The Blog of Garnel Ironheart

On Hedonism

2012-02-01T16:53:00.000-05:00

There are three types of people: those who go to Pesach hotels, those who don't, and those who don't but secretly wish they could and publicly attack those who do. I am in the first category. Rav Emanuel Feldman of Cross Currents is apparently in the third.
In his recent piece he sarcastically attacks the concept of Pesach hotels and portrays those of us who enjoy such programs as hedonists who are quite prepared to act in a gluttonous fashion as long as the hashgachah is reliable. He even intimates that those who consider themselves 'Truly Frum" but attend these programs aren't really so different from the "Not So Frum" who are along for the ride.
Frankly, I have had it up to here with attacks on those of us who want to spend our hard-earned money on bringing the simcha back to simchas Yom Tov. For some people, spending the holiday at home with family and friends is the only way they can envision a meaningful experience. Fine, that works for them and kol hakavod. But for others, spending the holiday away from home and being able to relax without worrying about all the preparations getting ready for Pesach entails is what brings satisfaction.
Perhaps for some people it's about the all-you-can-eat kiddush and diving into the trough at dinner. For many of us, though, it's about taking those things we enjoy about Pesach without having to worry about the annoyances that come with it. Imagine being able to sit through the Seder without having to worry about serving the food or cleearing the dishes. Imagine spending erev Pesach learning the Hagadah instead of running around to ensure all the preparations are ready. Imagine Chol HaMoed with activities for the adults and kids without having to worry that they'll wind up somewhere and accidentally be handed chometz because the people they're with don't know better.
Is it about the cost? When it comes to the price of Pesach food, cleaning supplies and the help needed to get the house ready, along with the cost in hours needed to prepare the house (something no one ever seems to figure into the calculations) there isn't that much of a savings from staying at home. And what's the price of the peace of mind knowing that in the weeks up to the holiday you are able to relax at night instead of worrying if your children once again hid Cheerios in the sofa cushions?
Further, the basic argument - that those who go to Pesach hotels are gluttons looking to maximize their gashmius while pretending it's about their ruchnios - is a red herring. It is just as possible to be a glutton over Pesach in one's own home. The only difference is that in the hotel they clear the dishes away when you're done.
A Pesach hotel experience is not for everyone. And for some it can be a disgusting licence to stuff oneself like a pig. But for many of us it's an annual vacation, a chance to enjoy the holiday with friends we only see at that time of year, a chance to get away and really enjoy the Yom Tov.
As a Rav I heard speak once said, the greatest threat to Judaism today isn't the Pesach hotel. It's the people who think that the Pesach hotel is the greatest threat to Judaism today.

Does Criticism = Hatred?

2012-01-26T03:51:00.000-05:00

At the request of rav Kornreich, I recently read over an article in The Jerusalem Post Magazine featuring Naomi Ragen's latest critique of the Chareidi community.
Now to be sure Naomi Ragen is not loved by Chareidi writers. She has written repeatedly, both in newpaper columns and in her fiction novels about the deficits she perceives in their community. She has done so to tremendous acclaim and popularity. For too many people her portrayal of Chareidi life is a window into the community that is never questioned.
Her recent conviction on charges of plagiarism was breathlessly reported by Rav Yaakov Menken repeatedly from his pulpit at Cross Currents. her subsequent successful appeal that lead to the clearing of all charges? Well that he has yet to write anything about. Hmmmmm.....
So it was that I went through her article and was not so shocked by what she had to say. She detailed the rise of the Burka Babe cult and the subsequent, much-delayed backlash from the Eidah Charedit with which many in the cult were aligned. But then she noted the obvious:
The Burka Babes are not some isolated phenomenon, the product of a group of diseased minds. They are based on simple logic - if sleeves to the wrist are more modest than those just below the elbow (wasn't that what the fight was all about in Immanuel at that school a couple of years ago?) then mittens are the ultimate form of modesty. If covering one's hair is good then covering one's face is even better. The Burka Babes are the natural end of a campaign that tells women that they can never be tznius enough, that their presence within 5 metres of a God-fearing man leads to all manner of issurim from the Torah and that they have to be isolated and hidden at every possible opportunity.

A bit ironic, wouldn’t you say, after a decades-old campaign led by extremist elements in the haredi world to make their women invisible, a campaign which started with sealing off tiny, inhospitable women’s sections in synagogues, and requiring separate gender seating in separate halls for weddings? A campaign that included fighting against electing women to religious councils (kudos to Leah Shakdiel), signs on public streets demanding every woman cover up according to some male-invented fantasy of how to erase women’s sexuality.
It escalated with the closure of women’s seminaries for higher education, segregated buses and streets and waiting rooms and bakeries and barriers at the Kotel (Western Wall), the erasure of all women’s faces from street ads... It gained momentum with the idea, pushed at every opportunity, that women’s lack of modesty was responsible for every disaster befalling the haredi community – including bombs on buses.
Not knowing when to stop is surely not a problem only of the veiled women.

Yes, Ragen's suggestion at the end of the article is somewhat tongue-in-cheek:

I have a modest proposal (with apologies to Jonathan Swift). Since God-fearing, pious Jewish women are separated from men from birth and taught to stringently keep covered at all times, we cannot reasonably expect them to has v’shalom get into bed naked with a man (so what if he is her husband?).

Baruch Hashem, modern technology can solve this problem. What I suggest is that artificial insemination take the place of this immodest act. The men will deliver their half via other men to women doctors who will see that the next generation gets started in modesty and piety. Now when the kids are born, the boys will be sent by rocket ship to one planet, and the girls to another...

However, I myself have suggested to friends that the first person to develop human parthenogensis will make a mint off the Chareidi community. Imagine how successful a business that can guarantee the creation of a reproducing community of males only will be!
Honestly, did anyone take Ragen's suggestion seriously? Or mine?
Unfortunately this is not just anti-Chareidi hatred but rather a conclusion based on what we on the outside have been observing for several years now. It is a criticism, yes, but not hatred. It is a desperate plea from those of us who, despite everything, still see Chareidim as our brethren, to reign in this campaign of craziness masquerading as an attempt to increase religiosity. We do not protest because of vindictive feelings but because we still care and we see a bad end coming from all this.

When It Comes to Choosing Sides

2012-01-24T03:31:00.000-05:00

Time was that is was easy to be a good Jew and a good liberal. After all, most non-Orthodox Jews had at best a limited education in classic Jewish values and over time a new set of beliefs - that Judaism was secular liberalism with an all-approving godhead and latkes - became entrenched in the communal mindset. To be a good Jew was to be a good liberal. See? Easy.
It also didn't hurt that for a time conservatism in the West was a source of anti-Israel sentiment while liberalism appreciate the plucky Jewish underdogs in the MiddleEast struggling to turn their little patch of desert into an oasis despite all the odds against them.
All that changed in the late 1960's and early 1970s'. One factor was undoubtedly Israel's miraculous victory in the 6 Day War. The initial response was one of euphoria but as time passed the celebrations turned into the ominous realization that Israel was now perceived no longer as an underdog but as a bully occupying the land of the so-called Palestinians (how quickly people forget that only a few years earlier those lands were under Arab rule and it was pre-1967 that was ancient "Palestine"). Liberalism could support an underdog but a bully? No way.
Then there was the Viet-nam war and its enduring effect on American and western society. The great era of compromise ushered in by the ending of the Second World War came to an end. For liberals Richard M Nixon was not an opponent or a guy with a different set of political views but the evil enemy of everything bright and good. For conservatives, the liberal leadership was the same - a dark force plotting the destruction of everything worthwhile. Since Nixon's time the divide has only deepened. Recall the viscious liberal attacks on George Bush II while he was president of the United State included a movie in which he was portrayed as being assasinated. How about the over-the-top rhetoric being slung at the current president which his supporters are capable of slinging right back?
Unfortunately for liberal Jews one of the values imported into liberalism over the last few decades is an unquestioning support of anything anti-Israel. This value is completely illogical since it leads to liberal support of the Arab world despite that world's hatred of everything liberal. This has not stopped liberal gays, for example, from attacking Israel despite the fact that in the so-called Palestinian Authority it is a capital offense to be gay. It has not stopped feminists from demonizing Israel even though in many parts of the Arab world woman are lower than third class citizens. It makes no sense but it is equally undeniable - to be a good liberal means being anti-Israel.
But where does that leave liberal Jews? Unfortunately it leaves them in an awful position. Captives of a philosophy that idealizes the post-national, they are asked to take a nationalistic position. Either you are on Israel's side or you're not. As one liberal writers notes, some prominent liberal Jews have chosen their side and when it came to deciding if they were Jewish Americans or American Jews they chose neither but instead went with "liberal":

There was a time earlier this year when you could barely spend five minutes on Twitter or Facebook without encountering pieces like Allison Benedikt's "Life After Zionist Summer Camp" or Kiera Feldman's "The Romance of Birthright Israel." Gil Troy described these essays for the Jerusalem Post as resembling 17th-century "captivity narratives": After being "force-fed diets of Zionist folk tunes" and dazzled by "hunkalicious Israeli soldiers," the writers "courageously flee their brainwashing into the welcoming bosom of the New York intelligentsia, rejecting Israel while embracing Palestinians, about whom they claim they never were taught."

For many religious Jews the choice - Israel or being welcomed in the local salon culture and country clubs - For most religious Jews the choice of choosing support for Israel or being welcomed into the local salons and country clubs was never a real one. We all knew that the price of acceptance was a denial of our basic identity, that as Jews tied to the 3500 year history of our nation and that all-important piece of real estate, the centre of our world. For liberal Jews, on the other hand, this is really an agonizing moment. In today's society one cannot pick and choose from different systems of philosophy or belief. One is either an abortion-hating, pro-war, pro-market deregulation conservative or a abortion-promoting, anti-war, pro-market regulation liberal. Anything in between is perceved as traitorous by both sides.
Liberal Jews therefore have to make a decision - you're either in with us or you're out with them. But sadly it seems that it is getting too difficult to be both.

Depriving the World of What It Wants

2012-01-22T02:50:00.000-05:00

I once read a cynical explanation of why so many Jew-hating countries in the world voted for the UN Partition Plan of 1947 include the Soviet Union. The theory, as it went, was that much of the world felt bad for us in the wake of the revelation that six million of us had been slaughtered while they either looked the other way or assisted either actively or by preventing the escape of many Jews from Europe. The vote for partition was a great opportunity to assuage that feeling of guilt.
On the other hand the vote was also relatively risk free. After all, the 600 000 Jews of Israel were surrounding by millions of hostile Arabs armed to the teeth and waiting for the chance to invade and slaughter. The British, may their island sink, were also up for the moment doing everything they could to prevent Jewish attempts to build an army and an arsenal while doing all they could to give the Arabs of Israel the superior fighting position for when the time came for the English to finally abandon the Mandate and go home. The Jews would have no chance against such formidable odds and would be driven into the sea.
The vote therefore offered the Jew-hating countries everything they wanted. They could vote for partition and tell themselves that they had done something for those poor Jews but at the same time they could position themselves to shed genuine tears over another 600 000 Jewish graves and what would certainly be the final blow to the Jewish nation from which it could never recover.
Oops. We won that war. And the next several.
My father always says that the reason the world is so hostile to Israel is because what the international community likes more than anything is Jewish funerals. The thought of burying more Jews makes them giddy.
Israel, on the other hand, prevents this from happening. As a lifeboat and source of protection it may not be perfect but a lifeboat and source of protection it remains. In Israel Jewish life has value and is something to be protected.

Even Israeli humanistic preachers of “normality” and of being a “nation like all other nations” know that the Jewish oasis in the desert was made possible by the fact that Israel was “armed to the teeth,” as anti-Israel literary critic George Steiner once said. Even Diaspora Jews, from London’s Golders Green to Toronto’s Forest Hill, can enjoy quiet nights because they know that every Israeli fence is guarded by armed Jews and that Israel’s sky is sealed by its Air Force and by the Dimona nuclear plant.

Israel is the only nation deprived by the United Nations of its legal right to defend itself, the only UN member surrounded by neighbors willing to kill themselves to destroy the Jews, and the only democracy that in the last 40 years had to dig trenches in public parks as potential mass graves.
As the number of firearms proves, no Western society lives in greater intimacy with death than Israel. During the Second Intifada, the most effective protection against terrorism in the cafés and shopping malls, aside from IDF incursions into Palestinian cities, was a kind of spontaneous form of Jewish civil defense, the only thing that worked even when terrorists from Jenin and Nablus showed up at a café in Tel Aviv or a gas station in the settlement of Ariel.
That’s the Jewish revolution, which the West can’t accept, the most admirable Israeli phenomenon: A people still able to defend itself against the forces of evil.

On one hand it is not our destiny to simply be a nation like all others. This would be a horrible disappointment and an abandonment of the responsibility God has given us through the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in Israel. On the other hand virtue does not equal vulnerability. We are enjoined by "the Three Oaths" not to rebel against the nations but they are enjoined by those same oaths not to be cruel to us. We are nowhere told that being led helplessly to slaughter or exposing ourselves to torture is a mitzvah.
We must therefore pray that the international community continue to be frustrated and disappointed at our insistence on surviving for a long time to come.

Trust vs Verification

2012-01-19T02:21:00.001-05:00

It is a given that pushing too hard in one direction inevitably leads to a pushback in the opposite one. For every frum fanatic screaming "Shabbos!" there is an annoyed chiloni who decided to go shopping or to the beach on Saturday just to "show them". A backlash against extremism, both left and right, is always a natural reaction even though it catches folks by surprise.
Such seems to be the case in this article from The Jerusalem Post. In it, Reuven Hammer notes that a time-honoured way of determining one's Jewishness has been changed by the Chareidi-controlled Rabbinate and he questions whether this is a good thing.

In 2010 the Israeli Chief Rabbinate decided to require documents proving the Jewishness of one’s mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and greatgreat- grandmother when applying for marriage. Needless to say this is a near impossibility for most people. Is this really Jewish law?
Many immigrants who claim to be Jewish have difficulty proving it to the satisfaction of the chief rabbinate because of the lack of reliable documentation.
Ketubot, or marriage contracts, have been largely non-existent among Russian Jews for over half a century. The result has been that often people who sincerely consider themselves Jews, and may indeed be, cannot prove that fact and are turned away by the official rabbinate when they wish to be married. Similar problems occur for American olim and others in Israel as well.
The well-known journalist Gershom Gorenberg wrote an article on such a case for The New York Times entitled “How Do You Prove You’re a Jew?” (New York Times Magazine, March 2, 2008) in which he stated that formerly in Europe, “Trust was the default position.”
He also cited the fact that the leading ultra-Orthodox rabbi in Israel in the years before and after the state was established, Avraham Yeshayahu Karlitz (known as the Hazon Ish, the name of his magnum opus on religious law), held the classical position. If someone arrived from another country claiming to be Jewish, he should be allowed to marry another Jew, even if nothing is known of his family.

On the other hand it is ironic that Hammer quotes from a JTS "responsa" to bolster his point. After all, when the classical Jewish codes were written, even when the Chazon Ish wrote his position on the matter, there was only one real way to become Jewish - al pi halacha under the guidance of a Torah-observant Rav.
Much has changed in the last 50 years and one wonders if the poskim who put so much faith in personal testimony would be willing to continue to hold that position.
Consider that the Reformers accept patrilineal lineage when it comes to defining a Jew. In other words, ignore the masses of "converts" they have created who are not Jewish al pi halacha but at least made a choice somewhere along the way to undergo some kind of process, however minimal, to join what they think is the Jewish religion. In addition to them there are how many non-Jews out there with a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother who believe themselves to be Jewish because the kindly Reform rabbi at their Temple told them they are?
Add to this all the Conservative converts who are not genuinely Jewish al pi halacha. (And before any flames get fired keep in mind I'm not commenting on their worthiness or sincerity as human beings but simply stating a legal position)
Add to this all the Russians that claimed to be Jewish or were considered Jewish by the Sochnut in its zeal to bring as many people to Israel from the former Soviet Union as possible. Using criteria that even the Reformers might find too lenient, tens of thousands of non-Jews were moved from Russia to Israel and told that they just might be Jews on arrival.
Seen from this perspective the new Chareidi paranoia about who really is a Jew is understandable. Yes, the couple who show up from the US to register for marriage at the Rabbanut might be bona fide Jews al pi halacha. Or one could be the son of a non-Jewish mother and the other a Reform convert. You may disagree with the Orthodox position on matrilineal descent or non-Orthodox conversions but the guy at the Rabbanut is going to apply those standards at that point because those are the rules he knows and disqualify both members of the couple.
There is no question that the Orthodox monopoly on things like marriage and divorce in Israel has hurt people's perception of Torah observance and created a tremendous sense of resentment. This is a huge problem since one of the only really ways towards Jewish achdus is through the acceptance of a universal standard all main Jewish groups can accept. How can the Orthodox demand exclusive control over conversion, for example, if prominent members of that community behave in an abusive and condescending fashion?
There is no easy answer to this question. Hammer's article raised important points but his solution is not ideal. There is simply too much variability in the definition of "who is a Jew" amongst the non-Orthodox to make this issue go away.

Can An Atheist Be A Rabbi?

2012-01-17T01:58:00.000-05:00

Every so often Jacob Stein needs to do something to draw attention to himself. Having failed out of nursing school because of his openly anti-gay attitude he has now chosen a fight with one Jeffrey Fallick, a man who runs his own blog under the moniker: Atheist Rabbi.
Never one to pull punches, Stein's post on Fallick has crossed a line in terms of acceptability on the internet. In addition to attacking Fallick's character he published personal information. Was it in the hopes of creating a campaign of harrassment against the poor guy?
Fortunately it seems to have backfired and the only person getting harrassed is Stein himself. Criticism is piling up againt his very poor choice of posting and none of it is the least bit friendly.
However, the original question - can an atheist call himself a rabbi? - remains unanswered.
I'm going to supply mine: sure, why not?
There was a time when the title "Rav" meant something. It meant you had spent years studying under one or more qualified rabbonim. You had learned a good chunk of the Talmud and Shulchan Aruch in-depth and by heart. You had dedicated your life to understanding halacha and how to pasken it.
In today's society, however, a lot has changed. Take the issue of professional titles, for example. Once upon a time you needed to either produce a really good thesis or complete medical school to be called "Doctor". Nowadays you can call yourself "doctor" if you dispense medicinal water (homeopath), boiled herbs (naturopaths) or really good low back massages (chiropractor).
It's the same thing with the rabbinate. While many Torah-observant folks dislike referring to graduates of Hebrew Union College and the Jewish Theological Centre as rabbis the fact is that these institutions have the legal right to grant a degree that comes with the title. A graduate with the diploma is entitled to use the title "rabbi" and be addressed as such. So if Jeffrey Fallick is a gradute of Hebrew Union College or another Reform seminary that has such authority then he is indeed a "rabbi" regardless of his lack of belief in God, his lack of acceptance of the authority of Torah or his "alternative" lifestyle.
As for the other issue Stein raises in his post, well the news coming out of Israel clearly disproves his thesis that belief in God and acceptance of the authority of Torah leads to a peaceful, righteous behaviour pattern. Indeed, if most Torah observant Jews were given the choice of inviting either Fallick or Amram Shapiro, a rav with a genuine semicha for Shabbos dinner most would choose the former. After all, we might disagree with pretty much all of Fallick's main beliefs but he's unlikely to scream "shaygitz!" and toss his bowl of hot soup in our faces if we did so. With Shapiro one cannot be so certain.
The real challenge nowadays for Torah observant Jews is to lead an exemplary life both in bein adam l'Makom and bein adam l'Chaveiro. As we are seeing on the news over and over, finding such a balance in which kavod haShamayim and kavod haBrios is not easy and one can easily fall to the extreme of one side or another, leading to great sins being committed in the process in the name of "righteousness".
If Jeffrey Fallick wants to openly preach about being both a rabbi and an atheist, that's his business and his cheshbon with the God he doesn't believe in. I'm not worried that someone will mistakenly go to him for spiritual advice. I doubt anyone frum will turn to him and those that do confide their troubles in him aren't looking for the right story from the Gemara but a warm smile and a supportive voice. And that's likely what they'll get. Who is Stein to criticize that?

But What Does He Stand For?

2012-01-15T01:58:00.000-05:00

Here's what is known about Yair Lapid. He's a handsome guy with a great hairdo. He's a popular TV show host with a great voice. He's a secular Israeli but feels strongly about his Jewish identity. He's the son of a famous television star and politician, Tommy Lapid. And he's just quit his show to run for office in the next election.
What's amazing at this point is that some polls suggest a party led by him would earn 15 seats or so in the Knesset if an election was called tomorrow. Most of those seats would come at the expense of Kadima while Labour would gain and Likud would remain on top.
But what we don't know is the most important thing of all: what does Lapid stand for? What platform will he run on?
In Israeli politics he has two choices. One is to try and form a comprehensive party, one that wants to govern and therefore has positions on all issues affecting the country, like Likud, Labour and Kadima. The other is to form a special interest party like his father did with Shinui and run on that one issue. Which will he choose?
We don't know. That's why his polling results are so amazing. Based on nothing more than personal popularity from his media position enough Israelis would vote for him tomorrow to give him 15 seats. What does that say about the normally savvy Israeli electorate?
Some I've read claim that Lapid is his father's son. The recent Charedifada in Meah Shearim and Ramat Beit Shemesh would have been gold to old Tommy Lapid. Recall that his party, Shinui, ran on one simple issue: we hate Chareidim, and based on that one issue he gained 15 seats in the Knesset and a place at the cabinet table. It is undeniable that a wave of resentment against the bekishe-clad barbarians rampaging across their television screens could be manipulated into a protest vote, allowing a new Shinui party to thrive in the next election.
On the other hand there are other issues affecting the country. There is, of course, the ongoing peace process in which the Right tries to maintain Israel's borders and the Left tries to arrange an honourable national suicide in order to assuage its liberal guilt. There is also the valid question of how to rectify the incredible degree of economic disparity in a country where a few are really, really rich and many are really, really poor and there are less in the middle every day. If Israel's economic growth is to continue this is someting a responsible government really does need to address. Could Lapid's strategy be to form a party that will represent the beleaguered middle class and those beneath who feel like they will never succeed because the odds are stacked against them?
What is most probable, however, is that Lapid will be a one-hit wonder. As this article from Ynet notes, history is against him.

In the mid-1970s the Democratic Movement for Change (Dash) was founded as a response to years of corruption and political cronyism in the ruling Mapai party. Made up of leading politicians, businessmen and academics, Dash exceeded expectations and garnered 15 seats in the 1977 elections making it the third largest party in the Knesset.

Prime Minister Menachem Begin decided to ignore Dash and initially did not invite them into the coalition and formed a government instead with Ariel Sharon's Shlomtzion and the religious parties. Dash eventually ended up joining the coalition five months later. By 1978, infighting and political disagreements led the party to split into three factions and by the 1981 elections the party no longer existed.
The 1990s saw two more new parties vie for the elusive "Zionist center" of the Israeli electorate. Avigdor Kahalani initially broke away from Labor and formed the Third Way party to protest Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's willingness to negotiate with Syria about a possible withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
The Third Way won four seats in the 1996 elections and joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's first government along with Shas and the other religious parties. By the 1999 elections, however, much of their voters came to realize that the Third Way had little influence in the Netanyahu government and the party ceased to exist.
Taking the place of the Third Way in the 1999 elections was the Center Party. Led by Amnon Lipkin Shahak, Yitzhak Mordecahai and Dan Meridor, they too set out to appeal to the mainstream Israeli consensus. The Center Party promoted a middle of the road platform on most electoral issues that appealed to traditional voters of both the Labor and Likud parties.
Though it initially faired very well in public opinion polls and even presented its own candidate for the premiership, the Center Party won only six seats in the elections. Prime Minister Ehud Barak included them in his wide coalition along with Shas, United Torah Judaism, the National Religious Party and Yisrael B'Aliyah. The party slowly fell apart throughout the Knesset term and did not run again in the 2003 elections.

Will Lapid actually break that mold or will he be introduced on his new television show in a few years as "Former MK Yair Lapid"? Lapid may use his charisma effectively and, with his new party, make a huge impact in the next election. Indeed that's exactly what his father's Shinui, not mentioned in the article, did. However it's one thing to run on a protest vote, quite another to be a responsible member of a government while maintaining one's position on the important issues that got one elected. Israeli history is littered with the political corpses of those who briefly shot to prominence and just as quickly burned out.

It's About How Others See You

2012-01-04T18:45:00.000-05:00

It's nice to see that Rav David Kornreich was able to take time off from his usual anti-Slifkin crusade to contribute to Cross-Currents. It's even more interesting to see that even as condemnation of the Chareidi fanatics in Israel grows he has chosen to throw his lot in with Rav Yaakov Menken's "We are not to blame!" campaign. Rav Kornreich makes the perfectly logical point that Chareidi society, like any other society, is composed of multiple groups and that bad behaviour by one sector does not mean all the others are responsible or equally to blame. He notes that these fanatics listen to almost no one which makes official statements of condemnation by "Gedolim" meaningless. Therefore why should the greater Chareidi community be held accountable for the actions of these few that are beyond their control?
I would like to provide an answer to his concerns.
One of the most important lessons I learned in medical school was how to appreciate that people have unique perceptions of situations that can vary quite significantly between folks. I might think that I have been perfectly clear in explaining to a patient what his problem is and all he might have heard was "Blah, blah, blah". Consider the dreaded scenario, the one where I tell someone they have cancer, Rachmana litzlan. I might have a great speech prepared, full of comforting words and copious assurances about the various treatment options and all the appointments I've arranged. Once the patient hears "cancer" everything else I say turns into an incoherent mumble. If I don't realize that, if I walk out the room convinced I've done a great job handling the situation I'm fooling myself and I haven't done my job. The patient's perception is everything. If they're not happy, I haven't done what I'm supposed to, no matter how great I think my performance was.
Now, to the outside world the Chareidim are one big monolithic group. It's bad enough that if you put on a skullcap of any kind that people automatically lump you together, how much more so the Oreo cookie uniform? It's true that amongst Chasidim each can tell which clan the other is part of from the way the hat is styled and worn but to those of us on the outside they all look the same. A Gerrer chasid who sees a Belzer tearing up the street with a chainsaw in hand might think "Nothing to do with me" but for outsiders all they see is a crazy Ultraorthodox Jew and they'll look at the Gerrer next to him and wonder what he has stashed in his bekishe.
Then consider what the situation is like for those who pay attention to ongoing events in the religious world. Every week another pashkevil or cherem seems to appear on the streets of Israel. This is banned, that is condemned and the Heavens shake to their very foundation every day over some new outrage over such nonsense and meaningless things. But we are still waiting for a fiery denounciation of this ongoing Chilul HaShem. Not part of your community? It's never stopped you from condemning someone before. Indeed the responses from the Chareidi camp that have appeared only seem to cement impressions that the "gedolim" have no real clue what's going on and see non-Chareidi resistance to the thugs as yet another pogrom against them.
For these reasons alone it is imperative for the Chareidi leadership to come out with unequivocal statements of condemnation of the whackjobs in Beit Shemesh and Meah Shearim. The perception from the outside is what matters. What people outside the Chareidi community matters. It is not enough, as Rav Kornreich claims, to know that the primitives don't care about pronouncements from Ravs Eliashiv and Sternbuch. It is not enough to say "Well I can tell the difference between 'my' Chareidim and 'them'". Too many on the outside cannot and are getting fed up with part of what they see as a big monolithic family covering for and quietly supporting these provocations. They will not endure this forever.

Entitlement and Ingratitude

2012-01-03T11:05:00.000-05:00

One of the things that irritates me the most is a sense of entitlement. I deal with it all the time at work. People with no foot pain to speak of come in, having discovered that their health plan at work covers orthotics, and ask for custom orthoses because, well because they're covered so they want some. I have an older man as a patient who sailed in the merchant marine during WW2. He isn't technically a veteran but is classed as such by the Canadian government which offers WW2 veterans an extremely generous coverage plan. He and his wife know the benefits off by heart and have become the kind of people that, if they had to pay for air to breathe, would hold their breath while waiting for me to give them a prescription for it so it would be covered.
I can't stand entitlement.
Another thing that bugs me are people with no sense of gratitude. Again I deal with this on a regular basis. A person goes into Emerg, the doctor discovers an important diagnosis and gives them the right treatment but what do they remember? That they had to wait 3 hours to see the doctor in the first place and the chairs weren't comfortable. Never mind that they didn't pay a cent for the experience or that the doctor got things right for them. Come the holidays he won't be on their card list.
The reason I mention both is because avoidance of entitlement and hakaras hatov are core Jewish values. One can easily see this from the parameters of our relationship with God. Here is Someone who cannot take anything from us since, as the source of existence, He already has it all. We can, in relating to Him, only take and since our very existence is a gift from Him there is nothing that is truly ours. We cannot demand from Him anything. How could we ever be in that position? As David HaMelech, a"h, noted in Divrei HaYamim, when he was donating gold and silver to fund the future construction of our Holy Temple (may it be speedily rebuilt), the gold and silver came from God so all he was doing in donating was returning it to its source. How much more so our very lives which are only maintained by the neshamos that He provided in the first place. If Judaism allows us any rights it is only because He decided to grant them as a gift to us.
As a result, entitlement is something no Jew can afford to have when it comes to the Divine. Similarly, a constant awareness of what we have received from Him demands of us a constant sense of hakaras hatov. Lines like Baruch haShem! are uttered often but without the proper intent. Shouting those two words shouldn't be about "Look how frum I am!" but with a sense of "Thank God for all the kindness He has shown me!"
And when it comes to bein Adam l'Chaveiro, both hakaras hatov and avoiding a sense of entitlement are also important. After all, Chazal implore us in the importance of imitatio Dei repeatedly. The way to cleave to God is to imitate those thing we call his characteristics. Therefore if we are to eschew entitlement and ingratitude in our relationship with him, we must certainly shun it in our relationship with our fellows.
It seems to me that the segment of the Chareidi population that is currently causing so much societal ill in Israel, along with the general malaise afflicting the greater part of that community both in Israel and Golus are because these values have been either ignored, abandoned or turned into aveiros.
During a recent family simcha I spoke with a guest who lives in the more "moderate" area of Ramat Beit Shemesh. When I asked him about how things in Israel were he couldn't seem to find a single good thing to say about the State. Living in Israel for him was "mamash Golus" for him, perhaps even worse Golus than living in North America. The government was all about being anti-religious, the society around them was out to get them, they were suffering because of his oppression and so on.
Now let's take a step back and look at some facts. The schools his children attend, where they learn no core curriculum subjects like math and science despite laws demanding that they do, is paid for by the State. The street he walks out, the water that comes out of his tap, the hospital he goes to when he needs it are all provided for him by the State. His quiet streets at night? The ability to live freely in Israel without being subject to Islam's dhimmi restrictions that its neighbours would love to implement there? All due to the State.
Yet while he takes everything the State offers him for gratitude his culture has turned lack of hakaras hatov into a mitzvah. And he's one of the moderate ones!
Now I would never pretend that life is rosy in Israel and that the Chareidim are the only ones who refuse to see it. Is their government perfect? Well let me ask you: is any government perfect? I could find plenty to complain about my governments here in Canada at all three levels. Certainly the United States is trying to win some kind of competition of "most dysfunctional government in the world" these days. Yet I am also acutely aware that my governments do provide some important services for me, that once in a while my tax dollars go to good use so I have no trouble feeling some gratitude towards them even while hoping that they will become better at what they do. Not in Israel. It seems any sign of gratitude towards the government that provides them with billions of dollars and a safe environment to grow in is consiered assur l'gamreh.
Yet if this same government that can do no good threatens to cut back on the financial largesse that it hands the Chareidi sector then the screaming and shouting immediately begin. How dare the government try to destroy Torah and Judaism in Israel? Don't they know the Chareidim are the reason the state exists? Don't they know that they have an obligation to send this money to this non-productive sector of the economy?
Entitlement. Lack of hakaras hatov.
What's more, the modern attitude in the Chareidi commuity of "the more machmir the better" has taken this to a new level, the level of the fanatics in Ramat Beit Shemesh and Meah Shearim. Taken to its extreme, lack of hakaras hatov become hate of one's benefactor while entitlement becomes bullying. I don't just not want to say "thank you", I hate you for having given me anything at all which you better continue to do or I'll make your life miserable!
All the protests and riots seem to revolve around these two qualities, qualities which have been damaged by modern Chareidi philosophy but downright perverted by the fanatics. Yes there is a world of difference between the average Chareidi who is disgusted by the fanatics and the fanatics themselves. This does not change the fact that the sense of entitlement and dismissal of hakaras hatov that mainstream Chareidi philosophy endorses is the same as the sense of the fanatics, just not as intensely displayed.
To show that they stand against these whackjobs and within the ranks of civilized human beings, the Chareidim community needs to make a statement on this issue. It's not enough to be like the Agudah and deplore the violence if not the goals of that violence. There has to be a recognition that one can be grateful to the State of Israel without necessarily becoming an enthralled supporter of everything it does. One can be kind and cooperative with one's fellow non-Chareidi, both religious and non-religious, without it being seen as an endorsement of that lifestyle. One can step back and realize that publicly demanding things that most people around do not see as necessary or even desirable is not a kiddush HaShem but ultimately causes the opposite, Rachmana litzlan.
It is only with this kind of a sea change that Jewish society can take its needed step back from the brink and begin to function with any sense of cohesion again.

