Sometimes The Answer Is No

Despite all my criticisms of him, there is one essay of Rav Avi Shafran's that I like.  It's called "The Conservative Lie" and it's about all the failings of the Conservative movement.  Some of it is unforgiveably triumphant but those who read Shafran's materials know that he is given to that style.
The part that sticks in my memory is where Rav Shafran goes through the Conservative methodology and notes that whenever a difficult issue has come before the so-called Rabbinical Assembly the answer to whether or not the issue is permissible always seems to be "yes".  From driving on Shabbos to women rabbonim and, since the article was written, on to open acceptance of homosexuality the Conservatives never seem to be able to say no to anyone.  As Shafran correctly points out there's a problem with such a methology.  It lacks any sincerity or principle.
It seems that one of Morethodoxy's guiding principles is also the desire to say "yes" no matter what to whomever really wants something. In the past its members have opined about their desire to somehow find a way to make homosexual marriage permissible al pi halacha and their great frustration at not being able to (yet).  Now they've moved on to partnership services and decided that these are a great idea despite the abudance of halachic objections to them.
The responses on the Morethodox blog have been somewhat simplistic, create distinctions where there are none in order to generate leniencies that have no firm basis and ignore the strength of minhag in the current practices within the Orthodox world.  None of this is surprising from a movement that wishes to make huge changes in the way Orthodoxy is practice, all of them without the support of a single major posek. 
But the real motivator comes out in their latest piece which has to do with a young Israeli lady named Ophir ben Shitrit.  Ms. ben Shitrit is Torah observant and attends an Orthodox school in Israel. In violation of the school's rules she recently performed on an Israeli version of American Idol called "The Voice".  As a penalty for violating the rules she was suspended from her school.  Not a nice situation.
Rabbi Barry Gelman's response to this seems to lay bare what Morethodoxy thinks of the word "No" when it comes to halacha.  There is first the title of the article:

I do not know if Ophir Ben Shetreet will remain observant, but if she doesn’t, I may know the reason why.

Right.  So if she goes "off the derech" as a result of being punished for breaking her school's rules then it's the school's fault, not hers.  If she looks at the school and says "This is so unfair, I can't be observant anymore!" then it's perfectly understandable.
Well no it's not.  As Gelman's article notes there are indeed a variety of authoritative rulings defining and limiting the restrictions surrounding kol ishah.  If Ms. ben Shitrit isn't happy with her current school's hashkafah it would seem the answer is clear: switch to a school that isn't so strict. 
This doesn't seem to be what Gelman is advocating.  Instead of suggesting that Ms. ben Shitrit either switch schools or decide to obey the rules in the one she's currently enrolled in, he implies that since there are valid halachic opinions that allow the young lady to perform on television then the school should accomodate her by accepting those views.
Could one imagine a LWMO guy walking into a Chareidi shul and insisting on shaking hands with the Rebbitzen because he's aware of a lenient opinion that permits this and he happens to hold by it?
Ultimately Morthodoxy is moving towards Conservatism through its selective quoting of halachic sources and its desire to eliminate the word "No" from its Torah vocabulary.  Orthodoxy, in their model, must conform to our desires instead of the opposite way around. 
And isn't this the basis for partnership congregations?  Sure we're willing to do the Orthodox thing, they seem to be saying, as long as it's set up in a way that connects to us, as opposed to hoping we'll connect to it.
Halacha certainly has a great flexibility to it and a Rav with a deep knowledge of the legal sources can often work wonders in difficult situations.  But there are limits.  Sometimes the answer is "no" and it doesn't matter how much we would like it to be otherwise.  The challenge is for us to ask ourselves how to accept that instead of stamping our feet and demanding the ruling change to accomodate our feelings.

Is The Amud For Everybody?

I'll admit it: I'm an amud snob.  I don't think just anyone who wants to lead services should do so.
I'm not the worst snob though.  My personal requirements are limited.  I think a person who leads services should believe in God, have a decent command of Hebrew and be able to carry a tune.  Am I asking too much?
In the shul I daven in, apparently I am.
Perhaps it's just me but when people who fail to meet the qualifications I just mentioned go up to lead services it grates on my nerves.  A few years ago, for example, we had a guy saying kaddish for his mother.  This is a gentleman who will happily explain to you why he doesn't believe in God, the hereafter, etc.  When asked why he was making the effort to come to shul every day to lead services and say kaddish he said he was doing it in memory of his mother.  Not because she was watching from the Heaven he didn't believe it but because he thinks it's what she would have wanted.
Would you want to be part of a congregational service lead by this guy?
And then this weekend it got worse.  On Friday afternoon one of the teens in the congregation who belongs to a Frum-for-fun (see prior posts for explanation) family decided he wanted to lead Mincha.  He decided this and was given the opportunity despite barely being able to have read Hebrew and (I overheard him saying this after) not even having looked over the Amidah he had to repeat out loud.  He stumbled over pretty much every word except "Baruch attah" and a couple of times looked over at the Rav and asked "Did I say that right?" 
And then on motzei Shabbos we had another congregant who is now starting to say kaddish for a parent.  A nice guy from the FFF crowd he also can barely read Hebrew and stumbled over almost every word.
Give me some credit.  I sat patiently through both "performances' without saying anything but by the end of it I felt like someone was dragging their nails across the chalkboard.
The leading of services should be something special.  A shaliach tzibur isn't just up there because he has a chiyuv or because it's "his turn" but to serve as the spiritual uniter for the congregation's prayers.  Shouldn't that mean meeting some kind of minimum standard of competence instead of giving over to anyone who wants it as a form of outreach or keeping people interested?
Or is it just me?

The Academic Torah

One of the big mistakes people make with Torah study is approaching it like it's just another field of knowledge.  I know that I often do this, comparing a concept in Torah to one in medicine or science or trying to use an approach that works for me with secular studies when it comes to Gemara or halacha. 
This is generally a mistake because Torah isn't just another field of knowledge.  It's a piece of the Divine, a chance to share an enounter with the Ribono shel Olam.  We don' learn Torah simply to know facts but to gain an insight into existence itself.  It must be approached with reverence and awe. 
That's why, for example, Professor Marc Shapiro isn't a posek (nor does he wish to be, I would assume).  While he may have a broad and deep knowledge of Torah sources he analyzes them from the point of view of a modern academic.  Here's the big hint: when you read an essay and the Chofetz Chayyim is repeatedly referred to as Rabbi Kagan you know something's missing.
This is also why some folks don't like Rav Natan Slifkin's approach to Torah.  The man is brilliant and erudite but some of his work comes across as academic more than religious.  Presenting the Rationalist Judaism approach as an academic one detracts from what is important - that the only real Torah study is done through a religious, "irrational" (for lack of a better word) approach.
This flaw in learning and promulgating Torah isn't restricted to the MO academic world.  The Gemara, in discusssing the destruction of the Second Temple (may it be speedily rebuilt) lists various reasons as to why the Churban happened.  One of them is that people who learned Torah didn't recite bircas haTorah before studying.
Obviously this is absurd.  Is it reasonable to assume great Torah scholars sat down to learn all day long but didn't recite the blessing beforehand?
The deeper answer, as I've heard from various sources, is not that they didn't recite the blessing but that the blessing was disconnected from its source.
There are two ways to relate to a blessing over a mitzvah or a benefit (for example, food).  The preferred way is to concentrate on the meaning of the blessing, that we are acknowledging the kingship of the Ribono shel Olam and His requirements for us or thanking Him for a benefit He has provided us.  The not-so-good way is to treat the blessing like it's a secret passcode.  I want to wave the lulav so I mumble the requisite words and get to do it.  The only thing standing between me and this apple is a sentence so I fire it off without really thinking about it.
Too often we all (I'm especially guilty) pronounce the blessings in the second way.  It's a formality or an annoyance to get through on the way to our goal.  The blessing is not about taking an instant to recognize God's kingship but instead is detached from its holy source.  It's a ritual with no depth.
This is what Chazal meant when they said that the Churban was due to scholars not reciting the bircas haTorah.  Of course the scholars said it but that's all they did.  It was a formality and then they sat down to learn Torah all day.  Not God's Torah.  Just Torah.  It became a field of knowledge no different than biology and physics, a body of facts to know and understand.
This approach to learning seems to be the dominant form today.  How else to explain people who dress the part, act the part. speak the part, spend their days swaying in prayer and learning and who then go and steal, cheat and abuse?  Are they doing the right thing?  Yes, absolutely.  Their observance of ritual is punctillious but it is superficial.  Even their prayers are empty.  They provide the lip service and none of the heart.
Thus while the academic approach to Torah is obviously cold and lacking religious meaning the opposite approach is similarly empty but hides it quite well.
It's time to take a step back and look again at how we interact with God and how sincere and meaningful our observance is?  Both from the left and right we have distanced ourselves from the Source of all existence and turned our religion into a series of activities devoid of true meaning.  In order to become the moral beings we are meant to be we therefore must find a way to reconnect.

