the norms for optimal behavior (hidur) and rigor (hahmarah), and through this wisdom and understanding the Hakham calculates the best solution for the specific problem at hand. The halakhic ruling is transferred from mere intellectual, theoretical deduction to a more complex pursuit that weighs the halakhic facts and also takes into account the human factor and the actual background from which the problem arose.

We must add that the human background does not necessarily consist of only the person who asked the question; usually it is a matter of an entire community or the public context that the Hakham must take into account. When he issues a decision on a particular question, he also considers the consequences of his decision on wider circles: for example, if he takes a strict position on an issue, the Hakham is not looking only at the specific, immediate situation of the person who asked the question, but he also looks at the ramifications for the entire community, for whom a stringent decision is not always the proper solution, lest it disrupt the balance of Torah principles, damage the fabric of Jewish society, or sometimes even interfere with the spiritual efforts of the person or the community.

Widening the circle of relationships from the individual person who asks a question to the communal sphere brings us to an even broader plane.

3. The Scope of Universality

Sephardic culture throughout the ages developed in concurrence with general culture thus continuing the tradition of the Golden Age of Spain, in which the internal Jewish world recognized the wider world without losing its own uniqueness (see Maimonides' example of perfumers, cooks, and bakers in his letter to the Sages of Lunel [Rav Shilat Edition, Part Two page 502]). The Sephardic Sages of recent generations were aware of current events and changes in the world around them. This is especially true in more recent years, since modernism in its European version arrived in the Eastern lands. The Sephardic reaction to the changes of the new age was quite different from the Ashkenazic response. On the one hand, the educational model of the Sephardic sages approved of general studies, and even considered them as worthy endeavors in addition to basic Jewish education; and in the spirit of this approach, the Sephardic sages did not withdraw from modern society in the way that some Ashkenazic Orthodox elements did. On the other hand, with the deepening of European rule in Muslim countries, the pull towards secular culture was in opposition to tradition; and the response of the Sages to protect the traditions of Israel was not to develop the model of strict, isolationist Orthodoxy. Instead, they emphasized the principles that strengthen faith that have guarded Jewish identity and communal unity, with the goal of maintaining the members of the community in the Jewish world as much as possible. Thus, an important Hakham spoke out strongly against a Rabbi who was struggling with a custom that is not essential among the commandments while other more central, basic tenets of the Torah still needed to be strengthened (Rabbi Yossef Messas, Responsa Mayim Haim Part 2 Orah Haim Section 90). That Hakham established an important concept in regard to the elements weighed in making a halakhic decision (Responsa Mayim Tehorim Even HaEzer Section 24): "And this matter will be discussed according to three pillars of jurisprudence: the law, intelligence, and time period," that is, the law that arises from the sources that determine halakha, the common sense and healthy logic that are needed to approach any issue, and the specific time in which the question was asked that takes into account the time period and the local background. It is important to emphasize that this openness to aspects of time period and common sense in deciding halakha unlocked a traditional, intra-hilkhatit option that succeeded in responding to the modern world, without relegating the validity of halakha to the trash bin of nullifying reform and without losing the age-old authority of the Sages.

Implicit in this is the secret of the relevance of these works in our time – this is the main path for interpreting the Torah in relation to society through the changes of time. We are not talking about fringe writings of the Jewish world, but about the relevant cultural center of the Jewish people as a whole, which follows Maimonides' tradition of the Golden Path.

Methods of Action

And so, what characterizes the rabbinic methods of the Sephardic sages?

As mentioned above, one of the characteristic principles of the Sephardic sages is the way they determine halaka between different approaches, as opposed to a pesak (decision) that wants to satisfy all differing opinions. This is the basic principle known in rabbinic language as kohah dehetra adif – the power of the heter (the lenient path) is the preferred. This principle praises the greatness of the Hakham who delves deeply into an issue and finds a lenient halakhic solution. Deciding halakha stringently does not reflect the greatness of a Hakham, and many times it attests to an educational concern, or to fear of deciding the halakha, which prevents the Hakham from choosing the easier path over the stricter one. Harsh halakhic decisions and the desire to accommodate all opinions have caused an accumulation of stringencies that makes it difficult for a later posek to weigh, maneuver, and navigate the halakhic process in the directions needed for a specific case that comes before him. Thus, fear of God pushes aside the dynamic force of halakha. Conversely, there are many who outwardly praise the dynamic nature of halakha, and have little fear of God in their hearts, and because of this their conclusions cannot be called halakha. Between the strict and the liberal positions, the Sephardic Sages established a third path in which their great humility before God and their commitment to serve God brought them to adopt original halakhic stances in order to deal with new situations, without fearing lenient decisions, rulings and originality. Knowledge of life experience often accompanies and guides halakhic decision-making, together with a realistic viewpoint, according to which a harsh position would apply to only a small part of the public. But the responsibility of the Hakham is to the whole community, to all of the Jewish people, perhaps for all future generations. Therefore it would not be responsible to set an excessively stringent standard of halakha that would cause a great portion of the community to be lost if they cannot abide by it.