Guest Post - On Teaching Ancient Near East Monarchs

2012-01-02T17:05:00.001-05:00

By Rav Ben Hecht, president, founder and sole-executive leader of Nishma

Torah’s Perspective of the Historical Timeline

In speaking with Lord Ironheart about his post “Questions Aren’t Fatal, But Stupid Answers Are” I mentioned to him that the real problem with the presentation by Rabbi Shafran was that he didn’t really fully understand the extent of the issue with which he was dealing. Garnel asked me to expand on my thoughts for a guest post on his site…so here it is.

The problem for Rabbi Shafran was the claim by historians that, since the Code of Hammurabi, which predated the Torah, contained ideas similar to the Torah, it must be that the Mosaic Code simply copied aspects of the earlier Babylonian Code. Such an assertion, in Rabbi Shafran’s mind, would challenge the uniqueness and even Revelational quality of the Torah and, as such, could not be tolerated. Rabbi Shafran needed an explanation. The explanation that Rabbi Shafran accepted to explain this phenomenon yet retain his allegiance to Torah was that, in fact, the Code of Hammurabi was actually a product of the Torah which this king was taught by Avraham Avinu. We all know that Avraham learned and followed Torah – although he pre-dated Sinai – and it was aspects of this knowledge that was transmitted, by our forefather, to Hammurabi and from which the latter developed his Code. To Rabbi Shafran, problem solved. To Garnel, though, this answer was, in itself, an even greater problem. Where, for example, did Rabbi Shafran – or, more correctly, Rabbi Weinberg -- get this from? It may be true that, in a simplistic way, this answer solved Rabbi Shafran’s dilemma but there was no further consideration or investigation of what this answer truly meant or implied. What evidence was there to support it? To Garnel, the greater problem was such, as he defined them, stupid answers.

Under direct investigation, Rabbi Shafran’s theory actually already presented problems. As Bob Miller commenting on Garnel’s post pointed out, Hammurabi is generally understood to be the evil Nimrod, who threw Avraham into the furnace. It would seem to be a stretch to argue that Nimrod then learned Torah from Avraham. In truth, there would seem to be some Midrashim that do contend that there was a further relationship between Avraham and Nimrod and even that the latter did teshuva but the general tone of the literature does not seem to support this. There is also a strong opinion that Nimrod was also Amraphel, one of the 4 kings who attacked the 5 kings as reported in Bereishit, Chapter 14. (According to T.B. Eruvin 53a, the debate between Rav and Shmuel was not whether Nimrod and Amraphel was one and the same person but which name was his real name.) According to much midrashic thought, at least part of the plan of the war was also to destroy Avraham. So it would seem that both before Avraham left for Canaan and afterwards, there was bad blood between Nimrod and Avraham – so how could one even contend that Avraham taught aspects of this pre-Sinai Torah to such an evil idolater? One of the goals in throwing Avraham into the furnace was also to limit the very effect of his teachings to the masses; the Nimrod himself adopts these teachings? It’s nice to present answers but what do these answers truly mean? Under scrutiny, it doesn’t seem to add up. If one wishes to present an opinion of what happened in history, one has to consider all the consequences and ramifications of this opinion arriving at conclusions that consider the history of the time period as a whole. This, Rabbi Shafran did not seem to do.

It was also within this context that Garnel truly laid his challenge of Rabbi Shafran. There was much going on; societies developed aside from, it would seem, the direction of Torah law. The very charge against Sodom was not an evil of anarchy but that it possessed an evil legal system. There was a dynamic in the world that involved the movement of humanity into societies with laws and included in Garnel’s challenge was that Rabbi Shafran did not consider the reality of this dynamic in his consideration of what was occurring within this time period. Yibum is a perfect case on point. There was a practice of this type that pre-dated Sinai as evidenced by the story of Yehuda and Tamar (Bereishit, Chapter 38) but this practice clearly was different than that legislated by the Torah which only applied to the brother of a childless man and no other close relative (Chinuch, Mitzvah 598). If one contends that yibum was a lesson from Torah perhaps taught by the Avot, this could not be for its practice did not follow the Torah parameters. If it was a practice that developed within the workings of the ancient societies, though, does that take away from its value as a Torah mitzvah? Rabbi Shafran’s approach is clearly much too simplistic.

Yet there was one challenge I presented to Garnel in his presentation which I felt he overlooked and which needed to be stated. It is important within this consideration of what occurred in ancient history that one continue to recognize a significant distinction between the secular view of what transpired and a Torah view. Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Avodat Kochavim 1:1 attacks this issue in explaining how idolatry developed. From a secular perspective, humanity first considered idolatry, with a study of history attempting to explain how monotheism developed. From a Torah perspective, knowledge of the One God was existent; the need would be to explain how idolatry developed which is what Rambam undertakes in this section of his Code. The complex dynamic of history cannot be simplified but there is a key issue of how to understand the underlying background of this dynamic.

This is the point here. Within the secular perspective, the development of ancient legal systems is recorded based upon the perceived dates of the uncovered legislation. In this respect, the Code of Hammurabi is defined as a most significant historical point in this development. Given that the Mosaic Code is dated to have been formulated at a later date, there is already a preconceived interest in seeing how this latter code was similar to and/or deviated from the earlier Babylonian system. Rabbi Shafran would seem to have problems with this and so tries to develop an answer that ignores the movement of history: i.e. Hammurabi simply knew Torah.

From the Torah perspective, though, there was also a dynamic but of a different nature as the starting point was different. Humanity knew of God but moved towards idolatry. In the same way, humanity also knew of certain societal laws – the Seven Laws on Noach – and moved from there. Hammurabi emerged from a past of a certain perspective. It is clear that he did something new but what exactly was this newness may be a matter of debate based upon how one answers what came before hand. If lawlessness existed prior to Hammurabi, then one can look at his Code from one perspective. If some type of legal perspective, though, existed prior to this pronouncement of his Code, the dynamic that existed would have to be understood from a different perspective. From a Torah perspective, the world of Hammurabi did come out of a vacuum of law but of a pre-existing legal structure of the Seven Laws of Noach. This may provide another reason for similarity -- but it is not simplistic. This recognition causes us to look at ancient history from a very different perspective but it does not ignore the significant dynamic that existed. It does not necessarily simplify it or lessen our challenge in attempting to comprehend it.

The real problem with Rabbi Shafran’s answer is that he seems to maintain with his answer that he has solved all the issues. What he does not recognize is that while he actually may have provided some insight into one problem, at the same time he may have created many more. Clearly, it would seem, for example, from many midrashic sources that Avraham Avinu attempted to affect the ancient world and was successful in this to some extent. But what actually was this effect on the ancient world and what were the further consequences of it? If Shem, Cham and Yafet all experienced the Flood and thereby had no doubt about the existence of God, how could Cham’s very grandson, Nimrod, throw Avraham into a furnace for maintaining this belief? We could also wonder how this knowledge of God could be so lost that Avraham did not know anything of this until he found it on his own. We may also wonder, according to the Torah time line, how the Babel story connects with Avraham being 48 when it occurred. Yet, pursuant to this time line, it would also not be so surprising that this same Nimrod-Hammurabi would have some knowledge of the remains of the Noachide legal system so that he would incorporate it within his Code. This approach does not simplify history but it does recognize that maintaining a Torah perspective in looking at history goes beyond the question of specific details. The issue is the total view of ancient history – and that is not an easy issue. Where Hammurabi’s Code came from is just one minor issue amongst many others that need to be worked out even according to the Torah perspective of the time line. This is the real challenge and complexity that Rabbi Shafran ignores.

Reinventing the Invented

2012-01-02T14:14:00.000-05:00

I'm always skeptical when a new book comes out on some Torah subject and the advertising around it declares it to be new, groundbreaking or the first of its kind. Koheles long ago assured us that there is nothing new under the sun and this maxim generally holds true far more often than we would like to admit.
As a new example, consider the new, groundbreaking first of its kind book from Feldheim called "Hamafteach". The book surely fills a great need. For those of us who don't have the entire Shas memorized, a comprehensive index would be an incredibly useful tool. One can easily believe that HaMafteach will be a big seller for Feldheim.
What's more, the story behind where the book came from, as detailed at TabletMag is also inspiring. The author joins a list of names such as Kehati and Margaliot HaYam who prove that you can be a professional and talmid chacham without having to sit in the Beis Midrash all day long.
In fact, in this entire feel-good story about a great new sefer there is only one problem: the claim to novelty is untrue. HaMafteach, as thorough and important as it is, isn't the first index to the Talmud. Long before Artscroll was a gleam in Rav Nosson Sherman's eye, long before Rav Adin Steinaltz, shlit'a, began his incredible commentary to the Talmud, there was Soncino's English-Hebrew Talmud.
Much maligned for being difficult to follow and mostly ignored since the shiny new Artscroll's entered Hebrew book stores, the old Soncino Talmud has one incredibly redeeming feature: the Index volume. Just like HaMafteach it is an incredibly complete listing of various subjects and personalities from the Talmud Bavli. Yes, it does have limitations - as an index to the Soncino edition it uses that edition's page numbers (but there is a conversation table to standard Bavli page numbers, an annoying extra step but there nonetheless) but it was the actual first comprehensive index of the Talmud. And despite meriting barely a mention in The New York Times' version of this story, it deserves recognition.

And Then They Pull This

2012-01-01T05:04:00.000-05:00

One of the most bizarre features of the current Chareidi "uprising" in Beit Shemesh and Yerushalayim is the way the aggressors in the conflict insist on portraying themselves as the victim. With all the sincerity of a rapist who claims that it was his victim's skimpy outfit that forced him to assault her, the Chareidim who have spoken to the press insist that they are the ones who are being provoked and put in danger.
The problem is not that thinking people would reject such idiocy in an instant. The problem is that the more religious some Jews get, the less they seem to think!
Forget for a moment the stone throwing, arson, shouts of "Nazi", "prutzah" and "shiksa". Forget for a moment the mobs that have turns Meah Shearim into a no-go zons for police, buses and ambulances. What really takes this cake is this story from the Israeli media and, for once, no self-respecting person can claim this is a smear job done up to make the Chareidim look bad.

Minister Yossi Peled, a Holocaust survivor, could not believe his eyes when he saw the pictures from the ultra-Orthodox protest in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighborhood on Saturday night.

"I admit that some things are inconceivable, like taking the horrifying picture of the little boy facing the Nazis with his hands up. Regardless of whether the struggle is justified or not, this points to something insane, irrational, immoral," he told Ynet on Sunday morning.
"Any word you say will be inappropriate. I may be naïve: I never believed, no matter which conflict we're talking about, that we would use symbols of the Jewish people's tragedy for an internal battle. It was our battle against an external threat. It's inconceivable. The blood froze in my veins."
Saturday's demonstration was organized by an extreme faction in Mea Shearim in protest of what has been defined as "the exclusion of haredim" and the start of the jail term of an ultra-Orthodox man convicted of assaulting an electronics store salesman.
Mordechai Hirsch, one of the leaders of the extreme Neturei Karta faction (and the son of Rabbi Moshe Hirsch, who served as minister in the Palestinian government), said his nephews, who are not even 10 years old, took part in the protest wearing a yellow patch.
"Of course I justify it," said Hirsch. "Yes, it's from the Holocaust and it's legitimate. There's no question about it. This protest reflects the Zionists' persecution of the haredi public, which we see as worse than what the Nazis did.
"The Germans just killed the body, but these people want to kill the soul, the spirit."

Yes, there are morons who will try to turn this situation around, to really play the victim card. In a particularily poorly written piece on Cross Currents for example, Rav Yaakov Menken writes:

While some pointed out that the OU/RCA Statement said nothing about tzniyus, it is still true that their statement didn’t merely condemn the hooligans. Their statement, too, defended Torah Jews, if not a Torah value: “We also urge all observers to recognize that the behavior of these hooligans does not in any way represent the attitude or demeanor of the Charedi community at large. The vast majority of Charedi Jews find these actions abhorrent, and the community should not be judged by the inexcusable conduct of a few.”

That the OU and RCA know is that this won’t stop with the Charedim. The “activists” have, in fact, already come for the best and brightest of the religious Zionists, those most anxious to serve in elite IDF units. Now in Israel, people are speaking out against “mistreatment” of women in the IDF. Are they referring to the rampant problems of sexual harassment of female soldiers? No — “extremist religious behavior… affecting the role of women in the armed forces.” The one speaking is Brig.-Gen. Rafi Peretz, the Chief IDF Rabbi,” and he expressly made reference to Beit Shemesh. Has he so soon forgotten that the religious “problem” most recently afflicting the IDF was the desire of some young men, not one of whom was Charedi, to observe halacha with regards to Kol Isha?

On Shabbos morning I was speaking about the situation with a friend in shul and what he said really shocked me. He told me that this was civil war, Jew on Jew, just like in the time of Chanukah. He felt that these extremists were the new Chasmonaim and that responsible religious Jews had a choice - line up with them and stand up for Torah or line up with the Hellenized Chilonim. It was that simple for him. When I pointed out that there were plenty of religious Jews lining up with the Chilonim because these Chareidim are no Chasmonaim but just barbarians looking for an excuse to cause trouble he dismissed me by saying that any religious Jew who sides with a Chiloni is already Hellenized and no longer really religious.
"Including me?" I asked.
At that point he realized he had crossed a line and tried to backtrack but the damage was done. I don't think I'm going to learn with him for a while.
Yes, Rav Menken, they will come for us because we all look alike to them. That's why it's so important for us to stand up and be counted alongside the Chilonim so that they do see these parasites as a small fringe group. It's time for the Agudah to drop its mealy mouthed statements and condemn the massive chilul HaShem occuring without qualification. We do have an obligation to show that we are not like them, that we are decent, honourable and moral people. They do not represent Torah and it is questionable if there is a flame hot enough in Gehinnom for themb but we must stand up and make it known that we are not on their side.How interesting to use the recent example of religious soliders being disciplined by the Tzahal for refusing to listen to kol ishah. This is the exact opposite of what the "small group" of Chareidim in Beit Shemesh and Yerushalayim are doing. Had they been of the same ilk, the religious soldiers would not have asked to be excused from listening to women singing but would have stormed the stage, attacked the women and then, when they were being subdued, shrieked "We are being attacked! We are the victims!" The example from the army is in no way analogous to the protests now going on.The mind just spins at the sight of people who have been pampered by their government for the last 60 years, protected and pain to become parastic denizens of the State they hate so much, degrading the memory of the Holocaust like this. No amount of protest can express the outrage a decent, moral person should feel at the sight of these menuvalim daring to appropriate such imagery for themselves.

Modern Orthodoxy - The Solution Part 2

2011-12-30T11:11:00.002-05:00

A guest post by Dr. Michael Schweitzer

On the centrality of learning

Traditional Jewish practice divides into two even components - doing and learning, na'aseh v'nishma. While the comments on those two words are legion, the basic principle is simple: we do not simply practice what our fathers told us to. Ours is not a religion of mindless observance but rather we are expected to understand what we do, learn its reasons and sources and make that knowledge part of our practice. The idea of learning about Judaism for its own sake and no practical purpose, is the highest value we can aspire to and one only rarely truly achieved. Whereas in any practical discipline like science or accounting the learning serves as an aid to practice, for us learning is part of the practice and, according to the Chazal, of enough value to be equal to all the rest of the mitzvos.
It is therefore important that Modern Orthodoxy add to its definition an acknowledgement that the centrality of learning is what defines Judaism now and always. It is admirable to never cease learning and to always seek to expand one's horizons. What's more, this knowledge cannot be seen on par with other fields. A well-educated doctor is a good professional but a well-educated Jew is a holy person. As a result, a person's commitment to Orthodoxy, in addition to daily practice, must be measured with the level of his commitment to learning. A person who does all the right things when it comes to keeping kosher, Shabbos and davening but who does not see having a time set aside each day exclusively for Torah study, who does not set learning goals for himself, who is not constantly trying to increase his knowledge of Torah Judaism may be a sincere and decent person but is not behaving in a genuinely Orthodox fashion.
However, the slogan "Learning Torah is important" is merly that, a slogan with all the emptiness the term implies. While we recognize that learning Torah lishmah is of supreme importance it is also important to realize that Torah study should change a person into something better. One who spends his days commited to learning but has no problem behaving like a boor in public to those he does not identify with is a naval b'rhus ha Torah. His learning has not changed him. Like the difference between hearing and listening, he may have studied Torah but he hasn't learned any. This is not an idle thought considering the events that are even now convlusing Jewish society in parts of Israel.
Therefore Modern Orthodoxy needs to further define proper learning as the kind which creates a better Jews, not simply a more educated one. Does the learning lead to the formation of a kinder person? Is a person inspired by his learning to be a better member of society? Does he take both the legal and the moral lessons of the Gemara in front of him away from the Beis Medrash or does he, as the old Israeli saying goes, divide and say Zot hadat aval zeh haesek?
It is therefore important for Modern Orthodox institutions format the education experience of their students along these lines. Which is more important: to produce Jewish children who can know Bava Metzia off by heart but who don't appreciate the moral importance of the material therein or those who understand that we are to be a positive example to the world through our behaviour and that knowledge of the Gemara is a means to that end? Who is the better student: the one who can recite the entire chapter of Eilu Metzios along with Rashi but never realizes how it applies to him or the one who goes above and beyond to return lost objects even when the halacha doesn't strictly demand it because he feels to do otherwise would be wrong and not in consonance with what God and Chazal would want of him?
It is also important to teach children that Torah study is an ongoing process of inquiry, of discussion and of increasing depth. Simple answers, dogmatic phrases and the like are things they should be taught to be wary of. And more than anything else they should be encouraged to challenge teachers with the simple question: Why? As opposed to systems in which deference and limitation of thinking is encouraged to avoid challenges to a pre-determined ideology, Modern Orthodoxy's "dogma" should be one of exploring Torah to its fullest depth since the greater the understanding, the greater the reward.

Rejecting A Version of the "Torah Lifestyle"

2011-12-29T09:55:00.001-05:00

Even as condemnation of the zealotry in Israel grows, so too does the sideways justification by some of elements of this rabble. After months of accelerating hatred, violence and public chilul HaShem, the leaders of the Chareidi world and their PR bagmen, a group that can never be accused of indecent haste when it comes to noting deficits in their own community, have finally started to speak out on behalf of their followers and against the fascist mobs that would seek to refine Judiams as Talibanism with peyos.
Taken superficially their words are quiet heartening. Consider Rav Yitzchok Aderlstein's recently published piece which brims with anger against those who would distort the Torah lifestyle he clearly and passionately sees as a force for good into one of unadulterated hate:

To anyone not familiar with the history and dynamics of the charedi communities of Israel – and the century-and-a-half-long kulturkampf that created it, there is nothing in the pictures coming from Israel to differentiate the mobs in Beit Shemesh from those in Pakistan or Iraq. No amount of casuistry will put a dent in the plain truth: the behavior of many people who are seen as frum is a massive chilul Hashem of epic proportions.
Rabbinic and communal organizations are readying statements denouncing the barbarians at the gates of Beit Shemesh. This is necessary and good. It is probably not good enough. The extremists are not the equivalent of the poor, semi-literate unwashed masses in the Muslim suburbs of Paris. They were the recipients of many years of Torah chinuch. They studied, to some degree, the same seforim as the rest of us.
Even after we protest, the world will want to know what makes us more authentic than them. Why are they not the “real” Jews, and we are the reformers? How do we demonstrate that they are the imposters, that their understanding of Yiddishkeit is foreign to its genuine spirit? It is simply insufficient to say that we are right and they are wrong, or that our rabbis and leaders are greater than theirs. We dare not leave the very definition of Yiddishkeit to a he says, she says competition.
It is not enough to unequivocally denounce them. We must explain to the world – and fully and confidently to ourselves – why the extremists are a foreign, sickly weed, not another shitah among many. Where do we find within our mesorah the confidence to see these people as outside of it? We must be able to point not just to a collection of their terrible actions, but to fundamental themes in their lifestyle that make them different – and that we can package simply and reinforce in our children and students.

For those who were offended by the strident tone of his recent piece condemning Morthodoxy this article is a definite wake-up call. While he was certainly emotional when it came to describing what he didn't like about "Open Orthodoxy" he was careful to emphasize the good intentions of those involved in that community despite his strong disagreement with their twisting of the halachic process. He is not so generous here with the chayos who are rampaging across the sacred ground of Israel and pretending to be its most fervent defenders.
There are, of course, some small problems with the article. Using the term "Chareidi Spring" in the title in one example. The Arab Spring started when ordinary citizens in Arab countries, tired of their permanent states of emergency and dictatorship, rose up in protest with the intention of changing their entire society.
By contrast, there is no Chareidi spring. There are no Chareidi leaders or writers who will publicly admit that the community is totally on the wrong track, that the leaders are heading the community bus to the edge of a cliff and that massive change is necessary.
In fact, as if to prove this point, a statement attributed to Rav Eliashiv, shlit"a, seems to have been timed to come out at the exact moment that it will cause the most provocation.
Far from stating that perhaps some Chareidi elements have gone too far in their rejection of the surrounding society, or from mentioning that spitting on people who are considered "less religious" is a real aveirah , the statement (and I do keep in mind that it is entirely possible Rav Eliashiv had nothing to do with it and that this was published by some fanatics in his name on the mere assumption he would agree with its contents) rejects any "Arab Spring" coming from within the Chareidi community. Any push from the real world is hatred for Torah, hatred for Torah Jews, etc.

According to Elyashiv, "The secret and foundation of the existence of the world of Torah and a fearful public is in a life of Torah and awe, out of complete segregation from the life and concepts of the secular world of those rebelling against the Torah."
Referring to Israel's academic institutions, the Lithuanian public's leader noted, "We know how just how much the greatest sages of Israel fought against any 'haredi educational institution' intended for such studies and denounced it, especially when they openly declare that the goal of all these courses is to change the spirit and essence of the haredi public and work to instill all kinds of other aspirations, national and educational, which our forefathers never dreamed of."
Haredi journalist Shlomo Kook, an associate of the Elyashiv family, explained the letter: "The wild incitement in recent days against the haredi public emphasizes and deepens the need to strengthen our home, remind the world of Torah that in every generation one rises up to destroy us – sometimes from the outside and recently, unfortunately, from the inside too, from within the Jewish people.
"The great sages of Israel seek to support us and remind us that the secret of our existence is guard the pure can of oil.
"The fact that people have to make a living and engage in academic studies for livelihood purposes is one thing, and most rabbis allow it in times of need, but in recent years there is a trend of people trying to create a 'revolution'.
"Some people have made it their goal – out of hatred toward Torah – to integrate tens of thousands of yeshiva students in the academy and army in order to disconnect them from the Talmud. Rabbi Elyashiv sees the need to protest this phenomenon."

The only real protests against the dysfunctional elements of Chareidism are coming from the outside. The Chareidim, perceived as a monolithic group by outsiders, are the dictatorship demanding a permanent state of emergency. Tellingly, the young girl who became the symbol of Chareidi hatred for "the other", Na'ama Margolis, is Dati Leumi, not Chareidi. It is obvious that had she been Chareidi she would have been told by her parents and community leaders to keep quiet and become more tznius so as not to provoke the holy men of Ramat Beit Shemesh.
However, not everyone seems to have gotten the memo that it's time to stop pretending that the whackjobs in Beit Shemesh and Meah Shearim are simply frum Jews whose love of Torah and mitzvos has so overwhelmed them that they can't help but act like they do in defence of their so-called values. After an article in which he correctly notes the danger of kana'us, Rav Yonasan Rosenblum then tries to downplay how serious this ongoing phenomenon is to Jews in general, religious Jews in particular, and Chareidi Jews in specific. First, he justifies the evolution of Chareidi culture that has led to all this:

THE MORE FREQUENT MANIFESTATIONS of kana'us in Israel has less to do with the spiritual elevation of Eretz Yisrael than with certain historical and sociological factors. Most of the kana'us comes from the community centered in Meah Shearim, which has been waging a hundred year war with Zionism and is in perpetual battle mode.From the pre-State days, Israeli society has been marked by a certain strain of lawlessness and an admiration of those who establish facts on the ground without undue attention to legalities. Violence has often proven effective in various political struggles, and that success has encouraged further resort to violence.Finally, as the Brisker Rav once pointed out to Rabbi Amram Blau, even the fiercest anti-Zionists often act as if they were living in a Jewish state, in which they need not worry about harsh responses such as they would receive in chutz l'aretz. Satmar Chassidim in Williamsburg do not try to impose their standards of modesty on the gentiles with whom they share elevators in high-rise apartment buildings because doing so could prove life-threatening.

He then follows up with another article, this time openly downplaying another facet of this scandal, the growing obsession with banning all public interaction between men and women in as many places in Israel as possible:

THE ISSUE of separate seating on public buses is an unfortunate example of extreme elements, who answer to no rabbinic authority, once again kidnapping the public agenda of the haredi community. There is no place for attempts to impose haredi mores on others.
Yet even here the magnitude of the issue has been grossly exaggerated. With a little more foresight the bus issue could have been avoided entirely. The government should have allowed those who seek a strict separation to run their own private bus lines between haredi neighborhoods. The refusal to countenance private bus services led to the current mess.

Not to be outdone, the two greatest apologists for everything that is wrong in Agudah-land have also weighed in. Rav Avi Shafran, playing to his strength, does his best to draw attention away from the issue by listing a whole bunch of things that he thinks are the real problems facing the Chareidi community.

Among the spiritual threats facing us are things like the coarsening of the surrounding culture, which is practically unavoidable, and its new invasion-vehicle called the Internet.
Other challenges pound at the door to our souls, too, like the astonishing sea-change in how society has come to view the idea of a marital relationship, capitulating in mere years to a movement that proudly and loudly rejects one of the fundamental merits of human society. This mindset, which has spread even to some ostensibly Orthodox Jews must be countered by each of us individually, as well as communally.
Then there’s what calls itself the “Animal Rights” movement, whose true danger isn’t limited to the threat it poses to legal shechita, but lies in its very credo, the idea that animals have rights. We have obligations toward animals, to be sure. But assigning them “rights” leads to obscenities like a book, “Eternal Treblinka,” that compares factory farming to Nazi concentration camps.
The perverse overvaluing of animal lives swings in tandem with the devaluing of human life, both at its beginning and at its end. Standing firm on the issue of the value of every moment of human life is imperative.
There are other issues, too, I noted, that Torah-conscious Jews must confront, like the subtle redefinition of kashrus being attempted by the Conservative movement, cheered on by mendacious media; and the promotion of atheism under the banner of science.
These are not so much mere issues as they are full-fledged “ism”s, of a sort with those idolatries Rav Elchonon Wasserman fingered decades ago: Communism, Secular Zionism, and Nationalism. Today we add Scientism, AnimalRights-ism, a Woman’sRighttoChoose-ism, QualityofLife-ism.
Not to mention isms that have already infected the Orthodox world, like rampant Materialism, Feminism, and anti-Gedolim-ism.

Finally Rav Yaakov Menken weighs in, giving great weight to a belated statement by the Agudah that can only be described as mealty-mouthed:
Upon consultation with its rabbinic leadership, Agudath Israel of America issued the following statement today:Separate seating on buses or other public places, increasingly restrictive dress codes that culminate in burka babes and self-appointed modesty crowds shrieking prutzah and shiksa have nothing to do with Torah. These folks may have been raised in a "pure Torah environment", they may have learned Torah "on a high level", they may call themselves pious people whose love for God and Torah overrides everything else, but they are not Torah Jews. They are barely human in how they make a mockery of those of us who insist that a Torah lifestyle leads to greater civility, not less.
But since they are unlikely to listen to our protests, perhaps it is time to change targets. Perhaps it is time to target the vast majority of Chareidim who either quietly watch what is going on with silent resignation or will only speak out anonymously. If they will not confront, they are complicit. If they will socialize with these people, they are one with them. If they pledge fealty to leaders who will not condemn these barbarians they might as well be at the protest. Perhaps with enough of a push they will rise up and reclaim their society before it becomes truly indistinguishable from the one in Afghanistan that it is shamelessly copying.I always find it interesting that certain Chareidi slogans break down when they meet the real world. For example, their vaunted rejection of all elements of modern society would seem to have withered, Rav Rosenblum intimates, from its close exposure to Zionist anarchism. The same anarchism that built a state in record time and allowed it to survived incredible economic, cultural and military hostility, of course. Yes, they're totally unlike the Zionist and reject everything about them, except their perceived tactics?
Reports of recent events in the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh are deeply disturbing.
Violence of any sort, whether physical or verbal, by self-appointed “guardians” of modesty is reprehensible. Such conduct is beyond the bounds of decent, moral – Jewish! – behavior. We condemn these acts unconditionally.
Those who have taken pains to note that the small group of misguided individuals who have engaged in this conduct are not representative of the larger charedi community are to be commended. It is disturbing, though, that some Israeli politicians and secularists have been less responsible, portraying the actions of a very few as indicative of the feelings of the many. Quite the contrary, the extremist element is odious to, and rejected by, the vast majority of charedi Jews.
Lost in all the animus and ill will, unfortunately, is the concept ostensibly at the core of the controversy: the exalted nature of tzenius, or Jewish modesty.
Judaism considers human desires to constitute a sublime and important force, but one whose potential for harm is commensurate with its potential for holiness.
In a society like our own, where the mantra of many is, in effect, “anything goes,” many charedi Jews, men and women alike, see a need to take special steps – in their own lives and without seeking to coerce others – to counterbalance the pervasive atmosphere of licentiousness, so as to avoid the degradation of humanity to which it leads.
It would be tragic were the acts of violence to lead Jews to, G-d forbid, reject the culture of tzenius that has always been the hallmark of the Jewish nation, to regard Jewish modesty as something connected to violence and anger, rather than to refinement and holiness.
In summary: these zealots are right in their minds but wrong in their methods. What they're fighing for, a society obsessed with a definition of tznius that in no way matches what the classical sources describe it as, is laudatory but because they're going about it the wrong way it might cause more harm than good. A world in which there is total separation of men and women everywhere outside the bedroom (and every there when it's not mikvah night) is a praiseworthy goal and hopefully we'll get there the right way.
That's a condemnation?
Not zealots and thugs screaming insults at 7 years old girls. Not mafia-type gangs harrassing businesses and preventing them from making a living. Not pedophile rebbes praying on students. Those are not problems facing the Charedi world that need to be deal with. Nothing to see here folks.While I agree that foresight would have avoided the bus issue, I disagree with his solution. My version of foresight would have been the placing of two Israeli police, one preferably female, on every bus that runs through one of the neighbourhoods where locals demand separate seating. Their job would be to forcibly remove any man or woman from the bus who insists that separate seating, something that has no basis in halacha, take place against the will of any passenger.
Nevertheless what Rav Rosenblum either doesn't or won't see is that the bus segregation is intimately tied to the violence in Ramat Beit Shemesh and elsewhere. It is indeed controlled by an extremist fringe of the Chareidi community but prospers and grows with the quiet consent of the docile majority which, over 3 generations, has been taught to never think for itself but always defer to authority. The same attitude which allows people to stand on public buses and tell people where they can and can't sit and then verbally or physically abuse them when said people refuse to comply is what is on display outside Na'ama Margolis' home. It's the attitude of the bully who, unless pushed back, himself pushes ever forward until the victim either falls and decides to stand his ground.

Modern Orthodoxy - The Solution

2011-12-25T07:12:00.001-05:00

A guest post by Dr. Michael Schweitzer

As time passes since the publication of my landmark article on Modern Orthodox (generously hosted at this blog by Lord Ironheart), I've come to realize there are some areas in it that should be expanded upon. I plan at some point in the next while to add a section on the Rav and his role in the development of Modern Orthodoxy but at this point I want to add something to what I think is the weakest section of the piece: the solutions for the problems facing Modern Orthodoxy.
As I wrote in the original article, there is a great need for Modern Orthodoxy to define itself in some fashion as opposed to the current default "We're Orthodox but not Chareidi" that seems to be the only common factor uniting an otherwise disparate community of people. Despite noting that personal autonomy seemed to be about the only defining factor there is a strong need for the community to come up with some parameters, especially in light of the recent rise of a group, Open Orthodoxy or Morethodoxy, which has come to see its mission as pushing the leftward boundaries of Orthodoxy as far as possible to bring that edge in sync with modern secuular norms.
This is not to say that Ultraorthodoxy is also not desperately in need of developing a similar parameter for its rightward edge. As events over the last few years have shown us repeatedly there are many in the Chareidi community whose authentic Jewish values begin and end at the clothing they wear as a uniform. Ultraorthodoxy certainly needs to do a chesbon hanefesh to decide how frum is "too frum". However, that is not the purpose of this post.
Therefore, the first suggestion I would make would be to define the nature of the relationship between the average layperson and his/her Rav. This is an area where, for many Modern Orthodox, there is a great deal of work to be done. This is due to a combination of factors. In the Modern Orthodox community the Rav is often a pulpit one, more an employee of one's shul than one's spiritual guide or influence. As a result people see the Rav as a source of sermons or shiurim but not necessarily someone positioned to answer important personal questions or those with halachic significance.
In addition, there is the amazing plethora of seforim which now exist on all manners of topics, many of them halachic. Publishers such as Artscroll have brought classics such as the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch within the reach of even that part of the Modern Orthodox community that knows little Hebrew. Beyond these are the books detailing the proper observance of Shabbos, kashrus and niddah. With resources like these available there is certainly a trend to pasken "by the book".
Finally there is the era we live in, that of the Gedolim. Unlike generations past many people have instant access to some of the most important halachic minds on the planet. The result has been a delegitmization of the local community Rav. Why ask him if the pot is kosher if you have Rav Eliashiv's home phone number?
For Modern Orthodoxy, therefore, the answer to these problems is to stress that people within a congregation have a tie to their Rav that goes beyond simply showing up for shul to hear the Shabbos morning speech. The Rav, in turn, has an obligation to develop that relationship as well.
One thing that the Conservatives have done, for example, is include training in counselling and advice giving as part of their rabbinical curriculum. This is an important thing to consider in an age where people are looking not just for answers to shailos but also for advice, help in their personal life or a source of comfort. All the training in Shulchan Aruch in the world will not prepare a Rav to do a good job counselling a grieving congregant and ham-handed methods reinforced by little more than ancedotes from the Tanach or Chazal will not aid the situation. Therefore it is imperative that Modern Orthodox rabbonim recognize that this is an important part of their role in their community. If they are training in counselling already, so much the better. If not, such professional development should be strongly encouraged.
In addition, there is a need for Modern Orthodox laypeople to recognize the concept of the shailoh. As noted above, books and a certain "I can figure this out myself" spirit have caused the practice of asking the Rav important questions to almost fall by the wayside. Other times the yetzer gives us a difference answer like "Oh I'm sure it's okay" or "I can't believe that this would be an issue". A close tie with a Rav is, as Lord Ironheart himself has noted, as essential to a Jew as a relationship with a primary care physician is to the average person. A person who refused to consuult a physician, looking up answers to his problems on the internet or in self-help books instead would surely be dismissed as a fool by thinking people. If our physical health is so important that a relationship with a personal physician who is familiar with us is essential, how much more so a relationship with a trained Rav who is familiar for us when it comes to our spiritual health.
There is a need to emphasize this personal relationship, to make the Rav a part of one's live when it comes to important spirirtual and halachic issues. Rabbonim need to work with sensitivity and professionalism in accepting this role but nevetheless the role must be embraced by the Modern Orthodox community.
Forget the "Gadol" in Israel or New York you've never met. Your questions can be handled by someone who knows you and who know his limitations when it comes time to handle difficult situations. This needs to become a defining feature of Modern Orthodox.

