Category Archives: Jewish History

Blood and Stones

Posted on May 31, 2013 | Comments Off

Watch this first, and what follows will make more sense and hopefully evoke a sense of outrage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP79-4OKZ8s.
It was produced by a former Teaneck resident and Bnai Yeshurun member who now lives in Judea.

In the last several months, the Arabs of the land of Israel have again been up in arms, and more frequently, up to their arms in rocks and stones. Their attacks on innocent Jewish civilian travelers have escalated, such that stone-throwing, the shattering of windshields, windows and the propagation of terror, have become commonplace, daily events. Much of this has been intentionally kept under the radar so as not to have to induce a forceful response by the government. Last year, a man and his infant son were murdered south of Hevron by a windshield shattered by a rock thrown by an Arab that caused him to lose consciousness, crash and die. An infant remains in a coma for more than two months, her injuries the result of stone-throwing that caused her mother to lose control of her vehicle driving on Highway 5 from Tel Aviv to Ariel. Last month, a beautiful soul – pious, friendly and giving – was wantonly stabbed to death by an Arab at Tapuach Junction.
Most of the incidents have occurred south of Jerusalem, some north, but there is also regular stoning on Highway 443, the alternate road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem that passes Modiin, and was naively and venally reopened to Arab traffic by the High Court of “Justice” just last year. (One of Modiin’s rabbis had his car smashed just last month.) Are the bad old days coming back?
Israelis are debating whether a third “intifada” is beginning. They should first stop using the Arabic word “intifada,” purposely chosen by the Arabs because it means not revolt but “shaking off.” It is as if to say, Israel is like dandruff that needs to be shaken off one’s lapel in order to be presentable. Use of the term implies that it is unnatural and unacceptable for Jews to be living in the land of Israel, so of course the Arab enemy employs it. Apparently, so do unthinking Jews. Let us call this what it is: a recurrence of the civil war for the land of Israel. Like the first several such civil wars, the Israelis have not yet joined the battle and attacks remain unilateral and do not yet generate a response.
Like in the bad old days, this has precipitated occasional closure of roads – like the tunnel road south of Jerusalem – when stoning becomes heavy. Drivers become accustomed to peculiar Israeli weather reports – “forecast today is partly sunny with a chance of a shower of rocks and stones, depending on your location.” South of Gush Etzion has become especially treacherous. The sorry scenes of the last war – IDF soldiers fleeing a hail of stones, or cowering in their jeep as it is being smashed – are reappearing for those who care to watch.
There is as yet no response. Drivers are told to avoid certain areas or roads, or not travel at certain times of the day or night. The army could exercise control but does not, barred by its civilian commanders from doing anything productive. Israel’s government has calculated – as it did in the 1990s and until 2002 – to tolerate a certain amount of dead and maimed Jews in order to achieve some of its broader goals – international consensus to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities being primary today. There is also the sense that the Arabs want to distract the world from the ongoing massacres in Syria and the unrest in Egypt and elsewhere by provoking that old Arab bogeyman – Israel – into attacking Arabs. The Arabs have made the macabre and accurate calculation that the world will tolerate tens of thousands of Syrians killed by Arabs but the world will not stand by silently while an Israeli police officer tickets an Arab driver for speeding. Some outrages cannot be left unchallenged.
