I

The aim of Jewish Tanakh study is to encounter the word of God. There are, of course, other motives for studying Tanakh: It provides information about ancient Hebrew and Aramaic of use to linguists, and information about ancient history for specialists in that field; familiarity with the Bible is essential background for the study of Western culture and modern Hebrew literature and thus pertinent to a good liberal arts education; it serves those secularists who are curious about religious belief; not least, the Bible provides a subject of conversation and an opportunity to display one’s cleverness. From a religious perspective, however, such motives are ancillary, helping one to get at the meaning, or trivial distractions from the meaning. If you received a passionate message and contented yourself with analyzing the style, commenting on the grammar and typography and social mores, while keeping your distance from the person addressing you, you would be mocking the author. To do the same in the study of Torah is a mockery of religious commitment.

“The days of our lives are seventy years and with strength eighty years,” says the Psalmist. Our current life expectancy, though finite, is a bit longer than the biblical life span, yet our days are still frightfully brief and fugitive. How we allocate the few hours we devote to Torah, which includes Talmud, halakhah, Jewish thought inter alia, and within that harsh budget, what to do with the portion for Tanakh, must be governed by our goal in that study. One consideration is how best to pursue the primary goal of encountering God. A secondary question is how to benefit from the ancillary disciplines such as Semitics, archaeology, and the like when our time and attention are so severely limited.

Unfortunately, what is viable for the full-time talmid hakham (Torah scholar), in this regard, is not what is good for the layperson. Those of us who can devote the bulk of our time to Torah study have an advantage. Not only do we know more, we are also preoccupied with Torah, day and night, to a degree that others have difficulty achieving. At home with a significant range of text, context, and tradition, much of which is kept constantly in use, we can aspire to carry our learning lightly, and thus we may hope, with relative ease, to integrate different kinds of knowledge, traditional and secular, and to harness different kinds of insight from within Torah and from our life experience. There are days when the sun stands still, and despite everything, we seem to have time for everything.

Naturally I am speaking now for the scholar who holds paramount the religious dimension of Torah study. In an age of specialization and secularization, academics engaged in Jewish studies, even those who are nominally practicing Jews, are liable to misplace their sense of priority. Sometimes the result is heresy or indifference to normative belief, and/or a flippant, even cynical attitude toward religious conviction and religious reverence. Otherwise the compartmentalization of religion and scholarship declares itself in a bizarre alienation between one’s professed religious orientation and one’s actual full-time intellectual life. This troubling phenomenon of disconnect between the human being who aspires to edify himself or herself through the study of Torah in the service of God and the bleached soul of the neutral or cynical practitioner of academic studies, is a warning to us all not to take for granted the proper integration of intellectual activity and life.

The layperson, however sincere, generally cannot acquire the mastery required to control substantial areas of learning and to keep them in permanent repair.  (I am not even mentioning the many intelligent men and women whose language skills are deficient.) There are exceptions, non-professionals who are able, through commitment of will and nurturing circumstance, to “hold in” learning, as they say in the yeshivot. It is a sign of vigor in our community, when such an individual makes a contribution to the community, even to the point of producing material worthy of publication. It is an even more wonderful mark of wholesomeness when such productivity grows out of yirat Shamayim, the genuine fear of Heaven, and not merely as a highly skilled avocation. Our concern here is with those who are not so proficient or fortunate, at least not yet.

Should the Torah education of the layperson, be it via lecture or solitary reading, stress accumulating information, or should it prize creative engagement? Information is necessary for knowledge, but if the goal is religious reading, surely active study is far superior to passive reception. The problem is how to respond actively without sufficient knowledge and, even more important, without the continuous preoccupation that brings with it the ability to distinguish important questions from trivial ones, the ready command that makes it possible to apply what one knows to the question at hand and to avoid being overwhelmed by unfamiliar data.

If our goal as educators is to encourage active, thoughtful religious reading, our teaching must exemplify active, thoughtful religious reading. The primary orientation of our teaching should not be conveying information alone, nor should it be reporting our original contributions, however important. We are not fulfilling our main task unless we communicate information and ideas and modes of reasoning in a manner that enables our audience to think along with us.  If we succeed in doing so, our listeners are likely to engage in religious reading with us, and they are likely to develop the habits of thought and feeling, the analytic aptitude and the sensitive reverence that will enable them to encounter the text on their own, if they have the minimal literacy.

What is involved in communicating our engagement in religious reading? As we are preoccupied with the disciplined study of Tanakh in the light of traditional Jewish approaches, from Hazal down to the present, so must the non-professional student. That is one facet of our task. As we utilize information, insight, and sometimes theoretical constructions from other sources, we should make available the same for the non-professional as well. That is another facet of our task. Regarding the former, the major gap to overcome is one of knowledge and training within the traditional literature of Torah. Regarding the latter, there is another difficulty: Given the pressure of time, how does one make room for such sources without undermining the balance between ancillary informational instruments and the encounter with God to which they are subservient?

II

The primary texts of Jewish Bible study are available in almost every synagogue and school; many are found in the average home: the standard rabbinic sources; the commentators in the various Mikra’ot Gedolot editions; the major figures of modern times. In her volumes of studies on the Torah (and even more so in her Gilyonot) the twentieth century’s master teacher, Professor Nehama Leibowitz (who preferred to be known simply as Nehama), showed how these texts can be deployed educationally: what it means to read a commentator carefully, to notice what motivates his remarks, how and why he differs from other commentators, and so forth. If you are searching on your own for a viable derekh ha-limmud, a way to study Tanakh, one that will link you to the chain of Jewish understanding, then prolonged exposure to her work remains the royal road to religious reading.  Assuming the validity of her position, let me append some pedagogical notes, and address one question of intellectual substance.

The approach I advocate here, one that Nehama illustrates, privileges analysis over interpretation or thesis-mongering. By that I mean that the goal of teaching is not to communicate conclusions alone, but to make transparent the way conclusions are reached. This can be justified on academic grounds: What is more honest than making one’s considerations transparent, showing the alternatives not chosen, and enabling the listener to assess your choice? Here I am making the educational point. If you want your audience to be engaged in your study and to encourage them to do likewise, the only way to do it is to convene the commentators you have studied and allow your students to participate in your dialogue with them.

This sounds obvious to me. There is, however, a tendency among some teachers to present interpretations in which the give and take with the traditional literature is either absent or very well concealed. Often practitioners of this approach have done their homework but are wary of inflicting it on their audience; they fear that burdening their listeners with a blow-by-blow account of their transactions with their predecessors, trailing clouds of footnotes, is liable to prove a distraction rather than a boon. Sometimes they are so taken by the freshness and the compelling power of their insight that they can do without such dialogue.  Long experience makes me sympathetic to the concern about over-documentation and the “weariness of making citations without end”; writers and lecturers should take the trouble to be selective. Long experience also tells me that enthusiastically pushed interpretations produced in a vacuum are usually not as brilliant or as plausible or even as original as their champions presume. However that may be, the danger I perceive on the educational front is that those who hear these interpretations are liable to go and do likewise, with predictably arbitrary or whimsical results that do not honor the best among those who inspire them.

The corpus of Jewish biblical exegesis includes many topics and arguments that do not promise moral-religious edification: for example, lengthy discussions of grammar and vocabulary, geography, as the exegetes grasped it, even some of the sections dealing with halakhah. If the goal of Tanakh study is to bring us into closer relationship with God, such matters would seem to be of less relevance to the non-specialist student. Indeed, it is evident that Nehama chose her topics and her selections from the commentators with an eye to moral and religious edification. On one occasion, when a young teacher told her she had been assigned the opening chapters of Leviticus, dealing with the order of the sacrifices, Nehama expressed strong disagreement. In her opinion, the portion of Kedoshim (chapters 19–20) should be highlighted in Leviticus, not the details of the sacrifices, because the former has greater moral value. Of course, Torah is Torah; moreover, in the right context, the passages describing the manner in which God enables human beings to come close to Him through the various offerings is surely not religiously indifferent.  Nonetheless, it seems odd and unbalanced to struggle with esoteric halakhic subjects, to discuss, for example, the subtle interaction between peshat and derash (the “plain” meaning of a verse and the interpretation handed down or elaborated through the oral tradition) when students do not yet control sufficient information to appreciate the debate, or to invest disproportionate time in clearing philological underbrush at the expense of more directly relevant religious factors.

III

The major criticism of Nehama’s program is that it substitutes the study of the commentators for the study of Tanakh. Her method achieves insight into Rashi or Ramban’s understanding of the biblical text but does not ask what the biblical text means on its own. This criticism has two aspects: one is that an approach devoted entirely to classical Jewish works, from Hazal through the medieval literature through the parshanut (interpretation) of the last 200 years omits consideration of new discoveries, be they linguistic or archaeological; the other is that her approach ignores questions that may be important for us today but are not addressed systematically by the classical mefarshim (commentators).

            Nehama vigorously opposed R. Yoel Bin-Nun’s attempt to revise the Bible curriculum in Israeli high schools to make room for non-exegetical data such as geography.  On grounds of intellectual integrity he was surely right. Ramban rejoiced when he reached the land of Israel, where he gained a better grasp of her geography and saw with his own eyes the Paleo-Hebrew script he had only read about. If we are indeed Ramban’s disciples, it ill behooves us to ignore such realia as become available to us. As we have seen, the educational question is not so clear. How much time, and how much emphasis, should such information merit?

To keep our discussion simple, let’s limit ourselves to cases where the pertinence of the new information is undeniable:

1. I Samuel 13:21 mentions ha-petzirah pim. Traditional commentators say this refers to an implement with two edges (pim as plural of peh=mouth).  We now know that pim is the name of an ancient unit of weight. The verse is saying that the Israelites were charged a pim to fix their petzirah (sharpening). The new explanation is uncontroversial. Assuming that communicating it does not take an inordinate amount of attention away from religiously significant matters, there is no reason not to adopt it.
2. Ezekiel 14 refers to three righteous men—“Noah, Danel, and Job.”  Traditional commentators had no choice but to identify Danel with the biblical Daniel, despite the slight difference in spelling. We now believe that Danel, king of Keret, who is known from Ugaritic literature, fits the context better. If this view is accepted none of the three righteous men are Jewish. This affects the theological message of the chapter, which deals with righteous individuals in a corrupt society. While the traditional identification is still of value for our study of the history of exegesis, there is no reason not to adopt the new one, and adjust our reading of the prophecy accordingly.
3. II Kings 18:13–16 reports a confrontation between Hezekiah and Sennacherib that ends with Hezekiah’s submission. This is followed by further demands by the Assyrian king’s representative culminating in the almost capture of Jerusalem that is aborted by a plague among the Assyrians. Ralbag (on Kings) held that the text records two separate episodes: the second confrontation occurred when Hezekiah rebelled years later. Abarbanel believed there was only one confrontation: Hezekiah’s capitulation was deemed insufficient. Which view we adopt affects our assessment of Hezekiah’s strategy, his courage and his trust in God. Sennacherib’s Annals have been recovered: scholars have debated the One Campaign vs. Two Campaign theories based on these records which depict the king’s successes but carefully avoid ascribing victory to him in the siege of Jerusalem. Here the Annals can make a real difference in determining which medieval parshan came closer to the historical truth. Again the only question is how much attention and emphasis this discussion deserves given the limits on time and the primacy of the religious motive for study.
4. Rambam (Guide III:48) proposed that the prohibition of “cooking the kid in its mother’s milk” is to be understood against the background of idolatrous practices of the time. When the Ugaritic archives were unearthed early in the past century, a line of poetry was deciphered to imply that cooking meat and dairy together was indeed part of Northwest Semitic rite, thus confirming Maimonides. For the past four decades this reading has been dismissed, so we are back where we started, though the word has not yet reached some popular Orthodox and non-Orthodox authors and lecturers, who continue to parade this example.

These examples demonstrate the potential relevance of “outside” information; the last demonstrates what happens when pathways once welcomed become dead ends. How are laypeople (or scholars who are not always up to the minute on every question) to keep abreast of these developments? How many journals can even scholars plow through?  For some purposes the twentieth-century Da’at Mikra commentary on Tanakh (Mossad HaRav Kook) is a reliable source of information. But these works are not infallible and they age. I have no solution to this problem, which has its parallel in all other liberal arts. The point is that contending with it cannot take priority over our fundamental commitment to religious reading. If we take Ramban’s multifarious interests as a model, we must be sure to look to his sense of religious priorities as well.

IV

The second criticism of the exegesis-centered approach was made by R. Mordekhai Breuer. Take the Documentary Hypothesis, which maintains, among other things, that apparent redundancy in the Torah is evidence of multiple authors.  Thus the creation story of Genesis 1, in which God is called Elokim, was written by a different author than the creation story of Genesis 2, where He is called by the Tetragrammaton. In Lonely Man of Faith R. Joseph Soloveitchik listed many thematic differences between the two chapters, regarding humanity’s place in nature, the relations between the sexes, and God’s mission for humanity. R. Soloveitchik concluded that the juxtaposition of the two stories does not reflect multiple authors, but rather a complex view of the human condition. On his own, R. Breuer had arrived at a similar methodology—that God speaks in multiple voices, so that grasping the Torah’s message requires us to examine each section alone, but also in the context of other sections. Along these lines he studied the Torah systematically against the backdrop of one version of the Documentary Hypothesis. He believed that the questions raised by the critics helped to incubate his awareness of this complexity in the Torah’s narrative and legal portions. Thus thinking about these questions is valuable for Orthodox Bible study in our time.

According to Breuer, Nehama rejected his program.  When R. Soloveitchik did it, it was legitimate in her eyes. But the Rav’s rabbinic license did not extend to others. Again, from a purely intellectual perspective R. Breuer is right. If some of the questions raised by the critics are valid, and if, as I hold, R. Breuer’s approach is on the right track (regardless of criticisms I have made elsewhere), then we understand Tanakh better by considering them; Breuer would also insist that by doing so we gain much for our analysis of the classical commentators and again I agree with him.

By the same token: If Rambam was right in thinking that knowledge of the cultural background of Tanakh could add something of worth, then, in principle, we are justified in examining that cultural background in whatever depth and breadth we are capable of. At the same time, the explosion of knowledge in the field of ancient history makes it impossible for all but the few to engage it actively. It is one thing, for example, to read Sennacherib’s Annals in translation; it is a another to consider whether there was something distinctive about the cult of Assur that affected the confrontation between Assyrian religion and Israelite faith in God. It is one thing to contrast Hammurabi’s Code with Mishpatim, as was commonly done a hundred years ago during the “Bible-Babel” affair. It is another to weigh several Near Eastern law codes and to consider which is more pertinent to the background of biblical law and why.

Once again: if our goal in studying Tanakh is to encounter the word of God, then it is not only what  we learn that is important but how. R. Breuer carries on his massive project of appropriating what he finds valuable in the questions of the Bible critics. It is instructive that he does so while hardly ever mentioning their solutions. The questions are important; debating against heretical positions is a distraction from that task. It profits us less than nothing if we gain a whole world of scholarly tools and lose our souls.  This is true of the scholar of whom the Mishnah states that “he whose knowledge precedes his fear of Heaven, his knowledge is not sustained.” Even more is it true of the person whose time is husbanded and who must therefore be more anxious to employ it in a balanced and well-integrated way. We who teach must both communicate the truth and exemplify it.

V

What kind of background information is to be presupposed in our study of Tanakh is not set in stone. Nehama herself did not shy away from calling upon European literature or literary criticism to further her analysis, occasionally she used non-Jewish or non-traditional Bible translations to illustrate various options, and she took from Martin Buber or Benno Jacob what she needed and could not learn elsewhere. The goal of her study, however, could not be mistaken, and neither can ours. I have already warned of the danger posed by the putatively sophisticated disconnection between academic activity and the encompassing intellectual-religious response demanded by Judaism. This is due not only to increased flirtation with orthopraxy, in the narrow sense of the word, with its rejection of normative belief and indifference to the cognitive dimension in the Jew’s personal relationship with God, but also, perhaps even more so, it is associated with a studied irreverence toward God and Torah that borders, if it does not pass over into vulgarization, and undermines that personal relationship. It is also the error of those within Orthodoxy who define intellectual deviance only in terms of propositional heresy, regarding Torah mi-Sinai or the integrity of Torah she-be’al Peh, without taking into account debunking attitudes that stop short of propositional heresy.

Many are lured by these siren songs, not only through the desire to assimilate the  indifference and mild contempt for the intellectual content of religious belief that is prevalent in influential circles and is attached to the prestige enjoyed in some circles by academics, but also due to the absence of a visible alternative. We have outlined a derekh ha-limmud along the lines practiced by Nehama, supplemented perhaps by talmidei hakhamim such as R. Mordekhai Breuer or R. Yoel Bin-Nun, who bring the tradition into interaction with new questions, or guided by masters such as R. Joseph Soloveitchik, who took what he wanted from modern scholarship only to concentrate relentlessly on the human condition, as Judaism illuminates it, and the personal experience of God and Torah. All too often, these models are ignored by rabbis and teachers.

