Author Archives: Rabbi

I am delighted to announce that my new book, “Repentance for Life,” has been published by Kodesh Press and is available for purchase at Kodeshpress.com, the finest stores and on line. It is most appropriate for this season of repentance. As part of the book release, the Five Towns Jewish Times interviewed me, and I present here their questions and my answers.

1. What inspired you to enter Rabbanus?

It was always a dream of mine from the time I was a young. I had grown up watching my father Wallace Pruzansky a”h and then Rav Berel Wein both practice law and succeed in the Rabbinate. That became my career path as well, as an attorney and then a Rabbi. And I was privileged to learn from my rebbe muvhak, Rav Yisrael Chait of Yeshiva Bnei Torah of Far Rockaway, how to convey the timeless and sophisticated ideas of Torah in a way that would be receptive to modern minds. I owe all of them a great debt of gratitude. My objective always was to open minds to the majesty and profundity of Torah and try to shape the world according to the Torah.

• What are the most critical issues affecting Klal Yisrael in contemporary society?

We are now suffering the consequences of two generations of assimilation and intermarriage. Both have engendered a loss of Jewish identity (except in a shallow ethnic sense) and a concomitant distancing from Torah, mitzvot and support for Israel. Worse, estrangement from Judaism is perceived as just another choice. In a society where religion itself is not valued, and personal autonomy is cherished, Jewish commitment has become even harder to convey to children. It can only be reversed by conceding there is a problem – we are not there yet, outside the Orthodox world – and then focusing on Torah education and increased observance of mitzvot.

• To what do you attribute the insidious spread of anti-Semitism?

Jew hatred has been a persistent phenomenon, as the sages taught us, since we received the Torah at Sinai. The face and targets of the hatred change from time to time but it will exist until Moshiach comes. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks pointed out quite cogently, Jew hatred was first religious in nature, then it became racial and now it is nationalistic. There are Gentiles – to be sure, not all, and I believe not even most – who resent our existence, our faith, our connection to G-d, our value system, our homeland, our success and our status as the chosen people. They will never be mollified. Education can persuade a small handful of these enemies but most are implacable and uneducable.

• What can be done to quell this cancer?

Unfortunately there is no cure for what Jean Paul Sartre once called a “passion,” and therefore not subject to rational dialogue. Obviously, priority should be given to Jewish self-defense, especially in an era when the police have often retreated from confrontations with evildoers. What compounds the problem is that Jew hatred – alone among the hatreds of various ethnic groups – has its defenders, apologists and overt supporters. Only attacks on Jews are greeted by some voices, cited by the media, saying that “they deserved it.”

       We should not have any illusions that there is a panacea. There isn’t. Jew hatred will always be a facet of exile and, ultimately, only Aliya solves the problem. That is not because there is no hatred of Jews in this part of the world – we know it exists – but at least in Israel the response to Jew hatred is building the future. It is a positive, affirmative response. In the exile, the response can only be defensive, with survival the sole purpose.

5. Do you feel that we, as Jews, should be more politically active? Please elaborate.

   I have always thought it critical that Jews become active in politics, and not just for parochial Jewish interests like support for Israel or funding for Jewish education. The Torah presents to the world, through the Jewish people, G-d’s morality. We are privileged and obligated to disseminate that to the nations, especially in the current environment in which each person or group fabricates its own values and virtues – many of which are antithetical to Torah. We sell short ourselves and our mission when we are apathetic about the propagation of Torah values. Thus I am delighted to serve now as the Israel Region Vice President for the Coalition for Jewish Values that in just a few years has made quite a difference on the American scene.

• What was your objective in writing this book?

I wanted to share the thoughts on teshuvah that I had transmitted during the 26 years I was privileged to serve as spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey. Frequently, at the conclusion of my Shabbat Shuvah Drashah people would come up to me and say, “you must publish this!” So, now I have!

• What are some of its unique aspects?

What struck me over the decades, and I think will surprise the reader, is the multifaceted nature of teshuvah. There are so many areas of life that can be enriched through probing the area of repentance generally. Teshuvah entails more than just feeling guilty, begging forgiveness, and moving on. It is life transforming, and done properly makes us better, wiser, and more thoughtful people. There are 18 essays in the book that encompass many of life’s issues and challenges, and repentance is at the core of all them – ranging from happiness, the ways of peace, love of Jews and the land of Israel to forgiveness, children, suffering, the world to come and fear of sin.

