That, as well as anything, explains the recent self-immolation of a colleague on the “Orthodox left” (perhaps, better, “left Orthodoxy”) who demeaned and denounced the daily blessing recited by men thanking G-d for “not having made me a woman” and opined that he has stopped saying it, in breach of a Jewish tradition that is several millennia old. Stealing from the non-Orthodox playbook, he castigated Orthodoxy for its “maltreatment” of women, and our “inherited prejudice that…women possess less innate dignity than men.” He even brazenly declared the blessing a “Desecration of G-d’s Name,” trampling any sense of propriety and humility and demonstrating the ability to leap over the spiritual giants of Jewish life in a single bound – quite a stupendous feat.

    To be sure, the condemnation of his remarks elicited from him a standard (and partial) retraction, apologizing for the stridency of the remarks but not their substance. This is the flip side of a fairly typical liberal criticism, the clichéd “it’s not what you said, it’s how you said it,” when, actually it is the substance, often irrefutable, that bothers them. Here, not only was the tone repugnant, but the sentiments were equally abhorrent – and were not only not withdrawn but educed defenders from the “left Orthodoxy” who are adept at finding the one source that seems to support their views (even if it doesn’t) and are blithely contemptuous of Jewish tradition, history, custom and the wisdom of our Sages. It is impossible to read his remarks without sensing that he perceives the Talmudic sages and their spiritual successors down to our day as, G-d forbid, small, bigoted, and immoral people who are his moral inferiors. One wonders why he can respect anything that they say, being so flawed, and why any of his students or congregants should care to study the opinions of those hopeless misogynists. A rabbi must have enormous self-confidence, to say the least, to set himself up as judge and jury over the guardians and transmitters of the divine word, and he must also be inordinately sensitive to feel pain when none is intended.

     Some of my learned colleagues have written eloquent articles about the provenance of this particular blessing, starting with the Yerushalmi (Brachot, Chapter 9) that explains it as referring to man’s obligation in Mitzvot that are numerically greater than those of a woman, a servant and a heathen. (See, e.g., Rav Dov Fischer at http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2011/08/08/who-hast-not-made-me-a-liberal-rabbi/). Another distinguished colleague wrote beautifully of an encounter with a woman who said that she loved the female version of the blessing – a woman correspondingly recites a blessing thanking G-d “for creating me according to his will.” She understood it as follows: women were the last entity created during the six days of creation, and therefore represented G-d’s special creation – the only entity created perfectly, “according to His will.” It is the man who recites wistfully that G-d did not make him a woman. Not only is that interpretation clever, creative, respectful of Chazal, and reflective of a joy and contentment with life, it also echoes Rav Hirsch’s commentary that women are spiritually superior to males and naturally closer to G-d than men are. I don’t have to agree – I think men and women are spiritually equal before G-d but just given different roles – to respect her satisfaction with her station in life. That is true love of G-d and love of Torah – the exact opposite of the embittered assault on Torah and Orthodoxy (among other sins – batei din, agunot, the lack of female rabbis, etc.) that emanated from the quarters mentioned above. The task of the Rabbi is to teach Torah to the unlearned, not reinforce their basest stereotypes, and one who chooses an interpretation of Chazal’s words that put them in a bad light, as opposed to teaching the many traditional interpretations that are holy and positive, is defining himself and his biases rather than the Torah. Indeed, it is peculiar that a rabbi who claims to be concerned with women’s spiritual dignity would find that dignity not in a uniquely feminine role but in rank mimicry of man’s role.

     We are living through a period of history in which “sensitivity” has become so acute that every word and deed is scrutinized by self-appointed moralists for even the possibility of offense, and in a world in which we try to co-exist with numerous individuals who are always taking offense about something or other. Some people are just thin-skinned, but today there are many who have no skin at all; they are just a bundle of raw nerves, claiming either victimhood or an unrestricted license to protect potential victims as they see it, and using that status as a club with which to beat the less-enlightened who do not share their views. There is little that, read a certain way, does not give offense, so here’s a brief list of blessings that the fastidious might also consider omitting:

     Blessed is Hashem…Hamelamed Torah l’amo Yisrael (who teaches Torah to His peopleIsrael) – might offend the world by singling out the Jewish people for our special relationship with G-d;

 …hamachzir neshamot lifgarim meitim (who restores souls to dead bodies) – might offend those who r”l die in their sleep;

…She’lo asani goy (who did not make me a heathen) – might offend non-Jews;

…She’lo asani aved (who did not make a slave) – might offend the working man;

 …pokeach ivrim – (who opens the eyes of the blind) – might offend the blind;

 …matir assurim – (who unties the bound) – might offend the incarcerated;
 … zokef kfufim – (who straightens the bent) – might offend the hunchback;

 …she’asa li kol tzarki – (who provides all our needs, i.e., shoes) – will offend Shoeless Joe Jackson;

… hameichin mitzadei gaver (who prepares the steps of man) – might offend the lame;
 …Ozer yisrael bigvura and oter yisrael b’tifara (who girdsIsrael with might, who adornsIsrael with splendor) – really offends non-Jews who apparently were not so blessed with might or splendor;

…hanoten laya’ef koach (who gives strength to the weary) – will offend the exhausted who nonetheless wake up every morning;

… Yotzer ha’meorot (who formed the luminaries) – offends evolutionists, and sounds too much like the claims of those right-wing creationists.

…Habocher b’amo yisrael b’ahava (who chose His people Israel with love) – offends…well, it is obvious. There are many others. It is not that everyone will be offended by everything; it is rather that someone might be offended by some of them, and the sensitivity police will be on the case, poseurs all.

     And, of course, noten Hatorah (who gave us the Torah) – will offend those who do not believe that G-d actually gave us the Torah but assume it is a man-made ball of wax that can be shaped as they wish in order to conform to the prevailing political correctness of every generation.

   But I suppose that is the whole point of this exercise. My colleague prefers to abstain from this blessing citing the Rabbinic dictum “Shev v’al taaseh, adif” (“it is preferable to sit and not do…”) Of course, that dictum is our general recourse when we confront a conflict of laws – when an action will simultaneously fulfill and violate different commandments; it is does not at all relate to a case in which one chooses not to fulfill  mitzva because he has shamefully construed it as a “sin.” And what really is the source of the alleged sin, to add to Mamet’s quotation at the top ?

     One of my distinguished colleagues recently called attention to the introduction of the Steipler Gaon to his work “Chayei Olam.” The Steipler writes that too many Jews are spiritually perplexed – either a consequence of intellectual confusion or uncontrollable desires whetted by what they see in the world around them – and usually because they have gazed in the works of free-thinkers whose words are impure and transmit impurity, and this nonsense is retained in and shapes their minds. And then he writes (translation mine): “It is appropriate to respond to these confused individuals that do they really think that they are the first people ever to have these questions and doubts ? Does it take some genius to be thus confused ? Rather do you not understand that thousands of the giants of Israel in every generation wrestled with every possible question, doubt and angle – and yet their faith remained perfect and complete, in force, and they all served the will of their Creator with fear and reverence because their souls were pure and in the light of their understanding they saw the truth clearly – what is true and what is false and counterfeit… From the simple faith of all our Rabbis, you will be able to understand that for every question and doubt there are clear answers….”

     Part of humility is deference to those whose wisdom, deeds and moral attainments were greater than ours, and teachers of Torah should attempt to inculcate that deference – rather than affect an air of moral superiority. This most recent effort to impose the fleeting morality of modern times on the eternal values of Chazal does more than disparage generations of Jews – men and women – who properly understood the intellectual depth and moral goodness of our Sages; worse, it ordains every individual to pass ultimate judgment on every aspect of the Torah, filtering every detail through a subjective moral code that will differ from person to person. Such lacks more than just humility; it undermines the unity of the Jewish people, our faith in Torah, and our acceptance of the “yoke of the divine kingship.”

      Many have traveled down that road; few have returned. The substance is as shallow as the articulation was disgraceful. Both should be withdrawn, and the honor of our Sages and their formulation of our daily prayers, and the spiritual dignity of men and women, affirmed.

    The Gemara (Bava Batra 165a) says, in the name of Rav, that certain sins are hardy perennials that are difficult to suppress: “Most [people are guilty] of theft, a minority of promiscuity, and everyone of slanderous speech,” which the Gemara soon qualifies to mean the “dust of lashon hara” – indirect, disparaging
speech but not overt gossip. (It is safe to say that these days few roll only in the dust of lashon hara.) But what of the Gemara’s assertion that “mi’ut ba’arayot” – only a minority are guilty of sexual misconduct? The overheated rhetoric that came my way seemed to imply – strike that, it was stated explicitly and quite stridently – that if young men and women simply talk to each other, even in public and even in controlled settings, that sin is inevitable for all but the most unresponsive and lifeless among them. How can that be, if the Gemara perceives only a minority as succumbing to these sins?