One factor is no doubt the fact that many of our communal functionaries have not been exposed to serious study of Jewish exegesis at all, or sufficiently to internalize a genuine derekh ha-limmud. Perhaps for that reason, they may deem their own homiletic concoctions and sermonic strains, where the text of Tanakh and the work of the classical commentators serve as pretext without context, more worthy of the ear of their classes and congregations than a careful, patient and submissive thinking along with Ramban or Netziv. Perhaps they regard studying the classical texts less important than whatever “message” or exhortation they wish to communicate to their attentive flock.

Much can be attributed to the moist gabbiness and intellectual shallowness characteristic of the talking professions. Once rabbis and teachers were expected to teach; now they are called upon to preach. As Ann Douglas has shown, Christian preaching in the United States once had hard intellectual content, and only in the nineteenth century did the Protestant sermon lose its cognitive substance. Perhaps this is another aspect of liberal American culture that has infiltrated our Jewish life. Or perhaps we have been brought to believe that only Talmud is intellectually for real, while the study of Tanakh is a game of tennis without a net, and the main goal is to have a good time.

Perhaps what I perceive as intellectual indolence and self-indulgence on the part of our professionals is no more than their adapting to what the congregations and the parents prefer. As someone told me after I delivered an earlier version of this talk at several Orthodox synagogues: Orthodox audiences enjoy hearing about the Holocaust, about acrimonious incidents in Jewish history, or about controversial halakhic rulings; they are not interested in talking about God and their relationship to Him. Yet amid the silence and conviviality, there are listeners who learn that the discussion of Tanakh in our community is an occasion for whimsy or an excuse for political or communal exhortation, and that if one is to study Tanakh seriously, the outlook of academic sterility is the only game in town.

Whether the approach adumbrated here is likely to prove popular should be a matter of indifference.  If, as I hope, there is an appreciative audience for an approach to Tanakh that is intellectually serious and fosters active engagement in the encounter with God and with His revelation, then it is a privilege to minister to that thirst. If, as we are sometimes assured, it is an uphill battle, then it is an even more urgent obligation to subvert that indifference and convert it to connection.

Further Reading:

S. Carmy, “To Get the Better of Words: An Apology for Yir’at Shamayim in Academic Jewish Studies,” Torah u-Madda Journal 2 (1990), pp. 7–24.

S. Carmy, “A Room with a View, But a Room of Our Own,” Tradition 28:3 (1994), pp. 39–69. Also in Modern Scholarship in the Study of Torah: Contributions and Limitations, ed. Shalom Carmy (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1996), pp. 1–38.

S. Carmy, “Homer and the Bible,” Tradition 41:4 (2008), pp. 1–7.

S. Carmy, “A Peshat in the Dark: Reflections on the Age of Cary Grant,” Tradition 43:1 (2010), pp. 1–6.

S. Carmy “Cold Fury, Hidden Face, the Jealousy of Israel: Two Kinds of Religious Estrangement in the Torah,” Tradition 43:4 (2010), pp. 21–36.

S. Carmy, “Concepts of Scripture in Mordechai Breuer,” in Jewish Concepts of Scripture: A Comparative Introduction, ed. Benjamin D. Sommer (New York and London: New York University Press, 2012), pp. 267–279.

The empowerment of women today in Modern Orthodox society in Israel is a direct result of the number and range of education opportunities now available—and a very welcome and necessary development considering the multiple halakhic issues affecting them. The emergence of Batei Midrash for women and the courses provided at all levels—from the high school to midrasha to adult education—have bred a new generation of learned women who have become active members in the community and participants in the halakhic decision-making framework in issues pertaining to them.

When I was growing up in London in the 1960s, the Jewish education available for girls was limited. Girls could either a Jewish school that provided a mediocre secular education, or a quality public school supplemented by attendance at after-school Hebrew School classes. This spurred the trend to obtain additional Jewish education with a year at “seminary”—in Gateshead or Israel—but those girls who chose the latter option soon discovered  the vast gulf between the level of their Jewish knowledge and that of their American-educated peers.

Thus education became a major motive for our aliya in 1976, and it was our intention to secure a good Jewish education for our children. Since we were ultimately blessed with four daughters, this proved to be a wise decision. Yet no one at that time could have envisaged the power of the dynamic forces that have driven the growth and evolution of educational opportunities for girls and women over the last three decades.

People today have forgotten—and many may not be aware at all—of how narrow the range of options was when looking for a high-quality religious girls school in Jerusalem in the early 1980s. Without quite realizing it, but feeding off the obvious and painful inadequacy of the mamlakhti-dati (state religious) school system (as Esther Lapian described in her article in Conversations issue 7, p. 133) to provide both a good secular education together with a broad Jewish education, we were sucked into the elitist trend that came to dominate the education scene. “Private schools” (not in the American sense, but with a large financial input from parents to boost the quantity and quality of education) such as Horev and Noam at the primary level, and Horev, Peleh and Tsvia at the secondary level, attracted the “good kids” from the “good homes,” creating a vicious circle of decline in the mainstream state schools.

After considering the options, we chose to send our children to Horev; but over the years, we became increasingly disturbed and irritated by the emerging trend—away from the school’s original Torah im Derech Erets philosophy toward narrow, quasi-Hareidi attitudes—that came to dominate the school. This was, of course, an expression of the wider trend toward Hareidism sweeping throughout the Orthodox world. One of its primary manifestations was the sense of constraint felt by students and their reluctance to pose the most basic questions regarding personal and philosophical issues, for fear of being penalized—so detrimental in the critical teenage years. This inevitably led to frustration and conflict. In addition, the school’s attitude toward Zionist values and particularly the stance toward army service became exceedingly discouraging.

Fortunately, in tandem with (or as a counterbalance to) the trend toward greater Hareidism, other processes were at work. The massive increase in the overall student body, together with the growing diversity of views among their parents—and the greater financial resources available—led to a steady increase in both the number of educational institutions at all levels and also, and more importantly, a greater diversification of the kinds of education, the values, emphases, and so forth.

A major contribution to this educational scene, especially in the Greater Jerusalem area, was the Ohr Torah Stone network of high schools founded in 1983 by Rabbi Riskin—who personally placed great emphasis on girls’ education (and on women’s issues in general)—and which succeeded in attracting and training top-quality young educators with strong ideals and commitments. The schools’ mandate was to provide education for the Modern Orthodox woman, and the curricula provided intensive Jewish studies emphasizing the relevance of Torah to modern life together with a high level of secular studies.

At the post-high school level there has also been significant and dramatic progress. Catering to the prevailing global trend of interest in higher education, midrashot have sprung up throughout the country. Girls voluntarily choose to attend midrashot where they can now develop their Torah learning and are provided with the tools to delve into independent study. Teaching standards are high, thanks to the emergence of a cadre of charismatic and gifted educators with broad vision.

A landmark event within this field was the creation of a hesder program for girls within the midrasha. This answered the desire of religious girls who wished to serve in the army in a Torah-based framework rather than the National Service—hitherto the only option acceptable for religious girls. A leading example of these was Midreshet Ein haNatsiv, established in 1986 by Kibbutz Hadati to parallel the existing yeshiva in Kibbutz Ein Tsurim. Girls today are able to devote two years, before, during, and following full army service, to intensive and deep study of Jewish sources, and during their period of army service they receive spiritual support and regular shiurim from the staff of the midrasha who visit their girls on the respective army bases.

Midreshet Ein haNatsiv has grown in popularity and acceptance, also providing pre- and post-army courses and also attracting overseas students to its unique style of open-minded learning. Headed by top quality educators such as Rabbi Eli Kahan z"l and Mrs. Rachel Keren, Midreshet Ein haNatsiv has cultivated a cadre of learned women with a deep commitment to Judaism who take active roles contributing to the advancement of Jewish society and the State of Israel. Other hesder progams, similar to that at Ein haNatsiv, also exist at Midreshet Bruria/Lindenbaum and Be’er in Yeruham, proving the need for such a framework.

Thus, in our case, two of our four daughters chose to do sherut le’umi while the other two were able to opt for the progam at Ein haNatsiv and served in the IDF education corps—one subsequently becoming an officer.

We have therefore had the privilege to be part of this evolution, which, while developing steadily over years and decades, represents a far-reaching  revolution within the Jewish world.

Meanwhile, in the more academically focused, quasi-yeshiva style framework and beyond into adult education, things were moving at even greater speed.

Thus there are now a multitude of institutions providing higher education for women. Rav Yehuda Amital and Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, founders of Yeshivat Har Etzion, saw the need to provide yeshiva style Torah education for women at a high academic level, and in 1997 they established the Women's Bet Midrash in Migdal Oz, headed by Mrs. Estie Rosenberg (Rav Lichtenstein's daughter.) Migdal Oz provides a full-time learning curriculum together with the option of obtaining an academic qualification.

Beyond the tertiary education level, there has been a dramatic awakening in the field of adult education for women with a proliferation of Batei Midrash. Matan, founded by Rabbanit Malka Bina in 1988, is a prime example of a dynamic institution that today provides a myriad of diverse courses in Torah study. From havruta learning in Daf Yomi, through Bat Mitzvah courses for mothers and daughters, to a packed weekly schedule of classes, Matan attracts students aged 12 to 80. Its success has led to the establishment of eight branches throughout the country from Bet Shemesh to Zichron Yaakov—and has also expanded into internet courses and seminars. Thirst for learning among women seems boundless. Matan's vibrant Bet Midrash has paved the way for women to learn Torah at the highest levels, and its courses prepare them to assume leadership and educational positions. It thus provides the link between study per se, lilmod u’lelamed, and translating that knowledge into action—lishmor vela’asot.

This link is essential because the new generation of educated Jewish women see far beyond the “mere” study of texts and teaching. They are intent on becoming active participants in key areas of Jewish life—first and foremost, those issues affecting women.

A trailblazing institution in this area is Nishmat, founded in 1997 by Rabbanit Chana Henkin. Not just another midrasha providing advanced Torah study for all ages, Nishmat pioneered a course for Yo’atsot Halakha (halakhic advisors), wherein women devote two years to intensive study with rabbinic authorities of the laws of family purity as well as training in allied issues of modern medicine, such as gynecology, infertility, psychology, and sexuality.

This development is unprecedented, marking the first time in Jewish history that women have been trained to address women's halakhic issues—and have succeeded in obtaining widespread rabbinic support. Nishmat's Women's Halakhic Hotline, staffed by the Yo’atsot Halakha, receive thousands of calls from women in Israel and abroad, on issues in family purity, intimate personal and family matters, as well as fertility and women's health. This is a far cry from the traditional procedure in which women, or their husbands, were obliged to consult a male rabbi about the most intimate female and marital issues, and it must surely serve to encourage greater adherence to the mitzvoth of family purity.

Another area in which women have turned their halakhic studies to effective practical use is that of To’enot Rabbaniot (rabbinical adjudicates). This course was initiated and run by Mrs. Nurit Fried at Midreshet Lindenbaum, and provided its students with intensive training to qualify them as rabbinical advocates—whose aim is to help women required to appear before rabbinical courts. It marks another major step in the empowerment of women and testifies to the tremendous determination on the part of Orthodox women to become active partners in religious life.

A study of this eve-olution of education and allied subjects would not be complete without mention of Koleh, the first Orthodox Jewish feminist organization in Israel. Founded in 1998 and initially led by Chana Kehat, it has grown into a flourishing religious women’s forum that is active in a multitude of spheres, addressing such issues as agunot; prenuptial agreements; mobilization of religious leadership in fighting sexual harassment, domestic violence, and sexual abuse; and creating appropriate curricula for schools. Its national two-day conferences attract thousands of participants from throughout the Jewish world and across the full religious spectrum to learn about and discuss contemporary halakhic and social issues.

One final observation must be made—albeit not a positive one. It would seem that the advance in the education and empowerment of this generation of young women has had a detrimental effect on their ability to find marriage partners. Singlehood is indeed a global epidemic but in Orthodox religious circles this is an issue of enormous concern and a subject that demands great attention.

In summary, if we look back over the last three decades we have witnessed phenomenal growth in the provision and scope of religious education available in Israel to the Modern Orthodox woman. It can also be noted that the majority of the personalities in the forefront of this revolution have been American olim: Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Rabbanit Malka Bina, Rabbanit Chana Henkin, Rabbi David Bigman, Chana Kahat, and so forth. Such individuals have served to encourage their Israeli counterparts to eagerly jump on board to create a new cadre of Israeli educators.  

But this is not at all the end of the story, but it is very much the story so far. There can be no doubt that the process I have described—and that we have experienced and benefited from—is still in its early stages, from an historic point of view.

Rabbanit Chana Henkin, who has been in the forefront of so many of the developments noted here, envisions the process moving forward in the direction of women kollel students and ultimately, women rabbis (although they will not be called by that title—the subject of a discussion at a recent Koleh forum). But the reality will exist before the name. I expect—and hope and pray—that my granddaughters will become part of this ongoing process. They will take for granted all the achievements noted above, having been born and educated in a world where they were all well established. The front line of the campaign for women's education will be further advanced. Each of us can enunciate their own vision of how this might be achieved, but the bottom line is that women will be full, largely equal, and highly active partners in all spheres of Jewish studies and the Orthodox community.

Social gaps, between different groups and populations, are a fundamental problem that the State of Israel grapples with today. In many cases these divisions are physical as seen in many Israeli neighborhoods and communities where diverse populations live separately, refusing to integrate and live together.  These rifts are evident in many walks of Israeli life, and what is common amongst all of these social gaps is that they cause extreme isolation and social alienation between people living in the same society.

Thus we find a strong divide between religious and non-religious as well as a plethora of identities on the spectrum between ultra orthodox and secular: Nationalist-Ultra Orthodox (Hardal), National Religious, Traditionalist, Reform, those who see Judaism as a culture and a small group of those considered strictly secular.

In addition to this, other aspects of identity complicate these social divides. For instance, there are divisions based on ethnicity in Israeli society. Sadly, more than 60 years after the inception of the State of Israel, country of origin is still sociologically meaningful when trying to understand divisions within Israeli society. Two different groups can be distinguished amongst Israelis: those whose roots originate in Europe and the United States and those whose roots are found in Asia and Africa. Even for those who are second and third generations Israelis, individuals who were born in Israel or whose parents were born in Israel, ethnic origin plays a significant role. One might expect religious identity to function as a unifying force for the Jewish people, because this identity might bring Jews of different ethnic backgrounds together, despite diverse countries of origin and denominations. Ironically, the religious element in Israeli society is the cause of an extreme conservatism in this realm. We have made great progress regarding these social gaps in civil society, while in religious society, especially in ultra-orthodox circles, the situation is catastrophic; it seems that the more strict you are with regard to religious observance, the harsher the ethnic constructs are, to such an extent that there are many phenomena in this community that could be described as racist. 

These gaps are also evident and equally serious in Israel's socio-economic and class divides. Every year we are informed of the deepening gap between groups based on their economic background. If traditionally society was divided into three groups: the upper, middle and lower classes, a third of the population in each class, we now see a gradual polarization of society into two groups, the rich and the poor. The middle class is slowly shrinking to approximately one quarter of the population.

There are other areas where these gaps are apparent (for example the distribution of populations in Israel's peripheries and centers) but here we will discuss an important and currently relevant element of the Sephardic tradition throughout the generations which should be instrumental in addressing these social challenges: the ability to be inclusive and the strength of a worldview that rises above classifications and social barriers, resulting in communal unity, a force that is dwindling in modern society.    

Three Kinds of Religious Commitment

Initially, it is important to note that in Sephardic communities in the Diaspora there were never divisions between Haredi, Secular or Reform Jews; everyone was considered Jewish, some observed many of the mitzvoth and some performed fewer mitzvoth. All of these Jews should be working towards becoming better people and better Jews.  In many areas of today's Israel, we can find communities such as these, groups with a typical Sephardic character. These communities can be found in cities and settlements where there are large concentrations of Sephardic populations. 

In these communities, you can divide the population up into three groups, according to their commitment to a Jewish lifestyle: a. Those who keep what is written in the Shulchan Aruch to the best of their ability; b. those who keep some of the Mitzvoth, usually the more experiential aspects of the Jewish faith such as Shabbat services at the synagogue, Shabbat dinner with the family or Jewish holidays and lifecycle events, including those specific to the Sephardic Jews such as public celebrations in memory of a saintly rabbis, Ta'anit Dibur (abstention from speech), Yom Shekulo Torah (A day of Torah Study), Brit Yitzhak (Pre- circumcision ceremony in honor of a newborn son) and memorial services etc; and c. those who practice Judaism from afar, those who are satisfied with keeping Kosher and attending synagogue on Yom Kippur.

The common denominator between these groups is that they respectfully interact with ease during communal events and other occasions. The connection between these groups is not artificial because the people themselves do not see each other as belonging to different worlds. Instead, they see themselves as one family, while recognizing the fact that there are those who keep this or that mitzvah with more or less dedication, and they value those who keep more of the Mitzvoth. Each of these groups feels connected to God in different ways and no one excludes any community members based on observance level or religious devotion.