• What message would you like to convey to my readers?

We are on the cusp of a new world order. The last few years have shaken so many assumptions that we have about life. So much that we have taken for granted has been shattered. The norms of our lives have been upended. We should try to ascertain what the divine message is in all of this and act upon it. Perhaps the ideas contained in my book can facilitate in part our personal preparation for the new era that will soon dawn, we pray, with the coming of Moshiach.

Published today in the Jewish Press

     The recent trial balloon floated by a few Haredi officials in Israel advocating the separation of religion and state as a pained response to proposed government reforms in matters of religion blithely ignores the awful ramifications of such a decision and begs the existential question of why must there be a Jewish state altogether on this planet. It misconstrues, if not completely negates, the very premise of a Jewish state.

      The trite answer cannot be that Israel is the only place where Jews can feel safe. Jews can be attacked anywhere including in Israel. And that answer elides the more fundamental question of why is it important that Jews survive at all? What would be missing from the world if there were no Jews or Jewish state? There would be a drop off in scientific and intellectual achievement and civilization itself would suffer, but neither incentive has precluded evildoers from trying to destroy us for the last 36 centuries. Why, then, do we want a Jewish state to exist and thrive, and what can be done to make it a truly Jewish state and not just a state of Jews?

       These questions confound many Israelis but they certainly have not been cogently answered in the Haredi world, which has struggled to articulate a vision of precisely why a Jewish state is G-d’s vision in the Torah for Jewish nationhood and what it should look like. The great drama of Jewish history – a nation exiled from its homeland due to its sins only to be promised by G-d that its sovereignty would be restored at the end of days – has played out before our eyes…and largely been greeted with indifference or perplexity. For too many Jews, the return to Israel has not included a return to mitzvah observance and Torah study – the very premise of our residence in Israel. For too many observant Jews, the return to Israel has spiritual but not national implications. Life in Israel need not be much different than religious life in Poland or the United States, aside from a handful of mitzvot observable only in Israel. Both are fundamental errors.

      One of the more egregious mistakes has been the failure to contribute to the Jewishness of the state, and that is one reason why the religious infrastructure is under assault. “Jewishness” has been reduced to ensuring the technicalities of observance – kashrut, marriage, divorce, conversion and Shabbat. To be sure, those are vital undertakings that are now being threatened by the short-sighted, tendentious and foolhardy reforms being contemplated by the current minority Jewish government.

      Nevertheless, the “Jewishness” of the state should be informed by far more than the provision of the abovementioned services, which, after all, is what the religious establishment always did in the exile. There should be a concerted effort not only to provide kosher food but also to impart to the public why Kashrut (and Shabbat, Torah study, taharat hamishpachah, etc.) matter. Additionally, the great failing of the last century’s religious establishment – truth be told, Haredi more than Religious Zionist – has been indifference to the application of Torah to all aspects of statecraft. There is a Jewish way (probably several) to do politics, conduct foreign affairs, guide an economy, craft a legal system, administer an army, ameliorate the plight of the less fortunate and improve the lives of the citizens. That should have been uppermost in the minds of the religious leadership rather than just being religious functionaries.

      What is lacking, in short, is embrace of the vision of Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook, who perceived Israel as not merely a haven but the only place where the Jewish soul truly comes alive. It is not just the continuation of Jewish life in Vilna or Kovno but in a new location. The Torah life in the exile was enriching in its own way but it lacked a national component. In the exile, Torah was not the foundation of the society and the prism through which all facets of life were viewed. The struggle was for individuals to keep the Torah amid physical and religious challenges to it and find a way to accommodate the demands of exile while retaining fidelity to the Torah. That had varying rates of success depending on a range of influences but even where Jewish life was successfully maintained the Torah could hardly be perceived as the constitution of the society.

       The Jewish state is designed to be different or it need not exist at all. If there is no desire to fashion a Jewish state whose institutions and politics communicate the ideals and values of Torah then it is not surprising that outsiders (especially ones motivated by their own agendas) will perceive the utility of the rabbinic establishment only in terms of the provision of services, which to them means only sinecures, jobs, patronage, money and power.

       That approach is not only false but, if people believe it, also does a great disservice to Torah.