Book Review: Understanding Genesis

2011-12-21T18:22:00.000-05:00

Understanding Genesis by prof Nahum Sarna is an interesting read I recently completed. While not an Orthodox book by any stretch of the imagination, it is a fascinating and in-depth look at the first book of the Torah from the position of an interested and sympathetic academic, one more interested in trying to understand the message the stories of our ancestors teach us than in trying to tear down the text in an attempt to delegitimize it.
The book generally follows the narrative of Genesis starting with the creation of the universe and ending with Yaakov Avinu and his sons arriving in Egypt. Most of the chapters corresponded to a particular narrative and hence parsha but some are short enough to encompass only part of one.
In each chapter the narrative is summarized and then analyzed for moral lessons. The text itself is also compared to contemporary non-Jewish sources to look for common features and literary styles. For example, Sarna contrasts the Babylonian/Akkadian version of creation with ours, showing how the non-Jewish version is essentially just a mythical story with nothing deeper to recommend it while moral lessons abound in the Biblical text, clearly the intent of the Author.
In the chapter on the Mabul, for another example, Sarna again contrasts various flood stories from the region with ours and again shows that what we are supposed to take away from the narrative is not the technical details of what happened but the moral lessons that occur to Noach and other characters. This is obviously a repeated theme throughout the book: the Torah is not a history text or dry religious tract but a book of moral instruction even when analyzed through a secular lens.
In fact, the one limitation of the book is the obvious: Sarna concludes (as any academic must) that the Torah itself is a multi-author work although many of the proofs he brings are incredibly weak or full of supposition and conjecture. Where he differs from other academics is in showing that the literary style of Genesis, the various legal phrases in the narratives and the descriptions of life in the time of our Avos are authentic products of the time, not later invention from the time of Ezra HaSofer or later. One example is Yaakov Avinu's final argument with Lavan in which Yaakov pretty much quotes his rights from the dominant code of Hammurabi which was the law of the land at the time, something that would have been unknown to another author centuries later.
In fact, that was the one frustration I felt when finishing the book. According to Sarna, the narratives in Genesis can be ascribed to the time period they claim to be from but is a multi-author book. According to Umberto Cassuto, the Torah is a unitary text but the product of a later human author. How annoying. Why can't they each reach the obvious conclusion that each of their analyses reach together: that the text is a unitary entity written at the time it claims to have been?

Questions Aren't Fatal, But Stupid Answers Are

2011-12-20T18:00:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I wonder if the bagmen the Agudah employs, like Rav Avi Shafran, actually believe the falsehoods and distortions they print or if somewhere deep down they realize they're just presenting the company line because they're being paid to, not because it's what they actually hold by.
And sometimes one gets a clear message that, in fact, they have bought the company line hook and sinker. They really do believe in the alternative reality the leadership of the Agudah would love us to believe is the true one, not the solid one around us that we actually live in.
Case in point is Rav Shafran's latest piece in which he tries a different tactic to reach out to the unbelieving (that is, anyone not with the Agudah's line of thinking) crowd. Instead of being condescending or dismissive as is his usual wont, he instead starts off by making what he must believe is an amazing concession to the "Sliffkin side" of things:

Young (and not so young) Jews will always have questions about our religious tradition, or mesorah; and asking questions is the only way to ascertain and internalize truth. Some claim that teachers of Torah today don’t allow certain issues to be raised. If that is true (and I hope it’s not), it is lamentable. Because no question, honestly asked, is a bad question. And if a teacher doesn’t feel adequate to the task of correctly answering one, that’s also fine. In such cases, both teacher and student can—and should—go to someone more knowledgeable to learn more.

This approach is a not-so-subtle swipe at the introduction to the book that shall go unnamed because it's been banned for violating "the mesorah" and its view of creation. In that introduction, the author that shall go unnamed notes the old Yiddish saying: You don't die from a question. It's a great saying and makes an important point: there are some things about the universe and everything God has put in it that we can never know about. Human brains are only so big. We can conceive of only so much. There will always be those things that are beyond human ken.
Now when the book that shall go unnamed was published, the vociferous response from its opponents was that one is not allowed to ask questions, especially of "Daas Torah". By asking questions one was perceived to be lacking faith and this was assur.
Now in all fairness, it wasn't all questions that were banned. Asking something like "Well how did the Rashba answer the Ramban on such and such?" was perfectly fine. Asking something like "Do you really expect me to believe that dinosaur bones were planted deep in the ground by God just to test my faith?" was not.
So along comes Rav Shafran with a third approach - you can ask your question but you have to ask the right person and then accept the answer, modifying your worldview if necessary to make it acceptable. In his case, it was the idea that there was this ancient code of law, the Code of Hammurabi, that contained many laws that were similar to Torah legislation on current matters of the day. It was also clear that the Code predated the giving of the Torah and was probably more current with the Avos, especially Avraham Avinu. For Rav Shafran this raised a question:

Elements of the code, instituted by a king of the First Babylonian Dynasty, bear clear similarities to various of the Torah’s laws. What, I asked myself, were laws that would only be given to the Jewish People at Sinai doing inscribed on tall stones centuries earlier?

Had I been drinking coffee when I read this, I probably would be off at the store right now buying a new screen and keyboard as I would have sprayed said coffee all over them. Instead I sat back and tried to wrap my head around the realization I'd just come to: Rav Avi Shafran honestly believes that no history other than that detailed in the Torah ever happened.
I mean, I'd heard it before. For example, I once heard someone describe the war between the four and five kings in Lech Lecha as "the first world war" or "the first war in history" because, after all, the Torah hadn't mentioned any others until now but I always figured (hoped?) that people were speaking figuratively. After all, there were civilizations scattered across the world at this point. Surely it was obvious that other wars had been fought and that the one in Lech Lecha was mentioned because it was relevant to the life story of Avraham Avinu, right?
Apparently not.
Then there is the line "laws that would only be given to the Jewish people at Sinai". Again, one has to ask: does Rav Shafran really believe that there were no other societies that had developed laws for dealing with damages, slaves, marriage, etc.? Does he really believe that the social, civil and criminal legislation given to us at Sinai was the first such system in history simply because the Torah mentions no others?
From the answer his esteemed rebbe gave him, it seems he's not the only one:

So naturally, I brought my question, like countless others about science, history and other things, to my rebbe, Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg, the late Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Ner Yisroel in Baltimore. He just looked at me in his inimitable, sympathetic way, and posed a question of his own. “And Avi,” he said with deliberation, “just what do you think Avraham Ovinu spent his entire life doing?”

My question, I immediately realized, wasn’t much of one. A fundamental datum about Avraham, I knew but didn’t consider, is that he spent his days tirelessly spreading the word about the Creator of all, and sharing elements of His Torah (whose laws, the Midrash teaches us, were known to, and studied by, our forefathers).

Did I really think, Rabbi Weinberg was saying to me, that Avraham’s efforts had had no effect on the society of his day, or on laws enacted by leaders of the time?

Now without meaning any disrespect to such a great Talmid Chacham as Rav Weinberg, z"l, I feel compelled to ask: what were they smoking?! Am I really expected to believe that the Code of Hammurabi was influenced by Avraham Avinu, that it was his keeping of the "whole Torah" and "all the mitzvos" that influenced the Mesopotamanian society of the time to create its own code of laws?

What we know of Avraham Avinu's life is, after all, amazingly little. Entire decades of it pass without any mention being made of his activities but one thing is clear: he had no contact with the great world leaders of the day and certainly no influence in their courts. He was a righteous man, he spoke with God, he received His understanding of how the world was to run and how a person is expected to conduct himself in a divine fashion, but he never sat down with Hammurabi one sunny afternoon to dictate to him how to write a code of law for his country.

Want to know how I'm certain? Because the Torah never says so!

Well shouldn't that be a good enough answer? After all, if the four vs five kings is the first war in history because the Torah mentions no other, then one must also conclude that Avraham Avinu never wrote or influence a code of law for the local nations as that same Torah does not mention it either! Yet I'm supposed to believe that his schedule consisted of a Daf Yomi shiur for the local Philistine nobility in the morning, an expounding session on Seder Nezikin for the Babylonian royalty in the afternoon and a Pirkei Avos shiur outside his tent every Shabbos afternoon?

No doubt Rav Shafran would also insist, after being given this great insight, that accepting that the Hammurabi code was influenced by our Avos and developed from the Torah they taught the masses is an indispensable part of our mesorah, the rejection of which is basically kefirah.

But just because he and his bosses are shelling out the Kool-aid does not mean I have to drink it.

What is so threatening about accepting that Avraham Avinu and the rest of the Avos were good citizens of the era they lived in, that there were developed societies and legal codes that pre-dated the Torah because governments needed a way to organize things for their subjects? No, none of those systems were divinely ordained like our Torah is but they still existed. And how hard is it to believe that there would be similarities between those systems and the Torah just like legal systems today across the world share common features despite different histories and civilizational developments?

No, one doesn't die from a question but a stupid answer? If it causes you to choke on your coffee, well that's fatal!

Restaurant Review - Shangri La

2011-12-19T17:42:00.002-05:00

Travelling is not something I enjoy doing. I mean, there are some places I like going but that's mostly because I know there will be kosher restaurants while I'm there ensuring I don't go hungry. I don't like to go hungry and I don't like packing tons of snack bars and veggie burgers to survive on while other folks around me get to dine out. As a result I like to research new destinations before I decide on them.
On my recent trip to San Francisco I had the pleasure of trying out some of the kosher eateries in the city and came up with one very pleasant surprise - the vegetarian Chinese restaurant called Shangri-La.
Now most of us are used to a certain style of kosher Chinese food - fat, middle-aged mashgiach out front in a white shirt and black pants, busy Filipino cooks in the back frying up the stereotypical assortment of things like wantons, sweet and sour soup, eggrolls and the like.
Shangri-La was not like this at all. Located in a quiet west end neighbourhood and easily reached by the city's rapid transit system, it has a small but inviting dining room and is staffed by - get this! - real Chinese people.
I know! Who'd have thought?
The menu is expansive and consisted of dishes I'd never heard of before, along with various listings of Chinese ingredients whose identities were similarly unknown to me. The one that really stuck out was "Chinese Miracle B" which even the owner of the place couldn't tell me much about.
However the food was amazing. We had the herbal teas to start, followed by some exotic salads, fake shrimp and then fake ribs on a bed of herbs and lettuce. Everything was full of flavours I found different from the usual stock stuff served in kosher Chinese restaurants elsewhere. The service was quick and friendly. Best of all, the prices were incredibly reasonable. Should I find myself in San Francisco again I wouldn't hesitate to take in dinner there. I therefore recommend it to any kosher travellers who find themselves in the bay area.

Where Do I Get a Patent From?

2011-12-18T09:59:00.000-05:00

As I'm written on numerous occasions, there's no patent on the term "Orthodox Judaism". Until now we have relied on non-Orthodox people being honest and not trying to represent themselves as Orthodox but in recent years that tactic has been sorely tested. First the Conservatives tried to model themselves as "the authentic movement of traditional Judaism". Then there's Morethodoxy which is trying to create a Conservative Judaism with a mechitzah. And now, presenting Steve Greenberg.
Now, for those who don't know, Greenberg is a homosexual man who has an Orthodox ordination (and I'm sure the guy who gave it to him is still kicking himself over that one) and who has used his title to promote the idea that one can be a practising homosexual and not be in conflict with Torah Judaism.
It seems that some amongst the organized homosexual community have developed an obsession with Orthodox Judaism's stubborn refusal to accept anal intercouse between two men as an acceptable form of love-making. Yes the Torah say it's forbidden but can't we just get past that already? FriarYid wrote recently about attending a gay congregation on Yom Kippur where the verse was omitted from the Minchah leining. I once heard from a JTS "rabbinical" student that many in the JTS understand the verse as referring to non-consensual intercourse meaning the Torah prohibits not only heterosexual but also homosexual rape and this means that it thinks that both, when consensual, are okay.
All the twisting and turning does not change the prohibition's existence and parameters. While it is imperative to stress that the ban on homosexual intercourse does not imply permission to treat those who yearn for it in an insulting or demeaning manner, it is also important to note that there are limits to acceptance of such people and their desires. We must treat them respectfully, not discriminate against them and avoid anything that might justifiably antagonize them but we still cannot say that their form of intercourse is acceptable in our value system. This is an especially heartwrenching concept for those homosexuals who wish to be properly Torah observant. It means a life of denial of their most important physical desire. Who can deny the difficulty associated with such a decision?
But is it a decision that must be made honestly and Steve Greenberg and his ilk are intent on subverting that honesty by creating the false impression that one can eat one's cake and have it too. Hence his decision to officiate at an "Orthodox" wedding of two men which recently caught people's attention.
There are lots of things that could be said about this stunt, and for those who know Jewish law and tradition this is a stunt, not a wedding. Yes, American civil law may recognize the legal union between these two men but Jewish law does not, no more than it does the state of marriage between a Jew and a Gentile.
Add to that the healthy state of self-delusion the participants are under:
"We were encouraged by the legislation of same-sex marriage in our home ‘state’ of Washington, D.C.,” Bock and Kaplan wrote in a guide to the ceremony, according to Ruttenberg. “At the same time, both of us wanted a ceremony that would be meaningful halachically (in terms of religious Jewish law) and create a set of Jewish legal obligations between us."
It is to laugh. There is no halachic meaning to a ceremony forbidden by halacha. There are no newe legal obligations between these two men that didn't exist before. If two non-Jews had decided to have a wedding and use a Jewish motif because they thought the chuppah was pretty and they wanted to jump on a glass and shout mazel tov at the end for kicks it would have been just as effective. Any attempt to state that this conformed with Orthodox Jewish law is due either to delusion or ignorance. One can shout that one is Orthodox all one wants but then, one can wash and say HaMotzi over the ham and cheese sandwich at the local kosher-style deli too. Going through the motions doesn't mean one has done something of legal significance.
In summary, Greenerg's "ceremony" raises only one important question: which one of them is going to wear a sheitl and go to the mikvah?

When Self-Reflection Hurts

2011-12-15T17:09:00.000-05:00

Israel was criticzed recently for running a ham-handed advertising campaign that was meant to encourage yordim in the United States to consider returning home. While the intent was noble, the final product was classic Israel - blunt. The message was simple: Stay in America and your kid will wind up celebrating Chrismas with your shiksa spouse. Return to Israel if you want to stay Jewish.
The reaction from the American Jewish community was understandable. It was a histrionic cry of "How dare you portray American Jewish life like that!?" Despite efforts to assure the American community that Israel does not think poorly of them, feathers on this side of the Atlantic are still ruffled.
Here's the problem: American Jewry needs to take a good look at itself because the caricatures in the ad campaign aren't far off the mark.
What is the rate of intermarriage amongst non-Orthodox Jews? For how many years has it been far more likely that a Jewish young adult would married out than in? What is the average level of Jewish knowledge amongst American Jews? I'm not talking about all the cultural pap that gets served up in the non-Orthodox Jewish day school system. How many know more Torah than just Uncle Yankel's Bible Stories? How many can name the various components of a page of Talmud, much less read and understand them?
In truth the state of American Jewry is perilously pathetic. Intermarriage is rife, ignorance of basic Judaism is pandemic. What's more, consider the effect assimilation is having on the community. Not thirty years ago there were six million Jews in the US. Not forty years ago there were Jews in New York than in Israel. According to the most recent population data we're down to four million Jews in the US and that's with an expansive definition that includes people who enjoy knishes and latkes but otherwise have no actual connection to the Jewish nation. What's the real number? Three and a half million? Three? And where did the rest go?
Yes, a chiloni lifestyle in Israel isn't the ideal Jewish one but it is very much better than a secular lifestyle in America. The most disconnected Jew in Israel speaks Hebrew. If the urge suddenly overcomes him tomorrow he can sit down and read the texts of his ancestors in the original. He knows that life slows down on Friday night and Saturday, not Sundays. His yearly rhythm is tied to the Jewish cycle of holidays, not the Chrisian one. In short, he is ready to return while his American brother might not even know that there is something to return to.
So while the campaign was admitted offensive to Americans in that it engaged in the usual lack of subtlety that Israelis are famous for, its basic message was not incorrect. The longer we remain in golus the weaker our connection with God and Torah grows even if we don't want to admit it. This is something we should all definitely self-reflect on instead of dismissing what feels inconvenient to know.

Why Newt Is Right

2011-12-14T16:55:00.002-05:00

By now news of the controversial statement made by Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has spread around the world raising the kind of discussion and criticism its originator probably hoped it would. For those late to the party, here's what he said:
. In fact, Gingrich is completely right. Desepite attempts to rewrite history, there was never a state called Palestine. There was never a Palestinian people before 1920 either. Up until then the Arab residents in of the Ottoman Empire living in Israel were considered Syrians and part of that province. It was really only in 1920 when the new French and British mandates in the area split the Syrian Arab population between French Lebanon and Syria and British Israel and Transjordan that a new national entity suddenly sprung into existence. Cut off from their Syrian brethren and resigned to never reuniting with them, the Arabs in Israel suddenly became Palestinian.
The Arab population of Israel subsequently swelling through unrestricted immigration even as the British, may their island sink, sealed the borders of our land to us. Most of the immigrants came looking for jobs but all they had to do was establish a mailing address and they became Palestinian from time immemorial.
This situation developed further after the 1948 War of Independence. Despite the Arabs abandoning their supposedly ancestral homeland in large numbers, they created a new fiction - there had been a greaet and prosperous nation of Palestine which the Zionists had destroyed and replaced with the new Israeli state. Curiously, the borders back then were what are now called pre-1967 Israel. In 1964 the PLO was founded and given bases of operations in 'Aza and Yehuda/Shomron which, again quite curiously, were not part of ancestral Palestine - the Egyptians and Jordanians were having none of that - so that they could liberate ancestral Palestine, again: pre-1967 Israel.
It was only with Israel's stunning and miraculous victory in the Six Day War that the borders of this mysterious country of Palestine shifted and suddenly encompassed Yesha, along with pre-1967 Israel. What kind of a country can't decide where its borders were?
Golda Meir famously said there was no such thing as the Palestinian people. She was half-right. There never was such a thing as the Palestinian people. They are indeed a creation of the Arab propaganda machine, designed as part of the war to delegitimize and ultimately destroy Israel. But they exists now. The question is: does that matter?
What made Ronald Reagan the greatest president of the United States in the second half of the 20th century was his willingness to question what everyone considered conventional wisdom. When he entered the Oval Office it was taken for granted that we lived in a world with two dominant superpowers and that every other country essentially had to pick a side, that the Cold War would last forever, that balance between the USA and USSR was part of the natural order of things.
Reagan refused to accept this. The USSR wasn't a second superpower to him. He was quite prepared to call it what it was: the Evil Empire, source of death and destruction and a powerful threat to freedom across the globe. Its existence did not have to be tolerated. It did not have to be a balance to the USA. As a result he set out to end the existence of the USSR and within a decade he had done so, providing the US with its greatest chance to end much of the oppression in the world. (Not my fault they didn't).
What Gingrich's has done is thrown down the gauntlet to those that wish to defend Israel against its enemies. By accepting the idea that there is such a thing as a Palestinian people with legitimate nationalistic aspirations one has already lost the argument over Israel's legitimacy since the whole essence of the so-called Palestinian narrative is: We were here first. Gingrich takes the argument back to fairer ground: The Jews can prove they have been in the land for 3500 years. What proof do you have that your existence as a people stretches back past 1920 other than invented histories and stories?
In effect, Gingrich's statement forces secular liberal Jews to take a position: either you accept the truth or you accept your enemy's version of history. It's not someting many of them are ready to do.

The US Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has declared that the Palestinians are an "invented" people who want to destroy Israel.
The Jewish Channel, a cable TV station, posted online its interview with the former US House speaker, who has risen to the top of Republican nomination candidates to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election.
Gingrich differed from official US policy that respects the Palestinians as a people deserving of their own state based on negotiations with Israel. "Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire" until the early 20th century, Gingrich said.
"I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it's tragic," he said.

For liberal Jews in North America this outright rejection of over 60 years of Arab propaganda is quite disconcerting. For reasons of ethnic feelings of attachment many of them want to be pro-Israel. On the other hand, their secular post-nationalist sentiments demand that they feel sympathy for the perceived underdog in the ongoing clash in Israel, the Arabs. They want to proudly wave the blue and white but at the same time express, with all due seriousness, their desire for the creation of a new terrorist state, Palestine, because the so-called Palestinians deserve it as a matter of social justice or some other such nonsensical term. The outright rejection of the legitimacy of a so-called Palestinian people is beyond their conception and makes them very uncomfortable

Everything New Is Forbidden (Unless We Pretend It's Not New) !

2011-11-21T15:05:00.000-05:00

We all have this romantic image of the shtetl, that mythical place in eastern Europe where for centuries our ancestors lived and worked while random violinists sat on their roofs and played songs that would make Shlomo Carlebach's estate green with envy. The food may have been bad, the schnorrers insistent and yes, there was always the threat of those Cossacks in the next valley over launching a pogrom but on Shabbos everyone put on his shtreiml and davened like Moshiach was on his way while on Pesach you couldn't find a bite of chometz for miles around.
Reality, of course, was quite different. The shtetl, along with much of Jewish life in eastern Europe, was quite miserable. People did what they had to in order to survive. They clung to the faith of our ancestors with a passion we cannot understand but the waysthey expressed this passion were quite diverse. Their culture was rich and deep but it occured in the shadow of hatred and darkness. No Virginia, we don't all come from people who look like the denizens of Meah Shearim. They were never the gold standard.
Yet for some folks there is value in rewriting history to pretend that this was in fact the case, that a religious Jew has always been identified by specific garb, practices and mannerism virtually indistinguishable from what the Chareidi community today claims is the only authentic expression of Orthodoxy. They would have you believe that if you were to go back in time 100, 200 or 1500 years you would find observant Jews wearing black clothing, black hats and black striped tallis kotons. They would be speaking Yiddish, working only a little if at all and be consumed with their learning almost to the exclusion of all else. And, of course, there would be a separation between men and women in all spheres of life that we could only dream of today.
All this would be a lie.
In truth, Jewish life is and has been more complex than we could ever truly comprehend. Recollections of life in Europe focus on those aspects we want to remember or are distinctly Jewish, jettisoning those parts that are inconvenient. Roman Vishniac's famous work, A Vanished World has been criticized (unjustly in my opinion) for presented a slanted view of Polish Jew life just before the war yet it is clear that he could only photograph a small part of that gigantic culture. How many Chasidim have read the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer and seen how he, as a former member of their community, portrays his memories of that world?
The odd thing about this is how this innovation of rewriting history, intentional or not, is juxtaposed with a stated commitment to avoid change at all costs. The people who want you to believe that what they're doing nowadays is exactly what their ancestors in the Pale of Settlement did centuries ago are changing history. they are innovating to hide innovation.
Every so often I point out that Modern Orthodoxy has an opportunity to grab some area of Judaism and make a meaningful contribution to it. I believe this is another such area.
Consider: it is quite clear that there is tremendous continuity between ourselves and our ancestors. In many ways it can be easily demonstrated that we are following in the direction they led and upholding the banner of God they uplifted at Sinai. Yet if we were to go back in time 500, 1500 or 2500 years we would find them practicing a very different form of Judaism than we do today. Acknowledging this is stating the truth, not kefirah.
Consider one of the few nigh-universal rituals that Jews of all backgrounds engage in: the Pesach seder. Reading historical accounts, heck, reading the Talmud's account of how a seder went one sees that what we do is highly different from what they did. Yet across history Jews have, from time immemorial, sat down to remember the events of Yetzias Mitzrayim and praise God for taking us out of Egypt on the 14th of Nissan.
Understanding how the seder has changed over time is crucial for two reasons. One is that we can learn a great deal about the thinking of our ancestors over the ages as we investigate the changes. Another is that we can understand how to counter the changes of those who say that the seder must change nowadays to reflect modern sensitivities. If we know how and why change is mandated, we can better understand how to ensure it is done correctly. Standing back and saying "It can't change and it's always been this way" is not truth and therefore not compatible with Torah which is truth.
As some in the Chareidi community continue, in their fervent Taliban-envy, to rewrite the requirements of traditional Torah Judaism and then pretend that it's always been this way it is essential that an opposing force demands honesty in understanding and respecting our history and presenting that history in an enriching way that helps us understand Torah better.

Conditional Love and Consumptions

2011-11-20T09:42:00.000-05:00

Lord Rav Jonathan Sacks has become a darling figure within Modern Orthodoxy over the last several years for many good reasons. One is his obvious charisma combined with a deep love of Torah. The second is his ability to balance a strictly observant life with the demands of modern society. In many ways he exemplifies the ideal Modern Orthodox Jew, able to live uncompromisingly within the boundaries of halacha while also being able to hobnob with lords and queens (the royal kind). He even has his own prayer books now which have been received with great ethusiasm by the MO crowd.
Every so often, however, there is a reminder that the love and adoration of masses can be a fickle things. A few years ago, for example, Rav Sacks was criticized for allowing his beis din to make a decision regarding the status of certain types of converts when it came to attending Jewish schools. As opposed to making an enlightened decision that would have accepted any standard, the beis din held its ground and disqualified non-Orthodox candidates. The reaction from Rav Sack's followers at the time followed one of two threads. Some were supportive and blamed his Chareidi beis din for forcing him into the exclusionary position. Others simply turned on him the minute he deviated from their image of him as an inclusive, tolerant, non-judgemental yet Orthodox rav.
Rav Sacks has now done it again, giving a recent speech in which he attacked Steve Jobs as emblematic of the morally empty consumer culture we find ourselves swamped in.

Speaking at an interfaith reception attended by the Queen this week, Lord Sacks said, "People are looking for values other than the values of a consumer society. The values of a consumer society really aren't ones you can live by for terribly long.

"The consumer society was laid down by the late Steve Jobs coming down the mountain with two tablets, iPad one and iPad two, and the result is that we now have a culture of iPod, iPhone, iTune, i, i, i.
"When you're an individualist, egocentric culture and you only care about 'i', you don't do terribly well."
He went on: "What does a consumer ethic do? It makes you aware all the time of the things you don't have instead of thanking God for all the things you do have.
"If in a consumer society, through all the advertising and subtly seductive approaches to it, you've got an iPhone but you haven't got a fourth-generation one, the consumer society is in fact the most efficient mechanism ever devised for the creation and distribution of unhappiness."
Although religious leaders have in recent years used increasingly strong language to condemn banks and politicians over the financial crisis and the gap between rich and poor, few have directly criticized ordinary people for their materialism.

While many of us are not terribly good at it, we still must acknowledge that Judaism is a culture in which giving is considered one of the highest values. The parasha from just this past week shows how fundamentally rooted that trait should be in each of us from Rivkah Imeinu. The opposite value, taking, is the signpost of Western secular culture.
How many of the supposedly poor and oppressed 99% protesting in the "Occupy" movement have iPads and iPhones? If their financial situation is so dire, why are they carrying top-of-the-line electronic goods? Wouldn't a simple cell phone be cheaper and more sensible? And at the root of it, what is the "Occupy" movement about if not the resentment that others have money that these 99% don't have and they want to take a piece of it without having to earn it?
But is Orthodox Judaism immune to this consumerism? In the words of the immortal Al Bundy, "Uh, no Peg."
Take a look at how our culture has become obsesssed with material goods. How many of us live in huge homes that we cannot truly afford but still manage to fill them with useless tzatchkes that we insist we cannot live without? Look around you in shul or even at your own neck. How much did that ornative tallis band cost? In the last year I invested in a set of tefillin for my son and was told that the starting price for a set that I could be reasonably assured was kosher and met everyone's standards - the starting price! - was $1300 and that to remove all doubts I was looking at close to $2000.
How much do we spend on bar mitzvah celebrations and weddings when a table with a keg at one end and a hot, steaming plate of wings at the other is all you really need? How much do we spend on shteitls, suits and Borsalino hats to ensure we look just right when we go to shul?
Let's bring Steve Jobs into this. How many of us have an iPad with all the latest Jewish app's because shlepping a Gemara around is so 1990's?
In short, how much of our Orthodox life is necessary and how much of it is there only because we've deluded ourselves and want to keep up with the Jonesteins?
I am certain that there are those who will attack Rav Sacks but in my opinion he's spot on. We are some of us ugly but don't want to accept the image we see in the mirror, therefore we resent the person who points it out. However, if Rav Sacks was right about the stuff we want to hear, we cannot dismiss him when he tells us what we don't want to hear.
Therein lies the irony, by the way. One of the ongoing criticisms of the Chareidi community is that their "Gedolim" are trapped by their culture. A Gadol, Daas Torah and Ruach HaKodesh aside, cannot pasken as he wants because if he comes up with a decision that doesn't fit the "holier than thou" cultural ethic put in place by his askanim he is in danger of losing his "Gadol" status. Yet within Modern Orthodoxy there may be the same kind of ethic. You're a leader and an inspiration as long you parrot the themes of tolerance and inclusion but the minute you draw a red line, well you're betraying the followers who made you great and are therefore no longer worthy of that greatness. The two communities, one trapped by a model of Gadol worship, one by the secular values that have snuck into its Judaism, aren't so different after all.

What Happened To The Family Minhag

2011-11-15T12:09:00.002-05:00

The recent passing of Rav Nosson Tzi Finkel, z"l, has left a large hole in the heart of the Torah world. A genuine gadol and a wonderful teacher, his ascent to Gan Eden will be felt by many.
However, there is one aspect of the ongoing tributes across the Torah observant community that is troubling me. It is no secret that Rav Finkel came from a Modern Orthodox background but wound up the Rosh Yeshivah of the very Chareidi Mir Yeshivah system. The MO blogs seem to be emphasizing his origins, many of them posting his graduating yearbook picture in which he appears as a clean-cut, all-American young man. They emphasize the "one of us done good!" angle and "See? A guy from a Modern Orthodox background can become a great Jewish leader".
On the other hand, the Chareidi websites seem to be ignoring or erasing his "humble beginnings". One does not find statements like "Rav Finkel came from a family dedicated to Torah and determined to provide him with a good education in it" but rather something along the lines of "And isn't it amazing that a guy who came from nothing rose so far?". It seems that for them one can be raised in a strictly observant home but if that home wasn't one of "ours" it might as well have been Reformative.
But in both these approaches there is something missing: the role of family and community minhag.
Minhag is something that gets mentioned a lot but its true ramifications are never really explored. Joe waits three hours between meat and milk because that's what his father does. Sheldon won't eat cabbage on Pesach because his family comes from that village in eastern Europe where the local rebbe outlawed it.
People make a big deal of how long they wait after meat to have milk, or whether or not they eat gebrokhts. Family minhag isn't just limited to small issues like this but also reaches areas of hashkafah. A person who grows up in a specific type of home and then goes and chooses another hashkafah and set of minhagim is stating that his family origins are not good enough for him, that he feels no allegiance to him, that he's evolved beyond them, else why would he have changed?
Imagine a boy who comes home to his 3 hour father and announces that he now waits 6 hours like his rosh yeshivah. Is that respectful? Heck, is it even permitted? How about the boy who comes from a Modern Orthodox home and announces that YU's leading authorities aren't anything compared to "the gedolim"? Or one who announces he's no longer a Zionist to his Dati Leumi family?
Here's the rub: We're not talking about a case where the boy comes from a non-religious home and has to acquire some standard but one who comes from a standard and then discards it. Imagine a Lubavitcher coming home and announcing that he doesn't see the Rebbe, a"h, as the Moshiach or that the Tanya isn't the most important book ever written.
Is Modern Orthodoxy a standard or just a place marker? Is the boy who grows up in the home where the MO father does X and Y free to change his minhag because they're not real minhagim like a Chosid or Litvak father might have? Is it not okay for a Chareidi to discover the works of the Rav and choose to learn under his talmidim at YU but it's fine for a MO high school graduate to accept Mir's hashkafah despite its conflict with his familiy's ideology? And if this is the case, is this not a tacit admission by Modern Orthodoxy that they aren't a different ideology than Chareidism but rather that they're simply religiously inferior?
By becoming Chareidi, was Rav Finkel rejecting his family origins and announcing that they're not frum enough?
One might answer this in the negative. Rav Finkel had a burning desire to learn and disseminate as much Torah as he could. He therefore wound up at Mir where those goals could be achieved.
And the next question right back would be: couldn't he have found something like this in a hashkafah closer to "home"? Are there no giants at YU to learn under? Is the Dati Leumi world bereft of high level rabbonim and yeshivos?
Thus the two approaches to eulogizing Rav Finkel dovetail nicely. From the MO perspective he is seen with the same pride as a junior team watching its star player get promoted to the big leagues. From the Chareidi perspective they are the big leagues and the existence of any junior team is inconsequential and irrelevant.
Modern Orthodoxy might be asking itself a question: why did Rav Finkel have to go to Mir to get what he wanted? And when the next future gadol graduates from a MO high school somewhere, will he also see going Chareidi as the only way to reach the top of the Torah world?