The second group is made up of people who feel close to Orthodoxy even though they are not considered full Sabbath observers. Nevertheless, they respect the tradition and feel a strong connection to the rabbinical world and to the figure of the Rabbi, especially those Rabbis who take part in the communal events we described above. 

It is interesting to understand how such a large population of people and their families, who do not keep the Shulchan Aruch, and who have no intention of doing so, feel so connected to those with a higher level of religious observance. It can be said that the rabbinic world is connected to these communities, and to those who feel a strong obligation towards religious observance. These rabbis also have a special wisdom that guides those who have blatant 'religious shortcomings' to make sure that no matter how a person keeps the mitzvoth, he or she still has a place within the community, a place where one can feel at home in synagogue and not like a visitor. This Masorti or Traditional Jew can even participate in the prayers by reading some of the psalms during the service. He will not hesitate to have a torah Shiur held at his house as a way of honoring a sick relative; he will not consider this hypocritical or insincere. He will never hear from the rabbinic circle to which he is obligated "Who are you kidding?", or "Stop being such a hypocrite!", or "Where are your true loyalties?" Absolutely not! In our communities we know many people such as these and we make them feel welcome as they are an integral part of our community.

How do you create this feeling of belonging? First of all, it is important to make sure that the more observant people in the communities do not dominate the synagogue and community events. One group is not better than the other and instead there should be respect for all of those who wake up early and take the time to get to synagogue for Shacharit.

For example, there was a man within our community who did not attend synagogue on a regular basis but did know how to pray. He would lay Tefillin every morning at home before going to school and we would see him at community events and sometimes on Shabbat. When this man's father's memorial (Hazkara) was coming up, he prepared for the reading of the Haftorah and the synagogue community was very supportive of this. He read the Haftorah beautifully.

The Network and the Ladder

In order to understand how a community is able to function with such diversity it is important to understand how our spiritual world is designed.  There are two ways to understand the development of community: the ladder model and the network model.

In a ladder community, it is clear to each member who is "above" him or her, with regard to spiritual efforts and ability to speak his mind within the community. Below the Rabbi, who is the highest religious leader of the community (Mara datra), are those considered more torah observant (Torani'im), those that are scrupulously devout. The person at the bottom of the ladder will have a hard time participating in communal events or expressing his opinions within the group, he will feel like a visitor in his own community as compared to his friends who are higher up on the ladder. The person on the lower levels of the ladder feels that the fact that he is accepted into this community despite his low ranking on the ladder is already a Hesed, an act of benevolence on the part of those higher up and he will always feel like a guest. He will never feel truly part of the community.

On the other hand, in the network model, everyone lives together in a close-knit community, connected together in one group. There are some areas of the network that are weaker and some that are stronger but everyone is interconnected within the network. An example of this is when a rabbi plays a central role within this network, and using his esteemed position, he is able to significantly influence community processes. On the other hand, those who are not so important and who have very little connection with those in the network do not feel out of place or lesser than anyone else within the network.  They are equal to other members of the community. As we mentioned in the previous example, these individuals are aware of the unique power they have within the community, as compared to other more prominent community members with regard to Mitzvoth. This outlook, even if it is not considered a method, is very similar to communities of the Sephardic traditions, and this perspective is advantageous because everyone fits in, and at the same time, communal leadership is preserved. Sometimes we will find a mix of these two models, with the rabbi of the community above the community as a neutral unifying force and the rest of the community an equal part of the network.

Between Man and God and Man and Man

The world of Mitzvoth is divided into two different categories, those between man and God and those between man and his fellow man. In the religious world there is a tendency to define one's level of religious observance based on the fulfillment of Mitzvoth between God and Man, such as Shabbat, Kashrut, family purity, prayer etc. The reason for this is clear: the Halachic boundaries are clearer in this realm, and it is easier to define who is 'in' and who is 'out'.

While we do not want to disregard the importance of these boundaries, there is a scenario in which we can emphasize the significance of the Mitzvoth between man and man, for example, supporting a friend in need financially, spending quality time helping those in need or performing simple acts of  Hesed (benevolence). We should encourage, public responsibility for what happens within the community, from helping a neighbor find a job to visiting a sick or elderly person. Mitzvoth related to trade such as Yosher (honesty in commerce), Amida b' Diburo (Keeping your word with regard to business transactions) etc, do just this. These are Mitzvoth that can significantly broaden the number of community members who keep Mitzvoth.

For example, there is a man in our community who gets up early to pray at dawn at home and then hurries to work, works all day, comes home to help his family get ready for dinner, does homework with his kids, and helps put them to sleep and then he stops by the synagogue for the Arvit service and participates in the evening torah lesson where he falls asleep throughout. This man is active in the community Hesed committee and helps distribute food to the poor and provides homework help for disadvantaged children in the community. This man does not know a lot of torah and he even goes to work without a Kippa.

On what rung of the ladder should we place this man? In some communities he has a good chance of being very low on the ladder because he does not keep enough of the mitzvoth between God and man. Indeed, this Jew still has a long way to go in his spiritual journey (as do we all) but it is essential to recognize the entirety of his actions within the community.  When we treat individuals such as this man with respect, it creates a feeling of belonging and can encourage an improvement in mitzvah observance.

There is an interesting example in our community in Southern Israel where teenagers do not come to prayers on a daily basis (instead, they opt to lay Tefillin at home). We see them in full attendance during Elul for Selichot. How should we react to such a thing? Someone outside of our community could say to them that they are mistaken if they think they can "blackmail" God, if they think that they can make up for a whole year of not attending services by waking up early for Selichot around the time of Yom Kippur.

We should view these young men in a different way. We should recognize that during the month of Elul these young men feel a closeness to their Creator, a feeling that is strong in their hearts; this is the feeling that encourages them to come to synagogue and to recite the Selichot. These boys do not see this as a contradiction to their behavior throughout the year.  There is no doubt that we should try to influence these young men to come to services throughout the year, but we should also value what they do now and be aware that it represents the strong connection they maintain with God.

As we review these examples, we realize that what causes these gaps between different groups in Israeli society is that we emphasize the differences between us instead of concentrating on the similarities. Using the worldview described in this essay, we can see a future for Israel that is united and not segregated. This is true in religious circles (as we said about valuing all of the Mitzvoth – those between God and man and those between man and man), this is true in the human realm (sociological definitions becoming irrelevant or inaccurate for example, Kippa wearing as a sociological indicator of faith or within those who wear Kippot, each Kippa indicating allegiance to a specific group) and this is true in the connection between life and serving God – do you achieve the desired behavior by severing ties with the professional world and withdrawing into the world of the Yeshivot and Kollels, or do you achieve this behavior through unifying a professional life with a life of learning, torah, community and family all guided by a strong belief in God. The idea of Torat Eretz Israel sees the torah as something open to physical, material life. Paradoxically, this idea was preserved in Sephardic Jewish communities outside of Israel and we are obligated here in Israel to develop the elements of a Jewish society where we serve God in Eretz Yisrael.

Rabbi Isaac Chouraqui, Director of Rabbinic Leadership Program

Rabbi Isaac Chouraqui is the Director of the Rabbinic Leadership program at Memizrach Shemesh. He also serves as the Rabbi of Yad Ramah Synagogue in Jerusalem.

Rabbi David Zenou, Coordinator of Rabbinic Leadership Program

Rabbi David Zenou is the Coordinator of the Rabbinic Leadership program at Memizrach Shemesh. He serves as a Rabbi at Moshav Shalva near Kiryat Gat.

     I’d like to begin by quoting to you a passage from Rabbi David Hartman, from his book, The Living Covenant. He writes:

Traditional Judaism has always contained a vital dialectic between [“Ze Keli v’anvehu”] “This is my God and I will adore Him” and [“Elokei avi v’aromimehu[DEA2] ”] “The God of my father and I will exalt Him” (Exodus 15:2). Loyalty to the God about Whom our fathers told us does not exclude the discovery of new insights and experiences that lead one to say, “This is my God.” The past does not exhaust all that is possible within one’s covenantal relationship with God. When Moses asks God how he should announce God’s “name” to the community, he is told to say that he was sent by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but also the God Who is worshipped through the new possibilities that the future may uncover: “I will be what I will be” [“Eheyeh asher eheyeh”]. One loyal to Sinai does not only look backward. (Living Covenant, 8–9)

In the past year and years, members of the JOFA community and its sympathizers have made great strides taking ownership over and elevating “elokei avinu.” We have appropriated the Torah of our fathers into our own batei midrash, adding the Torah of our mothers. We’ve gotten to know the God mediated through Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaacov—and countless other men—as we shared our own voices, and those of our matriarchs, through learning and through ritual. We have faithfully inherited our tradition, struggled with it where necessary, and have—to a large degree—rendered it accessible to girls and women everywhere. While there is certainly work yet to be done, we have widened the halakhic path, so that all members of the Jewish community who want to can participate in the ongoing journey from Sinai. In so doing, we have certainly exalted God.

     Yet, with gratitude for all that we have accomplished and with a strong awareness for the battles that remain, I would like to pose a different question: Have we taken sufficient time or made sufficient space for “Ze keli”? Has all the permission and all the inclusion helped us in the project of identifying and reifying a personal God? With all our holy and rightful reverence for our past, are we any more capable of opening ourselves to the unfolding of Eheyeh, of a self and a God in the process of becoming? To what might we point and say, “This is my God”?

     Hartman’s concern accents the temporal—Can the God of our past be made present? My concern accents the spiritual—Can God, as mediated through our tradition, be made personal?

     I am charged with the task today of addressing the nexus of spirituality and Orthodox feminism. I come to you not as a guru or even as an enlightened practitioner; not as a rabbi nor as a rabbah, but simply as a woman, Jewish educator, and seeker eminently committed to expanding the possibilities for religious life in the Modern Orthodox community. I want to enlarge the sphere of our religious concern, to place at the center of our religious discourse and our religious experience the cultivation of spirit.

     To give shape to this call, I’d like to sketch for you two entry-points to spirituality—two among many, no doubt—that are captured by the phrase, “Ze keli,” “This is my God.” Recall that these words are part of shirat haYam, the song sung after the splitting of the Red Sea, in celebration of the miraculous liberation from Egypt. Rashi, quoting the Mehilta, famously writes on these words:

God revealed Godself in His glory to [the Israelites], and they pointed at God with their finger. By the sea, [even] a maidservant perceived what prophets did not perceive.

     What was available to all of Benei Yisrael—and Benot Yisrael—at the moment of great salvation was the gift of transparency: Ze keli. They could point to their immediate experience and say, “This is the hand of God.” After years of toil in the land of Egypt, after generations in which God was eclipsed from their lives, they were blessed with a moment of absolute clarity. They could perceive with certainty the urgent, unmistakable presence of a God who heard their cries and who delivered.

     I submit to you that one central impulse in the spiritual quest is the longing to be able to say “Ze,”—that is, to encounter God in ways that are immediate, powerful, palpable; to invite experiences of kedusha, or of devekut, that fill a person with awareness of transcendence. The spirituality of “ze keli” demands a relationship with the divine that is intense, real, urgent. It asserts that there is a live Other to whom one can point.

     How? In the absence of sea-splitting pyrotechnics that testify to God’s power, we might yearn in our times for more subtle moments that testify to God’s presence. “Ahat sha’alti me’et Hashem ota avakesh: Shivti beBeit Hashem kol yimei hayyay, lahazot beNoam Hashem u’livaker beHekhalo,” says the Psalmist, a seeker of God if ever there was one. “I ask one thing of God: Let me sit in Your home all the days of my life, to see your glory and to visit your inner sanctum” (Psalm 27:4). We cannot hope for supernatural miracles that will lift the veil of the world. That is not the reality in which we live. We can, however, try to sit quietly with sanctity and even to encounter deep holiness from time to time. The cry of “shivti beBeit Hashem” reminds us that spirituality—so often associated with experiences of ecstasy—can also just be found in the simplicity of everyday living, of sitting with what comes our way and dwelling with God there.  Only then might we be blessed with a visit to the hekhal, to the place of innermost depths.

     This is one way that we might reclaim “ze keli”—through the cultivation of a compelling relationship with God. Just as our ancestors could see God at the sea, so our generation is charged to figure out, where is it that we see God? As individuals and as a community, what might we do—

• what spiritual practices might we adopt?
• what intentions might we set?
• what spaces might we share?
• what texts might we learn and how might we learn them?
• what prayers might we pray?
• what goals might we privilege?

—that will allow us best to dwell in the house of God? What are the religious pathways that will speak to our souls? What will be our avenues to the hekhal?

* * *

     Beyond the explicitly spiritual agenda of getting to know a God to whom one can point, there is a second dimension to “ze keli” spirituality. Experiences like the kind at the Red Sea rarely last, of course. It is not the nature of the divine mystery to remain disclosed. The moment that Benei Yisrael exit the miraculous space—literally and figuratively—they are struck with fear, with a lack of trust in their future. They worry about whether the God who just dramatically and spectacularly saved them from their enemies can also sustain their humdrum, everyday needs. “Ma nishte?” they ask (Exodus 15:24). What will we drink in the desert? What will we eat? In other words, what will nourish us now? No amount of spiritual enlightenment could save them from the vulnerability of being human.

      A second impulse in the spiritual life can be located here, not in the ascent to the divine, but in the descent to all that is inescapably human. In those moments when life—in all of its complexity—intrudes and awakens and unsettles, those are the moments when we might open to a world beyond—beyond self, beyond what we thought, maybe beyond words. It is a strange truth that when we feel most raw and vulnerable, when our skin is thinned by the wild unpredictability of the world, we are that much more available to the touch of the other. Like a body burned by the sun, we feel more—more fear, but also more tenderness. “MiMa’amakim keratikha yah,” “From the depths, I call out to God”—not just from the place of despair, but from within the arresting grip of life laid bare.

     Joy and pain, fulfillment and disappointment, compel the deepest, hardest, most fundamental existential questions:

• In what can I trust?
• For what am I grateful?
• How can I cope with loss?
• How can I honor love?
• What is intimacy?
• For whom or what shall I sacrifice?
• Where does my integrity lay?
• How can I live in the face of fear, uncertainty, and doubt?

Like Benei Yisrael thirsting for water in the desert, we too might wonder: What will nourish me?

     I submit, it is the task of spirituality to take on these challenges too, not to answer them, but to help us live without answers; to help us cope with and embrace mystery; to live in the world as it really is. A Jewish path that accents these questions seeks to reframe the stories we tell ourselves. It seeks to help us make meaning out the mess of our colorful, wonderful, unpredictable, uneven existence. It seeks to help each and every one of us to find our way toward a God that is truly our own. Ze Keli. This is my God—a God who speaks to my personal issues, my deepest needs, the cravings and confusions of my own soul.

     For this task, the language of halakha alone won’t do. Seekers of these forms of spirituality need a wider, more varied pathway—through Aggadah, Midrash, Mussar, Hassidut; through prayer, meditation, song, and silence; through modalities of religious engagement that are neither systematic nor systematizing in their nature. To meet the cries of our explosive, expressive souls, we’re going to need to privilege those texts, those teachers, and those techniques that help reify God in the world, and in the core of our beings.

* * *

     Is this a project for Orthodox feminists? Absolutely. As a community that has valiantly fought to expand ritual access, leadership roles, learning opportunities, and social justice, it is our duty to clarify what it is that animates these struggles altogether, what mission under girds the religious life, and what makes the effort worth it. It is also our privilege—the privilege won from years on the periphery—to speak to the core and to enlarge and elevate the conversation, to expand the possibilities for a spiritually vibrant existence for all Jews.

     Let us be not just inheritors of tradition, but active shapers of it. As we honor Elokei avinu veImenu, let us commit—today and always—to cultivating lives full of a profoundly present and personally meaningful God, so that each one of us might be blessed to say, “Ze keli veAnvehu.”

I first started going to daily minyan for one selfish reason. I simply wanted to be with my husband. Three days after getting married, we were in our new home, and my husband awoke early for minyan. He was getting up, so I got up too. I certainly wasn’t ready to be apart from him, so I accompanied him to the synagogue. It was my first early morning weekday minyan. Prior to our marriage, it never occurred to me to attend daily minyan in a synagogue. Why on earth would I schlep to a synagogue for morning services when I could say Shaharit at home amidst the whirlwind of bathing, blow-drying, breakfast, and then the mad dash to work?

That was 11 months ago. Surprisingly, I quickly became hooked. I continued to attend daily minyan, going morning and evening almost every single day. The biggest surprise of all, however, was witnessing the quiet beauty that exists when men pray together on a regular basis. This beauty continues to unfold before me and perpetually takes my breath away: I was totally unprepared. Unfortunately, words are hopelessly inadequate tools for capturing the intricacies and undulations of the beauty of daily minyan. The ability to appreciate the wonderment comes only from experiencing the subtleties of daily minyan, from glimpsing the deep relationships that exist with God. Given the limitations of language, I will still do my best to relate what daily minyan feels like at Shearith Israel. Keep in mind, my perspective is from the other side of the mehitsa, where I have the wonderful freedom to inhale all of it.