      The answer should be not the separation of religion and state but the true integration of religion and state. There are Israelis, religious Jews too, who foolishly look to the United States as the paragon nation where the wall of separation between religion and state has succeeded. Don’t be misled. The First Amendment religious freedoms precluded a national church in America or laws that infringed on freedom of worship. It was not meant to create a secular state. Last I checked, the most important Christian holiday of the year falls annually on December 25, and that is observed as a legal national holiday. Congress and most state legislatures still begin its sessions with a chaplain’s prayer and the government subsidizes any number of activities of a religious nature.

      America’s decline in the last half century has been accelerated by the rejection of its Judeo-Christian heritage and its unconscious embrace of the new religion of secular progressivism – a religion that has its own deities, saints, holidays, commandments and value system, and which is mostly antithetical and hostile to Torah.

      Is that what these Haredi spokesmen want? A separation of religion and state in Israel would not be replaced by a vacuum but by an alternate set of values, none of which is designed to foster Jewish life.  Obviously, government support for Torah study would halt.  The ultimate justification for Jewish sovereignty would erode. The mere suggestion betrays an exilic mentality and a gross misunderstanding of what the Jewish state should be.

       So here is an alternative approach. The religious public should strive to create a more Jewish state.  Infuse all national institutions with Torah values – and in yeshivot, teach how that should be done. Share the beauty of Torah, Shabbat and mitzvot with all Jews. Appreciate the contributions of all Israeli Jews and acknowledge the wondrous times in which we live and the divine blessings that have been bestowed upon us. Surely the ingathering of the exiles and Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel are not insignificant occurrences that can be belittled because they occurred differently than people had imagined they would.

      The thirst for Torah in Israel is greater than the thirst for kosher Coca Cola. While providing the latter, we should prioritize the former. When that succeeds, the flirtation with the separation of religion and state will disappear amid the glories of the Torah reborn in all its fullness in the Jewish state that is the manifestation of G-d’s kingship on earth.

Published today on Israelnationalnews.com

     “And the land was quiet for forty years.” Three times that phrase appears in the book of Shoftim as a reminder that even temporary peace is valuable. Perhaps that is the most productive spin on America’s failed venture in Afghanistan that has ended in a disgraceful retreat. Was it worth the loss of 2500 American lives and the maiming of thousands of others? The answer is affirmative only from this perspective: the foray into Afghanistan bought the people there twenty (not forty) years of relative peace, freedom from barbarism, opportunities for women and a chance to emigrate.

     With the Dark Ages returning, with a vengeance, it is possible to look back with some pride on a military incursion that represented the best of American ideals, even after acknowledging the necessity after the Arab terror of September 11, 2001 of eliminating Al Qaeda and the Taliban that hosted them. Afghans were shown there is a different way. It was a two decade respite from the brutal treatment that women received before 2002 and unfortunately will be receiving again. Nancy Pelosi’s comment, vapid even by her low standards, that the international community must “do everything” to protect women and girls is as pathetic as the humiliating departure. “Everything” obviously does not include a powerful American military presence, which is actually the only “thing” that could protect them. Let’s see how well resolutions and hash tags do.

      There was never going to be a happy outcome in Afghanistan if we accept that not every society is suited for democracy. Indeed, Afghans are so tribal that it is a stretch to perceive them as even constituting a nation, perhaps one reason their army collapsed like a house of cards the moment American support was withdrawn. And it is difficult to argue with the logic that the US should not fight for a nation that will not fight for itself. Undoubtedly, a substantial portion of the population supports the Taliban either actively or tacitly. In a land that holds almost 40 million people, there weren’t 40 million people at the airport trying to flee. So bombing a land back to the 15^th century is not effective when they are already living in the 12^th century. And the poor souls who want to flee, many of whom aided American forces, deserve better.

      President Biden is a weak leader, whose most pronounced characteristic is that he is an anti-Trump. Whatever Trump did, Biden does the opposite, without regard to whether the decisions were good ones or bad ones. In fact, Biden seems to govern in the curious way that he reverses all of Trump’s good policies, regardless of their effect on the country (immigration, taxes, the Abraham Accords), while maintaining Trump’s bad policies (a targeted withdrawal date from Afghanistan, restrictive trade, massive deficits). Biden also has the modern man’s aversion to assuming responsibility for anything. It is hard to imagine that Trump would have presided over such a humiliation, aptly captured in the Wall Street Journal editorial: “Biden to Afghanistan: Drop Dead.” Trump’s withdrawal date was tied to certain conditions and never entertained the return to power of the Taliban, certainly not in the near future.

      What is done is done, and for Israelis a few lessons are in order.