In addition to this, the halakhic vitality and courage that these Hakhamim often adopted should be taken into consideration. With all the modesty of the Sephardic Hakhamim, who based their decisions on the posekim who came before them and did not devise new ideas without precedent – supporting their decisions based on Jewish sources and not on their own opinions – we find in their halakhic works original analysis of earlier sources and also opinions that were not always in the halakhic mainstream.[5]

Another issue is the efforts of the Hakham, in the framework of halakha, to ensure that the law will not legitimize injustice. Indeed, on the one hand the Torah tells us, "Do not give special consideration to the poor," (Leviticus 19, 15) meaning that one must not deviate from law in order to help a poor person. On the other hand, it is also forbidden to allow those who have power to be protected by the law so that exploitation of the weak would be justified. Therefore we must act so that the law is just and so that the poor are helped; for example, using the ability to stretch the law in different directions so that truth, justice, and benevolence will be present in a halakhic ruling.[6] Sometimes we find that the Hakham adds at the end of his ruling some advice for the weak on how to conduct his affairs in the event of injustice.[7] Other paths are available to the Hakham outside the framework of the court, such as influencing the two sides to conduct themselves beyond the letter of the law in order to avoid injustice. This can be done directly – through open rebuke of the different sides – or through a sermon on ethics to the whole community with the intention of hindering the sources of injustice in the community. The last tool in the hands of the Hakham, if he did not succeed through educational means, is excommunication or expulsion. And here we must emphasize the complex nature of the Sages' conduct: on the one hand they are prepared to struggle when necessary to protect Torah values both religiously and socially, and on the other hand they adopt a stance in a pleasant way, with the wonderful ability to adopt solutions through the paths of peace and with the attribute of mercy.

The Sephardic rabbis perceived their job to be multi-faceted. They did not concentrate only on spreading Torah knowledge in a yeshiva to a chosen group of scholars, but saw their main job as serving the entire community. Certainly one of the community rabbi's jobs was to see to it that there would be a yeshiva in the area, but this was not the sum total of the Sephardic rabbi's duties. Torah study for all levels of society was his goal. Learning Torah with the lay people who made up the majority of his community is what held center stage. Beyond Torah study, the rabbi was busy with all his other rabbinic duties: as mohel, ritual slaughterer, scribe, preacher, judge, etc., along with his social responsibilities: to assure the cohesiveness of the community socially as well as religiously – concerning Torah values and also on the material plane – in other words, to see to it that the weaker members of society live with dignity within the community. As part of his responsibilities beyond the walls of the religious court, one of his main concerns was to assist the weaker members of the community by means of various welfare institutions that operated for the purpose of assuring that mutual solidarity would be a pillar of the Jewish community.

One of the basic elements of halakha that was used especially in Sephardic communities was the establishment of takanot – religious ordinances. The takanah, which is a direct ruling of the halakhic sages, continued to develop in the modern era in Sephardic communities for two reasons: one internal and one external. The internal reason is because the Ashkenazic rabbis tended to curtail the strength of new takanot and the scope of their application, also minimizing the setting of new takanot (to the point of an almost complete refusal by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to set takanot at all in the past generation). The external reason was that the Emancipation, which brought equal rights to the Jews of Europe, also canceled the judicial independence that had been the heritage of Jewish communities throughout the generations, as well as canceling the authority of the sages to develop the various areas of Jewish civil law. As opposed to the Ashkenazic countries, the Sephardic lands continued to develop Jewish law through internal legislation and communal takanot. (Sometimes the takanot were also national, for example Moroccan takanot that were in force until the 1960s.) Through these takanot the sages provided up-to-date halakhic answers for the new problems and special needs that arose. The takanot were an additional expression of the ever-developing Torah and its involvement in the life of society.

The Spiritual World of the Sephardic Sages

The basic value in the spiritual world of the Sephardic Sages is the presence of God, and what derives from this – the service of God. Not the yoke of mitzvot, but God's constant and central presence, an awareness that we are always and notably standing before God in all aspects of our lives, not only when we are doing one mitzvah or another. The sages held a comprehensive perspective on the basic meaning of Judaism, that is, the perspective on the main purpose of the word of God to mankind. This perspective, they took upon themselves to publicize and teach. They did not receive it through study but rather through Jewish life, through the living tradition. What is a human being’s obligation? That is the question to be addressed; and the answer is not limited to doing mitzvot. This is not to suggest an attitude of compromise in keeping the mitzvot; on the contrary – serving God is the basis of man's obligation in his world, and from this develops the network of mitzvot. But from this also emerges much more than just an obligation to observe commandments; from serving God comes the need to keep "that which is straight and good in the eyes of God"; also in those areas of life that are not defined through formal mitzvot. From serving God one also derives the recognition that a person will be judged before God for everything he does in all aspects of his dealings. Studying Torah does not exempt one from humanitarian issues or from any of the groups that make up the fabric of Jewish people. The awareness of the presence of God is connected to the issue that is so central for the Sephardic sages: society and the Jewish people.

