Author Archives: Rabbi

Secrets

Posted on June 28, 2013 | 4 comments

Secrets
A few years ago, I visited the headquarters of the National Security Agency (NSA), the nation’s most secretive organization, about 20 minutes or so outside Washington, DC. Well, I didn’t actually visit it. I was right outside – my business was in the vicinity – but stumbled upon it. It is a massive complex surrounded by fences, barbed wire and guard posts. What struck me was that the parking lot contained, without exaggeration, thousands of cars crunched together, and I marveled that the NSA with so many thousands of workers could do its work without leaks or breaches of security.
Hello, Edward Snowden.
Snowden, who presents as such a weird duck that one wonders how he got a sensitive job at all (he didn’t work in that Maryland facility), has taken the liberty – as many leftists do – of harming US security and revealing secrets because of the undetermined and inscrutable cause for which he is fighting. For sure, the reality that private conversations can be monitored and private emails read and intercepted came as a shock to the American civil system that prides itself on personal space and the right to privacy. Granted, government officials claim that no calls/emails of private citizens were invaded, but, understandably, no one really believes them. Usually, it takes time for abuses to surface, if they do at all, and these allegations are simple to deny and difficult to prove. There is some poetic justice in the “most transparent administration of all time,” as the Obama-nation proclaimed it would be, looking to justify its spying when it lambasted prior administrations for doing the same and less. And the IRS scandal, which really pried into and interfered with American lives, is still awaiting its liberal John Dean to blow the lid off the cover-up. Is there anyone in the administration with a conscience, at long last?
Here’s the thing: I don’t really care about the NSA. My life is not that interesting that the government should want to unleash spies to target me and probe my phone calls (few and brief) and emails (even fewer and briefer). I have long felt that the passive but persistent encroachments on personal freedom affect only the criminals, not the law-abiding, in which group I cast myself. The streets of most American cities are loaded with cameras (only the red-light cameras threaten me). Wherever we walk – subway or stores – we are watched by cameras. None of that bothers me; I am not about to mug or shoplift.
The more aggressive and useless invasions of privacy still grate, especially the airport security personnel. It is senseless to search every 75 year-old named Agnes when the real targets are 25 year-olds named Ahmed. Much of it, in any event, is security theater that provides the illusion of security but mainly serves to protect higher-ups from accusations of negligence if, God forbid, something goes wrong. “We followed our standard procedure of strip-searching nonagenarians with hip replacements and we dutifully confiscated the water bottles from screaming children. We must have missed something in that group carrying their prayer rugs who were whining about racial profiling.”
In any event, the Israeli satirical web site Latma (Latma.co.il) had it right when it “reported” a few weeks ago that “Americans are very upset to learn that the government has been spying on their private lives, even before they have a chance to post about it on Facebook.” There is something bizarre about a nation of emotional exhibitionists baring their every secret (and more) in the public domain, and then griping about a loss of privacy. Of course, the government has no right to intrude, and every American possesses a constitutional right to make an absolute fool of himself/herself by reporting on the inanities of their lives and sharing every stray, incomplete thought in incomplete and ungrammatical sentences. But a little self-awareness is also appropriate.
Privacy unappreciated and underutilized tends to dissipate, and in the US, fame and fortune are the rewards for those who can be the most public about what is usually most private. Let us not shed crocodile tears for those whose inner sanctum is breached by others before they have a chance to shatter the walls themselves. Privacy was always a cherished value, lauded by the Torah that grants everyone four ells to himself, and castigates those who reveal themselves or allow others access to their intimate lives. The beginning of Masechet Bava Batra discusses “hezek re’iyah,” the harm that accrues to a person when others can see him and his boundaries are invaded by the sight of others. But there can be no “hezek re’iyah” if we willfully put our lives on display.
Tzniut – modesty, humility – is not only about clothing, but most simply about privacy, about carving out areas in life in which only one’s closest and dearest are admitted. It is a lost value for several reasons, but primarily because the accessibility of our lives to others has led many to get less attention, not more, and immodesty in all its forms – verbal, physical, material – is often just a cry for attention. As every petulant child knows, even negative attention is attention.