    Conversely, since the more prevalent danger is theft, why do we not embrace the same restrictions in this area that are suggested in the dating context? Rashbam notes that people are prone, especially in business, to allow themselves leniencies that increase their own profits at the expense of others (known in today’s parlance as shtick). Recall that Rav Yisrael Salanter said famously that just as there is a prohibition to seclude oneself with another’s wife (yichud),
so too there should be a prohibition to seclude oneself with someone else’s money. Reb Yisrael was undoubtedly correct, as always, that the temptation of illicit money exceeds that of lewdness, and yet we have not incorporated the same restrictions: we don’t require two people to work a cash register in a Jewish store, we are not admonished not to enter stores alone lest we shoplift or
remain alone in someone’s living room in the presence of his I-Pod or other desirable devices, nor do we require that young people with uncontrollable lusts for money and no legitimate means of earning it just avoid any contact with it.
Perhaps we should – but we don’t, because erecting limitless fences around sin
does not build character or develop reverence for Heaven. What is does is leave
a person incapable of exercising any self-control the moment one of those
fences collapses.

    Indeed, Chazal did establish one fence regarding relations between unmarried people – the prohibition of seclusion that was decreed by the Sanhedrin of King David in the wake of the Amnon-Tamar episode. Consequently, it is surely forbidden for unmarried people to seclude themselves. But how then is another fence built around the initial fence – a decree added to a decree – that would prohibit even public interactions? Is the world so much different today than it was 50, 100, 500, 1000 or 3000 years ago?

    Yes and no. The world is different in terms of the dissemination of bawdy material and the tawdry imagery that inundates our senses. Modern means of communication has eased transmission of both the holy and the profane. Our eyes and our souls are always at risk whenever we venture out into the world, and even when sometimes we sit at home or in front of a computer. But human nature is the same, and we delude ourselves into thinking that, somehow, today’s young people are more concupiscent than people in ancient, medieval or pre-modern times. That is simply false. People are people and human nature is human nature. (Even the display of raunchy material is nothing new. Visit any art museum – I was at the Louvre in Paris last week – and one realizes that medieval art was almost exclusively either Christian-themed or naked women – and sometimes both, simultaneously. Of course, they called it art, like others term even more salacious material today. Either way, there is not much for a Jew to see. I developed a new appreciation to the genius of Monet, and even Morris Katz.) In the past, the public frowned on debauchery, but that does not mean that its incidence was any less frequent than today.

     Obviously, the Bible has many stories of misconduct between the sexes, and the Torah prohibitions reflect that one’s desires gravitate toward those areas. The Maharal himself was banished from Prague (after his first stint there) because the people resented his carping about one of their prevalent vices – adultery – and this in a community that numbered just several thousand Jews. There is nothing new under the sun. So, knowing what we know, how can Chazal say that just a “minority” are guilty of promiscuity? Would they say the same today? Would Rav amend his statement to read that, today, sadly, “all are guilty
of theft, lechery, and gossip” – in which case, what hope is there for any of
us?

     I conclude that Chazal were correct, and that only a minority of people are guilty of licentiousness. All people are subject to fantasies, even persistent ones, but most do not act upon them. Hirhur (fantasy) is part of the human condition; fleeting thoughts are impossible to inhibit and our obligation as strivers for perfection then becomes uprooting them, not dwelling on them, and becoming involved in some more gainful and productive pursuit. To think that we can eliminate unconscious thoughts reflects an ignorance of human nature, and
Chazal profoundly understood human nature. And to think that we can eliminate sin by supplementing the Torah’s and Chazal’s prohibitions with even more prohibitions is misguided. It simply drives sin underground – to which a
generation of Jews who hide televisions in their closets, or received deliveries of televisions in air-conditioner boxes, or who furtively sit over their computers surfing the internet without a life-preserver can undoubtedly attest. At the end of the day, there is no alternative to self-control, which is a function of reverence of Heaven.

     Human nature is human nature, and no community is immune from sin or devoid of sinners. The Jewish world – right, left, center, Modern, Haredi, yeshivish – has its share of miscreants, pedophiles, thieves, psychos, murderers, adulterers, degenerates, deviants, and those who would expose or cover up those sins and sinners, crimes and criminals. The comfort might be that our numbers are smaller relative to the general population in all these vices, and that lasciviousness is still perceived as aberrational conduct that is not or should not be tolerated in our midst and appropriately shocks us when it does occur. But to think further that there is one foolproof way that works for all – one way to avoid sin or temptation, one way to find a spouse, and one way to have a happy, fulfilling marriage – is delusional.

   There is something else that needs to be said, an outgrowth of some of the responses I received. Fear of sin is a virtue in Jewish life, in a way that it is simply not understood in the rest of the world. We should always be mindful that we can stumble at any time, and therefore always have a conscious awareness of G-d’s presence. But there is a fine line between piety and dysfunction that tends to get blurred. Reading recent accounts of families that segregate the sexes for meals – or families in which brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law do not converse for fear of the “next step” – crosses the line from excessive piety to palpable dysfunction. If we posit that Chazal are correct – and who among us would not? – that only a mi’ut ba’arayot – then we have to accept that self-control and self-discipline are sufficient to allow normal interactions and to restrain, even among the most lustful among us, improper conduct. If not – if one cannot walk the streets or converse or casually interact without harboring persistently impure or libidinous thoughts that coalesce with an uncontrollable urge to lunge at random females, that is dysfunctional, and such a person requires all the safeguards that we can conjure, and even some that we have not yet imagined. But normal people do not require that.

    The bottom line is that one who does not learn self-control before marriage will not learn it after marriage either, and invariably fall into that minority category that Chazal addressed. And one who cannot restrain his passions in any area of life – money or gossip included – will never learn to restrain it until he/she begins a process of teshuva, self-awareness, and discipline. That process is the true perfection of the soul that is a primary purpose of life itself, and
that process must always be informed by the recognition that the ways of Torah
are the “ways of pleasantness,” as well as normalcy.

     The Torah restricted donations to the Tabernacle to those people “whose hearts motivated them” to give. But it is the only mitzva in the Torah that is so circumscribed – the Torah never says observe Shabbat only if your heart is into it, eat kosher food only when your motivation is pure, or learn Torah only when you are in the mood. Those are absolutes – we are commanded to perform those mitzvot regardless of our internal state. Yet, here the Torah constrains the participants of this mitzva. Why ? What should it matter to the treasurer how you feel when you pay your dues ?

     Of course, this mitzva – and another that partakes of a similar framework – both come under the rubric of avoda – service of G-d. The Talmud (Taanit 2b) quotes the famous verse we recite daily in Sh’ma and comments:  “‘…to love G-d and to serve Him with all your heart.’ What is the service of the heart ? Prayer.” Both prayer and contributions to the Sanctuary depend on and are defined by the engagement of the heart. But how do we engage the “heart” in these activities?

     A recent visitor raised a question about a common phrase in our davening that I had never noticed before. More than one thousand times a year, we recite in the amida the (17^th) blessing that begins “Retzai”, that “G-d should find favor with the Jewish people and their prayers, and restore the service to the Sanctuary, “v’ishai yisrael u’tefilatam b’ahava tekabel b’ratzon.”  Leaving aside the question of to which clause “v’ishai yisrael” (the fire-offerings of Israel) belongs – former or latter – please focus on the last four words: “u’tefilatam b’ahava tekabel b’ratzon“/ ArtScroll translates as “…their prayer…accept with love and favor;” Metzuda Siddur: “accept their prayer, lovingly and willingly;” and the new Koren siddur: “Accept in love and favor …their prayer.”

      Unfortunately, unanimity here trumps exactitude, because the translation does not precisely convey the meaning of the words. The translations would be correct if the words were juxtaposed – “b’ahava u’v’ratzon” – “with love and favor” (just like that phrase b’ahava u’v’ratzon  is utilized every Shabbat in Kiddush – “in love and favor You gave us Your holy Shabbat  as a heritage.”) But here it does not say that. It reads “u’tefilatam b’ahava tekabel b’ratzon”- the “love” and the “favor” are separated.

      What are we saying, according to the exact translation?  That You, G-d, should “accept our prayers that are offered with love.” It is obvious: if the tefilot are not offered with love, then how can we ask G-d to find favor in them ?

    I only found corroboration for this elucidation in one of the commentaries – that of Rav Shimon Schwab in “Rav Schwab on Prayer.” He too was troubled by this phraseology, and he explained it the same way, and stated that when he recites this blessing, he mentally places a comma after b’ahava:“u’tefilatam b’ahava, tekabel b’ratzon“/ In context, in this blessing, he suggests, we are asking nothing for ourselves. It is out of our pure love of G-d that we want His presence to permeate the world – so that “our eyes should witness Your return to Zion in compassion.”

