“But I will confess…” read the subject line in a recent e-mail from a dear friend, a very intelligent Jewish man who claims to be an atheist.  In the message box the communication continued: “…that the continued existence of Jew-hatred… baffles me.”

“And,” my friend added, “I am not easily baffled.”

His comment was a reaction to a recent column that appeared in this space (which he saw electronically; he’s not yet a subscriber to Hamodia) that alluded to how powerful an argument for the Torah’s truth is the astounding, perplexing persistence of anti-Semitism.

If only my friend, and all Jews, would honestly and objectively consider that other, independent, anomalies also lead in the same direction.

Like the perseverance of the Jewish People itself, despite all the adversity it has faced and faces; like the uniqueness of the Torah’s recording of sins committed by its most venerated personalities, in such contrast to other religions’ fundamental texts; like the seemingly self-defeating laws the Torah commands, like shmitah and aliyah liregel , which no human would ever have decreed, as they put their observers in great danger; like the predictions the Torah makes that have come to pass, like the sin-caused golus and scattering of Klal Yisrael around the world; like Moshe’s speech deficit and deep humility, the polar opposites of the qualities of all of history’s successful non-Divinely-ordained leaders.

And, of course, above all those uniquenesses, the dearth in the annals of human history of any other claim that the Creator communicated directly with an entire people, a claim that, by its nature, cannot be successfully asserted and perpetuated… unless it actually happened.

Those striking singularities should be particularly pondered by Jay P. Lefkowitz, who, back in the April issue of Commentary, extolled the idea of Jewish observance-without-belief in the Torah’s truth, and now, in that periodical’s September issue, tries to defend himself against a number of letters the magazine published (full disclosure: one was written by me) explaining that Judaism is predicated on awareness of the Creator.

Mr. Lefkowitz, who attends a synagogue weekly and, in his own words, “pick[s] and choose[s] from the menu of Jewish rituals,” but “without fear of divine retribution,” claims that the sort of “social conformism” he practices plays a “large role” even in traditional Orthodox communities.

It must be honestly, if sadly, admitted that there are indeed seemingly religious Jews who “do Jewish” but don’t seem to “think Jewish.” That some even in our own observant community, bizarrely, even defend observance that lacks G-d-consciousness, and are complacent about tefillah without kavanah.  How large a role mindless Jewish praxis plays in the Orthodox community, of course, isn’t anything any of us can really know.

But whatever its prevalence, it is lamentable, not some ideal to enshrine, as Mr. Lefkowitz seems to do, as a new “movement” – much less an “Orthodox” one.  It is a spiritual malady, something to be overcome.  Judaism is not a culture; it is a belief system.

That religious observance is Jewishly vital, of course, is a truism.  And so is the fact that all of us live imperfectly on a continuum of Hashem-consciousness.  Few if any of us have actually realized Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai’s deathbed blessing to his talmidim:  “May the fear of Heaven be to you as the fear of human beings.”  When his puzzled students protested, the tanna explained: “Think! When a person commits a sin, he says ‘I hope no one is watching me!’” (Berachos, 28b).

The problem with Mr. Lefkowitz’s stance isn’t his forthrightness about his philosophical qualms.  It’s that he seems comfortable with, even proud of, them.  And that, rather than seek to alleviate his doubts with some deep and discomfiting thought about why Jews believe and have always believed in the truth of our mesorah, he chooses instead to legitimize the decommissioning of emunah, labeling his G-dless approach some sort of new “Orthodox Judaism.”  It is neither Orthodox nor Judaism.

He correctly notes that no responsible rabbi would ever counsel a fellow Jew who confides that “I don’t really believe in G-d or that G-d gave the Torah, so I am not sure whether I should continue to fast on Yom Kippur or observe Kashrut or Shabbat” to “throw away observance unless it is faith-driven.”  But a responsible rabbi would counsel the supplicant to undertake observance with a conscious intention to better understand his actions as the Creator’s will. Doing Jewish can lead to thinking Jewish.  But one must want it to.

As for us believers, we might take Mr. Lefkowitz’s words as a push to strengthen our own Hashem-consciousness.  Even if perfection in that ideal remains out of our reach, we are not absolved from aspiring to it, from aiming, each of us, at a higher state of recognition that Hashem Hu ho’Elokim.

That quest, in fact, is arguably the very life-goal of a Jew.  It is certainly something timely to ponder now, well into Elul.  May our focus on it be a zechus for ourselves – and for all our fellow Jews.