I am blessed to belong to Congregation Shearith Israel, also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of New York. Founded in 1654, we are the first and oldest Jewish Congregation in North America. I am infinitely blessed to be married to the rabbi of the community. I am also a member of the community, something that brings me immeasurable pride and delight. My understanding of daily minyan is limited my experiences at Shearith Israel. I hope, however, that every member of every daily minyan team feels so passionately about their home synagogue and the people with whom they pray.

My husband refers to the daily minyan team as the “spiritual backbone of Shearith Israel.” Not only are they the backbone; they are the heart, the soul, the spirit, and the sense of humor too. These men believe in regular communal prayer, and their commitment to it is inspiring. These are the men who brave snow, rain, heat, and power outages to make minyan. These men will give up the Superbowl or take a cab straight from the early arrival gate at the airport to make sure they pray in a minyan. These are the men who believe it is important for every person saying kaddish to be able to do so in a minyan, whether it is a member of Shearith Israel or someone who walks in only once to honor the memory of a loved one. These men will stay on a Sunday morning to ensure that a couple from another country can fulfill their dream of getting married according to Jewish Law. These men will become worried if a “regular” misses just once, because everyone notices and everyone matters. These are the first people who knew I was pregnant because I stopped attending morning minyan, and they got concerned. They all figured out what was up, and smiled without saying a word, because that is just how they are.

Many people talk about spirituality as if it is the latest fashion or diet craze. Like true style and good nutrition, spirituality is not something that just comes and goes. It is a constant pursuit. It is lived every single day. It is in every breath, in every blink. Often times it is so subtle that many easily miss it or mistake it for something else. Just as it is easy to walk into a fancy store and spend a lot of money on something the salesperson says is the hot new item of the season, so too it is easy to find a “spiritual” workshop or retreat and have a powerful experience. The expensive outfit will be the wrong color next season and, if not internalized and integrated into daily life, the intense spiritual experience remains a distant memory, a snapshot posted on a wall next to a concert ticket.

We recently returned from a visit to Israel. We went to the Kotel a couple of times for Minha. I am always amazed at the scene at the Kotel. Here is a religious treasure, a jewel in the crown of the Jewish people and an important religious site for people of many other religions too. People are having mind-blowing spiritual experiences left and right. Women are crying, pleading, kissing the wall, posing for pictures, stuffing notes into every nook and cranny, taking photos of others praying. It is indeed beautiful, but I wonder how lasting this experience will be for many. Will it leave these visitors changed? Will it foster a new relationship with God? Will it lead to a commitment to prayer? A commitment to community? What happens when everyone goes home?

As one woman at the Kotel backed into me and then another ran over my foot with her stroller without acknowledging my presence, I was discouraged. How can each individual have such a “spiritual” experience while totally disregarding those around them? I longed for daily minyan, I ached for community.

One of the many things I love so much about Judaism is that religion does not happen in a vacuum. From the revelation at Sinai to the daily prayer services, it is about community. We have the siddur to formalize the prayer services and to allow for everyone to pray together. Certainly we can talk with God whenever we want, but when it comes to weekday Shaharit, Minha, and Arvit, we recite what is written and that links all of us. During Shabbat and the Haggim, we are connected by the words we all say, words written long ago by brilliant rabbis who understood the importance of bringing people together to thank God for our infinite blessings. We recite the same words our ancestors recited. Not only do we link to those in the room with us, but we are bound to those that stood before us and to those who will one day stand after we are long gone. Daily minyan exemplifies community.

Spirituality is a daily pursuit. It is not found in one visit to a holy site. It is not an amulet you buy in some far-off town. It is not practiced alone on a mountain top. It is a relationship based on commitment and trust and vulnerability. It is letting others see you during prayer, whether you are crying, or trying not to space out, or lost in the siddur, or in the  deepest recesses of standing before the Almighty, thanking God for countless blessing and praying that your children will be healthy or that God will protect the loved one you just lost. Spirituality is waking up early in the morning or rushing to minyan after a long and tiring day to pray as a community because people depend on you and because you are part of something bigger than yourself. Daily minyan exemplifies spirituality.

Now that my husband and I know we are expecting twins, I realize that my days of regular attendance at daily minyan are numbered. I am grateful beyond words to have such reasons to keep me from being able to attend minyan, but I will miss praying daily with my community. I will miss being part of the daily minyan team. My debt of gratitude to them will never be paid. They provide to the Shearith Israel community the most important thing of all: the ability for people to pray in a minyan. Yes, we have many wonderful programs. We have amazing classes and lovely celebrations. Yes, the beauty of our historic building is without parallel. Yet, none of this matters if someone can’t come and pray in a minyan. The daily minyan team is the axis on which the whole community of Shearith Israel spins. It is the foundation on which all else rests. I wish more people would be part of this special team, because there is plenty of space for everyone. The more people praying together, devoted to the tefillot, the stronger the backbone and the stronger the community. All anyone has to do is show up.

I am so happy I followed my husband to Shaharit after we got married. It is one of the best gifts he has given me.

The way most of us pray today is very different from the way prayer was originally intended. I share the opinion that what goes on in most Jewish “houses of prayer” of whatever community, denomination, sect, or form, is usually far from an exciting, uplifting spiritual experience. And if one compares what our prayer books require of us nowadays, especially over the Holy Days, to the bare bones of  Amram Gaon’s Siddur, the Mahzor Vitry, Rambam’s Seder Tefillot or the Abudraham, one wonders what happened and why.

Here is what Maimonides says in his “Laws of Prayer” Chapter 1.1:

1. It is a positive command to pray every day, as it says, “You will serve the Lord your God.” By tradition they learnt that this service is prayer, as it says, “to serve Him with all your hearts.” The rabbis said “What kind of service involves the heart? It is prayer.” There are no rules about this in the Torah nor is anything fixed about it in the Torah…

2. This obligation is that everyone should appeal to God every day and pray and praise the Holy One. Then one might ask God to address his personal needs.

It remains a Torah obligation to relate to the Almighty through personal, private prayer every day, regardless of what may or may not happen in a synagogue. This, I suggest, rarely happens.

It was with exile, Maimonides goes on to say, that the Jews lost the language, the means and the habits of personal prayer. During the Babylonian and Persian exiles, Ezra the Scribe introduced texts to the community to facilitate Jews’ obligation to pray as a sort of optional menu. Psalms (55:18) mentions the idea of praying three times a day, and in the book of Daniel (6:11), Daniel himself describes praying three times a day toward Jerusalem. In his case, he prayed privately in his loft. The Bet haKnesset, the community center and the Bet haMidrash, the house of study, may have developed in exile too. Without doubt, these institutions were developed during the Pharisaic era. But it was not until after the destruction of the temple that formal, communal prayer was officially instituted to replace the two daily “permanent” communal sacrifices, the Temidim of Shaharit and Minha. Controversially, as the Talmud records, (TB Berakhot 4b et al) Maariv was added first as an option, and only under Rabban Gamliel did it become an obligation. The text of what we now call the Amidah was fixed by the rabbis of Yavneh (with some later modifications) as the Talmud says: “Shimon Hapikuli laid out the order of prayer before Rabban Gamliel in Yavneh” (TB Berakhot 28b). The Talmud suggests that the prophets had initially done this but their innovations had been forgotten (TB Megillah 18a). With the destruction of the Temple, the study house became the central institution in Jewish life and continuity, and it tended to be conflated or merged with the House of Prayer.

I rehearse this well-known narrative because it is clear that there has always been in Judaism a dichotomy between personal, private prayer on the one hand and public, communal prayer on the other. Their functions are entirely different. Not everyone agrees with Maimonides, but if I understand his position correctly, the Torah ideal remains in force that individuals have an obligation to find very subjective and personal ways of connecting with, communicating with, or at the very least appreciating the magnitude of the divine presence in this world. Such an activity should include contemplation, meditation, and exercises in what is called “deveykut,” actually engaging with God. This can rarely be done in a crowded synagogue surrounded by other humans who often have no interest in such activity. It cannot be done while a Cantor performs, and most of all, it cannot be done “on demand.” I will concede that sometimes for moment, such as Kol Nidrei, such an effect can be achieved. But it rarely survives the initial phase except in very few situations such as those yeshivot with a strong tradition of prayer or a rebbe’s court. For the average Jew living in no such rarified situation, synagogues in general simply do not offer this experience of the divine.

I wonder if they were designed to. The Great Synagogue in Alexandria, where flags were waved to let distant parts of the building know when to say “Amen” (TB Sukkah 21b) cannot possibly been a place of personal engagement with Heaven. The services we have nowadays perform very different functions. They primarily function give us a sense of community and to actually get people together in ways that most religious obligations do not. Judaism makes demands on us both as individuals and as members of the community of Israel. Personal prayer remained personal. Yet over time, personal prayers and petitions were incorporated into the “prayer” format, as a matter of convenience. To reinforce the sense of community, it was insisted that prayer with a quorum would be more effective than without.

Jewish prayer was dramatically affected by the Medieval experience. Herded into claustrophobic, foul ghettos under Christianity and Islam, most Jews wanted to escape the overcrowded hovels they often shared with animals. The synagogue was the only large and airy building in the community. They also needed to come and go and to stay together for safety. That was where they wanted to be and spend as much time as possible. No wonder the services got longer and longer.

The prevailing culture was also one in which any and every educated person expressed him or herself in poetry. Hence the great payyatanim who spread under Islam from Israel to Spain to Northern Europe and churned out religious poetry in formal structures and conventions that were incorporated into services. But it was not without a heated debate between those who wanted more within the services and those who wanted less. And in parts of northern Italy, music was added to the services. Before Shabbat, quartets often helped create the peaceful reflective mood.

Then came the explosion of mystical Judaism. The great mystic R. Yitzhak Luria was responsible for introducing songs, for walking out into the fields, for praying on the hills of Safed. The attempt to experience God moved from human-made structures to nature and back. The existential aspect of prayer, its singing and ecstasy as much as its communal aspect, influenced the great Hassidic reformation. But then, like all revolutions, began to lose its iconoclasm and creativity and sank back into formality. Still to this day in many Hassidic courts you will hear singing and ecstatic prayer that would be unimaginable in most synagogues in the West.

And there is another dichotomy in the evolution of prayer we often overlook. Is it prayer or study that brings us closer to God? You can see this issue emerging in the debates in the Talmud, too (TB Berakhot 8a and 30b). The Study House was the essential communal building. Was it the influence of both Christianity and Islam, with their emphasis on the Church and the Mosque that affected the way Judaism evolved?

I recall most vividly the seminal experience of my youth, Be’er Yaakov yeshiva in 1958. The brilliant Rosh Yeshiva Rav Shapiro z”l, a contemporary of my father’s at Mir and from the Brisk family, was the archetypal Lithuanian. Nothing brought him closer to Heaven than the mental concentration on Talmud Torah. He, like my later influence Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz z”l of Mir, manifestly tore himself away with great reluctance from his study when the academy broke for prayers. You could sense the desire to finish the obligation as quickly as possible. Rav Volbe, the Mashgiach, also from Mir, was altogether of different nature. Prayer for him was to stand in the presence of the Almighty and to lose oneself in another world. It was compelling to see his concentration and physical transformation when he prayed. It was yeshiva prayer in Be’er Yaakov that had a greater impact on my spiritual life than any other single event or encounter. It was so different to anything I had ever experienced in any other kind of prayer building or room, not even the great atmosphere of Mir in Jerusalem on the Yamim Noraim. In Be’er Yaakov, in one Beis haMidrash, in one small institution, a person could witness two contrasting models of Jewish prayer. It is true to say that the students divided pretty evenly in the examples on which they modeled themselves.

For many years I was a pulpit rabbi in large Orthodox synagogues, where most of those present came for social reasons and for whom the synagogue service was a form of entertainment; the rabbi preaching, the hazzan singing. Prayer was burdensome. Most did not understand the words or the meaning. Personal devotion was an afterthought. Talking throughout the service in both men and women’s sections meant that even if one wanted to pray it was almost impossible to concentrate. I was reminded of this problem recently in the impressive Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in Manhattan on a Friday night when I wanted to absorb the atmosphere and enjoy the liturgy. But two gentlemen sitting in the back row talked continuously and loudly right through what was a very short service that I just ended up feeling angry and frustrated. No one, it seemed, dared to approach them or try to shut them up.

Often big synagogues are packed on occasions such a bar mitzvah or Shabbat hattan, when the social side completely takes over. Many visitors have no idea what is going on or how to behave. The boredom is exaggerated by dragging out the honors and extending the service for hours. No wonder taking an unofficial break for a shot of whisky is the only way many people can get through it all. But even in a synagogue packed with apparently religious people, there is total disregard for the black-and-white laws of the Shulhan Arukh and its commentators on the need for silence, space, and consideration during prayer. No wonder it is so hard to encounter the Almighty in a synagogue. That is why the yeshiva world looks down with scorn on what it calls “ba’al haBayyit davening.”

An alternative and increasingly popular model that goes back to Eastern Europe is the shtiebel, literally “little room.” The first ones I encountered were off the marketplace in Mea Shearim. At almost every hour of the day or night, you could walk in to any one of a honeycomb of little rooms. As soon as there was a minyan, someone would start and you simply said everything that had to be said without ceremony, in a businesslike atmosphere. You would be in and out in a quarter of the time that you would in similar service in a big synagogue. I found it much more satisfying because it was informal. And if I wanted to meditate or have a chat with the Almighty, I made sure I found some private time and space during the course of the day. This model is essentially one of simply fulfilling an obligation. Of course, it an important aspect of halakhic behavior. But for more and more people, the routine performance is not enough. It meets one kind of need but not another more passionate kind of religious experience.

Then there is the educational challenge of prayer. When I was the Headmaster of a Jewish residential school for students mainly of non-Orthodox backgrounds, we used to have modified traditional services that cut out the “optional extras.” So a structure developed that was based on the essential elements of the biblical obligation to recite Kri’at Shema and its attendant blessings, the rabbinical prayer, the Amidah and Kri’at haTorah on Mondays Thursdays and festive days. It was short, conducted mainly by the pupils with familiar popular tunes and active participation. I cannot claim it won over many pupils. But I do know that most looked back with nostalgia at is beauty and simplicity when they left and encountered more conventional services.

I recall, again in my Headmaster days, being faced by the usual complaints that the obligatory morning services were boring. I urged pupils to be creative. I asked them come up with a different way of spending the first half hour of each day in some spiritual activity of a specifically Jewish character if they found the traditional services boring. But that took effort and hard work. Invariably they started enthusiastically, but soon gave up and asked to return to the old, well-established ways. Tradition has its uses but feeling comfortable with it requires serious effort, as indeed does mastering any different process or language.

Over the years I have gone through all sorts of different experiences. I have had my Shlomo Carlebach-Happy Clappy phase. But I grew out of it. I spent years praying in various Hassidic courts. Some prayed slow and some very fast so as, it was claimed, not lose concentration. I certainly never entered a large synagogue if I could possibly avoid it. I enjoy hazzanut, but not during prayer time and certainly not when it drags out the service. And most sermons bore me.

I currently pray mainly in a small Persian community. I am often asked how different it is. The variations in the text are minor. The main superstructure is the same and easily recognizable. The sounds are different but that is a matter of upbringing and cultural preference. The problems, however, are the same. Does one go to synagogue to pray and study or to chat? Do I as a rabbi have to spend my time like a Headmaster calling for order? Or do I have the right to switch off and pray regardless of what is going on around me?

Whatever my preferences, I have always encountered other Jews who disagreed with me. Some preferred the big performance, the big event, the sense of being together, to the modest utilitarian alternatives I tried to recommend. Yet it is right that it should be so. We are not all alike. We have different intellects and tastes and needs. There should be alternatives.

In my professional role I always recall the famous talmudic story of Rabbi Akivah. When he was conducting services he was the first to finish so as not to inconvenience the congregation. But when he prayed alone he was left long after everyone had departed still standing amongst the pillars of the hall in deep prayer (TB Berakhot 31a). At the same time I wonder why, if the weight of talmudic opinion was in favor of abbreviated prayers such as “Havinneynu” (TB Berakhot 29a), nowadays is it almost anathema? It seems we are too concerned with conformity and not enough with living a truly spiritual life.

For all my criticism I believe we are living in exciting times. More and more people are willing to experiment. Whereas once this inevitably meant casting off the requirements of tradition, now the trend is to find resolutions within tradition without throwing the baby out with bathwater. One of the joys of many Jewish communities where there is a critical mass is that one can on shul-crawl a Shabbat and experience a wide range of alternatives—and possibly find one that accords with one’s temperament and background. Of course this may lead to a kind of parasitism in which we neglect our obligations to support communal institutions. But if we discharge our obligations to community, there is no reason why we should not choose to pray where we feel comfortable.

