National Scholar Updates

Judaism, to me, is not about laws but about music and musical notes. In all of its laws, I hear powerful sonatas that transform my soul: Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, with its heights of intensity; Johann Sebastian Bach’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, with his iron fist, uncompromising dedication to detail, and strict adherence to rigid rules of composition, resulting in a phenomenal outburst of emotion. When I listen to these masterpieces, I encounter the thunder and lightning experienced by the children of Israel when God revealed His Torah at Mount Sinai. It feels like being hit with an uppercut under the chin and remaining unconscious for the rest of the day.

But I also hear Igor Stravinsky’s recreation of Bach’s cantatas and, even more, his Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring). The scandal it caused when it was performed in Paris on May 29, 1913, led to a breakthrough in the world of musical composition. The music never had a chance as the audience erupted in riotous behavior almost from the first sounds. The weird resonance, the odd twists and turns of melody proved disconcerting to many. There were reports of fisticuffs, spitting, slapping and even threats of dueling. Still, Stravinsky won the day. His first performance may have lost the battle, but since then, this masterpiece generates ecstatic reactions among many music lovers.

It brings to mind the great debates of the rabbis in the Talmud who showed unprecedented courage by interpreting Jewish law and philosophy in infinite ways that caused major conflicts, many of which have not been resolved to this day. The spiritual riots and debates concerning the words of God at Sinai continue to keep Judaism ever fresh.

I think of my non-Jewish friend who came to see me in the renowned Gateshead Yeshiva in England, the “Lakewood of Europe,” where I was studying at the time. He wanted to understand what a talmudic college was all about and wondered what I, once liberal-minded and secular, was doing in this “Jewish monastery.” I brought him into the Beit Midrash, where he expected to find a university-like, mannerly student body, speaking softly, whispering in near silence. What he actually encountered almost made him pass out. Hundreds of young men were nervously walking around, arguing and shouting at each other so that it was nearly impossible to hear one’s own voice. Turning to me in total astonishment, he asked whether this was a demonstration against the Queen of England or the British government. My answer shocked him even more: No, they are actually discussing what, precisely, did God say at Sinai over 3,000 years ago. I will never forget his response: “You still don’t know? “Indeed,” I said, “we still do not know!” Just as one can have major disagreements on how to interpret Bach or Brahms (remember Glenn Gould and Leonard Bernstein?) so it is with Jewish law. There are many possibilities, and all are legitimate! We still argue about the words of God and have therefore outlived all our enemies.

I worry when people, including influential rabbis today, suffocate Judaism by seeing it as nothing more than laws to be observed. Every dispute must be settled; no doubt may prevail; every philosophical disagreement has to be resolved. It seems they are unable to hear its ongoing and astonishing music. They are spiritually tone deaf.
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I was born by breech delivery, a very painful procedure, which my mother endured with iron strength. We nearly did not make it. It was Friday night, the eve of Shabbat, and I was born to two marvelous people who by Jewish law would not have been allowed to marry. Theirs was a mixed marriage. My father was Jewish, my mother was not.
The physician was a religious Jew, Dr. Herzberger, who had to violate Shabbat to save our lives. It was Amsterdam, the 26th of July, 1946, just after the Holocaust.

In many ways, both these facts—an unusual birth and being the child of a mixed marriage—have set the stage for my life. I often see things from a reverse position. What is normal for others evokes in me feelings of wonder and awe, and what others consider amazing I see as obvious. As the product of a mixed marriage, who converted to Judaism at the age of 16, I became somewhat of an in-out-sider. I had always seen myself as a “father Jew,” of zera Yisrael (Jewish ancestry) and therefore Jewish, but later on I learned that it did not make me a Jew according to Halakha.

My mother, while still a young woman, came to live with my father’s family once she had lost her Christian parents. So, she grew up in a liberal, socialist, Amsterdam-Jewish cultural milieu, where Friday night dinners were comparable to hatunot (weddings), though my father’s parents were not religious and as poor as church mice, as were most of Amsterdam’s Jews. My mother was completely integrated in this world and while she knew she was not Jewish, she was an integral part of the community, spoke its language and felt totally at home in this strange, secular but deeply Jewish world. It is no surprise, then, that she converted years later, when she was in her fifties, after I convinced her of Judaism’s beauty. After all, she had always been a Jewess.

