Category Archives: Machshava/Jewish Thought

HOMOPHOBIA-PHOBIA

Posted on July 30, 2010 | 4 comments

Homophobia, like racism, is a term whose import lies not in its technical definition but in its usefulness as a rhetorical bludgeon against perceived foes to an aggressive but fashionable agenda. The accusation itself stifles discussion, attempts to intimidate dissenters, and demeans the opposition rather than debates it. It is the refuge of those who prefer that shame replace reason, and invective substitute for civil discourse. In the last week or so, the indictment has been used to muster support for a resolution (?), a declaration (?) or something of that sort emerging from a group of Modern Orthodox rabbis that seeks overtly to increase sensitivity in the Orthodox world for the plight of the homosexual, and covertly, it seems, advance an agenda that will garner support in the religious world for the legitimacy of secular civil unions, an official welcome place in the Orthodox community for “open” homosexuals, and perhaps (among the more extreme elements among the MoDos) an admission that the Torah needs to be conformed to the modern research (and only that research) that supports the notion that homosexuality is innate and therefore could not have been prohibited by the Torah, or some other variation on that theme that would vitiate the obvious Torah prohibition homosexuality entails.

Much of the above does not appear in the Statement of Principles circulated in the ModO world, although it is the sub-text of what was characterized as the “Declaration against Homophobia” that I and others were urged to sign. The declaration encourages respect and sensitivity, an admission that homosexual acts constitute Torah violations, but also a plea for the official recognition of the homosexual as full members of the Jewish community (perhaps even as open partners, if celibacy is presumed). It is innocuous enough, unless one stops to ask the question: why is all this necessary ?

Homophobia, the accusation, carries less weight today than racism, the accusation, does, which is to say, none at all. These charges have been so overused as to be effectively meaningless, such that the indicted often wear them as badges of pride. Frankly, I do not know anyone who possesses a “fear of homosexuality,” the literal meaning of the term “homophobia.” People certainly object to the practice for religious, moral, and even societal reasons – but no one “fears” it. The accusation therefore should not be taken seriously, and undermines the sincerity of those who suggest it. They themselves are guilty of propagating a spurious phobia of non-existent homophobes, when all they are dealing with is the natural recoiling of the Jew at the attempted legitimization of a particular transgression.

I start from two very simple premises:

Everyone should treat everyone else with respect and decency. Period. We need not carve out special considerations beyond those afforded by the Torah – the widow, the orphan, the poor. Their unique status is based on external matters that do not involve a potential prohibition, but on the tragedy of the human condition itself. We should be teaching our children not to bully anyone – the poor kid and the rich kid, the smart child and the less smart, boys and girls, the cool and the uncool, the athletic and the less athletic. And we should likewise teach our adults not to disparage any human being – regardless of race, religion, ethnic background, creed and the rest of the list. But to highlight this one vice now, trendy as it is, is to pave the way for a future (not too distant) attempt to normalize these tendencies, much like a curriculum being debated in a school district in Montana these days that calls for teaching ten year olds that relations between men and women, men and men, and women and women are all “normal,” and they are free to choose as they mature. The suggested statement herein can be construed as innocuous enough, artfully phrased so that it does not trample on any fundamental principles of Judaism, but the wise person is always ro’eh et hanolad, sees trends and consequences, and the consequences for this campaign are potentially grave.

Secondly, every human being has tendencies that conflict with halacha, but we ordinarily do not broadcast them to others. How and why did homosexuality became the only biblical prohibition today that has its own lobbyists, interest group, and now legislators ? There is no other sin that earns such public acclaim, and surely that cannot be merely the result of allegedly harsh treatment against this particular group alone. The publication and mass dissemination of private sexual matters has contributed to, if not catalyzed, the tawdriness in our society that makes educating our children and other Jews with the eternal values of Torah an uphill battle. What shocks today becomes acceptable tomorrow, normal the day after that, and – scarcely a week later – a sign of moral degeneracy and mean-spirited judgmentalism for anyone who refuses to embrace it. This statement plays into that scenario and exacerbates that problem. To glorify, chastise, lament, excuse, or empathize with one set of hirhurim (illicit desires) as opposed to others elevates that particular hirhur to an undeserved “favored” status that simply echoes the zeitgeist and cheapens the Torah, but in a way that leaves us feeling both morally pure and virtuous when we in fact are neither.

