Over at the Seforim Blog , Eliezer Miller recently posted a scathing review of Artscroll's new edition of Sefer Yishiyahu, the book of Isaiah. In competition with Judaica Press' extant and complete Nach series Artscroll has slowly been rolling out a version of its own. This set is different from the books in its older Tanach series. Whereas those were exhaustively researched works formatted with a few lines of the Hebrew text and translation at the top of the page and tons of commentary at the bottom, these new books are formatted to look like they could replace the old Mikraos Gedolos volumes. The text on the Hebrew side is clear and in an eye-catching format. The communtary, while not as long as the Tanach series counterpart, is quite detailed. For all the ideological differences one might have with Artscroll there is no denying they put a lot of effort into making their seforim look fabulous. So what trouble might Eliezer Miller have had with this new edition of Isaiah?
Going through that post Miller raises points that should be completely obvious. Artscroll isn't in the business of putting out comprehensive commentaries that include secular information. Miller notes a lack of interest in archeological and anthropological information that might have enhanced the commentary but that's not the crowd Artscroll is selling to. They're looking right at the yeshivish crowd and those BT's who want to fit in with that group. The commentary is meant for people who know nothing of Nach and want to get some basics. This would explain most of Miller's objection.
But after reading Miller's review I think I can explain most of the problems he has in another way.
Remember that within the Chareidi community the study of Nach is very problematic. Some yeshivos ban it outright. Others let you study the weekly hafataros but not much else. The idea that someone would sit down with a set of Bible books and a good commentary to understand them is incomprehensible in their worldview. Why would a good bochur want to do that when he could be learning Gemara and halacha? From this perspective Artscroll is actually being quite daring in wading into this area.
Knowing this Rav Nosson Sherman, the chief editor, is simply doing what he is expected to do for his books to be accepted and get the right haskamos. Were he to include an essay showing the differences between our text of Isaiah and the one on display in the Israel museum he'd face a tarring and feathering. You mean there's different texts?! Were he to try and explain all those times in Nach when major figures in our history commit acts that are apparently against halacha without simply retreating into a "Chazal knew best" shelter he'd be forced to pull the line off the shelves.
When it comes to their Talmud Artscroll is a huge resource. The time and intelligence they've invested in that series makes those books masterpieces. When it comes to their other books, however, the overarching agenda - the Agudah version of this is the only legitimate version, etc. - tends to show through. Their infamous translation of Shir HaShirim is a travesty to any thinking person but then, Artscroll doesn't want you to think when you're learning Shir HaShirim, just to know what you should be thinking. Similarly their digests of famous commentators (the Pirkei Avos of the Maharal and the Sfar Emes series come to mind) aren't so much presentations of the original work but rather the Artscroll author's version so you won't reach the "wrong" conclusion you might have if you had actually seen a decent translation of the original.
For those who are paying really careful attention you'll also notice that the Satmar philosophy of anti-Zionism infects their works in the relevant places. Consider Artscroll's commentary on the Three Oaths at the end of the Kesobus or the couple of places in their translation of the Kinnos where they brazenly insert Satmar principles (no forcing the end! no ascending like a wall!) even when there's absolutely no Hebrew lines on the other side to stick them to.
Their Nach series is therefore simply more of the same. The average person, it seems, can't be trusted to think about what he's read in Nach so Artscroll saves you the trouble. Eliezer Miller wonders what's wrong with Artscroll but really there's nothing wrong. They are the publishing arm of the Agudah and the Agudah has an agenda. Enough said.
Navonim - The Ramblings of Garnel Ironheart
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Showing posts with label Torah Chareidim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Torah Chareidim. Show all posts
Thursday, 15 August 2013
Friday, 16 September 2011
The Trouble With Uman
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:
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.
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.
Sunday, 24 May 2009
Avoiding Invisible Bugs
I'm always amazed by the ongoing crusade by some in the Torah observant community to assur any healthy foods that normally don't require any supervision. When it comes to fruits and vegetables which don't seem to be a money maker for kashrut organizations, it seems the problems multiply like insects.
The recent example of this has been a supposed epidemic of bugs in strawberries around the world. According to the people who detected them, these buys are nearly microscopy and the exact same colour as the strawberry. In other words, you can't seem them but they're there. As a result, according to some authorities, all strawberries are now trief. (Rubashkin's meats, however, are still fine).
Recently, however, what I thought was a voice of sanity, poked through the clouds of confusion when Rav Shlomo Amar, chief Sephardi rabbi of Israel, noted the obvious: the halachah forbids that which the eye can see under normal lighting conditions. Ultra-powerful or special lights, jeweller's glasses and microscopes are not necessary. Otherwise all food, which is covered in non-kosher bacteria, would be forbidden.
Unfortunately, Rav Amar has already been forced into a clarification:
Just a few weeks before, many chareidi rabbonim forbad eating strawberries because they are heavily infested with tiny insects which are impossible to completely remove. The announcement removed the popular delicacy from the table of many frum homes.
Then the sensational news was published throughout Israel: Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar announced in a shiur that one may eat strawberries after rinsing them in water and removing their leafy tops! The news appeared in Israel's leading newspaper and even in the chareidi world's leading VosIzNeias web blog.
Many reported relief upon hearing the lenient psak. Others sideswiped at the poskim who always seem to find a new prohibition to saddle the public with.
But now the Shas party organ reports that Rav Amar's psak was quoted incorrectly. They asked Rabbi Shlomo Amar for his clarification, and he explained that his shiur had been about worms which are not visible to the eye and had nothing to do with strawberries.
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"It never occurred to me, chalila, to dispute the prohibition against eating visible worms!" he says firmly. "To say otherwise is misleading."
Rav Amar explained, "I was speaking about a recent tshuva I had just written which dealt with worms that are not visible to the eye. I wrote that according to many great poskim of our generation, led by Rav Ovadya Yosef (SHU"T Yecheve Daas 6:47), they are not forbidden. I further was mechadesh that they are not even considered 'worms' according to halacha."
Rav Amar said in the shiur that if, for example, strawberries had such invisible 'worms' on them, the strawberries would not be prohibited to eat. Obviously, the strawberries were only mentioned by way of illustration and not as the basis for a chiddush or a psak.
The Chief Rabbi reiterates that as experts have shown, strawberries are infested with worms which are visible to the eye and can be seen without the help of a device. These worms must be avoided, and if it is not possible to clean strawberries of them, then strawberries may not be eaten.
So which is it, then? Is it enough to look at the strawberry carefully after washing it thoroughly?: It should be and people should know this when confronted with those who would change the rules and retroactively accuse 3500 years of Jews who age vegetables not checked by microscopy of eating bugs.
The recent example of this has been a supposed epidemic of bugs in strawberries around the world. According to the people who detected them, these buys are nearly microscopy and the exact same colour as the strawberry. In other words, you can't seem them but they're there. As a result, according to some authorities, all strawberries are now trief. (Rubashkin's meats, however, are still fine).
Recently, however, what I thought was a voice of sanity, poked through the clouds of confusion when Rav Shlomo Amar, chief Sephardi rabbi of Israel, noted the obvious: the halachah forbids that which the eye can see under normal lighting conditions. Ultra-powerful or special lights, jeweller's glasses and microscopes are not necessary. Otherwise all food, which is covered in non-kosher bacteria, would be forbidden.
Unfortunately, Rav Amar has already been forced into a clarification:
Just a few weeks before, many chareidi rabbonim forbad eating strawberries because they are heavily infested with tiny insects which are impossible to completely remove. The announcement removed the popular delicacy from the table of many frum homes.
Then the sensational news was published throughout Israel: Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar announced in a shiur that one may eat strawberries after rinsing them in water and removing their leafy tops! The news appeared in Israel's leading newspaper and even in the chareidi world's leading VosIzNeias web blog.
Many reported relief upon hearing the lenient psak. Others sideswiped at the poskim who always seem to find a new prohibition to saddle the public with.
But now the Shas party organ reports that Rav Amar's psak was quoted incorrectly. They asked Rabbi Shlomo Amar for his clarification, and he explained that his shiur had been about worms which are not visible to the eye and had nothing to do with strawberries.
Advertisement:
"It never occurred to me, chalila, to dispute the prohibition against eating visible worms!" he says firmly. "To say otherwise is misleading."
Rav Amar explained, "I was speaking about a recent tshuva I had just written which dealt with worms that are not visible to the eye. I wrote that according to many great poskim of our generation, led by Rav Ovadya Yosef (SHU"T Yecheve Daas 6:47), they are not forbidden. I further was mechadesh that they are not even considered 'worms' according to halacha."
Rav Amar said in the shiur that if, for example, strawberries had such invisible 'worms' on them, the strawberries would not be prohibited to eat. Obviously, the strawberries were only mentioned by way of illustration and not as the basis for a chiddush or a psak.
The Chief Rabbi reiterates that as experts have shown, strawberries are infested with worms which are visible to the eye and can be seen without the help of a device. These worms must be avoided, and if it is not possible to clean strawberries of them, then strawberries may not be eaten.
So which is it, then? Is it enough to look at the strawberry carefully after washing it thoroughly?: It should be and people should know this when confronted with those who would change the rules and retroactively accuse 3500 years of Jews who age vegetables not checked by microscopy of eating bugs.
Saturday, 8 March 2008
Reattaching the Leadership
A couple of memories stick out for me when I think about the relationship between the leadership of the Chareidi community (the Gedolim) and the rest of the Torah observant world.
One is a story I heard years ago of a certain rabbinic leader who was visiting New York from Europe in the 1920's. On his way to shul on Shabbos morning, he heard two Jews speaking Yiddish on the street. He looked over to see two tradesmen discussing their work plans for that day and fell over in shock. Jews, speaking Yiddish, working on Shabbos? He had never heard of such a thing and had trouble dealing with this realization.
Another comes from a Rav Pesach Krohn video I watched on Tisha B'Av years ago. He mentioned a story about a great Rav who used to walk aorund in public without wearing his glasses so that he wouldn't see the world around him. "After all," said Rav Krohn, "there are certain things a tzadik shouldn't see!"
Finally, a recall reading in Eim HaBanim Semeicha of how Rav Issachar Teichtel tried to understand the virulent anti-Zionist attitudes of the Munkatcher Rav despite the abundant sources supporting a Jewish return to Israel. His conclusion was that the Munkatcher was surrounded by people who always agreed with his views and as a result never heard a different opinion or had to consider another point of view. Had he been, he might have seen things differently.