© 2014 Hamodia

Republication or posting of the above only with permission from Hamodia

The article below appeared earlier this week (with a more incendiary title) in Haaretz.

Back in the day, before contoured bucket seats became de rigueur in cars, the front seat of family vehicles – especially larger ones – was once a couch-like affair that could, and often did, comfortably seat three adults across.  The scene: Mr. and Mrs. Weisskopf, citizens of a certain age, are driving somewhere.  The missus is upset, and her husband asks what’s wrong.

“Do you remember,” she says, wistfully but with unmistakable resentment, “how we used to sit so near one another on our drives?  Look at us!  We’re at totally opposite ends of the seat!”

The man is puzzled, as well he might be.  “But dear,” he replies, looking across at her, his hands firm on the steering wheel, “I’m driving!”

The chestnut comes to mind upon reading some of the reactions of Reform leaders to the election of Ruby Rivlin to Israel’s presidency.

“He may be open-minded on a variety of issues,” Uri Regev, a Reform rabbi who now heads the “religious pluralism” organization Hiddush, pronounced about the president-elect, “but his mind was made up” about Judaism’s definition.  He is “the same old anti-liberal, close-minded traditionalist Israeli.”

Former Reform leader Eric Yoffie voiced a similar judgment in the days before Mr. Rivlin’s election, direly warning that he expects “candidates for president to act in an appropriate and respectful manner to all elements of the Jewish world.”

And the current head of the Reform movement, Rick Jacobs, penned an open letter to Mr. Rivlin in which he reminded the Israeli president-elect of the “stunning insensitivity” he had displayed toward the “dominant religiosity of North American Jewry” and expressed his hope that “you’re ready to update your harsh and rather unenlightened views of our dynamic, serious and inspiring expression of Judaism.”

Mr. Rivlin’s sin, of course, was being honest, and perhaps a bit blunt for American tastes.  Although famously secular himself, he dared, back in 1989, after visiting two Reform temples, to share his evaluation of the liberal Jewish movement, calling it “a completely new religion without any connection to Judaism.”

Then in 2006, he opined that he “has no doubt… that the status of Judaism according to Halacha is what has kept us going for 3,800 years” and that “besides it there is nothing.”

The latest voice to join the chorus of criticism of Mr. Rivlin’s unguarded judgment was that of Charles A. Kroloff, rabbi emeritus of one of the temples that Mr. Rivlin visited in 1989.  He recently expressed his “hope” that Mr. Rivlin has come, over the years, to understand “that if we are to be strong we must respect our fellow Jews, and if we are to survive, we Jews must be a united people.”

Rabbi Kroloff is correct, of course, although his sentiment has nothing to do with the question of what theologies can properly lay claim to being legitimate heirs to the Jewish religious tradition and which ones cannot.

That religious tradition hewed for millennia, and still does today, to certain foundational beliefs: in a Creator, in the historicity of the Jewish forefathers, the exodus from Egypt and the revelation at Sinai; and in the eternal nature of the law transmitted there to the people, our ancestors, who were divinely chosen to be an example to all humanity.

The year before Mr. Rivlin visited Rabbi Kroloff’s temple saw the death of a Nobel laureate, the celebrated physicist I. I. Rabi.  Born in Galicia and raised in the United States, he lacked the bluntness of an Israeli.  But when asked about his faith, Mr. Rabi expressed much the same sentiment as Mr. Rivlin did mere months later.

“…If you ask for my religion,” he said, “I say ‘Orthodox Hebrew’ – in the sense that the church [sic] I’m not attending is that one.  If I were to go to a church, that’s the one I would go to.   That’s the one I failed.  It doesn’t mean I’m something else…”

The same is true for every Jew, no matter what prefix he or she has been persuaded to place before “Jew” in his or her self-description.  Jews are Jews.  And, whatever some Jews may imagine, Judaism is Judaism.

Like Mrs. Weisskopf, the leaders of the “dominant religiosity of North American Jewry” may feel insulted at the stubborn persistence of the original Jewish religious tradition, and peeved by its great distance from them.  But it was they, not it, that created the distance.

And objective observers readily perceive what those leaders cannot bring themselves to confront, that there is today, as always, only one Judaism, the original one.