In the society of decent people in which Jews should be the natural leaders, private behavior should remain private. That is the essence of tzniyut, the Jewish concept of modesty. Why must society be bombarded with knowledge of the details of a person’s private sexual practices, whether homosexual or heterosexual ? It is unbecoming. Indeed, everyone knows why people use bathrooms, and yet we still keep the door closed. For a person to trumpet his/her private sexual practices, whether or not they conform to the Torah, is just crude and unseemly, and unworthy of any Torah Jew. And yet, this statement, and the movement to normalize homosexuality in the Jewish world, is built on the foundation of coarseness that has vulgarized Western society and clearly infiltrated the precincts of Torah.

Must we know, hear about, read about, and agonize over people’s sinful or instinctual tendencies ? That is the job of a Rav to delve into in private with the afflicted individual, whatever the tendency is, not smooth the way for acceptance of that vice in Jewish (or general) society. The genius of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, similarly under siege today, was that it kept private matters private. No one need know the intimate details of another’s life, even if the person feels compelled to share it. And, as a rabbi, I need not decide whether a person who has homosexual tendencies can receive an aliya or perform some other public religious function – if I am not privy to that information. I don’t want to know and I don’t need to know – and if these matters are kept private by the relative few beset by them, then the declaration becomes superfluous.

Finally, despite all the protestations to the contrary, it strains credulity to believe that avowed homosexuals looking for acceptance in Jewish life do not act on their impulses. If they don’t, then why discuss it with the general public ? If they do, then why are we trying to diminish the gravity of their sin ? And if they do but we prefer to believe that they don’t so we can utilize the actor/action distinction as a convenient fig leaf to advance an agenda that further debases our society, then what is that saying about us ? As I see it, there is only one situation in which a person’s sexual deviance becomes an issue that requires sensitive but clear deliberation: the dating world. Men (or women) with homosexual tendencies should not date members of the opposite sex as they try to work out their issues. When they date nonetheless, the men (in particular) torment the women, who do not grasp why their relationship did not mature romantically, and, suspecting nothing, blame themselves unnecessarily. People who struggle with their sexual identity should discreetly say they are not dating; that would be a noble act of sensitivity and respect.

The bottom line is we should treat all people with respect – people like us and people not like us. Certainly, I would support under the proper circumstances the ostracism of an avowed adulterer, even though he/she could well argue that monogamy is unnatural, temptation is great, they were both consenting adults, and the pain and harm caused to themselves and their families were real and should itself warrant lenient treatment, sensitivity and “understanding.” Nevertheless, we sometimes act l’migdar milta, to set boundaries and sound a cautionary note about practices that offend the halacha. This statement tears down the boundaries that moral societies have always erected and maintained on the pretense that we are dealing only with thoughts of sin and not sin itself. I am not buying it.

I respect all those who struggle with their tendencies to avoid sin, and they should be lauded and encouraged – because “they” are “us” – all of us. The statement is therefore unnecessary and potentially harmful. The fact that it needed to be “negotiated,” with one side apparently advocating greater acceptance and legitimization of the homosexual agenda, with their own “red lines” drawn in the sand, is itself a cause for concern.

Keep private things private. We’ll be a better people for it, the world will be a better place, and the Torah will be cherished by all as the source of eternal verities and morality, rather than a weather vane that charts the shifting winds of public policy proper behavior. In so doing, we will rightly be a “light unto the nations,” if not also, first and foremost, unto ourselves.

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

Numbers Game

Posted on July 28, 2010 | 1 comment

The Torah teaches that “G-d did not desire us or choose us because we are more numerous than the other nations, for we are the fewest of all the peoples” (Devarim 7:7) But why would we think otherwise ? As the commentator Rashbam asks: did Moshe really believe that the Jewish people thought that G-d had chosen us because of our numerical superiority ? It is obviously not so. So what exactly is the point that Moshe was making?