I wondered about these thigns in the wake of the big concert cancellation recently. Now, we're not talking about a Metallica concert or a Pink Floyd reunion (halevai) at which all sorts of very frowned-upon activities might be taking place. This, like a similar one in Israel which was also cancelled, was set up to be as observant as possible. Separate seating, strictly kosher food, the works. So what bothered someone so much that 33 influential rabbonim felt the need to annonce its cancellation?
Apparently going out on the town for a concert is forbidden by Jewish law. That, or having any pleasure is.
Back in medical school I had a teacher in Internal Medicine who felt very strongly about the importance of a doctor making his medical studies the priority in his life. Now, he was a great teacher and extremely knowledgeable but his lifestyle was quite limited. Essentially he practised medicine. In his spare time, to relax, he read the latest medical literature. And he had no compunctions about giving us all very large amounts of reading and work to do. If we grumbled, his response was "Well, do you want to be a good doctor or go out on Saturday night? Because you can't have both."
Now, for all that non-Chareidim criticize them, one must acknowledge that the Gedolim are the world experts in pure Torah knowledge. These are men who have spent decades immersed in Torah study, have worked their way from one end of the bais medrash book collection to the other. They spend their days doing little else other than learning Torah and answering people's questions in a Torah fashion. Because of this, when it comes to Torah knowledge they are truly a cut above others who think that doing Daf Yomi or owning a number of Artscroll books qualifies one to pasken for oneself.
Having said that, one must also consider that this lifestyle is very limiting. Because of their love for Torah and its study, this is all the Gedolim do. Furthermore, they are surrounded by other schoalrs who aspire to their level and therefore learn Torah all the time. Leisure for them is an easy Gemara with a juicy Maharsha to get through. I wonder, however, if this immersion has caused them to forget that others are on a different level? After all, the pure Torah lifestyle is not for everyone, nor can it be. Each person is gifted by God in his own special way and it is through the optimizing of these gifts that we flourish as a people.
But if the Gedolim only see Torah wherever they look, and if all those around them also only see that, then the idea of going out to a concert for an evening's enjoyment would surely seem extremely foreign and wrong. After all, time spent at the concert is bitul Torah and this is a sin that cannot be countenanced. Furthermore, the halachah forbids conerts and public happy gatherings as a memorial to our destroyed Temples. Yes, for a very, very long time this law was observed principally in the breach without anyone saying too much about it. But for those for whom any law, however obscure or unobserved by the rest of the Torah observant world, is an important rule that cannot be questioned, surely Lipa Schmeltzer's concert should not have been allowed in the first place.
I wonder, however, how disconnected the Gedolim have become from the laity because of their dedication to Torah and exclusive focus on it. This consideration is not without reason. Many Chareidim children go "off the derech" due to an inability to keep up with the latest standards. Others become tired of the never ending stringencies and fail to see a point to them. Some genuinely need "down time" to relax and unwind without thinking that they are sinning for it. When everything becomes forbidden, then everything inevitably becomes permitted.
On one hand, the Shulchan Aruch and the other major codes do specify that music and celebration are forbidden as a remembrance of the destruction of the Temples, unless they are connected in some way with a mitzvah (eg. wedding). That's what the books say.
On the other hand, in the last few centuries these laws have been observed more in the breech than anything else. Imagine someone puts up a stop sign on a deserted road and at first everyone stops even though there's never any traffic coming the other way. After a few years people start ignoring the stop sign. No one is delegitimizing it but somehow because of circumstance this particular stop sign is ignored. Even the sheriff doesn't have a problem with the situation. One day a new cop comes to town and, to make his mark, he starts waiting by the stop sign and nabbing all the residents who drive through it.
Technically, the new cop is 100% right. There's a stop sign and people driving through it are breaking the law. On the other hand, there was a reaonsable excuse for why it was being ignored.
Similarly here, it is undeniable and much to our discredit that due to our many sins and our spiritual dullness, we simply do not feel the loss of our Temples like we used to and like we STILL should, may Heaven preserve our damaged souls. But as a result, not listening to music or attending concerts does not make a difference to our observance of that particular mitzvah. Again, techincally speaking, the rabbonim were 100% right in banning it if they were going to go by the books.
But maybe that's one reason God, in His infinite wisdom, gave us an Oral Law. Because sometimes you need to go by more than just the book.
Have they forgotten that not everyone can have a lifestyle like theirs? In their zeal to perfect the Jewish people, have they decided that what has been the norm until now - different Jews observing the mitzvos in different styles, each to the best of their ability - must be changed into a uniform approach that brooks no dissent? A tzadik should know that non-religious Jews can speak Yiddish, light Chanukah licht and still not observe Shabbos, chas v'shalom. He should wear his glasses in public so that he can see what his people are doing and understand how to best approach them.
And if this is so, might it be possible that someone outside the fold with a love of God, His People and His Torah might be able to tell them this? That through their desire to banish any potential peritzus from the Jewish people, they are driving many away who cannot keep all the stringencies they have decreed?
One is a story I heard years ago of a certain rabbinic leader who was visiting New York from Europe in the 1920's. On his way to shul on Shabbos morning, he heard two Jews speaking Yiddish on the street. He looked over to see two tradesmen discussing their work plans for that day and fell over in shock. Jews, speaking Yiddish, working on Shabbos? He had never heard of such a thing and had trouble dealing with this realization.
Another comes from a Rav Pesach Krohn video I watched on Tisha B'Av years ago. He mentioned a story about a great Rav who used to walk aorund in public without wearing his glasses so that he wouldn't see the world around him. "After all," said Rav Krohn, "there are certain things a tzadik shouldn't see!"
Finally, a recall reading in Eim HaBanim Semeicha of how Rav Issachar Teichtel tried to understand the virulent anti-Zionist attitudes of the Munkatcher Rav despite the abundant sources supporting a Jewish return to Israel. His conclusion was that the Munkatcher was surrounded by people who always agreed with his views and as a result never heard a different opinion or had to consider another point of view. Had he been, he might have seen things differently.
I wondered about these thigns in the wake of the big concert cancellation recently. Now, we're not talking about a Metallica concert or a Pink Floyd reunion (halevai) at which all sorts of very frowned-upon activities might be taking place. This, like a similar one in Israel which was also cancelled, was set up to be as observant as possible. Separate seating, strictly kosher food, the works. So what bothered someone so much that 33 influential rabbonim felt the need to annonce its cancellation?
Apparently going out on the town for a concert is forbidden by Jewish law. That, or having any pleasure is.
Back in medical school I had a teacher in Internal Medicine who felt very strongly about the importance of a doctor making his medical studies the priority in his life. Now, he was a great teacher and extremely knowledgeable but his lifestyle was quite limited. Essentially he practised medicine. In his spare time, to relax, he read the latest medical literature. And he had no compunctions about giving us all very large amounts of reading and work to do. If we grumbled, his response was "Well, do you want to be a good doctor or go out on Saturday night? Because you can't have both."
Now, for all that non-Chareidim criticize them, one must acknowledge that the Gedolim are the world experts in pure Torah knowledge. These are men who have spent decades immersed in Torah study, have worked their way from one end of the bais medrash book collection to the other. They spend their days doing little else other than learning Torah and answering people's questions in a Torah fashion. Because of this, when it comes to Torah knowledge they are truly a cut above others who think that doing Daf Yomi or owning a number of Artscroll books qualifies one to pasken for oneself.
Having said that, one must also consider that this lifestyle is very limiting. Because of their love for Torah and its study, this is all the Gedolim do. Furthermore, they are surrounded by other schoalrs who aspire to their level and therefore learn Torah all the time. Leisure for them is an easy Gemara with a juicy Maharsha to get through. I wonder, however, if this immersion has caused them to forget that others are on a different level? After all, the pure Torah lifestyle is not for everyone, nor can it be. Each person is gifted by God in his own special way and it is through the optimizing of these gifts that we flourish as a people.
But if the Gedolim only see Torah wherever they look, and if all those around them also only see that, then the idea of going out to a concert for an evening's enjoyment would surely seem extremely foreign and wrong. After all, time spent at the concert is bitul Torah and this is a sin that cannot be countenanced. Furthermore, the halachah forbids conerts and public happy gatherings as a memorial to our destroyed Temples. Yes, for a very, very long time this law was observed principally in the breach without anyone saying too much about it. But for those for whom any law, however obscure or unobserved by the rest of the Torah observant world, is an important rule that cannot be questioned, surely Lipa Schmeltzer's concert should not have been allowed in the first place.
I wonder, however, how disconnected the Gedolim have become from the laity because of their dedication to Torah and exclusive focus on it. This consideration is not without reason. Many Chareidim children go "off the derech" due to an inability to keep up with the latest standards. Others become tired of the never ending stringencies and fail to see a point to them. Some genuinely need "down time" to relax and unwind without thinking that they are sinning for it. When everything becomes forbidden, then everything inevitably becomes permitted.
On one hand, the Shulchan Aruch and the other major codes do specify that music and celebration are forbidden as a remembrance of the destruction of the Temples, unless they are connected in some way with a mitzvah (eg. wedding). That's what the books say.
On the other hand, in the last few centuries these laws have been observed more in the breech than anything else. Imagine someone puts up a stop sign on a deserted road and at first everyone stops even though there's never any traffic coming the other way. After a few years people start ignoring the stop sign. No one is delegitimizing it but somehow because of circumstance this particular stop sign is ignored. Even the sheriff doesn't have a problem with the situation. One day a new cop comes to town and, to make his mark, he starts waiting by the stop sign and nabbing all the residents who drive through it.
Technically, the new cop is 100% right. There's a stop sign and people driving through it are breaking the law. On the other hand, there was a reaonsable excuse for why it was being ignored.
Similarly here, it is undeniable and much to our discredit that due to our many sins and our spiritual dullness, we simply do not feel the loss of our Temples like we used to and like we STILL should, may Heaven preserve our damaged souls. But as a result, not listening to music or attending concerts does not make a difference to our observance of that particular mitzvah. Again, techincally speaking, the rabbonim were 100% right in banning it if they were going to go by the books.
But maybe that's one reason God, in His infinite wisdom, gave us an Oral Law. Because sometimes you need to go by more than just the book.