I would argue that so long as the essential halakhic elements remain in place, it is an obligation to try to find new ways of making the service stimulating, inspiring, and attractive. I also believe that more energy should go into trying to find completely new styles of worship rather than tinker with existing ones. That would mean giving people more choices. I would suggest that there must be creative ways in which female spirituality could create totally new atmospheres and experiences without being constricted by established male modes and norms. Many big synagogues have already begun to act as holding companies offering different styles of services under one roof. 

            Regardless of the style of service, or the regularity of one’s attendance, one must, I believe, reestablish the practice of personal prayer outside of synagogual structures. Meditation and contemplation in a totally secular style, or one borrowed from another religion, have brought relief and inspiration to many in the West. But we, too, have our exercises and meditations. One need look no further than Avraham Abulafia to realize they have been part, albeit a neglected part, of our heritage for a thousand years. We must revive them.

Leo Baeckin a volume of essays entitled Judaism and Christianity, contrasts Christianity as a romantic religion with Judaism as a classical religion. The romantic relies on the experience, the stimulation of beautiful buildings, music, canonicals, and ceremonial to induce a sense of devotion, worship, and spirituality. The classicist works on himself to make it happen. Many of us have become too much influenced by an alien culture that we seek to emulate, one in which we expect to be stimulated religiously from outside of ourselves. In fact the Jewish way is to make things happen rather than expect others to do it for us. This applies regardless of where one goes to pray in public or alone. C.S. Lewis says in his Screwtape Letters that the quickest way to divert someone away from religious experience is to get then to focus on what is going on around them.

Or ha-Hayyim: Creativity, Tradition and Mysticism in the Torah Commentary of R. Hayyim ibn Attar

By: Ariel Evan Mayse[i]

God’s Torah lay written before me; it awakened me and gave me expression. It illuminated my soul in the sweetest of lights, and my soul felt as if she had seen its secrets. She will eat and become sated of its savory delights, though many remain yet untasted; in the light of the countenance of the living King.

                                                           - R. Hayyim ibn Attar, Hakdamat ha-Rav ha-Mehaber

            A few years ago a friend of mine spent the weekend in a Hasidic enclave in upstate New York. When he entered the beit midrash early Shabbat morning, he noticed a young Hasid poring over the Or ha-Hayyim commentary on the Torah with obvious fervor and reverence. My friend walked over and asked why he had chosen to learn a Sephardic Torah commentary at this time, since many Hasidim have the custom of studying Hasidic books of mystical thought before the morning prayers. With surprise and horror, the lad looked up and immediately replied: Neyn! Vos zogstu?! Dos iz a khasidishe seyfer! [No! What do you mean?! This is a Hasidic book!]

This story is indicative of the great affection felt for R. Hayyim ben Moshe ibn Attar (1696-1743) even outside of the immediate Sephardic world.[ii] This scion of the Moroccan Jewish community penned important works in both halakha and aggada, but the commentary on the Torah entitled Or ha-Hayyim is undoubtedly his most influential book.[iii] It was originally published in 1742, alongside the traditional triad of biblical text, Rashi, and Onkelos’ translation, and within a few decades had captured a relatively large readership among among European Jewish communities. Or ha-Hayyim rose from popular to canonical status when it became the most recent commentary to be included in many standard printings of the Mikra’ot Gedolot, some of which have since replaced the works of classical Rishonim with additional supercommentaries to Or ha-Hayyim itself.

            R. Hayyim’s commentary is a demanding but extremely rewarding study. His explanations are conceptually complicated, stylistically perplexing, and often more verbose than any of the other commentaries on the page.  Yet there is a depth and profundity in his words that emerges from amidst their difficulty. As I hope to demonstrate, at the core of R. Hayyim’s commentary stands a beautiful double helix of two seamlessly integrated approaches to interpreting the Torah: the search for the verses’ plain-sense on one hand, and the quest for their deeper mystical significance on the other. R. Hayyim has outspoken affection for peshat and often explains verses according to their plain-sense, contextual and literal meaning. However, his commentary is also a tremendous repository of creative mystical thought, informed by the kabbalistic tradition but not bound to the teachings of any particular school. While for some exegetes these goals have proven mutually exclusive, R. Hayyim maintained that both a verse’s peshat and its mystical significance are equally important and true. The primary goal of this study is to bring into sharper focus several of the most important mystical themes of his commentary, and to offer a few remarks on their potential relevance to contemporary Jewish conversations.[iv]

R. Hayyim ibn Attar was born in 1696 in Salé, Morocco, into an illustrious family descended from Spanish exiles.[v] The young R. Hayyim was educated in the traditional manner by his grandfather, but his early years were peripatetic and he was often forced to move from city to city on family business or to escape persecution. After marrying into a wealthy family that was distantly related, R. Hayyim devoted himself entirely to his studies for a number of years. Yet difficult times returned with the death of his father-in-law in the early 1720s. Without patronage, the combined hardships of economic crises, plagues and famines forced R. Hayyim into a series of relocations that eventually led him to Jerusalem.

R. Hayyim moved first to Fes, followed by a brief stay in Algiers, and then settled in Leghorn, where he once again found monetary support and made his home for several years.  There R. Hayyim began to teach Torah publicly and served as a communal leader, but by 1740 he and a small number of his close friends and students had resolved to immigrate to Israel in order to establish a new yeshiva. They disembarked in Acre in 1741, where they spent a full year before the epidemics in central Eretz Yisrael abated. After moving to Jerusalem the group founded the yeshiva Kenesset Yisrael, whose  students included the renowned polymath R. Hayyim Yosef David Azulai (the Hida, 1724-1806). R. Hayyim ibn Attar died in 1743, and was subsequently interred on the Mount of Olives. The synagogue named for him in the Old City of Jerusalem is still an active place of worship, and to this day R. Hayyim’s literary legacy remains quite influential in many religious circles.

Creativity, Tradition, and the Nature of Torah

            Before embarking on our exploration of the mystical aspects of Or ha-Hayyim, briefly examining two related issues will help us clarify a more fundamental question: how R. Hayyim understood the role and limits of biblical interpretation. First, examining his attitude toward the classical commentators will demonstrate to what extent he felt himself at creative liberty to offer interpretations, both mystical and plain-sense, that contrast those adduced by earlier sages. Second, illustrating R. Hayyim’s conception of the nature of the Torah itself will reveal the underlying principles upon which his interpretive approach is based. These two questions were first analyzed in an enlightening book in Hebrew by the late Professor Elazar Touitou, yet since to my knowledge his important findings have never been made available in English, nor have they been subsequently challenged or developed, it will surely be of worth to present and expand upon them here.

R. Hayyim was a latecomer to the stage of Jewish biblical interpretation. By the early eighteenth century the “golden age” of exegesis by Western European Rishonim had long since ended. R. Hayyim is counted amongst the Sephardic Aharonim, whose literary works represent a vastly different stage of Jewish history. They wrote in a time after the major centers of learning in Spain had been destroyed and their leaders exiled to Christian Europe, North Africa, and Eretz Yisrael, forever transforming the intellectual centers of gravity of the Jewish world. Kabbalah, specifically the Zohar and later the works of R. Isaac Luria (d. 1572), had overtaken philosophy as the only other primary focus of Jewish study in the Sephardic Diaspora other than the Talmud itself, thus ending a centuries-long debate over the merits and demerits of rationalism and mysticism. The second half of the seventeenth century witnessed the dramatic rise and fall of the false messiah Shabbatai Tzevi, whose conversion to Islam left much world Jewry in shambles. Aharonim are generally thought of as far less daring than their early medieval counterparts, and this deferential shift in attitude is often attributed to the political and geographic turbulence. However, as we shall see, R. Hayyim’s commentary is bold and innovative in a manner largely uncharacteristic of this period. He was unafraid of disputing the interpretations of authorities that predated him, even those articulated by the revered Talmudic sages themselves.

            R. Hayyim notes that Hazal frequently offer homiletical (derash) interpretations of verses, which often come at the expense of the plain-sense meaning of the text. In some instances he agrees with their derashot and comments upon the verse in accord with their reading.[vi] However, in many cases R. Hayyim insists that the verse must be understood according to its peshat despite the Sages’ homiletical interpretation; though he does not deny the  legitimacy of their derashot, he presents an alternative reading that conforms to the plain-sense of the passage.[vii] R. Hayyim was fiercely committed to rabbinic legal norms, and in one case writes that he is unwilling to offer an otherwise valid interpretation that conflicted with halakha.[viii] Yet he reminds his reader that even Hazal agreed that the Torah would be interpreted in many different ways in the future,[ix] and as long as the law remains unchanged, students of biblical exegesis have nearly unlimited freedom.[x]

            R. Hayyim’s stance toward the classical medieval commentators is similarly complex. Despite having been deeply influenced by Rashi’s commentary, R. Hayyim gently disagrees with him on linguistic grounds, for misunderstanding statements of Hazal, and for giving original interpretations not in line with the peshat.[xi] In some cases R. Hayyim agrees with Abraham Ibn Ezra, while elsewhere challenging his reading of a verse; at times  R. Hayyim Ibn Ezra's opinion altogether.[xii] The same is true of his attitude toward Ramban, even though the latter's commentary includes a combination of peshat and Kabbalah not dissimilar to R. Hayyim's own style.[xiii] However, perhaps most striking of all is the relative infrequency of his engagement with the works of the Rishonim. Hoping to avoid plagiarism of any kind, he claims to have closed their books before sitting down to write his independent commentary, selectively citing earlier authorities from memory.[xiv] Only later did he compare his text to theirs, occasionally using their words to support his interpretation or contrasting earlier traditions with his own understanding of the verse.[xv]

We might thus characterize R. Hayyim ibn Attar’s attitude toward earlier interpreters as one of intermittent contradiction, or to be more precise, respectful contradistinction. While he repudiates their remarks when he deems them insufficient or not in keeping with the plain-sense of the verse, he does not deny the validity of their interpretations, nor does he attack them with any of the invectives wielded by the Rishonim against one another. R. Hayyim’s commentary itself offers a prepossessing blend of different homiletic styles, and it is immediately clear that he believes in no single correct explanation of a verse to which all readers must be obeisant. He often offers multiple interpretations of a single passage, occasionally deriving several dozen possible and correct meanings. This alone sets him apart from many of the earlier medieval commentators, with Ramban’s commentary the possible exception.

            R. Hayyim asserts that the Torah has myriad layers of meaning, and careful study of its polysemous words can yield any number of valid interpretations.[xvi] R. Hayyim  invokes the adage commonly found in mystical literature and explains that each of the four primary modes of interpreting the Torah (peshat, remez, derash, sod) corresponds to one of the kabbalistic worlds (asiya, beriya, yetzira, atzilut).[xvii] Elsewhere he writes that the Torah itself has an outer, plain-sense meaning, which surrounds and embodies its deeper mystical dimension (penimiyut).[xviii] This description does not simply proscribe how a reader should interpret the biblical text, but describes the very nature of the Torah itself. Furthermore, many intricacies of halakha were passed down as oral traditions, connected to the biblical text but found nowhere explicitly in its words, and the same is true of its kabbalistic significance. The Torah alludes to deeper mysteries that cannot be captured in writing and must be transmitted from student to teacher. Some of these are outside of the boundaries of language and are comprehensible through experience alone.[xix] In sum, while other exegetes have assumed that peshat and penimiyut are mutually exclusive ends of a spectrum, R. Hayyim’s belief that the Torah is multi-faceted and thus able to yield many coterminous explanations is the bedrock of his mystical approach to interpreting the biblical text.[xx]

Mysticism and Kabbalah

            R. Hayyim’s North African community retained much of the peshat sensibility beloved by the Andalusian Rishonim.[xxi] By the early eighteenth century this intellectual milieu was steeped in Kabbalah as well, and by R. Hayyim's time mystical approaches to interpreting the Torah coexisted alongside the quest for its plain-sense meaning. It is thus unsurprising that in addition to establishing peshat, Or ha-Hayyim's other raison d’être is to explain the mystical significance of the Torah’s words. As noted above, R. Hayyim does not see his mystical interpretations as necessarily contradicting the biblical text’s plain-sense meaning, but rather amplifying and often complementing it.[xxii] He often refers to this dimension of his exegesis as remez (allusion) or sod (secret), but from his commentary it is immediately apparent that R. Hayyim did not feel constrained to the symbols of one theosophical system alone. Instead, he synthesized different threads of earlier kabbalistic traditions and wove them together into a tapestry of mystical interpretation not beholden to any single tradition; this is a departure from the rather structured Kabbalah included in the commentaries of Ibn Ezra, Ramban, and Menahem Recanati (d. 1310). Indeed, though mystical ideas permeate nearly every page of his commentary, much of its depth is accessible to those with even an elementary background in Kabbalah.

R. Hayyim seems to have drawn the majority of his kabbalistic inspiration from the Zohar, which he assumes dates back to the early centuries CE. Sometimes he cites its passages as teachings of Hazal, others as words of the holy Tanna Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai,[xxiii] and quotes the Zohar by name in several dozens of passages.[xxiv] By contrast, R. Hayyim refers directly to the teachings of R. Isaac Luria a handful of times,[xxv] and only occasionally cites an oral or written tradition received in the great kabbalist’s name.[xxvi] While R. Hayyim refers to Lurianic ideas more subtly in other places, he never employs such specific keywords as tzimtzum or partzufim, and it is reasonably clear that his kabbalistic framework was  primarily non-Lurianic. This is rather surprising given that Luria’s was the dominant mystical voice in seventeenth and eighteenth century Jewish mystical discourse. Perhaps this trepidation reflects fears of association with the Sabbatian heresy based on a dangerous yet creative rereading of Lurianic Kabbalah. In a few allusive comments R. Hayyim expressed apprehension about revealing too much; he steadied his pen and refrained from writing down secrets that he felt could not be revealed to a popular audience.[xxvii] However, it is also possible R. Hayyim had limited primary-source exposure to the more theoretical complexities of Lurianic Kabbalah while writing the majority of his commentary.

            While the precise origins of his mystical thought require further clarification, it is indisputable that R. Hayyim's cosmology was deeply influenced by medieval Kabbalah.  In his description the spiritual plane and the physical world are not entirely distinct realms, and while there is a perceptible boundary between the human and divine spheres, a bifurcated division between “spiritual” and “corporeal” is anathema to his worldview. R. Hayyim understood the physical world as an intertwined composite of material and spiritual. All corporeal phenomena are animated by a core of divine energy; each aspect of existence is infused with an essential element of divinity, from the highest spiritual worlds to objects that which we perceive as fundamentally inanimate, .[xxviii] Mankind’s sins only have the capacity to lessen the flow of this divine energy, but they can never truly obstruct it. Without exception, all reality is sustained by God’s effluence.[xxix]

            This theme of divine immanence is developed throughout Or ha-Hayyim, but R. Hayyim treats it most fully in his comments on the creation narrative. To explain the seeming banality of the verse, “The heavens and the earth were completed in all their array” (Gen. 2:1), he writes:

We were at a loss as to what this verse is supposed to teach us, but its intention seems in accord with what the Sages taught, “God is the place of the world” (Bereshit Rabbah, 68:9). We find mentioned [in Scripture] that He also permeates the world, as it says, “the world is full of His glory” (Is. 6:3). Hence, the light of the blessed One both surrounds the world and is its inner essence.  

We must understand, why did God do things in this way? I received an oral tradition from the elder scholars of Torah that God created the world as a sphere so that it could continue to exist, since His powers are equally distributed. This should be explained as follows: Know that no yearning could be sweeter, dearer, more precious, beloved or desired amongst the created beings, especially their inner spiritual elements that recognize and know the light of God, than cleaving to the blessed One’s illumination. The vital core [of all creation] pines for Him, striving to apprehend the radiance of His light in some small way, craning to catch a glimpse of God’s pleasantness.

Know also that God imbued an element of illuminated wisdom and discernment in every aspect of creation, each according to its nature. Creatures that can speak and animals that cannot, as well as plants and minerals, all have the capacity to know their Maker in their own way….

… His sweet and yearned for light surrounds the spheres of the world uniformly, and each and every spot in the world’s rotation ignites the burning desire to draw close to the Tree of Longing equally…

… For this reason the world exists within the light of the Creator; His light fills the physical and surrounds it as well. The world continues to endure because of its great longing for God. [The word for “completion” used in] “The heavens and the earth were completed (va-yekhulu) in all their array” should be understood along the lines of “my soul longs and desires” (kaleta, Ps. 84:3). This is what truly completed and sustains creation.[xxx]

For R. Hayyim, this verse alludes to several important spiritual truths. First, God’s simultaneous immanence and transcendence may seem paradoxical, but it is precisely this tension that grants the physical world its perpetuation. The generative longing of creation for a transcendent God is made possible by their innate divine quality, the indwelling of a divine spark that sustains the world. Second, R. Hayyim believes in the capacity of all finite created beings to know God, albeit to varying degrees. The Divine remains beyond the absolute grasp of any of His creations, but the inner spiritual quality hidden within the physical means that everything has an unseverable capacity for connecting to the Divine.