On a superficial level, people are always impressed by the most, of anything. The largest country in population (China), the largest country in size (Russia), the most, the greatest, the fastest, the smartest, even the most home runs (however they were hit). It makes for interesting conversation, but what is the difference really ? Numbers do not impress us. There are more than a billion Christians and more than a billion Moslems in the world, but we are “the fewest of nations,” infinitesimal on the world stage. Clearly, we are taught that G-d’s designation of the Jewish people was not dependent on numbers, and nor is our destiny.

There is a deeper point as well. The Torah is teaching us that numbers not only do not determine worth, but they are never a significant factor in assessing the state of Jewish life. Notwithstanding that, we have such a numbers obsession in Jewish life that one would think, firstly, that the Torah posited such a viewpoint, and secondly, that our future existence is based completely on maintaining some arbitrary figure, some critical mass of Jews. We have such a numbers obsession that even hearing this iconoclasm, you must think that I am in need of a vacation.

The fact is that numbers have never mattered for much in Jewish life. There are as many Jews today as there was before World War I, and 5,000,000 more than in 1882. There are perhaps 10% more Jews alive today than at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple. We never grow that much, the enduring legacy of both assimilation and persecution. But here is another way to look at it: the world has tripled in size since the start of World War I, and we have stayed the same; but have we fallen off the map ? Are Jews unknown in the world ? We have gone from being .006 of the world’s population, to being .002. Are we less influential ? Are we harder to find ? Do we find it harder to get our names in the newspapers ? They still know where to find us, even though we are “the fewest of nations.” There are almost three times as Daoists in the world as there as Jews, and ten times more Yoruba. Go figure.

We have been conditioned to believe that numbers matter. We hear constantly that we need to boost our numbers, especially by making peace with intermarriage, and especially today by broadening our base by accepting converts who are not sincere about a Jewish commitment. If we write off the intermarried, the argument goes, our numbers shrink. If we do not embrace his non-Jewish wife and children, we will not achieve some numerical quota that we have apparently set for ourselves. It is the same reason that compels Jews to initiate a program of mass conversions, regardless of commitment, to boost Israel’s population, to ensure that we meet an artificial target that, if reached, will ensure Jewish survival. It has even led some to argue that the definition of Jewishness should be “any person that Hitler would have murdered” (i.e., a person with even one Jewish grandparent, sometimes one Jewish great-grandparent), leading to the macabre result that they have designated Hitler as the posek for the Jewish people, the decisor of Jewish law and identity. Talk about posthumous victories; that indeed would be an ultimate triumph. Fortunately, we are able to rely on the Torah to adjudicate these matters, and not a diabolical, pathological, mass murderer.

We are the smallest of nations, and every nation needs people to survive. We do, too, but more than some arbitrary number of people, we need good Jews, Jews who make a difference, Jews who want to be Jews – not just Jews in name, who will just pay dues or have to chased down to pay their dues, or Jews whom our enemies flesh out. “For you are a holy people, and G-d chose you to be His people” (Devarim 7:6), and therefore there are as many Jews at any one moment as G-d determines He needs for His purposes. There are never too few or too many; it is always just right. That “you are not more numerous” means that every Jew is precious, but that abstract numbers mean nothing at all. We are not trying to meet a particular quota.

We need good Jews. Capricious figures plucked out of the air avoid dealing with the main issue: how do we produce good Jews, Jews who make a difference, who make their mark in the public domain in a way that reflects well on all of us. For example, an observant woman named Wendy Shalit became a counter-cultural phenomenon in the last decade, writing books encouraging a “Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue” and “Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect”, about modesty and self-respect for young women in the world at large, about how young women need not ape the immodest fashions or behavioral trends in order to win friends.

Even in our world we struggle with this aspect of human dignity. There are religious girls who are forced to wear modest clothing to school – RULES – whose parents don’t mind them dressing down (or skimpier) on the weekends. They send a terrible (and awfully) mixed message. But this issue has only slowly entered the secular discourse, and to achieve that – to have a religious Jewish woman in the forefront of a moral issue (instead of evangelicals or Moslems) – is a sanctification of G-d’s name. One Wendy Shalit is more meaningful that any 50 Jews in Hollywood who debase the culture. But you wouldn’t know it because of our numbers obsession.