A Snowden toils in obscurity until he realizes the acclaim and riches that will be garnered by public exposure of secrets and the betrayal of his country. At least Jonathan Pollard – who should have been released yesterday, ten or twenty years ago, or tomorrow – passed classified secrets to a US ally – Israel – but did not intend to harm America. Snowden did not reveal his secrets to benefit anyone but simply to sow mistrust, weaken the United States and curry favor with anti-American forces across the world. I wonder how he will be treated if he is ever caught.
The Talmud (Sanhedrin 31a) states that it was reported that a disciple revealed a secret kept for 22 years in a certain study hall. Rav Ami kicked him out, saying “this one betrays secrets.” Today, he would go on the talk-show circuit. But secrecy, privacy and modesty are the virtues of refined people. Rashi (Bamidbar 24:5) notes that Bil’am perceived the majesty of the camp of Israel in that their doors did not face each other, so no one could peer into another’s tent.
How quaint. How modest. How beautiful. And how missed is that world.

4 Comments

Posted in Chumash, Contemporary Life, Current Events, Machshava/Jewish Thought

A Response for the Neo-Cons

Posted on June 21, 2013 | 13 comments

In the Times of Israel (http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/mesorah-and-making-room-a-journey-to-womens-spiritual-leadership/), Rabbi Avi Weiss, whom I will always esteem for his past accomplishments for the Jewish people notwithstanding his current odyssey, lays out his case for the ordination of women as a natural evolution of the Mesorah as he sees it. His arguments are compelling, skilled polemics, but ultimately fall short and are unpersuasive, as well as divisive to the Jewish people.
Note first the proof case for this flexible Mesorah – the Gemara Chulin 6b that states that the great Rebbi (Rabbi Judah the Prince) permitted the residents of Bet Shean to eat produce without first tithing it on the grounds that Bet Shean was not then part of the land of Israel. (Needless to say, none of the innovators here have the stature or national leadership role of Rebbi.) Nonetheless, the story actually proves the opposite of what Rabbi Weiss presented, as it begins (a curiously omitted passage) that Rebbi “heard testimony that Rabbi Meir ate a vegetable leaf grown in Bet Shean without tithing and based on that Rebbi exempted Bet Shean from the tithing requirement.”
That is to say, Rebbi saw that there was evidently an existing tradition to exempt Bet Shean from tithing, or Rabbi Meir would not have eaten untithed vegetables. Likely, there was a change in the facts on the ground – an obvious loss of sovereignty of the Jewish people in that territory and a reduced population that led Rebbi to decree that it was no longer part of the land of Israel for tithing purposes. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi was simply following his rebbe, Rabbi Meir, and extended Rabbi Meir’s private decision to the public. But here, was there an existing tradition that Rabbi Weiss followed to ordain women? No. (Only non-Orthodox movements have done so, first Reform, followed a decade or so later by Conservative.) Was there a change in the factual circumstances that called into question the prior mesora? Not at all.
Rabbi Weiss: “Rebbe responded: makom hinihu li avotai le-hit’gader bo – “My ancestors left room for me to distinguish myself.” (Hullin 6b,7a) In other words, it’s been left over for the next generation. No generation can do all of the work that is necessary. It is not only the right, but the obligation of each generation le-hit’gader bo—to distinguish itself. Not to distinguish itself in an arrogant sense, but in the sense of continuing the work of not being frozen in the past and thus taking halakha to even greater heights.”
In fact, Rashi here (Chulin 7a) does interpret “lehitgader” to mean “lehitgadel” – to become great, to make a reputation, to demonstrate halachic prowess. That interpretation perhaps hits closer to home than wanted, but the interpretation of “continuing the work of not being frozen in the past and thus taking halakha to even greater heights” is Rabbi Weiss’ own and not indicated by the text or commentators. In any event, clearly the facts changed and necessitated a different psak than the one his ancestors gave. How is that related at all to women’s ordination? No facts changed; what changed was embracing the secular value system that sees egalitarianism as a Torah value, when it is clearly not.