Chareidim and Chareidism

2011-11-07T07:59:00.002-05:00

Rav Natan Slifkin's latest essay, a piece on the phenomenon of "Post-Chareidim" is currently making the rounds of the blogosphere. As the gifted author notes, even those sites that you'd last expect, like Chareidi ones, are picking up on it. He has even followed up with an interview with a fellow traveller who expresses in a succint manner his reason for leaving formal Chareidism.
The concept of post-chareidim is a fascinating one. One of my best friends is a post-Chareidi although he has no ties to others of the same philosophy, nor does he label himself in this fashion. In short, he loves being Chareidi, he just hates Chareidi society.
I think this is a differentiation that is important to understand. For many Chareidim the two are intertwined and inseparable. One cannot be a good Chareidi without accepting the authority of the Gedolim as transmitted by the Askanim and by accepting the receiving Torah MiMeah Shearim. For others, there is an obvious difference.
Consider the following two people as an example:
Yaakov works at a basic job and spends very spare minute shteiging his Gemara and sifrei Shu"t. He sways when he davens so much that people are worried he'll fall over. He makes every Shabbos a day of elevated spirituality and no one outdances him on Simchas Torah. However, he wears a knitted kippah and feels that Rav Kook was the premier Rav of the 20th century including in his Zionist philosophy.
Yankl doesn't have a job but he doesn't spend much time in the beis midrash either. He does a minimum each day of learning but it's more by rote than anything else, like his davening. He follows every last chumrah but mostly because that's what everyone else around him does. For fun he goes and stares at 8 year old girls in knee socks, calling them perutzah and shiksa while hiding the feelings of lust for them burning with him. Oh, and he wears the requesite hat, shirt, socks and bekisher.
Which of these two men are truly chared l'davar HaShem? And which of them is Chareidi?
This is an element I think is missing from Rav Slifkin's essay. Today one can easily see that there are Chareidim and there is Chareidism. Like the distinction between behavioural and intellectual Modern Orthodox Jews as described in Dr Michael Schweitzer's epic essay, there are also two types of Chareidi Jews. One is the spiritual who loves the principles of being chared l'davar HaShem and the other is the behavioural who goes through the motions because he doesn't know anything else. The former is Chareidi, the latter practices Chareidism. The former is a religious form of Judaism, the latter is political and nothing much deeper.
There is another facet to note. Chareidism as a form of Judaism is based on a contradiction. On one hand a society based on the principle of "learn, don't earn" could only exist if there is a source of outside wealth to maintain it. Until seventy years ago this outside source did not exist. However, the combination of the rise of the State of Israel and the rapid increase in wealth in the North American and western European communities have created a situation in which large numbers of Chareidim can, with the appropriate amount of schnorring, live off of the earned money of others while simultaneously looking down on their donors because they aren't learning all day. A society built on an official lack of respect for the providers of its sustenance cannot be a stable or rational one.
It is in addressing this inherent contradiction that I believe the post-Chareidim have great potential. Bottom line: one can be chared l'davar HaShem without believes that the "Gedolim" have a magical Daas Torah that renders them infallible. One can be chared while working for a living. One can be chared without worrying that the Taliban have more chumros when it comes to separation of gender than we do.
In fact, post-Chareidim are a threat not to the system of Chareidism but more to Modern Orthodoxy. Rav Harry Maryles often likes to write that it is his dream that part of the Chareidi community will eventuallty merge with right wing Modern Orthodoxy and Religious Zionism to produce a functional, dynamic and definitive Orthodoxy. The practitioners of Chareidism will never want to be part of this but perhaps as the numbers of post-Chareidim grow they will be able to contribute to such an endeavour.

Intentionally Mangling History

2011-11-04T14:31:00.000-04:00

Eli Valley is a Jew-hating Jew. A cartoonist for the Forward, he is especially talented when it comes to attacking Orthodox or Zionist Jews. Perhaps it's the secular liberal in him. Perhaps it's a naivete that has led him to believe all the lies about Torah and Israel. Perhaps he's just a hateful person, but his latest piece goes beyond hatred and misrepresenation and into outright lies.
The comic, which can regretfully be enlarged by clicking on it, starts with a fictional scene in the far future in which Israel has already become Palestine and then goes back through "history" to show how that happened. Naturally every step of the way Israel has an opportunity to prevent this from happening by creating a two-state solution and makes the wrong decision each and every time.
Consider his contention that by 2022 the population west of the Jordan river will have an Arab majority. It has been well-documented elsewhere that most Arab census numbers generated by the so-called Palestinian Authority and various UN agencies are completely fictional and greatly inflated. It is unlikely that Israel, even with the Arabs of Yesha included, is closed to an Arab majority. (Besides, isn't the current bogeyman of the secular Jew-hating-Jew left a Chareidi majority, not an Arab one?)
His 201 box shows Netanyahu refusing to consider a two-state solution as Mahmood Abbas presents the idea at the UN. Never mind that many countries including the United States decried the move and worked to prevent it. Nope, in Valley's world it's Israel that's guilty and Israel alone at missing the opportunity.
But his 2009 box is the most egregious when it comes to historical facts. The statement "They've accepted almost everything we've demanded" is more than just an opinion. It is a lie, pure and simple. Israel, after all, has had simple basic demands in the so-called peace negotiations. One is that the Arabs recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Another is no right-of-return for so-called Palestinian refugees. When Ehud Olmert presented his peace plan to Abbas in 2008 the first of those two conditions was even waived. It was Abbas that walked away from the table. It has 100% of the time consistently been the Arabs who, when presented with a final status deal, scuttle the meeting. Does Valley not realize this or has his hatred of his own people and Land twisted him so much?
I will go with the latter. His 2003, 1993 and 1975 boxes are straight out of the anti-Semitic press. A German cartoonist circa 1937 could hardly have done better himself.
Eli Valley and his ilk are not interested in a"just" solution to the Israel-Arab problem. They are consumed by hatred of they own people and will do anything they can to harm them under the guise of being "enlightened". We should shun them as the arses they are.

Always Moving In The Wrong Direction

2011-11-02T11:18:00.002-04:00

For millenia Jews have been moving around the globe. Our nation seems to have become permanently peripatetic since the destruction of the First Temple and certainly since the destruction of the Second (may they be speedily rebuilt as soon as the Leafs win the Cup or maybe sooner). Whether due to hatred, violence or even just economic opportunity, Jewish communities have been rising, falling and relocating for a long time now.
What's changed in the last 60 years is that our Land of Israel has reopened as a destination for Jewish masses, a significant change from centuries past. Unlike the various communities of European Jews 500 years ago who were exiled en masse from their homes, going to Israel is an option for brethren of ours who suddenly find themselves out of a home.
That a Jew would choose to go elsewhere during a time of exile is not surprising. Yes, Israel is our Land but it is not an easy place to live. In addition, family or cultural ties might lead a Jew elsewhere instead of home. That's one reason I live in Canada, for example. The idea of a Jew fleeing to North America instead of Israel is disappointing but understandable.
What I've never understood well is the idea that Jews want to go back to a place they've been kicked out of. Yes, I know our history is replete with those kinds of examples as well. Pretty much every western European country kicked out its Jews at one point or another and except for Spain those communities were eventually rebuilt. But again, where else did they have to go at the time?
Seventy years ago the world watched as the Nazis, y"sh, and their allies destroyed Jewish life in central and eastern Europe. In the aftermath of World War 2 there was little to nothing left of the established communities that had been there a few years earlier. Yet even on this burnt soil a new crop grew. Germany and Poland have two of the fastest growing Jewish communities in the world and there is even a limited revival going on in Russia of all places.
Yet even this I can comprehend to an extent. Today's central and eastern Europe are different from 70 years ago. Anti-semitism, while still prominent, is not at 1930's levels and the current wave of secular post-nationalism sweeping over the continent seems content to keep it where it is. Germany and Poland were once lands of misery for us, now they are allies of Israel and sources of economic opportunity for Jews living there.
What I cannot understand is those folks who, having been exiled from their "home" countries insist on returning there when the situation on the ground vis a vis the local Jewish community has not changed:
Had this gentleman stayed in Italy, it would have made sense. A move to Israel would have been preferable but going to New York or Montreal would also have been understandable. Exactly what was he expecting in returning to Libya?
How many times in history does the same thing have to happen? The Jew fights for his country, the Jew builds up his country, the Jew sacrifices for his country and then when victory is achieved he is still branded as "the other"?
There is only one Land where this does not happen, where the Jew is nto the outsider. If Gerbi wasn't happy in Italy but wanted a Mediterranean climate, he should have moved east to Israel. Perhaps he yet may.

After the ugly spectacle of the grisly execution of Gaddafi, the world cheered when Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council, declared his country’s liberation on Sunday. But pro-democracy advocates of the Arab Spring were concerned at word that Islamic shariah law, not Western-style democracy, would serve as the “basic source” of legislation in the country.

In his historic speech Saturday in Benghazi, Jalil also urged Libyans to show “patience, honesty and tolerance” and shun hatred as Libyans look to the future.
He then knelt to offer a brief prayer of thanks. “This revolution was looked after by God to achieve victory,” he told the crowd.
And yet, for another native son, there is still no room in Libya for the prayers of the other sons of Abraham.
Dr. David Gerbi is a native of Tripoli, who, at the age of 12, was exiled, along with 38,000 other Jews, after Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Gerbi may have left Libya for Italy, but Libya never left David. During two live interviews with him, I learned about his herculean efforts over the years to reconnect Jewish exiles with their native land. This included an ill-fated trip to Tripoli during the Gaddafi regime, which led to his arrest.
After the outbreak of the uprising against Gaddafi, Gerbi hooked up with the rebel forces of the National Transitional Council, the group that earned critical NATO backing and key financial support from democracies with the promise of a moderate Muslim society that would respect the norms of human rights.
On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Dr. Gerbi decided to test the promise of religious tolerance by clearing the garbage surrounding Tripoli’s long-unused Dar Bishi Synagogue. “I cannot pray under the holy banner of ‘Shema Yisrael’ (Judaism’s most important declaration of faith) amidst the filth,” he said.
But when he returned the next morning, locals warned him about threats from extremists and urged him to flee. Instead of leaving, Gerbi remained at his hotel, hoping to convince the transitional government to allow him to restore the synagogue and the Jewish cemetery.
Last week we spoke again and David described a harrowing Yom Kippur, where the threatening chants of protesters outside his hotel 11 stories below echoed throughout the day. “No place for Jews or Zionists,” some declared. Eventually, a senior Italian diplomat convinced Gerbi to evacuate “liberated” Tripoli on an Italian military plane.
The outcome of David Gerbi’s quest for religious tolerance will go a long way to inform us just how different the new Libya will actually be from the dark days of the Gaddafi era. We hope Canadians will encourage Libya’s new leadership to go beyond words and walk the walk on the path towards true tolerance by symbolically restoring the respect for, and dignity of, their former Jewish neighbours.

What Learning Should Be

2011-10-31T10:39:00.001-04:00

For the last year or so I've been slowly going through the Michtav MiEliyahu, the great mussar tract of Rav Eliyahu Dessler, z"l. A few parts are difficult, many are inspirational but at the end of the third volume amongst copies of some letters he wrote are parts that are very frustrating.
As a Chareidi icon, for example, it is no surprise that he decries any attempt at innovation in the religious eductional system in the harshest terms. I was also slightly taken aback by one of his statements on corporal punishment. Although I don't agree and am reupulsed by the ntion, I can understand how he would, based on ample statements from Chazal, encourage the beating of students by their rebbeim but his advice to beat even a child that is obedient as a prophylatic measure is simply bizarre.
But ultimately it's his condemnation of any use of modern techniques (modern being the 1940's) in the educating of children, the insistence that the way we did it back in Eastern Europe is the way we must do it today, is what I disagree with most. Forget computers and the internet, he had a problem with blackboards!
The problem with a tradition-based religion/nationalisty is that sometimes the tradition becomes the religion and replaced the original idea. Is learning about taking in as much of Torah as possible or is it about going through the motions, swaying in front of a yellowed, crumbling text in a dark room by candlelight? Is it more important to understand the gemara or to understand how the tune recited while reading it goes?
A more fundamental question: is learning Torah supposed to be enjoyable or approached as one does any field of knowledge?
There is no debate that Jews approach the learning of their sacred materials differently from other religions, that we approach Torah as a body of knowledge different than other fields. We are not only to learn Torah but to love it and the process of learning it as well. We see value not just in the knowledge but in people who are steeped in it and even in the books that contain it. A scientist learns facts to conduct experiments, a Jew learn Torah to complete his neshamah and earn his place in Olam Haba. Quite different.
As Rav Levi Cooper notes in this article, the idea that there should be joy in the learning of Torah is fundamental to the undertaking.
But there is something deeper to this as well. Unlike other fields of knowledge where a lack of love for the material precludes an interest in it, Torah demands learning despite a person's passion for the material or lack thereof. A person might not be excited about Shabbos but still has to observe it. A person may have a strong hankering for ham but still has to keep kosher. A person might not care much about what happens to an egg born on Yom Tov but there is still an obligation to know. And here is where I think the insistent on the traditional method of learning lets people down.
There is, after all, no obligation to make learning difficult ab initio. If someone is doing well in Talmud and really getting enthusiastic about it, do we change him over to some obscure Aramaic text that he can't possible get into and demand he restrict himself to that? And if someone benefits from a particular teaching style that might not have di rigeur back in the shtetl, do we tell him to buckle down and get used to flickering candlelight instead of trying to meet his needs? Is not learning the material more important?
In the end it would seem to me that our responsiblity as Jews is, as Rav Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, zt"l notes in his comments on the first mishnah in Avos, to ensure maximum dissemination of Torah knowledge. If it is done is a way that reaches the most amount of people the goal is achieved. There is value to some traditions but not if it stands in the way of the most important mitzvah to be performed, that of learning our holy Torah.

According to the Alexander rebbes, only someone who endures hardship to study Torah, toiling and sweating, perhaps barely understanding – only such a person should be lauded as having really studied Torah. Enjoyment when studying Torah could be considered a foreign body that contaminates the purity of the pursuit.

The Alexander Rebbe’s work Yismah Yisrael was published posthumously in Lodz in 1911-1912, but the material was presented publicly over the years, and it is entirely possible that the Avnei Nezer had heard about the position expounded by successive Alexander rebbes.
The Avnei Nezer was not impressed with the Alexander idea, declaring that this position was a “famous mistake” and claiming that the contrary was actually true: Torah study is most valuable when it is a joyful endeavor.
Only when a person takes pleasure in studying do the words of Torah become part of his lifeblood, coursing through his veins and providing him with spiritual nourishment.
To buttress his contention, the Avnei Nezer cited the Zohar, which says that both the Evil Inclination and the Good Inclination grow through happiness.
The Evil Inclination is nourished by unworthy actions; the Good Inclination grows due to the enjoyment of Torah. Thus delighting in Torah study is a positive emotion, for it serves as a growth hormone for the Good Inclination.
The Avnei Nezer did, however, acknowledge a caveat: One who studies only for personal enjoyment – such as monetary gain or intellectual stimulation – and not because Torah is our Divine heritage is indeed learning for the wrong reason. Nevertheless, we are encouraged to fulfill God’s commandments even if we do not do so for the right reasons, in the hope that we will one day fulfill those commandments for the sake of Heaven (B. Pesahim 50b).
In sum, the Avnei Nezer concluded: One who studies both for the sake of Heaven and for any benefit that accrues from Torah study – such learning is for the sake of Heaven, and the person is entirely holy, for even the enjoyment can be considered the fulfillment of a commandment.
Who is correct? Should we ideally take pleasure in Torah study, or is our Torah study purer when it lacks any measure of enjoyment? Perhaps this is a question that need not be answered, and the two contradictory approaches should both be preserved and recalled at appropriate times.
On those days when we relish the encounter with Torah; when we can think of no better pursuit; when we enjoy poring over hallowed tomes and find it difficult to pull ourselves away; when every word seems to speak to our soul – on such days, the Avnei Nezer reminds us that real Torah study is supposed to be enjoyable, and at that time we are “entirely holy,” for the Torah is our lifeblood.
On those days when we regrettably find no joy in Torah; when we grapple with passages from old texts that seemingly have no relevance and no import for our daily lives; when we would prefer to be anywhere else but in front of a book of Torah – on such days the Alexander rebbes remind us that if we overcome the discomfort and study Torah, that Torah is truly pure and lofty.

Occupy This!

2011-10-30T08:00:00.000-04:00

Socialism has had a pretty rough time of it over the last couple of decades. First there was the fall of the movement's international patron, the Soviet Union. Then there was the revelation that socialism/communism in full and unfettered boom was a murderous and ecological nightmare. Now we're watching the slow implosion of the social democracies in Western Europe that ignored the consequences of the "Gimme! Gimme!" method of budgeting for way too long. Yes, someone with his head screwed on straight would conclude that while some limited elements of socialism might help make a country healthier and happier, full out social democracy creates an prohibitively expensive mess that winds up hurting the people that it was most meant to help.
However, a philosophy's stupidity has never stood in the way of its popularity and there are plenty of people out there with their heads not screwed on straight. This is possibly the best way to explain the "Occupy Wall Street" movement currently attempting to effect change to the Western capitalist system.
Now on one hand, these folks can hardly be blamed for being outraged. After all, we live in a system in which corrupt individuals preach to the masses about restraint while shovelling as much money, influence and power towards themselves as possible. But enough about the Democrats. There are also CEO's who, despite leading their companies either to the edge of or clean over a cliff have walked away with handsome "bonuses" that are larger than most of us will earn in our lifetimes. It's understandable that the little guy who loses his job because some rich CEO screwed up and has to eat dog food while the guy responsible for the mess drives around in a gold-plated Cadillac to be bitter.
But here's the first problem, the slogan: We're the 99%. Well no, they're not. They're considerably less than that. Using statistics you can always create a 99% are not rich while 1% are rich scenario and then start preaching about class warfare. It's doesn't take much intelligence to do so and the members of this movement aren't that intelligent so they're quite capable of staking such a claim.
In fact the number of people who are "wealthy" according to the Obama Administration is far higher than 1% of the American populace. After all, for Obama you are a "millionaire" who deserves higher taxes start at an annual income of $250 000. Wow, American math. That's right, you've got a good middle class job, you've made some smart investments, you shop and provide stimulus to your economy every day and because you've been successful, well you need to be punished with higher taxes.
Except here's the second problem. Taxes are not what's wrong with the US economy, or anyone else's for that matter. The problem is spending. The problem is a culture that says "I want the government to take care of me and minimize my personal responsibility as much as possible". Europe has been in the advanced stages of that culture ever since the Americans paid for them to rebuild after World War 2 and under Obama's tutelage Americans are catching up. The old joke used to be that the difference between a Canadian and an American is that if you push an American over he gets up and smacks you hard but if you push a Canadian over he lays there and cries "Why isn't the government picking me up?". That distinction seems to be gone if the demands of the Wall Street occupiers are to be taken seriously. An end to debt? An end to tuition? Are these people for real? Do they have any concept of how an economy works?
Of course not. These are folks who still believe in global warming, after all. In such a culture there is no understanding of supply and demand, value and quantity and other basic economic principles. Like the Greeks who demands full social services, a 35 hour work week and a fully funded pension at age 55 but at the same time did everything they could to avoid paying taxes, these people think the government can magically soak that paper villain, "the rich" to raise all the money they can.
But the government can't, for one big reason. One is that the rich can move. If you create a hostile enough tax environment then the rich will move en masse to a better jurisdiction. What's more, if the rich move they take their money which has been funding those factories and jobs with them. Who suffers then? Not the rich.
Finally there's this to consider. According to some reports the OWS movement has amassed over $200 000 in donations and the amount rises hourly. Is this money going to help the poor? Finance a food bank or two? Or is it going to support people who would rather not work for a living but are having fun living in tents in Zucchini Park? And is that really what a world-changing movement does?
Do these people honestly want the system to change? It's doubtful since some of them must still have an IQ enough to realize their demands are unreasonable and ruinous to the economy. They want what their "Gimme! Gimme!" attitude tells them they are entitled to: free everything without having to engage in such ludicrous things as getting a basic job to help pay the bills. For the sake of everything sensible they should be rejected as retread from the 1960's who just never grew up.

Judaism vs Universalism

2011-10-27T10:23:00.000-04:00

One of the interesting contradictions within secular liberalism is how it demands post-national universalism for the Western world while embracing the exact opposite for the Third. North Americans and Western Europeans are expected to submerged themselves in moral relativism and multicultural non-judgementalism while any "foreign" cultures, no matter how homophobic or misogynistic, are to be respected and treated as special.
For some so-called "streams" of Judaism this has never been much of an issue. The Reformers, in particular, have made the ideals of secular liberalism into their new version of Judaism without much apology. The Conservatives, on the other hand, have striven for decades for a middle ground position embracing both selective aspects of Jewish "tradition" while adjusting whatever aspects of Torah they didn't like to better reflect politically correct positions of contemporary society.
Like any balancing act the time comes when a side has to be picked and it is obvious that over the last thirty to forty years that Conservatism has picked the side of Reform. There is an increasingly blurry divide between the two movements which allows for all manner of cooperation and even occasional mergers where resources or space are tight. This should not be a wonder to anyone. Unlike Orthodoxy where membership is determined by attitudes, beliefs and lifestyle, Conservatism and Reform memberships are based on what temple/synagogue you send your dues cheque to without any reciprocal expectations.
In many areas this acceptance of secular liberalism as a substitute for Torah values has been relatively innocuous. As opposed to unlabelled am haratzim who act in ways contrary to Jewish ones, these folks simply act in similar ways but use the label "I'm a Reformative Jew!" to justify their actions. However this has rarely caused much a schism across the greater Jewish community. Reformatives might not keep kosher, for example, but they have no rules against it which means your local JCC can spend extra to keep a kosher kitchen without much expectation of objection from the local non-religious folks.
Sometimes a schism is caused but again, it is usually more because of a need for convenience than outright rebelling against Torah values. The recent debate over the opening of the JCC in Baltimore, MD is an example of this. No one from the non-religious side was demanding the JCC open as a reflection of their Jewish values. They just didn't see the point in closing it one day a week.
However a line is being crossed now that is significantly more important in terms of the greater Jewish nation. In its drive towards demanding post-nationalism for the West, secular liberalism has focused on Israel (big surprise!) as a particularly villainous state because of its insistence on being a "Jewish" state instead of a "state for all its citizens". Israel is also unique in this regard as it shares space with one of the darlings of the secular liberal left, the so-called Palestinians. Remember that while secular liberals demand post-nationalist universality from Western groups, it is perfectly find accepting nationalist fervour. The same folks who condemn Israel for putting restrictions on where a Gay Pride route might be in Yerushalayim go silent when the so-called Palestinian Authority announces that in an independent Palestine homosexuality will be a capital crime.
How has this affected the Reformatives? Well for Reform one need look no further than its former chief, Eric Yoffe and its frequent statements supportive of the position of those who would like Israel to be wiped from the wipe. Then there is their current chief who is a supporter of one of the most pernicious anti-Israel groups in America, J-Street.
The question is how this is affecting the Conservative who, traditionally, have been strong supporters of secular Zionism, especially through their day school programs and the network of Ramah camps.
Well the answer seems to be in and it's not pretty:

But if the new crop of Conservative rabbis has anything to say about it, Conservatism may not occupy the center for very long. That, at least, is the message of a recent report by the movement's Jewish Theological Seminary, based on a survey of political views among "Generation Y" rabbinical students—born in the mid-1970's to mid-1990's—and the Seminary's somewhat older rabbinical alumni, ordained since 1980.

At first blush, the report purports to show what one would hope to find among the rabbinate: a solid Jewish identity and strong attachment to Israel. On closer examination, this identity appears increasingly filtered through a universalistic and liberal political perspective. Among American Jews as a whole, according to the Pew Forum, 38 percent identify themselves as liberal; 39 percent call themselves moderate. In contrast, 58 percent of the Conservative rabbis surveyed—and 69 percent of the rabbinical students—called themselves liberal. It's hard to defend the center when you're not in it.

These rabbis and rabbinical students are "pro-Israel," but they are redefining what "pro-Israel" means. As liberals, they hold an optimistic view of human nature: Though Palestinian leaderssee their conflict with Israel as a zero-sum game, it seems hard for the rabbis to acknowledge this grim fact. Instead, they get their understanding of events in Israel from ideologically reinforcing left-oriented sources: liberal media outlets, Facebook posts, and Haaretz. These sources help explain the conspicuous disconnect between the next generation of Conservative rabbis and mainstream American Jews on the subject of the Arab-Israel conflict. More than three-quartersof American Jews, according to the latest American Jewish Committee survey, believe that the Arabs' goal is not merely the return of the "occupied territories" but the actual "destruction of Israel." Only 30 percent of the JTS rabbinical students agreed with a similar statement.

One of the most telling statements in the article is "These rabbis and rabbinical students are 'pro-Israel,'". Like everything else they have done with Judaism, they have redefined what "pro-Israel" means to avoid admitting that they are becoming anti-Israel. Pro-Israel for them means demanding of the Jewish state things that would lead to its initial emasculation and ultimately to its destruction. It means providing support for its enemies and those groups that would assist them in the name of "universal values" like social justice. Given the choice between traditional Jewish attachment to and support of Israel is the face of international hostility they have chosen to side with the enemies of the Jewish people since that position leads to less of a conflict with their innate secular liberal values.
What's interesting to note is that, just like on the issue of women rabbis and egalitarianism, it seems these rabbis are disconnected from many of their followers. I'm certain this isn't much of an issue since once of the tenets of secular liberalism is a self-righteous "And I know better than you so if you disagree you're wrong".
What this worsening of their position might ultimately lead to is a fracturing of the movement between those who are essentially indistinguishable from Reform and those who still feel a positive attachment to the enduring Torah values of the last 3500 years. Time will tell.

Is It Such A Surprise?

2011-10-23T01:11:00.000-04:00

By now everyone is aware that Muammar Ghaddafi is dead, killed by the rebels that overthrew his government after 42 years of autocratic and despotic rule. Two conflicting stories have emerged as to how his life ended. The "official" version is that he was killed in a shootout. (The fate of his Ukrainian nurse is unknown) The unofficial version, supported by actual video footage, is that he was beaten until nearly dead and then shot in the head.
I can't say that I or many others will shed any tears for the monster of Tripoli. Few will argue that the world is not a better place because of his passing and the American government can rest assured that it has one less major enemy in the world.
What is bizarre to me, however, is the reaction from human rights organizations. If various reports I've read are to be believed, they are upset that Ghaddafi was killed by the rebels instead of being arrested, read his rights and then escorted to a comfy prison cell, there to await trial in either a Libyan or international court room.
Are they kidding? Trials are for situations where the guilt of a person, while assumed or implied, is not absolutely proven. Is that the case with Ghaddafi? Here's a man accused of multiple crimes over the years like killing his own citizens, running a giant prison state and aiding international terrorists. But there's a wrinkle: Ghaddafi freely admitted doing all those things. In fact, he took great pride in them. What purpose would a trial serve other than to give him one last platform to spew his venom from before taken off to prison or the gallows?
There is a certain naivete born of liberal idiocy combined with Hollywood idealism that seems to infect these groups. They honestly want to believe that the rebels in Libya are budding democrats seeking to turn the country into a model of social democratic prosperity. In reality the rebels are simply thugs little different from the thugs they've just removed from power with the help of NATO. As a former American president might have said, "they're bastards but they're our bastards".
Except, of course, they're not "our" bastards and the minute it becomes convenient to do so, they'll turn on NATO and treat it as enemy no. 1. Will anyone with their heads crewed on straight be suprised when they do?
Sometimes I wonder if politicians actually believe the pronouncements they make or if they're just going through the motions because that's what diplomacy requires.

Simple Logic

2011-10-16T00:54:00.001-04:00

Spock: "The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few"
Kirk: "Or the one." (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)

The Jewish world is all a-twitter with the news that a deal has been arranged to have kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit released in exchanged for 1027 Arab terrorists, many of whom are responsible for the murder of Jews. For some this is a moment of euphoria. After five years of what must have been brutal captivity, Gilad is coming home! For others, a broader view of the situation seems to preclude celebrating. I find myself in the latter group.
On one hand, I feel great sympathy for the Shalit family. For five years they have been living a nightmare that I would wish only on my worst enemy. Chazal tell us that when one loses a loved one for certain that the grief eventually passes but when one thinks a loved one is dead but really isn't the bereavement never ends. We learn this from how Yaakov Avinu mourned for Yosef Hatzadik for 22 years. For the Shalits, the grieving over the loss of Gilad, combined with the faint hope he might return safely to them one day must have been agonizing.
On the other hand, we have to ask if the terms of the deal are worth it. One soldier for thousands of murderers and wanna-be murderers. According to some reports I've seen the recidivism rate of released terrorists is about 60%. It is almost guaranteed that hundreds of Jews will die over the next ten years as a result of this release. And beyond that there is the suffering being caused to survivors of terrorist attacks and their families who thought their assailants were imprisoned for life and who now have to accept that those monsters will be loose to wreak havoc on them and their neighbours once more. Yes, the pain of the Shalit family has to be considered but what about the pain of these other families? Was it not taken into account?
In addition there is one basic problem with this deal: there is no confirmation that I am aware of that Gilad is alive save for the assurances of Hamas. Not exactly the most reliable source, eh? What happens if, at the prisoner exchange, the Arabs show up with Gilad in a box? Does the deal get called off?
I do not blame the Shalit family for one instant for protesting for the government to get Gilad back and applying the pressure they did. I do blame the government for capitulating to them. Bibi Netanyahu has to be concerned not just with the Shalit family but with the six million other Jews in Israel, many of whom will suffer if this exchange goes through. Yes we all want to see the Shalit family happily and safely reunited but what about the cost to everone else? Do their lives matter less?
To be blunt: If/when these killers murder more Jews, are the Shalits prepared to make a shiva call to each family and say "Well we're sorry about your loss. Too bad but hey, we got Gilad back!"?
It is still my opinion that Gilad was killed by Hamas five years ago after they realized a quick prisoner exchange was not in the works. I also don't doubt that they will not understand Israeli's reluctance to hand over 1027 murderers for his body. The Arab world has had a long tradition of expecting Israel to fulfill its side of any deal without feeling any obligation to keep up its own end.
But I cannot put my mind at ease with the idea that one soldier, however loved by his family and friends, was made more important than six million other Jews.

Inventing History

2011-10-14T11:48:00.000-04:00

It's a cryptic posuk in Ha'azinu. "They have provoked Me with non-gods," says the Ribono Shel Olam, "so I will provoke them with a non-people." Rashi ad loc identifies this non-people with the Chaldeans based on a relevant verse from Nach but then he had never heard of the so-called Palestinians.
If one comes to argue with anybody about whether or not the "Palestinians" deserve a state, one has already lost. Even using the name is a loss for those who would defend Israel's legitimacy and Jewish rights in our land. The only way to argue is to challenge the defender of the Arabs in Israel to explain exactly who these so-called Palestinians are and where they came from.
We need no reminder that the name "Palestine" is a Latinized version of "Philistia", chosen by the Romans to replace the title "Judaea" after the downfall of the Second Commonwealth and the destruction of our Temple (may it be speedily rebuilt). One reason the name was chosen is because there were no Philistines. It was a safe name to give the province since no ethnic/national group was likely to crop up and demand control of it. \We also need no reminder that from the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt to the declaration of the State in 1948 there was never a minute in which Israel was ruled by a local government instead of by an imperial authority from afer. There was never, ever a state called Palestine. There has never been a Palestinian currency or national anthem used at official functions.
Even the so-called Palestinians themselves are intruders in the area, leftovers from the Arab conquest of the MiddleEast and north African several centuries ago. That is why it is so important for many of them to either deny the Jewish historial tie to Israel or to pretend that we are all descendants of Khazars and converts. After all, admitting we are Jews and that we had a functioning kingdom there when the ancestors of the Europeans were still loincloth clad savages would mean they came second, that they are the real invaders while we are the real homeowners.
None of this seems to matter when it comes to attacking Israel. Certainly truth is irrelevant or inconvenient. The Arabs latest ploy, having had their attempts to declare a "state" delayed at the UN General Assembly, is to once again delegitimize Israel in the eyes of the world by severing our historical connection with our land. The Arab bid to join UNESCO - something illegal under the UN charter but hey, why be a wet blanket? - and then declare all the places they can in Israel as their own "heritage" is but another attempt to attack our nationhood and replace truth with lies.