Meanwhile, life in much of Israel becomes less livable, and morale in the army begins to decline again. The Arabs become more and more emboldened and brazen. Rocks and stones become Molotov cocktails and bombs; that has already happened. IEDs can’t be far behind – a new Muslim gift to mankind. This is a bad movie that has been played ad infinitum, and its run was only canceled last time after the Park Hotel Pesach eve suicide bombing in Netanya in March 2002 that killed 30 Jews and wounded more than a hundred others. Must the Jewish people endure another 1000 dead to chase the chimera of world approval?
It seems the government and the military have decreed that rock-throwing is not a life-threatening act, notwithstanding that it was officially adjudicated as such when a judge sentenced to life imprisonment the rock-throwing murderers of the aforementioned Asher Palmer and his infant son Yonatan. Of course a stone tossed at a speeding vehicle endangers the lives of all those in that vehicle as well as others on the roads at that time. That is common sense. Should a driver therefore be allowed to run over a rock-thrower rather than absorb his blow? It would seem like elementary self-defense, a basic Jewish and human right.
An American president said once (at a campaign rally): “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” (Did Barack Obama really say that? Yes, on June 13, 2008. He was talking about Republicans, who evidently did not construe him as Nixon with a brighter smile.) Inspired by him as so many have been, the solution to the current crisis seems clear. Obviously, the military possesses the tools and discipline to thwart the deadly stone-throwing and they should. The rules of engagement that handicap the IDF should be changed –and so should the rules governing civilian confrontations and limiting civilian possession of weapons. There is a war going on, after all.
One of the most lamentable aspects of the Arab method of waging war is that they afford themselves the right and religious duty to murder civilians while their own civilians must remain sacrosanct. It has also been a familiar pattern: they play by the rules of Middle Eastern butchery when they are the aggressors (as when they attack Jews and Americans), and wail about the violation of Western norms and values when their own civilians are killed, even accidentally (as in Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan). The media constantly fall for this duplicitous game; normal, thinking people should stop playing it.
Does this mean that proud, militant Jews should start stoning Arab vehicles? No, of course not, perish the thought, who would even suggest such a thing? We do know that the asymmetry of unilateral attacks on civilians by only one side to a conflict is demoralizing, not spiritually elevating as some have argued. There is nothing particularly moral about dying, and especially not when the deaths could have been prevented. And we know as well that even one shattered windshield on an Arab vehicle will bring the wrath of the Israeli government – finally, they act! – on the perpetrators, and will make headline news internationally in a way that 1000 Syrians murdered by other Arabs has not and will not. But wouldn’t fairness dictate that a blind eye be turned to all stone-throwing, if the policy deems it more or less innocuous? We shall see.
To date, the intellectuals and politicians who ruminate about such matters have termed the Arab violence “low-level,” unworthy of a response, especially since it doesn’t affect them. Undoubtedly, and most tragically, there will be, G-d forbid, some horrific incident in which a well known person, or entire family, is murdered on the roads. Official spokesmen will react with fury, the army will be called into action, and philosophers will philosophize about the will of G-d. But it is all so preventable – with force, resolve, determination, will and a strong and fearless hand.
When that day comes and the politicians shed crocodile tears at the funerals and gnash their teeth about another Jewish family destroyed, they should first point the finger of blame at the evildoers who dwell in the land of Israel and desire nothing more than Jewish blood.
And then, to share the blame, they should take a good look in the mirror.
Those who don’t believe that day is coming, G-d forbid, should watch the video clip again.