Notice also that the premise in Chullin is based on two individuals – Asa and Yehoshafat – who did not do what they should have done – destroy idols – thereby allowing Chizkiyahu to “make his reputation” as an idol-buster. I.e., Chizkiyahu’s “innovation” was to destroy what his ancestors failed to destroy. He did the right thing; it wasn’t at all a “Mesora” issue. How does this justify women’s ordination? Additionally, Rabbi Yehuda’s decision was localized, applicable only to the few Jews of Bet Shean. By contrast, Rabbi Weiss’ decision to unilaterally change long-standing tradition and, in the process, disregard several halachic principles, purports to affect all of the Klal Yisrael.
That is not to say that individual halachists have no right to disagree with a psak of prior generations or poskim. Rav Herschel Schachter posits (in his recently released Divrei Sofrim, Page 67) that according to the Rambam, a Bet Din can disagree with the conclusions of prior Batei Din even if not greater than them, except in areas of takana. Of course, the Rambam referred to Batei Din and not individuals, but the same would apply even to great individuals. (“However, this should not lead one to the conclusion that in every generation, rabbinic leaders can pasken as they please.” Pages 113-114).
But note the three cases Rabbi Weiss adduced to show the Mesorah’s evolution: polygamy, slavery and yefat to’ar. In each case, Chazal made use of the principle of “shev v’al taaseh,” don’t so something because it might violate another Torah value. The ordination of women is exactly the opposite – it is a “kum v’aseh,” an active, affirmative violation of the tradition, not a passive abstention from a particular act.
Two examples suffice: the halacha bans blowing the shofar on the first day of Rosh Hashana that falls on Shabbat, lest a person carry the shofar in the public domain to learn how to blow it. The Mesorah “evolutionists” might posit that since today, only proficient people blow, and we have eruvin, and we can leave the shofar in shul before Shabbat, etc., that the tradition of not blowing on Shabbat Rosh Hashana should be abandoned and that we should again be able to listen to the inspiring and awesome sounds of the shofar even on Shabbat. It makes sense – we would thereby fulfill a Torah commandment of shofar – but that breach of the Mesorah would place one beyond the pale of Orthodoxy.
So, too, drawing from one of Rabbi Weiss’ own examples: suppose an enterprising, creative rabbi would decide to reverse Rabbenu Gershom’s ban on polygamy. After all, the edot hamizrach never accepted it, and it is arguable whether it has lapsed or even if he meant it for all time. And this innovative rabbi would do it for the most sincere reasons – say, resolve the singles’ crisis, in which unmarried females outnumber unmarried males. Imagine if willing males would embrace two or three women into their homes. Forget the bigamy laws (as many people have already). The immorality that prevails today (fewer and fewer marriages take place) could certainly accommodate concubinage, which is obviously more formal and more respectful than adultery, one-night stands or other such shenanigans that are not uncommon in the modern world. Needless to say, the rabbi who would suggest that would place himself outside the pale of Orthodoxy and in a heap of trouble with his wife. In theory, though, why couldn’t an “evolving Mesorah” accept that?
The answer is because the Mesorah does not adapt to new circumstances in the way that Rabbi Weiss presented, which is in fact precisely the methodology of the non-Orthodox movements: see which cultural winds are blowing, presume that those values are good, proper and worthy of emulation, and figure out a way to do with the minimum disfigurement of Jewish law. I.e., decide what you want to so and then adduce the sources to permit it. But halacha has a methodology with which it addresses new circumstances; the ordination of women did not utilize it but did utilize the evolutionary theory of the non-Orthodox.
Notice also how innocuous practices – simchat bat – are conflated with weightier issues, like women’s ordination. But even the shalom zachar has a broader purpose unrelated to women (I think, and perhaps only to date:) it announces when the brit mila will take place.