      But perhaps the intention is even more expansive, and is meant as a commentary on prayer generally. A prayer that is not offered out of love is simply… words. Words. A contribution given to the Tabernacle in which the heart is disengaged – and is done perfunctorily, without feeling, sensitivity, or gratitude – is unwelcome, and unworthy of us. The arena of divine service demands engagement of the heart, because the whole purpose of the mitzva is perfection of the heart. It is not only the action of prayer that has to be carried out with love, but the person himself must be in a state of love when he recites his prayers. That is much rarer than we care to admit.

    Rav Kook wrote that the study of Torah is divine service with our minds and intellects. We develop and perfect our minds, all in line with G-d’s word. But prayer is divine service with our emotions (Orot Hakodesh I:252), another dimension of the human personality. For sure, the intellect is more reliable than the emotions in ascertaining truth, and is also more exalted – but the emotions are a more credible determinant of who we are and of how we perceive ourselves. We sometimes know things that we do not internalize, that do not animate us, and that do not even speak to us. We can know things that are not really a part of us. But we are how we feel. It is therefore that internal state that we bring to our davening – and that makes it either vacuous and mechanical or meaningful and heartfelt.

     We are experts in the obligations of prayer, and in satisfying those obligations often monotonously. A popular book on tefila contains a chapter on “Twelve Strategies to Getting Your Prayers Accepted,” as if that is a primary goal of tefila. Of course, some strategies are valid, some are better than others and some are just shtik (in deference to the modern dumbing down of Judaism). But entirely omitted was our simple phrase “u’tefilatam b’ahava tekabel b’ratzon” – “accept with favor their prayers that are recited with love.” Prayers that are recited with love are accepted; prayers that emanate from our hearts and that reflect our inner world find divine favor. To pray (properly) is to love, and to love is to desire to pray.

    And even more: those who pray with love find “eternal favor.” In a world that is filled with uncertainty and in which our enemies abound, the only certainty we have is in tefila – in our direct line to G-d that is contingent on the “offerings of our heart.” Only then will we merit beholding His return to Zion, and His protective hand that nourishes our eternal bond with Him, and our eternity as a people.

   Twenty rebbetzins in Israel recently issued a public call to Jewish women “not to engage in romantic connections with Arabs.” The declaration followed in the wake of a number of cases where Jewish women either inadvertently or intentionally became involved with Arab men and suffered grievously as a result.

 More tellingly, it followed the controversial letter of 300 rabbis calling on Jews not to sell or rent homes to Arabs in Jewish neighborhoods. So first their husbands ban real estate transactions with Arabs, and now the wives prohibit social relations. What’s next?

 What’s next should be interesting to behold as opponents of the rabbis’ letter vehemently objected to their psak in the most caustic and sometimes insulting terms, and moralists of all stripes compared the ban on home sales to Arabs to the Nuremberg Laws and the bygone era of discrimination against Jews across the globe.

 The problem, of course, is that the Nuremberg Laws also prohibited social relations between Jews and non-Jews, so the same criticisms should pertain here. But if those criticisms are again lodged by the same critics, does it then mean we have reached a stage in this era of political correctness in which rabbis (or their wives) or Jewish leaders are not allowed to call for Jews to marry other Jews?

 Must we stand mute as the intermarriage rate exceeds 50 percent because we are obligated to pay greater obeisance to ideals of the equality of man and individual freedom of choice – both noble Western values that are rooted in Torah but are never applied absolutely in a Torah (of, for that matter, a Western) context?

 The conundrum that these cases engender is the occasional conflict between Judaism and democracy. Both are illustrious legal and political systems, the former of divine origin and the latter a human contrivance, and both are valued by modern man. But they are not identical. The Torah is not incompatible with democracy, but nor is it synonymous with democracy; if it were, then we would not need the Torah. We could merely consult the writings of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson instead of laboring through the discussions of Abaye and Rava.

 And, ultimately, Judaism is a way of life that connects a person to the Divine and democracy an enlightened form of government that regulates the affairs of man. To conflate the two is to distort both, and to assume that the product of democracy is necessarily superior to the eternal Torah is an act of self-denigration unworthy of serious Jews.

 In truth, I think it was unwise and impolitic for the rabbis to issue a public statement calling for a prohibition of home sales to Arabs. Such proclamations sound jarring to the modern ear and can never be fully understood by people outside the Torah world (perhaps not even by some within the Torah world).

 That is because these ideas reflect the unique value system of the Torah, which has its own constructs, its own logic and its own worldview. It cannot be easily pegged into another philosophical or political framework. Try telling your non-Jewish friend that your son cannot marry his daughter and that you cannot drink his wine; there is no comfortable way to explain it.

 It is for this reason that certain halachot are characterized as halacha, v’ein morim kein, laws that are not to be publicly discussed for fear of being misunderstood. Both the Nuremberg Laws and, l’havdil elef havdalot, the holy Torah, proscribe relations between Jews and non-Jews. The former did it out of racial hatred and pure evil; the Torah does so out of a need to preserve the unique character of the Jewish nation that would convey the divine idea to the world. The former was vile and odious, and the latter a reflection of God’s love for the Jewish people and for mankind. But a simpleton will only look at the results and, seeing the same prohibition, conclude, “it’s all the same.” It is not all the same, and that shallowness is more polemical than it is sincere.

 * * * * *

 It is difficult for me to criticize the rabbis in question because, after all, they were not acting as parliamentarians but as rabbanim who were asked a question of Jewish law by a “multitude” of people. Nor were they scholars drafting an article for a Torah journal in which they were bound to cite all opinions and leave the practical applications to the “local Orthodox rabbi.” They were the local Orthodox rabbis, and were duty-bound to answer a halachic question posed in a way that reflected the truth of Torah and the needs of the community they service. And they did.

 Could one look at the same question and conclude otherwise? Invariably so – such is the nature of any halachic question – but their answer to their constituents, who after all live in the Mideast, not the Midwest, was reasonable and appropriate.

 Why so?

 In truth, the Torah does discriminate between Jews and non-Jews, just like shuls distinguish between members and non-members and countries distinguish between citizens and even legal aliens. And it is well known, and patently clear across the world, that people prefer to live among their own kind – especially minorities. That is why there is a Chinatown, a Koreatown, a Little Italy, a Spanish Harlem, a Boro Park, and hundreds of other ethnic enclaves. That’s not to say you can ban other people from living there (I happen to enjoy a little diversity); it is to say that as a practical matter, people recognize homogeneity makes for a more cohesive community and usually a better quality of life. And that is in the United States, still an oasis of stability.

 In the Middle East, bear in mind that there are Arab countries – Saudi Arabia and Jordan leap to mind – in which land sales to Jews are banned by law under penalty of death. The Palestinian Authority has executed dozens of Arabs guilty of that “crime.” Israeli drivers entering Jordan – a nation formally at peace with Israel, treaty and all – are compelled to remove their Israeli license plates and affix Jordanian license plates, for fear that the sight of Israeli plates will inflame the local population.

 Integration, a splendid ideal, has not been successful in the Middle East, not between Shiites and Sunnis, Egyptian Muslims and Coptic Christians, Iraqi Muslim and Kurds, or Lebanese Christians or Muslims. Nor has it been fully harmonious in Israel, where mixed communities like Lod, Ramle and Haifa often are the scenes of confrontations between Jews and Arabs with nationalistic overtones.

 The rabbis’ letter relates directly to this state of affairs, discouraging the sales of homes and fields because of the fear of intermarriage, the potential loss of Jewish identity and cohesion in the neighborhood, and the danger of inviting (not a foreign but) a hostile element into a Jewish city. The rabbis relied on the Torah’s admonition of lo techanem, which one opinion in the Gemara (Avodah Zarah 20a) interprets as not giving non-Jews a foothold in the land of Israel.

 Now, one can argue whether that applies only to the seven Canaanite nations, or only to idolaters (which Muslims are not), or to all non-Jews. But lost in the halachic discussion is the reality that these prohibitions existed because these groups were perceived as deleterious influences on the Jewish polity; one would have to be blind and deaf to reality to presume that the Arab presence in Israel today (even Israeli Arabs) is innocuous, and that Arabs in Jewish neighborhoods pose no threat. All the naysayers in Israel should be challenged: how many Arabs live in their neighborhoods – in Caesarea, Ramat Aviv, Ra’anana, Re’ut and Shoham? How do they anticipate maintaining security for Jewish residents when Arabs move into Rechavia, Rechovot and Alon Shvut?

 * * * * *

 Some of the critics are being more than a little disingenuous. Others seemed to be troubled more by the theoretical loss of the right of Arabs to buy homes in Jewish neighborhoods than the actual loss of Jewish homes in Gush Katif.

 One very distinguished rosh yeshiva found fault with the rabbis’ letter for, among other reasons, calling for nidui, a form of excommunication, for those who will not heed the ban. He asserted that nidui is not mentioned as a penalty for a violation of lo techanem. But he erred, with all due respect, as the letter did not link nidui with lo techanem but with a separate halacha that prohibits the sale of Jewish-owned land even outside Israel to a non-Jewish anas (terrorist), and renders the Jewish seller also liable for damages caused to the remaining Jewish residents for “unleashing a lion upon them” (Bava Kama 114a, Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 334:43). Clearly, that is the context of the rabbi’s letter, motivated not by anti-Arab animus but by a love of Jewish life and in an attempt to safeguard it.