The Palestinians will seek World Heritage status for Bethlehem and its Church of the Nativity if the UN cultural agency admits them as a full member, and will then nominate other sites on Israeli-occupied land for the same standing, a Palestinian Authority minister said on Monday.

Hamdan Taha, a PA minister who deals with antiquities and culture, said UNESCO membership was the Palestinians' natural right. He described as "regrettable" the objections of some governments including the United States.
Aside from Bethlehem, the Palestinian Authority has listed ancient pilgrimage routes and the West Bank towns of Nablus and Hebron among 20 cultural and natural heritage sites which Taha said could also be nominated as World Heritage Sites.
UNESCO's board decided last week to let member states vote on a Palestinian application for full membership, seen as part of a Palestinian drive opposed by Israel and the United States for recognition as a state in the UN system.
"UNESCO membership carries a message of justice and rights. Why must the Palestinians be left outside the international system?" Taha said. "I see it as crowning long efforts over the past 20 years."
He said that after gaining full UNESCO membership, the Palestinians will revive their bid to secure World Heritage status for Bethlehem, which was rejected this year because the Palestinians were not a full UNESCO member.
"This is a simple example of how Palestine has not been able to preserve its cultural heritage through the tools granted to every state in the world," Taha said.

Preserve its "cultural heritage"? How can a "people" with a non-existent history prior to 1919 have a heritage? Other than through the deluded ramblings of Islamic preachers, does the Arab world have any tie to the tombs and sites in Israel? Was Rachel Imeinu a Muslim? Was Avraham Avinu a so-called Palestinian? What claim do they have to an inch of our land? None except those claims which have arisen in their fertile imaginings.
Why have the so-called Palestinians been left outside the international system? Because they are not a nation but a weapon, created by the Arab League and maintained by the PLO and Hamas in the Muslim world's ongoing war against Israel. Weapons do not have heritages or holy sites.

False Freedom

2011-10-12T11:21:00.000-04:00

The Mishnah in Avos famously tells us that there is no real freedom other than through observance of Torah. Although the non-religious like to scoff at this describing our observance as an unending and myriad collection of rituals and minutiae, from the philosophical Jewish point of view this is absolutely true. In a reality in which a person is either guided by his yetzer hara, his animalistic and primitive passions, or rises above them it is only the person who says no to his primal passions and leads a life of free choice based on the Torah's ethics that really lives up to his potential.
Sadly this message is lost on many of our brethren, such as Uri Misgav:
The self-importance this man radiates is palpable yet beneath the veneer of his indignation against religion and especially, of course, Judaism lie some important contradictions.

I do not fast on Yom Kippur for the same reason that I do not adhere to any religious mitzvah: I do not believe in God. I am not “secular,” because this is a narrow definition referring to lifestyle alone, and I’m not infidel either. I’m an atheist.

I do not believe in any form of higher or divine intervention. I only believe in human beings and in systems of values that are worthy of following while living life in this world. I also believe in progress and science. After thousands of years of human existence in the company of “God,” it appears reasonable to demand a single, minimalistic empirical evidence to his existence.
At this stage, many of you will dismiss me with being “simplistic” – after all, generations of theologians convinced us that faith involves endless intellectual depth. Yet the truth is that there is no such science, theology. One cannot base a whole science on something that was never reinforced by evidence of actually existing.
Meanwhile, genuine, broad and well-argued atheism may be simple, but not simplistic. In fact, this kind of atheism is sorely lacking in Israel.
I can still address the existence or non-existence of God as an open question somehow. Yet in the face of religion I’m speechless.
Am I Jewish? Certainly. I was born to a Jewish mother and I feel belonging to the Jewish people, its past and heritage. However, I am an atheist Jew. Nice to meet you. And let’s not stop with Yom Kippur. I did not circumcise my son. I object to the cutting of genitals for children of both sexes, with or without anesthesia.
I know you are infuriated with me right now. This is what I wanted. I want all of you, but mostly the “seculars” among you, to seriously confront your choices. The principle of “to each his own” is acceptable to me, as long as it means that a person may choose not to believe anything.
Don’t decide for me what to eat, when to fast and on what day of the week to travel by bus. I was born and I shall die a free man

Consider his demand to be left alone by the requirements membership in the Jewish nation foists upon him. He is quite happy to identify with the cultural aspects Judaism offers. After all, there are no obligations associated with latkes and humantaschen. It is also quite possible that he is a passionate Zionist. Again, no obligations. In fact, like so many like him it's all about the obligations.
Imagine a teenager or someone in their early 20's still living at home, demanding meals, laundy and to have his room cleaned but snorting arrogantly when told that he has to shovel the driveway, mow the law and wash the dishes. Could anyone have respect for such self-indulgence? Yet with God our Father watching over us, providing us with our entire existence and running the universe for our benefit there are still folks out there playing the "Nah! Nah! Nah! I can't see you!" game.
In truth, Misgav isn't as benign as he likes to sound. Despite insisting that everyone has a right to make a choice of his own, he has already made an important decision for his son. By refusing to circumcize him he has decided that his son will be lacking full membership in the nation he himself feels a cultural attachment to. If the son, when he grows up, wants to return to observance of Torah he will only be able to do so properly after undergoing a painful operation under anaesthetic. Thanks dad!
Then there is his final line, that he will live and die a free man. As Chazal have so annoyingly reminded us, real freedom is not deciding that one wants the pizza instead of the wings for dinner tonight or to wear non-matching socks despite the wife's nagging. Real freedom is rising above one's instincts, passions and desires and making a choice based on reason and logic instead of "I want this!" Misgav is not a free man. He is a slave to his yetzer hara who, like God, he refuses to see even though it is right in front of him. He ate on Yom Kippur, chalilah, not because he chose to but to "show God He can't tell me what to do!" Some freedom.
Now, Misgav may otherwise be a fine gentlemen. He may be possessed of good manners, a kind disposition and a generous spirit. Certainly by living in Israel he is already on a high level despite his refusal to acknowledge such spiritual things. But he is not free and his refusal to see that only deepens his servitude.

Are They Taking This One Too?

2011-10-10T10:56:00.000-04:00

First it was Channukah. Officially a holiday reminding us of the triump of our observant ancestors over the Seleucid/Greek occupiers of Israel and their assimilated Jewish allies, the festival has become a celebration of "religious freedom" and gift giving to millions of non-religious Jews whose connection to Torah and Judaism is limited at best.
Then it was Tikun Olam. Officially a legal term referring to those measures and bylaws needed to ensure society works well, it has become in the hands of the non-religious a catch-all phrase to represent those virtues secular liberal society holds dear like feminism and ecocrusading.
Now it seems Kol Nidrei and Yom Kippur are starting to undergo the process of being co-opted by those who desire a connection to Jewish nationhood and history but not through the proper channels of Torah learning and mitzvah observance.
This story, for example, shows how the "trendy" crowd is starting to latch onto Kol Nidrei and turn it into another day of "social awareness":

It's rare that Mae Singerman, a self-described secular Jew who grew up in a Reform family, observes Yom Kippur by praying, fasting or attending synagogue.

But at sundown on Friday, the 27-year-old from Brooklyn planned to join hundreds of other Jews at the Occupy Wall Street demonstration for Kol Nidre, the opening service of Yom Kippur that starts the holiest time on the Jewish calendar.
"For me, it's about bringing my Jewish identity and my politics together," said Singerman, who has participated in several anti-capitalism protests in recent years and visited the demonstration at Zuccotti Park for the first time last week. "Having a Jewish service or ceremony brings more Jews who wouldn't necessarily come. I know people coming tonight who are pretty skeptical about Occupy Wall Street but are willing to give it a try because of the Yom Kippur service."
Organized mostly via Facebook over the last week, the Kol Nidre service starts at 7 p.m. across from the downtown park where demonstrations have occurred since mid-September. Almost 500 people have RSVP'd on Facebook, although at least a few dozen of them are out-of-towners who are just showing their support.
The service, led by rabbis and students from several Jewish traditions, has been endorsed by Jewish organizations such as Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and the Shalom Center. The Rabbinical Assembly, an association of Conservative Rabbis, has donated 100 prayer books for the service, and organizers say that the Battery Park Synagogue and Chabad of Wall Street have welcomed holy-day observers who spend the night at the protest camp to come pray at Saturday services. Similar Kol Nidre services have also been planned in Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
Daniel Sieradski, one of the service's organizers who has been participating in the Occupy Wall Street demonstration, said he was inspired to arrange for the Yom Kippur service by a part of the haftarah from the Hebrew Bible, which is typically read the first morning of Yom Kippur.
"You can fast for a day, you cover yourself in ashes, you can wear a sack cloth, but who cares if you are not out there feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, breaking the bonds of oppression?" said Sieradski, paraphrasing Isaiah 58:5.
"I am less concerned about halacha, Jewish law, and traditional observance than I am about the prophetic character of recognizing the divine in my fellow human being," said Sieradski, who also plans to observe the Jewish holiday of Sukkot at the demonstration.
While Sieradski said he does not plan to sleep over at the encampment Friday night, Nom, a 23-year-old Talmud student, said she plans to spend the night there with a group of friends to start her Yom Kippur observance. She will walk two hours to her upper Manhattan home on Saturday morning to attend synagogue.
"Part of Yom Kippur is that you are supposed to review the past year to see what you can improve about yourself and your community. I am seeing right now that I live in a country where homes are being foreclosed, where people are losing jobs and people are suffering," said Nom, who did not wish to give her last name.
"We're hoping the people up top can do some sort of teshuva. It literally means 'return,' but the whole point is that one specifically in the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur will admit their wrongdoings and ask for forgiveness," she said. "We are putting ourselves out there. and so should Wall Street. They should have the opportunity to review their actions and change."

While others have pointed out the idiocy of these protestors far more eloquently than I can, there are a few points that could easily be made from the Jewish perspective.
The first is the absolute hypocrisy of these protestors. Using Facebook to organize? Isn't that a large multi-million dollar corporation, the kind they're angry with? I'm willing to bet that they checked for updates using Iphones, Blackberries and other smartphones running on the Android operating system, again all produced by giant corporations that are supposedly evil. Like the rioters in England a few months back, claims about concern for the way corporations are running roughshod over society tend to get undermined when the prostestors openly rely on many of those corporations to coordinate their activities.
Then there's the open misuse of the word "Judaism" to describe activities that are not in the least Jewish. Consider Mae Silverman's statements at the start of the article. This is, according to the story, a woman who has never observed Yom Kippur properly but is now prepared to start but not in order to do any kind of chesbon hanefesh, but rather to blame someone else, anyone else like corporate America, for all of society's problems. I'm willing to bet Mae Silverman has benefitted quite a bit from capitalism throughout her life although she doesn't seem to have enough insight to realize that her "anti-capitalism" protests are merely biting the hand that feeds.
Then there's Daniel Sieradski who is quoted as saying that he's not interested in any of the obligations that Judaism demands of its followers, just in regurgitating selective verses from the prophet of his choice that fits his agenda. It's interesting that he picked Isaiah consider that this particular prophet had a great deal to say about the importance of Jewish law and tradition. Does Sieradski also consider those verses important?
Finally there's the statement: Part of Yom Kippur is that you are supposed to review the past year to see what you can improve about yourself and your community - that shows these protestors have no clue what Yom Kippur.
Like a spouse in a dysfunctional marriage, it's all about "them", not "me". How do I improve myself and my community? By blaming Wall Street, corporate America, and capitalism for all my problems. Do I work to improve them myself? But I'm not at at fault! Do I go out and become part of the system so I can constructively change it? Nah! They might expect me to actually show up on time for work and put in a hard day of it. It's far easier to deride, insult and protest from a distance, all the while living quite well from the benefits of the system that I hate so much.
To all these people, please find something else to call your new religion and holiday. The words "Judaism" and "Kol Nidre" are taken.

Ultra-Orthodoxy At The Crossroads

2011-09-27T21:21:00.000-04:00

(Parodied shamelessly from here)

What will the rabbinic leadership of the Ultraorthodox (UO) world do? A wave of provocations from the Far Right challenges the very definition of Orthodoxy. Should Yidden in other parts of the community who are far from the battle lines care? It would take a navi to answer the first question. Responsibility for Klal Yisrael and caring for other Jews demands a resounding “yes” to the second.
Lots of things are happening in the Ultraorthodox world – some good, some not so good, and some astonishingly terrible. The far right of Ultraorthodoxy seems to be intent on continuing an unrelenting drive to push the envelope and driving people away from leading an Orthodox life. Rabbi Dovid Kohn of the Toldos Aharon community of Meah Shearim who in many other ways is a model of selfless commitment to ahavas Yisrael, has unfortunately become the charismatic leader of what is now a movement. His followers routinely hold violent demonstrations and organize outright riots, attacking passersby and police. Then there are the Sikrikin, another Ultraorthodox group that uses mafiesque tactics to destroy the lives of those it sees as intruding on its pure Torah environment. Ultraorthodox Jews like these see themselves fully committed to love of all Jews but limit the definition of Jew to those who look and think exactly like them while excluding everyone else as
Toldos Aharon and the Sikrikin are not the only groups flexing Far Right power. When the Agudat Israel, the rabbinic umbrella group of Ultraorthodoxy was confronted with the widespread problem of pedophile yeshiva teachers some rabbis on the right were upset by what they saw as `mesirah`if state criminal law demanding mandatory reporting was followed. They came up with a ridiculous position that one is allowed to report but only with the permission of a rabbi, something they gleaned from certain teshuvos, ignoring the vast majority of poskim who disagree, and who have disagreed for a very long time. The children being abused are being sentenced to lives of difficulty and self-torment and of the silence the Agudah demands– whether valid or not – is already being questioned since it rejects the standards of the majority of poskim.
The Far Right does not rely on notoriety alone to capture attention. It makes steady and good use of the media, as well as direct mail, pashkevils and advertising, all aimed at the rest of the Orthodox community, and well beyond. One of its more effective tools is a blog called Matzav which, in their words, is the "online voice of Torah Jewry" already looking at the sight it is only a segment of Torah Jewry that seems to be represented. (The Matzav blog has a mirror site called Yeshivah World News which is read almost exclusively by the part of the Orthodox community it caters to.)
Maintaining public visibility as guardians of the faith and protectors of the purity of Torah observance produces much thunder and attracts significant media attention outside the Orthodox world. This is designed to increase pressure on non-ultraorthodox rabbis, and move the majority of the community to view its changes as the only legitimate Torah position. People who lack the background in learning to analyze the arguments on both sides see a group of “conservative” rabbis willing to define Judaism definitively which seems like a good thing to them. Then they note a different group of “progressive" rabbis who insist on changing everything to assuage their liberal consciences. This generates enormous pressure on the progressives to make concessions so as not to alienate growing numbers of their congregants. Years ago, the Far Right sought innovations like insisting all women wear socks in public or complete bans on kol ishah even where permitted. (Women were advised that they could get around the “problem” of the being silenced in public by attending shiurim and publicly asking questions of the speakers). Those changes are so commonplace that they have lost their cachet. Today the push is for burkas, bans on driving and the complete separation of men and women even in the home.
The latest skirmish in the battle between extreme innovation and tradition came a few weeks ago, when a group of ultraorthodox fanatics decided that they would not tolerate a religious but non-ultraorthodox school near their neighbourhood in Beit Shemesh. Using "civilized" tactics like threats of physical violence, shouting "prutza" and "shiksa at 8 year old girls and bombarding opponents with rotten food. All this in the name of protecting the dome of "purity" they believe they have established around themselves.
Reacting to a firestorm of criticism within the UO world- oh wait, there wasn't any - the barbarians continued their daily intimidation tactics. They also organized a demonstration at which prominent local rabbonim were present to give words of support as if there was any justification for their vile actions. Rabbi Chaim Malinowitz was asked to condemn the protesters and openly refused.
More provocations followed on the heels of the abandoned beracha. Riots continue at a Jerusalem parking lot open on Shabbos despite attempts by the municipality to avoid any chilul Shabbosi in its operation. Women clad in burkas multiple daily setting a new perverted standard for tznius that will likely become the new Chareidi standard within 1-2 generations. And always the reminders from the Ultraorthodox leadership that they are the real representatives of Torah Judaism and that only their leaders are authentic Jewish leaders. For them there is one way to practice Orthodoxy - their way and no eother.
The ongoing conflicts between Ultraorthodoxy and the rest of the Orthodox world continues to degenerate. It is clear that the Agudah and its allies look at halacha in a manner fundamentally different than the authentic method used for centuries by genuine Torah giants. They choose something to forbid, selectively research those poskim who agree with that position and then present their negative answer as a universal answer agreed to by all halachic decisors - but without discussing why ignored permitting opinions were not considered or refuted. Only those approved authorities can be quoted. A teshuvah from the Rav, ztÈl or Rav Kook, ztÈl, might as well never have been written as far as they are concerned. It is the embodiment of the Dubno Maggid’s famous response as to how he always has the perfect mashal (“you shoot the arrow, and then paint the target around it”) applied to halacha. Absent is the sense of looking for an objective truth. That quest permeates hundreds of years of halachic literature: weighing all the views available, and only relying on those best supported by the evidence of the words of the gemara and rishonim.
Critics of Far Right halacha point to two other elements that differentiate it from traditional halacha:
• Very few on the right know anything about halacha outside a relatively narrow range of authorities. It just doesn’t have such knowledge because of the closed-minded attitudes in their institutions.
• In traditional halacha, there is a strong emphasis on keeping issues local, on the authority of the town Rav or another local counterpart. The idea that every question, however mediocre, has to be run by a Gadol for his approval because he has a mystical superpower called ÈDaas TorahÈ is a new concept invented by the Ultraorthodox in order to justify why their Gedolim should be listened to by all Torah Jews while they can safely ignore the leading scholars of non-Ultraorthodoxy. The right balks at consulting non-Ultraorthodox sources seeing this as an affront to the Daas Torah of their Gedolim. Then there is the role of the Askanim, community leaders who openly manipulate the insulated Gedolim into issuing psak and bans whenever they feel like it. Such a model, where the leader is led by ideologically-driven underlings, is patently ridiculous to those on the outside.
Where does this leave the rest of the Ultraorthodox community? People who reside entirely in the more modern Orthodox world are often clueless about the nature of Ultraorthodoxy. They are sometimes aware – correctly – of hashkafic differences between the Chasidim, Litvaks and Chabad, especially in regard to the State of Israel and how much there is an emphasis on "chumrah of the week". Other images of Ultraorthodoxy could benefit from a bit of updating. The last decades produced, in many ways, a good deal of achshara dara – a more ignorant and violent generation in the UO community. To be sure, it is beset by major problems, just as the modern community is. Some of these problems are the same; some are different. For the most part, though, the stereotype of Yiddish-speaking peddlers checking their tzitzis for the 30th time that day and rebbetzins who look like they come right out of a Sholom Aleichem story is no longer valid. There is less Torah learning going on in many UO shuls, probably because its members are too busy attacking others on the street to open a page of Gemara. Children often have received an education completely devoid of any secular material, even basic math and language and have spent more time in Israel where many have increased their fanaticism through immersion in high-octane learning. Ultraorthodoxy has produced large numbers of men and women who have become public apologists for all that is wrong with their community, working on the concept that "a good offense is the best defense" and trying to create the impression that any problems that must inevitably be admitted to are the fault of the outside world anyway.
Many in the modern community would be surprised by the makeup of the “heimish” rabbinate in particular. The conformity is enormous. Many of the younger rabbis in particular have learned in a manner devoid of critical thinking and know only how to be "machmir" for the sake of playing it safe. Any intellectual challenge is dealt with either by covering the ears or going to the local "Gadol" for advice. In their ranks you will find bnei Torah with good learning skills, a real love for limud Torah, and an enviable grasp of serious, nuanced halacha – besides excellent training in speaking, writing, and counseling. Unfortunately, you will find others who display woeful ignorance of gemara and halacha which is ignored by the highers-up in the name of expediency.
What should the Ultraorthodox rabbinate do about Toldos AharonéSikrikinÉ The question is studiously avoided by the Agudah and its allies. One can scan the Chareidi newsservices with utter futility in the search of condemnation of the rioters in Beit Shemesh. Yet if the leadership ignores this trend towards primitive and barbaric behaviour in the name of `Torah Purity` where will this all lead? Given enough time (and enough headlines), will there be anyone cilivized left in their community to talk to? Even if no further changes are contemplated, doesn’t the approach suggest a complete misunderstanding of how a Torah Jew is supposed to aporach difficulties and handle the need to compromise with othersÉ
The Agudan has not changed much in recent years. As always it is almost exclusively the province of UO Gedolim and Roshei Yeshivah from the Chareidi sector. Any authority that diverges from its established groupthink is automatically excluded so as to present the front that there is a uniform Torah Judaism and these are its only legitimate leaders. The incessant Talibanization of our mesorah by the Far Right has rattled the more mainstream. They believe that if these fanatics are not accomodated then the Augdah and its allies will come to be seen as too left and lose its leadership position amongst the rank and file. This includes many Gedolim who keep coming up with new ways to say `no`in order not to be considered ``progressive`.
The Agudah``s leadership, for the most part, has taken a principled position that it has always tried to keep out as many Orthodox rabbis as possible, where the minority can at least demand of the majority to accept their standards unilaterally.
Many of the Agudah rank and file might consider posing a counterargument. Maverick stingent positions in the past were just that arguments put forth by individuals. They could not go any further. The Toldos AharonéSikrikin, on the other hand, are on a crusade – with values and protocols that the majority cannot in good conscience share or be party to but who will eventually adopt them anyway.
The essential question might be how the Agudah and its allies should see itself. Some regard it as more or less a fraternal organization for rabbis who need a place where they can share some cholent with colleagues. For many years, the Agudah was just that. In such an organization, there is no for people who disagree completely with each other since that precludes engaging one other with admirable collegiality and personal respect.
Others, however, look to the Agudah as the face of a good part of the Orthodox community to the external world. Orthodoxy has finally arrived in the American mainstream; so many Jews and non-Jews are curious about what we have to say about questions and issues that arise in a world changing at a dizzying pace. The Ultraorthodox world, which believes in a very limited engagement in general society and wants to have a large role in articulating Torah positions in a wide variety of areas. It is an organization that can speak forcefully because its members agree to a set of common principles. An organization that stands for too many things ultimately stands for nothing. Many UO members feel that the divide between Toldos AharonéSikrikin and the rest of the UO world is not that large and that keeping all members under one roof is not so hard if the Agudah and its allies just become a little more ÈfrumÈ. If the Toldos Aharon/Sikrikin stay then the Agudah is a figleaf apologist for their violent and primitive behaviour. If they leaves, the Agudah can show it cares about keeping Ultraorthodoxy from degeneratin into a violent cult. It is as simple as that.
It is difficult not to think of the dispute between Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook, zt`l, and Rav Yosef Chaim Sonenfeld, z`l. When Jews both religious and not began to return in significant numbers to our ancentral homeland, Rav Sonenfelt immediately developed a position opposing the Zionist movement. Better a small, impoverish but Torah pure community than a large one full of pritzus and chilul HaShem Rav Kook saw that God was changing history and beginning the unfolding of the Final Redemption and that the secular Zionists were, despite their irreligiosity, the implementers of His Divine plan. No one can say who was objectively “correct” in that dispute (Rav Kook was, by the way), although the last generations have looked favorably upon Rav Kookès bold position. Some argue that today’s agonizing choice is different. In British-occupied Israel the lines of demarcation between Zionist and Ultraorthodox Judaism were clear. Today, many fear, those lines are no longer clear enough. To avoid erosion of Torah values and practice, the rest of the community must define the approach of the Far Right as so different, that it can no longer be called Orthodox as the rest of us know it.
Who will decide which of these opinions should be applied to contemporary times? Who has the qualifications to address such a weighty issue – dealing not with heretics, chas v’shalom, but nonetheless about defining other Jews as outliers?
At least insofar as UO membership, there have been few who have spoken out against the Far Right. Fearful of a violent backlash from people who know nothing of decent behaviour the Ultraorthodox response so far has either been ÈHey, theyère just a bunch of fringe lunaticsÈ or ÈWell you canèt expect other Chareidim to have to apologize for them!È With the stakes so high, only one recourse suggests itself. The question of keeping Toldos AharonéSikrikin or defining it out of contemporary Orthodoxy should be put to the three talmidei chachamim within the ultraOrthodox world that are most respected for their halachic ability: Rabbis Sholom Eliashiv, Shmuel Wosner and Aharon Shteinman. The Agudah should be prepared to abide by whatever decision these three come up with. We should watch to see if this solution gains in popularity.
Why should the more sane part of the community care about issues completely off its radar? The problems with which the Ultraorthodox world is grappling are just not relevant to communities much further to the left. In fact, we should be able to identify several reasons.
Firstly, the impact upon areas of Orthodox cooperation will be enormous. If the Far Right grows stronger in untethering itself from both traditional hashkafos and accepted protocols of determining halacha, there will almost certainly be a reaction in the rest of the Orthodox world. Lemegdar milsa, to draw clear lines of differentiation, the sane community split. Some will move in the opposite direction to oppose changes it sees as dangerous and illegitimate while others will, through their insecurity, be absorbed into the lunatic fringe. We will drift even further apart. Cooperation in many areas – education, kashrus, kiruv, gerus, political advocacy – will be jeopardized or eliminated. Much of the right will argue that if Ultraorthodoxy can tolerate such aberrations in its midst rather than expelling it, than they cannot trust or continue to deal with the Ultraorthodox – especially if a Toldos Aharon/Sikrikin presence becomes mingled with the Ultraorthodox mainstream in common enterprises. Cooperation that took decades to accomplish may quickly unravel.
Other frum Jews simply cannot be unconcerned about the future of hundreds of thousands of Ultraorthodox brethren, many of whom are in danger of embracing a treif ideology. We must be concerned for their well being; all members of our spiritual family deserve our love. (Those on the Far Right also deserve our love, but at the moment it may have to be tough love! Sometimes, as a last resort, an errant child needs to be rebuffed before he or she can fully participate with the rest of the family. The gemara speaks of rebuking by distancing with the left hand, while drawing closer with the (stronger) right hand – and allows for reversing the hands at times!)
Minimally, HaKadosh Baruch Hu expects our deep concern about wide-scale counterfeiting of Torah, even if it does not impact upon us directly. We should be prepared to show it. Are there any UO rabbis showing extraordinary mesiras nefesh in refusing to compromise on what they received from their rabbeim? If you learn of an UO mara de-asra in your community who is valiantly holding a line against incursions from the Far Righft, consider offering some chizuk. Heaven knows he'll need it! Let the rov know that you will give him the money that you normally give to the shnorrers who come to your door. Let him know that while some people think that people’s Yiddishkeit is defined by what they wear on their heads, you believe that what they carry in their heads is far more important. And in that regard, we are much closer to each other than they can ever be to the Far Right.

More On Uman

2011-09-26T06:24:00.000-04:00

The last post I did on Uman generated some lively discussion (at least for this blog) on the subject of leaving eretz Yisrael for the most important days of the year. I was pleased to see a few days ago a similar post from HaRav Shlomo Aviner, shlit"a, that pointed out the following important points:

Question: Is it permissible to travel from the Land of Israel to Uman (Ukraine) to visit the grave of Rebbe Nachman on Rosh Hashanah?

Answer: This is a new "custom" based on the statement of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov: "Anyone who visits my grave and gives eighteen coins to tzedakah will merit life in the World to Come." One may only leave Israel for a mitzvah (see Rambam, Hilchot Melachim 5:9 and Tosafot to Avodah Zarah 13a). Anyone who violates this, will, we hope, repent. Worse than this is one who travels under the impression that he is performing a mitzvah, because how then will he then repent?! Visiting the grave of tzadikim (righteous people) is not defined as a mitzvah – not a rabbinic mitzvah and not a Torah mitzvah; it is a positive act. Based on this, Maran Ha-Rav Kook ruled that we do not leave Israel to visit the graves of tzadikim, and he wrote "are we without graves in the Land of Israel that you travel to the Exile?!" (Shut Mishpat Cohain #147).
It is true that Rebbe Nachman said: "Anyone who visits my grave and gives eighteen coins to tzedakah will merit life in the World to Come," but Avraham Avinu is greater than Rebbe Nachman. Rebbe Nachman himself said this. Anyone who goes to Ma'arat Ha-Machpelah in Hevron and gives eighteen gold coins can be certain that Avraham Avinu will aid him. Furthermore, know that the Land of Israel is holier than Uman. Rebbe Nachman himself said this.
Therefore, go to Ma'arat Ha-Machpelah.
Also know that it is not enough to visit a grave and give eighteen coins to tzedakah to be worthy of life in the World to Come, but one needs to perform acts of loving-kindness, learn Torah and perform the mitzvot. And it is not proper to spend thousands of shekels to travel there. You should give the money to tzedakah. The value of traveling there is unclear, but giving tzedakah is clear. It is an explicit verse in the Torah.
Also, if you leave your wife alone and sad on Rosh Hashanah, know that you will not stand guilt-free before the Heavenly Court.
The custom of Ha-Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach was to stand across from the national cemetery on Mt. Herzl and say: "These are the graves of the righteous who died sanctifying Hashem's Name. Why should I travel far distances? (Oro Shel Olam, p. 380)."
[A collection of other leading Rabbi's statements on this issue -
Ha-Rav Mordechai Eliyahu: "It is not proper to leave Israel on Rosh Hashanah or during the rest of the year, and it is preferable for one who wants to pray at the graves of tzadikkim to visit the graves of tzadikim in the Land of Israel – Hevron, Kever Rachel, Kever Rashbi – who was the teacher of Rebbe Nachman, etc. Do not leave Israel for the impurity of the lands of the other nations."
Ha-Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv: "Go daven at the Kotel."
Ha-Rav Ovadiah Yosef: "How did the grave of Rebbe Nachman become more important than the graves of the Rambam and Ha-Gaon Rav Yosef Karo?"
Ha-Rav Dov Lior explained how absurd is the thought-process of those who travel to Uman: "People travel to the grave of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in order to ask him to help them to travel to the grave of Rebbe Nachman so they can make a request of him."]

The constant emphasis on finding spirituality in all the wrong places and for all the wrong reasons is something that Orthodoxy has to address even as more people are led astray by these concepts.There is no question that Rebbe Nachman was a great and influential tzadik. One need only look at the livliness and intensity of modern Bratzlovers who, in the absenc of a living leader still maintain a vibrant movement. But as Rav Aviner points out, he was not Avraham Avinu. He was no Rav Yosef Karo.

Rights, Responsibilities, and Rosh HaShanah

2011-09-23T05:42:00.000-04:00

When I was in residency one of my supervisors asked me what I thought the biggest distinction between Jewish ethics and secular ethics was. I responded that secular ethics emphasize rights while Jewish ethics emphasize responsibilities. Canada has a Bill of righs. Judaism has a Torah of obligations. For many years I believed it was that simple.
However, upon further consideration I don't think it is. I mean, I haven't changed my mind about the emphasis secular society around us places on rights. Everything seems to be about that. The right to eat what we want without consequence, the right to drink heavily and then be treated in hospital when complications ensure, the right to not be assaulted when entering a person's home with the intent to rob him, and the list goes on. In fact I would suggest that most of what is wrong with secular society today is a result of this unbalanced emphasis on rights to the near-absolute exclusion of responsibility.
But on the Jewish side it doesn't seem to be that simple. Yes the responsibility angle of Judaism gets a lot of press what with the high profile the chumrah-of-the-week crowd gets in the news these days. What's more, when one interacts with Torah Judiasm the concept of responsibility seems to crop up in everything. What we eat, who we touch, what we say in prayer, what we look at, we are told we have responsibilities in all those areas. If one reads more intense books like Nefesh HaChayim and absorbs the implications that the concept of mystical connection to the higher spheres through our actions it almost seems like we have no rights at all, just a constant sense of duty to ensure Creation doesn't get messed up by our actions.
But is it that simple? In this week's parsha there is a hint that we do have some rights. Back in Re'eh Moshe Rabeinu, a"h, started one of his sermons by pointing out that he had placed good and evil, life and death before us and this week in VaYelech he concludes by returning to that theme, first repeating the choice and then adding a request to choose life by performing the good, ie the mitzvos.
But why is the language one of choice? "And thou shalt choose life!" Not "And thou art commanded to choose life!" The final choice is autonomous and informed. We are told of the reward for doing what God wants, the penalty for disobedience and told to decide for ourselves what it'll be.
Now one could say that this is a rigged choice. A child who is told "Eat your broccoli and you'll get ice cream, throw it on the floor and you'll get sent to your room" will often eat the broccoli not out of a sense of appreciation for its nutritional value but instead out of a desire for the ice cream. However, anyone who has raised children knows this is not always the case. Some kids will throw the broccoli on the floor and defiantly refuse to submit to the punishment. Others will scream about the unfairness of it all. The child's lack of acceptance of consequences, however, does not change the parent's authority and the idea of reward and punishment. The resistance due to the resistance of the child to the simplicity of the yes or no choice.
Ar we as adults any different? Are we as a Jewish nation any different? We remind God of His promise to protect us, to help us establish a Jewish state in our Land and all the good things mentioned in the Torah but when it comes to the obligations side of things we get a little fuzzy. We want a diety that will give us health, prosperity and happiness without having the keep any of the mitzvos. The same God we want to prevent a child from being hit by a car is the same God we tell to butt out when we decide to drive that car on Shabbos.
As we approach Rosh HaShanah we must therefore learn the balance between our rights and responsibilities. We have a right to make our own choice in terms of how to live our lives. God will not force the issue. There might be subtle suggestions from on high from time to time (for people who are tuned in to such things) but there is no voice from Heaven telling us what to do when we don't want to. But we also have a right to demand His compassion when we make our best efforts to serve Him.
On the other side though we have a responsibility to make that best effort. As Chazal say, God wants the heart and only we and He know if our attempts are our honest best. We can stand before Him knowing that we cannot fool Him through a sudden display of piety and remorse. We have a responsibility to examine our deeds and repent them but having done so honestly we have a right to demand forgiveness.
May each of us merit an accurate cheshbon hanefesh that allows us to responsibly demand our right to life and mechilah on Rosh HaShanah.