© 2014 Haaretz

Had someone back, say, in the 1960s had both the foresight to trademark the word “Orthodox” and no compunctions about licensing it, he’d be a wealthy man today.

 Once upon a time, when Torah-observant Jewish life in America was expected to expire in short shrift, the “O” word was something of an albatross (though I don’t know if they’re kosher).  Anyone wanting to establish a new-and-improved Jewish movement would coin a new-and-improved adjective – “Reform,” “Conservative,” “Reconstructionist,” something novel and shiny.  But “Orthodox”?  It bespoke a tired, dusty past, one without a future.

Times have changed.  Today, Orthodoxy, boruch Hashem, is thriving, and “Orthodox” seems to be the adjective of the era.  So much so that when the latest carbon copy (remember carbon copies?) of the Conservative movement is conceived, the last thing its proponents wants to do is to associate it with its languishing, moribund theological predecessor.  It wants an “Orthodox” label, the better to lay claim to Jewish legitimacy.

And so we have seen “Orthodox Feminism,” which flouts established halacha and rejects “patriarchal” elements of Judaism.  And “Open Orthodoxy,” which not only derides by its very name those committed to the mesorah (we “closed” folks) but proudly advocates for things demonstrably antithetical to the Judaism of the ages.

And now, in the April issue of the monthly periodical Commentary, we have the latest addition to the “Orthodox” bestiary.

The new animal, “Social Orthodoxy,” is introduced by Jay P. Lefkowitz, a former adviser in the George W. Bush administration.  To be fair, he claims to not really be inventing anything new, only channeling what he considers to be the religion of many “Modern Orthodox” Jews (although he thereby insults all the upstanding, halacha-respecting Jews who choose to call themselves “modern”).

Mr. Lefkowitz’s creation is, in a sense, the polar opposite of what was once called “cardiac Judaism” – the once-popular “I’m a believing Jew in my heart, even if I’m not observant of any of the Torah’s commandments” approach.  “Social Orthodoxy” means doing Jewish without believing Jewish.

To wit, Mr. Lefkowitz explains that he dons tefillin daily and attends a synagogue weekly.  He eats kosher and, when eating in non-kosher restaurants, orders vegetarian dishes.  He “pick[s] and choose[s] from the menu of Jewish rituals,” but “without fear of divine retribution,” indeed without belief in a Creator.  (To Whom he prays in synagogue isn’t clarified.)

He claims, ludicrously, that “Modern Orthodoxy” of the sort he extolls has its roots in the teachings of Rav Shamson Raphael Hirsch; and, not ludicrously at all, sees its exemplification in the approaches of Rabbi Avi Weiss, the father of the aforementioned “Open Orthodoxy” and Mordecai Kaplan, Reconstructionism’s parent.

Indeed, that latter movement, although it hasn’t gained many adherents, is pretty much precisely what the Commentary commentator is championing, albeit with an attempt at some “Orthodox” redecoration.  Kaplan’s first and most recognized work was entitled “Judaism As A Civilization,” and its title says it all.  The Jewish faith, to him, is not a world-view, not a religion, not a revealed mission from the Creator to His chosen people, but a culture, and nothing more.

Mr. Lefkowitz recounts the astonishment of a Catholic friend who asked him, “How can you do everything you do… if you don’t even believe in G-d?”

The writer, he tells us, responded by citing to his friend his ancestors’ response at Sinai – “We will do and understand afterwards,” which he reads as “engaging first in religious practices” and only later, if then, dealing with “matters of faith.”

Of course, that is an utter misunderstanding of what Naaseh Vinishma really means, that it was Klal Yisroel’s acceptance of a Commander, regardless of whether or not we comprehend His commands. It does not bespeak, chalilah, any postponement of emunah but, quite the opposite, is predicated on it.  Mr. Lefkowitz might do better to ponder Shema instead.

One wishes that he would have been more honest and straightforward and just declared himself a Reconstructionist.  But rather than add a new member to that smallest of the mesorah-spurning Jewish groups, he insists on appropriating the “O”-word, with yet a new antithetical adjective in front of it.

Mr. Lefkowitz reports that his children attend a Modern Orthodox day school.  Here’s hoping they receive a good education in basic Jewish texts and beliefs there, including what Naaseh Vinishma really means and the significance of Shema.  May his choice of schooling for his progeny merit him the nachas of true Yiddisheh kinder and einiklach.

© 2014 Hamodia

The article below appeared in Haaretz earlier this week, under the title “Partnership minyan is an innovation too far.”