In The Culture Of Death

The most precious thing any of us have is our lives.  Just being alive and sentient is an amazing gift from the Creator of the Universe.  It also seems to be the one gift from Him that we take most for granted and often resent that we don't have ultimate control over it.  After all, we don't choose when we are to be born or die. The processes of conception and death occur independently of us and sometimes despite our best efforts and wishes.
Is it any wonder, then, that as society moves away from an awareness of God and sanctity towards a hedonistic, self-centered form of civilization in which personal pleasure is the highest personal goal, that we start to introduce voluntary death into our daily lives.
Abortion, for example, is already commonplace in society, so much so that we don't even think of it in terms of snuffing out a life but rather as a medical procedure done much of the time for convenience.  A human being, DNA and all, is destroyed and we argue instead over "right to choose".
It should therefore not be a shock to anyone that once we've established that a foetus can be killed with impunity that society would then turn its sights on someone else.  As a result we now have the efforts of some to declare that a person with a terminal, painful illness now has a right to demand someone help him die so as to end his suffering.
Recently the province of Quebec moved towards making euthanasia legal there when an "expert" panel recommended allowing mercy killing in certain limited cases.  Of course, they don't call it mercy killing but rather death with dignity, just like we don't call abortion foetus killing.  That doesn't change what it really is though.
Quebec is an interesting place in any case.  Originally a very religious population tightly controlled by the Catholic church, the mainstream went secular decades ago and has defined itself by being anti-religious.  If God says "X" then you can be sure Quebec opinion will be "We hate 'X'".  As a result the province has one of the highest abortion rates in Canada.  Interestingly enough it also tops the list for suicides.  No surprise then that mercy killing is something the population wants.
Now I do not want to gloss over the suffering some with terminal illnesses endure.  I've met patients with Lou  Gehrig's disease who are prisoners in their own bodies.  I've attended to patients racked with the pain of cancer eating into their bones and organs.  I know that there are some horrible diseases out there that don't take life quickly but slowly and painfully over months to years.  I do not claim that this suffering is tolerable or at all desirable.  Even with the best medical care people can still undergo significant difficulties on their final journey.
Years ago as a resident I took part in a discussion on mercy killing and was asked what the Jewish position was.  I pointed out that in Jewish tradition every instant of life has immeasurable value.  In addition life is a gift from God and only He is in a position to take it.  As a result any measures that specifically aim to shorten the lifespan of a person, no matter how much they are in pain, is forbidden and those measures would be considered murder.
Indeed the Talmud and Shulchan Aruch deal with the idea of terminal suffering and how to alleviate or shorten it without violating that rule.  This is a complex subject, not one that can be discussed standing on one foot.
Naturally my statement was met with a rolling of the eyes.  In the view of the secular culture where moral relativism is king anyone saying that they have a non-negotiable red line in their beliefs is automatically an unreasonable fanatic.  But really, without the red line what do we have?
For example, most physicians facing a patient with end-stage cancer who is going to die shortly anyway and is screaming with unbearable pain would not have much of a problem administering just a little too much morphine which would lead to respiratory arrest and death.  But what about a scenario in which the patient's pain is currently controlled but expected to spiral in the next day or two?  The patient knows he will be in agony and doesn't want to suffer.  He wants that injection of morphine now because it's too late.  Is that still okay?  If not, why not?  If the whole point is to minimize suffering then why does the guy rolling on the bed get the shot but not the guy who's going to be?
Heck, why is physical and not psychological pain the main criteria?  A person might, chalilah, receive a diagnosis of inoperable cancer and simply not want to deal with it.  The idea of waking up every day and knowing there is a dark force slowly eating away at his insides is intolerable to him.  Why can't he have the shot to relieve that burden?
To take it to the extreme a few years ago the local paper told the story of an elderly widow who wanted to have an assisted suicide.  She was in great health but was very lonely following the death of her husband and wanted to be with him.  She felt she was quite the candidate based on that.  Even the most dedicated proponents of mercy killing weren't in favour of this but if a competent woman like her reached such a decision why should she be denied the opportunity?
We live in a society in which "dirt" is not allowed.  We don't want to suffer.  We don't want to feel pain.  We don't want to wait more than 5 minutes for that burger we ordered.  We want what we want and we want it now.  The idea of being in pain is justifiably frightening but it is also part of life.  To treat one's existence like one's cell phone, as something that's fine for now but to be disposed of when no longer convenient, speaks to a shocking devaluation of the great gift.
Imagine a society in which mercy killings are as commonplace as foetus killings, where lobby groups fight to prevent anti-euthanasia groups from protesting, where the idea of even questioning the morality of mercy killing leads to screams of outrage.  Once upon a time abortion was a procedure undertaken with great care and caution.  Now it's a form of birth control.  Today we are told that mercy killing would only happen under exceptional circumstances.  Does anyone really believe that as time goes by it won't become easier and easier to get?