 There is a reason why the Jewish National Fund has refused to lease land to Arabs for a century; after all, it is the Jewish National Fund. There is a reason why there is a Law of Return that applies only to Jews. There is a reason why most Arabs are exempt from mandatory military service in Israel, a classic instance of discrimination.

 Whether we attribute the exemption to forestalling the psychological discomfort that might be caused to Israeli Arabs who have to wage war against other Arabs, or simply because the military does not trust the Arab soldier to be loyal to Israel (excluding of course the Bedouin, Druze, and Circassians, among the non-Jews who serve with great dedication in the IDF), the effect is the same: Arab citizens of Israel largely do not serve in the military because they do not uniformly see their destiny as part of the Jewish state of Israel.

             Obviously, none of this is relevant in an American context, in a nation that was founded on a non-denominational basis with liberty and justice for all. But removing these laws from Israeli society would engender a fine democracy while eviscerating the potential for a Jewish state.

 Intermarriage poses a similar dilemma to Jewish survival, and it is fascinating that the words v’lo techanem are followed immediately in the Torah by the proscription v’lo titchaten bam (Devarim 7:2-3), “and do not marry them.” It is hard to justify, or explain to an outsider, why in an enlightened, egalitarian, modern society, in which love should conquer all and be the only foundation for marriage, Jews cling to the “antiquated” notion that Jews should only marry Jews. Understandably, a group of Reform Jewish women, right on cue, pilloried the rebbetzins for their audacity in calling on Jewish women not to date or marry non-Jewish men.

 Will the rebbetzins’ declaration elicit the same catcalls from Orthodox circles as did the rabbis’ letter, and if so, on what grounds? Will the Nuremberg Laws be invoked again? Will the right of any American to marry any person serve as the predicate for a contemptuous dismissal of the rebbetzins’ concerns? Certainly, one can argue that lo techanem does not technically apply to Arabs, and argue similarly that the Torah does not technically ban “dating” non-Jews, only marrying them. But these are distinctions without differences. Both prohibitions share a common denominator: they are designed to preserve Jewish identity – as a covenantal people and as residents of the land with which God blessed our forefathers.

 So why does the Torah – which, after all, posits that all human beings are created in the image of God – discriminate between Jews and non-Jews in certain laws? Because Jews constitute one family (that’s why we always argue with each other), and family is allowed to treat non-family differently; otherwise, there is no purpose to family. Thus, we are enjoined to “love your neighbor as yourself,” but I am allowed to love my wife and children more than I love your wife and your children.

 As a Jew, I am commanded to love Jews more than I love non-Jews, not because there is anything wrong with non-Jews but because Jews are family. It is not immoral to distinguish family from non-family; it is right, natural and proper.

 Some critics evidently feared a public relations problem, but they need not have overreacted. They should have calmly explained that there are Torah laws that are designed to foster a communal spirit and brotherhood that is essential to Jewish life. We are not obligated to treat non-Jews as family, but it must be underscored that we are obligated to treat non-Jews fairly, decently, respectfully and with integrity – even in Israel – in a way in which they are able to pursue happiness and fulfillment in life, and, in Israel, as long as they acknowledge Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel.

 Indeed, I don’t believe lo techanem means that land in Israel may never, under any circumstances, be sold to non-Jews. But when the Saudis are attempting to buy thousands of dunams in the Galilee and might soon be able to overwhelm the Jewish presence there, it is suicidal to pretend that elementary measures to preserve Jewish life in Israel are somehow unnecessary or inherently immoral.

 Discrimination is a nasty word in an American context, so we should try another: havdalah. When Shabbat ends, we bless God who “distinguishes between the holy and the profane, between the light and the darkness, between Israel and the nations, and between the Shabbat and the six work days.”

 These distinctions might not play well in Peoria or on the editorial pages of The New York Times (or some secular Jewish newspapers), and it is injudicious to make them the focus of the Jewish public persona. But they are real, substantive, and, understood properly, should be unobjectionable to all good people.

 And they are also an important reminder to us that we are one family who share the blessings of our forefathers and who merit basking in the Divine Presence that has guided us back to the land of Israel to test our mettle, our faith in His Torah, and our worthiness for complete redemption.

      Andrew Jackson said of himself: “I was born for a storm, and a calm does not suit me” but he was not a Rav, and he lived in an especially tempestuous time. We all know the ease with which machloket are created and sustained in Jewish life and the rampant factionalization that besets us in the face of all the other enemies that we have. Jews can easily (too easily) define ourselves as anti-Satmar, anti-Chabad, anti-Haredi, anti-YU, anti-non-Orthodox, anti-everyone, anti-anyone-who-is-anti-anything, but at what cost ?

      Sin’at Chinam is the great stumbling block, here defined as Rav Shlomo Aviner does – the inability to accept that there are differences in Jewish life and hating another simply because he is different and has a different approach to a particular issue.

      But he added that that does not mean that we have to agree on everything, or be silent in the face of perceived violations of Torah norms, or abandon our roles as teachers of Torah, or shy away from articulating our views for fear of being labeled and castigated by a hostile, agenda-driven “Jewish” media. There must be a way to articulate our red lines, to call attention – without invective or r”l hatred of any sort – to perceived breaches of Torah or harmful trends in Jewish life, and to leave it at that, without personalizing the dispute and without engaging in a futile debate – but simply to state one’s sincere belief that “lo zu haderech”  – even if all that is accomplished is that our opposition to these innovations are recorded for posterity. This is not simply to satisfy the Yated Neeman that succinctly asked when this issue first arose ‘where is the RCA?’ – although it is not inappropriate that our Torah brethren should wonder about our views, if not organizationally, at least as constituent members. And there are cogent objections – based on halacha, hashkafa, et al.

     “Whoever can protest (prevent) the sin of his household or city and does not is apprehended for the same sin” (Shabbat 54b-55a). But the mecha’ah in those cases was for moral offenses – injustices, corruption, maltreatment of the vulnerable elements of society – and not for ideological deviations or halachic violations.

     It is fascinating – but not surprising – that the “Maharat” title did not catch on. The very need to concoct that addled acronym reflected, as one colleague wrote, the genuine concern that combining “woman” and “Rabbi” was so alien to the Torah community that the very articulation would doom the experiment. And so the  “Maharat” designation was a fig leaf hiding behind a smoke screen that fooled no one. (Q. What do you get when you cross a fig leaf and a smoke screen ? A. I don’t know, but eventually the fig leaf goes up in smoke.) It was a failed PR stunt, to have simple people believe that something is other than what it is. It was not the title that is provocative, but the role. As Rabbi Avi Shafran indicated, clarity helps. It is honest and edifying, and communicates who is within and without the Torah camp.

     Strange, isn’t it, that the ordination ceremony several months back did not pay tribute to Sally Priesand or Amy Eilberg, the first female Reform (1972) and Conservative (1985) rabbis, respectively. They were the pioneers, the trailblazers, without whom the institutions of Maharat or Rabbah would not even be a fantasy. Clearly, this just continues down the trail they blazed, and simple integrity would have insisted that deference be paid. Not to acknowledge their role – their inspiration – and instead to wrap the institution in the mantle of Bruriah and her troubled life – strikes me as less than forthright.

    Of course, I understand why that could not be done – any overt linkage to the Reform/Conservative movements would be the death knell of this deviation – but yashrut is yashrut. I would also have expected a public apology of sorts to the Reform/Conservative movements for impugning their reputation, and acknowledging their leadership and prescience on this issue. Such an apology can still be forthcoming, would go a long way towards Ahavat Yisrael and clarify still further the limits of Orthodoxy. That would be honest, and would help answer the question that dominates in these parts: If women rabbis were unacceptable from Sinai until today, then how could Torah-observant Jews suddenly accept it ?

     Yated several months back was most on target citing the Dubno Magid’s mashal of this methodology of psak – of drawing a bull’s eye and then placing the arrow right there. Of course proponents decided the outcome and then created ”responsa” around it (but that has become a staple of the leftist fringe of Modern Orthodoxy, if it can still be called that). There is a substantial element of Modern Orthodoxy that never lets halacha get in the way of a good time or whatever it really wants to do. To paraphrase Admiral Farragut memorable line from the Battle of Mobile Bay during the Civil War: “Damn the mesorah, full speed ahead.” Find a “way,” the “way” being a “creative” interpretation of a few select passages coupled with an utter rejection of any dissonant passages or tradition itself, and heartfelt expressions of courage, daring, and the higher morality involved. 