With the permission of Hakham Shelomo Rodrigues Pereira, Chief Rabbi of the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam, my parents were married kedat u-kedin (according to Halakha) by the same rabbi who married my wife and me three months later. There was, however, a small but crucial difference: my parents had been married for over thirty-five years, while my wife and I were just beginners!
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I spent more than 12 years learning in ultra-Orthodox yeshivot and received heter hora’ah (rabbinic ordination) from Rabbi Aryeh Leib Gurwitz who was, in his younger years, the havruta of Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, the most well-known disciple of Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, also known as the Hafetz Hayim. I know this world better than many do, but I am still not fully a part of it. Nor do I belong to the secular Jewish world, and surely not to the gentile world. I continuously struggle with my Jewish identity and religiosity; and now, at the age of 67, I am perhaps more involved in this endeavor than ever before. Day and night, I am busy with my great loves: Judaism, Israel and the Jewish people. Yet, I am unable to feel at home in the world of mainstream Orthodox Judaism. For many years I was a real bahur yeshiva, who had bought into the hareidi philosophy, but much later I realized that it had become too narrow, too insipid, and often trivial. Today, I believe that Modern Orthodoxy, too, has for the most part become tedious. Even the famous Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik, head of the rabbinical school at Yeshiva University in New York, was not able to lift it out of its spiritual malaise. Conservative and Reform Judaism are not options for my soul. They are too easy, too academic and unable to create a spiritual upheaval. My Judaism is one of dissent, protest and spiritual war against too much conformity. Self-critique is the crucial issue, not self-satisfaction. Not clichés, but insight; not obstinacy, but elasticity; not habit, but spontaneity; these and deep religiosity are for me the great movers behind this magnificent tradition.

My atypical beginnings have influenced my thinking in unconventional ways and to this day get me into trouble with some of my rabbinical colleagues, as well as with religious and non-religious Jews.
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At the age of 21, I married a Jewish girl from an Orthodox home. We have been blessed with five children, special children-in-law, lots of grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. All of them are deeply religious, love Torah and excel in a variety of professions. We have children who are rabbis, teachers, businessmen, and one who is an architect with a license in counseling! Some of my grandchildren wear black kippot, and some have pei’ot; others have colored kippot, small and large. Some are closer to ultra-Orthodoxy, others are Modern Orthodox; some fervent Zionists, others not. They all represent parts of my personality and I love the diversity.

My home is in Jerusalem, in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood where I no longer feel at home. With few exceptions, I pray with people I can’t speak with and I speak with people I can’t pray with. Still, I love them all. They are Jews, so they are my family. But I do not share with them an intellectual or spiritual-religious language. I have little in common with the Orthodox or the secular Jew in the way I see the world, God and Torah. For some people I am much too religious; for others, something of a heretic.

This is my fate and I can live with it, though it sometimes feels a little, and at other times very lonely.
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My brother is 64 and although according to Halakha he is not a Jew, he is more Jewish than many Jews I know. For years he ran a kosher home with his non-Jewish wife, to accommodate our family visits. He nearly converted but never took the final step. He wants to be buried in Beth Haim, the Portuguese Jewish Cemetery in Ouderkerk, which is a small town just south of Amsterdam. But he knows that will be impossible.

When I suggested to him that perhaps he should be buried in the Reform community’s cemetery in Amsterdam, he told me that he only wants to be buried in the Orthodox cemetery; other streams of Judaism are not on his radar!

Knowing that he will not be buried in Beth Haim, or any other Jewish cemetery, pains me greatly. How will it be possible to bury him among the gentiles when he is one of ours?
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The Portuguese Jewish cemetery in Ouderkerk is full of contradictions and reflects the turmoil that existed within early Dutch Jewish society, which included many Marranos, also known as Conversos, who fled from the Inquisition and came to Holland but could not fit in. One will find there the extravagant tombstones of some of the most remarkable Jews in all of Jewish history: Don Samuel Palache, the Sultan of Morocco’s commercial and diplomatic envoy in the sixteenth century; the famous Doctor Ephraim Bueno, early seventeenth-century Jewish physician and writer, whom Rembrandt used as the subject of one of his paintings; Antonio Lopez Pereira, chief treasurer of the King of Spain; and many other famous Jews.

These remarkable tombstones are outstandingly artistic and somewhat un-Jewish, reminiscent of the Catholic Church whose influence had not yet weakened. They have images of biblical figures and their narratives carved in marble. There is even one with an image of God speaking to the prophet Samuel! This is in total violation of Jewish law and is a clear indication of the spiritual confusion in which these Jews, including my forefathers, lived. I realize that my brother and I are strange by-products of this turmoil.