What The Torah Lifestyle Didn't Give Them

One of the problems I have with mass kiruv organizations like Aish and Chabad is their pushing of the frum lifestyle as a panacaea to all one's problems.  Religious people have better marriages because the time-out of the niddah period acts as a refreshing break.  Religious people are more honest because the Torah forbids lying and cheating.  I well recall a chozer b'teshuvah friend of mine years ago recounting how she had found an item of considerable value in the hallway of her apartment building and put up a sign in the lobby asking the owner to contact her.  A few days later an elderly woman knocked on her door and claimed to be the owner.  Despite having no proof my friend handed over the item because, "well she was frum so I knew she must be telling the truth".
Uh huh.
I suppose one reason ultraOrthodox leaders have such a hatred of the popular press and blogs is because spending the day reading what's out there quickly shatters that illusion.  Decades ago David ben Gurion, a"h, predicted that once Israel became a state like all others it would have the same problems as all other states, like criminals, prostitutes, drugs, etc.  This was hardly an inspiring vision.  Unfortunately the Orthodox community has quietly done the same thing.  We are a community like all others.  We have saints and we have sinners.  We have inspiring leaders and twisted menuvalim.  We have people who are exemplars of the values the Torah espouses and we have others who have twisted God's word into a bacon-flavoured cheese pretzel.  Italians have the same thing, as do Poles, Germans, Chinese, and others.  No better and no worse.  We are just another ethnic group with a language, rituals and holiday costumes.
All this has recently been put on parade at the Nechemia Weberman trial.  For those of you still living in a cave, Weberman is a chasid whose views are somewhere to the right of Satmar.  He belongs to a spinoff group from Chabad that is now closely aligned with Satmar and the Neturei Karta because of their shared hatred of Israel.  His group is so frum that calling themselves Chasidim, "pious ones" isn't enough to describe how holy they feel they are.  Based on what they called their founding Rebbe they call themselves Malachim, angels!
You would think that men who call himself angels and pious ones would conduct themselves on the highest levels of sanctity and holiness.  Stuff like fasting on a regular basis, being extremely careful about speaking loshon horo, eschewing violence, even the threat of it. 
Not these guys.  As the JTA reports upon Weberman's sentencing:

Chasidic counselor Nechemya Weberman was sentenced to 103 years in prison for sexual abuse of a teenage female patient over several years.
Weberman, 54, a member of the Satmar Chasidic community in Brooklyn, did not speak during the Jan. 22 sentencing in New York State Supreme Court. He had been sent to Rikers Island prison without bail immediately after his conviction in December.
He was found guilty on 59 counts of sexual abuse. The encounters started in 2007, when his victim was 12, and lasted until she was 15. She is now 18.
Weberman had faced up to 117 years in prison.
The girl's parents sent her for sessions to Weberman, an unlicensed therapist, at the recommendation of the child's school. The girl was referred for not meeting her sect's strict modesty guidelines regarding women's dress and asking questions about the existence of God.
The victim reportedly gave a tearful statement in court.
"I clearly remember how I would look in the mirror. I saw a girl who didn't want to live in her own skin, a girl whose innocence was shattered, a girl who couldn't sleep at night because of the gruesome invasion that had been done to her body," she is reported as saying.
The New York Daily News reported Jan. 19 that a new investigation conducted by the paper showed that Weberman had violated at least 10 other female patients.
At Weberman's trial, prosecutors said they were aware of six additional victims -- four married women and two underage girls. The newspaper reported that it identified four additional women, who do not want to come forward out of fear of being ostracized by the community.
Weberman victims, according to the new investigation, include four married women, three of whom he counseled, and six unmarried women, all of whom were Weberman clients.
According to the paper, sources close to the women abused by Weberman said he used patterns of grooming and nurturing to lure them. He showered outcast teenagers with attention, taking them on road trips and buying them lingerie, they said. The unlicensed counselor also cited kabbalah when forcing his victims to have sex with him to convince them his acts were allowed, once telling a victim, “I learned kabbalah and we were a couple in another incarnation.”
“The intimate acts he was performing were intended as a form of repentance for sins committed in their previous lifetimes,” Rabbi Yakov Horowitz from Monsey, N.Y., in whom other victims had confided, told the Daily News.
Five others told the New York daily that they were aware of Weberman’s misconduct with clients years before he was accused of sexual abuse, and sources said the anonymous victim who put him on trial came forward after friends told her Weberman “was a known pervert.”

What is not told in the article but was details in various news reports and on blogs over the last several months is the campaign of threats, intimidation and outright slander that these "angels" engaged in so as to protect one of their own.  It's one thing to proclaim one's innocence and announce the intention to vigorously fight accusations but these thugs went far beyond that, defaming the victim and anyone who tried to help her and presenting the face of a cult that seems to worship hatred in place of God.  The Chareidi community has a well-known "circle the wagons" mentality but this went far beyond with the perpetrator and his friends seeking to re-victimize the young woman that had already been damaged.
(To their credit the main Chareidi news blogs haven't starting Rubashkin-style ads calling for a pidyon shevuyim campaign for Weberman.  Matzav and TheYeshivaWorld seem to have totally ignored the trial while VisIzNeias is simply reporting the events without attempting to run the "He can't be guilty, he's one of us!" angle)
And what's amazing is that if I ran into Weberman tomorrow with my coloured shirt and knitted kippah he'd look down at me and think "Ach, a goy".
Living in a small community as I do I don't really run into folks like Weberman.  The only shtreiml-wearing guy in the neighbourhood is an Aish grad here to do kiruv and who has a good heart and happy attitude.  Even during my trips to Israel I generally don't find myself in those kinds of neighbourhoods.  In short, I can sit back and pretend that frum Jews are normal folks because those that around me generally are.  I hate being reminded that there are huge numbers of dysfunctional freaks running around out there who just don't get the bigger picture but think that Judaism is entirely defined by rituals and 18th century costumes.
After all, one can say that Weberman was a bastard.  We can't guarantee there are no evil people masquerading as frum Jews out there.  But the way his henchmen and the Satmar community mobilized and saw destroying the victim as a religious duty, that shows to me that this kind of Judaism has gone completely off the rails.
After all the swaying, shouting and praying, after all the lulav waving it's all about the clothes you wear and the rebbe you swear allegiance to.  At least for these guys.

The Bigger Picture

Quick question: why do some folks seem to think wearing a black hat while davening is mandatory?  Superficial answer: Because the Mishnah Berurah says you have to.
Deeper answer: No, it doesn't.
Look carefully at the part of the Mishnah Berurah where hats during prayers is mentioned and you'll see that the Chofetz Chayim, zt"kl, says something different.  He points out that where and when he lived hats were part of daily formal wear.  If you wanted to dress neatly and formally you wore a hat.  Therefore, since during prayers we strive to appear appropriate before the Ribono shel Olam and since if you were to stand before the local governor or king you'd wear a nice suit and hat, when you daven you should wear a nice suit and hat.
This is quite different from what people think after a superficial reading.  What it means is that whatever is considered neat and formal in any given place and time is what is appropriate for prayers.  The point isn't the black hat.  The point is standing respectfully before God.  When we focus on the former we risk forgetting the latter.  When that happens we have a cultural devolution where not only is a hat a di rigeur requirement but also a sign of religious allegiance.  Forget everything else, the hat you wear determines the type of Jew you are, not your actions, not your neshamah.
Here's another quick question: if the reason we don't take medications on Shabbos is because of the prohibition of grinding (back then a 'script from a doctor meant going to the local apothecary and having him grind up your personal recipe) then what's the problem with taking pills nowadays?  Big Pharma doesn't care when I take my acetaminophen (paracetamol for my Israeli readers) and doesn't change their assembly lines based on my usage.  Yet if there is no sakkanah then I am not to take acetaminophen on Shabbos.
The answer is given by the Nishmas Avraham and fits in perfectly with my thesis.  The taking of pills on Shabbos in non-dangerous situations is forbidden.  Our Chazal, when faced with having to categorize this prohibition, stuck it under the heading "Grinding" because back in their day that's where it went.  But even nowadays when that classification no longer fit we still avoid the pills because, in the bigger picture, that's what's forbidden.
This bigger picture is something often missing from our Judaism today.  We are, as people go, petty and small-minded.  We therefore focus on petty, small-minded things.  We segregate people by accent, by type of kippah, by how much swaying one does while learning and the like.  We seek truth but only from those with whom we already agree.
Consider something I've heard a couple of time.  There is apparently a school of thought out there that says that unless you're using a Vilna Shas format in your Talmud study that you're not really learning Talmud.  I first heard this when, while sitting in a yeshivah in Israel waiting for someone, I cracked open a Steinsaltz Talmud I'd just purchased.  "Ah," said an unhelpful passerby in an uninvited comment, "you know you're not really learning if you use that, right?"
But if the point of learning is to develop a great knowledge of Torah, to engage in the religious requirement to learn and to come closer to the Ribono shel Olam, and if by using the Steinsaltz Talmud I do all that then why doesn't it count?
What is the purpose of being a Jew?  To create a dveikus between oneself and the Creator.  To bring His holiness down into this world and make it a better place.  Since Matan Torah this has meant performance of the mitzvos and the learning of Torah.  If one is doing that properly then where does this attitude of "one size fits all" come in?"
We all of us need to remember the bigger picture because it brings more meaning to our learning and our mitzvos performance.  Without it we start to do things without deeper intention and by rote, something we all need to avoid.