Comments Off on Blood and Stones

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Jewish History

Temperance

Posted on May 10, 2013 | 7 comments

How can we understand the harsh, intemperate remarks directed at Knesset Member Dov Lipman (Yesh Atid) by the distinguished Rosh Yeshiva of the very yeshiva he attended and with which he identifies?
MK Lipman, a self-described Haredi, belongs to the Knesset party whose leader has been most outspoken about having Haredim “share the burden” of public service and economic output. From one perspective, his membership in the party is an anomaly and the criticism was bound to happen sooner rather than later. That perspective is one that perceives Talmud Torah as the ultimate value in society – which is laudable – but also demands that the rest of the society acknowledge that as well, which is a much harder sell.
From another perspective, Lipman represents a new wave of Israeli leadership, in which the traditional divisions in Israeli politics between religious and secular are no longer sustained. That approach has already been commented upon here, as approximately half-dozen political parties boast members of Knesset who are religious Jews. That is unprecedented, and it recognizes that, just as the “Jewish Home” includes Jews who are religious and secular, so too the Jewish “Future” has the same. The parochial, provincial parties that are interested only in their own needs and constituents are in recession.
Lipman has embraced a plan that would limit the number of full-time yeshiva students supported by the State to 1800 people chosen annually. The rest could learn Torah until age 21, and then do some form of army or national service and then join the work force. It recognizes the value of Torah study, as well as the necessity of reversing the dire poverty that is endemic in the Haredi world. He also supports a plan to mandate that Haredi elementary schools teach secular subjects like mathematics and English, or lose some government funding. For all that, Lipman was called by the Rosh Yeshiva a “wicked” person, who “has learned [Torah] and rejected it,” and akin to “Amalek,” the eternal arch-enemy of the Jewish people, i.e., one who wants to destroy the Torah and the Jewish people. Ironically, MK Lipman, in his past a veteran Torah educator, wrote a book about Jewish education that carries the endorsement of the very same Rosh Yeshiva who has now denounced him.
One would think that the Haredi leadership, especially in Israel, would themselves be searching for a solution to the financial and educational crises in the Haredi world. The rates of employment among Haredim are staggeringly low; according to statistics released this week, 61% of adult Haredi women work outside the home (typical of the secular world) but just an astonishing 48% of Haredi men are employed. One sin begets another. An inferior secular education leaves even interested Haredim woefully unprepared to hold meaningful jobs that pay salaries that can support their families. Additionally, ignorance of mathematics makes Talmud Torah infinitely more difficult. Anyone learning Daf Yomi should realize that more than a dozen folios in Masechet Eruvin are incomprehensible without some rudimentary knowledge of mathematics. And yet, a defiant ignorance of this subject is being glorified in the Haredi world, notwithstanding the fact that in the Rosh Yeshiva’s own yeshiva in the United States secular subjects are studied in the Yeshiva high school and students in the upper yeshiva routinely attend college. It is hard to see why secular education for Yeshiva students here is the norm, and secular education for yeshiva students in Israel demands martyrdom rather than compliance.
Ask many Haredim in Israel privately, and they will concede that they have been let down by their religious leadership who have proffered an ideal of existence that cannot be achieved, that renders them incapable of functioning in a normal society, and that bears little relation to the Torah world historically.