Even the parents of the most celebrated Jewish apostate and world-class philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, are buried there. But the philosopher himself was laid to rest behind the NieuweKerk (New Church) in The Hague--a sad reflection of what transpired in this unusual Jewish Portuguese community that was teeming with people who had split personalities and tried to reclaim their Judaism after having been forced to live as Catholics for hundreds of years. Paradoxically, while the Inquisition and subsequent expulsion from Spain made these Jews long for Judaism as never before, when they came to Amsterdam many of them could not adjust to mainstream Orthodox Judaism. Some became practicing Jews outwardly but remained Christian in some of their beliefs. They believed Judaism to be a kind of Christianity, but without the cross. Others became secular but outwardly conformed to religious observance so as to remain members of the “Portuguese nation,” as they called themselves. They attended the Esnoga, the famous Sefardi Synagogue in Amsterdam, but their hearts were not in it. They had nowhere else to go, and they just wanted to belong. What made it even more critical was that they could not and did not want to be part of the Christian community of Amsterdam. Nor did they want to walk in the footsteps of Spinoza who, though he never chose baptism, was happy to leave the community and never looked back.
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As a child, I was always overwhelmed by the extraordinary, which was seen by others as normal. Wherever I looked, I encountered the miracle of life. Whether it was watching the sun go down, or seeing genetic life under a microscope, I was struck with wonder and amazement. What is life and what is the meaning behind it? How is it that we are able to think? The most incomprehensible fact is that we are able to comprehend at all. Is the world not more a question than an answer? Why was I put on earth at this time and born into this family? Had I been dead for millions of years before entering this world? As Polish-born American theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel put it, “a perpetual murmur from the waves beyond the shore” was my constant companion, and it left me no rest.

I realize today that these questions laid the foundations for my religious and philosophical inquiries.

Our family lived a completely secular life, but within me, unawares, grew a spiritual consciousness that had religious implications.
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My father was an extremely nice man, always in a good mood and incredibly proud of his Jewishness, particularly of being a Portuguese Jew. I doubt that he could have married a truly non-Jewish woman. He could only have married somebody like my mother who was Jewish without being a Jew. I greatly loved my father. He was a business man but should have been a professor. He was of high intellect and very sharp. Since he was born into a poor, socialistic Jewish family, he was never able to study or attend university. At an early age, he went into business as a sales representative and traveled around Holland. Later, after the Holocaust, he started his own business, in sewing machines, which proved very successful.

Somehow, he discovered Baruch Spinoza who had lived in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century. Spinoza had been a member of the Portuguese community and was put in herem (a ban pronounced by the ma’amad—council of rabbis and lay-leaders—of that community) after he started to express doubts about the truth of the Jewish tradition. It became the most infamous and harshest ban in all of Jewish history: “Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lies down, and cursed be he when he rises up; cursed be he when he goes out, and cursed be he when he comes in.” In the words of contemporary English Philosopher Simon Critchley: “That’s quite a lot of cursing” (The Book of Dead Philosophers, p. 157). When my father began to study Spinoza’s critique of Judaism, he became a follower and decided to live a secular life. But, as with many Jews, he did not entirely succeed, for he was too much of a proud Jew and certain taboos remained. He would not eat pork; in fact, it never entered our home. Friday night was as it had always been. On Pessah we ate matzot, and in winter we sometimes had a menora and a Christmas tree lit at the same time. It was clear that what my parents had agreed on—not to allow any religious observance in our home—did not work from day one. No doubt that was partially due to our mother’s insistence on having a “Jewish home” and our father’s endless discourse about his Jewishness. It was completely impossible to remain neutral in matters of religion!

It took my father many years before he was able to see the beauty of religious Judaism, revealed to him by his son, who was on his way to becoming a full-fledged Jew and who reintroduced him to the Jewish way of living.
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Gradually, I took an interest in religion. I asked many questions and could no longer remain indifferent. It had already affected my personality. I doubted whether a secular way of life would still be possible and indeed concluded that such an approach left too many questions unanswered, and that the lifestyle for the most part lacked spiritual depth. To drop religion was no longer an option. But which religion was the crème de la crème?

I started reading anything I could lay my hands on concerning other religions, including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, but none of them inspired me. Both my Jewish background, which was deeply embedded in my DNA, as well as my father’s Jewish pride, had made a profound impression on me. Clearly, I was already under the spell of Judaism and believed that if any religion was close to the truth, this was the one. By that time, I was about 14 years old.

I began visiting bookshops looking for Dutch Jewish books, but there were very few. At home I read books on general philosophy by William Durant, who had written some splendid introductions to secular philosophy for laymen. They had been translated into Dutch and were part of my father’s small library on the subject. I was fascinated by many philosophers and found their books very illuminating, though there were parts I could not understand. It was also the first time I was introduced to Spinoza, and later my father told me more about his philosophy. We started reading sections of his works together: a havruta of sorts. Years later, Spinoza would play a big role in my life and, paradoxically, helped me come closer to Judaism.