            R. Hayyim demonstrates remarkable creativity and sensitivity in his ability to find mystical significance in the biblical text. In many cases these deeper messages actually represent his understanding of the plain-sense meaning of a verse, and do not come at the exclusion of the peshat he so values. For example, R. Hayyim connects the notion of a world infused with divine energy with the initial Shabbat of the creation story:

God created the soul (nefesh) of the world on the Sabbath day. This is the deeper meaning of the verse: “And on the seventh day He rested (shavat) and infused (va-yinafash)” (Ex. 31:17). From this the Sages’ taught that the additional soul mourns when the Sabbath departs (b. Beitza 16a), but theirs is only a homiletical interpretation… the plain-sense of the verse is that… “and infused” refers to God’s vital effluence pouring into all created beings, since before Shabbat everything lacked a soul.[xxxi]

R. Hayyim does not read va-yinafash as a reflexive description of God desisting from formative work, as it is often understood. Instead, his believes that its plain-sense meaning is an active verb demonstrating that God instilled a necessary current of metaphysical energy into the world through the creation of Shabbat.

            R. Hayyim adds that the deep yearning and love felt for God by His creations is entirely mutual. Identifying an interesting parallel between the words va-yekhulu in Gen. 2:1 and va-yekhal (“and God finished”) in the following verse, he comments:

Just above I translated the word va-yekhulu as referring to longing and desire, and we should translate the present [phrase] va-yekhal Elokim along the same lines, in accord with the verse, “You will long for the works of Your hands” (Job 14:15)… The Lord yearned for and desired His world, and thus through the Seventh Day the world is sustained…[xxxii]

The love between God and the physical world is thus reciprocal, cementing the bond between the created world and the Divine. However, R. Hayyim often focuses on an expression of God’s love that is more particularistic: His exceptional affection for the Jewish people. It was this love for Israel and His burning desire to wed them to the Torah that led to their redemption from Egypt. The delay of three months before reaching Mt. Sinai gave the Jews time to prepare themselves, as a bridegroom must during the period of his engagement. From God’s perspective, the ideal would have been to deliver them to the wedding canopy immediately.[xxxiii]

            Another prominent mystical theme found in Or ha-Hayyim is the mandate to redeem the “sparks of holiness” trapped within the physical world. This idea is closely related to God’s sustaining of  physical existence by the reinfusion the world with divine energy. However, the relationship between the sparks and corporeal realm differs in one important respect: the sparks also reflect the inherent brokenness of the world and its partial disunity from God. This condition began with the edenic sin and has only been exacerbated by mankind’s subsequent iniquity. The “husks” of physical reality that surround the sparks are described in distinctly negative terms:

Because of our abundant sins, many sparks of holiness are now bound within the husks, and … evil and good are all mixed together. For this reason one must separate the good from the bad, and the light from the darkness in which it has become entangled. However, it is known that the husks derive their vitality from holiness itself, and without this they would have no life force. Therefore, when God separates the light, which is the holiness, the discarded evil is left it without any place from which receive sustenance and will be nullified all on its own… this is similar to chopping down a tree and removing it from the very roots which give it life; it will become dried out and wither.[xxxiv]

Only a few decades later Hasidism would employ the vocabulary of the sparks to articulate an optimistic view of engaging with physical world, and as we have seen, in many cases R. Hayyim displays a similarly positive outlook. However, in others R. Hayyim tends more toward the dualism commonly found in the medieval kabbalistic tradition, which opposes coarse physicality with sublime spirit. Even the most impure corporeal matter is sustained by the holy sparks, but it cannot endure once we achieve the goal of returning them to their Source.[xxxv]  

            The sparks of holiness were originally scattered because of mankind’s sin, and R. Hayyim maintains that it is the task of the Jewish people to gather the sparks and remove them from the husks that surround them. He writes:

Primordial Adam was the tree upon which all holy souls were affixed, including all that had entered the world from its inception and all that ever will. When Adam sinned, [the side of] evil became much stronger and took countless [souls] captive. Since becoming a nation God’s [chosen] people have constantly striven to separate and remove them from whence they were swallowed up. They do this by means of the font of holiness that God planted in our midst: the Torah and mitzvoth.[xxxvi]

Mankind’s sin plunged the physical world into a state of fracture. The holy aspects within it, referred to alternatively as sparks, souls, and even aspects of God Himself, are now concealed behind veils of impurity.[xxxvii] However, the picture is not so bleak and all is not lost. Israel is charged with redeeming the trapped sparks and “returning them to a state of complete unity” through immersion in Torah study and performing their religious obligations with fervor and intensity.[xxxviii] This capacity is what defines Jewish people as a “nation of priests.”[xxxix] Even their most mundane actions are also reframed as spiritual activities; that we could have been created without the need for physical sustenance proves that eating and drinking must serve the higher purpose of uplifting the sparks trapped within the food.[xl] It was in order to fulfill this very responsibility that the Jewish people were dispersed across the world. Israel was thrust into exile in part because of their sins, but more importantly, they were they enjoined with task of uplifting the scattered sparks and freeing them from their corporeal prisons.[xli]

            R. Hayyim devotes very little space to the complicated and often obscure symbolism that characterized earlier Jewish mystical thought. He rarely refers to the sefirot by name, and I was able to find only one instance in which the term “sefira” itself appears in Or ha-Hayyim.[xlii] However, leaving the technical vocabulary of Lurianic Kabbalah and the Zohar does not mean that R. Hayyim shies away from a mystical conception of God. He discusses the Divine indwelling in the physical world (shekhina) at great length. For R. Hayyim, the shekhina is not the hypostatic entity conceived of in medieval Kabbalah, nor is it simply an abstract attribute of the Godhead. Instead, he describes the shekhina as a finite (if incorporeal) instantiation of God, fully united with Him but within the ken of physical beings and their limited faculties.[xliii] Israel met the shekhina on Mt. Sinai,[xliv] and it is with this the aspect of God that the angels can interact.[xlv] He notes that there are an infinite number of gradations of the indwelling of the shekhina. One particularly intense manifestation the can only be revealed to the fullest assembly of 600,000 people,[xlvi] but to a lesser degree God’s immanent presence may be found in the synagogue, the study hall, and with all who learn Torah together.[xlvii] Indeed, each Jewish individual can be transformed into a dwelling for the shekhina through performing the mitzvoth and  cultivating a sense of awe of the Divine [xlviii]

It should come as no surprise, then, that R. Hayyim sees mankind as the pinnacle and purpose of creation.[xlix] The unique qualities of the human soul connect them to the Divine in a manner that far exceeds the fundamental ability of all creations to recognize God mentioned above. Before entering the world, the human soul is a part of God that is incorporated into the supernal and sublime divine Light.[l] The soul maintains its permanent connection with the Divine even after being fused with a physical body; this bond allows the soul its lasting vitality even after the body has died.[li] The human soul also serves as a channel for divine energy into the physical realm. R. Hayyim describes it as the nexus that links upper spiritual worlds to the four elements, thus allowing corporeal matter to be infused with God’s effluence.[lii] The human soul is the ladder of Jacob’s dream, bridging between heaven and earth and uniting the two realms. The angels “ascending and descending upon it” are the mitzvoth; they are actions with the capacity to uplift the “supernal lights” (an allusion to kabbalistic theurgy) and bring down a “cascade of brilliant illumination” into the physical.[liii] Indeed, in observing the commandments  the righteous throw open the heavenly conduits through which divine energy enters the world.[liv]

R. Hayyim’s understanding of the nature of the soul is not democratic, and he clearly believes that non-Jews have a different metaphysical structure.[lv] Spiritual facility remains a spectrum even amongst the Jewish people. The soul is an innately holy spark that is given as a divine gift, but it must be continuously refined and polished in order to increase its capacity for illumination.[lvi] A soul is able to apprehend holiness and becomes a prism for refracting divine effluence into the world only to the degree that it has been consciously prepared for this task.[lvii] Prophecy is similarly a function of spiritual refinement.[lviii] The mitzvoth are beacons along this journey, since performing a mitzvah cloaks one in the light of the shekhina and banishes negative desires and cravings.[lix] It is the quest for devekut that gives the spirit within a person the strength to rule over the matter of the body, thereby willfully turning a heart full of earthly passions into an extension of the soul. This transformation is always possible, even for individuals who have become totally sunken in corporeality, since their soul is an expression of the divine light of the shekhina.[lx]

Mankind has a singular pneumatic capacity, yet one is only able to perceive God’s light while still a part of the physical realm. True divine essence remains forever beyond the threshold of human perception.[lxi] This might seem to incline one toward longing for death at the expense of valuing this world, and in some passages R. Hayyim does express a yearning for God that borders on asceticism.[lxii] When the Divine spoke directly to Israel’s souls on Mt. Sinai, they were so overwhelmed with love that they fled from their bodies in order to reunite with their Source.[lxiii] This intense longing for communion with the Divine even at the expense of one’s own life is best illustrated by R. Hayyim’s explanation of the fate of Aaron’s sons in Lev. 10:1-7:

Their death was the result of having come too close to God. With great love they approached the supernal Light, and in doing so they expired; this is the “kiss” with which the righteous die. It is the same for all righteous individuals, though while the kiss comes to some of them, others go forth and pursue it… even the feeling of their death drawing near cannot hold them back from the dearest and most pleasant devekut, beloved intimacy and sweetest affection, until their very souls expire.

The nature of this [experience] cannot be grasped. It lies beyond intellectual comprehension and cannot be expressed in words either spoken or written. It cannot even be imagined. In order understand it even to some small degree, one must remove the Evil Inclination that is holding him back. [Growing spiritual awareness] will allow one to see the signs of the accursed Inclination, and he can then nullify it and prevent it from getting in his way… as this ability increases within him, his soul will despise his flesh and will depart back to the house of its Father.[lxiv]

R. Hayyim’s warning about the dangers of intimacy with the Divine is quite powerful, but the continuation of this passage one of the most remarkable and untranslatable descriptions of mystical experience that I have ever seen. He repeats words built from the same linguistic root of s.k.l. over twenty times in quick succession, forging an assonantal matrix of expressions that simultaneously connote intellectual, spiritual and experiential illumination. This literary panzer-thrust must be meant to shatter the reader’s assumptions about the boundaries of human consciousness; mystical communion with God is indeed possible without being entirely eclipsed within His infinitude, but it cannot be described with words as they are ordinarily used. Put differently, R. Hayyim employs language in a non-rational way to refer to an ineffable but experienceable degree of mystical attunement that lies outside the frontiers of expression.[lxv]

The rapture of devekut is too powerful a siren’s call for some to resist, and they surrender themselves to death’s divine kiss. However, R. Hayyim’s overall understanding of mortality is a bit more complicated. His remarkable interpretation of the plain-sense of Deuteronomy 14:1 will help clarify this point:

“You are children of the Lord your God; do not gash yourselves nor shave the front of your head on account of the dead.” It seems to teach us that it is no great tragedy when a person dies. This may be likened to a person who sends his son to another city on business. After a time the father sends for his son, and the son loses nothing when he leaves the place to which he was sent. On the contrary, it is a boon for him to return to his Father, who is the Source of all Life. Therefore, the verse teaches us not to rend our flesh [in a display of excessive mourning].[lxvi]

The second half of the verse reiterates that death is certainly no occasion for rejoicing, but remembering that the soul is simply returning to its natural unity with God should temper the grief we experience. Elsewhere, he likens the departure of the righteous to a precious jewel being lifted from its case and affixed to the crown of the King.[lxvii]

            Given this understanding of departure from the physical world as a blessing, is there anything positive to the soul’s brief sojourn on earth? In accord with a major current of the rabbinic tradition, R. Hayyim reminds us that death must always be bittersweet, for it is only this world that we are able to perform mitzvoth:

“If the servant declares, I have loved my Master and my wife and children and do not wish to go free… he will be his servant forever” (Ex. 21:5). This verse refers to a Jewish servant who burns with fiery passion to serve his Maker. Even after his physical powers have dwindled, he still longs and yearns to serve his Master. This is the meaning of “I have loved Master and my wife and children,” which are the soul and the mitzvoth that he performs in this world. He has no wish to leave the world, becoming free of obligation like the dead. This teaches us about his desire and longing for his Master. God promises such a person that he will be called a servant of the Lord and his deepest desire will be fulfilled, but not now. At the moment he has no further connection to the world. “And he will be a servant forever” means that God will chose him from amongst the angels to be His faithful servant in the world to come.[lxviii]

There is an element of sadness that accompanies the release of death. The soul is conflicted by its desire to remain in the physical world where it can serve God through observing the commandments, to the extent that God must promise it that it will be able to do so once more, presumably referring to the time of bodily resurrection. Furthermore, the brief marriage between body and spirit is mutually fructifying. On one hand, the soul is itself refined by the time spent in a physical body. On the other, the spiritual energies with which it imbues our performance of mitzvoth enable us to leave a positive impression upon the physical world around us that extends far beyond our own death.[lxix]

In keeping with his beliefs in the cosmic centrality of man and the eternal relevance the Torah’s narrative, R. Hayyim often interprets biblical passages as sustained metaphors that shed light on the dynamics of the spiritual life and the power of the mitzvoth.[lxx] Indeed, his understanding of the relationship between the physical world, biblical text, and human consciousness dovetails with the ideal of mankind as summum bonnum of creation:

Know that all physical existence is but an analogue (dugma) for the spiritual. Just as earth needs to be worked, requiring seeding and rainfall in order to bring forth food, so must a person guard himself from anything damaging and negative that prevents him from blossoming. Today the ground of the soul, rather than the corporeal body, has taken the place of the Garden of Eden. It requires work and protection of a type befitting its spiritual nature. The rainfall [it needs] is the study of Torah… and the seeds are the mitzvoth that one performs.[lxxi]

The physical world takes on an added layer of symbolic meaning when reframed as a source of inspiration for spiritual growth. The corporeal realm has limitations, but since it is the only plane on which the mitzvoth can be performed, humans can attain a level of divine awareness beyond the reach of even such purely spiritual beings as angels.[lxxii]

R. Hayyim frequently describes the general mystical significance of the commandments, but devotes little time to outlining their specific kabbalistic undergirding.[lxxiii] As we noted above, the shekhina literally dwells upon one who is performing a mitzvah. Paraphrasing of a teaching in the Tikkunei ha-Zohar, R. Hayyim adds that the very word “mitzvah” is a permutation of the ineffable name of God; observing a commandment is thus a way of tapping into the spiritual energy held within the holiest of divine names.[lxxiv] Physical actions like bringing sacrifices return the sparks of holiness, tiny fragments of the Divine splintered by Adam’s sin and trapped in physical world.[lxxv] Following God’s will by performing the mitzvoth can even bring one to the state of devekut, or intense communion with the Divine.[lxxvi] In one of his slightly veiled allusions to the sefirot, R. Hayyim notes that “performing the mitzvoth opens up the pathways of effluence and unites the supernal midot,” drawing on the popular kabbalistic tradition that the commandments affect the upper realms as well.[lxxvii]

Though total immersion in Torah study receives special accolades,[lxxviii] R. Hayyim writes that all mitzvoth have deep mystical significance.[lxxix] This includes those mandated by logic (such as refraining from murder), or given explicit justification in the Torah (keeping the Sabbath). Hence, once cannot be selective in their observance.[lxxx] These reasons were revealed to Moses and his generation, but since then have been discerned only by rarefied individuals.[lxxxi] Ordinary people must endeavor to comprehend the secrets according to their ability, yet R. Hayyim says explicitly that the mitzvoth are spiritually efficacious even when performed with the simple intention of doing what is commanded.[lxxxii]

Concluding Remarks

R. Hayyim ibn Attar calls to mind Whitman’s famous quip, “I contain multitudes.” As an interpreter of Torah he was simultaneously bold and conservative, innovative and traditional. He was unwilling to entertain any deviation from rabbinic norms of halakha, but believed in absolute freedom of interpretation in the realm of theology and parshanut. R. Hayyim was a self-proclaimed pashtan concerned with explaining the biblical text according to its plain-sense, yet at the same time he believed that the Torah contains infinite layers of mystical significance awaiting discovery. For R. Hayyim, the banks of the biblical text hold an endless river of possible of interpretations, or in metaphor employed by the author himself, the Torah is a veritable garden of divine words ready to be sown and harvested.[lxxxiii] He saw no contradiction between these two different exegetical modalities, and felt comfortable harnessing them alongside one another under the yoke of his pen. With these interesting points in mind, let us ask how R. Hayyim’s Torah commentary may be a significant contribution to modern Jewish intellectual life and a remedy for the rote ritual observance all to common in contemporary religious communities.