The “business model” of the Haredim has failed. Proof of its failure is the strident rhetoric flung at MK Lipman in place of a reasonable attempt to find solutions to the existing problems – as if Lipman is the problem and if he – and his ilk – would only disappear, then all problems in the Haredi world would disappear as well. That is patently false, but he is a convenient target for the major failure in the Haredi system, which follows.
Personally, I am drawn to the Haredi world, and especially in its regard for Torah. Too often, one finds in the Modern Orthodox world grievances of one sort or another against this or that aspect of Torah, as if Jews get to sit in judgment of God and His Torah. There are groups that define themselves by their rebellion against the part of Torah or the halacha they do not like. That is disgraceful arrogance, and that type of insurgence is thankfully unknown in the Haredi world. They like – love – the Torah, and they have no complaints against the Creator. Often, they are more humble servants of God than one finds elsewhere, and certainly defer to rabbinic authority (always welcome, but here, probably to a fault).
But those for whom the primacy of Talmud Torah is paramount have failed miserably in one regard: they have not successfully conveyed the value of Torah study to the rest of the society that they hope will support them. And that failure was quite predictable given current trends. That is to say, you cannot tell the rest of society that you cannot live with them in the same neighborhoods, ride with them on the same buses, fight alongside them in the same units (or any unit, for that matter), and socialize and interact with them in any meaningful way – and then stick out your hand and say “support me, because Torah study is the greatest value.” The mendicant cannot condescend to the benefactor, at least not forever; the benefactor might develop his own ideas and values and eventually say “no, sorry.”
In fact, that failure is even more troubling that it sounds on the surface, as the Haredi lifestyle and the walls that it has erected around itself has convinced too many Israelis (and other Jews) that it is impossible to observe the Torah’s mitzvot and still be a productive citizen. To be a pious and observant Jew, it would seem from their value system, demands that a person withdraw from the world at large, from gainful employment, and from meaningful contributions to anyone outside one’s narrow community. But a Yeshiva is not a monastery in the wilderness; it shares a root with yishuv, civilization. A true yeshiva enhances and even defines the civilization around it; it doesn’t detach itself from it.
The chickens of detachment and segregation have come home to roost.
Of course, I know of no precedent in Jewish history where a community of putative scholars expected the rest of the Jewish world to support them in perpetuity, and the Haredi world is being forced to reckon with that reality. The shrillness of the responses to date – catcalls of Amalek from some, threats by others to leave Israel and relocate to Poland and Russia (re-create the “good old days,” I suppose) – underscore the paralysis of leadership in the Haredi world, which is a shame for all Jews because the Torah commitment of Haredim is unparalleled. But that commitment also needs to be re-focused and especially must begin to infuse Jewish life outside the Bet Midrash.
The saddest aspect of this imbroglio is that it has thus far stimulated no major reassessment in the official Haredi world, no re-evaluation of what they might have done wrong and what they might do better, and no acknowledgment that there is even a problem in their circles. They seem to feel it is all politics, combined with Jew-hatred, and that the storm will pass whenever the next elections occur, they handle the post-election coalition building more deftly and the money will start to flow their way again.
They could be right about the latter. That is a tragedy, because such “victories” imperil the Torah world and ultimately harm all Jews. And there is no shortage of role models in Israel today of people who learn, fight, work, earn and build – who see themselves as part of something greater and not apart from everyone and everything else. They are the embodiment of the Torah ideal today, and they are the ones who will move Jewish destiny forward.