There was one book I got hold of that completely captivated me. It was a Dutch translation of a Hebrew book, Dorenu Mul She’elot Ha-Netsach (translated to the English The Modern Jew Faces Eternal Problems), by Dr. Aron Barth, general manager of Bank Leumi in the 1950s. Reading this book was somewhat of a breakthrough for me. It introduced me to the world of Jewish religious thought, about which I knew very little. It discussed major theological issues through the prism of Judaism and dealt with many problems I was thinking about. It was deeply rooted in classical Judaism and written in a clear and lucid style. The author displayed much knowledge and wisdom in confronting major issues of the day. Although he was not completely honest when he tried to undermine every form of Bible criticism, he introduced me to some important challenges to Spinoza’s claim that the Torah comprised different documents authored by several writers, not by Moses.
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As I was becoming more and more involved in my journey, my school studies got in the way. They were boring and of little importance compared to endeavors I believed were of much greater value: Judaism and discovering what life was really all about. I began neglecting my secular studies, and my school marks went down the drain. In fact, it got so bad that I failed my tests and was not promoted to the next grade. Understandably, my father was very worried.

Although the gymnasium where I studied was a first-class school, where Latin and Greek were taught, I felt that most of the classes were hopelessly dull and monotonous. What was completely absent was the challenge to discover things on our own. Everything was spoon-fed to the students. The teacher would tell us how to read Shakespeare and how to dissect a fish, instead of letting us find out for ourselves and only giving us advice when we were really on the wrong track. The learning process lacked all creativity and did not speak to our imagination. Instead of sending us home with a question, encouraging us to struggle with it, the teachers felt it was their task to ask the questions and immediately answer them. They did not realize that a question should sometimes remain unanswered, because every answer deals a death blow to further investigation.

I shall never forget that when one of the greatest scientists of our day, Isidore Rabi, was once asked why he became a scientist, he replied that his Jewish mother gets the credit. While other parents would ask their children what they had learned in school that day, she would ask: Izzy, what good question did you ask today? Answers are great, but doubt is what gives you an education.

Another boring aspect of my school education was that we were not allowed to come up with outrageous answers that would challenge the established system. If your answer did not fit the accepted scientific or literary framework, the teacher wouldn’t give you a second glance and would sometimes even punish you by sending you out of the room. I cannot remember how many hours I spent outside the classroom.

Years later, I was reminded of this while reading that the famous physicist Wolfgang Pauli once gave a lecture on elementary particle physics at Columbia University. Afterwards he asked Niels Bohr, arguably the greatest physicist of the twentieth century, whether he thought his theories were crazy. I do, replied Bohr. Unfortunately they are not crazy enough.

Encouraging students to be both curious and surprised is one of the great principles of good education. It is a sign of transcendence, the very foundation of authentic religiosity. Most of my teachers did not realize that and failed to adhere to the Greek proverb: Either dance well or quit the ballroom.
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And so my education at school could not compete with my studies in Judaism. It became clear to me that Judaism is based on the need for constant questioning. I discovered that there are no absolute dogmas in Judaism, at least not in the way they are found within the Catholic Church.

Maimonides’ famous Thirteen Principles of Faith, which are sung in nearly every synagogue on Friday nights, were never accepted as the final version of Jewish belief and were in fact heavily attacked and challenged by the greatest rabbinical authorities. Today, I see that Maimonides’ thirteen principles caused major damage to Judaism. It was the famous Professor Leon Roth who once remarked: “For this Hebrew of Hebrews had in many respects a Greek mind and through his sense of logic and his passion for precision, he brought Judaism into a doctrinal crisis, the echoes of which are with us yet” (Judaism, A Portrait, 1960 p. 122). How true! Judaism, while surely consisting of certain beliefs, is open to self-critique, debate and ongoing discussions that have almost never been resolved. This spoke to my imagination. A religion with no dogmas, always open to new ideas! What could be better than that!
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One cannot squeeze Judaism into well-established categories. It’s like trying to fit the ocean into a bath tub. Judaism is a way of living, accompanied by deep emotions and a strong religious experience. To argue that there are definite fundamentals of faith is to undermine authentic religious faith. It would be like arguing that musical notes are the fundamentals of music. They are not; they are only directions for the musician to follow, showing the way, but they are never das ding an sich, the thing itself. There are inexpressible dimensions of religious insights. Doctrines and creeds should never become screens; they can only function as windows into a world that is beyond definition. Faith can only be discovered in the light of one’s soul. It is a moment in which all definitions end, and any attempt to come to conclusive articles of faith can only yield stifling trivialities that become suspended in the heart of the man of real faith. Genuine Judaism can only be understood in its natural habitat of deep faith and piety in which the divine reaches all thoughts.

Even if dogma has a purpose, it can never function as a substitute for faith, only as a dry aspect of it, just as music is much more than what a musical note can ever convey. Basically, Judaism offers something that Christianity does not: a religion without a specific theology.