Two references are jarring. The first – allegedly the original Maharat – was someone named Osnat who headed a yeshiva in Kurdistan for a time. Frankly, I have never heard of her, do not even know if she really lived or was simply a fictional character in some historical novel. With all due respect to her and to my dear brethren of the Kurdish-Jewish community, Osnat – if she indeed lived – was certainly not a mainstream figure and even less is known about the spiritual level of her community that induced them to retain the services of this predecessor to Yentl. She cannot be a precedent – she did not even have any successors. By way of analogy, the bearded lady was always a staple of the carnival, but she was hardly a reason to apply to all women the three biblical prohibitions relating to shaving.
The second reference is also a hardy perennial – boldly stating that deceased great rabbis would now support innovations that they strenuously opposed during their lifetimes. It is a specious argument that adds nothing to the debate because it can neither be sustained nor refuted. Tampering with the words and writings of great Sages after they have gone to their eternal reward, and twisting them to mean the opposite of what they said, is not much different than the posthumous conversions done to Jews (and others) for many years by the Mormon Church. Personally, it offends me. Citing Rav Kook, the Chofetz Chaim and Rav Soloveitchik out of context as if they would support something that they actually opposed in their lifetimes is disingenuous. May their memories be for a blessing, and may they rest –but really rest – in peace.
Rabbi Weiss: “Our mesorah does not reject the idea of women’s ordination. Quite the contrary, the mesorah rooted in the past, while emanating light into the future, says quite the opposite.” But it does reject the idea; if not, scholarly women from Bruria, the wife of Rabbi Meir, to Nechama Leibowitz z”l would have been called “Rabbi.” The fact that they were not – and it is a fact – means that the mesorah did not and could not accommodate that title or that job description.
The fact that there is a “demand,” if four institutions out of thousands can be described as “a demand,” really says nothing at all. There are many varieties of Judaism’s out there, many of them having only a tangential relationship with Torah. Any experienced rabbi could attest that many Jews, told something (a food, a restaurant, a Maharat) they long thought was forbidden was now permitted, will flock to it at first. Usually the demand for the illicit is very strong, but it peters out when the desire for the next illicit thing builds and builds. People love to have permitted to them what they want to do anyway, but that is hardly to be perceived as spiritual greatness.
Elsewhere I have addressed the halachic and hashkafic problems, but the attempt to change the Mesorah and traditional Jewish practice because American values have changed is, simply, non-Orthodox. To act on the impulse that the Torah considers women “second-class citizens” is repugnant, and can only and necessarily lead to further halachic mischief. In a free country, anyone can do anything and call it Judaism or anything else. But the Torah world has an equal right – and obligation – to characterize such deviations for what they are: non-Orthodox, mimicry of the Reform/Conservative approach to Jewish law and methodology, and self-alienation of the Torah world.
No one involved in this controversy, least of all myself, is Rabbi Yehuda, Rabbi Meir, the Chofetz Chaim, Rav Kook, Rav Soloveitchik, et al. This unilateral attempt to transform the traditional role of women in Jewish life has grave ramifications – for marriages, families, children, the Jewish community, the integrity of the Mesorah, and the Orthodox world. It is tantamount to castigating and besmirching the rabbis and leaders of prior generations for not being as enlightened or moral as present company. That requires some broad shoulders and enormous self-confidence.
A kind reader called to my attention this quote from Rabbenu Bachye’s Chovot Halevavot, Shaar Yichud Hamaaseh, Chapter 5: “Be careful, therefore, not to stray in your step from the way of the fathers and the path of the Early Ones, into unjustifiable innovations, relying only on your mind, consulting only your own opinion, and following only your own conjecture. Do not distrust your fathers regarding what they have handed down to you concerning what is good for you, and do not contradict the views they teach you. For there can be no idea that occurs to you of which they had not already thought and weighed its consequences, both positive and negative.”