First and foremost, R. Hayyim’s approach teaches us a balanced posture navigating between tradition and innovation. He was legally conservative and humble in his reticence to declare earlier commentators on the Torah incorrect, but at the same time R. Hayyim knew that the text could and should be reinterpreted in new ways. R. Hayyim’s understanding of the nature of Torah and the flexibility of its interpretation will serve as a useful model when asking our students to read and comment upon the Torah. Creativity is an indispensable asset that we should be cultivating, one that is often occluded by offering classes on pre-digested “hashkafa” instead of teaching our students to think nimbly and critically about our tradition. R. Hayyim's model  will foster pluralism of interpretation, without for a moment forgetting that interpretations of the text running counter to our established legal norms ultimately cannot be maintained.

Second, educators must balance another set of important goals when teaching  students how to interpret the Torah and other Jewish texts: we ask our students how to plumb their words for spiritual significance while remaining ever cognizant of their plain-sense meaning. Establishing the peshat of a passage is necessary for determining its literal and contextual explanation, as well as understanding its halakhic reverberations. This is an essential prerequisite for seeking a verse's deeper meaning. However, lest one object that abstract Kabbalah lies beyond the intellectual palette of our students, the next stage of looking for spiritual significance need not involve recourse to opaque theosophy. As we have seen, R. Hayyim’s creative style of mystical interpretation employs the language of our kabbalistic heritage but goes beyond its complicated symbols, and his explanations are compelling precisely because they bring spiritual meaning into the realm of human experience. Concentrating exclusively on either the peshat or mystical at the expense of the other will be far less likely to hold the intellectual and spiritual commitments of our students than a judicious combination of the two.

Studying R. Hayyim’s commentary is a particularly useful way of sparking classroom discussions of important spiritual issues that are grounded in close textual readings. When teaching  parshanut it can be tempting to gloss over Ramban's terse kabbalistic references when we happen upon the words “al derekh ha-emet;” one will still learn much from Ramban's commentary even while ignoring over his Kabbalah, though a subtle and fundamental dimension of his perush will be lost. However, exploring the spiritual and mystical dimensions of the Torah are an integral part of Or ha-Hayyim and cannot be skipped. Some of these ideas will be a freeing corrective to the skeptical and sterile hyper-rationalism found in many Modern Orthodox communities. Grappling with other mystical themes will be difficult, but ultimately rewarding. For example, the essentialist understanding of the Jewish people, our inherent division from the nations of the world, and the negative picture of gentiles offends many of our modern ethical sensibilities.[lxxxiv] It contradicts the more universalistic elements in our tradition, but is a voice that has been a part of the Jewish conversation for nearly a millennium and must be confronted. The same is true of gender imbalance found in the kabbalistic symbolism.[lxxxv] Nothing will be gained by avoiding these issues, and we have everything to lose by either sweeping them under the rug or accepting them without refusing to acknowledge their difficulties. 

Students approaching the end of their high school education, whether about to go off to college or a year of learning in Israel, should first be confronted by fundamental questions such as the following: What does it mean, both practically and theoretically, to transform yourself into a dwelling for the shekhinah? What is the Torah, and what else does it contain besides the words of its text? Given the freedom we have in interpreting the Torah, how do you know when you cross the line? What is the nature and origin of evil? Where does reincarnation fit into our tradition? What does our tradition say about life after death and the World to Come? What is the status of miracles? What is the nature of our relationship to God, and what does it mean to cleave and connect ourselves to Him? How can performing mitzvoth be an intensely spiritual and meaningful experience? As they develop, our students will be confronted by questions of this type whether or not we have prepared them to think about such issues in an intelligent manner. Therefore, exploring them should be a primary goal of our educational system from the moment our students begin to think more abstractly and maturely about their religious praxis. They need a vocabulary with which to discuss matters of existential and spiritual import, and they deserve to know that it can very easily be found in the Jewish tradition.

There are several possible options for teaching R. Hayyim’s work. Or ha-Hayyim can be included as one important voice amongst the concert of biblical interpretation on the page of the Mikra’ot Gedolot. This integrated approach has the advantage of allowing students to see R. Hayyim as part of an intergenerational dialogue focusing on Torah commentary and spiritual exploration. However, many schools assign the Torat Hayyim edition of Mikra’ot Gedolot, whose publishers focused only on the works of the Rishonim and thus excluded R. Hayyim’s commentary. The inclusion of important neglected commentaries like that of R. Saadya Gaon and the careful deployment of manuscripts make Torat Hayyim a phenomenal tool for studying humash, but educators should be aware that using it precludes Or ha-Hayyim from having a place in their curriculum.

R. Hayyim’s commentary may also be taught as a stand-alone work, perhaps as an optional habura to students interested in spending time getting to know his parshanut in greater depth. Dr. Aryeh Strikovsky assembled an excellent compendium of Hebrew language texts about and by R. Hayyim as a part of the Israeli Ministry of Education’s series on culture and Torah, but to my knowledge there is not yet a North American equivalent of this valuable resource.[lxxxvi] When focusing on Or ha-Hayyim exclusively, some recourse to the supercommentaries composed to elucidate his text will doubtless be quite helpful; R. Isaac Meir Hazenfratz’s Or Yakar has proven a particularly accessible and helpful guide in my own studies.[lxxxvii]

            Finally, as a parting word, we would do well to remember that our relationship with God is the very heart of our encounter with the Torah. This is true of the written text of the five books of Moses, and it should be equally true of our study of Torah She’Be-Al Pe. Dry sophistry and polemics should never be substituted for an honest and passionate engagement with the Torah and the search to know its Author, to the best of our ability. In R. Hayyim’s words:

I trained my heart and my mind’s eye on the Light of Life… and began with a prayer before the Source of all Wisdom… I titled this book “Light of the Life” because the Torah itself is called a light, as in the verse “the commandment is a lamp and the Torah is a light” (Prov. 6:23). Since light is associated with many things, such as a candle, the sun, the moon and the stars, I called it the “Light of the Life,” which can only refer to the Creator of the world…[lxxxviii]

Let us remind our students, and ourselves, that the goal of our conversations must be the quest to gaze upon the Or ha-Hayyim, the true Source of all Illumination and Life.

When Worlds Collide[1]: Why Observant Student Teachers Refuse to Teach in the Mamlachti Dati School System?

     During the past several years as an educator in the fields of Tanakh and Jewish studies, I have come across a prevalent and disturbing phenomenon: most of the religiously observant student teachers whom I have met  are not at all  interested in teaching in the mamlakhti-dati school system (the religious public school system in Israel). When the time comes for them to decide on a professional placement, they apply to secular schools, or to the new model of specialized dati-hiloni schools (religious/secular schools), or to pluralistic religious schools. Several years ago, as the head of the Tanakh department of such an experimental dati-hiloni high school, I found that more than half of the Jewish studies faculty was comprised of incredibly dedicated and talented religious young people. When I asked them to describe the thought process that brought them to an experimental framework, (in our case, a particularly demanding one), the majority of them admitted to never having even considered Mamad (religious public school system) as a professional option, for reasons that will be discussed in this paper. Some had tried to teach in the Mamad system and had given up.

     Why is this true?  Why are these bright, highly motivated, religiously observant young people, who are extremely knowledgeable in both Jewish and general studies, opting out of the mamlakhti-dati school system?  And if they are opting out, then who is teaching our children?

     In this article I would like to address these questions by relating several stories that reflect the changes that are taking place in the Mamad schools and in the teachers colleges. I want to examine how and why these changes, which are occurring in both the formal and informal frameworks of the Mamad, are alienating many young, committed and engaged religious student teachers out of its educational system. In addition, I would like to suggest conceptual and practical changes to improve an ever worsening situation.

Observations from the Field: Primary School

A Story about Matisse

     When our daughter was in fifth grade at the local Mamad (religious public school), she decided to do her personal project on Matisse. We went to do research at the Israel Museum art library and spent several hours reading his biography and examining books of Matisse’s paintings.  Some weeks later I bumped into the teacher in the school hall, and couldn’t resist asking her what she thought of my daughter’s project. Well, she said hesitating, it was a bit skimpy. Skimpy?!  I cried in disbelief. She’s in fifth grade. She could have chosen “Water” or “Color” or “Why is the Sky Blue?” Instead she picked a difficult topic and handed in work she did herself. What do you mean by skimpy? Well, she said quietly, the truth is… I have never heard of Matisse.

     After recovering from the sad implications of this story, we need to ask ourselves some hard questions: Why is a person with so little intellectual curiosity, or basic professional self-respect, hired to teach school children? Once hired, why are such teachers maintained?

     The status of teacher knowledge in the secular primary schools is, unfortunately, not much better than that of the teachers in the Mamad system. It is unlikely, however, for a teacher in a secular school never to have heard of Matisse, implausible that she would not refer to an encyclopedia while grading her student’s work, and inconceivable that she would look the student’s parent directly in the eye and say: “I have never heard of Matisse."

     Why are so many Mamad teachers like this, particularly--but not exclusively--in the younger grades?  And why does a teacher in the Mamad system feel safe in doing this?  The answers are not pleasant. One: Matisse was not Jewish.  [In the eyes of the narrowly Orthodox] non-Jews don’t count.  Two: Matisse was an artist. Art is irrelevant.  If the fifth grader’s paper had been a biography of a great rabbinic sage, the teacher would certainly have done her homework.  Three: Matisse painted nudes. Nudity is immodest and immodesty is the cardinal sin, greater than ignorance and intolerance (more on this later). In fact, the teacher had asked my daughter to remove one of Matisse’s abstract line drawings of a nude from the paper. The principal insisted that it stay in. Poor Matisse, he never had a chance.                                 

     So why is this person permitted to teach our children?

     The answer lies in the ever changing face of the Mamad teacher. Whereas once the Mamad teacher and principal were observant Jews who prided themselves on their abilty to combine love of Torah with love of all knowledge, today more and more Mamad teachers pride themselves on their insularity, and yes, their ignorance of all things not Jewish.

     I would like to underscore this point with 3 stories from my recent experience in Mamad teachers colleges.

Observations from the Field of Teacher Training

     Recently, I taught at a well-respected college for primary school educators, considered for years a pillar of dati leumi (religious Zionist) Judaism. For administrative reasons, the college hosts students from an influential hareidi –leumi midrasha (hareidi Zionist school) who pursue their B. ED at the college. They are excellent students, and their influence on the school is great—as are their demands.

Feminist Research

     Early on in the semester, in a course on pedagogy, I referred to a research study by feminist scholars on a gender related educational issue. After class, some of the students approached to further discuss my conclusions, but questioned my reference to feminist scholarship. 

     That night, I received a call from a faculty representative from the midrasha.  His official job was liaison between the midrasha and the seminar; his unofficial job was to be a watchdog for religiosity. He asked that I meet him the next day in his office allotted to him by the college.

      I was told the following: academic research is not important to us. Please avoid referring to it. Feminist research is anathema to us. If you happen to teach Tanakh, do not teach comparative parshanut a la Nechama Leibowitz. We don’t evaluate the great parshanim (classic rabbinic Bible commentators) - they are all equally great. We don’t compare and contrast. Who are we, after all?

A Trip to London

     Wanting to prevent further such confrontations, I avoided all areas of controversy--not my natural inclination. During a class exercise demonstrating varying approaches to planning, I asked my students to plan a trip to London. I noticed one pair sitting and not working. I approached to ask if they needed help. The following conversation ensued.

We have never been to London.

OK, I said, make believe.

We don’t want to go to London.

Ok. I said, (thinking perhaps that they were Anglophobic). How about Paris?

We don’t want to go to Paris either.

OK. Where do you want to go?

They thought for a moment and said, To the Golan.

Literary Analysis

     Soon after, I began teaching at another dati leumi College intended for junior high and high school educators, also a prominent institution in dati leumi education.  The school was eager to develop into an Israeli model of Yeshiva University, a degree granting religious university. In this vein, the school held a half day conference on the topic of literary approaches to teaching Tanakh. All the presenters were religiously observant. I delivered a paper on the topic of thematic reading. When I returned to class, I found my normally compliant students up in arms. How could I apply literary tools to the reading of Tanakh? Tanakh is a sacred book, not literature.  It is forbidden to apply literary text analysis to the Torah.

     This was compartmentalization at its best. Literary analysis, a gentler cousin of Biblical criticism, has a way of unnerving some religious people.  The students’ instincts were right; this material is sensitive and troubling. But what struck me most was the fear, a near panic, at what they had heard, and a refusal to have a discussion.  In a house of learning, the response to ideas that challenge our assumptions cannot be flight or fear. That is the hareidi way; it is not meant to be the approach of classical dati leumi education. In addition, these were students preparing for high school teaching. Certainly the day would come when one of their students would question them on this topic. What will their response be?  

     The colleges and students alluded to are not marginal or atypical. They serve as major feeders of teachers to the Mamad school system.  Those students are the teachers of our children today.  

     What the above stories have in common is that they all reflect the growing influence of the hareidi ideologies on Mamad education via hareidi-leumi teachers and attitudes: lack of curiosity bordering on disdain  for all things not Jewish; distrust of academia--even while earning an academic degree; distaste for feminism- even while benefiting from the contribution of feminist activism to the equality of women in the workplace; fear of critical thinking; refusal to recognize and grapple with issues of modernity and post-modernist humanist thought; extensive use of  the advances of modern research in areas of medicine and technology, along with an unwillingness to admit or to acknowledge the central role of the university in bringing about these advances.   

     The hareidi-leumi worldview, while clearly one I do not share, has the right to its input into the religious and political discourse of the State of Israel. But the legitimate place for the dissemination of its values is within its own schools and communities. The dati leumi school system, once the pride and joy of the dati leumi world, is emptying at a frightening rate, because the liberal dati leumi establishment refuses to acknowledge that, despite a shared commitment to the observance of (certain) mitzvoth and to the state of Israel, what divides us is greater than what unites us.

     On Sukkot 2005, Ne’emanei Torah V’Avodah hosted a joint conference with Edah,[2] an American organization associated with religious Zionism and modern Orthodoxy.[3] In a keynote address, Rabbi Saul Berman delineated the major ideological issues on which the hareidi world and the modern Orthodox world differ: pluralism/tolerance, the religious meaning of Medinat Israel, Jew and Gentile, da’at Torah, Torah u’maddah, humrah, women in halakha, outreach, and activism. On the majority of the issues listed, the hareidi- leumi attitude is closer to the hareidi attitude than to the dati leumi attitude. [4] Aside from the approach towards the State, we differ on the central, most significant issues of modern Jewish life.

     These ideological differences weigh heavily upon the young students with whom I have contact. Humanistic in their orientation and pluralist in their outlook, they do not want to teach in the Mamad schools, because they do not want to instill values that are not theirs. They all (women and men) have academic degrees, some in Bible and in Talmud, as well as in literature, history, music, and art. They embrace the world because it is awesome, and they are curious. They cannot teach honestly without alluding to all that they know, nor do they want to.

     These dati students have been to China and India, some even to London! They believe Jews are special, but they don’t believe that everyone else is devoid of values. They go to concerts, they know who Matisse is, and they know a thing or two about wine. The men know how to cook… and most of the women wear slacks.

     They are rigorous in their thinking, but not rigid in their outlook. They struggle to find the interface--often through reexamination of religious sources--between the yeshiva/midrasha and the university, between Levinas and dati leumi, shiurim and shira, Carlbach and Kleinstein. Their challenge is to make these worlds overlap, not to compartmentalize them.

They represent the oft alluded line between dati and leumi, between modern and Orthodox. These are the students who should be teaching our children. Most of them will not.

The Dress Code

     A disturbing corollary of hareidi- leumi influence that threatens the caliber of teachers in the dati leumi schools system is the growing obsession with the dress code relating to women. Part of the reason why the teacher in the Matisse story continues to teach in our schools is because she looks the part.  She and hundreds like her are teaching in our schools, despite the fact that they may be inferior teachers, because her elbows are covered, her skirts are long, and in the case of married women, her head is covered.   

     Over the past 10-15 years, the dati-leumi establishment has become obsessed with the dress code of women. Prominent rabbis write outrageous articles measuring centimeters on the neck and on the arms. While the suitability of male teachers is measured in how much they know and the quality of their prayer, in the case of women, the skill of pious dressing can override the skills of good teaching.

     Modesty is a significant tenet of Jewish life, but we have begun to lose all sense of proportion. When appearance is secondary to talent in a school system, the big losers are the children. 

     A case in point: Several years ago a new Dati Leumi academic school opened in our neighborhood to address the needs of our predominantly liberal dati-leumi population. Most of the parents, working people, professionals and academics, were eager for a superior local school for their children that could compete with excellent schools outside the neighborhood. The girls’ school, however, was headed in a different direction. From its inception, it insisted that homeroom teachers wear head coverings at all times, that is, outside of school as well as in. All non- homeroom teachers, that is, art, history, math, were requested to wear a head covering in school,  even if they didn’t do so in their personal lives. Thus, with one swift religious stringency, the eagerly awaited alternative dati-leumi school committed to excellence, disqualified all outstanding religious teachers who didn’t "look the look.”[5]  While the boys' school, instituted at the same time, searched for the "best and the brightest," the girls’ school front line concern was attire.  Not only did the students have a dress code, so did the teachers.