Halakha, while more down to earth—since it first asks for human action—is still open to various possibilities. There are many roads to God, as is abundantly clear after even a glimpse into the Talmud. Opinions abound on how to translate God’s commandments into down-to-earth deeds, which must be able to reveal the divine. In truth, we should each have our own individual Halakha, compatible to each soul and connecting it with one of the mitzvot. Mitzvot, after all, are a bridge to God, and since religion must be lived, and not just thought about or felt, it is the task of Halakha to translate belief into action.

Just as important is the need for people to live and worship together. This requires a halakhic framework that ensures a certain level of conformity while simultaneously allowing an act to touch the spirit in each individual. But that can only be done if there are constant attempts to connect with that spirit. Just as the musician needs to repeat a music segment before he feels his soul being touched by the music, so it is with a halakhic act. Like the musician who must know how to position his bow and move his fingers with great precision across the strings of the violin so as to draw the music out of the physical boundaries of the instrument, so the religious person must know how to release the deepest foundations of his soul via the halakhic deed.

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I bought a German translation of the Talmud and then tried to decipher it. I peered into a world that had its own language, its own strange logic, one that was incompatible with anything the Greeks had offered. I soon learned that the Talmud discusses everything under the sun and is involved in trite trivialities, turning them into major issues as if life depends on them. Even more surprising was its frank discussion about sexuality. I’ll never forget the time I was in the middle of a tractate and the translation continued in Latin instead of German. I wondered why. Knowing some Latin, I tried it out and was totally surprised to discover that these passages advised women on how to seduce their husbands (Shabbat 104b). Where in the world would one find a book that discusses prayer, devotion to God, piety, and the art of sex on the same page? It is positively avant-garde!

Many years later I saw that these matters were openly discussed by yeshiva students and nobody took offense or even realized that if these Aramaic passages were to be translated into English, they would resemble a form of “holy pornography.” But the truth is, this is Torah, it is holy, and sex has nothing to do with the vulgar associations conjured up in people’s minds. In Judaism, sex is praying with one’s body. According to Hassidic teachings, this is clearly shown by the similarity in body movements of human beings when they make love and when they pray. In Ashkenazi circles, the latter is called shuckeling (swaying back and forth). (See Louis Jacobs, Hasidic Prayer, p. 60, and p. 171, note 33, where he brings the following sources: Tzava’at Ha-Ribash [Jerusalem 1948], p. 7b; Likutei Yekarim [Lemberg, 1865], p. 1b; Sefer Ba’al Shem Tov [Sotmar, 1943], vol. 1, p. 145, note 65.)
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Looking back at this period of my life, I realize how worried my father was. I was incapable of explaining what was going on, since I myself was too young to fully understand what was happening within me. One thing was clear: my schoolwork went down the drain. And not just a little bit. Although my father was a balanced man with an open mind, he must have panicked. What is my son doing? Not only is he neglecting his secular studies, but it is clear that this Judaism is drawing him to religious fanaticism!

It all came to a head when I expressed my wish to go to synagogue Saturday mornings, instead of going to school. My father, who by now felt that things were getting out of hand, would not hear of it.

I couldn’t persuade him to let me off, so I decided to continue going to school while simultaneously observing Shabbat. In Holland, everybody, including the queen would ride a bicycle, and I, being no exception, rode my bike to school every day. At that time we lived in a small town called Aerdenhout, 20 kilometers away from Amsterdam. We had to be in school at eight o’clock in the morning, which on winter days meant that I traveled in total darkness. Though it was imperative that I ride with my lights on, I decided that since it was forbidden to turn on a light on Shabbat, I would do the 20-minute ride without it. It didn’t even last a day. That first Shabbat morning, as I was bicycling to school, a policeman stopped me and asked whether I had lost my mind. Driving without a light on a dark, foggy morning was tantamount to suicide. I was unimpressed with his argument and told him that we Jews are obliged to observe Shabbat and I could therefore not turn on any light. He stared at me in bewilderment, no doubt contemplating sending me to a psychiatrist, and then told me that if I wanted to observe the Jewish day of rest, I should walk to school. And so I did.
Arriving very late, I entered the classroom, explained to the teacher that a policeman had stopped me, and then sat down. Unfortunately, we had a written exam that morning, which I believe was on Dutch literature and which presented me with yet another dilemma. How was I going to write?