“You may recognize the positive in a certain opinion at its initial stage, while the negative consequences at its final stage remain hidden from you; so that, with your lack of deliberation, you will see what is positive in it, but fail to see its error and liability. As the Wise One said: ‘Do not move back the world’s boundary [which your fathers established]’ (Mishlei 22:28).”
That is profound, and profoundly relevant. The grievances against the Torah will not end with this, nor will the deviations from tradition. Like a century ago, a new movement has been created that is outside the realm of Torah. It will not have the same devastating impact on Jewish life as did the other movements because their numbers will remain small. The large majority of the Orthodox world will reject it, some rather prosaically perceiving it as a typical, non-Orthodox pattern. Eventually, its rabbis and adherents will find themselves outside the Orthodox orbit – with their marriages, divorces, conversions and kosher supervisions coming under suspicion or just being rejected.
All that is inevitable, if it hasn’t happened already, and echoes Rabbenu Bachye’s concerns above.
I pray that my remarks are not too strident, and that no one take personal offense. This is the business of Torah. I have said my piece and have no interest in ever again addressing this topic.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Halacha, Machshava/Jewish Thought

The Rise of the Neo-Cons

Posted on June 14, 2013 | 70 comments

No one wants machloket (strife).
That admirable sentiment, a defining characteristic of Jewish personal and national life, to a large extent underlies the silence with which the major Orthodox Jewish organizations (outside the more Yeshivish world) has greeted the unremitting slide from normative Torah views of the groups, loosely affiliated but interrelated, and collectively known as YCT/IRF/Maharat. Collectively, they refer to themselves as “Open Orthodoxy,” but at what point does the “openness” so predominate that it ceases to be Orthodox?
Consider: Whatever semantic games are played, the ordination of women as Jewish clergy shatters one of the demarcations between the Torah world and non-Orthodoxy. Even Rabbi Saul Lieberman, the great scholar who taught for decades at JTS, publicly opposed (in writing) the ordination of women, such that JTS waited for him to pass from this world before it ordained its first women. Of course, the charade – Rabba, Maharat, whatever – is conducted in order to avoid an open break, even as it smacks of dishonesty. But it is what it is, and we are foolish to play the games and ignore the reality. The titles, job descriptions and current subterfuge presage the day when these groups will boast (and I mean boast) synagogues whose spiritual leader is a woman, something considered anathema – for a variety of reasons grounded in Jewish law and thought – by the aforementioned Rabbi Lieberman, Rav Soloveitchick and every recognized posek faithful to the Mesorah. Even Nechama Leibowitz would cringe in revulsion and horror at this obvious deviation from Jewish law and tradition. (I was her student, and she was scrupulously traditional, and humble to a fault. And she did not live with grievances against the Torah.)
Consider as well the variety of statements and positions emanating – without obvious dissent – from members of those groups:
– the constant repetition of the familiar canard (that animated the non-Orthodox movements) that Judaism treats women as “second-class citizens;”
– the denigration in some places, and reluctant acceptance by others, of the institution of mechitza (kept, it seems, because it is part of the Orthodox “brand,” but in some places minimized, removed at various times during the davening, and bound to be on the chopping block in the future, especially since it is not mentioned explicitly in the Shulchan Aruch);
– the embrace of the homosexual agenda, and its essential elimination as a “sin,” as one of the 613 commandments and 365 prohibitions pursuant to Jewish law, including the celebration, in one form or another, of same sex marriage;
– the attempted relaxation of conversion standards, so as to decrease the number of intermarriages while foisting on the Jewish people converts who have not the slightest intention of observing the mitzvot – in the process doing them a great disservice;
– the embrace of non-Orthodox clergy and their integration into religious services in unprecedented ways that completely eviscerate the ideological distinctions between the movements;
– the search for the lenient halachic opinion that will rationalize any desire, regardless of precedent or tradition; i.e., predetermining the conclusion and then seeking justification for it;
– the study of Tanach in a way that degrades the ancients and plays down the commentaries of the Talmudic Sages and medieval commentators, as if all opinions carry equal weight, and as if there is a mitzva in discovering new sins or exaggerating old ones in the deeds of our ancestors. It is a “scientific” approach much more prevalent in the non-Orthodox world than in the Torah world.