    The Torah speaks a number of times of the spiritual leaders of Israel as men – anshei chayil (in Parshat Yitro) or anashim (in Devarim). If the Gemara (Sukka 38a) can state that “a wife can recite blessings for her husband, but a curse should come upon a man whose wife and children recite blessings for him,” then what will we say of men who seek spiritual guidance and Torah knowledge from women ? The Baalei Mesora are men, charged with preserving the national institutions, even as women are entrusted with maintaining the familial institutions. We have always maintained that the latter is more critical to Jewish survival, a point of view derided today as patronizing and condescending. So we have partly abandoned that dynamic in modern times, and judging from the state of the Jewish world, at our peril.

     The objections to this innovation can be grounded in halachic issues of serara, psak, the inability of a woman to perform several functions of the Rabbinate (even a she is capable of performing others, like pastoral counseling) and the transformation of the public persona of a woman. It serves, in part, another subtle objective of the leftist ModOs – the downgrading of the role and position of Rabbi into that of a glorified social worker and spiritual cheerleader.

    There are two greater objections: the utter disregard of norms of tzniut, with which ModOs generally struggle, and the corruption of the methodology of psak that transmits the Mesora and Jewish cultural norms and societal values. The only way to consider in this context the compelling Jewish value of “the glory of the King’s daughter is within” (kal kevuda bat melech penima- Tehillim 45:14) is essentially to discount it and say it has no relevance in the modern Western world. Thus, this ideal of Jewish femininity – the disinclination to seek a public spiritual role, cited by Chazal hundreds of times – is simply written out of the Torah system. And why ?
  

     It is dismissed in order to accommodate the doctrine of Western egalitarianism that wages war against the traditional division of roles in society, and demands that there be no distinctions between men and women. And what if the Mesorah cannot be reconciled with Western values ? Therein lies the great demarcation in Jewish life – between those who will remain faithful to the Mesorah  and those who will tamper with it and pretend it is still whole, or even improved. (I find the simplistic references to Sarah Schenirer a”h and women’s Talmud Torah today quite tedious. The basic facts are that until quite recently there was no general, formal education for women or men, not only in Jewish life but across the world. Only the elites were educated. This changed with the phenomenon of compulsory education – for both men and women – that was a late Enlightenment requirement. Then, faced with a choice of men and women receiving only a secular, public school education, Sarah Schenirer successfully stepped into that breach. The opposition to her was rooted in the belief that the Old World would somehow return. It does a disservice to proponents of “women Rabbis” to cite her, and her patrons the Chofetz Chaim and the Gerrer Rebbi, all of whom would roll in their holy graves to find their decisions mentioned in this context. It is more than a bit disingenuous.)

     Yes, yes, the Torah is alive, and by its very nature provides us eternal guidance to deal with the challenges of every generation. That is not to say that each issue can only be resolved one (stringent) way, nor that the Torah is completely frozen and cannot be adapted to new circumstances. It is to say that we should be wary of those who can “declare a sheretz pure according to the Torah” (Sanhedrin 17a). Such a creative judge is eligible to sit on the Sanhedrin, but the sheretz is still impure. If we want to be creative, absorb Western values into the Torah, and create a new hybrid, many of us can find good grounds on which to permit tax evasion (Western materialism) or even pilagshim (Western decadence). That we don’t is not only because those causes are not politically correct (a driving force in this issue), although undoubtedly each would have its lobbyists, but because there is an inner sense of what sustains the Mesorah and what undermines it – of what advances the holiness of Jewish life and what impedes it.

    To many ModOs, the Torah is to be, as Thomas Jefferson said of some judges’ view of the American Constitution, “twisted and shaped as an artist shapes a ball of wax.”  But is there no real substance in Torah, and should the public rightly perceive that the Torah keeps changing and lacks consistency or structure ? “Some wrote that a chacham is forbidden to permit something ‘astonishing’ that the masses will think that something forbidden is now permitted” (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah, 242:10). Is there anything more astonishing to a Torah Jew than the notion of  “women Rabbis”? Lay the cards on the table: what stronghold will next be assaulted ? Women as witnesses, the mechitza, the legitimization of homosexuality, the blurring of distinctions between different religions ?  When egalitarianism becomes the defining value of Jewish life, then those restrictions must be galling, if not downright immoral. Note how the very notion of “female clergy” is a staple of non-Orthodox religious movements, Jewish – and non-Jewish. Non-Orthodox. Res ipsa loquitur.

        Sadly, since this phenomenon arises from the students of Rav Soloveitchik, it certainly tarnishes the legacy of the Rav, zt”l, who never entertained such notions. Maharal writes (Avot 1:1) that a true talmid need not hear everything from his Rebbi; the true talmid answers like his Rebbi would have without having heard his Rebbi actually say it. The broader point is that one need not embrace every psak of one’s Rebbi, or becoming (as famously described) just a parrot. But it does mean embracing the mesorah of the Rebbi, and in this case, some of the Rav’s students are not necessarily his talmidim. True, the Rav gave the first women’s Talmud shiur at Stern; but it is also true that he did not invite Stern talmidot to sit in his shiur in RIETS. There was only so much elasticity in the Rav’s views. There is no record of the Rav ever considering a female Rabbi as in the realm of the possible in the Torah world. Does anyone doubt that the Rav would have rejected the excesses and deviations of some of his students ? It wasn’t a lack of “courage” that inhibited the Rav, or even a sense that society was not “ready” for novelties; it was rather fidelity to the halachic process and the Mesorah, and to cherished Minhagei Yisrael.

     How do we refute this assertion: “The Conservatives follow the Reform just a decade later, and the left-wing Orthodox follow the Conservatives two decades later.” It is as if the Reformers proclaim the “value” to be implemented and disregard the halacha, the Conservatives find the solution by changing the halacha, and the left-wing Orthodox then “find” the same solution “within” halacha ! The logic seems irrefutable, and therefore the overwhelming majority of the Torah world – yes, readers of Yated and others who don’t read Yated, and people whose opinions we should care about – will rightly reject it. But it does mock the halachic process in a way that should offend all of us.

     I personally do not believe that engagement with the modern world inevitably entails accepting every cultural fad (read: value) as either imperative or elevating, but clearly some do. It does require that we remain discerning, with the ability to be mavdil bein kodesh l’chol.

    As it is, the feminization of the Reform and Conservative movements has devastated them, with women comprising approximately 2/3 of their average weekly attendance. Men have fled in droves. It is odd, then, from a purely pragmatic perspective, that a group among us should now be traversing that same path. Fortunately, the Torah world will not accept it but “Modern Orthodoxy” will be discredited (as I have already witnessed among the youth in my community) and perhaps the “Open Haredi” approach (as someone here coined) will be the wave of the future.

     I feel no need to apologize for the Mesorah, or the traditional roles recognized in Jewish life. Halacha is a categorical system. Women are exempt from time-bound mitzvot both pre-child rearing and post-child rearing (to borrow the reasoning of Rav David Abudraham) and men are obligated even if they are single fathers raising their children. The mesorah speaks in categorical terms, and those categories have sustained Jewish life even if some people chafe under them. But we tamper with the Mesorah at our peril, and the changing role of women in our society has been a mixed blessing.

     It is by now axiomatic, sadly so, that anything can (and will) be permitted by someone, and anything can (and will) be prohibited by someone else. So we look, for normative psak, to a consensus of poskim, mindful that there will always be extremes on both sides. These winds of change do not at all rattle the House of Torah but do shake the foundations of Modern Orthodoxy, which will be forced to detach itself officially from its outliers who rightly and honestly belong in another camp.

     Women have much to offer the Torah world, as is well known, and women’s Talmud Torah has been one of the inspiring phenomena of recent Jewish life. But that is not to say that, therefore, women are ipso facto the same as men and the halachic distinctions between the sexes must be blurred or vitiated. That may be an aspiration of liberal Americans but not of Torah Jews. Worthy women have historically been spiritual role models, but never spiritual leaders, and fidelity to Torah – for all Jews – involves recognizing both opportunities and limitations. And those limitations stem from the constructs of halacha and minhag, and not what a group of people perceives that the Jewish society can tolerate or accept at any given time.

     I predict (always a dangerous venture) that this phenomenon will be self-marginalizing. A schism is upon us, sadly and unnecessarily, but not unexpectedly. In every generation the fences of Torah are breached, and at times by people who were once firmly inside them, and clarity is indispensable. Windows enable us to gaze upon the world outside, but keep the cold winds outside as well. Not all windows are the same quality, and some windows let in a draft that upsets the entire house. New movements have to define themselves by breaking away from the establishment. But people should know and understand the roots of the opposition, and the few proponents of this – who are tolerant of so much – should be tolerant of this opposition, and its consequences, as well.

    And may we all continue to act for the glory of G-d and His Torah.