Have they forgotten that not everyone can have a lifestyle like theirs? In their zeal to perfect the Jewish people, have they decided that what has been the norm until now - different Jews observing the mitzvos in different styles, each to the best of their ability - must be changed into a uniform approach that brooks no dissent? A tzadik should know that non-religious Jews can speak Yiddish, light Chanukah licht and still not observe Shabbos, chas v'shalom. He should wear his glasses in public so that he can see what his people are doing and understand how to best approach them.
And if this is so, might it be possible that someone outside the fold with a love of God, His People and His Torah might be able to tell them this? That through their desire to banish any potential peritzus from the Jewish people, they are driving many away who cannot keep all the stringencies they have decreed?
Saturday, 12 January 2008
Chemotherapy as a Lousy Metaphor
Rav Yonasan Rosenblum recently published a column in Mishpachah Magazine in which he compared the creation of the emphasis on mass learning in the Chareidi world after World War II to chemotherapy given to a cancer patient.
I know. I didn't think it made sense either but then I read through the article. After that... well, it still didn't make sense.
The opening arguments make sense:
Let us think of the destruction of the major centers of Torah learning during the Holocaust as the "disease." The body of Klal Yisrael could not go on after the Holocaust without its heart – the talmidei chachamim produced in the great yeshivos. Time was of the essence, for how long can a body survive without its heart?
This is absolutely true. The devastation to the Torah-observant world from the war could have led to the end of any meaningful Orthodox community ever developing again, chas v'shalom. Indeed, most people don't remember that the reason David Ben-Gurion acquiesed to the Chareidi community's request for draft exemptions is because he and the other secular Zionists figured that within 1-2 generations the Chareidim would simply disappear as a relevant segment of Israeli society so what harm was there in it? Such was the pessimistic mood in the years after the war.
The solution, however, seems to be introduced rather clumsily:
As a hora'as sha'a, in the wake of the Holocaust, the Torah leaders of the post-Holocaust generation advanced a societal model that had no obvious precedent in Jewish history. That new model was one of long-term, full-time Torah study for virtually all males. A necessary corollary of the model of long-term Torah learning for all men requires wives to become the primary breadwinners – at least for the period during which their husbands are sitting in learning. The only alternative would be for the parents of young couples to undertake to support them and their offspring as long as the husband is in full-time learning. While there might be some parents who can afford to hold out a number of sons and sons-in-laws in such a fashion, the number is obviously small. And so women working became the norm.
One is compelled to ask some questions at this point: who were these leaders? How were they chosen? From where did they get the authority to make this decision? And did they consult the people whose lives they were going to irrevocably change at any point?
But more than this, the basic metaphor that opens the article is flawed:
No one in their right mind would knowingly ingest poison. Unless, of course, he or she was diagnosed with the dreaded disease and the doctors prescribed chemotherapy. But even after the decision has been made that chemotherapy offers best hope of destroying the malignancy, doctors continue to monitor the effect of the toxins on the patient. There is no point to administering a "cure" that is worse than the disease. And if the chemotherapy proves successful, the patient's physicians do not simply ignore the adverse side affects. Everything possible is done to alleviate those side effects.
This is inaccurate. First of all, chemotherapy is not the only time doctors prescribe poison (I know how that sounds!). Warfarin, which is sold in hardware stores as rat poison, is used to thin the blood of people at high risk of stroke from certain heart-related conditions. Aspirin is used to produce heart attacks while digoxin improves the symptoms of heart failure.
Now, one could say that I'm quibbling but the point is that any treatment, if prescribed without care and outside of specific guidelines, has the potential to harm a patient. That's why expertise and careful monitoring of any therapy is essential.
I will grant, however, that chemotherapy is unique in that it is davka given to be toxic. Really, the hope in chemotherapy is that the drugs will kill the cancer before they manage to kill the patient!
And it is in that concept that Rav Rosenblum's analogy fails. The bottom line is that chemotherapy is given, in most cases, as a last-ditch attempt to control a cancer or force it to remission. Quite often it is given as a palliative measure, not to control the cancer but perhaps retard its growth so that the patient's life must be extended.
Finally, chemotherapy is not open-ended. Protocols exist to control the number of treatments, the measures of success or failure and the conditions for ending the therapy.
In this regard, the analogy to the shift in the post-war Chareidi community failed completely. The shift to mass kollel enlistment and women taking over the workplace was instituted without discrimination. If you're male, you're expected to learn irregardless of your aptitude or interest in the matter. If you're female, you're expected to work to support your family, produce babies to populate that family and look after those children while working to support the family, ALL AT THE SAME TIME! Even a casual examination of that system can spot its major flaws.
No protocols were set in place to determine how long this "repopulation effort" would be in effect. Will the day come when the Chareidi leaders stand up and say that there are enough people learning and it's time for men to return to the workplace? Doubtful. Too much time and effort has been spent on defending the system despite its dysfunctional attributes. To announce any changes would be theological suicide. It's not going to happen.
There is, however, another anaology I could suggest. Let's say a major flu pandemic sweeps across the world. Because of their front-line status, a disproportionate number of doctors and nurses die from the illness. After the pandemic ends, governments in the affected countries realize they need to rebuild their supply of medical staff. After all, surgeries still need to be performed and heart attacks still need to be treated. The problem is that is takes seven years to produce a basic emergency room physician from scratch and nine to ten years to produce a well-trained specialist while the need for new doctors and nurses is now.
Let us say, then, that medical school is truncated from four years to two. Residency programs cut back to a maximum of two years. It is impossible to be fully trained in such a short time but due to the emergency situation, it's done and four years later undertrained graduates are populating the hospitals. Fortunately, at the beginning, there are still many survivors of the pandemic to guide them and ensure some competence in the system.
Now it's thirty years later. The well-trained doctors are all retired or dead. The system is still churning out barely trained replacements. Would you feel confident about such doctors? Well then, do you feel comfortably about such learners?
I know. I didn't think it made sense either but then I read through the article. After that... well, it still didn't make sense.
The opening arguments make sense:
Let us think of the destruction of the major centers of Torah learning during the Holocaust as the "disease." The body of Klal Yisrael could not go on after the Holocaust without its heart – the talmidei chachamim produced in the great yeshivos. Time was of the essence, for how long can a body survive without its heart?
This is absolutely true. The devastation to the Torah-observant world from the war could have led to the end of any meaningful Orthodox community ever developing again, chas v'shalom. Indeed, most people don't remember that the reason David Ben-Gurion acquiesed to the Chareidi community's request for draft exemptions is because he and the other secular Zionists figured that within 1-2 generations the Chareidim would simply disappear as a relevant segment of Israeli society so what harm was there in it? Such was the pessimistic mood in the years after the war.
The solution, however, seems to be introduced rather clumsily:
As a hora'as sha'a, in the wake of the Holocaust, the Torah leaders of the post-Holocaust generation advanced a societal model that had no obvious precedent in Jewish history. That new model was one of long-term, full-time Torah study for virtually all males. A necessary corollary of the model of long-term Torah learning for all men requires wives to become the primary breadwinners – at least for the period during which their husbands are sitting in learning. The only alternative would be for the parents of young couples to undertake to support them and their offspring as long as the husband is in full-time learning. While there might be some parents who can afford to hold out a number of sons and sons-in-laws in such a fashion, the number is obviously small. And so women working became the norm.
One is compelled to ask some questions at this point: who were these leaders? How were they chosen? From where did they get the authority to make this decision? And did they consult the people whose lives they were going to irrevocably change at any point?
But more than this, the basic metaphor that opens the article is flawed:
No one in their right mind would knowingly ingest poison. Unless, of course, he or she was diagnosed with the dreaded disease and the doctors prescribed chemotherapy. But even after the decision has been made that chemotherapy offers best hope of destroying the malignancy, doctors continue to monitor the effect of the toxins on the patient. There is no point to administering a "cure" that is worse than the disease. And if the chemotherapy proves successful, the patient's physicians do not simply ignore the adverse side affects. Everything possible is done to alleviate those side effects.
This is inaccurate. First of all, chemotherapy is not the only time doctors prescribe poison (I know how that sounds!). Warfarin, which is sold in hardware stores as rat poison, is used to thin the blood of people at high risk of stroke from certain heart-related conditions. Aspirin is used to produce heart attacks while digoxin improves the symptoms of heart failure.
Now, one could say that I'm quibbling but the point is that any treatment, if prescribed without care and outside of specific guidelines, has the potential to harm a patient. That's why expertise and careful monitoring of any therapy is essential.
I will grant, however, that chemotherapy is unique in that it is davka given to be toxic. Really, the hope in chemotherapy is that the drugs will kill the cancer before they manage to kill the patient!
And it is in that concept that Rav Rosenblum's analogy fails. The bottom line is that chemotherapy is given, in most cases, as a last-ditch attempt to control a cancer or force it to remission. Quite often it is given as a palliative measure, not to control the cancer but perhaps retard its growth so that the patient's life must be extended.
Finally, chemotherapy is not open-ended. Protocols exist to control the number of treatments, the measures of success or failure and the conditions for ending the therapy.
In this regard, the analogy to the shift in the post-war Chareidi community failed completely. The shift to mass kollel enlistment and women taking over the workplace was instituted without discrimination. If you're male, you're expected to learn irregardless of your aptitude or interest in the matter. If you're female, you're expected to work to support your family, produce babies to populate that family and look after those children while working to support the family, ALL AT THE SAME TIME! Even a casual examination of that system can spot its major flaws.
No protocols were set in place to determine how long this "repopulation effort" would be in effect. Will the day come when the Chareidi leaders stand up and say that there are enough people learning and it's time for men to return to the workplace? Doubtful. Too much time and effort has been spent on defending the system despite its dysfunctional attributes. To announce any changes would be theological suicide. It's not going to happen.
There is, however, another anaology I could suggest. Let's say a major flu pandemic sweeps across the world. Because of their front-line status, a disproportionate number of doctors and nurses die from the illness. After the pandemic ends, governments in the affected countries realize they need to rebuild their supply of medical staff. After all, surgeries still need to be performed and heart attacks still need to be treated. The problem is that is takes seven years to produce a basic emergency room physician from scratch and nine to ten years to produce a well-trained specialist while the need for new doctors and nurses is now.
Let us say, then, that medical school is truncated from four years to two. Residency programs cut back to a maximum of two years. It is impossible to be fully trained in such a short time but due to the emergency situation, it's done and four years later undertrained graduates are populating the hospitals. Fortunately, at the beginning, there are still many survivors of the pandemic to guide them and ensure some competence in the system.