(Generally, the New York Times’ editorial page is a reliable indicator –if not the source – of the social perspectives and views of this camp, but that is a different discussion.)
Taken on its merits, almost all the views above are closely identified with the non-Orthodox movements, which either began with those deviations or embraced them along the way.
Why, then, the reluctance to call a spade a spade? Several objections can be made.
First, they call themselves “Orthodox,” thereby identifying with the Orthodox world. That is important, because it evinces their intention to remain Orthodox even as they, for lack of a better word, try to reform it from within. Second, many of the leaders are musmachim of RIETS or YU grads, see themselves as Orthodox, and practice the norms of Orthodox life even if some of their ideas are off the reservation. Third, almost all of the individuals that I personally know involved in these groups are fine, decent people, for whom I have always had tremendous respect, and whose contributions to the Jewish people – in some cases – were legendary and worthy of eternal recognition. And who wants machloket?
Here’s the problem with that: the same could be said of the founders of Conservative Judaism and their successors who broadened its popularity across the United States up to 30-40 years ago. Most of the founders of CJ were also Orthodox in practice, and more. One of the founders of JTS, Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes, also served as one of the presidents of the Orthodox Union (such is unimaginable today). JTS was founded by traditional Jews, like Rabbi Sabato Morais, horrified by the gross retreat from Jewish norms of the Reform Rabbinate. The aforementioned Rabbi Shaul Lieberman was allegedly offered a teaching position at Yeshivas Chaim Berlin (!) in Brooklyn, before deciding to take the position at JTS (such is unimaginable today). Whatever the results, the founders of Conservative Judaism meant to conserve Judaism; hence, the name. (Given their current politics, some probably wince when using the term, and wish they could be called “Liberal Judaism” instead.) The point is that they perceived themselves as the vanguard of what would be traditional, Torah-true Judaism on American soil.
For the first half-century after the founding of the Conservative movement, it was quite common for YU graduates to attend JTS for ordination. It was not uncommon for RIETS musmachim to become spiritual leaders in Conservative temples, like it was not uncommon for those same musmachim to be members of the RCA, like it was not uncommon for some OU shuls not to have mechitzot. (This is meant to be factual, not judgmental; the battles then were different than they are today.)
And undoubtedly, many of the founders of the non-Orthodox movements were upstanding and decent people as well. Their sincerity and dedication – and in many cases their scholarship – should be acknowledged. Reform and Conservative rabbis also wrote responsa, marshaling sources here and there to permit what they wanted to permit: the elimination of the mechitza, the permission to “ride” (but not “drive”) on Shabbat, and the series of feminist responsa on which the current group of Neo-Conservatives relies so heavily, permitting consecutively, and in short order, women counting in the minyan, leading the minyan, and serving as rabbis of the minyan. Those responsa were clever, often misleading or disingenuous, and other times relied on that old shibboleth that “times have changed.” But no Halachist took them seriously. And a more traditional wing often filed dissenting reports.
It must also be acknowledged that, like then, some in today’s fringe groups don’t really belong there, wince at some of the halachic and hashkafic departures from Orthodoxy, and are basically stuck, not really in a position to renounce their semicha but very well aware that their past choices might have been misguided.
This is written in pain and with a heavy heart. No one wants machloket. But emet (truth) is also a value – a profound value, especially in relation to Torah. A well known talk-show host often says that he prefers “clarity to agreement.” Clarity is especially critical when it comes to articulating Torah positions, and certain positions taken by these groups – as outlined above – are clearly beyond the pale of Orthodoxy. Not to admit that is to acquiesce through silence in the ongoing distortion and disfigurement of the Torah. And to acquiesce in silence while the Torah is being reformed and transformed – essentially to conform to a modern, liberal agenda – is to betray our calling as Rabbis and teachers of Torah. To acquiesce in silence, which for the most part has been the default position of the leading modern Orthodox organizations (aside from the occasional mild rebuke), is to make a political decision, but one that has adverse consequences for the Torah world.