This, too, would be a violation of Shabbat! There was only one solution: I wouldn’t do it! So I left my pencil untouched. It didn’t take long before the teacher noticed and asked me why I was not writing. I explained in clear terms that I was a Jewish boy and could not write, and that I should actually not be in school at all but in synagogue. He looked at me with a big, sympathetic smile and said: Hmm. Okay, see me after class. I expected a really stern rebuke and perhaps a threat that if I would not comply, the school would expel me. I was ready for a fight and determined not to give in. To my utter surprise, the teacher, who was also vice principal, asked me to sit down. Amused, but in no way derisive, he asked me whether I was serious about this. Did I truly want to go to synagogue and no longer attend school on Saturdays, and was I really so interested in Judaism? Or was this just a whim? What was so attractive about Judaism? It was clear that his questions were sincere, so I took the challenge. It was to become my first attempt at explaining to an outsider what this Judaism was all about, although my knowledge at the time was, to say the least, bordering on total ignorance.

To my astonishment, he showed a keen interest in what I had to say and sat a few minutes in total silence. Suddenly, he got up and said: Okay, I hear. I’ll speak with your father and tell him that you’re exempt from attending school on
Saturday mornings. I could not believe my ears and warned the vice principal that it would not be easy to convince my father. Maybe he, the non-Jewish teacher, was convinced that I should go to synagogue, but my father would be an entirely different story! He walked up to me, shook my hand and said: Let me deal with it. But I have one condition. You will miss many important lessons on Saturdays and will have to catch up every Sunday on anything you’ve missed. I promised to do so and left his room. After doing a small dance of triumph outside, I walked home to tell my father that the vice principle would like to see him. A good sport as always, my father smiled, gave me a kiss and said he would go. No doubt he knew what was awaiting him, yet he had no option but to comply. Reluctantly, but smiling that his son had defeated him, he gave in. I believe he was actually proud! And that made me love him even more.

And so, I went off to synagogue, but this was no small matter. I had never been there and had no idea what to expect. I had read a book called Yom Yom, by Dutch physician Dr. David Hausdorff. It was written in a very clear style and provided me with some information on synagogue service. I was excited, but also apprehensive. How was I to behave? It was a 50-minute walk to the synagogue, which was located in Haarlem, almost 5 kilometers from our home.

When I entered the synagogue that Shabbat morning, I could not have known that the young girl I noticed, about 14 years old, would one day become my wife. Years later, she told me that I had appeared in my all-white tennis outfit—complete with shorts!—probably because I thought that was the most appropriate way to dress when going to a holy place!

Slowly I got used to it. They had services only on Shabbat mornings, with an average attendance of 25. It soon became clear to me that I could not be counted for a minyan, since I was not halakhically Jewish. Freyda, the girl I had first noticed, took a real interest in me and so did the family of Rabbi/Hazan Michel Philipson who led the services and read the entire Torah portion perfectly and beautifully, in a way I have not heard since. He not only read it flawlessly but actually acted it out in a way that conveyed his emotional connection with the text, as if he were in the story. I found it very moving.

Rabbi Philipson and his wife Eva often invited me for Shabbat, and those visits brought me much joy. To this day, my wife and I are close friends with their daughter and two sons. I also received Shabbat invitations from Freyda’s parents, my future in-laws. It was there that my gastrointestinal tract was challenged when I was offered a piece of galerete, a gelatinous Eastern European dish, made from calf’s feet and considered a delicacy. My Dutch Sefardi stomach was too sensitive for this Ashkenazi cuisine. I was not sure I would survive, but being a good boy I complied. I faced a similar challenge years later when I studied at Gateshead Yeshiva and was served cholent every Shabbat. I solved that one by adding sugar so as to make it edible!

Since there were very few Jewish children in the Haarlem community, Rabbi Philipson tried to arrange a shidduch (marriage arrangement) between his oldest son and my future wife when they were both still babies. But, to my good fortune, my future parents-in-law declined the offer!