Now it's thirty years later. The well-trained doctors are all retired or dead. The system is still churning out barely trained replacements. Would you feel confident about such doctors? Well then, do you feel comfortably about such learners?
Friday, 4 January 2008
The First Crack in the Wall
It is the job of paid public relations people to represent their organizations in the best possible light no matter what the circumstance. The most extreme example is recent times was Saddam Hussein's propaganda minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who continued to preach about Iraq's greeat victory over the U.S. army even as American tanks rolled through the streets of Baghdad behind him.
Sometimes one wonders what public relations people must be thinking when they support a position that most people see as bizarre or indefensible. There are two answers I can suggest. One is that they are being honest in that they signed a contract requiring them present a positive spin and, having pocketed the pay cheque, they are duly fulfilling the terms of that contract. The other is that they actually believe what they're saying without an reservation.
Examples of the latter in Chareidi PR writing can be found here and here. Generally speaking, Rav Avi Shafran does his job of presenting the Chareidi world with great enthusiasm. Even when it comes to criticizing domestic abuse in his community, he manages to do so while downplaying the whole issue and dismissing most of the concerns raised. Unfortunately, far from convincing outsiders of the correctness of these positions, columns like this tend to alienate non-Chareidim even further.
Examples of the former, people who do their jobs honestly while also maintaining an insight into the group they represent, can be found here and here. While one will never see a Chareidi writer publish a mea culpa in so many words (he'd have to hand in his hat and membership car if he did), there are examples of insight into the troubles of the Chareidi world that can be mentioned.
Indeed Rav Yonasan Rosenblum's two columns represent a great departure from the usual synchophantic columns that portray the Chareidi world as a great utopia of learning and lovingkindness by discussing the biggest problem in the community today: the intential condemning of much of its people to permanent poverty.
In the first column, Money Matters, Rosenblum notes that 60 years of dependency on the State of Israel and outside donors to pay its bills has caused many Chareidim to forget that money simply doesn't show up on your doorstep one day without anyone taking the time to acquire it. He correctly points out:
A disconnect between effort and family income, which is one effect of government benefits, creates a sense of entitlement to even those things that would have been considered unimaginable luxuries one or two generations ago, including an apartment for every newlywed couple. Even in families struggling to make basic ends meet, it is not uncommon to find a number of children with their own cell phone and family cell phone bills of a thousand shekels or more per month. In supermarkets catering to the cost-conscious chareidi consumer, one still sees shopping carts piled high with soft drinks and junk food that are not only unhealthy but costly.
His conclusion is vague, of course, mentioning that something has to be done to solve the problem and the Chareidi community has to play a role but the fact that he mentioned a need for change instead of calling for others to simply up their contributions or for the State of Israel to simply hand over more money is a huge step away from the traditional "we have no problems and we expect you to pay all our bills" approach.
However, it is Rav Rosenblum's second column, Chemotheray as a Metophor, that truly heads off in a different direction than his colleagues'. He writes:
As a hora'as sha'a, in the wake of the Holocaust, the Torah leaders of the post-Holocaust generation advanced a societal model that had no obvious precedent in Jewish history. That new model was one of long-term, full-time Torah study for virtually all males. A necessary corollary of the model of long-term Torah learning for all men requires wives to become the primary breadwinners – at least for the period during which their husbands are sitting in learning. The only alternative would be for the parents of young couples to undertake to support them and their offspring as long as the husband is in full-time learning. While there might be some parents who can afford to hold out a number of sons and sons-in-laws in such a fashion, the number is obviously small. And so women working became the norm.
One could raise a difficulty with the second sentence, that the model involved full-time Torah study for all males. Without a qualifier, one wonders: was the model meant for all Jews? All observant Jews? Or only all Chareidi Jews? However, that would miss the essence of what he writes next, after pointing out that the natural order, according to the Torah, is for fathers to support the family while mothers do the important task of nurturing it so it will grow and flourish:
Needless to say, the vast majority of Torah homes in which the wife is the primary wage-earner enjoy admirable marital harmony and the children are flourishing. There is nothing inevitable about the strains in any given family nor is every strain incapable of being overcome. Since Gan Eden, life has never been easy, and each generation has its challenges. And we have witnessed the emergence of many "super-Moms" who appear, at least to the outside eye, to pull down large salaries, whose children always look tip-top and happy, and who seem to effortlessly manage their homes and serve tasty Shabbos meals. But those super-Moms may be setting a standard that most women cannot meet. Rebbetzin Faigie Twersky has spoken forcefully of the tension caused by the multiple tasks under which today's wives and mothers labor. The head of an Israeli project employing many chareidi women described to me cases of women deliberately underperforming so that they would be fired and could return to taking care of their families. The phenomenon is not widespread, but neither is it limited to a single case. I remember hearing a lecture 20 years ago by a prominent woman attorney, in which she described how she balanced the multiple demands on her time. A young woman in the audience, listening to the speaker describe staying up to 3:00 a.m. making Purim costumes, asked her: "But how do you manage to do everything?" With tears in her eyes, she answered: "You can't."
His conclusion is even more aggressive:
Divorce rates are rising in the Torah community, particularly among young couples, and we witness increasing numbers of our young leaving the fold (often only for a period of time) and many others who toe the line but without any evident enthusiasm. How much has the inversion of the normal roles of the sexes contributed to these trends? What has been the impact of overstressed and absent mothers been on children? I have no answers to these questions. And I doubt anyone else does either.
Actually there are answers out there, not in terms of specific statistics but through observation of Chareidi society over the last few decades. It's just that no one in the community wants to hear the answers.
Once again, Rav Rosenblum avoids coming to a open conclusion, ending with a non-commital "yeah, we have to do something about this" but it's not hard to see where this column and the other were leading. His bottom lines are that the Chareidi world sees free money as an entitlement while its odd domestic arrangements are slowly destroying its very framework. Something must change.
No one, God forbid, is suggesting closing all the yeshivos and kollels in Israel or elsewhere. As a nation of Torah, we need people of action and sound mind to continue to learn on the highest levels so we can be informed of ratzon Hashem in our daily lives. But just as an secular society would collapse if everyone decided to spend their lives working on their PhD's and no one wanted to do the actual jobs that make society work, Chareidi society is now finding out that they attempt to do the same thing has run its course and must change. A new Torah-observant society must emerge, one in which both working for a living and learning are seen as equally valuable.
If Rav Rosenblum is a voice in the wildnerness, then there is good cause to be pessimistic for the future. If, however, he is speaking for many who do not have the public voice and eloquence that he has, there is hope for positive change.
Sometimes one wonders what public relations people must be thinking when they support a position that most people see as bizarre or indefensible. There are two answers I can suggest. One is that they are being honest in that they signed a contract requiring them present a positive spin and, having pocketed the pay cheque, they are duly fulfilling the terms of that contract. The other is that they actually believe what they're saying without an reservation.
Examples of the latter in Chareidi PR writing can be found here and here. Generally speaking, Rav Avi Shafran does his job of presenting the Chareidi world with great enthusiasm. Even when it comes to criticizing domestic abuse in his community, he manages to do so while downplaying the whole issue and dismissing most of the concerns raised. Unfortunately, far from convincing outsiders of the correctness of these positions, columns like this tend to alienate non-Chareidim even further.
Examples of the former, people who do their jobs honestly while also maintaining an insight into the group they represent, can be found here and here. While one will never see a Chareidi writer publish a mea culpa in so many words (he'd have to hand in his hat and membership car if he did), there are examples of insight into the troubles of the Chareidi world that can be mentioned.
Indeed Rav Yonasan Rosenblum's two columns represent a great departure from the usual synchophantic columns that portray the Chareidi world as a great utopia of learning and lovingkindness by discussing the biggest problem in the community today: the intential condemning of much of its people to permanent poverty.
In the first column, Money Matters, Rosenblum notes that 60 years of dependency on the State of Israel and outside donors to pay its bills has caused many Chareidim to forget that money simply doesn't show up on your doorstep one day without anyone taking the time to acquire it. He correctly points out:
A disconnect between effort and family income, which is one effect of government benefits, creates a sense of entitlement to even those things that would have been considered unimaginable luxuries one or two generations ago, including an apartment for every newlywed couple. Even in families struggling to make basic ends meet, it is not uncommon to find a number of children with their own cell phone and family cell phone bills of a thousand shekels or more per month. In supermarkets catering to the cost-conscious chareidi consumer, one still sees shopping carts piled high with soft drinks and junk food that are not only unhealthy but costly.
His conclusion is vague, of course, mentioning that something has to be done to solve the problem and the Chareidi community has to play a role but the fact that he mentioned a need for change instead of calling for others to simply up their contributions or for the State of Israel to simply hand over more money is a huge step away from the traditional "we have no problems and we expect you to pay all our bills" approach.
However, it is Rav Rosenblum's second column, Chemotheray as a Metophor, that truly heads off in a different direction than his colleagues'. He writes:
As a hora'as sha'a, in the wake of the Holocaust, the Torah leaders of the post-Holocaust generation advanced a societal model that had no obvious precedent in Jewish history. That new model was one of long-term, full-time Torah study for virtually all males. A necessary corollary of the model of long-term Torah learning for all men requires wives to become the primary breadwinners – at least for the period during which their husbands are sitting in learning. The only alternative would be for the parents of young couples to undertake to support them and their offspring as long as the husband is in full-time learning. While there might be some parents who can afford to hold out a number of sons and sons-in-laws in such a fashion, the number is obviously small. And so women working became the norm.
One could raise a difficulty with the second sentence, that the model involved full-time Torah study for all males. Without a qualifier, one wonders: was the model meant for all Jews? All observant Jews? Or only all Chareidi Jews? However, that would miss the essence of what he writes next, after pointing out that the natural order, according to the Torah, is for fathers to support the family while mothers do the important task of nurturing it so it will grow and flourish:
Needless to say, the vast majority of Torah homes in which the wife is the primary wage-earner enjoy admirable marital harmony and the children are flourishing. There is nothing inevitable about the strains in any given family nor is every strain incapable of being overcome. Since Gan Eden, life has never been easy, and each generation has its challenges. And we have witnessed the emergence of many "super-Moms" who appear, at least to the outside eye, to pull down large salaries, whose children always look tip-top and happy, and who seem to effortlessly manage their homes and serve tasty Shabbos meals. But those super-Moms may be setting a standard that most women cannot meet. Rebbetzin Faigie Twersky has spoken forcefully of the tension caused by the multiple tasks under which today's wives and mothers labor. The head of an Israeli project employing many chareidi women described to me cases of women deliberately underperforming so that they would be fired and could return to taking care of their families. The phenomenon is not widespread, but neither is it limited to a single case. I remember hearing a lecture 20 years ago by a prominent woman attorney, in which she described how she balanced the multiple demands on her time. A young woman in the audience, listening to the speaker describe staying up to 3:00 a.m. making Purim costumes, asked her: "But how do you manage to do everything?" With tears in her eyes, she answered: "You can't."