The Real Holy Spot

While speaking with a prominent and wise Rav the other day, the topic of the Kosel came up and he shared an interesting insight with me.  He pointed out that the Kosel, as important as we all perceive to be, is not a real holy site.  Rather it's the elevated piece of ground beyond that is the actual prime spiritual real estate, the Temple Mount.
Now let's leave aside the argument over the permissibility of going up the Har HaBayis.  As this Rav noted, and I agree, we seem to have forgotten that the Kosel isn't the centre of Jewish world but a poor substitute because of the current occupants beyond.  We shouldn't see praying at the Kosel as an end unto itself but as an expression of the desire to one day prostate ourselves before the Shechinah in a rebuilt Temple (may it occur speedily in our day).
Yet habit and time seem to have robbed us of this awareness.  Consciously or not, we don't see Har HaBayis as the place prayers need to be offered from.  That belongs to "them" while we have the Kosel.  That's good enough.  Or is it?
This is what makes all the kerfuffle caused by the Women of the Wall so absurd.  They show up at the Kosel plaza dressed to instigate.  They succeed in getting the attention they want and then they shout that the Kosel isn't a Chareidi synagogue, that they too have the right to worship as they see fit, and so on.  And no one points out that while the Kosel isn't a Chareidi synagogue it's also not a synagogue in any sense of the word.  It's the one remnant of the outer wall of the Second Temple.  When that Temple was standing no one stood at its base tearfully offering prayers.
What's even more ironic is that, were the Temple to be rebuilt tomorrow, it would reinstitute worship that would be extremely class and gender segregated.  Women would be restricted to a small part of the Har HaBayis.  Non-Kohanim would also be limited in their movements and imagine the guards checking for one's tumah status.  For all their screaming about an inclusive Judaism that respects everyone, we would finally know that Torah worship is, in fact, very formal and rigid on what it allows.
Why is all this important to mention now?  As the Israeli election campaign careens to a close the story has broken that a candidate for Bayit Yehudi has been caught on video saying that he thinks it would be great if the Dome of the Rock were to be blown up.
The Tzipi Livni Party announced Saturday that it planned to request from the Central Elections Committee that a Bayit Yehudi candidate, who spoke of the Dome of the Rock being “blown up” in a video clip, be disqualified from running in Tuesday’s election.

The clip, which was first revealed by Channel 2, shows the 14th candidate on the Bayit Yehudi list, Atlantanative Jeremy Gimpel, addressing a group of Christian Zionists in Florida in November 2011. Gimpel states in the clip, “Imagine today if the golden dome, I’m being recorded so I can’t say blown up, but let’s say it was blown up, right, and we laid the cornerstone of the Temple in Jerusalem. Can you imagine what would be? None of you would be here. You would be going to Israel. It would be incredible.”

Well you know what?  I also think it would be great.  I have no plans to make it happen.  I would oppose anyone who said they intended to make it come about.  I am sure we as a people are not ready for it and the needless bloodshed that would follow such an event would be incredibly tragic.  Having said that, yes I don't think the Dome belongs there.  I don't like that it's a non-Jewish place of worship.  I would much rather have a Temple there run by the right people acting as a central source of identity and unity to our nation.  I don't think that's anything to be ashamed about.  It's certainly not racist because the identity of the occupants of Har HaBayis is irrelevant.  It is our property, our spiritual centre and we belong there.   Frankly, what frum Jew wouldn't think that?
We need to remember the bigger picture, we need to remember the goal of history and we need to be as possessive of our property as other people pretend to be of it.

In Praise of Anonymity

It began on Cross-Currents as a challenge to those in the Chareidi community who have such a distaste for blogs and the multitude of anonymous personalities that populate them.  The post, submitted by Dr/ Yoel Finkelman tried to explain why anonymity is so important when dealing publicly with issues within the Chareidi community.  In brief, he voiced the well-known concern that the high degree of conformity demanded by the Chareidi lifestyle, combined with the social pressures that conformity brings with it and the small-minded mobs of askanim who are the true rulers of that society.  The piece was relatively short and very accurate.  Naturally it demanded a response so Rav Yitzchok Adlerstein decided to provide one.
Unfortunately after a polite and eloquent introduction, Rav Aderlstein immediately goes to work with his usual style.  First he says:

I am not an apologist, neither professional nor amateur

Then he says:

Very few of us can say and do whatever we want within our professional world. Company policies, social conventions, the exigencies of diplomacy all limit our ability to express ourselves as we may want. We have to be polite to coworkers we may dislike, because the alternative would be horrible. We realize that these restrictions serve a positive purpose, even if we chafe against them.

The charedi world is much the same. People in it may grumble (some more and some less) about their inability to share their opinions and concerns, but they understand that this is the price of membership. The strategy of imposed uniformity may be good, bad, or terrible, but even those rugged individualists who find it most objectionable can understand the fears, insecurities and needs of their neighbors who perpetuate it. This makes it easier to live with. Those who have difficulty with it can also often (but admittedly, not often enough) find ways around the rules.

Which makes him sound like an apologist to me.  He then goes on to (accidentally?) confirm the worst suspicions of those on the outside.  Who's running the Chareidi community?

To the extent that they are being led, who is doing the leading: the most responsible and mature segments of the community or irresponsible and immature kanaim?” This is probably the question asked most often within the community. The answer is nuanced, but simple: it is a mixture of both. The challenge is finding out what is coming from the minds of the leaders, and what is coming from the gatekeepers and the kanaim.

Now one might claim that any religious or social community could have a similar structure.  The problem is that one of the defining features of Chareidism is an absolute loyalty to their "Gedolim" and the magical "Daas Torah" they possess.  How long was it that a certain prominent personality announced at the Agudah annual conference that to even ask the Gedolim for the reasoning behind their rulings was to demonstrate a terrible lack of faith in God and Torah?
To say that dictates to the unwashed masses don't always originate from those Gedolim or that the askanim have perverted the situation to the point that anything other than a direct televised statement from the Gadol in question is suspect leads one to imagine a society in which any trust in the leadership is misplaced.  Why should I care about what Rav Shteinman or Wosner say?  I didn't hear it directly from them so therefore it shouldn't count.  If the leaders are so disconnected then they aren't real leaders.

I don’t think that hypocrisy is the issue, especially given the strong background in Torah texts in the yeshiva world. The gemara is replete with strongly-worded statements, that to the untrained eye seem exaggerated or simplistic. We learn that such statements are part of a style, and we look for – and value – the latent message more than the manifest one. The charedi community understands (at least many people understand) that when they see a sign heaping invective upon some behavior that it may not mean anything more than “this is really not such a good idea.”