How can a person make God's presence meaningful and concrete when He has no physical or material expression? Among the many possible religious answers to this question, one particular approach stands out for the Sephardic sages: God's presence is expressed through the obligations we have towards the Jewish people and through the obligations we have towards one another. In this context, how can we walk in the path of God? By adopting His traits: "Just as God is merciful and compassionate, so should you be merciful and compassionate" (Shabbat 133b). That is, one's ability to behave in the right way expresses one’s obligation to God. This rule does not apply only to the private domain (and here is a decisive point compared with the sages who emphasized ethics and interpersonal relationships in the private domain), but rather it is expanded and broadened to have the public and social meaning that is found in almost every aspect of life that the Sephardic Sages preached about. Even if something was a private or personal issue, or an issue that appeared to deal only with miztvot between God and man, the hakhamim found ways to apply the issue to the general public.

This is not only in regards to spiritual commentary and literature. Also in the realm of action, the Sephardic sages were conspicuous in their concern for the community and the public; their concern for society was expressed also in their halakhic rulings and was taken into consideration under different social circumstances. This inclination does not come from weakness or compromise but rather from the spiritual strength that sees this as the Hakham's commitment to God and the Jewish people. We can see in this the complexity of the rabbi's activities: on the one hand his broad concern with the social life, economic status and spiritual level of the community, and at the same time his desire to preserve the uniqueness of each member of the community. In accordance with this task, the Sages were careful to maintain the unity of the community, also in the religious sphere, in spite of the different levels of observance of the members of the community, the different occupations of the members of the community, and the cultural and intellectual differences among them.

Concern for the public is expressed in the most basic issues of mutual responsibility: communal obligation towards the weak and acts of tzedek against the various sources of injustice. For these purposes the sages enacted takanot for the sake of the poor, via internal-communal taxes and through education.

This is also expressed in regard to the human attributes – midot – that the sages taught: paths of pleasantness, love of fellow human beings, generosity, kindness, and humility... The paths of pleasantness constituted the foundation for the various aspects of the wisdom of life. First, they relate to human interaction, second they relate to the halakha (the balance and adaptation between various Torah values and between them and other people) and third, they connect to the conceptual spiritual realm (in a harmonious view that is warm and loving towards society, the opposite of a suspicious, estranged, or arrogant stance). From this attitude the Sephardic sages were able to observe the changes throughout the world in the last two hundred years: science, politics, and culture. Their spiritual inclusion allowed the Sages to successfully adopt a complex stance of positive values in relation to scientific, technological, and social advances, and with it also to recognize the changes in religious and traditional lifestyle that affected community members. Preserving the attachment of the community to tradition was an overriding goal for the Hakhamim and this brought them to great heights in their writings, which often times proved courageous. They did this in order to maintain Torah values while being open to modernity. This approach is not limited to protecting and preserving the Torah in a world that threatens it – an approach that turns inward with the goal of surviving in a new world. Rather it is the opposite: an outlook that comes from the classic Jewish sources about the world as a whole, the problems of modern society, universal questions. It provides a special, original, often surprising response.[8] Behind the language and concepts of Jewish tradition there is a living Torah whose revitalized light illuminates the universal questions that stir us to a life of faith in the modern era.

“Wisdom has built her house on seven hewn pillars.” (Mishlei 9:1)

My first inclination was to decline to respond to this symposium on the grounds that I am not a school leader—or even a practitioner for that matter—and therefore unable to answer such situational questions as you have posed. My next inclination was to formulate alternative, theoretical, questions that are better suited for a broad-based conversation. In the end, I followed neither inclination; my remarks hover intentionally in the ether that separates theory from practice—but, on the other hand, also connects them to one another.

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Is there a coherent and cohesive philosophical preference or prejudice that ought to animate Modern Orthodox Jewish education? Some of our educational policies (notably, those that pertain to limmudei kodesh) resemble the “perennialist” approach associated with traditional education, while others (notably, those of General Studies) tend to look more like the “pragmatic” approach identified with progressive education. Are we philosophically hermaphroditic (possessing the distinctive characteristics of both philosophies), androgynous (having neither philosophy’s idiosyncratic characteristics), or, perhaps, are we agnostics, content to conduct educational business as usual without admitting to any particular philosophy? In an unintended parody of Descartes, do we appear to proclaim: “I think not, therefore I can do whatever I please!”?