The day will come, the prophet Zecharia said, when “ten non-Jews will grab the coat of a Jew and say ‘let us go with you, because we have heard that G-d is with you.’” The nations will ultimately turn to us and say “teach us.”

But are we ready for that moment ? Do we have what to teach ? Are we secure in our values, and are we still shaped by the common culture and its frequent tawdriness ?

So why did G-d give us the Torah ? The Ramban here quotes the Talmud (Beitza 25b) that we were given the Torah because we are a tough people – a people that can withstand all the blandishments, allures and threats of the world, and endure all trials and tribulations tossed our way. We need strong Jews, not Jews who desire special accommodations because they cannot resist temptation, nor Jews who are easily broken by misfortune or prone to despair. We are the people who are eternally comforted, and therefore never lose faith in G-d or in His Torah.

The prophet Isaiah (40:3) declared that our task is always to clear the path for G-d, to build a straight road for His seekers – not one with detours, excursions, amusing twists and turns – to keep it straight and simple. Then we will merit the days of understanding and faith, with all Jews present and accounted for, and enjoy the fruits of a glorious redemption, for us and all mankind.

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

Five Years Later

Posted on July 22, 2010 | Comments Off

The fine work “Start-Up Nation” (Saul Singer and Dan Senor), the most upbeat book written about Israel in years, describes in vivid detail the economic miracle, or at least, anomaly, that has seen Israel not only weather the global financial upheavals of the last few years but also become a world leader in technological innovation. Its economy bumped and rebounded during the recent recession, but did not crash. Israelis, literally, are brimming with ideas and the moxie to implement them. Undeterred by occasional failure – or, more tellingly, by the Arab terror that violently interrupts their lives from time to time – these entrepreneurs have re-made the Israeli economy and transformed modern living across the world.

This creativity is certainly multi-faceted, but is largely attributed to the skill sets acquired by the average Israeli through his military service and especially the informality, originality, personal responsibility and free-thinking that are hallmarks of that service. They note, for example, that “the IDF has a chaotic, anti-hierarchical ethos – which can be found in every aspect of Israeli society. A private will tell a general in an exercise – You are doing this wrong, you should do it this way. (This is not to say that soldiers aren’t expected to obey orders.) But orders are given in the spirit of men who have a job to do and mean to do it. They are not defined by rank. This is because Israel’s society and history is based on questioning.” To leftist writer Amos Oz, Judaism itself has cultivated a “culture of doubt and argument.” These individuals are groomed to think out of the box. It can be a mixed bag for a commander: “Assertiveness versus insolence; critical, independent thinking versus insubordination – the words you choose depend on your perspective, but collectively they describe the typical Israeli entrepreneur.” Today’s Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren noted that he served in units where they literally “threw out” the officers – a colonel , for one – simply voted them out, and the commanding officer was re-assigned because the enlisted men thought he was not up to the tasks at hand.

Furthermore, “at debriefings, emphasis is put not only on unrestrained candor but on self-criticism as a means of having everyone learn from every mistake. Explaining away a bad decision is unacceptable.” Nothing is swept under the rug, and this type of thinking and questioning leads these soldiers – once they leave the army – into businesses where re-organization, enhanced efficiency, and new ways of looking at old problems are prized and desirable characteristics. So products such as microchips, EZ Pass, sophisticated medical surgical equipment, instant messaging and many others boast an Israeli provenance.

Oddly, there was time in recent years when these skills failed abjectly: the 2006 War in Lebanon. I quote: “Indeed, the 2006 Lebanon War was a case study in deviation from the Israeli entrepreneurial model that had succeeded in previous wars. Giora Eiland, a senior military official and for years a national security advisor to a succession of prime ministers, stated: ‘Open –minded thought, necessary to reduce the risk of sticking to preconceived ideas and relying on unquestioned assumptions, was far too rare.’ “One of the problems of the Second Lebanon War was the exaggerated adherence of senior officers to the chief of staff’s decisions. There is no question that the final word rests with the chief of staff, and once decisions have been made, all must demonstrate complete commitment to their implementation. However, it is the senior officers’ job to argue with the chief of staff when they feel he is wrong, and this should be done assertively on the basis of professional truth as they see it.”