What is really frustrating is knowing that this simply isn't true.  Would Rav Adlerstein also have us believe that the rioters in Meah Shearim are  screaming insults at the Israeli police and calling them "Nazi's" because they're trying to be nuanced and they don't really mean it?  A few months ago some of his Chareidi compatriots paraded in Yerushalayim wearing mock concentration camp outfits to protest the Israeli government's plan to draft them.  Were they really trying to pass on a more subtle message?  When Chareidim in Beit Shemesh spit on 7 year old girls who don't pass their uber-tznius expectations are they really saying "Oh child, why cannot you be more pure?"  Please, no one in the Chareidi community really believes this.  When they scream with hatred they are doing just that, not imitating the gemara's style.
In short, the community that defines itself by absolute loyality to its Gedolim is led by Gedolim who can't lead unless they go in the direction the community is always heading.  And in the background are the askanim, always looking for dissent so they can neutralize it and maintain the fiction that all is well.
However, as apologetic as Rav Adlerstein was, his response was far more civilzed than what came next.  As usual, Rav Yaakov Menken proved all the inital assertions raised by Dr Finkleman were correct.

Put succinctly, I think the use of pen names has reduced the overall quality of comments and level of dialogue of this journal. This is not universally true, but I believe that if one weighs the cost and benefit, anonymous comments have done more harm than good.

First of all, Cross Currents is not a journal.  Despite all its aspirations to the contrary it's just a blog.  A popular one, a well-read one but just a blog.  What's more it's a censored blog run by a bunch of rabbonim who are interested in presenting their point of view without the inconvenience of having to defend it.  In this group Rav Avi Shafran is the only really honest one.  He simply refuses to have comments about his pieces posted.  Whereas he has no problem giving the middle finger to his critics, Rav Menken and friends allow comments but limit them to those that either agree with them, congratulate them or raise such weak rebuttals that slapping them down is easy. 
No wonder Rav Menken is against anonymous comments.  His buddy Eytan Kobre, a man whose grip on the truth is sometimes less than firm, was bothered by the negative feedback to his pieces.  Perhaps people were so busy pointing out his mistakes that he began to have self-doubt and wanted to avoid this progressing to actual self-awareness?  I can only imagine the stuff that Menken himself has to read and how many times a day he has to shake his head in disgust at the people who dare to disagree with his "correct" view of things.  DovBear himself also recently brought a very relevant example of why anonymity is so important when commenting on some blogs as he showed how the great Rav Menken, the man so concerned with proper and upright behaviour, slandered a negative commenter on Cross Currents after doing a Google search on him.  The only catch?  The search turned up someone else who had the same name!  And the stuff that Rav Menken excoriated him over?  Hardly controversial.  In short: you disagreed with me, therefore you are stupid.
There is plenty that is positive about the Chareidi community. Unfortunately its PR people are not one of those things and the more they try to defend the fictional perfection of the community the more the opposite impression seems to become cemented in people's minds.

When Is Something Wrong?

There is a well-known gemara in which Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai's students are surrounding him as he lays on his deathbed.  They ask him for a blessing and he tells them he hopes they will fear God as much as they fear man.  "Not more?" they ask.  He replies by pointing out something obvious.  When a person sins he looks around to see if no one saw him but forgets there is an all-seeing Eye recording his activities even in the most hidden of locations.
The Torah itself repeats the phrase "V'yareisa meHaShem Elokecha" multiple times, especially when dealing with actions that are sins but which can be presented as proper.  Remember, the Torah is telling us, you can fool some of the people some of the time but you can't fool God and there will be an accounting for this.
The idea that we are constantly accountable for our actions to an objective external authority seems to stand in direct contrast to the current reigning secular morality in which the golden rule is "It's only illegal if you get caught".  In truth, the Chazal noted this when they described how everyone is pretty much involved with gezeilah to some extent.  We borrow things and forget to return them, we walk off with someone's pen and assume he won't notice or care.  We take someone's time for no good reason when  they're busy.
All these are little things but there is no boundary in today's society.  When one reads the news it seems there is one item after another involving someone who stole in one fashion or another getting caught.  And the question always seems to be: "What were they thinking?"  After all the high falutin' explanations are given there is a simple one that no one ever offers: "Well I didn't think I'd get caught."
This may work for people like Eliot Spitzer and Chris Spence but should Torah observant Jews hold the same view?  Is believing that it's only illegal if you don't get caught in consonance with the Jewish belief in an all-knowing, all-seeing God?
With all the hoopla in some parts of the Torah observant community around external values, about the pernicious effect of the internet and smart phones, the hysteria over gender separation and ever unrealistic standards of modesty in dress for women, no one seems to notice that this value has crept in and taken hold. For all the mussar stuff that's out there, does anyone stand back and say "If you're a real yirei Shamayim then be very afraid that God is watching you when you do wrong!"?  Why does it always seem to be about something else?
I believe the answer is something I've commented on elsewhere a long time ago.  Simply put, it is always easier to blame someone else for your problems, so much so that one eventually loses insight into one's role in one's issues.  Why address problems and make changes in the way you do things when it's really an external locus that is the cause and which, if it goes away, will solve the dysfunction?
As children we internalize the value of something being wrong only if you're caught.  One of the things that is supposed to happen when one grows up and matures is to realize that there are things which are inherently wrong.  They aren't done not because of the fear of getting in trouble but because they are wrong.  This does not seem to have happened in Western society for a few generations now and it is also evident in our culture.  Is it possible that it's tied to the idea that a man, when he grows up, gets to avoid his real duties in life forever in exchange for a permanent high school-like existence?  Is it just selfishness run amok?
Veyareisa meHaShem Elokecha.  As Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai noted, we fear the disapproval of other men.  How much is the black hat a symbol of religious observance versus how many times it's worn so people won't look at one and say "Tsk, thought you were frum"?  So much of our observance is based on keeping up with the Jonesteins, not out a sense of real connection and meaning.  This goes all the more so for the bein adam l'chaveiro component of halacha which really takes abuse nowadays.
Whenever someone cheats as gentile and says "Ah, but it's only a goy" the attitude is there.  Whenever someone says "Ah, but he wasn't convicted by beis din but only by the goyisher courts" that attitude is there.  And like all bad middos, what starts with a limit soon exceeds it.  We start by not caring what "they" think and it doesn't take long to no longer care what God things, chalilah, despite our protests to the contrary.
In last week's parasha we are told that before Moshe Rabeinu killed the Egyptian striking the Jew he looked around and saw there was no man.  One possible way of understanding this is to see it within this light.  As the Torah narrates, life wasn't completely hefker in Egypt.  Even Jewish slaves could petition their mistreatment before Pharoah (even if they couldn't get a great answer).  Moshe Rabeinu at that point was a prince in the royal palace and yet even he was held accountable for murder.  But when the Torah says he looked around and saw no one around perhaps it's referring to this principle of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai's.  What the Egyptian was doing was wrong.  Not wrong according to Egyptian laws but inherently and objectively wrong.  That no one was visible to Moshe's eyes to confirm this was irrelevant.  He did not seek out social approval or want to defy societal norms.  He simply sought to carry out justice.
This is a value we need to start reminding people of, as simplistic as it might seem to be.  Instead of whinging about mehadrin min mehadrin standards of food or claiming that not working for a living is a Torah value the emphasis must be on remember the true standard of behaviour that we, as observant Jews, are expected to maintain ourselves at, which means a constant positive awareness of the Ribono shel olam.