The rabbi had quite a large Judaica library, most of which I was unable to read because the books were in Hebrew. Within a short while, however, I became acquainted with the works of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. This, too, was a major discovery. Rabbi Hirsch was the great champion of Orthodox German Jewry and had in fact created a revolution with his booklet The Nineteen Letters, in which he presented his original view of Judaism in the form of a fictional correspondence between a young rabbi and a secular intellectual. He showed how Judaism was of great importance and relevance to the modern Jew and how it could help create a better world for all of mankind.
Rabbi Hirsch’s books were all written in hochdeutsch, a high, cultured German that was popular in the 19th century. The Nineteen Letters, however, was translated into Dutch, and I devoured it. It was just what I was looking for. Although it was nearly 100 years old by the time I read it, the book had not become outmoded; I even read it several times.
Rabbi Philipson owned all the books by Rabbi Hirsch, including his famous five-volume commentary on the Torah and his Gesammelte Schriften (Collected Writings), which covered nearly all the different aspects of Judaism. The problem was that there were no Dutch translations. Not only were they all written in hochdeutsch, they were also printed in Gothic lettering, a difficult typeface to decipher. One sentence could take up a whole page, if not more. By the time you got to the end of the sentence, you had already forgotten the beginning. Fortunately, I was studying German in school and my father—because of his knowledge of the language through business connections in East Germany and the Leipziger Messe (The Leipzig Trade Fair)—had helped me and my brother master it. So I took on Rabbi Hirsch’s Commentary on the Torah, his Gesammelte Schriften and his famous Horeb. I read and read, slowly becoming accustomed to the Gothic script. Rabbi Hirsch showed tremendous Jewish knowledge, had the entire Talmud at his fingertips and, above all, was very original. It was music to my ears. Later on, I realized that Rabbi Hirsch was a romantic, very German and basically an ultra-conservative. Still, his works are of great importance, his integrity untainted.
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My interest increased daily, and I started going to synagogue every Shabbat morning. However, I was still under the sway of Spinoza’s philosophy, and though deeply impressed by Judaism I continuously debated with myself on whether or not it was all true. I was definitely not convinced! Never will I forget an incident that took place in the Haarlem synagogue and opened my eyes to something I had not thought about before. There was a young intellectual who came to synagogue regularly, and before the services began he would loudly declare: You are all sitting here for nothing. There is no God. He would then walk over to his seat, take his tallith out of his small cabinet, say a berakha and wrap it around his shoulders. He would recite all the prayers with great fervor and carefully listen to the reading of the parasha. I could not make heads or tails of it. Why come to synagogue, pray with intense devotion as if life depended on it when you do not even believe in God? This went on week after week, and one day I could no longer control myself. I approached him, asking for an explanation, and will never forget what he said: Indeed I do not believe in God, but I do believe in Judaism. It is the greatest religion ever to appear on earth, it has contributed more to ethics than any other religion or culture, and we owe it to the world to keep it alive. If we Jews abandon it, the world will be so much the poorer. So I will come to synagogue, eat kosher and observe some of the laws of Shabbat. If I don’t, I will be guilty of destroying one of the most beautiful things the world has been blessed with. Whether or not it is God-given does not really interest me.

To this day, it sends shivers down my spine to think of these words of truth. I realized that this man’s words were also a harsh critique of Spinoza. Why completely reject Judaism, as he did, when it contains such profundity and presents the world with its greatest values, such as Shabbat, a healthy attitude towards sexuality, profound ethics, and so much more. I still wonder why Spinoza refused to make a berakha before eating. How, after all, can one consume tasty food without uttering a deep expression of astonishment at the very existence of food? Does one really have to believe in God to do so? This is not orthopraxis; it is a deeply spiritual experience that someone secular can also encounter.

Even today I have my atheistic moments, especially when I am confronted with the intense suffering of children, such as in the case of terror attacks in and outside Israel, or when I read what happened to more than a million Jewish children in the Holocaust. For days, I can’t pray properly and I struggle with my belief in God. To this day, after a devastating terror attack I am astonished that religious Jews go to synagogue and instead of starting a demonstration against God they praise Him for His goodness. When I see a picture of a small black child in Africa who is weak from starvation and unable to move, I want to climb up to the heavens and protest. It is then that my friend’s observations in Haarlem’s synagogue save me from walking out on Judaism. At still a later stage, I realize that our love for God is tested by the question of whether we seek Him, or His goodness. The bottom line is there is no doubt in my mind that I will remain a religious Jew even if I were to become an atheist.
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While growing in my Judaism I was confronted with many problems that led to some of the strangest situations. Today I would call them hilarious, but at the time they were major concerns. When I accompanied my father to the Leipziger Messe, I wanted to eat kosher but there were no kosher restaurants. So I ate fish or other parve foods. I clearly remember one Friday night when we ate in a tavern where the Germans used to drink their large mugs of beer, and some were even drunk. I put my kippah on my head and made kiddush over beer, to the total surprise of all the Germans present. I can still see their bewildered faces! On other occasions, such as our vacations in Italy, I would eat nothing but scrambled eggs for breakfast, lunch and supper, to the point where I could not swallow an egg any longer!
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Fortunately, I had already been circumcised, though the procedure was not done until I was about 10, and I remember being hospitalized for a few days. My brother, on the other hand, was circumcised as a baby. I think that by the time he was born, my father found it emotionally difficult to have uncircumcised sons. My circumcision was performed by a surgeon, not a mohel, and though I was put under anesthesia, it was quite painful afterwards.