The Coming Storm

2011-09-21T08:09:00.000-04:00

Liberal Jews in the west (and a good number of conservative ones too) like to believe that anti-Israel sentiment and Jew-hatred are separate things, that the anti-Israel protester who rabidly calls for the desetruction of our State with saliva spraying from his mouth would not hate them personally as Jews as long as they didn't say something malicious like "I believe Israel has a right to exist" or some other hate-filled line.
There is, of course, good reason for this. The same psychological backlash from World War 2 that killed nationalism in Europe also made public Jew-hating statements unfashionable. No one with their head screwed on straight ever believed that the world hated the Jewish nation any less after the details of the Holocaust came out but for several decades it was decidedly impolite to state it openly.
This situation was a change from what had been common practice in the Western world up until the war. For people raised in the last two generations who think that the world the way it is now is how it always was, this is the norm. For those of us who know history, this is a vacation from business as usual.
And the vacation is coming to an end.
One might point to the UN vote supporting the partitioning of Israel into Jewish and Arabs states in 1947 as evidence of the world's new-found love for Jews. For those who have watched the UN in action ever since that vote seems less like a gift and more like an attempt to allow the Arabs their own chance to perpetrate a Holocaust, seeing as how they mostly missed out on the European one. Indeed, the State of Israel's greatest crime in the eyes of the world is its victory in 1949 over the enemy when it was supposed to be wiped out, simultaneously assauging the guilt of the Western world (well we tried to give them a country) and satisfying their darkest dreams (we're finally rid of them!).
Since that time the world has not stopped working towards the end of Israel. Whether it was openly supporting our enemies (the Russians and their allies) or quietly helping to build the anti-Israel narrative (Western Europe by accepting the Arab lies about Israel) there has been an ongoing attempt by the international community to delegitimize Israel.
In 1993 this effort, along with Shimon Peres' incredible naivete and lust for a Nobel peace prize, resulted in the Oslo Accords. Israelis saw it as a chance for true and lasting peace but the rest of the world saw it for what it really was: Israel's first admission that it was the criminal in the ongoing conflict and that it was have to make all the sacrifices from then on.
Look at Israel's opening positions back then versus those of the Arabs. Now look at the positions today. Israel has moved miles in order to accomodate the Arab demands alongside the request for appeasement by the West. The Arab demand, however, have not changed one iota - one iota! - since opening day and can be simply summarized as "Please commit national suicide and we'll sign the deal."
Now it would seem we are rapidly approaching the endgame. This week terrorist Mahmood Abbas, a man with a PhD in Holocaust denial, will stand before the world community and demand that his so-called people be given a state. Is there any doubt that the General Assembly that once voted that Zionism was racism will easily approve this move? Is there any doubt that they will clap loudly for him once he is done his speech? Even if the Security Council rejects the GA's recommendation, either through a vote or veto the damage will be irreversable. The international community will recognize the existence of a new state of Palestine regardless of whether the UN rules say it should or shouldn't. What are rules when there is history to be made and Jews to be killed?
And for the record here is the state they will be endorsing:
1) Its first president is a Holocaust denier.
2) Jews will be forbidden by law from living in Palestine. Not Israelis. Jews.
3) So will homosexuals, by the way.
4) It will also deny citizenship to those Arabs currently living in UN refugee camps. Yes, they will deny citizenship to their own people and continue to demand their return to pre-1967 Israel.
Imagine that. The governments of the so-called civilized world, governments that view Jew-hatred and homophobia with disgust and disapproval, that opine about justice and rights, will gather together to help create a state where the antitheses of these values are official policy. They will smile, speak about how they have done and great thing and then avert their eyes when things get nasty.
They are not interested in the life of the average Arab in Israel, including Yehuda and Shomron, just as the government of the so-called Palestinian authority is not interested. They couldn't care less about the well-being of the average Arab, his right to live a life of dignity or his freedom of expression.
This is the message that we must get across: A vote for Palestine is a vote in favour of Jew hatred. Pure and simple. If Bolivia or Germany vote in favour of Palestine they are saying "We so hate Israel we are prepared to facilitate the creation of a terrorist state whose values we abhor just to push the end of that State closer to reality". We must say it clearly and without shame so that those people who still live in the illusion that being anti-Israel and being a Jew-hater are separate things are permanently disillusioned.

The Right Side of Orthodoxy

2011-09-19T07:40:00.002-04:00

As I've noted before, it's relatively easy to identify the left side of Orthodoxy, the line at which one ceases to be considered genuinely Torah-observant and can better be classified as heterodox. Advocating for mixed seating, insisting women can be rabbis or promoting the idea that homosexual marriage is something that traditional Judaism should accept tend to be pretty big red flags.
The problem is not with the left flank but rather with the right. It is very hard to define when a person becomes too religious to be considered properly Torah observant. Some of this is the fault of the superficiality with which we practice our religion. Let's face it: a person with a black hat and suit who throws the occasional Yiddish word into his vocabulary pretty much gets a pass as "religious" irregardless of personal practice, especially in the bein adam l'chaveiro realm. The weirder the hat, the longer the coat, the more ultra-Orthodox the person becomes. Is there ever a point beyond ultra-Orthodoxy when the person can no longer be considered to be a normative Torah-observant Jew?
In some cases there are calls for certain groups to be classed as "too right" for Torah Judaism. The Neturei Karta, a group of mentally ill primitives if there ever was one, is the classic example of this. However, they're also an easy example since part of their philosophy is that they're the only real observant Jews anyway. They're unlikely to walk into a standard community shul and participate in friendly ways so questions like "Can we count them to a minyan" or "can we give them an aliyah" are pretty much academic.
However, a recent article by Rav Yonasan Rosenblum got me thinking that there is, in fact, a working definition for "too Orthodox to be called Orthodox". Here's the line:

I don't expect to convince the small group of extremists in Ramat Beit Shemesh that their actions endanger the chareidi community. They don't listen to Rav Elyashiv, why would they listen to me?

Here's what I'm thinking. If one wants to look at defining differences between Modern Orthodoxy and Chareidism one must consider the role of the Rav. As opposed to MO circles where the Rav is a guide, a teacher or a pesky shul employee good for sermons on Shabbos and Yom Tov, in the Chareidi community the Rav is an authority. Typical of any authoritarian system there is a pecking order up to the coveted "Godol HaDor" title which, depending on which sect you belong to, is Rav Eliashiv, Rav Sternbuch or Rav {insert name of Chasidic rebbe here}.

In this system, the word of the Godol HaDor is law. Similarly the other Gedolim from the various sects also carry a high level of authority. Ravs Wosner and Shteinman may only be near the top of the heap but if any of them issues a psak it carries tremendous weight for the Yeshivish community. If they say that doing the hokey-pokey four times before lunch every day is halacha then woe to any Yeshivish kolleleit who doesn't put his right foot in and put his right foot out on schedule.
Now to the best of my knowledge, no authoritative Godol has authorized or approved the protests that are currently occuring in Beit Shemesh outside a religious girls school. You know, the one where supposedly pious Jews line up daily to harrass little girls with such educated words as prutza and shiksa. In fact, some pretty prominent rabbonim have voiced their opposition to these protests, yet they go on regardless.
Similarly a few years ago there were massive riots in Meah Shearim when children's aid services abducted a child being half-starved to the death by her mentally unstable mother. At the time there were reports that Rav Sternbuch himself has voiced disapproval of these protests. Guess what kind of impact those statements didn't have.
Here's a final timely example. We all recall the story about the Burka Babes of Beit Shemesh (what is it about that town that attracts all these nutbars?) and how their leader was jailed for, amongst other things, beating her children visciously and forcing them to commit incest with each other. Unfortunately that revelation did not end the existence of this "holier than somebody" group. No major Rav has spoken approvingly of their Talibanistic customs and several have come out against it. Again, guess how many women have responded to rabbinic authority and removed their veils.
It's one thing for a MO to ignore a Rav who has told him to do "X". Heck, they often avoid it because they know how little authority they have. But here are Chareidi groups, groups defined by obedience to its religious leadership, that is ignoring its that leadership. Inconceivable.

Unlike the left side where the worst crime is letting a woman lead Kabbalos Shabbos services, the right side seems to delight in violence and public chilul HaShem. Certainly it is a higher priority to recognize this group's unacceptability
Therefore it seems to me that this is how to define someone who has moved beyond the rightward boundary of Orthodoxy. If someone takes upon himself a certain practice as a religious duty and is then told by the highest religious authorities that this is wrong but continues the practice then that person has to be seen as having moved outside of Orthodoxy. He may look ultraOrthodox, he may speak impeccable Yeshivish, he may only buy meat with four different hechsherim on it but by rejecting rabbinic guidance that his practice is not acceptable he is rejected Orthodoxy.
Naturally I don't expect the ultraOrthodox community to adopt this definition any time soon. We in the Torah observant world are too ingrained to believe that there is no "too Orthodox for Orthodoxy" position as opposed to "not Orthodox enough to be Orthodox". However, the Modern Orthodox community may well wish to examine this. For a long time they have been hammered by the ultraOrthodox over groups like the YCT gang. It is time to return the favour and point out that on the other side there are those who also masquerade as Orthodox Jews.

The Trouble With Uman

2011-09-16T03:37:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I was having Shabbos lunch with a friend who has strong ties to the Chasidic world. As he does every year at this time, he mentioned wistfully that he wished he could be in Uman for Rosh HaShanah to pray at the grave of Rebbe Nachman. Having done it before he craved the spiritual uplift such an experience provided him.
Now maybe I'm too much of a rationalist but I felt I had to challenge him on that. I noted that Yerushalayim, not Uman, is the centre of the world. Unlike much of the last 2000 years, including the years in which Rebbe Nachman, z"l, lived we have access to our spiritual centre up to the Kotel itself. If we are looking for the one place on Earth where a connection to the Ribono shel Olam is strongest it's right there in Israel. If Rebbe Nachman was alive today would he insist his followers stay in Uman instead of making aliyah to be closer to God? Why go to Uman when you could go to Israel?
My friend (I think he still is) smiled and said that I was indeed being rational and logical which is fine except that in matters of spiritualism rationalism and logic simply don't lead to the right conclusions.
Me, I think crap is crap no matter how much incence you blow around it.
Look at all our holy writings. Has there been any land imbued with holiness other than Eretz Yisrael? Are we advised to seek out God anywhere other than Yerushalayim? If we choose to elevate ourselves are we told of any other place in the world where we can maximize that elevation other than Israel?
What's more, the choice is between a grave and the site of our holy Temple (may it be speedily rebuilt). Yes, Rebbe Nachman was a great and influential man with an amazing legacy but he was just a man and we are talking about a piece of land upon which the Shechinah once manifested itself. How can one compare the two?
Fortunately it doesn't seem that I'm alone in thinking that this pilgrimage represents a certain abandonment of specific Jewish principles in the name of a spiritual high:

An Israeli rabbi has come out against the increasingly popular custom of married men traveling to the tomb of Rabbi Nachman of Breslav in Uman, Ukraine for the Rosh Hashanah holiday without their families. There is no justification for leaving one's family to take the trip, Rabbi Ratzon Aroussi told Arutz Sheva.
“We must extend blessings to every movement that brings Jews back to Torah, each in his own path, particularly in these days of repentance,” he said. “However, we must speak the truth: the unity of the family is above everything else. It is a very precious thing in halakhah [Jewish law].” He quoted a passage from the Talmud in which a rabbi told his student, “If you have a family, stay with your family.”
The same spiritual benefits can be had in Israel, he continued. “Do we not have tombs here? The forefathers of our nation are buried here, why go abroad? What about the Tomb of the Patriarchs, Rachel's Tomb, the tombs of the great and mighty of our nation... ?”
Rabbi Aroussi, the rabbi of Kiryat Ono and a member of the Rabbinic Council of the Chief Rabbinicate, explained that visits to a chassidic leader on holidays can be problematic for the same reason. “The spiritual connection to the Admor [Torah leader – ed.] is important – but not at the expense of your home,” he declared.
“Whoever leaves his family and goes to his rabbi or 'admor' (Chassidic leader, ed.) for the holidays, whether in the Holy Land or even more so, outside the land, is violating halakhah,” he stated. Those who wish to connect to their spiritual leaders on the holiday “should take care to bring their families with them, but G-d forbid that they should leave their families,” he added.
Rabbi Aroussi stated that a one-time trip to visit the tombs of rabbis buried outside Israel would be permissible, “because it is a trip undertaken for a holy purpose, in order to kindle the flame of faith.” However, such trips should not be taken on an annual basis, he added, and not on the holidays.

Or am I just missing something here?Israel is the centre of our universe. There is no comparison between the holiness in our Land and the tumah which envelopes the rest of the world. To volutarily bypass an opportunity to be in Israel in order to go somewhere else for inspiration would seem to me to miss the whole point of how one should become Jewishly inspired.

The Inherent Contradiction of Being In Kollel

2011-09-15T20:57:00.000-04:00

Over at RationalistJudaism, Rav Natan Slifkin has pointed out in his usual inimitable fashion the problem with Chareidi claims that their right to army exemptions derives from their Torah learning being the real source of protection for the State of Israel. He starts by brings an excerpt from a column by the venerable Rav Yonasan Rosenblum in Mishpachah Magazine in which he notes that it is in the Chareidi community's interest to support certain financial benefits for those who serve in the army:

To insist on the equivalence of kolleleit to any other societal group is a double-edged sword. A few years back, income supplements for kolleleit meeting certain criteria were challenged in the Israeli Supreme Court on the grounds that such supplements were not available to university students. The Israeli Supreme Court agreed, and rather than extend the supplements to university students, it got rid of them altogether.
I argued at the time that the Supreme Court had erred because university studies and kollel studies are manifestly not the same thing and provide different benefits to society. A democratic legislature can favor one over the other and in different ways precisely because they are manifestly not identical.
No issue so enrages secular Israelis about the chareidi community as the draft deferment for yeshivah students. Chareidi support for generous benefits for those who serve in the IDF is one means of mitigating that animosity. As Rabbi Grylak frequently reminds us, we are a minority in Israeli society, and, as such, should go out of our way not to irritate our secular brethren, especially at a time when Prime Minister Netanyahu has already vowed to review internal social priorities in light of the “social justice” protests.
We will not convince secular Israelis that kollel students protect Israeli society no less than IDF soldiers, and demanding that social policy conform to that assumption only infuriates them.

It is the last paragraph that we are to pay extra attention to. In truth, it's actually less radical than the usual set of claims one hears because it assumes equivalence between the Tzahal's efforts and those of the KDF (Kollel Defence Force) instead of the more common "The KDF is the real army of Israel". But as Rav Slifkin notes:

Never mind secular Israelis - you won't convince anyone of that. On a theoretical level, it has a very shaky foundation. On a practical level, nobody really believes it - not even charedim.

Further on, Rav Slifkin states:

Second, and most significantly: Regardless of the sources that someone might dig up/ reinterpret to claim that yeshivah and kollel students are protecting Israel, the bottom line is that (a) the facts on the ground demonstrate otherwise, and (b) when push comes to shove, the charedim don't even believe it themselves.
The facts on the ground - as the Gemara would say, הא קא חזינן דלאו הכי הוא! From the tragedy of the Holocaust, to the 1929 massacres in Chevron, to the murders several years ago at Mercaz HaRav Kook, it is evident that Torah students are not even automatically protected from harm themselves, let alone protecting others. And this is only military harm - there are plenty of other kinds of harm that affect Torah students, from illness to fires to road accidents. And Israel does not seem to be any safer now than in 1948, despite the fact that there are 40,000 extra people learning in yeshivah/ kollel.
The charedim don't even believe it themselves. In Kiryat Sefer and Betar, bastions of the charedi community which are full of kollelim, they have the same security fences and armed guards as every other town in Israel that is over the Green Line. They have the same protections against different types of harm; in fact, charedim often seek to get the best doctor, not just a regular doctor! Any charedi person, given the choice of living in a settlement with a kollel but no guards, or a settlement with guards but no kollel, would choose the latter.

Certainly one can think back only a few ago to Operation Cast Lead. The souther Chareidi community's reaction to the barrage of rockets shot out of 'Aza was not to run to the beis medrash but to Bene Beraq. If Torah study protects, why the need to flee?
It is Rav Slifkin's final line, however, that leads one to see the innate contradiction that the idea of the KDF presents:

So, if you want to claim that we need lots of people in kollel in order to rebuild Torah after the losses of the Holocaust (although there is vastly more Torah learned today than before the Holocaust), fine. But don't claim that you believe that kollel students are remotely equivalent to the IDF in terms of protecting the country. They're not, and you know it.

Now here's where the inherent contradiction comes in. The reason the "Gedolim" decreed after the Holocaust that the only good Jew is a full-time learning Jew is because of the need to rebuild the devastated Torah community. However, if Torah study protects as the KDF claims it does, how did the Holocaust affect the Torah community of Europe? Should they not have been immune to the devastation? And if Torah study doesn't protect, if the IDF is superior to the KDF, then what excuse does the community really have for evading their share in the protection of Israel?

But Can They Do Their Job

2011-09-14T03:22:00.000-04:00

As a physician I receive the monthly magazine from the regulatory authority that gives me my licence to practise medicine. The magazine is broken down into three sections. The first is the latest news from the authority, the second is full of new policies and regulations and the third contains summaries from disciplinary proceedings against doctors who have broken the authority's rules.
Guess which section everyone flips to when the magazine arrives in the mail?
Now many times it's quite easy to follow how the doctors in the summaries wound up in trouble and why they were being punished. However, sometimes the charges lead me to scratch my head in wonder. For example, a doctor who is convicted of a crime completely unrelated to his practice of medicine might wind up before the authority's disciplinary commitee to receive a second punishment after already having been convicted by the justice system. Other times things that have nothing to do with the doctor's ability to practice medicine lead to a hearing even though no patients were harmed by the physician's indiscretion.
The purpose of the authority is the ensure the safe and effective practice of medicine so that patient safety and health outcomes are maxmized. This is a goal any physician could agree with but when the authority goes after doctors for peripheral matters I sometimes wonder if it's running out of things to do and just looking for business.
The Israeli army seems to have adopted the same kind of reasoning as the medical authority as this article details:

Four of the nine religious cadets who walked out of a military event as a female soldier began singing solo will be dismissed from their officers' course, an IDF committee has decided.
The remaining five soldiers will continue the course after managing to convince the committee that the move had not been preplanned.
The incident took place on Monday evening during an event focusing on Operation Cast Lead. When female soldiers began singing solo as part of a military band, the religious troops chose to leave the auditorium.
They were followed by Regiment Commander Uzi Kileger, who informed them angrily: "If you don't come back inside immediately, you will be refusing orders. Anyone refusing an order will be dismissed from the course."
According to the General Staff orders, a religious soldier is entitled not to take part in recreational activity which contradicts his lifestyle and faith, but the orders do not apply to non-recreational military events.

On one hand I can understand the secular position that all soldiers need to participate equally in military events. On the other hand, however, one has to ask: exactly how did walking out of the ceremony affect these cadets' military abilities? They could have stood up and protested. They could have demanded that the event be changed or cancelled. Instead they absented themselves and allowed the performers to continue without interruption. Exactly how is that inconsiderate or subordinate? How does it affect their performance as soldiers?
From what I can tell, this incident is more an overreaction by the commanding officer than an important blow for pan-army discipline regardless of background. Especially in Israel, it is important to remember that there is always a secular-religious tension present and that doing certain things to lower than tension in non-military settings like memorial ceremonies is something that has to be considered.
In recent years the army has made tremendous strides in terms of assimilating religious recruits into its ranks. The Dati Leumi presence has become stronger and now Chareidim are joining in even greater numbers. This will require a certain level of accomodation from the high command that will have no impact on what the army's actual job - defending the country - is. Hopefully it will come.

A Slice of Turkey

2011-09-13T10:53:00.000-04:00

There are two ways to become famous. The first is to achieve fame through acts of greatness. The other is to attack someone famous repeatedly in the hopes that proximity brings notoriety. This approach relies on the "any advertising is good advertising" philosophy and while it might turn the attacker into a villainous figure in the eyes of many it does accomplish its goal of achieving fame.

The temptation to achieve fame seems strongest in those who once possessed it and seek to regain it. Look at all the efforts that former movie and music stars make to attract the press and regain their former celebrity status in the absence of any new significant positive accomplishments. If that doesn't convince you, look at Turkey.

Once upon a time, Turkey was the Ottoman Empire, the centre and jewel of the the Muslim world. It held that status for centuries until finally corruption, institutional decay and World War I brought it crashing down leaving it a second world power named after a noisy bird.

In recent years memories of that glory seem to have become prevalent in the upper echelons of Turkish society. As a result what was once a staunchly secular country is now sliding back into Islamist territory and reverting from its attempt to be an advanced Western democracy into a pseudo-theocratic state.

Along with this change the memories of glory have led the leadership to attempt to assert Turkey's perceived role as the leading country in the Muslim world. Unfortunately for the Turkey, there are other contestants for that role. Egypt has, for decades, seen itself as the leading Muslim/Arab power and in the last several years Iran has made no secret of its desire to wear that mantle. How is a country named after a tasty sandwich supposed to complete?

Well by taking advantage of the region's scapegoat for all their problems: Israel.

Has anyone missed Turkey's ongoing obsession with Israel over the last few years? Has anyone really understood why Turkey, a country which has benefited tremendously over the last two decades from its economic and military ties with Israel, has decided to shred all those connections as angrily and noticeably as possible?

No matter what happens in the region one can be sure of one thing: every day the newspaper will contain reports of yet another attack by the Turkish government against Israel. Recently there was the kerfuffle over the Palmer report, the results of a UN investigation into the Freedom Flotilla incident last year which outrageously determined that Israel has a legal right to blockade 'Aza and that Turkey should have done more to stop the flotilla from leaving. Turkey's response was to do everything short of cutting off all ties with Israel, something completely illogical consider they were the guilty party in the report! Now Racep Erdogan, prime minister of the country named after the common term for a fool, is in Egypt looking for support in his anti-Israel efforts and inventing charged of war crimes Israel never actually committed in order to bolster his claims. What can he possibly be thinking?

Here's what I think is going on. As I noted, there are two ways to achieve fame. Acts of greatness are fine but they take time and effort. As folks like Perez Hilton can tell you, achieving fame on the backs of others by relentlessly attacking the already famous is a lot easier.

Turkey could achieve greatness in the Muslim world by building a first class economy, sending aid to its impoverished Muslim brethren, and acting as a source of success and inspiration. It's far easier to attack Israel considering its part of a society where piety is measured by the level of one's Jew-hatred. And that's the road Erdogan has chosen to take.

How should Israel respond? There are a few ways. As I've mentioned before, they could play up an alliance with the Armenians and offer them assistance in making the genocidal slaughter they endured more known to the world. They could develop ties with the Greek half of Cyprus and talk about the island's Hellenist heritage. More could be done to point out that the bird people have no problem slaughtering their Kurds even as they condemn Israel for blockading terrorists. They could even sponsor organizations to explore Constantinople's Chrisian heritage.

But there's one surefire way to properly respond to Turkish hostility. Turkey is constantly goading Israel, much like Gamal Nasser, y"sh, used to do in the 1960's in order to provoke a response and then claim "victim" status. For Nasser this tactic resulted in the Six Day War. Israel is unlikely to repeat that miracle with Turkey so this is not a viable option.

The only way to deal with a bully you can't beat the daylights out of is to deny him the attention he wants. Turkey craves the status within the Islamic world that open enmity with Israel will provide. So far Israel's response has been picture perfect: unremitting expressions of friendship which is exactly what it should be doing. All we should be hearing from the Israeli government is reminders of the strong military, economic and cultural ties that bind the two countries together along with the hope that this friendship and alliance will remain strong and untainted for decades to come.

That should be enough to drive Erdogan into a nervous breakdown!

At Least They're Trying

2011-09-12T08:28:00.000-04:00

I was visiting a friend the other day (not him, the other one) who, amongst other things, gets the bulletin from his local Conservative synagogue. Possessed of some down time and with nothing better in reach to read I picked it up and began to leaf through it.
Most of it was the kind of stuff you'll find in any synagogue bulletin. Obituaries, births, upcoming community events and the like. But what caught my attention was their schedule for the upcoming High Holyday season.
It always fascinates me to see how people who don't have much in the way of a Jewish education beyond the very basic handle holidays and where they put the emphasis.
The first thing I noticed was their schedule for the first night of Selichos. To start they had a social hour from 8:30 pm to 9 pm. Yes, having redefined bas mitzvah from 12 to 13 years of age they have gone one step further and redefined hour down to thirty minutes in length. (Perhaps I'm just being cynical and the term "social hour" need not refer to a specific 60 minutes period of time?)
Following this, from 9-10 was the "ceremonial" changng of the the accoutrements. It was time, the blurb noted, to put away the usual clothes and curtains used in the sanctuary year round and bring out the white ones used on Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. Unlike other shuls where this is done on motzai Shabbos by the shammes and some volunteers this synagogue was going to do it in an offical ceremony. Details were conspicuously missing but I don't think they were going to be chanting tehillim or reciting portions of the Gemara while doing it.
Finally at 10 pm they would have their Selichos service. Yes, I'm aware there are probably leninent opinions allowing the service to be done that early when normally it should be done after chatzos but somehow I doubt the decision to make the service at 10 pm had anything to do with that rather than "What, you expect me to come back here at 1 am? Are you crazy?"
Two things struck me from reading this little bit.
The first was the ridiculousness of what they were calling Jewish tradition. A curtain-changing ceremony? Really? Where did that come from? Keep in mind that the 10 pm Selichos service would be the only Selichos service this synagogue has all year around and the bizarreness of a curtain changing ceremony becomes even clearer. Having ditched actual Jewish traditional ceremonies they then invent a new one to add meaning to the upcoming holiday?
The second was more hopeful. I grew up with many of the people involved in this farce. I am well aware that for most of them their Jewish education ended with learning the letters of the aleph beis (a few didn't even get that far and dismiss the importance of knowing Hebrew in order to be an educated Jew as archaic) and perhaps the names of the Avos. The leader of this motley group has what would pass for a grade 8 education in an Orthodox community but, as the saying goes, in the city of the blind the man with one eye is king. His knowledge base is strong enough to make him look positively rabbinical in the eyes of the followers and they consider his psak as if it was handed to Moshe at Sinai, not that such a thing as matan Torah ever happened mind you.
Yet despite the man with one eye leading the blind, I was optimistic to note that at least they were trying. Yes, they seem to have done away with most aveiros that Jews have traditionally held by, having replaced them with modern sins such as not recycling enough, being less than totally egalitarian and being morally relavistic. And yes, it was at such a Selichos service years ago I heard the line "I like how God forgives us no matter what". However, they still do believe in the concept of sin and the need to approach God in some fashion before Rosh HaShanah hits.
In other words, despite all their misguided attempts the pintele Yid within them is still seeking out a connection to the Ribono shel Olam. It might be barely recognizable as properly Jewish but it is still an attempt. Perhaps the kiruv industry should be coming up with methods of fanning this Jewish spark back into a proper flame while it is still there.

Holo vs Holo

2011-09-08T03:49:00.001-04:00

The Canadian Human Rights Museum, while built to fulfill a noble purpose, has found itself embroiled in controversy over its allocation of space. As noted in this article from The National Post:

A debate over how the Canadian Museum for Human Rights balances the Holocaust and other genocides has a new flashpoint: a poll that purports to oppose giving the Holocaust primacy of place, though even the pollster himself says the poll has been misinterpreted.

The federally-funded museum, originally the dream of the late Israel Asper and set to open in about two years in Winnipeg, will have an area dedicated to the murder of six million Jews during the Second World War.
Other mass atrocities — including the Rwandan massacres, the Cambodian Killing Fields and the planned starvation and execution of at least 3.2 million Ukrainians in the 1930s under Stalin — will be housed together in an adjacent area.
It is a point that has angered many ethnic groups in Canada, particularly those from Eastern Europe, who feel their misfortunes will be placed on a lower rung on a hierarchy of suffering.

The one community that has been especially angered by this decision is the Ukrainian one. The argue that their Holodomor, the Stalinist persecution in which millions of them died, is as significant as the Holocaust and that if the Jews get their own wing then so do they.
One could easily argue successfully with them on this point. First one should note that as far as mass atrocities go the Holocaust is unique. Name any other major massacre in 20th century history and you will see the obvious differences. The Rwandan and Cambodian slaughters were the result of a government turning on its own citizens in order to secure political control. The Ukrainians were similarly killed by Stalin, y"sh, to prove a point: don't mess with Moscow or else.
The Holocaust was unique in that one national group, the Germans, made it their overriding policy to wipe out another national group, that would be us Jews, no matter where we were. It wasn't about ridding Germany of its Jews. It was about ridding the world. The Holocaust was also unique in that the persecuted group was not a threat to the attackers. Unlike the other massacres mentioned where civil war, tribal loyalites or the need to show political power were concerns the Holocaust was about killing Jews simply because they were Jews. Finally, the Holocaust was unique in how not just the Germans but many other nations, including many allied with or occupied by the Nazis, y"sh, along with many actively fighting them otherwise cooperated to ensure that only a bare minimum of Jews could escape the horror being perpetrated against them.
Although in the decades since the war most of the countries directly involved in the Holocaust have expressed at least some statements of regret (even as many of them ironically make strong efforts to repeat the Holocaust in Israel through their open support of our enemies) one such nation that seems not to care about what happened on its soil is the Ukraine:

It seems parts of Europe are less tolerant now than they were in the 16th century. Last week, I watched as bulldozers began to demolish the adjacent remnants of what was once one of Europe's most beautiful synagogue complexes, the 16th-century Golden Rose in Lviv. Most of the rest of the synagogue was burned down, with Jews inside, by the Nazis in 1941.
During the war, 42 other synagogues were destroyed in Lviv, which from the middle ages to the 20th century was known by its Austrian (and Yiddish) name, Lemberg, and then called Lvov after the Soviets annexed it in 1945. The remnants of the Golden Rose are one of the few remaining vestiges of Jewish existence in Lviv, the majority of whose residents, in 1940, were Jewish.
It is not only morally wrong for bulldozers to drill through the last traces of this vibrant past without first giving the handful of remaining Jews here a chance to restore this site, or turn it into a place of memorial. It is legally wrong too. Ukraine's own laws are designed to preserve such historic sites.
The Ukrainian authorities are not the only ones at fault. Where is the UN cultural organization UNESCO? The synagogue ruins were designated part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998.
And where is European soccer body UEFA? The Ukrainians are planning to build a hotel on the site to host fans and players at next year's European soccer championships, the world's third most-watched sporting event, which they are co-hosting with Poland. So much for UEFA's much-hyped campaign to "Kick racism out of football." (In addition to there being residual anti-Semitism in Ukraine, the authorities seem to be motivated by cultural and historical crassness and illiteracy, and denial of the past, as well as real-estate greed.)
During the Holocaust, 420,000 Jews, including over 100,000 children, were murdered in Lviv and its environs, more than in almost any other city in Europe. The killing was so efficient that the Nazis organized transports of Romanian and Hungarian Jews to be brought here to be killed once they were done killing the Polish and Ukrainian Jews. There were almost no survivors.
Yet you will hardly find any reference to this in the official guide books or in the museums of Lviv. There is no monument to the murdered Jews in Lviv's old town.
A few elderly people still remember. One Ukrainian woman who approached me last week as I stood at what used to be the ghetto entrance told me she remembered, as a child, seeing Jews whipped as they were forced to walk on their knees back and forth for hours until they collapsed, and were then shot while Nazis laughed.

In the end, this is why the Holodomor might deserve its own wing in the museum. Like the Holocaust it too has a unique feature: its victims, when given the chance, did to the Jews what the Soviets, y"sh, did to them. The idea that a people could suffer in such a way and then learn absolutely nothing moral about it, could remain as cruel as their oppressors, is certainly unique.It should be remembered that the Ukraine has an extensive history of Jew hatred including the worst massacres of Jews between the destruction of the Second Temple (may it speedily be rebuilt) and the Holocaust, the Cheilmnitsky pogroms. It should come as no surprise that Ukraine today has no interest in remember its enthusiastic participation in the Holocaust. They can't come right out and wear it as a badge of pride but perhaps intentional neglect of history is a suitable substitute for them.