PS: In late-breaking news, the distinguished Rosh Yeshiva publicly apologized to MK Lipman for his intemperate remarks (sort of: he went from calling him a “rasha” to simply “misguided” and denied comparing him to Amalek). Now, on to solutions.

7 Comments

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

Lag BaOmer

Posted on May 3, 2013 | 2 comments

Surprisingly, the holiday that requires the most advance preparation is not Pesach or Succot; those require one, two, maybe three or (all right, for some) four weeks. In Israel, preparations for Lag Baomer began well before Pesach, almost six weeks in advance of the celebrations. Why?
A ubiquitous sight from early spring was seeing children gathering wood for the big bonfires made on Lag Baomer. Children become scavengers. These urchins clear their homes of all wood in a way that is not done before Pesach with chametz. They frequent construction sites and build makeshift wagons, schlepping their new-found wood from block to block to the central gathering spot. Anything not nailed down is seized, and I suspect that even much that is nailed down is seized anyway. Often, the pieces of wood are two or three times the size of the child carrying it; it looks like the wood is moving itself. This went on for weeks, and really intensified this last week with Lag Baomer’s imminence.
Of course, there are persistent reminders to exercise caution. Fire is obviously dangerous, and in an American context, it is hard to conceive of letting children play with matches, much less ignite stacks of wood in the hopes of producing an enormous conflagration. And, indeed, most fires were well-supervised (although it is clear that the hills surrounding Modiin did catch fire.)
How seriously do Israelis take this quasi-holiday? This year, children were off from school for two days, Sunday and Monday. And the Rabbinate, wary of Shabbat desecrations if bonfires were lit on Saturday night, directed that Lag Baomer pyrotechnics be delayed until Sunday night. (The Rabbinate has developed a habit of minimizing the real dates of Jewish observances in favor of commemorating events.) As can be expected, this just induced the boisterous, youthful participants to light fires both nights – Saturday night in fulfillment of the “custom,” and Sunday night in deference (so to speak) to the Rabbis. What is the origin of this strange custom?
For sure, it is rooted in kabbala (admittedly, not my thing), and a celebration of the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai who brought eternal light to the world through the Zohar and whose illumination is commemorated annually on this day. Perhaps there are other reasons, and some thoughts occurred to me.
In addition to the hilula for Rabbi Shimon, Lag Baomer primarily celebrates the cessation of the plague that afflicted Rabbi Akiva’s disciples. There is a common denominator that links the two: both Bar Yochai, and Rabbi Akiva and his students, were caught in the inferno of Roman persecution. Rabbi Shimon had to hide in a cave with his son for many years, and Rabbi Akiva’s students were actively engaged – as was Rabbi Akiva – in the failed rebellion of Bar Kochva (which, as I learned last week from Modiin’s mayor, actually began in Modiin).
It was a dark time for the Jewish people. Torah study declined and had to go underground. Jewish settlement in the land of Israel was constricted. It was 75 years after the churban, and the future seemed even more bleak that at the time of the churban itself.
And yet, we survived. The plague stopped. The rebellion ended. Rabbi Shimon came out of hiding with a change of government, and Torah study began anew – culminating just a few decades later with the publication of the Mishna.
Fire is the symbol of Torah and Jewish continuity. We are the heirs to a “fiery faith” (Devarim 33:2). Even in the darkest moments, all it takes is one spark to reignite the flames of Torah and it burns again. And fire has the capacity of not being diminished when it is spread; one candle lights another without that flame being lessened in intensity at all. The spread of Torah enriches all of us – teacher and student, parent and child – and nothing need be lost.
In essence, Lag Baomer is a celebration of the mesorah – not just the hidden aspects as revealed by Rabbi Shimon, and not just the revealed aspects as represented by Rabbi Akiva – but a celebration of the mesorah of Torah and the land of Israel that sustains us, that gives us direction in life and eternal hope for the future.
Undoubtedly, children are always the best examples of this hope, and so they have become, if not the masters of the mesorah (yet), then at least the masters of the fire that symbolizes Torah, mesorah, our love for Israel and our confidence in the redemption ahead. They may fully comprehend why they toil for so long gathering their wood and assembling their bonfire, but they do not toil in vain. They aim to keep the fire raging until the coming of Moshiach. May they stay strong, and safe.