It is reproduced here with Haaretz’s permission.

What educators call a “teaching moment” is presented by the issue of “partnership minyanim,” prayer groups that aim to provide Orthodox Jewish women greater opportunity to participate in services.

Although halakha is distinctly male-centered in the realm of communal prayer (as in the requirement of ten men to establish a minyan, a quorum permitting the recital of certain prayers), “partnership minyanim” jury-rig prayer services so that women lead parts that arguably may not require a man.

The teaching moment is about how halakha works.

Differences of opinion are part and parcel of not only the Talmud but some contemporary halakhic issues; different conclusions may be made by different poskim, or halakhic decisors.

But a truth that tends to draw fire but remains a truth all the same is that not every rabbi is a qualified decisor. Few, indeed, are.

The most trenchant text here may be a Talmudic aphorism in Tractate Nedarim.

“[What might seem] constructive [advice] of the young [can in fact be] destructive; and [what might seem] destructive [advice] of elders [can in fact be] constructive” (Nedarim, 40a).

Innovations are not anathema to halakha-centric Judaism. Things like the ketuba [the marriage contract cementing the husband’s financial support of his wife] or pruzbul [the legal mechanism to allow debts to be collected even when a shmitta, or “sabbatical year” has passed] in Talmudic times, or like conditioning divorce on the woman’s consent (instituted in the early Middle Ages), or like the Bais Yaakov movement in more modern times, are evidence enough that change can be embraced by the halakha-observant Jewish community.

But what makes such newnesses acceptable is their initiation by elders of the community, whether Talmudic sages or medieval luminaries like Rabbeinu Gershom, or – in the modern age – the Imrei Emes and Chofetz Chaim (who endorsed formal Jewish education for girls in the 1920s).

The reason why changing halakhic norms requires such elders’ endorsements is because such religious leaders alone, by virtue of experience born of age, great scholarship and – most important – their recognition as authorities by large numbers of other Torah-scholars, have internalized the meta-values of Judaism, something that cannot be gleaned from mere books and brains.

Invoking halakhic concepts like k’vod habri’ot (human dignity), several rabbis have endorsed “partnership minyanim.” None of them, however, has achieved the reputation of a recognized halakhic authority. Whatever their ages, they are all “young” in the sense of the aphorism from Nedarim. And so, while their decisions may seem constructive, the reality may be otherwise.

And it is. Every recognized halakhic decisor who has weighed in on “partnership minyanim” has rejected the idea as improper. They needn’t counter with texts or logic; what matters here is judgment. As the Yiddish saying has it, putting “a cat in the holy ark” may not be forbidden by any particular text, but it is wrong all the same. (Note to the humorless: No comparison whatsoever of felines and human beings is intended.)

It is tempting to some to dismiss opposition to the innovation as “Haredi-think.” The tempted, however, should consider the words of two highly accomplished halakhic authorities particularly respected in the so-called “Modern Orthodox” world (though well beyond it too).

Rabbi Herschel Schachter, who studied under Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik and is a rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, recently issued a strong responsum rejecting “partnership minyanim.” Inter alia, he asserts: “Not every young scholar who studied in yeshiva or even kollel or even was ordained a rabbi is entitled to an opinion in deciding halakha. To be considered a ‘scholar who has reached the status of decisor’ requires not just that one has amassed knowledge of Torah but also that he is ‘balanced’ [in his judgments of] his learning…

“To introduce new practices… requires the endorsement of Gedolei Torah whose knowledge spans the entire Torah and who can thus understand what is indeed the ‘spirit of the law’.”

Rabbi Gedalia Dov Schwartz, the head of the rabbinical courts of both the Beth Din of America and the Chicago Rabbinical Council and the presiding judge of the National Beth Din of the Rabbinical Council of America, also recently addressed “partnership minyanim,” in a letter. He declines to “engage in a polemic” regarding the matter, since doing so would be “an exercise in futility.”

But “as a rav who has extended himself in being sensitive to women’s educational and marital rights,” he writes, he rejects the innovation as “alien to normative balanced congregational activity,” and as “halakhically and intuitively… going beyond the boundaries of communal Torah observance.”

“Partnership minyanim” have, though, one redeeming value: They provide halakha-respecting Jews an opportunity to better understand how innovations in Jewish practice can happen, and how they cannot.

© 2014 Haaretz

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