Another Example Of A Lack Of Unifying Ideology

As I've noted before, one of the problems with Religious Zionism is a lack of practical religious ideology.  The political is all there but when it comes to levels and types of observance, the Dati Leumi are all over the map.  Chardal'niks and congregants at Shirah Chadasha get lumped in together because of their Zionistic beliefs but the two groups are poles apart when it comes to so many fundamental Jewish issues that it's hard to see them in the same group.
One reminder of this lack of religious ideology came up recently when Rav Shlomo Aviner, a leading figure in the Religious Zionist world, issued guidelines for what he considers modest clothing for women.  for many people who automatically associated Religious Zionism with Modern Orthodoxy (and centre-left Modern Orthodoxy at that) his rulings came as a shock but really they shouldn't have.
Now for some background, Rav Shlomo Aviner is a top notch talmid chacham with an impressive stable of seforim so I have no doubt that his recent release is a product of much study and research.  But reading through the requirements leave one with a simple impression: "This guy is Chareidi".
But how is this possible with his big knitted kippah and his strong allegiance to Rav Kook, ztk"l, and his school of thought?  The answer is simple: Religious Zionism as a political and religious philosophy does not address large areas of halacha and hashkafah.  That's why the LWMO feminist from Shirah Chadashah and the right wing Chardal'nik can both be in the same camp when it comes to relating to the State.  That's why Rav Aviner can be a Dati Leumi leader but still sound completely Chareidi.  When it comese to matters such as tznius he is indeed part of that ideology.  As was, by the way, Rav Kook himself.
One of the problems with this system is that it has led to a fragmentation of the movement.  The Mafdal, once a meaningful player in the Knesset, basically no longer exists.  HaBayit HaYehudi, its inheritor, and its leader Naftali Bennett, are representative of a very specific type of Religious Zionist.  Would Rav Aviner, for example, feel more comfortable in Bennett's home or in the home of a Chareidi colleague in Bene Beraq?
It will be interesting to see how HaBayit HaYehudi does in the coming elections.  If it places well and doesn't turn out to be a flash in the pan (like too many other "great idea" parties) it may change the face of the Religious Zionist community and create something for the Dati Leumi to coalesce around.  Only time will tell but certainly addressing this gap in Religious Zionist ideology is something the movement must eventually do to prevent itself from splintering into irrelevancy.

What To Do With The Mystical

I've not yet had the opportunity to learn any kabbalah up close.  I've skirted around it, learned excerpts brought in other seforim like Nefesh HaChaim and the like, read about its importance and am aware of the huge amount of it out there but I've not yet sat down and made serious study of it.  My coming thoughts should be understood in this light.
I've always had a problem with the mystical side of Judaism.  Not because I don't believe it's not there, chas v'shalom.  It's quite clear there is much to this universe that is not physical, that is not quantifiable by physical means and which does not follow the laws of nature.  The easiest example I can think of is the subject of tumah and taharah.  It's easy to make the mistake of thinking that it is some kind of contagious affliction, especially the way physical contact or even close proximity transmit it.  But even a cursory study of the rules around tumah and taharah make it clear that we are dealing with something supernatural.  Why do sealed clay pots resist tumah?  Why is the sprinkling of the ashes of the parah adumah the only cure for tumas meis?  None of these things make sense from a simple, physical perspective.
I guess what bothers me is how it's presented.  The Zohar, for example, is something I've had issues with.  Leaving aside the ongoing debate on whether or not it's the genuine work of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai the biggest problem I've had with it has been how to fit in into the schema of Jewish law as I understand it.
Perhaps I'm just a simple person but for a long time I understood that God presented the Torah, both in Oral and Written form (but no apps) at Sinai.  The function of the Oral Law was to teach us how to understand the framework of the Written law and apply it in daily life.
Then along comes the Zohar which seems to me to exist as a parallel Oral Law for the spiritually special.  In other words, yes you could learn and follow the Talmud but if you really want to practice genuine Judaism it isn't enough.  You need to go a level higher and follow the Zohar. 
And what concerns me is the question: Why would God give us two parallel sets of laws, one for the unwashed masses and one for the special?  Doesn't the Torah emphasize there is to be one law for everyone?  Am I really doing my best to serve my Maker by following Talmudic law or am I just fooling myself becaise I'm really just doing a childish version of Torah practice?  And most annoying of all, if the Zohar is genuine Jewish law why is there almost no allusion to it in the Talmud, something like "And when you're ready for a higher level of observance..." or the like?
On the other hand I read an excerpt from the Yismach Moshe that might have helped my thinking.  After going through the whole PRD"S schemata he notes that different people, depending on their spiritual level, reach different levels at which certain expectations appear.  Some people function at a basic level and for them the Gemara is fine.  Some people, having built themselves up spiritually, develop a new type of relationship with the Ribono shel Olam and so for them it's not that it's wrong to follow the rulings of the Talmud but because of their enhanced level the rulings of the Zohar are more appropriate for them.
But then that got me thinking in a different direction.  We are all supposed to strive to connect to the Creator.  Does this include a desire to strive towards higher levels of spiritual understanding?  By not feeling a need to move beyond Gemara and embrace Zohar study, am I not fulfilling my purpose?
I'm still working on that one.

Yosef's Second Dream

One of the frequently asked questions about the previous few parshiyos is: Why didn't Yosef HaTzadik write home?
Recall that Yosef's time in Egypt was not spent in altogether bad conditions.  Other than a few years in prison he actually lived quite well.  For the first few years he served as major domo for an important Egyptian official, Potiphar.  After being released from prison he served as major domo to Pharoah himself.  During his time in both positions he would have had ample opportunity to send a message to his father as to his whereabouts but there is no record in the Torah that he did.
Now there is the classic answer from the Midrash, that the brothers made him swear he wouldn't but (and perhaps I'm succumbing to personal bias here) I always thought that such an oath would probably be disregarded once he was out of danger.  On the other hand, the suggestion that he didn't send word because doing so would have ripped the family apart when Yaakov Avinu figured out what had happened does sound plausible.
I would like to suggest two further possibilities.
One is quite practical.  Let's say that Yosef, now a servant of Potiphar, sent a message to Yaakov Avinu.  He could have been discrete, saying that while on his way to his brothers he was kidnapped and taken down to Egypt.  This way he could explain his current situation without implying that his brothers had been complicit in the process.
But what would the outcome have been?  Without a doubt Yaakov Avinu would have sent down some or all of the brothers (sans Binyamin) to either buy his freedom or rescue him in some other fashions; the same brothers who - unknownst to their father - sent him there in the first place.  Could we really believe that Yosef, having been freed by Potiphar and handed over to his brothers, would happily walk off into the empty, lonely Sinai with the same brothers he had such bad memories of?  There's a matter of trust to consider.  So perhaps that might explain why he didn't send a letter.  There was no practical way to get home.
But here's another consideration.  Yosef, we are told, subjected his brothers to the torments they suffered from his accusations because he wanted to bring his dream of the 11 of them bowing down to him to fruition.  The only way to do that was to convince them that he was powerful and to get them to bring Binyamin down to Egypt.  As we see from recent parshiyos he was successful.  The 11 brothers all bowed down in sincerity to him.  Fine.
But recall that Yosef had a second dream, one in which his brothers bowed down to him along with his father and mother.  After all the effort he put into making the first dream come true we find no record of the second dream coming to pass.  Or do we?
Chazal tell us one of the suspicions Yosef had when the brothers promised to bring Binyamin to him was that they would grab some no-name from the Egyptian market place and present him as the youngest brother.  This was certainly a fair concern.  Yosef had left home when Binyamin was still quite young and frankly, if the brothers couldn't recognize him because he was older and bearded, how could he be sure that he'd recognize Binyamin after all this time?
The answer might be from something Yaakov Avinu repeatedly says throughout the narrative.  Binyamin is especially precious to him, remember, because he's the last child from Rachel Imeinu, his favourite wife, now that Yosef is gone.  Chazal tell us at the beginning of VaYeshev that Yosef's face was similar to Yaakov Avinu's.  Could it be that Binyamin strongly resembled Rachel Imeinu?  That would serve two purposes in this story.  The first is that his presence would be a constant reminder to Yaakov Avinu of Rachel Imeinu.  The second is to allow Yosef to recognize Binyamin.  He would certainly remember what his mother looked like, after all.
The final peace in the puzzle in Yaakov Avinu's blessing to his sons when they take Binyamin down to Egypt.  At this point the narrative depicts him as a broken man.  When he was about to meet Eisav years earlier we saw a very different Yaakov Avinu.  He prepared for that confrontation through prayer, gifting and preparation for battle.  Here he simply asks God to have the unknown Egyptian rule show rachamim, basic mercy, to the brothers.  No demands, no threats of bringing down Divine wrath if Shimon is not released or Binyamin doesn't come back.  Just simple mercy.
This therefore would seem to be the fulfillment of the second dream.  When all eleven brothers bow down before Yosef, Rachel Imeinu is present through Binyamin acting as a reminder of her and Yaakov Avinu is essentially bowing down through his request for mercy.  Thus the second dream also comes true.