The 2006 war was a costly wake-up call for the IDF.” During the Second Lebanon War, “Israel suffered from a lack of organization and a lack of improvisation.”

What is even more bitterly ironic, and arguably causative, is that the obsequiousness to authority and the glorification of “following orders” without question actually began almost a year earlier, with the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif and Northern Shomron and the destruction of their thriving communities. This blot on Israeli society and Jewish history, now five years past, evoked a wave of hysteria about the sacred obligation to “obey orders,” how the failure to follow orders blindly would result in the collapse of the IDF and the imminent destruction of the State of Israel itself, and how the “mitzva” to obey orders supersedes any other mitzva in the Torah – especially that of settling the land of Israel. Those who embraced Oz’ “culture of doubt and argument” were branded as both immoral and seditious. The IDF Chief of Staff, Boogie Ya’alon, who challenged his civilian superiors and rejected the very premise of the Expulsion, was simply silence and replaced.

Is there anyone left who does not believe that had the Expulsion Plan been subjected to greater scrutiny and analysis that Israel would have spared itself both the stain of having maltreated its own citizens as well as the daily cascade of rockets that began immediately thereafter and terrorized Sderot and nearby towns ? To the anguished litany of catastrophes that have befallen our people on the Ninth of Av, we ourselves were bystanders to the addition of the following notation: “9 Av, 2005: the last day of legal Jewish settlement in Gush Katif and Northern Shomron.” That calamity took its place with the sin of the biblical spies, the destruction of the two Temples and the fall of Betar, the 1492 Expulsion of the Jews from Spain and other such cataclysms.

The wound of Gush Katif still has not healed. Most of the refugees, intrepid souls that they are, have successfully begun the process of rebuilding their lives – personal and professional – after much hardship, and with the assistance of a variety of private organizations (Jobkatif.org leaps to mind). They persevered despite the brutal betrayal of the Israeli government – before, during and after the expulsion. For many (even non-refugees), their trust in government, both in terms of policies and morality, will be forever shattered, and rightfully so. And Ariel Sharon, architect of the Expulsion, remains an exile himself, suspended between this world and the next one – perhaps awaiting the resettlement of the last of the refugees whose lives he shattered before he can find his own eternal rest.

Strange, further, that the authors of this insightful book do not connect the dots, and do not see the linkage between the travesty of Gush Katif and the failures of the Lebanon War a year later. The suppression of dissent – worse, the criminalization of dissent – that characterized the Expulsion became institutionalized in the debacle of Lebanon. Obvious mistakes were swept under the rug, no real introspective analysis has taken place about the costs of the Expulsion (nor, for that matter, about the Oslo debacle), nor has there been any accountability on the part of the poor decision-makers of the past. Most of the perpetrators of Oslo have remained unscathed, even celebrated. The architect of the Lebanon flight of 2000 – Ehud Barak – still offers his strategic insights as the Minister of Defense. The 10,000 refugees of 2005, caused by Israel’s own hand, mushroomed into the 350,000 refugees of 2006, the work of the heinous Hezbollah. “Following orders,” the catch phrase of 2005, became the macabre joke of 2006, when soldiers were ordered in and out of sectors within minutes, told both to move forward and then remain where they were in orders that changed every few hours, and occasionally, and sadly, marched to their deaths. Soldiers saw the futility of following commanders who were hampered by orders coming from distant superiors who did not understand the situation on the ground, and whose lives were therefore endangered and lost. Who can forget the ignominy of then PM Olmert’s directive at the end of the war for soldiers to capture a hill that he had already agreed would be returned the very next day when the cease fire was to begin? Thirty-three soldiers – Jewish husbands and sons – were killed seizing that useless piece of real estate that, indeed, was abandoned the very next day. “Futility of futilities, Kohelet said, it is all futile.”