Jews have to know what is right and wrong, acceptable or unacceptable; Jews have to know when we say “these and these are the words of the Living God,” and when we say that something else is not drawn from that holy wellspring; Jews have to know that there are “seventy facets to the Torah,” but there is also a 71st or 72nd facet that is not part of the Torah. The Torah is not an intellectual free-for-all, or a document that can be twisted in every generation to satisfy the emotional vagaries or psychological moods of the faithful. It is God’s word, and, indeed, it is not given over to every individual or group to interpret. And to acquiesce in silence is to leave every Orthodox Rabbi susceptible to the pressure from the lobbyists for these causes to replicate these innovations in our shuls because, if there was anything improper about them, someone would have opposed it publicly. Let the censure begin.
For all intents and purposes, the Conservative and Reform movements have merged, certainly in practice if not in theory. A new movement has taken the place of the Conservative movement of a century ago, founded and popularized by some fine people, worthy of respect in many regards, but whose spiritual world-view and halachic conclusions are at variance with the Torah world that we know and cherish. It is eerily similar to the world view (and practices) of the original CJ movement. The ramifications of this conclusion– in terms of conversions, kashrut, edut, etc. – are enormous, which makes the heartbreak that much greater. And certainly, one complication is that there are some –I’ve met them – who nominally belong to these groups but subscribe to none or almost none of the agenda and the deviations. This, too, will need clarification.
Ultimately, I wish to include, not exclude, but also to clarify, not obfuscate. Some will want to re-trace their steps and are welcome, and others won’t because they sincerely believe they are on the right track. Some will bask in the adulation of the secular Jewish media, as if that means anything, and others in the number of the committed who rejoice in all their revelries – as if Jews have never before rejoiced in inappropriate revelries.
But even before deciding on the next steps, clarity and honesty at least demand that we recognize before our eyes the creation of a new movement in Jewish life outside the Orthodox world, one that we have seen before. It can be termed, with due apologies to the late Irving Kristol, Neo-Conservatism. “Open Orthodoxy” is a deceptive brand name, an advertising slogan, and an attempt to remain tethered to the Torah world to re-shape it from within, but far from the reality.
The reality is that we are living through the rise of the Neo-Conservatives. Let us all – on all sides – at least admit it.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Jewish History, Machshava/Jewish Thought

Back to Egypt

Posted on June 7, 2013 | 3 comments

The shock waves in Israeli society due to the controversy of “equality of burden” – work and army service as it relates to Haredim – have generated much commotion, excitement, trepidation, anger, and some very, very strange statements. Topping the list is this refrain, allegedly uttered by some prominent Roshei Yeshiva, that essentially says: “if any such evil decrees pass that threaten to undermine, weaken or even change the Haredi program of Talmud Torah, then we will have no choice but to return to Russia and Poland.”
In fact, such an assertion was first made at least 15 years ago by a leading Rosh Yeshiva, when similar proposals for Haredi service, work, reduced child allowances and curriculum reform were made back then. The sentiment is certainly understandable. In a community that feels that it has achieved the apex of spirituality – duplicating the grandeurs of Eastern European Jewry – undoubtedly a retreat from the current ideal is perceived as a dire threat to its future. Better, then, to return to the glory days of the shtetl where the Czar and other rulers allowed the Jews to dwell in peace and tranquility, each man under his vine and fig tree. The statement is thus almost Biblical in its audacity.
Actually, it is Biblical.