     Ordinarily, the founding of a new rabbinical organization would not be an occasion for comment, or even much general interest, as Jews are well known for organizations that are either redundant or promote – even just for vanity – the interests of one person. And since not all doctors belong to the AMA, not all lawyers belong to the ABA, and not all seasoned citizens belong to the AARP, why should all Orthodox Rabbis belong to any of the current five, six or seven existing rabbinical organizations ? If in the rest of Jewish communal life, the slightest difference in tinge, color or philosophy warrants a new organization (with overhead costs, officers, fund-raising, dinners, etc.), why should Rabbis be different ? Indeed, everyone knows (although few admit) that the quest for “unity” in Jewish life usually means “agree with ME or I will go my own way” (and everyone is a ME to himself). As such, the formation of any new organization is rather unsurprising.

     There is an interest, though, in highlighting the stated objectives of this new organization, if only out of a desire to propagate the Torah truth and safeguard the Mesora, as I see it. If several dozen Rabbis find fault with the ideological direction of the more than 1000 member RCA, not to mention the thousands of Orthodox Rabbis who are considered as part of the right-wing world, it is legitimate to inquire as to the nature of the disagreements, and whether they contain any substance.

     Clearly, they find the influence of the “Roshei Yeshiva” as stultifying – certainly those in the Yeshiva world but perhaps even most at Yeshiva University. They are perceived – probably justifiably – as resistant to the “changes” in Jewish life, first made by the Conservative movement in the last century but now embraced as a legitimate expression of “Torah” by proponents of this new organization. Actually, the rivalry between Roshei Yeshiva and shul (or town) Rabbis is not new, but was a staple of Jewish communal life in Eastern Europe. There, the balance of power favored the town Rabbis – and not the Roshei Yeshiva – as the town Rabbis were considered both scholars and pragmatists, and were more actively involved in people’s lives. Indeed, in Europe, it was considered more prestigious to be a town Rabbi than a Rosh Yeshiva.

     Today, the balance of power has shifted somewhat, and Roshei Yeshiva are, if not more respected (I have no complaints in that regard), then at least widely construed as more reliable and consistent interpreters of halacha. This is perhaps an over-generalization, and is shaped by three distinct phenomena: one, many people do not have a Rosh Yeshiva, and for them their Rabbi remains the exclusive address for Torah advice and guidance (that is a good part of my job); two, many students who spend years learning with a particular teacher develop a warm personal relationship with him, which is quite natural and understandable; three, Roshei Yeshiva generally train the pulpit Rabbis, and the burden of proof is on the Rabbi to justify why  he deviated from his teacher’s path.

     It is not my place to judge the relative Torah scholarship of Roshei Yeshiva vs. pulpit Rabbis, as there are many pulpit Rabbis (and Roshei Yeshiva) who are fine, outstanding Talmidei Chachamim. To be a pulpit Rabbi or a Rosh Yeshiva requires a different set of skills. Because pulpit Rabbis live in the grass roots, their decisions are often rooted in a greater awareness of communal concerns; conversely, Roshei Yeshiva can be in an “ivory tower,” unaware of how their decisions will affect a community beyond the individual who questioned them. Even to suggest that the world of Roshei Yeshiva is monolithic, or that their decisions are necessarily correct, would be misleading. And no one is infallible.

    But the pulpit Rabbi is also subject to pressures that the Rosh Yeshiva is not, and therefore Roshei Yeshiva today have become – fairly or not – perceived as more coherent defenders of the Mesora against the onslaught of modern cultures and its insatiable demands on halacha and minhag Yisrael. Undoubtedly, that underlies the discomfort (distaste ?) this new organization feels toward the authority of the “Roshei Yeshiva” who have not been forthcoming on issues of importance to them.

     Three examples suffice: the nascent movement among some liberal-Orthodox Rabbis to find a place for practicing homosexuals in Orthodox life, usually by embracing the politicized conclusions of academics that homosexuality is innate, and it is therefore wrong – even immoral – to term homosexuality an abomination or homosexuals sinners. I’ll address that another time, but the attempt to accept homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle, and even support the legalization of homosexual marriage, may be an expression of sensitivity and compassion on some level but is clearly driven by the popular culture. That itself erodes the respect that these Rabbis think should be theirs, and increases in inverse proportion the ire they feel towards the “Roshei Yeshiva.” That is to say, they lose credibility as representatives of Torah when they adopt such trendy views, and founding five or ten new organizations will not change that one iota. Simply put, the mass of Torah-faithful Klal Yisrael will not stand for it.

     Secondly, “liberal” Orthodox Rabbis call for relaxed standards for converts, and dissent from the standards promulgated several years ago by the RCA. They would rather revert to the practices of the recent past, where Rabbis were often compelled to look away from insincerity, or pretend that halachic commitment existed where it patently did not. See http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/30621 . But an individual Rabbi retains the autonomy to pronounce a particular restaurant kosher or not, based on standards that others can accept or reject; he does not have the right to dictate to the nation of Israel who will properly be termed a citizen. (I refer here not to the State of Israel but to the Jewish people. Membership in the Jewish people is not determined by the predilections of individual rabbis but by generally-accepted standards. Nor was the State of Israel endowed with the authority to declare “who is a Jew;” they can only decide “who is an Israeli.”)

     The third issue is that (now) century-old bugaboo of women’s rights and feminism. I have no doubt that the International Rabbinic Fellowship will find a way to admit women as members, and as Rabbis, and thereby in the short-term necessitate a change in their name (already!) to International Rabbinic Fellowship and Galship (IRFG).

     More seriously, I sense their inner turmoil. They would like to ordain women as rabbis, but fear the obvious repercussions. Similarly, they must chafe at the mechitza, women’s inadmissibility as witnesses, judges, or in a minyan, or the restrictions on women in public prayer, or the very notion that the Torah ideal is based on a division of roles and responsibilities between men and women (analogous to the division between kohanim, leviim and yisraelim). They recognize the “mechitza” as a political statement – a clear sign of Orthodoxy in a synagogue, as lack of a mechitza is a clear sign of non-Orthodoxy. So they are stuck – emotionally, intellectually, halachically and spiritually – and therefore bristle at organizations – RCA, Young Israel, Aguda – that do not give them cover or succor, and at people – “Roshei Yeshiva” – whose authority, popularity and credibility they resent, and crave for themselves. It must be hard to explain these encroachments on the altar of egalitarianism to their constituents who have learned to expect flexibility-on-demand in halacha.

      So they skirt the issues, and implausibly think they can introduce gimmicks for women (sheva brachot in English, serve as Rabbis without the title, etc.) that do not really satiate the demand for equality, and are themselves rationalized by cherry-picking halachic sources and ignoring the mesora. Women’s prayer groups and the Yoetzet movement (the latter, more understandable in Israel where the Rabbinate is largely dysfunctional) are just two examples of the straight line one can draw from the Reform ordination of women in the early 1970’s and the Conservative ordination in the 1980’s until today. What changed ? Why did Orthodoxy vehemently oppose those ordinations then, and a few support it today ? Were we sexist, male chauvinists then, and more enlightened today ? Did it take thirty years to find the sources to rationalize it ? Not at all. The secular world changed, and for those whose halachic foundations shift with every change in the secular world, their world had to change as well.

    In brief, one has to line up a number of halachic ducks in a row (permitting women to learn Torah she-be-al peh, sing in public, speak before male audiences, decide matters of Jewish law, et al – each one somewhat controversial, some more controversial than others) in order to entertain these changes. The outcome is predetermined, because the psak is not based on an honest appraisal of sources but on finding the supportive sources and ignoring the rest. And then one has to wantonly discount Minhag Yisrael.

    Some of my dearest colleagues who endorsed either (or both) women’s prayer groups or yoatzot (I didn’t) now find themselves on the horns of a dilemma. Each move raised expectations, each move fostered the idea that we were revising the traditional role of women in Jewish life, or entirely abandoning it as both antiquated and repugnant – and so each move just encouraged the next one and the one after that.

     We can always play with halacha in an attempt to devise new roles. A husband is as capable of lighting Shabbat candles as his wife is, and usually less harried. How uplifting it would be if men went to the mikveh monthly, as well as women. Nothing wrong with that; some men go every day. We can also find a way to eat milk right after meat; we don’t, because that has no lobby. We also don’t, because that is not our tradition. The Torah – not liberal society – also determines our values, not just our practices.

     The real dividing line in Jewish life today is between those who are happy with the mesora and those unhappy with the mesora. Kabbalat Ol Malchut Shamayim (acceptance of the yoke of G-d’s kingship) demands that we accept the mesora even if we deem ourselves “more enlightened;” otherwise, we – like Nadav and Avihu before us – are worshipping ourselves, and not the Almighty. And isn’t that the ultimate reality of Western man today – self-worship ? If I am unhappy with the Mesora, it is because of something within me that needs rectification. I have to bend to the Torah’s will, and not bend the Torah to suit my will. Those who live with grievances against the Torah must recognize that on some level, as Moshe once said to his flock, “…your complaints are not against us, but against G-d” (Sh’mot 16:8).