Some Lag Baomer pictures:

2 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Holidays, Israel, Jewish History

Women on the Wall

Posted on April 26, 2013 | 9 comments

Here in Israel, some would have you believe that the most recent contrived contretemps – women wearing talitot and seeking public prayer at the Kotel – has riveted the country and pitted groups, people and politicians against each other in waves of outrage and recriminations. The truth is that it is barely a story, discussed very little by Israelis, and reflective of the peculiar forms of Jewish self-expression that are rooted in the exile experience.
As such, two sensations wash over when reading the sporadic references to these matters in the media. The first is tedium. Whatever their motivations, and I assume at least some are sincere, this battle is same-old same-old. The movers and shakers among the provocateurs are predominantly non-Orthodox, and some of those leading the charge and being arrested for the blatant breaches of the law are secular women who would otherwise not be found within 2000 ells of a house of prayer. As is customary these days with all groups that are uncomfortable with established religious or cultural norms, they wrap themselves in the banner of “equality,” as if that justifies anything and everything.
Memo to provocateurs: Judaism does not believe in absolute equality, nor does nature or life itself. The Torah is quite explicit that men and women share the same essential spiritual worth – both males and females were created in the image of God. But that is not the same as saying that modes of worship, and treatment under the law, therefore have to be identical. In God’s orchestra, men and women, kohanim, leviim and yisraelim, all have different roles and play different instruments. That is why that orchestra produces beautiful music and has spawned millennia of faithful Jews who have clung to the Torah despite great suffering imposed from outsiders and enormous challenges from secular culture and values.
The orchestra of the provocateurs plays only one instrument – a loud trumpet that blares and blares, and attracts attention but not respect.
There is a second sensation that arises as well to which many have become accustomed as these arguments pop up every now and then: sadness. It is sad when women feel that they are spiritually significant beings only when they mimic what men do. Whatever obscure sources one wants to cherry-pick after the fact, it is obvious – for example – that women have never worn talitot during prayer. That these women should feel that their prayer is elevated and worthy only when wearing male garb in public is just sad. (One wonders why these women just don’t wear tzitzit¬ – a talit katan – everyday under their garments like observant men do, or is it just the public show that matters?)
Certainly men can light Shabbat candles every Friday night and go to the mikveh once a month, but those men are mimicking women and fashioning their own religion that has little connection to God or Torah. It is the ultimate in self-worship. Egalitarianism has become the dominant value – above all others – such that the Torah is merely a tool in achieving it, and any jot or tittle of the Torah that engenders any sort of inequality must be abandoned, according to this way of thinking. For example, there are non-Orthodox Jews known to me who refuse to daven anywhere there is a mechitza (partition between men and women), deeming such to be “immoral.” They are sincere, albeit misguided. Where does it end? Should we anticipate a day when women will be clamoring to grow beards during sefira and lamenting the unfairness of it all – the “male patriarchy” – if they can’t?
In truth, the groups comprising the Wall Women have different agendas. Some want to push for women’s prayer and the duplication of the male experience, while others want full egalitarian prayer – mixed minyanim and the like. They are not identical but have joined forces to fight the greater battle – much like Conservative Judaism does not accept Reform Jewish conversions but fight together against Orthodox control of the conversion process. Both, again, have found the convenient bogeyman – the Haredim who are the enemies de jure in Israel and blamed for much of society’s ills and the strife at the Kotel. But anyone with remote familiarity with the events on the ground knows that the most caustic opponents of the provocateurs are not Haredi men, but women, and not all Haredi women, just religious women who are happy in their lives, love the Torah and find no fault in it, and do not want their prayers disturbed by these foreign elements who have incessant complaints against God’s Torah instead of their own unwillingness to comply with it.
The Haredim, though, are depicted as the enemy because they are convenient targets, and a woman-woman brawl would be even more tedious. And not all the women involved are non-Orthodox, but, as we have seen in other areas, rebellion against Torah can come from those who wear suits, hats, tichels, wigs and tallitot – and from both men and women.
Much has been made of the arrests of women wearing tallitot and otherwise disturbing the peace at the Kotel. It sounds bizarre that anyone should be arrested for “praying” in an uncustomary matter, until one realizes that just a few yards away from the Kotel, Jews are routinely barred from praying near the Temple Mount, and even arrested if they are caught moving their lips. There is a concept among decent people of respecting the norms and customs of a place. Certainly, these women would not demand freedom of worship in Al-Aksa, nor even try to enter wearing shoes. They would not seek to impose their forms of worship on a church, and if similarly-minded Christians did, the church would be justified in having them evicted and, if necessary, arrested for disturbing the peace. In their egalitarian ardor, they show contempt for Judaism that they would never show to other religions. (It reminds me of when the late Leah Rabin visited Pope John Paul II and covered her head with a scarf, something she would never consider when visiting the Chief Rabbi. Interesting.)