His conclusion is even more aggressive:
Divorce rates are rising in the Torah community, particularly among young couples, and we witness increasing numbers of our young leaving the fold (often only for a period of time) and many others who toe the line but without any evident enthusiasm. How much has the inversion of the normal roles of the sexes contributed to these trends? What has been the impact of overstressed and absent mothers been on children? I have no answers to these questions. And I doubt anyone else does either.
Actually there are answers out there, not in terms of specific statistics but through observation of Chareidi society over the last few decades. It's just that no one in the community wants to hear the answers.
Once again, Rav Rosenblum avoids coming to a open conclusion, ending with a non-commital "yeah, we have to do something about this" but it's not hard to see where this column and the other were leading. His bottom lines are that the Chareidi world sees free money as an entitlement while its odd domestic arrangements are slowly destroying its very framework. Something must change.
No one, God forbid, is suggesting closing all the yeshivos and kollels in Israel or elsewhere. As a nation of Torah, we need people of action and sound mind to continue to learn on the highest levels so we can be informed of ratzon Hashem in our daily lives. But just as an secular society would collapse if everyone decided to spend their lives working on their PhD's and no one wanted to do the actual jobs that make society work, Chareidi society is now finding out that they attempt to do the same thing has run its course and must change. A new Torah-observant society must emerge, one in which both working for a living and learning are seen as equally valuable.
If Rav Rosenblum is a voice in the wildnerness, then there is good cause to be pessimistic for the future. If, however, he is speaking for many who do not have the public voice and eloquence that he has, there is hope for positive change.
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
Is Bad Evidence Worse than No Evidence
As I mentioned in a recent post, I harbour no animus towards Rav Avi Shafran. Certainly he is an intelligent, educated man and, al pi the Mishnah in Avos, I must judge anything he does favourably but once again I've come across an article of his from Cross-Currents that I feel obliged to comment on, if conly because it really shows how desperate a job as public relations director can be.
The source for his column was a study reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry which concluded that "while observant Jewish women live in a culture defined by a high degree of adherence to specific laws of conduct, including rules designed to regulate sexual contact, sexual abuse of various types still exists among them. " Naturally the article in the Jewish Week News went a little further. The first line of the article pretty much summarizes what the newspaper's interpretation of the study is:
Despite the widespread impression in the Orthodox world that sexual abuse doesn’t happen within its precincts, or happens less than in the “outside world,” a report in the November issue of the journal of the American Psychiatric Association says that Orthodox Jewish women suffer as much of it as other American women do.
The article then goes on to detail the research findings, breaking the numbers down by age and denomination (Modern Orthodox vs. Ultra-Orthodox) and tries to explain how the different numbers might be explained.
There are also the usual disclaimers. For a study of this nature, it is understood there will be limitations and biases within the data. This is a self-reported survey sent to a defined population. People might not answer or they might answer incorrectly to cover up problems. There is no real way to know how much of this happens. So the article includes comments such as:
This was the first study of observant Jewish women’s sexuality, said Friedman. Though face-to-face interviews with randomly selected people on such topics are preferable, even getting Orthodox women to fill out anonymous questionnaires “is a hard thing to do,” she said. “You have to get to the sample, and it requires trust. For them to answer something that’s a study, people have to believe that it’s useful for them, that it’s necessary.”
The study found that the ultra-Orthodox women were more likely to report that their husbands had forced them to have sex — 5 percent compared to 1 percent of the Modern Orthodox women.This could be in part because fervently Orthodox women sometimes view their sexual role differently than Modern Orthodox women do, says Bronya Shaffer. Shaffer teaches marriage education classes to brides, and provides counseling to women about marital and family issues.
In the end, however, there's only so much information one can glean and conclusions one can make from this article. What's the bottom line?
The article hopes to illuminate the need for greater sensitivity to sexual abuse among those who might treat its victims, and also to the reality of its existence in Orthodox Jewish communities.“Religious life is not necessarily protective of the human condition,” said Friedman. “In theory, it’s clearly forbidden. But in practice it happens, and people suffer.”
Naturally, there are those who seem to have a vested interest in not allowing a conclusion like this to pass unchallenged. While it may seem obvious to some that Torah observant Jews are like anywone else with the same virtues and flaws as anyone else. Torah law may demand ethical behaviour but its adherents often fall short. This should not be shocking to anyone. As Chazal say, God wants our best effort and that is the real obligation that is placed upon on. However, for some a commitment to Torah observance and moral perfection seem to be synonymous Thus one cannot accept an accusation that any level of abuse of any kind occurs within the Orthodox community. Hence, Rav Shafran's column. To be fair, some of his points are valid. For example:
Randomized studies, like those that have focused on abuse in the general American population, yield reasonable estimations of the behaviors of their foci. Self-selected surveys of the same populations, however, can easily yield data that diverge substantially from the reality in those groups.
In the medical field, there are different levels of what is called evidence. The best kind is a double-blind randomized control trial, one in which the investigators and the subjects don't know if they're receiving actual treatment or placebo until the end. The least authoritative kinds are ancedotal, self-reports and expert evidence. They are generally only considered in decision making when any other better evidence is lacking. From the description of the study, it would seem that this survey is certainly low-quality evidence at best.
It's where Rav Shafran draws his conclusions that matters get a little tricky:
And so, by comparing the 25%-27% figure for American women claiming (in randomized surveys) to have suffered abuse at some point in their lives with the 26% figure yielded by the recent (self-selected) study of Orthodox women, and concluding that “Orthodox Jewish women suffer as much [abuse] as other American women,” the Jewish Week writer was comparing apples and tractors. If anything, the similar percentages arguably indicate a lower rate of abuse in the Orthodox community. After all, if 26% of a group likely to contain a disproportionate number of abuse victims report they were abused, one would expect a much lower percentage of a randomly selected group from the same population.
No, that's not true. If 26% of such a group was likely to be disproportionate, then the number might actually be higher or lower, or even the same. It is impossible to know but the assumption that the number would be lower isn't tenable. In addition, while the self-selection is a poor feature of the study, the fact that it was sent out to large parts of the Orthodox community does negate that somewhat.
It's its final paragraphs, however, which really set this piece apart in a poor way:
I cannot know that my expectation reflects reality; there are no meaningful statistical data to mine at present. But neither are there any to support the assumptions and speculations of writers like those cited above.
Understand what this means: he's just finished disputing a published study and then admits that in reality he has no more evidence for his own beliefs than the authors of the study! Objectively, that's wrong. The authors have made an effort at gathering data and statistically analyzing it within the limits they specified. Rav Shafran, after trying to dismiss the whole thing as anti-Orthodox media hype then reaches his conclusion:
One thing I do know, though, is that my expectation is based on the quintessential Jewish idea that the study and practice of Torah create more refined human beings. And the others’ assumption is based on their conviction – fueled, perhaps, by wishful thinking – that it does not.
The writers are entitled to their cynicism. But all Jews who respect Torah are entitled – I believe obligated – to expose it, along with offerings of unfounded, bias-born speculations as facts.
It is nice to believe that the study and practice of Torah creates more refine human beings. It is being informed to state that this is more likely in theory than in practice. Not for nothing did our Sages states a person can be a naval b'rshus haTorah, a boor with the permission of Torah. The challenge given to us by God is not only to observe His Torah and mitzvos but to improve ourselves as human beings so that we create an ideal society on Earth.
Too much of maintstream Orthodoxy today seems obsessed with the first part of the challenge while letting the second part fall to the side. As Rav Shafran concludes, "all Jews who respect Torah are entitled to expose it such accusation, along with offerings of unfounded, bias-born speculations as facts." If the Agudah were truly sincere about this, they would immediately sponsor a study that is far more representative of the Torah-observant Jewish community in order to finally create reliable data. If the truth is as Rav Shafran says it is, then the abuse can be seen in its proper context: shameful but rare. If it is as the authors of the study claim it is, then a true Torah-observant organization would spare no effort on correcting it immediately. Lack of interest in that does not speak well of the situation, much to our shame.
The source for his column was a study reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry which concluded that "while observant Jewish women live in a culture defined by a high degree of adherence to specific laws of conduct, including rules designed to regulate sexual contact, sexual abuse of various types still exists among them. " Naturally the article in the Jewish Week News went a little further. The first line of the article pretty much summarizes what the newspaper's interpretation of the study is:
Despite the widespread impression in the Orthodox world that sexual abuse doesn’t happen within its precincts, or happens less than in the “outside world,” a report in the November issue of the journal of the American Psychiatric Association says that Orthodox Jewish women suffer as much of it as other American women do.
The article then goes on to detail the research findings, breaking the numbers down by age and denomination (Modern Orthodox vs. Ultra-Orthodox) and tries to explain how the different numbers might be explained.
There are also the usual disclaimers. For a study of this nature, it is understood there will be limitations and biases within the data. This is a self-reported survey sent to a defined population. People might not answer or they might answer incorrectly to cover up problems. There is no real way to know how much of this happens. So the article includes comments such as:
This was the first study of observant Jewish women’s sexuality, said Friedman. Though face-to-face interviews with randomly selected people on such topics are preferable, even getting Orthodox women to fill out anonymous questionnaires “is a hard thing to do,” she said. “You have to get to the sample, and it requires trust. For them to answer something that’s a study, people have to believe that it’s useful for them, that it’s necessary.”
The study found that the ultra-Orthodox women were more likely to report that their husbands had forced them to have sex — 5 percent compared to 1 percent of the Modern Orthodox women.This could be in part because fervently Orthodox women sometimes view their sexual role differently than Modern Orthodox women do, says Bronya Shaffer. Shaffer teaches marriage education classes to brides, and provides counseling to women about marital and family issues.