     It is not within the scope of this paper to discuss the halakhic ins and outs of these dress demands.  The point of emphasis here is that this stringent dress code does not reflect the norms or the values of the religiously observant parent body.  The vast majority of the mothers in this school do not cover their hair and many wear slacks. At the opening ceremony of the school the number of mothers counted with head coverings was 10 out of 150! Thus the unstated message conveyed to girls is that their mothers are not qualified to be their religious role models. [6] 

     The ever increasing insistence on a dress code for teachers is another reasons my religious students avoid teaching in the Mamad system. It is important to note that some of my married dati students do in fact wear head coverings, but some do not. Some wear head coverings and slacks and want to continue to do so, not because they are rebellious, but because slacks are comfortable and efficient. These young women are halakhically committed, and halakhically informed, many are well versed in Talmudic texts. They know that the ban on slacks is a sociological issue, not a halakhic one[7], and that head covering has become the sociological equivalent of a kippah only recently.  Graduates of midrashot and yeshivot, they spend countless hours examining the sources. Thoughtful and honest, they are looking for ways to be true to halakha and true to themselves.

     Thus these young dati-leumi teachers opt for schools that will let them wear what feels comfortable, while retaining their personal sense of modesty;  schools that will focus on their thinking abilities, their pedagogic skills,  and their ability to touch the hearts and minds of their students. They are not going to the Mamad system.

     Yet, aren’t these the very teachers we want teaching in our schools? 

Conclusion

     The Mamad school system has lost its sense of identity; it is no longer responsive to the needs of its community.  The vacuum created is being filled by ideologies that do not reflect the vision and the values of the majority of the pupils’ homes and communities. By allowing vast hareidi leumi influence on our schools, we abrogate our responsibility to our own community. Not only are young teachers leaving the system, so are the children. 

     Talented teachers with a more embracing attitude to the modern world as well as to its challenges will find work elsewhere, in the secular public school system and in other frameworks mentioned in the opening of this paper. But who will teach the thousands of children from liberal dati leumi homes? For now, the majority of dati leumi parents are not looking for alternative frameworks, although with each passing year, more and more are doing so. They are still eager for a neighborhood school that reflects their combined commitment to Torah and general wisdom, in the broadest sense of the word. 

     In the final analysis, it is the teachers who make a school. In order for children to return to the Mamad system, we need to make spiritual room for the many talented young religious teachers who are grappling with the same issues as the families,  teachers whose intricate approach to the world is similar to that of their students.

A Practical Suggestion for Change 

     The past few years has seen the development of several excellent academic programs throughout Israel which support promising young students financially in exchange for a commitment to teach Jewish studies in the religious public school system for a stipulated number of years.  I would like to see the creation of similar programs that would prepare bright and motivated religious university students for teaching in the Mamad system. In exchange for tuition and financial support, perhaps by the religious branch of the Ministry of Education, as well as private donors committed to liberal religious values, they would be asked to commit to several years of teaching in the Mamad.

      In addition to the regular courses in disciplinary knowledge and in pedagogy, there would be classes and workshops devoted to issues such as: the implications of the past 100 years’ of Biblical research; recent Talmud research; issues related to women; national service; conflicts arising between Synagogue and State; democracy and Judaism; attitude toward non-religious Jews, and so much more. As of now, most of these issues are discussed only in informal youth programs like Gesher. Their place is in the schools.

     In order to accomplish this, we need teachers who are not afraid.

     There are many options for such a program of study, worthy of a separate paper. But in order for such a program to be effective, there needs to be more than specialized education for students. Just as the general public school system is reevaluating its attitude toward Jewish studies and therefore training teachers to spearhead that movement, so does the dati leumi school system need to do some serious self- reflection. Only then will they be able to bring back young dati teachers who think out of the box, who are committed to halakha and to academic research, who are rethinking old approaches--not rejecting them--who love children, love knowledge, and embrace the world.  

An Evolving Sephardic Identity:  Striking a Balance in an Age of Multicultural Diversity

by Rachel Sopher

I recently travelled to Spain, planning a relaxing vacation, my first trip to Europe.  In preparation for the trip I read up on Barcelona, the city where we would be based, and asked friends about where to find kosher food and how to manage in a country where the Jewish presence was all but invisible.  Once in Spain I happily took in the sites, the architecture of Gaudi, the Picasso museum, and the rich local culture.  On the last day of our stay, a fellow traveller organized a day trip to the ancient city of Girona, birthplace of the Ramban and home to The Jewish Heritage Museum of Catalonia.  We hired a tour guide to take us through the museum and the old Jewish quarter of the city, excited by the prospect of familiarizing ourselves with the history of the Jews of Northern Spain.  But my excitement quickly turned to disappointment as I realized that the museum and our tour guide were geared towards servicing the general Spanish populace, an overwhelming percentage of whom were completely unacquainted with Jewish culture.  As we walked from room to room, and our non-Jewish guide explained the basic rituals of the Sabbath and the Mikveh to our group, my heart sank; I found myself feeling the connection to and loss of the rich Sephardic culture of Spain, all traces of which have been destroyed in the years since the Spanish Inquisition.

I was surprised by the rush of feelings sparked by the return of awareness of my Sephardic heritage and shocked by the way I had come to Spain with a total lack of concern for any historical connection. I have always taken particular interest in Sephardic culture and tradition and had studied the history of the Jews in Spain in college, spending hours reading up on its famous figures, the Rambam, Yehuda Halevi, Ibn Gabirol.  Gone was my idealization of the Golden Age of Jewish Spain; gone was the pride in my connection to this romantic past.  As our group walked the narrow streets of the old city of Girona, I pondered the obliteration of the Jewish presence in Spain and its parallel, the disappearance of my Sephardic heritage from my mind.  The trip left me identifying with the Jews who were forced to leave Spain during the Inquisition in my own analogous experience of cultural expulsion and left me wondering about my fickle relationship to my Sephardic roots.

As I pondered the questions brought up by my experiences in Girona, my thoughts led me to a consideration of the role of Sephardic tradition within a larger Jewish identity.  Sephardic Jews comprise but a small and diverse subset of the greater worldwide Jewry, constituting what some might call a minority within a minority.  Sephardic Jews in integrated communities face challenging choices when it comes to consolidating coherent religious and cultural identities. Navigating differences within a richly multifaceted group can be an intricate and formidable undertaking. How can an individual hold on to his unique background while remaining in close contact with a broader and more prominent culture?      

It is a complicated venture to negotiate individual difference while retaining membership in a distinct overarching body.  Sephardic Jews make up a heterogeneous subset of the Jewish world.  The religious commonalities among different types of Jews are significant enough to provide an umbrella identity, a link through common history, religion and values, though this broad-ranging identity is largely defined by the more dominant Ashkenazic culture.  To make assumptions about what it means to be Jewish is to accept stereotypes represented by Ashkenazic traits and to be gently folded into many broad expectations about what it means to be Jewish.  Yet Sephardim are different enough culturally to warrant a discrete though overlapping classification. For many Sephardim, self-identifying as a Jew without cultural qualification can be a gratifying and connecting experience, one in which our commonality breeds deep affiliation; but this same prospect may also carry the risk of divergence and alienation, a gulf in experience that could lead to an emphasis on isolation or estrangement in the symbolic renunciation of difference.  This conflict speaks to a question of identity; how can we celebrate our similarities and embrace differences without slipping into extreme position?

In a very personal way, this theme and variations on it have informed my relationship with religion throughout my life.  Sephardic culture and tradition permeated my early experience to such extensive proportions that for some time their influence remained vague in the way that the most basic things about us remain indeterminate, a shadowy presence as an identity taken for granted in the naive assumption that this is just the way things are.  At that time, in an uncomplicated way, the insularity and homogeneity of my family and community life contributed to a strong sense of what it means to be Jewish, and more specifically what it means to be a member of a Sephardic family and community.  These circumscribed sensibilities pervaded my day to day existence, organizing my experiences, and as such were ingested with the ease and passive receptivity of a child being fed on mother’s milk.

Some of my earliest memories revolve around my paternal grandparents, my Nona and Papoo as we called them; their house was the heart of our family, the hub around which all of our lives revolved.  Sitting on the floor as Nona entertained family and community members at her endless afternoon cave`s, I was indoctrinated into a special society, one in which vivacious connection infused earnest and sincere relationships.  The women would sit around and echar lashon, chatting animatedly with each other for hours on end.  Language peppered with Ladino sayings and punctuated by uproarious laughter filled my ears while heavy, ethnic foods reminiscent of the old countries of Rhodes and Turkey filled my stomach.  This robust umbilical tie to the old country developed in a sensorial and visceral rather than explicit way that grounded our family, providing a sense of belongingness and safety that pervaded my early cultural identity.  For us, family was everything; and being in our family was inextricably connected to what it meant to be a part of a vibrant Sephardic tradition.

This aspect of my identity gradually became more complicated as the field of my experience inevitably widened to include the more dominant traditionally Ashkenazic conventions and practice.  What had once been an implicit and unacknowledged understanding of Sephardic identity slowly became explicit as frank comparisons and contradictions brought my experiential world into the more broad-ranging Jewish arena. Mine was a naive understanding of Jewish identity, lacking direct consideration and focal attention.   When a child is raised in a particular culture, she goes through an unconscious process called enculturation; this is the means through which a person passively takes in the values and behaviors that are suitable and necessary in that culture. Developing a more extensive and complex appreciation of one’s culture means reevaluating the basic values inscribed in childhood, assessing their relevance and then making conscious choices about their personal meanings.  This process, termed acculturation, is one in which a person of any age can adapt to another culture.  People raised in diverse environments can compare cultures and consciously adopt characteristics that suit them.  It can be based on personal preference, but it is more likely the social and environmental pressures that convince a person that the behavioral norms of one of the cultures work more smoothly or achieve goals more effectively in any given circumstances. Because of the human tendency to accommodate to one’s milieu, identity can change and gradually evolve, to become an authentic reflection of an individual sense of self within a shifting multicultural context.

Of course, this process requires cognitive capacities that develop over a lifetime.  As children, we are capable only of simple psychological operations, conflicts around identity generally give rise to black and white, all-or-nothing thinking.  In this uncompromising manner of reasoning, differentiation is experienced as a danger; this threat can generally be dealt with by denying difference through merger and denial of particularities, or alternatively, by flaunting the superiority of one’s own culture, in a chauvinistic denial of the validity of the other.  These stances comprise opposite sides of the same coin, in that they involve holding on to rigid, categorical assumptions about the need for strict coherence within groups.

In every society in which diverse cultures meet, minorities face strong pressures to give up aspects of their identities to conform to the more dominant standards. Those of us who live in the United States and other Western countries have all experienced the pull of assimilation and the ways we are passively induced to forgo difference in favor of blending in with the larger group.  Aside from other influences, our history as subjugated minorities has prompted us to integrate with more powerful cultures in acts of adaptive identification.  The permeable boundaries between Jews of different backgrounds frequently leads Sephardic Jews to conform to the more prominent Ashkenazic group, though in its extreme form, this adaptation can mean giving up meaningful aspects of self.  It is often easier to fit in than to assert divergence or cultural distinction.

On the other extreme is the culture that is intolerant of others. Sephardic Jews can at times experience anxiety about the loss of their tradition, especially as more time and more generations widen the gulf between current conventions and the customs of the old countries.  Though this is a valid concern, in its extreme it can lead to defensive rejection of otherness.  In this case, difference is experienced as a threat to cultural identity and thus can lead to a xenophobic posturing, shutting others out through attitudes of self-protective fanaticism.  

These strong reactions to alterity are more common than one might think and represent the Scylla and Charbidis of diverse, multidimensional societies.  It is human nature to think in extremes and we all fall into these traps of oversimplified lines of thought at various times in our lives.  These inflexible positions allow us the comfort of avoiding conflict, both internally and externally.  Denial of difference short circuits nuanced understandings of human relationships and diminishes experiences of self-identity.  Acknowledging contrasts means facing discord and possible friction within our environments.  However, this conflict is the source of much cognitive and emotional growth.  As our experiential spheres expand into wider and more diverse concentric circles, our inner worlds become more complicated.  Enriched by new perspectives, our understanding of ourselves and of others deepens, creating opportunities for a broader range of choices and more fertile interrelatedness.

            As a child I found myself confusedly oscillating between these two extremes.  At home I heard about the importance of Sephardic culture and the need to assert a strong Sephardic identity.  This position directly contrasted with the mentality I faced in my predominately Ashkenazic school in which the Eastern European traditions were assumed as a baseline of commonality among students and teachers. It was not uncommon during my elementary school years to bring some information learned at school home only to find that it did not correspond with my family’s traditions as Sephardic Jews.  Alternatively, highlighting the differences in my background from those of my Ashkenazic peers and mentors at school often brought uncomfortable feelings of difference; teachers with heavy workloads and packed curricula do not always welcome interruptions regarding individual differences in students’ customs.  Through dealing with the tensions between these environments, I began to establish a patterned response to the contexts in which I found myself.  I learned to accommodate differences in perspective and when to assert my cultural particularities and when to remain more unobtrusive.  

As this happened, I gradually established a relationship to my identity as a Jew that incorporated some Sephardic and some Ashkenazic traits, though because of my perception of Sephardim as a marginalized community, I tended to hold on more tightly to the unique experiences of my Sephardic upbringing, asserting their validity in the face of what felt like a threat to their legitimacy.  Mine was a somewhat militant outlook, particularly in my youth when I was unable to conceptualize the feelings of conflict surrounding my identity.

            As I grew older and was better able to formulate and communicate some ideas about my experience of difference within these cultures, my viewpoint softened.  I heard from others, both from inside and outside of my community and began to integrate a more balanced understanding of the nature of one’s relationship to her individual heritage.   Through this dialogue, I realized that having access to both Sephardic and Ashkenazic cultural identities could widen my frame of reference and enhance my religious life;  I developed a more balanced bicultural Jewish identity, feeling freer to express myself  and more open to input from others.  As I learned that we can acknowledge differences and survive, I slowly gained confidence in the legitimacy of my unique background and this confidence allowed me to better hear outside perspectives without feeling threatened. 

            However, this balance was context-dependent and evolved as my sensibilities and attitudes towards myself and my surroundings fluctuated.  In more recent years, the ties to my early upbringing slowly began to fade.  My Nona and Papoo passed away and with the loss of their presence in my life, it was more difficult to sustain my connection to the experiences of my youth, inextricably tied to my experiences of myself as a Sephardic Jew.  With their deaths I began to question the need to hold on to what felt like a dying tradition.  I no longer lived in the Sephardic community I grew up in, and without the connection to that community it became more difficult to hold on to a culture with less direct reinforcement in my life.  I began to think of the Sephardic community of my youth as a fading culture and Ladino as a dead language.  I began to question the strength of my allegiance to my Sephardic background and my motives for asserting this aspect of my Jewish identity.

These changes in my experiences and perceptions of Sephardic Jewish identity, in conjunction with my desire to protect my own children from facing similar conflicts in their senses of who they are as Jews, led me to gradually give up some of my commitment to the singularity and uniqueness of my early Jewish background.  It is my belief that my discordant experiences during my trip to Girona were the culmination of this protracted and somewhat unconscious disavowal of my Sephardic heritage, the return of which faced me with a shocking crisis in identity.  

But this does not have to be the end of the story.  The flood of feelings I experienced during my trip to Spain made me aware of a part of myself, a part that I truly value and that I had been denying for some time.  It is inevitable that we fall into one extreme or another at various phases of our lives.  This is part of what it means to live within two cultures. But we can use these opportunities to develop an integrated understanding that is personally meaningful.  My experiences in Spain helped me to better clarify exactly how I feel being a Sephardic Jew at this point in my life--a feeling that, until that time, had remained much out of my awareness. As a child, I took these things for granted, as essential parts of myself, not realizing the ways we are subject to change. Though there is some loss in giving up this childish purity of understanding, what we get in return is a far richer, multifaceted, and multidimensional connection to our Jewish heritage.

My Sephardic identity still plays an important role in my life. While I am concerned about its future in the face of assimilation to Ashkenazic standards, as well as the normative values of American culture, this concern need not lead to a regressive pull towards the creation of rigid boundaries.  I believe that the meaning lies in the process, the journey towards achieving a balanced perspective that is reflective of personal significance.  What we pass on to our children are not only concrete traditions and teachings, but also the ways we relate to our religious identities.  As our children see us grapple with creating balanced religious and cultural selves, they can identify not only with our specific heritage but also with our struggle to remain true to ourselves while respecting difference in others.  Though there is a risk that the minority within the minority which constitutes Sephardic cultural identity will become watered down with such an outlook, I have faith that our children will be able to forge their own relationships to religion, striking their own balanced relationships as Jews.  Having an open point of view does not mean forsaking your roots; we don’t need to give them up, but can continue to take pride in our traditions while respecting those of others in the true spirit of loving thy neighbor.