Several times during our sojourn in the wilderness, when the going got tough and sin diverted us from our cherished objective of settling the land of Israel, a variety of leaders, in their discontent with Moshe’s stewardship of the nation, exclaimed (sometimes implicitly) “Nitna rosh v’nashuva Mitzroima!” – “Let us appoint a leader and we will return to Egypt!” (Bamidbar 14:4). Even on the banks of the Red Sea, days after being liberated from the Egyptian house of bondage, there were voices crying that it is “far better that we serve Egypt than die in the wilderness” (Shemot 14:12). At least for the latter, the threat of imminent death was real, even if their faith was somewhat tenuous. The lure of Egypt, contrived and fictitious as it was, was ubiquitous.
Yet, for all the nostalgia for Egypt from group of malcontents– its foods, ambience, family life, beaches and resorts, all of which caused the horrors of slavery and persecution, and the murder of their male infants, to fade – no one ever actually attempted to return to Egypt. Those disenchanted after the sin of the spies decided to conquer the land of Israel without authorization, and failed – but there was never an actual movement to return to Egypt. It was a rhetorical device that packed an emotional wallop in its criticism of present trends but was never taken seriously by anyone. If so, why was it said? Why would something so preposterous resonate with anyone to the extent that the Torah would record it?
Surely, no one takes seriously “threats” of returning to Poland, Russia, Germany and elsewhere. Besides the facts that those countries also have mandatory conscription (do Jews forget the Cantonist decrees?!) as well as little interest in subsidizing Torah study as does the State of Israel, the gruesome memories are still raw. Those are countries that are drenched in Jewish blood, in which six million Jews were murdered just seven decades ago, and from which several million Jews fled in the half-century before that – primarily to the United States but also to South Africa, South America, England, Australia, and yes, the land of Israel. Eastern Europe became a graveyard for Jews, certainly physically but also, it needs to be said, spiritually as well.
For all its glories, and the majesty of the Yeshiva movement in Lithuania that inspires us until today, it was relatively small in numbers. The largest of the yeshivot barely numbered in the low hundreds of students at the peak of their existence, and most were far smaller than that. Most Jews were unlearned, and many completely dropped out of the world of Torah observance (far more in percentage than what we witness today with our so-called “youth at risk”), as evidenced by the substantial numbers of Jews that abandoned even their nominal observance the moment they arrived on American shores. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were swept away from Torah by the Enlightenment, Communism, Socialism, and secular Zionism. The nostalgia has no basis in fact, like our memories in later years of the home runs that we never slugged as young men but thought we did.
Worse, one reason those movements took root in the 19th and early 20th centuries was the grinding poverty of the “Haredi” world of that time that attempted to glamorize privation and suffering but found that they weren’t quite as marketable as they hoped. Rather than provide a kosher means to escape ghetto life and poverty, many leaders closed the gates and erected even more interior walls, with the result that many Jews just upped and left – Torah, not just Europe. Are they making the same mistake again today? Embracing policies that consistently lead to poverty and the need for public support – from a public that is less and less willing to provide – is not a recipe for long-term success. Hence, the warning that if pushed, they will leave and take their indigence with them to other shores.
The idle threat intoned in the wilderness to return to Egypt was not serious – except for this: it reflected a desire to escape their destiny as Jews and to somehow carve out a different destiny for themselves. “Going back to Egypt” meant severing one’s spiritual and emotional ties to the rest of the people of Israel, as if to say: “the rest of you are on your own. We want nothing to do with you, neither your honey nor your sting. We are a nation unto ourselves. Good luck.”
Is that the message that is being sent today as well? I would hope not, both because it won’t succeed and especially because it is such a poor reflection on Torah Jewry.
Count me among those who believe that threats of incarceration for Haredi resisters are wrong, misplaced, counterproductive and will not succeed. But those who in their anguish about the need to change certain aspects of Haredi life in order to be a part of the nation in all respects do a disservice to their constituents and the Torah itself when they make idle threats that sound – and are – bizarre and outlandish, and not to be taken seriously.
Thus, we are taught: “Wise men: be careful with your words, lest you become liable for exile and you are exiled to the place of evil waters, and your disciples who follow you will drink those waters and die, and the name of Heaven will be desecrated” (Avot 1:11).