In the end, however, there's only so much information one can glean and conclusions one can make from this article. What's the bottom line?
The article hopes to illuminate the need for greater sensitivity to sexual abuse among those who might treat its victims, and also to the reality of its existence in Orthodox Jewish communities.“Religious life is not necessarily protective of the human condition,” said Friedman. “In theory, it’s clearly forbidden. But in practice it happens, and people suffer.”
Naturally, there are those who seem to have a vested interest in not allowing a conclusion like this to pass unchallenged. While it may seem obvious to some that Torah observant Jews are like anywone else with the same virtues and flaws as anyone else. Torah law may demand ethical behaviour but its adherents often fall short. This should not be shocking to anyone. As Chazal say, God wants our best effort and that is the real obligation that is placed upon on. However, for some a commitment to Torah observance and moral perfection seem to be synonymous Thus one cannot accept an accusation that any level of abuse of any kind occurs within the Orthodox community. Hence, Rav Shafran's column. To be fair, some of his points are valid. For example:
Randomized studies, like those that have focused on abuse in the general American population, yield reasonable estimations of the behaviors of their foci. Self-selected surveys of the same populations, however, can easily yield data that diverge substantially from the reality in those groups.
In the medical field, there are different levels of what is called evidence. The best kind is a double-blind randomized control trial, one in which the investigators and the subjects don't know if they're receiving actual treatment or placebo until the end. The least authoritative kinds are ancedotal, self-reports and expert evidence. They are generally only considered in decision making when any other better evidence is lacking. From the description of the study, it would seem that this survey is certainly low-quality evidence at best.
It's where Rav Shafran draws his conclusions that matters get a little tricky:
And so, by comparing the 25%-27% figure for American women claiming (in randomized surveys) to have suffered abuse at some point in their lives with the 26% figure yielded by the recent (self-selected) study of Orthodox women, and concluding that “Orthodox Jewish women suffer as much [abuse] as other American women,” the Jewish Week writer was comparing apples and tractors. If anything, the similar percentages arguably indicate a lower rate of abuse in the Orthodox community. After all, if 26% of a group likely to contain a disproportionate number of abuse victims report they were abused, one would expect a much lower percentage of a randomly selected group from the same population.
No, that's not true. If 26% of such a group was likely to be disproportionate, then the number might actually be higher or lower, or even the same. It is impossible to know but the assumption that the number would be lower isn't tenable. In addition, while the self-selection is a poor feature of the study, the fact that it was sent out to large parts of the Orthodox community does negate that somewhat.
It's its final paragraphs, however, which really set this piece apart in a poor way:
I cannot know that my expectation reflects reality; there are no meaningful statistical data to mine at present. But neither are there any to support the assumptions and speculations of writers like those cited above.
Understand what this means: he's just finished disputing a published study and then admits that in reality he has no more evidence for his own beliefs than the authors of the study! Objectively, that's wrong. The authors have made an effort at gathering data and statistically analyzing it within the limits they specified. Rav Shafran, after trying to dismiss the whole thing as anti-Orthodox media hype then reaches his conclusion:
One thing I do know, though, is that my expectation is based on the quintessential Jewish idea that the study and practice of Torah create more refined human beings. And the others’ assumption is based on their conviction – fueled, perhaps, by wishful thinking – that it does not.
The writers are entitled to their cynicism. But all Jews who respect Torah are entitled – I believe obligated – to expose it, along with offerings of unfounded, bias-born speculations as facts.
It is nice to believe that the study and practice of Torah creates more refine human beings. It is being informed to state that this is more likely in theory than in practice. Not for nothing did our Sages states a person can be a naval b'rshus haTorah, a boor with the permission of Torah. The challenge given to us by God is not only to observe His Torah and mitzvos but to improve ourselves as human beings so that we create an ideal society on Earth.
Too much of maintstream Orthodoxy today seems obsessed with the first part of the challenge while letting the second part fall to the side. As Rav Shafran concludes, "all Jews who respect Torah are entitled to expose it such accusation, along with offerings of unfounded, bias-born speculations as facts." If the Agudah were truly sincere about this, they would immediately sponsor a study that is far more representative of the Torah-observant Jewish community in order to finally create reliable data. If the truth is as Rav Shafran says it is, then the abuse can be seen in its proper context: shameful but rare. If it is as the authors of the study claim it is, then a true Torah-observant organization would spare no effort on correcting it immediately. Lack of interest in that does not speak well of the situation, much to our shame.
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Reading Between the Lines
At first, this article about unemployed Chareidim in Israel seems to be the same standard fare. The usual impressions are all these: Chareidim, especially the male ones, don't work because their learning takes precedence. The implication is clear either. Here's a big chunk of Israeli society that deliberately chooses to live on welfare, draining the system of valuable resources.
Bu reading further into the article, one finds some interesting comments.
The poll, conducted regularly since 2002, indicated both male and female ultra-Orthodox employees were putting in more hours than previous years.
The study also found that ultra-Orthodox employees were more likely to say they were satisfied with jobs compared to their secular and religious counterparts.
A higher percent of ultra-Orthodox employees also said their line of work was directly related to their field of education compared to other sectors.
Almost half of ultra-Orthodox employees said they were content with their income level and 80% said they
felt fulfilled by their work. Men were more likely to be content with their income compared to women, in both ultra-Orthodox and secular sectors.
What this implies is tremendous. If one can get a Chareidi to work, one will discover that he is a ideal employee, willing to put in long hours with less complaints.
What does this suggest? Could one imagine what the contribution of this community could be if the majority of Chareidim who are currently "learning" full-time were to complete an educational goal and enter the workforce? The potential for enriching that community and relieving much of the poverty within it would be tremendous and the example of Chareidim shoulder the burdens of Israeli society next to the non-religious brethren could bring a great amount of kiddush Hashem about.
Maybe one day...
Bu reading further into the article, one finds some interesting comments.
The poll, conducted regularly since 2002, indicated both male and female ultra-Orthodox employees were putting in more hours than previous years.
The study also found that ultra-Orthodox employees were more likely to say they were satisfied with jobs compared to their secular and religious counterparts.
A higher percent of ultra-Orthodox employees also said their line of work was directly related to their field of education compared to other sectors.
Almost half of ultra-Orthodox employees said they were content with their income level and 80% said they
felt fulfilled by their work. Men were more likely to be content with their income compared to women, in both ultra-Orthodox and secular sectors.
What this implies is tremendous. If one can get a Chareidi to work, one will discover that he is a ideal employee, willing to put in long hours with less complaints.
What does this suggest? Could one imagine what the contribution of this community could be if the majority of Chareidim who are currently "learning" full-time were to complete an educational goal and enter the workforce? The potential for enriching that community and relieving much of the poverty within it would be tremendous and the example of Chareidim shoulder the burdens of Israeli society next to the non-religious brethren could bring a great amount of kiddush Hashem about.
Maybe one day...
Friday, 9 November 2007
Delegitimizing Modern Orthodoxy
I'll start off by clarifying my personal position: I'm not Modern Orthodox. Having said that, I feel that any person who identifies himself as Modern Orthodox and is committed to proper observance of halachah with the intention to serve God the best he can is as Orthodox a Jew as the strictest Chareidim in Israel. Chazal tell us that God wants the heart, and that it matters not if one does a little or lot if he does it for the sake of Heaven. This goes for the laity and the clergy of the Modern Orthodox movement.
That's why I've been really bothered by news from the recent Eternal Jewish Family conference on universally recognized conversions. Many people have been aware of the ongoing controversy between the Chief Rabbinate in Israel (and by extension, their Chareidi handlers) and the Rabbinical Council of America regarding the legitimacy of Orthodox, but non-Chareidi, conversions.
I'm not an expert on geirus and would not think to comment on the legitmacy or illegitimacy of non-Chareidi conversions in North America. Much of it seems to revolve around the committment of the convert to live a fully Torah-observant life after the conversion instead of just doing it to avoid the nasty situation of intermarriage.
However, it seems from comments made in public at this conference, the divide between the Chareidi and non-Chareidi sides of the Torah observant world are greater than that. In this case, they revolved around the never-ending argument of how old the universe is.
Here's the problem in a nutshell: The Torah tells us that the world was created in six days and, using the dates in the Torah, this event happened precisely 5768 years ago last Rosh HaShanah. The problem with that is the overwhelming scientific evidence that proves the human civilization is more than 5768 years old, let along the planet and the universe.
The way to reconcile these contradictions has been another source of schism between the Chareidim and the Modern Orthodox. The Chareidi apporach has been to delegtimize and deny all science that disagrees with the concept of a 5768 year old universe. Science is dismissed in simpllistic terms and the evidence is given excuses so facile a child could see through them. And when challeneged, they toss out their ultimate weapon: the threat of heresy:
…In any event, my friend tells me that R[abbi] N[ochum] Eisenstein declared, FROM THE PODIUM IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE [Eternal Jewish Family] CONFERENCE [in Washington, DC this week], in the name of R[abbi] Eliyashiv, that anyone who believes the world is older than 5000+ years is a kofer b'ikar, and is therefore unfit to serve as a dayan on a beis din, and that consequently any rabbi that holds such a view cannot perform conversions, not to mention that all of his conversions would be posul.
Similar such pronouncements were made about anyone who maintains that Chazal made any error in science or metzeius. Another "distinguished" speaker lamented that he saw a "supposed" dayan actually wearing some "brown" article of clothing and "smelled of cologne"; the EJF speaker commented something along the lines of, "can you imagine such a person serving as a dayan?"…
(excerpted from Failed Messiah)
The Modern Orthodox approach has been different. In some cases, there are those who say that the entire story of creation is an allegory not meant to be taken literally. There may be some merit to this. Certainly the Torah was not written to be a history or science text book. However, to dismiss the first eleven chapters of Bereshis is also not something to be done lightly.
There are others who combine the literal with the allegorical. We are told, for example, that Creation was done over six days, but that the sun, moon and stars were only created on the fourth day. If that is true (and a believing Jew must hold that it is) then how did the first day have evenings and mornings? What's more, in the very first verse of the Torah we are told that God created the Heavens and the Earth. Yet later on the Heavens (1:8) and the Earth (1:10) were created once again.
I do not accept all the theories about multiple authors for the Torah and some mysterious redactor putting different texts together to give us the Torah as we have it today. If there was a redactor, he was clearly an idiot for not doing any proofreading and letting such an obvious inconsistency to get through.