Well, not all. “Start-Up Nation” certainly makes the case that Israel has learned from its mistakes, and the failed Lebanon War fueled a new wave of creative and iconoclastic thinking that hopefully will bode well for the future. The test will be when (if?) the next round of Israeli concessions requires more surrender of land and further expulsions of Jews. Will the reaction be as docile – and as ultimately destructive – as the one five years ago this week ? Let us pray we never have to find

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

A BLIGHT UNTO THE NATIONS

Posted on July 16, 2010 | 1 comment

Once again, Jewish identity is on the front-burner, and Jewish patriotism is under siege, with the news of two intermarriages involving public figures. Last weekend, Brooklyn Congressman (D, of course) Anthony Wiener married a non-Jew (a Muslim woman), with Bill Clinton himself presiding over the festivities. Wiener, a Charles Schumer acolyte with the same brashness and love for the camera as his mentor, has always been a “pro-Israel” congressman and aspires to be New York City’s next Mayor. Should his intermarriage play any role in determining his political future ?

A cogent argument can be made that it should play no role, especially in a country that pursuant to the Constitution has no religious litmus test for electoral office. An official should be judged, the argument goes, based on his conduct in office, or his positions, integrity, values, intelligence, etc. Nevertheless, I disagree, because people vote for a public official because they identify with him/her, and feel that person can best represent their values and goals. Can a Jew who betrays his people by marrying out of the faith be trusted to look after the interests of the Jewish people ? I don’t see how. Notwithstanding that they could do it, I am not sure I would trust them to do it. And even though people vote for candidates who ostensibly will be the best representative of the polity and not of their particular ethnic group, the reality is people are inclined to vote for those who are considered role models, or at least reflective of the norms and ideals of their lives and the interests of their more parochial class. That is life among the diverse constituencies in New York City, where ethnic politics is a reality.

More troubling is the recognition that a Brooklyn Congressman – Brooklyn, of all places, and a person who is unabashedly Jewish in his affect and speech patterns – would think that intermarriage today is so accepted and conventional that it should not be deemed controversial at all. That sad state of affairs should distress all of us, as it indicates the transformation of American Jewry in just 50 years – from rejection and abhorrence of intermarriage to the ho-hum, even unremarkable response of the Jewish (especially non-Orthodox) world today.

That humdrum, desultory reaction informs the secular Jewish coverage of the impending nuptials of celebrity intermarried couple number two, Chelsea Clinton to Marc Mezvinsky, the Jewish (described as “Conservative”) son of two former (D, of course) Congresspersons. It is not the first such marriage of Jews into high-powered, influential non-Jewish families: leaping to mind are the marriages of Al Gore’s daughter to a Jew named Schiff (since ended in divorce) and Caroline Kennedy’s marriage to Edward Schlossberg, still going strong.

Today’s Jerusalem Post carried an absolutely inane piece entitled “Jews Wring their Hands Over Chelsea Clinton’s Nuptials” (http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=181609), the hand-wringing over the question of “will Chelsea convert ?”

To which the response of normal Jews should be, “and if she does, so what ?” Does she have any intention of committing to the Jewish people, of living a Torah-centered life ? Will she observe the commandments in any substantive sense ? Does she feel any grief over the destruction of the two Temples that we will commemorate this coming Tuesday on the Ninth of Av ? Indeed, Chelsea may have more religious sensibilities than her beau, which begs the question: why doesn’t he convert ? If his Jewish identity is so tenuous and means so little to him, then why impose the charade on her ? Be a man, and charade yourself.