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The absence of a clearly articulated educational philosophy does not serve us well. The road of curriculum design, development, and implementation is notable for its many obstacles (insufficient time, inadequate resources, and so forth) that frequently compel detours from the derekh haMelekh of nineteenth-century Eastern Europe, twelfth-century Muslim Spain, fifth-century Sura and Pumbedita, first-century Alexandria, or whatever historical precedent we cite in affirmation of our received educational practice. At these critical junctures, a philosophy is a lodestar whose sighting keeps us securely on our chosen path and acts as surety for our eventual arrival at our proposed destination. Without a clear philosophy, we are only star-gazing—and as inspirational as that may occasionally be, it only thwarts our purpose and obscures our objective.

Schools—not their current (and, regrettably, all too transitory) leaders—should have educational visions that “drive” their missions. A school that is “mission-driven” without the mission itself being motivated by a coherent philosophy is a will-o’-the-wisp. It gives the external appearance of direction and purpose while actually lacking both. A school’s approach to “gender equality,” like its views on “integration,” should similarly be determined by its philosophical predisposition.

How do schools acquire philosophies? Unless a school community is blessed with an informed philosopher, the best way I know is via committee. The “dromedary principle” admonishes us that in its desire to fashion a horse, the committee may produce a camel; still, a camel is superior to no transportation at all. We are not looking for philosophical purity but for contemplative introspection, and a synthetic philosophy is patently acceptable.

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In this light, I should like to offer for your consideration a platform comprising seven philosophical-ideological positions that I would advocate for a school that wishes to be recognized as Modern Orthodox. (These principles are the products of a consultation undertaken several years ago. I am grateful to Dr. Joel Wolowelsky of the Yeshiva of Flatbush for his input, the responsibility for their formulation rests entirely with me.)

Modern Orthodox Day Schools and yeshiva high schools should recognize:

  The preeminence of Torah and the fulfillment of mitzvoth according to halakha

A Modern Orthodox school will give priority in funding, staffing, and scheduling to those classes and activities that promote the study of Torah and the fulfillment of mitzvoth. It will concern itself with students' religious behavior and attitudes both in school and outside. It will, if necessary, engage in parent education (in conjunction with synagogues, if possible) to ensure proper modeling of religious behavior.

  The need for excellence in both General and Jewish Studies

Modern Orthodoxy sees the accomplishments of modern science and culture as expressions of the biblical imperatives to conquer the earth and preserve it. A Modern Orthodox school will provide all its students with an acquaintance with the basic principles of science, disciplines in the behavioral and social sciences, and in the humanities. It will likewise ensure that the pursuit of these disciplines does not become a goal unto itself, divorced from their Jewish identities and responsibilities.

 The primacy of moral virtue and ethical integrity in personal, business, and professional life

A Modern Orthodox school will implement curricula that provide instruction in both mitzvot bein adam laMakom (laws that govern our relationship to God) and mitzvot bein adam leHaveiro (laws that govern interpersonal relationships) and nurture a school culture that values and promotes the ideal of hessed (such as community service or social action). It will not condone unethical behavior on the part of its staff and students and will condemn such behavior on the part of any member of the Jewish community.

 The need to set common educational goals for boys and girls, young men and young women

In a Modern Orthodox school, boys and girls will be given equal opportunities to study Torah and halakha. The equality of opportunity does not necessarily mean identical curricula, but no subject in Jewish studies should be officially declared "off limits" to any student. Modern Orthodoxy neither promotes nor prohibits coeducation; it supports individual schools in the educational decisions that are best for them.

 The centrality of the State of Israel to the religious and national existence of the Jewish people

A Modern Orthodox school will advise all its students to personally experience life in Israel, to be cognizant of its needs and goals, and to have a working knowledge of Modern Hebrew. It may also call upon them to plan for aliyah to Israel, and to become actively involved in promoting Religious Zionist values in both Israel and the Diaspora. A Modern Orthodox school will say Hallel on Yom Ha'Atzma'ut and Yom Yerushalayim.

 The value of all segments of the Jewish community

A Modern Orthodox school will emphasize to its students that the major events of Jewish history, which have shaped our national identity, have involved and affected all Jews. It will admonish its graduates to love all Jews, maintain contact with them, and work with them on communal issues without regard to their denominational affiliation. It will not decline to participate in Jewish communal events due to the participation of non-Orthodox Jews.

  The Torah as the possession of all Jews

A Modern Orthodox Day School will enroll children of non-Orthodox, non-observant homes as students in the belief that the opportunity to study Torah should not be denied to anyone of the Jewish faith.

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

A few statistics of Jews in the US

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

The origin of Orthodoxy

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

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

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

Rabbis

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

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

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

Turning to the right

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

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

Torah from heaven

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

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

Conclusion

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