     Most importantly, even Biden must realize his fecklessness. He has been fleeced by the Taliban, by Russia, and by China. He is looking for a foreign policy victory – some ceremony or good news for which he can claim credit and reverse his decline into irrelevance. Unfortunately for us, Israel provides for him the ripest opportunity. Biden won’t even say the words “Abraham Accords” and has done nothing to broker deals with the handful of other Arab countries anxious to make agreements with Israel. Worse, he has reversed Trump’s successful policy and again made the Palestinian “cause” the centerpiece of American diplomacy in the region.

      That is disastrous for Israel as no good will come of it. For that matter, it would be foolhardy for PM Bennett even to visit Washington in the coming weeks. He would be expected to prop up Biden with some concession, mouth support for the two state illusion or otherwise bolster Biden’s falling standing. Bennett should stay away from Washington at least through the holidays – blame the holidays, blame Corona, blame the quarantine. Blame something or someone – but only harm will result from a United States visit at this juncture.

     More ominously, but predictably, Israel has to recognize that America is not as reliable a friend and ally as it once was. This is not only due to its fractious politics and economic woes but especially now because of the decline of its global prestige and trustworthiness. For sure, Israel and Afghanistan are completely different countries with wholly different relationships with the United States. (It is interesting to note for those who complain about American aid to Israel – these days anyway it is a $3 billion grant that is almost entirely spent on American weapons – the United States poured into Afghanistan in twenty years an estimated 30-40 times what it has provided Israel in aid since its inception, and at least from Israel, the US has received benefit in return.) But America today is not the America of two, twenty or forty years ago.

      American and Israeli policies and interests do converge in many areas – but they also diverge sharply in some important ways. Israelis must recognize that and not live in the nostalgia of the past, similar to what Israel tried for many years to do with Turkey in conceding that Erdogan’s Turkey had changed. Former PM Minister Netanyahu was wise to cultivate ties with Russia, India and China and not subordinate Israel’s foreign policy to American wishes alone. That should be continued, and to the extent that Biden (or his aides) would pressure Bennett to reduce Israel’s ties with China or Russia, that alone would be a good reason to forego a summit until spring, year to be determined.

      The happy talk that such a summit will frivolously produce does not justify a freeze on settlements, renewed negotiations with the PA designed to further partition the land of Israel, the release of prisoners, or a stayed hand against terror from Gaza.

      To an American administration that is reeling, and will continue to be lambasted and mocked as pictures emerge from the Taliban’s Afghanistan of the horrors to come on which the US turned its back, an Israel deal on any level is considered low-hanging fruit. Israel must resist having this fruit plucked – certainly during the shemittah year. As much as any prime minister loves the Oval Office photo op and the legitimacy it confers, the consequences of such a visit now would be detrimental to Israel’s interests.

     A weakened America is no cause for rejoicing, as the free world suffers when America retreats and its (and our) enemies are thereby emboldened. We should beware as well some quick return to an Iran deal of any sort – but mostly the desire for a diplomatic victory at Israel’s expense. Similarly, it is appropriate to grieve over the loss of life and freedom that surely awaits the Afghan people.

 

     My theory  on the unforeseen Consequences of Intermarriage emphasized how decline in support for Israel among American Jews over the last half-century tracks neatly with the spiraling rate of intermarriage among American Jews. We are now in the second and third generation of the offspring of intermarriage, those who have weaker Jewish identities and thus a weaker attachment to Israel or anything substantively and objectively Jewish. My thoughts provoked some outrage, especially among the intermarried or their parents (inevitable but understandable), but also took predictable forms of protest.     

The usual arguments were trotted out. Opposition to intermarriage is “racist and bigoted.” A meaningless error (attributing one poll to the wrong pollster) was deemed to have discredited the entire piece. Typically, the Nazis invaded the discussion, one writer asserting that whoever the Nazis would have murdered as a Jew (a person with one Jewish grandparent) is therefore a Jew. Some interpreted the mere reporting of the facts as gloating when, on the contrary, the facts are depressing and worthy of copious tears. Straw men were constructed, as if my secret objective was to claim that non-Orthodox Jews are not really Jews or otherwise to prop up the “Haredi” Rabbinate.