Indeed, perhaps these women would garner more support if they took their prayer to the Temple Mount. A steel cage match between Muslims and liberal Jewish women would be worth ten times the price of admission. As one of my dear colleagues pointed out, it would be delightful if these liberal women fought for their rights to pray unfettered at Me’arat Hamachpela in Hevron, or at Yosef’s Tomb in Shchem. If nothing else, it would put them on the side of the angels in support of Jewish rights throughout the land of Israel.
Of course, Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is prohibited by Israeli law so as not to offend Muslim sensibilities. Why, then, are Jewish sensibilities any less precious than Muslim ones? And – to be blunt – Jewish sensibilities are offended by blatant violations of Torah and mockeries of Torah that take place anywhere and in any form. True, we control our rage better than Muslims do, but the issue is not prevention of violence but sensibilities. And law and order.
Right now, the law bans some of the antics of these women. They may not like it, as I don’t like other laws, but those who break the law deserve to be arrested. Civil disobedience comes at a price, although the left in Israel – trumpeters of the “rule of law” – have long reserved the right to break laws they don’t like for causes they consider to be just. They conveniently forget the illegal negotiations with the PLO before Oslo – when even meeting PLO officials broke the existing law. Anarchy results when people pick and choose which laws are moral and which laws they will follow.
The gloomier prospect is that this matter will not end. Natan Sharansky’s compromise has been hailed by many, and give him credit for trying. (He wants to enshrine in practice the High Court’s license to have such prayers take place on the Western Wall’s southern extension, near Robinson’s Arch, on the unspoken but compelling theory that “out of sight is out of mind.”) There is logic to it, although religious Jews recoil at the permanence of any arrangement that breaches Jewish law. As is well known (Masechet Sukka 51b), the Bet HaMikdash of which the Western Wall is but a remnant had a balcony for women erected whenever large crowds were expected. Perish the thought – but the Holy Temple for whose rebuilding we pray every day was not an egalitarian institution! And the same mesorah that teaches us that today’s Kotel is part of the retaining wall of the Mikdash and the place from which the Divine Presence has never left and which God vowed would never be destroyed (Midrash Shir Hashirim Rabba 2:9) is the same mesorah that regulates how Jews pray.
And the compromise is sought on the specious grounds that failure to do something will cause a diminution of American-Jewish support for Israel. But that train left the station years ago; the primary supporters of Israel today in America are evangelical Christians, not Jews. Jews have become too unreliable, and too assimilated, to constitute a durable core of support, although few will admit this publicly, and the denial of this reality serves a purpose in keeping otherwise straying Jews somewhat tethered to Jewish life. And if the compromise is coupled with increased Jewish rights throughout the land of Israel – on the Temple Mount and elsewhere – it will have served a noble purpose.
But the controversy will not end – whether or not the “great compromise” goes into effect – because, as we have seen with race in America, “equality” leaves its seekers unsatisfied and they begin to demand special treatment and privileges. Robinson’s Arch will be construed as Plessy v. Ferguson re-visited, a “separate but equal” facility that will stoke the flames for years to come. In accord with Middle East custom, the provocateurs will pocket these concessions and plan their next move. It will not end, because the yetzer hara for Torah is also powerful and usually self-justifying. The latest reports are that the women in question have already rejected the compromise. They want more, and subtlety is not their strong suit.
What is missing – as is frequently the case in these intra-Jewish disputes – is surrender to a Higher Authority. Thus, this is a good debate to have, even if it has little traction in Israel, because it is a compelling reminder of the fundamental principles in Jewish life and the very foundation of Torah: Whom do we serve, how and why? What does it mean to be Jewish? How can all the deviations sought in Jewish law and morality not be deemed as self-worship? One recalls that among the initial founders of Conservative Judaism were Orthodox Jews and Rabbis. It is hard to imagine such a thing today, but, for example, Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes at the very end of the 19th century served as the president of the OU (Orthodox Union) and the Jewish Theological Seminary, of which he was one of the founders. It took two decades to sort out who was who and who stood for what. I sense that these groups and their agendas will not require that much time to determine whether or not they want to be part of the halachic world.
The answers to those questions usually are a powerful indicator of a person’s Jewish commitment, but more importantly, the extent to which that commitment will be transmitted to his/her children and grandchildren. A sin engenders a sin, and a mitzvah engenders a mitzvah. On which side of the wall, then, will these women, their supporters and their children, wind up? That is the critical question.
Meanwhile, a District Court Judge – identified as Orthodox – ruled yesterday that women can pray at the Kotel as they wish because there is no “local custom” that has to be obeyed. One would have thought that the Rabbi of the Kotel would have been in a better position to determine what the local custom is, but, at least, whatever the merits of his argument, this judge has now proven his liberal bona fides and put himself on the fast-track to a Supreme Court appointment.
Before anarchy descends on the Kotel, it would be a good time to remind ourselves that the Kotel is a symbol of Churban (the Destruction of the Temple) and not yet a symbol of redemption, may it come soon.