How To Study Tanach

As a follow-up to my previous post I would like to elaborate on what I think is the best way to learn Tanach.  I noted in that post that I think that learning Tanach (and again, I really mean Nach because learning Torah in-depth goes without saying and is already part of everyone's standard curriculum, I hope) would address a huge moral lacuna that is currently afflicting Orthodox Judaism.  Learning Talmud gives one a legalistic understanding of Judaism but to appreciate the big picture, to gain a real appreciation of the moral imperatives God wants of us one must learn Tanach.
Now the first stumbling block people usually point to when folks talk about learning Tanach is the idea that the text is so deep that without a really strong reliance on understanding how Chazal read the text there is a real danger of reading the Bible and coming to false conclusions and developing heretical understandings.  There is a legitimate concern that people will bring their own automatic assumptions to the table and read the text with those biases.  And I would agree this is a legitimate concern.
After all, modern readers suffer from this innate bias of assuming that our current secular moral system is the pinnacle of human civilization against which all other moral systems, Torah included, must be judged.  Many people also automatically assume that what they take for granted in terms of understandings of the universe and how it works were known to people living centuries or millenia ago.  Either that or they think that these people were simplistic idiots because of their lack of "modern" knowledge.  Reading the Bible without removing these biases can certainly lead to the wrong conclusions.
I'll illustrate with a famous and often-misunderstood narrative from the Bible - the incident of David HaMelech and BatSheva.  For those who haven't read the original, it goes like this.  One day David HaMelech sees BatSheva, a beautiful woman, bathing and decides that he wants her.  He summons her to the palace and they are intimate together.  There's only two problems - she's married to one of David HaMelech's soldiers, and the king got her pregnant.  So David HaMelech summons her husband, one Uriah, back from the battlefield ostensibly for an update on the military situation and then tells him to go home and spend the night with his wife.  Uriah, out of sense of duty to his comrades (and perhaps because he's a wee bit suspicious) refuses and goes back to the battlefield.  David HaMelech instructs his senior general, Yoav, to leave Uriah exposed on the battlefield whereupon the poor soldier is killed leaving David HaMelech to marry BatSheva.
To say that this scenario is problematic is an understatement.  The Gemara clearly wrestled with this and came up with various explanations to try and bring a less negative light to the story.  We are told, for example, that all of David HaMelech's soldiers left a get with their wives in case they didn't come home to avoid any agunah problems.  We are told that Uriah deserved death because he refused David HaMelech's order to go home to his wife.  And while some of these explanations raise an almost "Oh come on!" reaction a close reading of the text actually does support some of them.  A good peirush will point out that while David HaMelech faces God's wrath for his sins, when those sins are listed in detail adultery is not amongst them.  The text is otherwise complete in listing the misdeeds so why not, unless the Gemara's point about the get is correct?
One thing is clear: reading the text unaided or without a non-expect commentary will lead to superficial and incorrect understandings of the text, something we should always avoid.
However, a different problem develops when one goes too far in the other direction.  Trying to read Tanach only through the lens of Chazal and relying completely on their understanding while ignoring the pshat of the text is dangerous as well.  Yes we need to read Chazal's explanations but the pshat has value as well.  Without Chazal we run the danger of transposing our feelings and thoughts into the Tanach's narratives.  To use my example, we might see David HaMelech as an ancient Bill Clinton and not as the supremely important and pious figure that he is to us.  On the other hand we might see him dressed as a Satmar chasid, long curly peyos swaying as he shockles over his gemara while composing Tehillim and speaking in Yiddish to his courtiers.  Using either approach we would completely miss out on the brilliant, complex personality that produced a king favoured by God who was a scholar, warrior and poet whose exploits and writings would be unmatched in history.
But what of the fear that we will see him as all too human?  While this is often raised I would like to point out that Chazal might just have wanted us to appreciate that aspect of the characters in Tanach.  Recall that the Bible we have today did not evolve by chance but was extensively edited by Chazal.  If we have the text of Yechezkel's prophecies, for example, it is because Chazal decided not to hide them away for all time because of the controversial parts in them.  If we have Koheles' musings on life and death which seem problematic from an emunah point of view it's because Chazal felt we could, with proper study, understand them without devolving into kefirah.  If we know the story of David HaMelech and Batsheva it's because they wanted us to know about it in all its unseemly details.  Were Chazal worried we'd lose our appreciation of David HaMelech's holiness by reading that story then it likely would not have made the finally cut.
Chazal, you see, were far more understanding of how to transmit our history and moral lessons than their most pious defenders give them credit for.  David HaMelech's slip with Batsheva, for example, does not diminish his holiness and greatness.  He erred, as all humans do, but remains on a supremely high level because of everything else he did.  The world is not black and white.  A great man can sin but remain a great man nonetheless.  Chazal knew this, they appreciated that our ancestors were humans, great and holy but human nonetheless and did not try to shield us from this reality by censoring our history.
Therefore it's important to approach the study of Tanach carefully but from this realistic position.  Two basic commentaries can be recommended for introduction to the text.  In English, Judaica Press has a fantastic Nach series (they were 2/5 of the way through Chumash when the Artscroll Stoned Chumash came out and ended their plans) and in Hebrew Mossad HaRav Kook has produced a fantastic commentary, Daat Mikra. 
We are reading the stories of and the words of great people, people to whom God Himself spoke and relayed His messages to mankind.  We learn from their deeds and from their mistakes and even more importantly from how they responded to their mistakes.  We seek out the overarching moral priorities to better learn how to be more moral Jews and human beings.  Used in this way, the study of Tanach becomes essential to understanding how Judaism should work.