     Oy. Nonetheless, each contention deserves refutation because each is constantly raised in any discussion of sensitive Jewish topics. To claim that the prohibition of intermarriage is “racist and bigoted” is to maintain that the Torah that bans it is “racist and bigoted.” Since, as Rav Saadiah Gaon declared almost twelve centuries ago “Our people is a people only by virtue of the Torah,” to negate the Torah’s view on the matter is to vitiate any sense of Jewish identity at all. The Torah’s ban on intermarriage is neither racist nor bigoted but rather perceives the purpose of Jewish identity as the repository of a set of divine ideas, values and practices that are the heritage of the Jewish nation to be taught to the world. The mandate of Jews marrying Jews is not designed to foster purity of our blood – that is insane and immoral – but rather to ensure that marriages build homes that propagate those ideals. To be sure, righteous converts in every generation, and certainly today, disprove those accusations, as we welcome wholeheartedly outsiders who embrace those ideas and practices.

     And can be finally put to rest the polemical but offensive notion that Hitler decides who is Jewish? Perhaps for some it carries an emotional wallop but dig beneath the surface and it is quite repugnant. Hitler was a genocidal maniac, one of the most evil creatures who ever walked this planet. He is not a posek. He does not decide questions of Jewish law and to assign him that privilege gives him a posthumous victory. He would not only have destroyed millions of Jewish lives but the Torah as well. Note that Hitler also killed non-Jews who sheltered Jews. Their astonishing kindness, self-sacrifice and martyrdom did not make them Jews but righteous Gentiles, a most worthy status in its own right.

     Note further that non-Orthodox Jews born of a Jewish mother are as Jewish as any Jew. Despite the persistence of the counterclaim in the non-Orthodox world, I have never heard or read anyone who holds differently. A sinning Jew remains a Jew and even an intermarried Jew remains a Jew. That is not at issue.

       The contention that is most revealing is the ubiquitous reference to ethnic Jews as opposed to halachic Jews and it explains the confusion, perhaps even some of the discontent, of the intermarried. To illustrate the problem, think of a child of an Italian father and an Irish mother. That child rightly sees his heritage as Italian/Irish. If a naysayer came along and claimed that the child, for whatever reason, has forfeited his Irish background, he would rightly look at this as bizarre.

      But Jews have a dual identity – a nationality and a religion – the result of “I shall take you to be My people and I shall be a God for you” (Sh’mot 6:7). Both facets of that identity are crucial and neither can survive the disappearance of the other. Certainly, this is a major problem in Israel where the Israeli and Jewish identities are mostly conflated but for some conflict and are even antithetical to each other. In the exile, the Jewish ethnic identity alone deflates over time like a balloon that loses air until it becomes a caricature of true Judaism. Devoid of the Torah, it cannot endure, and thus demands that special accommodations be made for it.

      Are there intermarried Jews who feel a kinship with the Jewish people in a positive way? Of course, and there were prominent leaders of American pro-Israeli organizations who were intermarried. (Their children, of course, do not possess their fathers’ passion.) The same is true for converts. Daniel Chwolson, a 19^th century scholar, converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity to become a professor in St. Petersburg, and routinely interceded with Czarist authorities to protect Jewish interests, including shechitah. Nevertheless, one can hardly expect loyalty to the Jewish people from those who marry or convert out of the faith, and statistics (and common sense) bear that out.

     Finally, lest it be thought that criticism was universal, privately I received enormous support, mostly of the “duh!” variety, from rabbis and other Jews of all stripes. That includes people who asked me why I would write about something so obvious – “everyone knows” intermarriage is a disaster for the Jewish people. Alas, everyone doesn’t know, and as George Orwell put it, “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”

     Intermarriage is an ongoing catastrophe for the Jewish people. It has obliterated Jewish identity, weakened support for Israel among its practitioners, and drastically reduced the Jewish population. There is no short-term solution, not least because so many Jews insist on seeing it as desirable. Jewish education is an obvious bulwark against assimilation, even if it is not a panacea. What we can do, though, is stop pretending that the intermarried and their offspring are the same as all Jews, with the same affinity for Israel, Torah and Jewish values, whose views matter in the grand drama of Jewish history, and therefore are a boon to the Jewish people.  Even the loudest protesters know that is not true.

      Perhaps rabbis and parents should again raise this issue, even in the Orthodox world where intermarriage is rare but increasing. And all Jews should begin to reckon with the ultimate question: why be Jewish? If being Jewish means nothing or whatever anyone wants it to mean – essentially the same thing – then why? More than anything else, the failure to answer that question satisfactorily has engendered the explosive growth of intermarriage in the past half-century.