If, then, the Torah is one book written by one man after being dictated by one God, then if there are two Heavens and two Earths, each appearance of the word must mean something different. Might the first instance mean energy and matter? If a day isn't a 24 hour day but rather an era, could we say the universe and our world were created over billions of years that were defined over six eras by God in his Torah?
This should not be a shock to anyone. After all, the verb yada can mean to know or to be sexually intimate depending on the context. "An eye for an eye" is not taken literally by Chazal. What's more, we know that Rabbi Akiva held there were deep meanings in every single letter of Torah. If that's the case, where did this puritanical obsession with saying that creation took precisely 144 hours, not a second more or less?
Furthermore, the text itself may give us some clues as to the correctness of this supposition. After Kayin and Hevel are born, the Torah tells us: "And it came to pass at the end of days that Kayin brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord." (4:3) Now, the phrase "end of days" usually follows the mention of a proceeding time period (compare 41:1). But where is that mention here? Not in the preceding verse. In fact, the last time "days" is mentioned is during the story of Creation.
Let us take this one step further. In the first chapter of Bereshis, the Torah tells us the overall story of Creation. At the beginning of the second chapter, it reeturns to the events of the sixth day to detail the creation of humankind but it never returns to the original subject, that is, what happened after Creation ended. The narrative simply continues on with Adam and Chavah being placed in Gan Eden, meeting the Nachash, being thrown out and the birth of Kayin and Hevel. Only here, at Bereishis 4:3 does the phrase "end of days" finally appear. Might this suggest that the events surrounding the killing of Hevel signalled the end of the sixth day?
There may be further support for this from Rashi who comments on Bereshis 1:31, on the words "And God aw all that He had made and behold, it was very good" that "very good" means death was created. Who was the first human being to die? One must say Hevel was.
If there is some element of possibility to this thesis, then how much time passed between the creation of Man and the death of Hevel? A day? A year? A thousand years? If, during Creation time had no meaning like it does today so that the Torah could describe a billion years as a day, how long were Adam and his family around before Kayin killed Hevel? Theoretically it could have been thousands of years.
In short, there is no contradiction between Torah and science. One must simply understand that the Torah must be interpreted in light of scientific fact and the text itself allows that to happen. I could go even further. Given the vast amount of hard evidence that science can present to prove its case for a very old universe, a puritanical insistence that the world is only 5768 years old creates the impression in non-religious Jewish society that Torah beliefs are archaic and irrelevant. After all, if Orthodox Jews believe the world is only 5768 years old, then how meaningful can the rest of our faith be? It is therefore imperative, if we wish to promote kavod haTorah, to see how the Torah itself can yield answers to science's challenges and remain relevant in our lives.
So once again I must ask: Why does the refusal to interpret the first chapter of the Torah with strict, unbending literalness make one a kofer b'ikkar?
That's why I've been really bothered by news from the recent Eternal Jewish Family conference on universally recognized conversions. Many people have been aware of the ongoing controversy between the Chief Rabbinate in Israel (and by extension, their Chareidi handlers) and the Rabbinical Council of America regarding the legitimacy of Orthodox, but non-Chareidi, conversions.
I'm not an expert on geirus and would not think to comment on the legitmacy or illegitimacy of non-Chareidi conversions in North America. Much of it seems to revolve around the committment of the convert to live a fully Torah-observant life after the conversion instead of just doing it to avoid the nasty situation of intermarriage.
However, it seems from comments made in public at this conference, the divide between the Chareidi and non-Chareidi sides of the Torah observant world are greater than that. In this case, they revolved around the never-ending argument of how old the universe is.
Here's the problem in a nutshell: The Torah tells us that the world was created in six days and, using the dates in the Torah, this event happened precisely 5768 years ago last Rosh HaShanah. The problem with that is the overwhelming scientific evidence that proves the human civilization is more than 5768 years old, let along the planet and the universe.
The way to reconcile these contradictions has been another source of schism between the Chareidim and the Modern Orthodox. The Chareidi apporach has been to delegtimize and deny all science that disagrees with the concept of a 5768 year old universe. Science is dismissed in simpllistic terms and the evidence is given excuses so facile a child could see through them. And when challeneged, they toss out their ultimate weapon: the threat of heresy:
…In any event, my friend tells me that R[abbi] N[ochum] Eisenstein declared, FROM THE PODIUM IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE [Eternal Jewish Family] CONFERENCE [in Washington, DC this week], in the name of R[abbi] Eliyashiv, that anyone who believes the world is older than 5000+ years is a kofer b'ikar, and is therefore unfit to serve as a dayan on a beis din, and that consequently any rabbi that holds such a view cannot perform conversions, not to mention that all of his conversions would be posul.
Similar such pronouncements were made about anyone who maintains that Chazal made any error in science or metzeius. Another "distinguished" speaker lamented that he saw a "supposed" dayan actually wearing some "brown" article of clothing and "smelled of cologne"; the EJF speaker commented something along the lines of, "can you imagine such a person serving as a dayan?"…
(excerpted from Failed Messiah)
The Modern Orthodox approach has been different. In some cases, there are those who say that the entire story of creation is an allegory not meant to be taken literally. There may be some merit to this. Certainly the Torah was not written to be a history or science text book. However, to dismiss the first eleven chapters of Bereshis is also not something to be done lightly.
There are others who combine the literal with the allegorical. We are told, for example, that Creation was done over six days, but that the sun, moon and stars were only created on the fourth day. If that is true (and a believing Jew must hold that it is) then how did the first day have evenings and mornings? What's more, in the very first verse of the Torah we are told that God created the Heavens and the Earth. Yet later on the Heavens (1:8) and the Earth (1:10) were created once again.
I do not accept all the theories about multiple authors for the Torah and some mysterious redactor putting different texts together to give us the Torah as we have it today. If there was a redactor, he was clearly an idiot for not doing any proofreading and letting such an obvious inconsistency to get through.
If, then, the Torah is one book written by one man after being dictated by one God, then if there are two Heavens and two Earths, each appearance of the word must mean something different. Might the first instance mean energy and matter? If a day isn't a 24 hour day but rather an era, could we say the universe and our world were created over billions of years that were defined over six eras by God in his Torah?
This should not be a shock to anyone. After all, the verb yada can mean to know or to be sexually intimate depending on the context. "An eye for an eye" is not taken literally by Chazal. What's more, we know that Rabbi Akiva held there were deep meanings in every single letter of Torah. If that's the case, where did this puritanical obsession with saying that creation took precisely 144 hours, not a second more or less?
Furthermore, the text itself may give us some clues as to the correctness of this supposition. After Kayin and Hevel are born, the Torah tells us: "And it came to pass at the end of days that Kayin brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord." (4:3) Now, the phrase "end of days" usually follows the mention of a proceeding time period (compare 41:1). But where is that mention here? Not in the preceding verse. In fact, the last time "days" is mentioned is during the story of Creation.
Let us take this one step further. In the first chapter of Bereshis, the Torah tells us the overall story of Creation. At the beginning of the second chapter, it reeturns to the events of the sixth day to detail the creation of humankind but it never returns to the original subject, that is, what happened after Creation ended. The narrative simply continues on with Adam and Chavah being placed in Gan Eden, meeting the Nachash, being thrown out and the birth of Kayin and Hevel. Only here, at Bereishis 4:3 does the phrase "end of days" finally appear. Might this suggest that the events surrounding the killing of Hevel signalled the end of the sixth day?
There may be further support for this from Rashi who comments on Bereshis 1:31, on the words "And God aw all that He had made and behold, it was very good" that "very good" means death was created. Who was the first human being to die? One must say Hevel was.
If there is some element of possibility to this thesis, then how much time passed between the creation of Man and the death of Hevel? A day? A year? A thousand years? If, during Creation time had no meaning like it does today so that the Torah could describe a billion years as a day, how long were Adam and his family around before Kayin killed Hevel? Theoretically it could have been thousands of years.
In short, there is no contradiction between Torah and science. One must simply understand that the Torah must be interpreted in light of scientific fact and the text itself allows that to happen. I could go even further. Given the vast amount of hard evidence that science can present to prove its case for a very old universe, a puritanical insistence that the world is only 5768 years old creates the impression in non-religious Jewish society that Torah beliefs are archaic and irrelevant. After all, if Orthodox Jews believe the world is only 5768 years old, then how meaningful can the rest of our faith be? It is therefore imperative, if we wish to promote kavod haTorah, to see how the Torah itself can yield answers to science's challenges and remain relevant in our lives.
So once again I must ask: Why does the refusal to interpret the first chapter of the Torah with strict, unbending literalness make one a kofer b'ikkar?
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
But Will It Accomplish Anything?
There's an old line that makes the rounds whenever someone notes the high level of intermarriage in the North American Jewish community today. "You should become Orthodox," the person says. "No one Orthodox intermarries." "That's because if you intermarry, you're not Orthodox anymore," is the rejoinder.
I was thinking about that when I read this article in the Jerusalem Post today about how the non-Chareidi population of Beit Shemesh recently held a demonstration in protest against the acts of violence the local Chareidi community has visited upon them recently.
For those who haven't been following the news, here is what has been happening in Beit Shemesh. High costs of living in larger Chareidi communities have brought large numbers of young Chareidi families to Beit Shemesh and Ramat Beit Shemesh where beautiful and relatively large homes are available and far more affordable.
However, Israel being Israel, some of the less civilized elements amongst these Chareidim don't just move into a neighbourhood and take it over. They also attempt to take over the surrounding neighbourhoods, which may not be Chareidi, as well. Thus we have read about attacks on shoppers in a mall in Beit Shemesh, acts of vandalism, attacks on women who are not dressed al pi the Chareidi version of modest clothing and riots in which police and public property are damaged. All these acts have had one intent: to force the locals to adopt Chareidi standards of dress and public behaviour in order to avoid insulting the sensitivities of the Ultra-Orthodox population.
Now, I am not suggesting that Chareidim should not control what happens in their own neighbourhoods. I personally make a point of trying to be aware of where I am when I visit Israel. When I enter a Chareidi institution to learn or daven, I make sure to wear shoes and socks, whereas in a Mizrachi shul I might wear sandals. Were I to board a mehadrin bus in which men and women are seated separately, I would be sure to avoid the woman's section and I know that if I ever found that I didn't want to sit on such a bus, I would take the regular bus instead. One does not spread love of Judaism through rocks and inflammatory rhetoric but rather through kind actions and quiet persuasion. As Koheles says, "the words of the wise are heard when quiet."