Slow Change

2011-09-06T03:31:00.000-04:00

In the wake of the devastation after the Holocaust, the leaders of the Chareidi community chose to change the lives of their followers in a radical way. To respond to the loss of so many great rabbonim and scholars the decision was made to impose a "Learn, don't earn" lifestyle on the masses. The hope was that with a huge increase in the numbers of full-time kolleleit over the next couple of generations the loss in Torah knowledge that the Holocaust produced would be replaced.
Looking around one can see that this decision bore a great amount of fruit. More people are learning Torah full time now than at any time in our nation's history. There are more books being published on Torah subjects than ever before. Someone wanting to learn in yeshiva has an incredible number of options to choose from, especially in Israel.
Unfortunately there is a dark side to ideological shift. The change from "earn" to "learn" was made possible by the creation of the State of Israel. With a government's resources to fund it, the Chareidi community was able to build the educational network it needed and provide support to the full-time learners who, despite a tremendous bekius in Torah, would never learn how to provide for their families. As a result, a community of poverty-stricken men was created, one in which the average person might know much of Shas baal peh but have only a rudimentary knowledge of basic math, grammer and science.
As time has gone on and life has become more expensive it has become obvious that the limited stipends that kolleleit live off of are not enough to maintain even a basic standard of living. This has led to the wives of the community being forced into the workplace, again in a limited fashion due to their narrow education and the dictates of "modesty" which restrict them from many places that they might choose to seek a living. Add to that the continued responsibility for looking after the children while the tzadiki they married shteigs his Gemara all day long. Is this an enduring lifestyle?
For a few years now there has been a quiet muttering within the Chareidi community that the current situation cannot continue. For those who are struggling and forseeing even greater struggles for their children the idea that working in a career and balancing that with Torah is somehow a sin has become bizarre and beyond understanding. However, the leaders of the community, those with wealth that insulates them from the struggles of the underclass, don't seem to have come to this realization. As Rav Shteinman, shlit"a, said to a Chareidi publication a few years ago on the subject of creating a Chareidi college to teach trades and professions: better they live in poverty and purity of Torah.
One can gauge how great the crisis is by how much of a fuss the official Chareidi press makes of it. One such mention occured in 2008 when the venerable Rav Yonasan Rosenblum all but called for a community-wide re-evaluation of the "Learn, don't earn" philosophy.
His voice has now been joined by another, Rav Chaim Ansalem, in a recent article in The Jerusalem Post, noted the obvious:

Hundreds of thousands of students begin a new school year today. Some will learn basic Judaism and Torah along with general studies. Some will study Torah in the mornings and general studies in the afternoons, and some will learn Torah exclusively. While the minimal degree of Jewish content in the more secular schools saddens me, I am even more troubled by the third category described above. The haredi world in which I live does not educate children in accordance with Jewish tradition.

Haredi schools not following Jewish tradition!? Aren’t they the ones who do uphold tradition? Haven’t the more modern movements veered from the path?
The answer is simply that any movement which teaches its children only Torah is a modern aberration.
Traditional Torah sources teach in the clearest of terms that learning a trade to support one’s family with dignity – alongside Torah study and living a Torah-observant lifestyle – is the highest of ideals. For example, in the Jerusalem Talmud, Peiah, Chapter 1 interprets the Torah’s instruction to “choose life” as a command to have a trade. The Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin, 29a teaches that “a father must teach his son a trade. Anyone who does not teach his son a trade is as if he taught his son robbery.” The Midrash on Ecclesiastes Chapter 9 instructs: “Acquire for yourself a trade together with Torah.” The Babylonian Talmud, Brachot 8a goes as far as saying that “a person who earns a living from his own handiwork is greater than one who fears heaven.” Finally, Wisdom of our Fathers Chapter 2 states emphatically that “any Torah not accompanied by work will end up being nullified, and will lead to sin.”
A glance through the Mishna and Talmud reveals that along with being great Torah sages, the leaders of their generations earned a living as doctors, tailors, launderers, plowers, carpenters, land measurers, shoe makers and repairmen, wood choppers, beer makers, bakers, smiths, trap makers, engravers, skin tanners, mill workers, scribes, pit diggers, bundle and beam transporters, wool merchants and weavers.
All the above sources no doubt served as the basis for the teaching from Maimonides, himself a world-class Torah scholar and physician (Laws of Torah Study 3:10-11): “Any person who makes the decision to study Torah without a livelihood and to sustain himself from charity – such a person desecrates God, disgraces Torah, extinguishes the light of religion, causes bad for himself, and removes himself from the World to Come… and our sages also commanded that a person should not earn a living from Torah… It is a high level for a person to earn a living from his own toil and a trait of the saintly. Through this, a person earns all the honor and good in this world and the next.”
This approach continued until the past few hundred years. For example, the 15th century Orchot Tzadikim (309), teaches that “A person must find middle ground with two responsibilities and set aside hours for Torah study and for work in this world, and must strengthen himself to do both… neither should take away from the other.” The famed Maharal of 16th century Prague relates in Netivot Olam that “when a person is busy with two pursuits – work to provide for what his body needs and Torah for completion of his soul – he will not find any sin.”
So it is clear that Jewish tradition advocates intensive Torah study together with learning a trade. In our times, this means teaching students whatever they need to earn a university degree – the primary path for earning a livelihood in today’s world. (I also advocate joint yeshiva and university programs – a topic for a future column).
Lest one think it is impossible to provide an intensive yeshiva education while studying language, mathematics, science or history, a glance at the yeshiva world in the US proves that highschool students attending the most haredi institutions – Lakewood, Torah Va’daas, Philadelpia, Chaim Berlin, Telshe, and more study all these subjects as mandated by US law. This provides students with the option of university study, which many pursue, and produces well-balanced and worldly Torah scholars who bring sanctity to God’s name in the workplace and earn great respect for their communities.
I must make two important clarifications. Maimonides, at the end of the Laws of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, elaborates on the benefits of doing nothing but studying Torah. The Ohr HaChayim, one of the greatest biblical commentators of the early 18th century, explains that this teaching refers to a person or group who wants to support a full-time Torah scholar in a partnership. Maimonides, in the Laws of Torah Study quoted above, is referring to a person who places a burden on the nation through his learning, and essentially forces others to support him. If someone has a private arrangement by which he does nothing but study Torah while receiving the support of a private individual, this is a blessing.
I personally love nothing more than quiet moments alone with the Talmud, or studying the Parsha with my children, and cannot imagine a more beautiful lifestyle. However, as Maimonides states, no person can choose to place the burden of supporting him on the community. This is exactly what the haredi school system does.

Now, without doubt, Rav Ansalem's call will fall on many deaf ears. One problem is the current structure of the Chareidi community. At the top sit the so-called "Gedolim". In reality they are figureheads while the real power lies in the stratum just underneath, the "Askanim". Through manipulation, selective presentation of news from the outside world and simple threats, the Askanim create a system of rule in which the Gedolim decree ban after chumra after outraged call for action based on the "ideal" Charedi system of thought that the same Askanim think should exist. Through their filter the Gedolim will no doubt be told that Rav Chaim Ansalem is calling for the destruction of the kollel system and the wholesale integration of all Chareidim into secular society. Naturally there will be official condemnation of his position.
But perhaps the rank and file, tired of the Daas Torah that leaves their bellies empty and their teeth slowly rotting, will hear the message. At that point the leadership will have a choice. They can either realize that change to the previous system is inevitable or wave their hands as if to say "Any Chareidi who wants to work is already OTD so let them go already". Hopefully the former will be their enlightened choice.

Go Back To Your Ghetto

2011-09-05T08:23:00.001-04:00

Although many in the Chareidi community claim that their ideology is the most faithful to the authentic Jewish mesorah, there are many holes in this belief.
For one thing, Jewish life was not always and everywhere like it was in the impoverished shtetls of eastern Europe. Jews did not always wear bekishers and shtreimls. They did not always speak Yiddish and they did not always speak Hebrew with a specific accent. The Talmud did not always look the way it does now and a black hat was not in common usage until a few decades ago.
But the real hole in the belief that everything new is forbidden and that they are practising just like their ancestors did centuries ago is the selectivity of their practice. I know of no Chareidim who, like the Mennonites, eschew electricity. They use soap and toilet paper (to the best of my knowledge) and they have no philosophical problems with driving in cars, at least on those days when they're not stoning them. Like all of us in the Torah observant community, they pick and choose. The difference is just what innovations they've chosen to accept and the indignation with which they view those who choose others.
Koheles warns us not to wish for "the good old days" because such idle dreaming is for fools. This has not stopped many around the world from doing just that. In medicine we often have to contend with "home birthers" who believe that since hospitals are full of sick people they are best avoided when giving birth. Besides, for millenia women birthed at home so it's more "natural". What they like to forget is that the rate of infant and maternal morbidity and mortality is far, far lower in the sterile delivery room than it is in their bedrooms. They remember the good and purposefully forget the bad.
Well so do these particular Chareidim. They remember with nostalgia the wonderful aspects of Jewish life in eastern Europe -the culture, the spirtuality, the close-knit sense of community - and forget the bad - the pogroms, the epidemics, the grinding poverty, the uncertainty that tomorrow the government would issue a decree that would ruin their lives. Do they really want to go back to that?
Well fortunately within the State of Israel they don't have to. In Israel they can sit around, invent a beautiful past history that, for the most part, never actually happened and then pretend that they are living in that history. They can have the culture, the spirituality and the close-knit sense of community while the State provides a vaguely menacing government reminiscent of the Czars and Kaisers of Europe while not actually having to worry that the Knesset will issue any decrees remotely similar to those that the Jew hating rules of Europe used to. They can scream "Nazi" and "Cossack" at their fellow Jews safe in the knowledge that, unlike real Nazis and Cossacks, they will not suddenly be surrounded by armed hostiles and beaten to a pulp. In short, they can be deluded bullies.
And deluded bullies they are, as the latest kerfuffle between radical Chareidim and the rest of reality plays out in Beit Shemesh. In short, a new Dati Leumi school for girls - not a secular school, not a mixed school - opened up in "proximity" to a Chareidi neighbourhood.
Now before going on, some things have to be clarified. First, to paraphrase Worf from Star Trek: TNG, there are those in the Chareidi community who define proximity as anything within their field of view. Second, the Dati Leumi community is a special threat to some Chareidim as the presense of devout, observant Jews who are also Zionist contradicts their assertion that, in order to be a devout and observant Jew, you must not be Zionist.
As a result these particular Chareidim have behaved in a fashion that can only be described as a barbaric chilul HaShem. Dressed in what they define as Jewish garb they have occupied the school, threatened parents and children with violence and continue to harrass all those who would oppose their hatred with insults and vehemence. All while announcing that they are doing this for God's honour and the purity of the Torah community, of course.
When it comes to the left end of Orthodoxy it is well known that we are vigilant for those who would blur the line between proper Torah observance and heterodoxy. It is time to start looking at the right end of Orthodoxy in the same fashion. Just as a rabbi who announces that he is not going to say a particular beracha because it offends his liberal egalitarian sensibility has to have his Orthodox credentials questioned, so even more do these animals in the guise of men have to be told "You are not Torah observant! You are not Orthodox!" No, the vast majority of Chareidim are not like this but the actions of these primitives cast a dark pall on their entire group and they need to be rejected from it.
And if their opponents say that while brandishing crowbars in a menacing fashion, so much the better.

The Right Way To Apologize

2011-09-04T03:29:00.000-04:00

Despite serving as the launching pad for a group of terrorists disguised as do-gooders during last year's attempt to break the legal Israeli blockade of 'Aza, Turkey continues to preen its Islamic pride and demand an apology from Israel for daring to defend itself from folks determined to cause it harm. The most recent provocation from the country named after a tasty bird is the recall of its ambassador and the official downgrading of relations with Israel in both the military and political spheres. The idea that Israel must apologize for protecting itself has become an obsession with the Turkish government. Even the boycott-breakers have moved on after the failure of a second flotilla to even leave port in an organized fashion but the Turks continue to pound away at Israel, especially after the Palmer report which allocated blame in the incident, was published.
And one wonders why the Turks care so much. After all, the Palmer report should have been a clue to the them to back off. After all, if a UN report actually manages to not blame Israel 100% for some international incident that should be a clear signal that Israel was actually in the right. Yet the insistent demand for an apology keeps coming.
Therefore it would seem to me that Israel does indeed need to provide an apology to Turkey. The most appropriate site for such a ceremony would be somewhere in the part of Cyprus illegally occupied by those same Turks. In addition to a senior Israeli minister, like the one for sport or the environment, showing up, there should be a representative of the Israeli Armenian community. You remember the Armenians, right? The people that the Turks took to massacring a little over one hundred years ago and still have not shown any regret?
The Israeli representative should, with a great smile, indicate his intention to fully apologize for his country's insistence on defending itself from attack but say this in the interest of historical continuity the Turks should first apologize to the Armenians for trying to wipe them out. After all, that did happen before the Marmalade debacle last year.
After all, if the Turks are big on apologizing, should they start by cleaning their own house instead?

A Sure Formula For Failure

2011-08-28T11:14:00.000-04:00

The senior Rav in my community likes to tell the story of how, during the first few years of his service (perhaps overlordship might be a better word?) the congregation's leadership told him they intended to change the shul from Orthodox to Conservative. They were fascinated by the vibrancy of the then ascendant movement and the idea of mixed seating didn't seem that odd to them. As the story goes, he asked them about their daily minyan. Well, came the reply, sometimes they don't get one. His reply was quick: So you don't want us to get a minyan either?
There's a stage in the life of many organizations when the founding principles it stood for get forgotten and a desire to increase membership becomes the new principle. However, the weaker the original commitment becomes the harder it gets to entice people to join. People are either not interested or are looking for something specific and a poorly defined group does not tend to interest them.
If there is one thing the last 40 years of liberal Judaism has taught it is that liberal Judaism is not a formula for creating a large committed community. Don't let the numbers fool you. Unlike Orthodoxy, there is only one real commitment when it comes to being a Reformative Jew: paying your dues to the temple of your choice. A Reformative congregation may have 1000 members but what percentage of them know anything about the movement they belong to?
Conservatism is especially bothered by this problem since, at least on paper, it does demand a certain level of commitment. As much as they hate to label anyone a "bad Jew", someone who eats and bacon and cheese sandwich at a strip club on Yom Kippur is violating many of the few standards they have left. Yet in their zeal to be "inclusive" and "progressive" they have shed as many principles as they can to avoid losing membership to the more nebulous but non-judgemental Reformers to their left.
Indeed Conservatism seems destined to ultimately split between those who really don't care about Torah and just want a place to sing songs on the occasional Saturday morning and those with a real sense of connection to Judaism who are looking for serious commitment. The former will go left to Reform, the latter right to left-wing Modern Orthodoxy. And the more Conservatism moves to accomodate the liberal left the faster this dissolution will occur.
The problem is that LWMO isn't going to be doing much better. In fact, the more it trumpets its progressive nature the faster it will slide left into the failing arms of Conservatism. For example, we are now told that a second "rabba" will soon be dealing out her wit and wisdom to the YCT crowd.
When Kaya Stern-Kaufman was ordained three months ago, her certificate looked different from those of other newly minted rabbis across the country. It included the English title “rabbi” and the Hebrew title “rabba.”

Stern-Kaufman, who was ordained by the pluralistic Academy of Jewish Religion in Riverdale, N.Y., became just the second woman in the United States to be given the title rabba. She followed the lead of Rabba Sara Hurwitz of the Orthodox Hebrew Institute of Riverdale.

Of course Ms. Stern will serve God by strictly adhering to the principles of secular liberalism:

While Stern-Kaufman’s feminized title did put her in the spotlight, her work as a rabbi does not center on women’s issues. A social worker and a feng shui consultant before deciding to become a rabbi, she is focusing on outreach to unaffiliated Jews and bridging the denominations of Judaism. She is also a founder and member of the traditional egalitarian Berkshire Minyan.

She likened herself to Hurwitz in that both are “standing up for the right of Jewish women to be spiritual leaders in their communities.”

It must be the principles of secular liberalism as in Torah Judaism there is no "right" for a woman to be a spiritual leader, as the halacha demonstrates over and over. Some have risen to the occasion and our nation has been stronger for it but the idea that there is some inequality when it comes to leadership positions in the Jewish community that needs to be righted is not born of Judaism.
It's interesting to note two things from this article. The first is the difference between the original rabba, Sara Hurwitz, and her new companion. While Hurwitz certainly perceives herself as breaking barriers she is very careful, at least in public, to remain as Orthodox as possible. She talks about halacha, about Orthodox values even if one does not agree that her approach is a Torah true one. Stern-Kaufmann, on the other hand, seems to be Orthodox in the mold of the Hartmann method: all the image, none of the substance. If push comes to shove and Hurwitz were forced to choose between Orthodoxy and right wing Conservatism I do not doubt she'd move right. Stern-Kaufmann sounds like she'd be just as comfortable with a radically left chavrusa from the Hebrew Union College as she would with someone actually Torah observant.
The second is the level of enthusiasm the article tries to bring. This is a trend! Things are changing! Women are going to become mainsteam leaders in the Orthodox community as it changes to become more like Reformativism!
No it isn't. No they're not. No they won't.
Jewish history is littered with cults, groups and ideas that thought they could modify, improve or adjust Judaism in radical or progressive ways. None of these groups have ever endured. Despite a Conservative rabbi's enthusiastic approval, this idea will ultimately be relegated to the dustbin of Jewish history:
Like other professions in which women were once not welcome to join, the rabbinate has been forced to learn how to accept female rabbis into the ranks. Certainly this acceptance is most challenging for the oldest generation of rabbis who came of age in the old boys network -- a rabbinate sans women. Rabbis now in their middle age were the first to welcome women into the profession, but also have memories of the controversy that took shape around the seminary doors opening. But for younger rabbis -- I include myself in this cohort even though my doctor tells me I’m aging a bit each day -- there have always been female rabbis, and we wouldn’t want it any other way.
I recall the first time I jumped into a New York City cab and noticed that my driver was a woman. I did a double take, but then things progressed as usual. She got me to my destination, I paid the fare and her tip, said thanks, and was on my way.
Not so with female rabbis, however. There are noticeable differences between the sexes, and we shouldn’t pretend they don’t exist. Having women as rabbis has added immensely to all aspects of Judaism, and female rabbis have helped shape the conversation.
Female rabbis have added beautiful new rituals to our tradition. They have introduced spiritual rituals that most men wouldn’t have dreamed up, like prayers for fertility, teachings at the mikvah and meaningful customs following a miscarriage.
Female rabbis have brought naming ceremonies for our daughters to the meaningful level of the brit milah. They can relate to the teenage bat mitzvah girl in ways that male rabbis never could or would never even try. Their commentary on the Torah and Talmud is fresh, and they can provide voices to the hidden personas of the many female characters of our rich text that have been missing for generations.
A Judaism based on fashion, liberal values and a desire to be as progressive as gentile society around us will not appeal to Jews serious about their Judaism. Perhaps Miller has missed it but the result of his movement's amazing and egalitarian policies is an empty pew as people search elsewhere for what Conservatives refuse to offer their congregants for fear of appearing archaic. Is he truly wishing that type of failure on the YCT crowd as well?

The Proper Focus

2011-08-25T04:27:00.000-04:00

One of the most important questions a Jew must ask himself when performing a mitzvah is "Am I doing this for the right reason?"
Many times we don't do what we're supposed to for the right reason. Sometimes it's for personal glory. Sometimes it's because we're worried what the neighbours will think. Only once in a while do we honestly put aside any personal considerations and keep God in focus the entire time.
As Rav Nathan Lopes Cardozo notes in this article, improper motivations can have horrible consequences:

Religious people seem increasingly to treat the Almighty as an idol, though totally unaware that they are doing so. They violate the most severe prohibition — You shall not worship any other gods — with full confidence that they are genuinely serving G0d.
And these people are none other than you and me.
Many of us are religious because we believe it is the best insurance policy and will guarantee a relatively easy life with not too many bumps along the way. To achieve this goal we make a deal with the Almighty: I will observe Your commandments, and You will do what I want You to do for me. We assume this is the way to avoid calamities and ensure a content and beautiful life. Instead of serving the Lord because He is G0d, we are attempting to manipulate G0d to serve us, making Him our servant. It is nothing less than idol worship.
This tragic development is the result of a major misconception about the nature of religion. Religious observance has nothing to do with receiving rewards or with G0d granting us anything. The purpose of religion is to make us aware that we live in the presence of G0d, to help us become better people, to increase our sensitivity, and to amaze us through the miracles that surround us every moment. These are the real rewards. The goal is not that G0d change His behavior towards us, but that we change our behavior towards Him and our fellow human beings.

Here's the amazing irony of the situation: this criticism is one we often level at the Reformatives. They pick and choose, they do those things that make them feel good and then call them mitzvos. Yet a cheshbon hafesh of our own community would reveal that we do the very same thing.
We dehumanize women and call it tznius. We throw rocks at people who drive on Shabbos and say we're defending Shabbos! We push someone aside in line and say that we're running to perform a mitzvah.
We pick and choose. We worry more about what our neighbours will say than God, assuming that He will approve because we're doing the socially acceptable thing, at least in our minds.
With Elul coming it is a good time for each of us to take a step back and analyze our religious behaviours. Are we really putting God's will first in our actions or are we going through routines in order to fulfill our "obligations" and force Him to consider us Jews in good standing? Do we tremble when the shofar blows on Rosh HaShanah because we feel its echo in our soul or because that's what you're supposed to do and if you don't the guy next to you will look over and mutter "frei"? Do we shake and cry at Neilah because we sense an opportunity to connect to God in a way unparalled over the rest of the year coming to an end or because we don't want to look out of place?
If we are to merit anything it's by giving of ourselves to the Ribono shel Olam, not by manipulating Him through superficial actions. Rav Cardozo's article is an excellent reminder of this.

The Fundamental Problem With The System

2011-08-23T14:16:00.001-04:00

Well it had to happen sooner or later. I finally found an article written by Rav Avi Shafran that I partially agree with. It deals with someone I've written about before, how in the last few decades the word "Orthodox" has become stretched to mean things it was never meant to.

The recent suggestion by the rabbi of a West Coast Orthodox congregation that one of the birchos hashachar (morning blessings) recited each day by Torah-observant Jews be eliminated—he sees it as insufficiently enlightened—is a reminder of an unpleasant but pressing task facing the Jewish community: To define the word “Orthodox.”

Words are mangled with disturbing regularity in the Jewish world. Jewish “observance,” once a clear and descriptive term, has become relegated to relativity. After all, isn’t a Jew who faithfully follows his clergyman’s prescription of social activism as the essential Jewish mandate… observant? He or she would certainly say so.

Adding the word “Torah” before “observance” doesn’t help much either. A Reform leader, after all, once famously proclaimed his movement’s wholehearted embrace of “Torah, Torah, Torah!”—undermining in six syllables more than 3000 years of a word’s synonymity with the very concept of revealed law that Reform theology unabashedly renounces.

“Mitzvah” has been turned on its head too. The Hebrew word for “commandment” has degenerated in many circles to mean “good deed” or even “what any particular person happens to think is a good deed.” The same aforementioned Reform rabbi once advised that every Jew “must examine each mitzvah [in the Torah] and ask the question: ‘do I feel commanded in this instance…?’” Now, feeling commanded and being commanded may not be mutually exclusive, but they are hardly one and the same.

Rounding out the abuse of words are chimeras like Conservative “halacha” and a Reform “Kollel.”

The word “Orthodox” has always been a lexical haven for Jews who affirm the divine origin of Torah and are committed to the entirety of our mesorah—traditional Jewish religious beliefs and practices—and the integrity of the halachic process as it has existed for millennia. Although the “O-Word” was originally imposed on believing Jews by others, we have worn the label proudly; it implies faithfulness to the past and willingness to stand against the winds of societal change. And it has allowed us to set ourselves apart from all the contemporary parallels to the Second Temple period’s Sadducean movement—to borrow a comparison from Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, zt”l.

In recent years, though, even “Orthodox” has been subjected to the Silly Putty treatment. People with ordinations from Orthodox institutions have invoked the imagined power of their pieces of paper to render “kosher” whatever the Zeitgeist or their own overly open minds have inspired them to embrace. Thus we have an “Orthodox rabbi” who prides himself on exemplifying what the Torah forbids as toeiva (“repugnant”); another who deigns to “ordain” women; now one who self-righteously declares that he can no longer “take G-d’s name in the context” of one of the birchos hashachar, and who “suspect[s], at this point in history, that it constitutes a Desecration of the Name.”

There is desecration here, yes, but not where the rabbi sees it.

Many Orthodox Jews, understandably, are reluctant to focus on attention-seeking rabbis seeking to boldly go, so to speak, where no Orthodox rabbi has gone before. But we ignore such things at our peril. Or, better, at the peril of forfeiting the last adjective signifying commitment to the Jewish mesorah.

Like tikun olam and mitzvah the general Jewish public have no idea how to properly use these words but instead apply them willy nilly to whatever seems to catch their fancy. Rav Shafran is quite right that this is frustrating in general but at least before one could draw the line at "Orthodox". Even that seems to be going the same way these days.
However, it do find it interesting that this article inadvertantly points out a major flaw in the Orthodox system today.
Think of it this way: a person who insists that a beracha established by Chazal or who lives a lifestyle that openly endorses something the Torah calls an abomination cannot rightly call himself Orthodox. Fine, that's understandable. The person in question may be a decent human being full of good middos and with a honest heart and mind. It doesn't matter because the positions are definitely un-Orthodox.
So why is it that someone who cheats, steals, commits physical violence, trades illegally in human organs and then like but outwardly wears the right outfit and speaks the right dialect of Yeshivish can still call himself Orthodox despite engaging in such un-Orthodox activites?

The Spiritual Cut

2011-08-23T04:07:00.000-04:00

Generally when a person has to announce what percentage Jew they are it's pretty safe to assume they're going to follow up with a definition of Jewishness that flies in the face of the classic definition. They'll then add some secular liberal terms to try and convince their listeners that their new definition is absolutely legitimate and conforms to "real" Jewish values.
The latest area this seems to be happening in is circumcision. Not that this is much of a surprise, mind you. We already have Jews who don't see a problem with not observing Shabbos, or eating bread on Pesach while insisting they are great Jews with no need for improvement except in areas like environmental awareness and recycling. Yet it seems more emtional when circumcision is attacked by Jews. After all, the Midrash tells us that any mitzvah Jews have kept despite oppression is beloved by them and the fact that until recently circumcision was practised nearly universally amongst our brethern, even those with a minimal connection to our eternal faith, was proof of this.
Now, it seems, western liberal enlightment and religious revisionism has caught up with this sacred practice. As this piece from The National Post notes (like I needed to see this at breakfast on Shabbos!!), circumcision is now being questioned by increasing numbers of Jews who are simultaneously redefining Judaism so that their refusal to bring their sons into the covenant of Avraham Avinu, a"h, is of no consequence:

Rebecca Wald is “100% Jewish.” She celebrates the high holidays, her children attend Hebrew school, she lights candles on the sabbath and she was married to a “100% Jewish” man under a chuppah at a traditional Jewish wedding.

But unlike most Jews, from the most secular to the ultra-orthodox, she did not circumcise her son. She has never attended — will never attend — a bris, the age-old ceremony where a Jew trained in circumcision (a ‘mohel’) removes the foreskin of an eight-day-old Jewish boy as a sign of his covenant with God.
“All of the babies I saw growing up — whether cousins or the kids I babysat — were circumcised, and it seemed like that was the way things were supposed to be,” said Ms. Wald, who in December launched Beyond the Bris, a website for Jews who question circumcision. “It took having a son, who is intact, for me to really accept how normal [the uncircumcised penis] is.”
The South Florida mom is among a growing and vocal minority of Jewish “intactivists” who are challenging the 4,000-year-old ritual because, they say, the procedure inflicts unnecessary pain without any health gains, causes long-term psychological harm, hinders sexual function and pleasure, and strikes at the core of consent. They say there are Jewish women who silently pray they will not bear a son, and that the question, ‘When’s the bris?’ is too presumptive.
Ms. Wald has not yet told her young son about her decision — she did not want to disclose his age. “Like many Jewish parents of intact sons, we’re not thrilled to publicly discuss the status of our own children’s sex organs,” she said — but said she assumes he will “at some point” learn about it.
“I imagine he’s going to be thankful that we spared him from this mutilation,” said Ms. Wald, adding that had she been born a boy, her “forward-thinking” parents would not have circumcised her.

What strikes me most of all from this article is the absolute selfishness of the parents who are refusing to do what any Jew should without hesitation. They hide it with self-righteous platitudes but at the core this is selfishness.
What favour is Ms. Wald doing her son? She must assume that he will want to remain non-religious all his life, that like her his connection with Judaism will be limited to a piece of matzah on Pesach and some latkes on Purim... wait - Channukah. The idea that he might one day meet a religious Jew and be inspired to take up the practices of our nation, or that a visit to Israel might return him to the Torah community, simply does not occur to her. In fact I would wager that she would be offended by such a life choice were her son to make it.
But imagine that the unimaginable happens and this boy starts to become frum. Then one day it comes out. Someone mentions the famous Rashi from the story of the rape of Dinah, the one where the brothers insist the people of Shechem circumcize themselves because a foreskin is a disgrace to a Jew. Perhaps it'll be after he's developed a relationship with a religious girl and the story of how his parents were "intactivists" comes out. Suddenly he'll ask the question and the difficult answer will come: Boychik, you've gotta get circumcised.
Certainly there is no arguing with the enemies of circumcision. Point out the growing body of medical literature showing health benefits and they say "Feh!" much like global warmers do when confronted with evidence that the Earth isn't actually getting warmer. Far better to condescendingly dismiss opposition when you don't have the right comeback. But all this does is expose their ignorance of Judaism:

They say neither they nor their sons are any less connected to God — or any less Jewish — than Jews who choose to circumcise.
“If the Jewish identity comes down to whether or not you have a piece of skin on your penis, then that’s a very sad thing for the Jewish people,” Ms. Wald said, pointing out that a child is Jewish if he or she is born to a Jewish mother.
“There are no religious consequences of not being circumcised — the boy could still have a bar mitzvah, for example,” echoed Eli Ungar-Sargon, the Jewish filmmaker whose tour starts in Los Angeles in September, with stops in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver in October. “The consequences are imagined and invented. They’re not actual.”

First of all, much to Ms. Wald's disappointment, her sons are less connected to God and are less Jewish. Sorry but that's the way it is. Yes, it seems strange that a man dressed in a black suit and hat who cheats, steals and adulters is a member in better standing than a decent man with a foreskin but good intentions alone do not a Jew make. Without the circumcision the Jew is on the outside. It is not a sad thing but a statement about our most precious beliefs, something we have been willing to die for over the millenia.
If Judaism was a religion that was limited to simply rituals with no deeper spiritual significance these ignoramuses might be right. Judaism knows of spirituality deep enough to allow us to connect to the Master of the Universe. Everything we do, even those seemingly physical routines, create a spiritual effect for good or bad that reverberates all the way to the highest level of Heaven. The consequences are not imagined or invented, they are quite real for those whose spiritual antennae have not been dulled by too much fresh bacon at Saturday morning breakfast on the way to the mall.
There is no other way to see this than to declare that these people are removed themselves from the Jewish nation and fooling themselves when they say otherwise.

Driving A Car Without Wheels

2011-08-21T11:12:00.000-04:00

Imagine going shopping for a car and getting a great on one. In fact, the dealer sold you a new model with all the extras but in order to meet your budget he had to leave one accessory out: the wheels.
Yes, the car looks great sitting in your driveway. The stereo system makes you feel like you're hearing the music live in concert. The air conditioning soothes the feeling of the sun burning down on your head. How jealous your neighbours are!
Until you actually have to use the car for the purpose it was intended and drive it somewhere.
Judaism without God is like a car without wheels. It might look great, give one a basic sense of fulfillment and fill in a hole in one's sense of needing to have some kind of ethnic belonging but when it comes to serving the purpose it was created for, it takes its adherent nowhere.
Consider this article from, of all places, San Francisco:

For Sally Ann Berk, it feels like coming out of the closet.
No, not that closet. Berk is an atheist.
The Oakland resident is a married mother of a 13-year-old son who attends Oakland Hebrew Day School. But her worldview, while grounded in Jewish culture and ritual, does not include a deity. To state that publicly, she says, is “something people don’t really talk about, like it’s like something shameful.”
She feels no shame, and she is not alone. With its core principle of peoplehood and ancient embrace of “wrestling with God,” Judaism has long boasted a skeptical strain, just like Berk’s.
“A lot of people have doubts and questions,” she says. “That’s the nature of being Jewish. I get my spiritual fulfillment when I’m out in the woods.”

Like many times before, this article shows that such people have a completely fundamental ignorance of what Judaism is. Something inside them, the famous pintele Yid perhaps, demands of their conscience that they forge a connection to the Jewish nation but their conscious mind, unwilling to consider that there may be something out there they don't know about and might have to learn and accept, remolds Judaism into their own image. All the image, none of the substance.
Well, some of the image. When it comes to the things Jews have done for millenia such as prayer and other attempts to rise above the self and connect to God, these folks don't seem to have an interest:

“I think a lot of people stop praying with a congregation because they can’t make the words mean anything in their lives,” says Cantor Ellen Dreskin of Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester in Chappaqua, N.Y., who says she interprets the words in the prayerbook “metaphorically and poetically,” not literally.