     The feminist movement ravaged the American family, with skyrocketing rates of divorce that have only recently begun to level off, with a majority of children born out-of-wedlock, and with the continuing unreliability of the home as the transmitter of values. The Jewish world has suffered from this as well, and we should not look to repeat the mistakes from which American society is already retreating.

      Sometimes, the answer to a she’ela is “no” – like the answer a wise parent has to give to a child on occasion.  Any organization founded on the principle that a leniency can always be found to justify what we want to do (women, converts, homosexuals, Shabbat, you name it) will attract like-minded, tenuously-committed Jews but will soon be an anachronism, leaving only the questions: how much damage can it do to Jewish life ? How many well-meaning Jews will be misled into thinking that the Torah is a ball of wax that can be shaped any way they want in order to satisfy their needs ? How will pulpit Rabbis retain the respect of Torah Jews ? And how long before the Torah world rejects these notions, and this new organization merges with some form of Conservative Judaism that posited the same approach in the last century, with devastating results for Jewish life ?

     The reality is that men are the transmitters of the Mesora, and therefore entrusted with responsibilities of psak and leadership. Man’s nature is such that he will not regularly seek out a female teacher of any sort – and certainly not Torah – and those who doubt this should behold the steep decline in male attendance at female-led temples. Any attempt to tamper with the Mesora will not succeed, and the very framework of this new organization will be self-marginalizing. The “Roshei Yeshiva” will reject it, and so will most of the RCA, and the Yeshiva world, and the educated young people of today – men and women – and the religious world in Israel. It will be a curiosity, like Edah that came and went. And the second reality is that women are partners in transmitting the Mesora, but with a different role, different responsibilities, and, yes, different skill sets to help them fulfill their role. Their contributions are indispensable, their growth in Torah is a marvelous development – but neither should lead to a diminution or elimination of their traditional role on which the Jewish family depends, literally, for its survival.

     Should these individuals be purged from the RCA ? I am not enamored of purges, and the RCA can certainly accommodate a wide range of thinking, something natural to the study of Torah in any event. But anyone who thinks that a particular rabbinical organization no longer suits them should probably resign; I know I would. The saddest aspect is that many of the individuals involved – I am not familiar with all of them – are very talented teachers and leaders, with much to offer the Jewish people. Indeed, their greatest weakness might be a boundless love of every Jew that precludes them from inflicting on Jews the slightest pain – even the pain that comes from hearing the word “no.” With Jewish identity under attack (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/books/24jews.html?pagewanted=2&em) and the target of the most vulgar distortions and lies, we need all Jews and especially all Rabbis to strengthen the Torah and not to dilute it. We need clarity and consistency – from generation to generation. There needs to be the expectation that halacha will not change because of interest-group politics.

     In America, everyone has the right to found an organization that propounds any philosophy. And everyone has the right – sometimes the obligation – to challenge that organization, to defend what is pure and holy, to expose (where possible) hidden motivations, and to underscore the beauty of our mesora – the tree of life of Torah, for those who want to grasp it.

     The most noticeable change in the daily davening routine is the Birkat Kohanim that occurs every morning (twice on Shabbat) in Israel, except in a few isolated places. As a Levi charged with hand-washing duty, I step outside during every Chazarat Hashatz to take care of business, and, aside from the occasional bout of Carpal-tunnel syndrome (one shul had 18 kohanim !), I enjoy it immensely. The daily blessing is a feature of life that we do not have in the exile, and for reasons that are entirely unclear.

      While there are scattered Sefaradic congregations in the exile that duchan every day, the prevailing custom follows the opinion of the Rema (Shulchan Orach,  Orach Chaim 128:44): “It is customary in these countries that the kohanim do not lift their hands except on festivals, because then people are immersed in the jubilation of the festivals, and [only] the good-hearted person can bless. On the other days of the year – even on Shabbat – people are overwrought with concerns about sustenance and losing time from work …” And in Israel they are always cheerful, and not running off to work ?!

     This inference, needless to say, has been the source of enormous controversy – especially since Birkat Kohanim is incumbent on kohanim, one of the 613 commandments, and essentially not at all related to happiness or joy. The Gemara, for example, never mentions that the fulfillment of this mitzva is dependent on a joyous state, any more than any other Mitzva, or that an absence of joy precludes its observance. There have been several attempts among Ashkenazim to restore the daily practice even in the exile – and all have failed. Most famously, the Gaon of Vilna endeavored to do it, finding the traditional custom unsubstantiated, but the night before the practice was to have been reinstituted in Vilna, the Gaon was arrested on unrelated charges. He interpreted this as a sign from Heaven to desist.

      The Aruch Hashulchan (128:64) says there is no good reason why we do not duchan, calling it a “minhag garua” (terrible custom) – but says that it is as if it has been decreed from Heaven that in the exile we refrain from this daily blessing. The question is why, and what does all this have to do with happiness ?

       Jewish life here has a natural rhythm to it – part similar and part dissimilar to our experiences. We all have shuls, the davening is the same (except for the above), the noise during davening is about the same, and the forms of mitzvot are identical. There is an ease to the observance of kashrut here – restaurants and marketplaces – but, truth be told, it is easy in Teaneck too. But there is a welcome change in Israel that has happened so gradually that it has taken some people by surprise, and left others in denial. Here is a headline from last Friday’s Jerusalem Post: “Drastic Decline in Israelis who define themselves as Secular.” The Israel Democracy Institute reported that whereas in 1974, 41% of Israelis saw themselves as secular, that figure has decreased to 20% – with the religious population at 33% (but 39% under the age of 40 !) and the traditional at 47%. That is a sea change, and, of course, completely unreflected in the public persona of the state. That 20% secular population controls – with a stranglehold through manipulation of the law and the political system – the government, the army, the media, the police and the judiciary – and partly explains their current desperation to surrender to the Arabs at any cost and in defiance of all logic. But the effect of the demographic shift has a ripple effect on the rest of society. The ubiquity of religious Jews here is a sharp contrast to what we are used to – even in New Jersey.

       Modiin is a mixed city, and we live on an especially heterogeneous street – with religious and not(-yet?) religious Jews, Israelis and Anglos, Ashkenazim and Sefaradim. Of the many reasons we chose to live in Modiin, one was my desire not to live in an exclusively religious neighborhood as one finds in most parts of Israel. The cloistering of religious life is not a healthy development, and pleasant interactions in a mixed neighborhood can only bode well for co-existence and harmony among all Jews. “Live and let live” sounds reasonable to us, but, trust me, it is a revolutionary concept in the Middle East. On Israel Radio’s Reshet Aleph, the evening’s all-religious programming is termed Reshet Moreshet (literally, Heritage Network), with the catchphrase: “L’kal Yisrael yesh moreshet achat – All Israel has one heritage”. Indeed.

     That is not to say that there aren’t tensions that arise from two divergent world views. But the local disputes, such as there are, are understandable even in an American context: competition for slices of the municipal pie. Should vacant land be used to build a library or a shul, should another plot be a Chareidi elementary school or a religious-Zionist high school, should a temporary shul housed in a school be dislodged so the school can have a computer room ? The reality is that Modiin began 12 years ago with a tiny religious population that has grown exponentially in the last few years (including a disproportionate number of Teanecker’s !), and the current religious population is woefully underserved in terms of its religious needs. But that will surely change in the years ahead, as the politics and the politicians adjust to the new realities – and this is true not only in Modiin but elsewhere in Israel as well.

      What Israel lacks most is the sense of religious community that we have, for example, in Teaneck. Whereas our lives can revolve around the shul, and there is a community rabbi to whom we turn, that institution is mostly lacking in Israel, and American expatriates always tell me that is what they miss most. There is a nearby shul located on Shabbat in a school (known to the Israelis as the “American shul”), where they are trying to replicate that American-Jewish experience, with a fine young Rabbi, social and youth activities, shiurim, ruach, etc. – and they are in the early stages of what will surely be a successful endeavor and hopefully a template that other communities can emulate.

      But without a central Rabbinic figure, most shuls remain lay-driven (with all the positives and negatives that portends). They exist as a place to daven, period. (A Yemenite Jew, who had duchened – I had washed his hands – was called up for revi’i. When I inquired, the gabbai said he had wondered the same thing, and perhaps the Yemenites have a custom that the kohen can get any aliya. I responded that perhaps the Yemenites have a custom that a Yisrael can duchan too !) Without a central authority, strange things can happen.

      The bright side is that people become more involved because the success of each minyan depends on every person. While the local shul here remains to be built, there are minyanim on the street, and an especially beautiful Maariv minyan every night at 9:30 P.M. under the stars in the park on our corner. Literally out of the darkness within a minute from 9:29 P.M., approximately 25-30 people materialize, face Yerushalayim, and daven in the crisp evening air. In addition to a Monday night shiur in English, I have been asked to speak in several shuls (in Hebrew) on a number of occasions – and I have, surely coining a few heretofore unknown Hebrew words in the process.