This is what is so important about this protest. No one in Beit Shemesh is suggesting the Chareidim change their neighbourhoods, abolish their customs or adjust their lifestyles. What they are getting angry about is the chilul Hashem that the violent members of the ultra-Orthodox community are causing. Imagine you're a religious Jew but not Chareidi. You go amongst the non-religious Israelis you work with knowing full well that for many of them, a kippah is a kippah is a kippah. You want to show them that one can be a fully religious, Torah observant Jew and still lead a normal, productive life but all they see when they look at you is a religious fanatic likely to throw a rock at them if they were short sleeves in public.
It even goes further. Many attacks in Beit Shemesh have been on Dati Leumi/Mizrachi Jews because the Chareidim have decided that since they are not ultra-Orthodox, they are possibly worse than the non-religious Israelis. Imagine a religious woman being attacked for not being modest, not because she's wearing immodest clothing but because her skirt isn't long enough, her hair isn't covered enough, etc. What does that say about these people's conception of mutual respect.
Over Shabbos I had a long debate with someone about how to best interpret this behaviour. Her point, which was told to her by a woman she could only describe in glowing terms as a tzadeikes, was that the Chareidim are so sensitive to chilul Shabbos that they couldn't help but be outraged when they see it happens. Not to justify their behaviour, she added quickly, but this is why. It's because they care so much.
I was dumbfounded (but not speechless, I'm never speechless) by this statement. Consider this statement: "I don't support suicide bombers of course, but I can understand why they do it. After all, they live in such hopeless poverty and this is the only way they know how to protest." Does this make sense to anyone, even for an instant? Yet now I am supposed to take a step back and think: Well, sure they're endangering the public and desecrating God's name in public through their actions but, gosh darnit, it's because they love Shabbos so much.
If that's how one shows intense love of Shabbos, then maybe a little less emotion in relation to God's holy day would be in order. If passionate love of Torah and mitzvos leads to violence and destruction, how exactly does that glorify God's name in this world.
Judaism does not believe the ends ever justify the means. If protecting Shabbos, or tznius, means doing what some of these Chareidim are doing, then the Torah and Judaism they are practising is far different from the one Moshe Rabeinu, a"h, brought down from Har Sinai.
I was thinking about that when I read this article in the Jerusalem Post today about how the non-Chareidi population of Beit Shemesh recently held a demonstration in protest against the acts of violence the local Chareidi community has visited upon them recently.
For those who haven't been following the news, here is what has been happening in Beit Shemesh. High costs of living in larger Chareidi communities have brought large numbers of young Chareidi families to Beit Shemesh and Ramat Beit Shemesh where beautiful and relatively large homes are available and far more affordable.
However, Israel being Israel, some of the less civilized elements amongst these Chareidim don't just move into a neighbourhood and take it over. They also attempt to take over the surrounding neighbourhoods, which may not be Chareidi, as well. Thus we have read about attacks on shoppers in a mall in Beit Shemesh, acts of vandalism, attacks on women who are not dressed al pi the Chareidi version of modest clothing and riots in which police and public property are damaged. All these acts have had one intent: to force the locals to adopt Chareidi standards of dress and public behaviour in order to avoid insulting the sensitivities of the Ultra-Orthodox population.
Now, I am not suggesting that Chareidim should not control what happens in their own neighbourhoods. I personally make a point of trying to be aware of where I am when I visit Israel. When I enter a Chareidi institution to learn or daven, I make sure to wear shoes and socks, whereas in a Mizrachi shul I might wear sandals. Were I to board a mehadrin bus in which men and women are seated separately, I would be sure to avoid the woman's section and I know that if I ever found that I didn't want to sit on such a bus, I would take the regular bus instead. One does not spread love of Judaism through rocks and inflammatory rhetoric but rather through kind actions and quiet persuasion. As Koheles says, "the words of the wise are heard when quiet."
This is what is so important about this protest. No one in Beit Shemesh is suggesting the Chareidim change their neighbourhoods, abolish their customs or adjust their lifestyles. What they are getting angry about is the chilul Hashem that the violent members of the ultra-Orthodox community are causing. Imagine you're a religious Jew but not Chareidi. You go amongst the non-religious Israelis you work with knowing full well that for many of them, a kippah is a kippah is a kippah. You want to show them that one can be a fully religious, Torah observant Jew and still lead a normal, productive life but all they see when they look at you is a religious fanatic likely to throw a rock at them if they were short sleeves in public.
It even goes further. Many attacks in Beit Shemesh have been on Dati Leumi/Mizrachi Jews because the Chareidim have decided that since they are not ultra-Orthodox, they are possibly worse than the non-religious Israelis. Imagine a religious woman being attacked for not being modest, not because she's wearing immodest clothing but because her skirt isn't long enough, her hair isn't covered enough, etc. What does that say about these people's conception of mutual respect.
Over Shabbos I had a long debate with someone about how to best interpret this behaviour. Her point, which was told to her by a woman she could only describe in glowing terms as a tzadeikes, was that the Chareidim are so sensitive to chilul Shabbos that they couldn't help but be outraged when they see it happens. Not to justify their behaviour, she added quickly, but this is why. It's because they care so much.
I was dumbfounded (but not speechless, I'm never speechless) by this statement. Consider this statement: "I don't support suicide bombers of course, but I can understand why they do it. After all, they live in such hopeless poverty and this is the only way they know how to protest." Does this make sense to anyone, even for an instant? Yet now I am supposed to take a step back and think: Well, sure they're endangering the public and desecrating God's name in public through their actions but, gosh darnit, it's because they love Shabbos so much.
If that's how one shows intense love of Shabbos, then maybe a little less emotion in relation to God's holy day would be in order. If passionate love of Torah and mitzvos leads to violence and destruction, how exactly does that glorify God's name in this world.
Judaism does not believe the ends ever justify the means. If protecting Shabbos, or tznius, means doing what some of these Chareidim are doing, then the Torah and Judaism they are practising is far different from the one Moshe Rabeinu, a"h, brought down from Har Sinai.
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
Wanting it both ways
The chareidi world, as noted a couple of posts ago, believes in the concept of Daas Torah, that is that their leaders, through knowledge and piety, have attained a certain level of Ruach haKodesh which allows their to unerringly make the right decisions for their followers.
One recalls a couple of month ago, this Daas Torah resulted in the cancellation of a large concert in Yerushalayim. The decree was signed by the leaders of the Chareidi community and implied that these concerts were damaging to the souls of their followers.
This was after the organizers had arranged separate seating in the stadium, separate entrances for men and women, and separate busees to bring the patrons to the concerts so there would be absolutely no mixing. Despite these precautions, the Gedolim still felt that the concert was an occasion for peritzus. The Chareidi community's response seems to have been "Well, okay, they're the Gedolim and if we don't understand their reasons, it's because of our limitations." Everyone else's response seems to have been "Huh?"
But then a piece was published on Cross Currents that seems to have an answer to why the concerts were banned. It seems:
Today, too, we have self proclaimed agitators and charlatans who have nothing to do with their time but to go around to our leading Torah sages and try to convince them that separate-seating concerts are a threat to our Yiddishkeit and to ban them. They falsely claim that there is pritzus in the hallways plus other fabrications.
Ah, now things are starting to make sense. The Gedolim, not knowing the full details, were provided with the wrong information by a group of self-righteous do-gooders who opposed the concert who felt their opinions trump everyone else's. They fed the wrong information to their leaders who then issued their decree based on this misinformation.
Then, why does the writer conclude thusly:
In the final analysis, gedolim are our einei ha-edah, and important issues must be brought to them. We must be prepared to do things that are not comfortable when allegiance to their authority demands it.
Back in the day when I was first learning how to use computers, I was taught a basic principle in programming: GIGO - Garbage In = Garbage Out. If the Gedolim of the Chareidi community are being given the wrong information, how can an intelligent person follow their p'sak? As one of the comments to that post went:
If the statements of the gedolim are based on false premises, why should they be followed? (assuming that gedolim themselves wouldn’t want incorrect opinions to be followed)
But if the statements of the gedolim are not based on false premises, what are the “agitators” doing wrong?
In the end, how can someone not see the problem in this situation? And why is no one telling the Gedolim that this is happening? Or have they already decreed that this is impossible?
One recalls a couple of month ago, this Daas Torah resulted in the cancellation of a large concert in Yerushalayim. The decree was signed by the leaders of the Chareidi community and implied that these concerts were damaging to the souls of their followers.
This was after the organizers had arranged separate seating in the stadium, separate entrances for men and women, and separate busees to bring the patrons to the concerts so there would be absolutely no mixing. Despite these precautions, the Gedolim still felt that the concert was an occasion for peritzus. The Chareidi community's response seems to have been "Well, okay, they're the Gedolim and if we don't understand their reasons, it's because of our limitations." Everyone else's response seems to have been "Huh?"
But then a piece was published on Cross Currents that seems to have an answer to why the concerts were banned. It seems:
Today, too, we have self proclaimed agitators and charlatans who have nothing to do with their time but to go around to our leading Torah sages and try to convince them that separate-seating concerts are a threat to our Yiddishkeit and to ban them. They falsely claim that there is pritzus in the hallways plus other fabrications.
Ah, now things are starting to make sense. The Gedolim, not knowing the full details, were provided with the wrong information by a group of self-righteous do-gooders who opposed the concert who felt their opinions trump everyone else's. They fed the wrong information to their leaders who then issued their decree based on this misinformation.
Then, why does the writer conclude thusly:
In the final analysis, gedolim are our einei ha-edah, and important issues must be brought to them. We must be prepared to do things that are not comfortable when allegiance to their authority demands it.
Back in the day when I was first learning how to use computers, I was taught a basic principle in programming: GIGO - Garbage In = Garbage Out. If the Gedolim of the Chareidi community are being given the wrong information, how can an intelligent person follow their p'sak? As one of the comments to that post went:
If the statements of the gedolim are based on false premises, why should they be followed? (assuming that gedolim themselves wouldn’t want incorrect opinions to be followed)
But if the statements of the gedolim are not based on false premises, what are the “agitators” doing wrong?
In the end, how can someone not see the problem in this situation? And why is no one telling the Gedolim that this is happening? Or have they already decreed that this is impossible?
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