In the Humanistic Judaism movement, prayers have been scrapped altogether. That movement, founded by the late Rabbi Sherwin Wine, adopts many of the rituals of traditional Judaism but deletes the references to God.
Alana Shindler serves as head of the rituals and celebrations committee for Kol Hadash, a Humanistic congregation in the East Bay.
She and fellow congregants celebrate the Jewish holidays and Shabbat. All are welcome at their gatherings in the Albany Community Center — God being the possible exception.
“We take the prayer out of it and look at the meaning of the holiday,” Shindler says. “Most have a humanistic component. In Yom Kippur, the notion of repentance to those you have wronged, trying to be better than the year before, those are very humanistic. They have nothing to do with praying to some God writing something down in some book.”

Again, if you don't need God, what do you need any of the time-honoured holidays and rituals for? After all, these only exist in Jewish culture because He commanded them in the first place. The mention of Yom Kuppir is very telling. Yom Kippur is not merely about salvaging relationships with your fellow. You can do that any day of the year. Can a humanist seriously think of telling someone he's wronged: "Hey I'd apologize to you today but can you wait until next Tuesday? It's Yom Kippur."?
Some of this is the fault of the Orthodox community. In our zeal to force chumros down people's throats we have changed God from a loving, universal father interested in our spiritual growth into the distant, menacing CEO who sees no one from lower down in the company ranks and is only interested in punishing the faithful despite their best efforts. Is it any wonder that people choose not to believe in such an awful figure?
One of the burders of Orthodoxy is to move away from a punitive model based on fear and conformance. If people see yirei Shamayim who worship out of love, not concern about what the neighbours will think, perhaps some will be convinced that there is truly a God in Heaven who cares about us. But the seachange necessary for that kind of approach is not a simple thing to achieve.

The Hypocrisy of the Left

2011-08-21T04:07:00.000-04:00

As I frequently note, Chazal have opined that hatred disrupts normal protocol. The classic example is Bilaam HaRasha who was so eager to curse our ancestors that he saddled his own donkey even though he was a rich man and had plenty of servants to do it for it.
The current classic example seems to be the liberal left in the West. It's the only explanation for the following:
The liberal left believes in democracy, equality for all under the law, protection for minorities, women and homosexuals
Israel is the only country in the Middle East that is a democracy, offers equality for all its citizens under the law and has legal protections for minorities, women and homosexuals.
Therefore the liberal left hates Israel.
Yes, they cloak their hatred in high sounding statements of righteous concern but the bottom line, as Robert Fulford brilliantly points out in this column from The National Post is that they are nothing but Jew-hating hypocrites:

In the five months since the demonstrations began, the government has killed about 2,000 citizens. The official view is that the state is saving Syria from vicious gangs of criminals. State television reports that events are proceeding as they should.

Even Saudi Arabia and the Arab League have criticized Assad’s use of force. Barack Obama wants him to resign. So far, however, he remains committed to the homicidal style that kept his father’s Baath government in office for 29 years.
Last Saturday about 40 people with anti-Assad banners held a peaceful demonstration outside the embassy of Syria in Ottawa. They all appeared to be Syrians, according to the Ottawa Citizen reporter. They were talking about the monstrous government that’s ruling their homeland and the attempts by pro-Assad operatives in Canada to intimidate them.
But on that occasion, where were all the Canadian-born experts on the Middle East, those vociferous and self-righteous moralists, who come out of the woodwork every time Israel appears to be in violation of some UN resolution or strikes back against an outrage like the killing of the bus passengers on Thursday near Eilat?
Where, during the Syrian protest, were the massed student armies from York University and Concordia and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education? Where were the legions of academics and trade unionists who are always ready to declare what policy should be followed by the wise and the virtuous? Where, for that matter, were Dykes and Trans People for Palestine, who make such a great noise in Toronto and whose website proudly declares they support everyone’s rights?
It happens that the answers to these rhetorical questions are the same in each case: They were all at work on their next Israeli Apartheid campaign. The truth is that leftish Canadians have only one interest in the Middle East, the struggle between Palestinians and Israelis. That appears to be their entire foreign policy. They insist they are not prejudiced; they are devoted to human rights, nothing more.
But when they consider the world beyond Canada, and choose which cause deserves their energy, they usually select the Palestinians. Their chronically narrow focus on a single conflict is self-blinding. It produces a weird aberration of opinion.
When conflict appears elsewhere on the planet, whether it’s in Tibet or Sudan or Syria, our left-wing morality police go limp. They exhibit passion on one issue only. How can they be taken seriously?

As Fulford notes in a different column from a few weeks back, the Jew-hatred that characterizes these so-called enlightened groups is not limited to gentiles:

Among the multitude of insults that float around my world, there’s one I always find disturbing and a little mystifying: “Self-hating Jew.”
It’s been in the air for decades, but now appears more often than in the past. It shows up in letters from my readers and in casual conversations. On the Internet, we can find Steven Spielberg and Hannah Arendt, Jon Stewart and George Soros, all described as self-hating Jews, for various reasons. It was applied to the late Tony Judt, an otherwise much-admired historian, after he became a critic of Israeli policy. It occurs most often in discussions of Israel, but the term is at least a generation older than Israel itself.
The definition varies with the people using it, but generally it means a Jew who holds anti-Semitic beliefs or supports anti-Semitic causes (though many Jewish critics of Israel will argue that they are its best friends, urging it toward a higher moral position)...

Now there really is no such thing as a self-hating Jew. These folks love themselves a great deal. Its their fellow Jews who still take pride in their Jewishness and refuse to play the eternal suffering martyr that they despise. They are, as I have labelled them before, Jew-hating-Jews and their hypocrisy is an affront to intelligent folks everywhere.
All this is, of course, a terrible shame. There is no flotilla to save the citizens of Syria from their despotic rules. As Egypt slides back into the same old military dictatorship it was before the Tahrir Square protests, none of these modern day flower children seem to care. No one is calling for a boycott of Saudi Arabia which beheads homosexuals whenever given the chance. It's only about Israel.
The real sickness of all this is seen when these dictators are given a bye. Innocent people who want to live with freedom and dignity are killed with impunity because the liberal left is too busy worrying about wait times at Israeli roadblocks. That is the most pathetic aspect of them.

Go Sit With The Women!

2011-08-16T09:12:00.000-04:00

The classic definition of a chosid shoteh in the Gemara is the guy who sees a woman drowning in a nearby body of water but refuses to rescue her because he doesn't want to transgress the prohibition regarding negiah.
It seems that nowadays the definition could easily be updated and by those who consider themselves God's most pious and authentic servants:

An IDF officer who boarded a bus in Bnei Brak on Monday claims he and two other soldiers were humiliated by ultra-Orthodox passengers and an Egged bus comany employee, who ordered them to give up their seats for "real Jews," Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

The reserve officer, 26, boarded bus number 981 to Safed on his way to his military base."The moment I got on the bus, the driver told me that I will have to stand because the seats are reserved," he said. He noted that he was surprised because he found no such information when he looked up the line on Egged's website.As the officer, who met two other soldiers aboard the bus, sat down in an empty row, people began complaining that he was taking other passengers' seats.

"Why are soldiers, who do not pay, allowed to ride the bus?" the passengers yelled as the officer tried to ignore the complaints.

According to the officer, an Egged inspector then arrived and yelled at him and the other soldiers to "get up and let real Jews sit." They refused.

As the bus set out on its way, a few seats remained empty.

"As someone who served in the army for five years, and continues to serve in the reserve forces, I was appalled and ashamed," the officer said.

Egged said in a statement that the particular bus was part of a pilot program for ultra-Orthodox passengers travelling to holy sites in the north. As part of the program, passengers were allowed to reserve seats.

The Michtav MiEliyahu, volume 3, notes that hakaras hatov is such a quintessentially Jewish value that proper worship of God cannot proceed without it. We are told by Chazal that the three main characteristics of the Jewish people are that they are rachmanim, bayshanim and gomlei chasadim.

Now, let's review what Jewish soliders in the Israeli army do. They spend 3 years of their life or more defending the borders of Israel from attack not just from hostile armies but from terrorist attacks, suicide bombers and all other manner of attempt to kill Jews. Not Israelis, mind you because Arabs with Israeli citizenship are not the target of our enemies. Just Jews. The kiddush HaShem these folks do on a daily basis to preserve Jewish lives is incalculable and may God reward them justly.

But not these folks on the bus! Even as they proceed on a trip to show how holy they are, how desperately they wish to commune with God at specific places (even though God is everywhere?) because of the high level of piety they are on, they make it a principle of their faith to show no hakaras hatov. Give a seat to a soldier who is involved in protecting them? Why, that would cause them to fulfill all three of the main characteristics listed above and they have no time for that. Any effort to act properly in matters of bein adam l'chaveiro would take away from their bein adam l'makom efforts and that is a yeridah in ruchniyos that they couldn't tolerate.

For all we criticize those on the left who pick and choose, it's important to note that these folks on the bus are just as guilty and their picking and choosing is far worse because of the chilul HaShem it causes.

Still Not Getting It

2011-08-11T13:04:00.001-04:00

In my last post I talked about the various levels of "evidence" (for lack of a better word) within Orthodoxy for various practices we have. I noted that the YCT crowd is very good about changing Orthodox practices when they fit into the "soft evidence" category by using the "Pick a Posek" method in which a lone decisor or two are chosen as the basis of a deviant minhag despite the rest of the poskim being against it.
Now, on the whole, "Pick a Posek" is used by many segments within the Orthodox world whether or not we realize it. One large example will suffice. Lubavitchers strictly follow the psak of the Shulchan Aruch HaRav written by their Alter Rebbe. On a particular issue 100% of orther decisors might hold something is permitted but if the Alter Rebbe wrote that it wasn't they would treat it as forbidden.
There is a huge difference, however, between Lubavitch's dedicated following of the Shulchan Aruch HaRav and the YCT method. Come hell or high water, Lubavitchers will go with the psak of the Alter rebbe no matter how inconvenient the final psak might be. The YCT crowd, on the other hand, demonstrates no such consistency. If the Rosh permits issue "A" but forbids issue "B" then they will hold like the Rosh on "A" and find someone else to justify their permitting "B". This, they will tell you, is real halachic methodology.
An example of a YCT crewmember who just doesn't get it is Rav Yosef Kanefsky. Now, I don't mean to pick on the guy so much but he keeps providing the material. In this particular post he once again attacks another practice in Orthodoxy backed by "soft evidence", ie. this is just the way we do it even though the codes might say there are more options:
Halacha, as our community practices it, excludes women from a variety of public ritual roles. But reading the ketuba happens not to be one of them. Rabbis who have written in opposition to women reading the ketuba invariably open their arguments by acknowledging precisely this point. As one scholarly detractor has written, “If one judges the issue from the perspective of the laws of the marriage ceremony, there’s nothing wrong … The marriage would be one hundred percent valid”. Yet, he and many others would have said “no” in this case.
On what grounds? For one scholar, a woman reading the ketuba violates the laws of personal modesty. But is the reading of a ketuba less modest than teaching a class, or addressing a professional gathering? The latter are activities in which perfectly modest women engage in regularly today. For another scholar the issue is not modesty, but tradition. “Tradition possesses its own power, and why should we deviate from tradition for no purpose?”. But why would anyone assume that a particular women is being chosen to read the ketuba “for no purpose”? Have you ever been at a wedding and thought to yourself that the man who is reading the ketuba was chosen by the couple “for no purpose”?
But it is actually a third objection to a women reading the ketuba that seems to have the most currency. Put forward by numerous rabbinic writers in a variety of contexts, it declares that whenever Orthodox women perform ritual practices that are traditionally associated with men, their motivation is invariably subversive. Women who read a ketuba (or who recite Kiddush or HaMotzi at the Shabbat table, or who take a lulav, or who wear a tallit when they daven) are invariably engaged in an act of religious disobedience, cynically utilizing religious practice as a means of expressing their rebellion against perceived unfairness or injustice in Orthodox life. Thus, not only do their acts lack religious value, they actually constitute sin.
How passionate! Rabbi Kanefsky, in the spirit of modern secular liberalism, appeals to "fairness" and "justice". How can a reasonable person resist such arguments?
And then he once again shows he simply does not understand Orthodoxy despite all the learning he's done:
Is there any lack of fully egalitarian Jewish movements that are open to women who want out of Orthodoxy or out of Halacha? Surely not. But these women have not bolted Orthodoxy. They are engaged in a campaign of religious disobedience?? Are Orthodox women who read ketubot, recite Kiddush and lain in women’s tefilla groups not observing Kashrut? Or Shabbat? Or the laws of Niddah?
Right, so as long as you keep the big three the rest are negotiable. It's interesting that all the examples that Rabbi Kanefsky brings are those relying of "soft evidence". This is just what we do. As I've noted before, the Gemara itself deals with a situation in which Tannaim in a new location practice a leniency that the locals forbid. When they protest that what they are doing is fine the response is "Lo ra'inu k'zeh" and the objection stands. If we don't do a certain thing or consider acceptable then a lack of written psak forbidding the practice is not an acceptable reason to permit it. As Rav Herschel Schechter eloquently notes:
Sometimes the halacha requires of us to act in a public fashion (b'farhesia), as for example to have tfilah b'tzibur, krias haTorah b'tzibur, etc. On these occasions the halacha distinguishes between men and women. We only require and demand of the men that they compromise on their tznius and observe certain mitzvos in a farhesia (public) fashion. We do not require this of women. They may maintain their middas hahistatrus, just as Hashem (most of the time) is a Kel Mistater (Yeshaya 45:15). Of course, if there are no men in the shul who are able to lein and get the aliyos, we will have no choice but to call upon a woman, and require of her to compromise on her privacy and lein, to enable the minyan to fulfill their obligation of krias haTorah. If there is a shul where a woman gets an aliyah, this is an indication that there was no man who was able to lein, and this is an embarrassment to that minyan. This is what the rabbis meant when they said that a woman should not lein - for this would constitute an embarrassment to the minyan.(Megillah 23a.)

And the same is true regarding a woman reading the kesuba in public at a chasuna. Of course the kiddushin will not be affected in the slightest! An animal can also read the kesuba without affecting the kiddushin! The truth of the matter is that no one has to read the kesuba! We have a centuries-old custom to create the hefsek through the reading of the kesuba. Because we plan to satisfy the view of the Rambam that the kesuba must be handed over to the kallah before the nissuin [2], the rishonim thought that we may as well read that kesuba which we're just about to hand over. But nonetheless it is a violation of kvod hatzibur to have a woman surrender her privacy to read the kesuba in public. Were there no men present who were able to read this Aramaic document?
Many of the folks who push this kind of approach have developed a "I want to eat my cake and have it too" approach to Judaism. They'll be local Orthodox followers as long as none of their secular liberal values are compromised. Now, there is nothing wrong with many secular liberal values and again, as the Gemara has noted, when goyim develop laudatory practices (like using cutlery, treating people politely, and using toilet paper) it is acceptable to admire them and even use them. But the first and only litmus test is: does this practice contradict halacha, not the opposite which seems to be the guiding rule for this new philosophy: Open Orthopraxy.

A New Name For The Movement

2011-08-10T13:00:00.000-04:00

Years ago Rabbi Avi Weiss published a long article on his new religious philosophy (in a Conservative journal of all places, I guess the Yated turned him down?) called "Open Orthodoxy". Since that time the term has been applied to the form of Judaism taught at and practised by YCT graduates and their colleagues. However, despite the word "Orthodox" it has become quite clear over the last few years that the emphasis is more on Open than on a faithful adherence to Jewish tradition.
Now, there are different levels of evidence for various Jewish practices. Some have "hard" evidence. For example, not eating pork or two males engaging in anal intercourse. It's pretty hard to argue with what is written in black and white in the Torah and to justify contrary behaviours is basically an admission that the Torah is not authoritative in one's life but just a book of stories and potential suggestions on behaviour. The Reformers, witht their nearly free-for-all approach to Judaism exemplify those who reject all normative Jewish practices including those with hard evidence.
The next level is "pretty hard evidence". This is the Oral Law which is not part of the Written Torah but brought to us in its present form by the Sages of the Talmud. For Orthodox Jews this is as much an authority as the Written Torah but for those outside that community the Talmud holds somewhat less authority. This is typical of the Conservatives who, until recently, were loathe to contradict the Written Torah but were quite happy to dismiss any rules the Gemara might have propounded as being out of date or too inconvenient to observe.
Then there's the "medium evidence" level which consists of the Shulchan Aruch along with the other Rishonim and Acharonim. Again, for the Orthodox community this level is completely authoritative and comes with complex rules as to how to understand what the psak is in any given case. Outside the Orthodox community there is no authority given to this level at all. Tell a non-Orthodox Jew that something is forbidden because the Chasam Sofer said it is and his opinion is accepted as normative and he's likely to stare blankly at you.
Finally there's what I call the level of "soft evidence". This is the trickiest to deal with because, as opposed to the other three levels for which written materials can be found, there is little to back up practices in this category. A quick example: the very first paragraph in Yorah Deah states that women can shecht animals for kosher consumption. However, you'd be hard pressed to find a woman shochet today and, in fact, most reuptable kashrus organizations would never hire a woman to do the job. Various reasons are brought by the poskim but the bottom line is that women simply don't shecht.
Another example would be women wearing tzitzis or t'fillin. Again, the legal codes have no problem with a woman putting on either but it is simply not done today and a woman who insists on doing either is crossing a line.
The problem with the "soft" evidence is that anyone can stand up and say "Well it doesn't say anywhere that it's not allowed" or "Well I can show you where it says it is allowed!" The person saying that would be perfectly correctly from a strictly legal point of view but from a more holistic halachic viewpoint they would be wrong. If something is not done according to the standards of a group or community then it is not done.
One of the failings of Open Orthodoxy is that it seems not to understand the level of soft evidence. Indeed, in its zeal to mutate Orthodox practice into something more acceptable to secular liberal standards it seems determined to assault all those practices with soft evidence it finds objectionable on the grounds that "it doesn't say anywhere that this isn't allowed".
Thus a few years ago Rabbi Asher Lopatin announced on his blog that he was changing the morning blessings said in his synagogue to the Conservative versions. (He recently recycled many of his arguments here and then decided to go with a hashkafic basis to his position instead) Instead of negative "that thou hast not made me" he was promoting the "that thou hast made me". In that way he saw a more positive expression of gratitude to God and also eliminated the blessing about not making me a woman which has always been a tricky one for those who call themselves Orthodox but wish to be seen by society as enlightened and modern.
At that time I reviewed his arguments and showed how they were all, to the last, based on a selective reading of some poskim or simply based on ignorance as to why the blessings were formulated as they were. Instead of reflecting deep spiritual concepts as described in the Gemara, they were adjusted to satisfy a liberal guilt at not fitting in well with the amoral egalitarian society around us.
A few days ago Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky went down the same track and then went even further, declaring that the blessing about not being a woman was actually a chilul HaShem in this day and age. In a piece called "Adieu To 'For Thou Hast Not Made Me a Woman" Rabbi Kanefsky approached the subject, declared his unending distaste for the blessing and then triumphantly announced that he would no longer say it.
Over at Cross Currents Rav Dov Fischer deals decisively and eloquently with the degree to which Rabbi Kanefsky is, far from taking a bold new "Orthodox" position is actually attacking it wholeheartedly and showing great contempt for it.
Such was the storm over the piece that his blog actually pulled the post and replaced it with this to clarify his position. In the new post he clearly demonstrates Open Orthodoxy's method of decision making, one I call "Pick a Posek". For example:
We are familiar from our siddur with the blessing “For You have not made me a non-Jew”. In our printed versions of the Talmud however, (see Menachot 43b) the blessing appears not in the negative formulation, rather in the positive language “for You have made me an Israelite” (שעשאני ישראל). While the majority of Talmudic commentaries and Codes nonetheless maintained that the correct version is the one we have in our siddur, two prominent Sages demurred. Both Rosh (Brachot 9:24) and the Vilna Gaon prescribe the recitation of “for You have made me an Israelite” , in accordance with our version of the Talmud.
As I noted when commenting on Rabbi Lopatin's piece, the attribution to the Vilna Gaon is incorrect. He simply states that he'd seen prayer books with the blessing in that forumaltion, not that he was endorsing it. No matter, what if he was? The accepted halacha as demonstrated in pretty much every proper siddur today is "that thou hast not made me a woman". Is Rabbi Kanefsky suggesting we are allowed to customize our prayer books to fit our personal sensitivities as long as some posek, somewhere, has said it's okay?
Bach (O.C 46) , while aligning himself with the majority position, rules that if in error you said “for You have made me an Israelite”, then you should OMIT THE TWO BLESSING THAT FOLLOW, including “for You have not made me a woman”.
Again, how is this any proof? Is Rabbi Kanefsky trying to pasken a l'hatchilahi from a b'dieved?
And his justification for misusing the halachic system in such a blatant fashion?
As I wrote in my original post, I believe fervently that Orthodoxy has yet to grapple fully or satisfactorily with the dignity of womankind.
He "believes". He "feels". He "thinks". He "opines". All various ways these types of thinkers justify the inner voice saturated by non-Torah viewpoints that feel more instinctively morally comfortable to demand that Judaism change. Is there a problem with how Orthodoxy treated womenkind (as if they're a separate species from mankind?)?
The answer requires a subtletly that rabbi Kanefsky perhaps lacks. Orthodoxy does a great many things to accomodate the dignity of women. Many Orthodox Jews might not, having perverted Orthodoxy in the exact opposite direction from Rabbi Kanefsky and shamefully too many examples of frummer-than-thou types behaving badly towards women grace the news services on a regular basis but there is the messenger and then there is the message. Rabbi Kanefsky seems not to recognize the difference. Again, in some of his final statements:
Our society has accordingly decided to treat both genders with equal dignity, and has opened all professional, political and communal endeavors to both genders equally. I believe that our community however, falls short of this goal in many ways. We are, of course, committed to operating within the framework and rules of halacha. But it is not hard to construct a halachik universe in which women’s physical space in shul and intellectual space in day schools and Study Halls are not lesser, but equal.
This betrays a complete lack of understanding of what Judaism is. Judaism does not encourage equality between the sexes while noting that inequality does not imply a "superior vs inferior" relationship. To try and create a model in which equality is emphasized is therefore not Judaism but an unreasonable facsimile of it. It is, in short, what Conservativism sometimes pretends to be but more openly and blatantly.
It is time for Rabbis Kanefsky, Lopatin et al to realize they have become non-Orthodox in their thinking and beliefs even if they remain nominally Orthodox in their daily practice. Perhaps it is also time to rename their philosophy. I would suggest: Open Orthopraxy.

Human Failings

2011-08-07T09:41:00.000-04:00

In the last century Western governments have been modeled on one of two major economic paradigms: capitalism and socialism. Reading the financial pages these days it seems both systems have entered a stage of failure, albeit for different reasons.
As the European Union is discovered, socialism is a lost cause because most people are, at heart, selfish. While the Communist Manifesto declared that the ideal society would be based on "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" the average person in the West seems to function on a maladaptive version of this credo: "From each as little as he can get away with, to each as much as he can grab". As the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Green, Spain) are discovering, much to the dismay of the Germans for whom a hard day's work is still a virtue, you cannot indefinitely run a society where no one pays taxes but everyone expects a shortened work week and a generous tray of social services.
As the United States is slowly but surely discovering, unfettered capitalism is failing for a different reason: most people are also, at heart, greedy. Given a choice between a fast buck and doing right by society at large, they will grab the fast buck and hide behind the doors of their mansion hoping that the consequences of their actions remain out there in someone else's neighbourhood. "I want" trumps "We need" every time. As the Americans are discovering, a society where the gap between the very wealthy and the very poor is constantly growing will eventually result in financial turmoil that even the very wealthy cannot avoid.
In a reminder that not everything in Israel is connected to the so-called peace process we are now seeing the result of the mismanagement of both types of systems. Remember that until the early 1990's Israel had a very centralized, socialist economy. Dominated by huge unions who claims fealty to the false god of minimal productivity, the society management to stumble along surviving on the need to do something to prevent the enemy across the border from invading and the leftover remnants of the once-proud Zionist work ethic.
In the mid 1990's Israel shifted from a socialist command economy to a free-wheeling capitalist version and, like the Russians around the same time, did it far too quickly and without any checks and balances on who would benefit. The result is a society in which a vanishingly small percentage of the population (some estimate it at a dozen families or so) hold the vast majority of wealth in the country and see the rest of society as a money-soaked sponge that needs a good squeezing so they can increase their fortunes even more. The poor are getting poorer and now even the middle-class is getting shoved down by the high cost of living. Hence the huge protests that are rumbling through society.
Let us be clear: this mess is not the sole fault of the current government. Blame must be shared by pretty much every government that Israel has had since 1948. Unfortunately, Ben Gurion and friends are not likely to emerge from their graves to help out any time soon which means this all falls on poor Bibi Netanyahu's shoulders. One must feel sorry for the guy. A few months ago he was basking in record approval ratings following his much-needed dressing down of BH Obama, the president who would be philosopher king.
Now he's in the tank as Israelis recall that in the absence of any progress on the so-called peace talks there are lots of other economic issues they're getting screwed by and which the government is doing nothing about.
I'm sure Bibi would like to make things better for the vast majority of Israelis. Only a hated-filled moron would believe otherwise (and Israel has no small surfeit of those). However at the same time his party and next election campaign will be fueled by money from those families who are quite content with how the situation is right now (as long as the police keep the rowdies away from their lawns and country clubs). How to balance the two?
The danger in situations like this is that a new political movement will be formed that will reach out to the two awful middos detailed above. It will be a party that caters to the feelings of greed that people without wealth feel when they see their aristocratic comrades driving around in their fancy cars. It will also cater to people's selfishness, insisting that they are right to demand the moon without having to pay for it.
One can only hope that Netanyahu can start to make some sense out of this mess and that the protesters will move beyond petty slogans and work with him to make positive changes in Israel.

The Best Is Back!

2011-08-02T08:06:00.000-04:00

In a world where competition between computers means Windows vs Mac with a tiny but savvy minority using Linux it's hard to remember that back in the early 1980's when home computers were just coming out the competition was between very different names. Back then the spaces on our desks were reserved for very different machines. Who remembers the Commodore Pet with its glowing green text on black screen and its interminably slow tape drive? (And when I say tape drive I mean cassette tapes, not those new-fangled digital things)
Back in the day the two big competitors were the Apple IIe and the Commodore 64. Together they held the majority of the market with a minority working off the Atari 400 or 800, or the TRS-80. (The Macintosh also existed back then but it was a computer for the wealthy or very professional, not for the average teenage kid looking to play games on. IBM also introduced DOS-based computers but who understood DOS?) The Apple IIe had certain advantages, principally the speed with which it loaded games off its floppy disk drive. However it also came standard with a green text/black background monitor unless you were prepared to shell out the big bucks for a colour screen.
The Commodore 64, on the other hand, was a truly amazing machine. Yes the lumbering disk drive, which by itself was larger than many CPU's towers nowadays, was slower than molasses but this did have the advantage of allowing the user to go upstairs, prepare and eat lunch and then come downstairs again while the machine was loading the game. And anyway, the Epyx FastLoad Cartridge got us around that. What was more, it could be hooked up to a colour television which meant saving on the expense of a montor. It also had the largest cachet of games and while the graphics might have been primitive compared to Apple IIe's more advanced card, they were still more than great enough to provide hours of enjoyment. From Fort Apocalypse to Jumpman and beyond, the Commodore 64 rocked. And all on a 1 MHz processor and 64K (not M, not G) of RAM.

And then suddenly one day everything changed. The MacIntosh, now Mac, became far more ubiquitous. Bill Gates's Microsoft appeared with a Mac ripoff called Windows 3.1 and then Windows 94. PC's were cheap, powerful and connected to the Internet. While the computer world evolved around it, Commodore continued to rely on its staple product. There were spinoffs like the C-128 and the C-16 but they offered nothing new. It was only when it was too late that it tried to branch out by introducing the Amiga which, while a great machine, was swept away by the new PC tide.
The great news is that the Commodore 64 is back!

No, it's not the original but it seems to be the next best thing. On the outside it looks almost completely likely the original, beloved CPU. On the inside it has the guts of a modern computer along with the requisite DVD player, memory card slots and USB ports on the sides. One can boot up into the native OS or an original C-64 emulator. The nostalgia! The joy!
At this time I'm still not ready to purchase. A careful reading of the site shows that while units are shipping, the eventual native operating system, the Commodore OS 1.0, is not yet ready. The new C-64 is shipping with a relatively unknown Linux-based OS right now and apparently you could even install Windows 7 onto it if you want to. Me, I'm going to wait until the new Commodore OS 1.0 is ready.
The only other question I have about the project is whether or not the C-64 emulator will be joystick compatible. Having used other emulators in the past that relied on keyboards I couldn't quite get into the games the same way. I'v e-mailed the company and will hopefully have an answer soon.

After generations of 3-D, on-line interactivity and all the other stuff that's come over the last few years, I hope that soon my desktop will be adorned with one of these and I can go back to enjoying the best games ever made for the home computer!

Where The Threat Comes From

2011-07-26T09:50:00.000-04:00

It's no secret that most non-religious Jews in the Western world are either overt leftists or lean in their political and social beliefs to that side of the spectrum. One can suggest many reasons for this. Perhaps it's because for many centuries the political and religious right were the great enemies of our nation, culminating in the rightist fascism of Europe in the last century that brought us the Holocaust. Perhaps it's because leftists, in their drive to build a more tolerant and inclusive society provided more opportunities for Jews to integrate into their surroundings. Or it could be that the left's traditional emphasis on helping the poor and disadvantaged struck a cord with the pintele Yid present in even the most assimilated Jew's heart and created a sense of connection. For whatever reason this bond between Jews and the left has been long and enduring.
It has endured even as the world has changed and the left has become the dedicated enemy of the Jewish nation and its values while the right has metamorphisized into our allies. Look around you today and you see one thing clearly: the vast majority of the left, save some remnants from more intelligent days, hates Judaism and Israel. The right, save some remnants from fascist times, sees Judaism and Israel as a valuable ally of Western civilization.
However political beliefs are hard to change. A Jewish community that has seen the Democrats in the US and the Liberals in Canada as their natural representatives seems very slow the change in the face of leftist hostility dating back over the last forty years. Look at the hostility displayed by the Obama administration towards Israel (except in the months preceding an election) and compare that with polls that show that the majority of non-religious Jews will still vote for him and one can only be amazed at the naivete on display. Nowhere is this dichotomy more obvious than in San Francisco today, as Dennis Prager notes:

If the most left-wing major city in America starts arresting Jews who have their children circumcised there, some American Jews might awaken to the threat to Jews posed by the left. Obviously, San Francisco's already existing bans on toys in Happy Meals, on soda in city-owned places and on plastic bags, and the city's proposed ban on the sale of pets, even goldfish, have not moved many Jews (or non-Jews) to begin wondering whether left-wing governance is dangerous. But perhaps a ban on circumcision will.

Of course, not everyone who is on the left — and certainly not the traditional liberal — is an enemy of the Jews. But, aside from Islamists, virtually all the enemies of the Jews are on the left.

The worldwide campaign to delegitimize Israel (i.e., to pave the way for moral acceptance of Israel's destruction) is virtually all on the left. Universities in America and elsewhere in the Western world, as well as the mainstream news media outlets around the globe, are all dominated by the left. They drum into their students', readers', listeners' and viewers' minds that Israel is one of the worst societies on earth.

The anti-Israel propaganda on the left is so great and so effective that according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, "Many of the youths who survived the (Norway) massacre said they thought the killer, dressed as a police officer, was simulating Israeli crimes against Palestinians in the occupied territories."

Yet, most American Jews still walk around thinking that Christians and conservatives are their enemies when, in fact, they are the best friends Jews have in the world today. From the present conservative Canadian government, which is probably the most vocal pro-Israel country in the world today, to every major conservative talk-show host in America (including the fiercely pro-Jewish and pro-Israel Glenn Beck, who has been libeled as an anti-Semite), to the leader of Holland's Party for Freedom and member of the Dutch parliament, Geert Wilders (one of the most eloquent pro-Israel voices in Europe today), to The Wall Street Journal's editorial page — the right is where the Jews' friends are.

What will it take for this generation of Jews on the left to realize what Arthur Koestler, perhaps the most prominent Jewish leftist of a previous generation, came to realize: namely, that leftism is "the god that failed"? Will it take a San Francisco ban on the oldest practice of the Jewish people? The City of Berkeley declaring Marines "unwelcome intruders"? PETA arguing that there is no moral difference between barbecuing chickens and cremating Jews? The ostracizing of the Jewish state from the world community by institutions dominated by the left?

One of the greatest features with the Jewish national psyche is that we are an am k'shei oref, a stiff-neck people. At times it has been detrimental. Read the narrative portion of Navi and you quickly see the stubborn tendencies our ancestors had in disobeying God and the laws of the Torah despite repeatedly being shown in no uncertain terms that there was no benefit to such rebellion. This inflexibility is still present today. Who is unfamiliar with the saying "Jews always leave a country the day after they should have?"
On the other hand being stiff-necked is exactly why God chose us. Throughout repeated exiles, challenges and attacks we have maintained our connection to God and Torah despite all the obstacles placed against us. No movement, religion, nation or philosophy down to modern times has displaced that position held by the faithful remnant of our nation. Oppressors have come and gone but we, the people of God and Torah remain.
As Prager asks, what will it take for the less enlightened but equally stubborn portion of our nation to figure this out?