      Religious life, then, is suffused with normalcy, except for the realization – by most people but especially olim – that to build Jewish life in the land of Israel is historic, momentous, and – there is no other way to say it – the way it is supposed to be. And perhaps that is what the Rema meant. Simcha is a sense of contentment and completeness about life, in which an aura of purposefulness and meaning prevails. The Birkat Kohanim reflect that state of being, and when we abstain from Birkat Kohanim in the exile – except when immersed in the joy and sanctity of Yom Tov – we recognize that we either can not or should not have that sense of completeness – the full blessings of Jewish life – on a regular basis.

       That feeling is limited to when the Jewish people live in Israel, fulfill the Torah and serve G-d in all aspects of life – as will be the destiny of all Jews, we pray, in the near future.                   

                                         Shabbat Shalom from Modiin !

     If living in Israel is complicated and eating in Israel is more complicated, then eating in Israel during a Shmitta year is almost an impenetrable maze. In general, the multitude of local Rabbinates, many with standards of Kashrut than are unacceptable to one accustomed to RCBC or OU standards, make kashrut (and shopping or eating out) a treacherous minefield. It is not merely a question of glatt vs. non-glatt; there are even different standards of glatt, different standards of mehadrin – and even a familiarity with Yoreh Deah is not always conclusive. But shmitta adds a dimension that exalts life here – with a constant reminder of the sanctity of the land of Israel – and also confounds, mystifies and bewilders.

First, the good news. The fundamental obligation of Shmitta is to allow one’s land to lie fallow – not to do any work that does more than maintain the land for future use. We administer a small plot of land outside our home, roughly half the size of a basketball foul lane, and I hate gardening. In fact, I am willing to let my land lie fallow for this entire year and for the next six years as well (on the small chance that they have the wrong date for Shmitta). So I have found that aspect of Shmitta to be one of the easier mitzvot in the Torah to fulfill.

But one has to eat too, and therein lay the perplexities. The Torah declares a moratorium on private ownership of the land of Israel every seven years. Theoretically, any person is entitled to walk onto a field and grab enough produce for a day’s meal. On a practical level, two issues arise relating to fruits, vegetables and other produce: first, they have to be treated with Kedushat Shvi’it (meaning consumed in their usual way and not squandered or thrown in the trash). Every shmitta observant home contains a special receptacle to store peels and leftover produce until they decay, at which point they can be discarded. Of course, there is a special significance in consuming Peirot Shvi’it properly, as it is a mitzva in its own right and affords an additional awareness of what it means to be dwelling in a holy and blessed land.

The second issue, though, is where the majority of complications set in: it is forbidden to commercially sell Peirot Shvi’it. So, in a modern economy, how can the producer get the product to the consumer in a way that does not violate the laws of Shmitta ? On this point, there is no agreement, much disagreement (some of it vehement), and whatever method one chooses attracts both support and opposition.

There are three main methods: to purchase produce from an Otzar Bet Din, to purchase what is called Yevul Nochri (non-Jewish produce, either Arab or European), or rely on the famous Heter Mechira, the “sale” of the land to Arabs in order to allow Jewish workers to work their fields (slightly differently than in the other years) and then sell their produce to Jews.

The Otzar Bet Din is, by far, the preferred arrangement. Effectively, a communal body assumes control of Jewish fields and their produce, pays the farmers a sum of money to do the work on behalf of the Bet Din, and then sells the produce – proceeds to the Bet Din – at certain designated stores. This process is mentioned in a Tosefta, and was endorsed by the Chazon Ish, thereby carrying a lot of weight in these parts. But the Rambam doesn’t cite this as a halachic possibility, many authorities don’t accept it, and many farmers (probably for financial reasons) do not wish to be part of the Otzar Bet Din system.

Non-Jewish produce poses the fewest halachic problems, especially if it comes from outside the land of Israel entirely. (The Chazon Ish, for example, ruled that even Arab-owned produce in the land of Israel has to be treated with Kedushat Shvii’it.) But the notion of buying produce from Arabs does not sit well with many people, it is especially abhorrent and repugnant to purchase it from the new “owners” of the hothouses of the former Gush Katif (at least the ones they didn’t ransack), and it is widely assumed that such purchases underwrite terror. Yet, it is the preferred method for Charedim, and has – again –  unleashed torrents of abuse against them. One writer (in classic Israeli understated fashion) termed them “Palestinians l’mehadrin.”

Much of the criticism, to me at least, seems misdirected. It is hard to accept that the government of Israel can turn over the Palestinians $60,000,000 in cash – and that “will not fund terror” – but if one wants to observe the law of the Torah and buy a cucumber for a shekel from an Arab, then that is “funding terror.” And for the other six years of the cycle, Israel and the Palestinian occupied territories are each other’s largest importers and exporters – so, then, is it only during shmitta that this becomes a concern ?

Of course, who can verify that it is actually Arab produce ? There were cases in the past of Israeli farmers unscrupulously selling their produce to an Arab “middleman” who then re-sold it as yevul nochri. In the Arab shuk, a few weeks ago, I saw Israeli tomatoes being wheeled to some unknown destination. So who really knows what it is ? (They have tried to compensate for this by sending in mashgichim to Arab-occupied areas with security escorts, but who really knows ?)

The third method is the most controversial – the sale of the land of Israel to an Arab. It is a tactic that is now well over a century old that was endorsed by many gedolim in the past (and opposed by many as well). Rav Kook, in 1904, endorsed its use temporarily, as “an emergency measure to prevent starvation.” Undoubtedly, in the context of his time, he was correct. But no one will starve today, and it is more a question of loss of farmer’s income than anything else. But yet, every shmitta cycle, the “sale” is carried out, with fewer and fewer straight faces.

Some have falsely analogized this sale to the ‘sale of chametz‘ before Pesach, but, in fact, their functions are completely opposite. We sell the chametz in order to fulfill the Torah’s requirement that we not own chametz on Pesach. We don’t want the chametz on Pesach – and so we divest ourselves – we only want to possess it after Pesach. The “sale” of Eretz Yisrael has the exact opposite effect; it is an attempt to circumvent the Torah’s proscription of not working the land during shmitta. The analogy would be apt if a person “sold” his chametz on Pesach, and then transacted business with it.

The substance of the heter mechira, you will surely recall, we studied in depth on Shavuot night in 1999, so I will not re-hash it here while it is still fresh in your minds. But a few points to ponder: What is actually being sold ? (I was told just the topsoil.) So, is there a mitzva of aliya this year, as the land is owned by Arabs ? Will all residents hold two-days Yom Tov ? Is there reward for walking four amot in the land, since one walks on the topsoil ? How does one sell a country anyway ? (Actually, that happens too). I am being half-facetious.

And here is the greatest irony: the proponents of selling the land to an Arab are the group in society most adamantly opposed to surrendering any land to the Arabs, not only on security grounds but also based on the Torah’s prohibition of Lo Techanem (not providing any non-Jew with permanent real estate in Israel). Furthermore, the Religious Zionists – the ones most engaged in implementing the Torah in a modern Jewish state – are essentially conceding through use of the heter that this part of the Torah – observance of Shmitta – is incompatible with a modern state; while those who are not Zionists at all – and not averse to receiving handouts, which sustains the many frum farmers who observe shmitta completely – are in the position of arguing that the Torah – in all its categories and laws – is compatible with a modern Jewish state. Go figure. Of course, keep in mind that the great advantage of the heter is that it supports Jewish farmers, and that itself is an important mitzva.

Add to this the fact that the Chief Rabbinate has been lukewarm in its endorsement of the heter, that many jurisdictions have prohibited use of the heter, that the Rabbanut has been ordered by the High Court of Justice to implement the heter (!) and that a new Rabbinical organization named Tzohar has offered its own hashgacha using the heter and breaking the Rabbanut’s kashrut monopoly in the process – what we have is a major league balagan. Personally, we try to avoid use of the heter, patronize the Otzar Bet Din and mehadrin shmitta stores – but even what mehadrin means is hard to know for sure.  Every question has an answer, and every answer generates new questions. Perhaps the balagan was meant to be.

A few weeks ago, we were driving on the Ayalon Highway from north to south Tel Aviv. To be more accurate, we were really sitting in traffic on the Ayalon Highway, and not moving at all. As we entered and were stopped dead in our tracks, the road-sign above read “P’kahk ad Kibbutz Galuyot“, or “Gridlock until the ‘Kibbutz Galuyot’ Exit” (the last Tel Aviv exit on the highway). As I sat there (with little else to do), I contemplated the sign, and saw the deeper message: indeed, there is gridlock – spiritual gridlock – and there will be, until all the exiles come home and until Moshiach arrives. Only then will all these questions be answered, all these problems resolved, and as Torah Jews we will speak with one voice in acknowledging the Torah that comes from Zion, and the word of G-d that comes from Yerushalayim.

Until then, as the old joke ends, the minhag is to fight about it. Until then… which we pray comes speedily and in our time.