Putting Tanach Back Into The Curriculum

Rav Shimon Eidensohn over at the venerable Daas Torah blog has a post containing a statement by Rav Sternbuch, senior honcho in the Eida Chareidis, on whether or not learning Tanach is something people should do nowadays.  Not surprisingly he comes out against such study although he does give some advice for those intent on doing it as to which mephorshim to use in order to better understand the text.  However I believe that by trying to keep the study of Tanach out of the basic Jewish curriculum he accidentally highlights one of the reasons for the current levels of trouble in the frum community.
His statement, "The reason for avoiding teaching Tanach is it tends to give a less spiritual understanding – G‑d forbid –  of G‑d’s relationship with us" seems to say it all.  Yes, he does clarify his position to an extent and in a way that I agree with.  It is axiomatic that one cannot understand Tanach by simply reading the text without a proper commentary accompanying it.  The good book (and to be precise, any reference from here on to Tanach is to the Nach part) is simply incomprehensible without it.  There are incomplete narratives, varying statements, contradictions and other such problems with various parts.  Furthermore, most of the prophecies deal with complex and deep subjects and what they're actually referring to is a matter of debate amongst the commentators.  To simply read the Tanach and decide for oneself what a part of the text means is unacceptable from a Jewish point of view.
But the statement that learning Tanach gives us less of a spiritual understanding of the Divine is, in my humble and poorly-learned opinion, the reverse of what the case really is.
My father always noted that the Tanach, as opposed to the Talmud, cut through complex ethical and social issues to provide unmistakable positions on them.  The Tanach isn't a legalistic text.  It does not contain records of debates between the Sages of the First Temple period.  It doesn't deal with civil or criminal laws in any great depths and even common things like Shabbos and kashrus are barely mentioned.  What it does do, over and over again, is return to the point that the practice of Torah observance should be an end towards great moral behaviour and appreciation of the Divine.
This is, unfortunately, the opposite of much Talmud study nowadays.  As a Rav I once heard speak noted, one can learn multiple pages of Gemara and never mention God once.  Much of the Talmud is devoted to pain-staking and hair-splitting analysis of Jewish law, the intent behind the mitzvos and the optimal way to practice them.  This is important, there is no questioning that.
But the moral point behind why it is important to excel in mitzvah observance often gets lost in this.  Go into the average Jewish bookstore and look at the shelves.  How many volumes are dedicated to the analysis of this section or that in Jewish law, civil, criminal or ritual?  How many are dedicated to ethical and moral behaviour?
This is where Tanach comes in and where it becomes a threat to the current frum status quo.
Consider all the repeated scandals plaguing the Torah observant community.  One has to wonder how people who claim such a high level of devoutness, people like Nechemya Weberman who belongs to a Lubavitch-offshoot that has the hagaavah to call itself Molochim, can commit the crimes they do while aspiring to the highest level of mitzvah observance when it comes to other areas of their life like kashrus and Shabbos.  What are they thinking?  How do they justify themselves?
It's tempting to suggest that these folks know they're commiting a fraud and are keeping up the "kosher" appearance in their lives just because they don't want to lose the position in their social circles.  Some may be psychopaths in the classic, not axe-wielding, defintion of completely lacking a conscience.  While this might be true for some, it's clearly not the case for most.  From what we know of these people they sincerely do not believe they have commited any sins when they are found out.  Statements about from rabbinic authorities downplaying their misdeeds or finding some kind of halachic loophole to justify them.  They harbour no regrets.  When they say vidui on Yom Kippur these crimes aren't part of their personal cheshbon.
But Rav Sternbuch's statement, on the other hand, might go a long way towards explaining many things, from the most gross crimes commited by otherwise observant Jews to the petty harrassing of yeshivah students by their rebbes leading them to go OTD as a result. 
An education in in-depth Talmud nowadays does not seem to provide any kind of a moral underpinning for the Torah observant lifestyle.  Instead it provides one with minutiae, obscure facts and a belief that the halachic system is like any other legal system.  It contains rules and it contains exceptions to those rules and knowing that can provide one with a solid basis for commiting most any crime one wants to.
Where is the fear of God?  Well it wasn't mentioned in the relevant sugya.  After spending 10 pages reading the Chachamim debating on a particular point, the Talmud does not conclude with "And thou shalt remember to fear the Lord always".  Sure the Torah repeatedly reminds us "v'yareisa meHaShem Elokecha" but like the rule on not eating falcons or eagles it doesn't reach a level of personal relevance for many. 
The Tanach is dangerous to the system because it does the opposite.  It asks the questions that so many wish to avoid: If you're a SOB, what worth do you think performing the mitzvos has?  Where did you get the idea that you can sin and then offer a sin offering l'hatchilah?  Why do you think God wants any part of your finagling and mangling of His Law? 
The great nevi'im did not argue about whose cow injured whose and whose responsibility it is to pay for the whole thing?  They spoke to grand moral issues and of God's designs for us, His requests for our behaviour.  A good chapter of Yishiyahu or Yechezkel slaps down the folks who justify yeshiva rebbe pedophiles while demanding women sit at the back of the bus.  Yirmiyahu reminds us of the consequence of simplistic piety being used to cover a rotten moral system. 
In short, the Tanach reminds us that while other people might be fooled, while we might even successfully delude ourselves, God is above all that and sees through the crap to the truth of the matter even when we desperately want to deny it.
Perhaps that's the root of Rav Sternbuch's concern.  So much of what passes for policy in the Orthodox community is at odds with the basic moral system as presents clearly and unambiguously in Tanach.  The only way to avoid dealing with the contradiction is to announce that the Tanach is way too complicated to understand (even those it's clear that many parts come straight out and say what they mean) and therefore should simply be avoided.  Problem solved!
No, no it's not.

Heard In The Office

So I'm sitting with a patient, a young Muslim woman of Pakistani extraction who is in to talk about the depressed feelings she's had since breaking up with her boyfriend of seven years.  Seems he had emotionally moved on and she's been heartbroken ever since.  In addition she belongs to a fairly small Muslim sect so shidduch possibilities aren't the greatest. Despite being in her very early twenties and a nice looking girl she's genuinely worried that she'll be single for the rest of her life.
I ask her how she deals with her fears and she says that her religion gives her strength.  Then she pauses.
"I don't know if you'd understand."
I ask her why.
"Well, um, I don't want you to think I'm being offensive but..." (long pause) "do you believe in God?"
Now it's my turn to pause for an instant.  Then I point to my kippah.
"I'm Jewish. We came up with the idea of Him in first place."
"Oh," she says, "I didn't know that. Wow.  Anyway..." and on she goes.

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In one of the ER's I work in there is an older lady who is an African nun.  She's also a good ER doc and she's always interested in talking with me when our shifts overlap.  I think she's looking for another religious person to talk to and there aren't that many in this ER (or any others I've worked in, come to think of it).
So the other night I come in to replace her for the overnight shift and she stops me and says: "Lord Ironheart,  there are Jewish Chrisians, right?"
I pause because my first answer has at least two offensive words in it and she's a nice lady who clearly didn't mean anything insulting so it wouldn't be fair to unleash them on her.  So I rephrase as best as I can and say "Um no, none at all."
"But why?"
"Well," I say knowing that I have to tread carefully, "you know all that stuff about God in a body, dying for our sins and the Trinity?"  She nods vigorously.  "Yeah, well we don't believe in any of that.  In fact, it's against our faith to think of God doing anything like that."
She looks stunned.  "You don't believe in J----s?"
I shake my head.  "Nope."
"That's incredible!  I never knew that!"