And in the charade that much of modern Jewish life (outside the world of Torah) has become, note these priceless questions from the above-referenced article, that apparently concern at least one Jew (the writer): “Will there at least be a rabbi co-officiating? A huppa? A glass?” Who in the real, live, thinking, breathing, Jewish world could possibly care about that ? Having a rabbi “co-officiate” at an intermarriage is like having Mahmoud Ahmadinejad swear in the next American President on Capitol Hill, January 20, 2013. It is a traitorous act that obviously demeans the (steadily meaningless) term “rabbi.” Does a “huppa,” the symbol of the Jewish home, have any relevance when the home will not be Jewish ? Does “breaking the glass,” a reminder of the churban (destruction of the Temples and Jerusalem), have any significance when the marriage itself is a churban – and when the mother of the bride is determined to weaken the Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem today and G-d-forbid precipitate another churban ? What a macabre joke.

But the approach itself is reflective of a growing attitude among non-Orthodox Jews – both publicly and privately – that intermarriage is a reality, and we must accept it, and participate, and attend in the hopes of “influencing them for the good,” so they remain “part of the Jewish people,” “giving money to Jewish causes” and perhaps having a Menorah next to their tree, fast half a day on Yom Kippur and eat matza at the Pesach seder – in other words, the all symbols and no substance that unfortunately characterizes too much of Jewish life, especially among the non-Orthodox. So, make the best of it !

Reality check: for the sake of decorum, we shy away from the statistical reality of Jewish life. Forget the 50% intermarriage rate, give or take a few percentage points either way. It means nothing and says less. The real rate is more devastating: among non-Orthodox Jews, the intermarriage rate hovers close to 70% ! No wonder their rabbis and leaders say we must accept it, and reach out, and embrace sham conversions, and the like. No wonder they blame the “openness of American society;” that is far more comforting than to look themselves in the mirror at the devastation they have wrought in the Jewish world. No wonder non-Orthodox Rabbis are often hired or fired based on their comfort level with performing intermarriages. And no wonder Anthony Wiener assumes – perhaps even correctly – that his intermarriage will play no significant role in his political future.

On a recent TV panel with two non-Orthodox rabbis, I realized that their perceptions of conversion itself are flawed almost beyond repair. They maintained that conversion requires immersion in a mikveh for men and women, and circumcision for men. My attempts to explain that those are the procedures of conversion, not the substance, fell flat. The substance of conversion is an acceptance of Mitzvot and a willingness to be part of the fate and destiny of the Jewish people. When that commitment is manifest and complete, then the procedures of conversion can be carried out. I might as well have been talking Swahili; there was certainly no realization on their part that their doctrines and teachings have inevitably and ineluctably led their flock to this national catastrophe.

The irony is that this is no criticism at all of Chelsea Clinton or the new Mrs. Wiener, neither of whom have done anything wrong. It is the Jewish spouse in each case who is committing the crime against the Jewish people, a crime that cannot be washed away by the sprinkling of holy water or the mumbling of a few incantations, or their Jewish equivalent. For sure, there are always people who point out that the children of the Jewish mother is Jewish, and therefore ripe for outreach, and even the children of the non-Jewish mother can be “raised Jewish.” But this is a pipedream, and waste of resources. One can jump out of a plane without a parachute and still survive, but it is not something that is anticipated and planned for.

Jews eschew intermarriage because marriage creates a home that will embody and transmit the unique values and ideals of the Jewish people as received from G-d. It is our role as G-d’s witnesses that have merited us His grace and protection since our national origins more than 3800 years ago, and that role cannot be embraced by one who does not share those premises, that commitment, and that sense of privilege or identity. Serious, committed converts are a blessing to the Jewish people, as well as a challenge to the genuineness of the born Jew. To the extent that Jews tolerate intermarriage is ultimately a reflection of their own commitments, and the seriousness with which they perceive the above-mentioned divinely-ordained role. When intermarriage becomes commonplace, and “Jewish” writers dismiss concerns as narrow-minded and mock the genuine grief that traditional Jews feel over the impending loss of any Jew, they have unfortunately revealed the shallowness of their own commitment, and the insecurities they feel about their own Jewish identity.

Just two more reasons to mourn this coming Tish’a B’Av, and two more reasons to redouble our efforts to promulgate the ideals of Torah far and wide so that intermarriage remains anathema and becomes increasingly rare, and all Jews embrace the beauty of a divine system that demands that we be a “light – not a blight, which is intermarriage – onto the nations.”

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