As part of my conversion, I still had to undergo a procedure called hatafat dam b’rit, drawing a drop of blood as a symbolic ritual circumcision. This was done by Dr. Aron Rodrigues Pereira, President of the Portuguese Jewish Community in Amsterdam and brother of the Sefardi Chief Rabbi, Hakham Shelomo Rodrigues Pereira, who had agreed to convert me. Days before, I had to appear before all the chief rabbis in Holland and explain why I had decided to become Jewish. The most prominent among them, Rabbi Aaron Schuster, was the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Amsterdam, a man with an imposing personality, who did not walk but had a long, decisive stride. Though he was very formal, having been educated in Holland, the warmth he exuded pointed to his Eastern European lineage. I found it difficult to answer his question as to why I wanted to become Jewish. And my reply was not completely rational. It had to do with some inner musical notes carrying words that are ineffable. Only many years later did I realize how difficult it is to express in human language a religious upheaval. Rudolf Otto, the great non-Jewish German thinker, tried to make sense of it in his most famous work, Das Heilige (The Idea of the Holy). Renowned American philosopher William James also tried to articulate the meaning of religiosity in his important book The Varieties of Religious Experience. But above all, it is the Hassidic masters who dealt with this challenge, bringing unusual and original perspectives. Both Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Buber translated some of these ideas into German and English and explained them as best as possible.
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I remember undressing at the mikvah. I was quite nervous, but my dear father was right by my side, as always. I had learned that by immersing in the mikvah’s waters I would be reborn as a full-fledged Jew. Water is the symbol of life and growth, and immersion is like returning to the mother’s womb where the fetus is surrounded by fluid. Three rabbis were present: Hakham Rodrigues Pereira, Chief Rabbi Aron Schuster and Rabbi Benjamin Pels, a member of the Amsterdam rabbinate. I had to immerse three times, making sure that the water covered all my hair. When I got out, the Hakham gave me a towel to cover myself and told me to say a berakha. It is perhaps the greatest berakha I have ever said: Blessed is the Lord our God, King of the universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us on immersion. Immediately after that, the Hakham recited: May his name in Israel be called Nathan, son of Avraham Avinu. Nathan was my father’s youngest brother who was murdered in the Shoah. Later, after my mother converted, I changed this to Nathan, son of Yaakov, my father. I still tremble when I think about it. How many people have merited the opportunity to say this berakha on this particular occasion? I also said the berakha “shehehiyanu,” thanking God that I had arrived at this new and special moment in my life. Afterward, I got a kiss from my father, and a big smile. Although he had had reservations about my religiosity, he was pleased that I had now fully joined his beloved people.

Indeed the world looked different. I was delighted and beaming. The question that came to haunt me then, and still haunts me today, is how to keep such an exalted moment alive.
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Some of my encounters with Judaism’s demands were much more radical and sometimes downright problematic, if not unacceptable. Only a short while ago my dear brother, two years my junior, reminded me of an incident that took place while I conducted the Pessah Seder at my parents’ home when I was still unmarried and very fresh in my Jewish observance. Having just learned the law about yayin nesekh, more correctly called maga nokhri—forbidding Jews to drink wine moved by a non-Jew once the bottle has been opened—I snatched a bottle of wine off the table, before my brother had the chance to pick it up and fill our glasses. I told my brother that non-Jews were not to move such a bottle, or the wine would be cursed. (In those days there was no yayin mevushal in Holland.) Nowhere in all of Jewish literature does it say that the wine would be cursed, and this unfortunate event simply reflected my total ignorance about many things I had yet to learn. Only now, nearly 50 years later, did my brother tell me, with tears in his eyes, how much he was offended. This is a typical example of how Jewish law, in my opinion, has stagnated. The law concerning yayin nesekh was enacted at the time when the Jews were in exile and non-Jews were idol-worshipers, often immoral, and frequently anti-Semitic. The rabbis felt it would be inappropriate for Jews to drink wine that was moved by such vile people and forbade its consumption even when the wine was produced by Jews. In this way, they emphasized the need for Jews to distance themselves in general from these depraved people. Since it was primarily wine that was used in worship by Jews and gentiles, that was the only alcoholic drink to which the law applied. This is a typical example of defensive Halakha, which may have been necessary at the time, while living among these gentiles. (It reminds me somewhat of my youth when the Dutch, just after the Holocaust had come to an end, would refuse under any circumstances to buy German products or even have them in their homes. It was completely taboo.) Today, when Jews are living in a totally different society, where most people believe in one God and are civilized, this law has lost much of its purpose. (See Rabbi Menachem Me’iri’s (1249-1316) Talmudic commentary, Beit HaBehira, on Sanhedrin 57a, Avoda Zara 11b, 13a, 14b 21a, 42b, although Me’iri himself does not mitigate the severity of the law of yayin nesekh.) When such a law offends another human being, as was the case with my brother, it does only harm and violates the integrity of Halakha and Judaism. This and similar laws need to be carefully reconsidered. After all, rabbinical laws are not categorically sacrosanct, as are biblical laws.
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Halakha has been in a waiting mode for too long. It has become the “preserver of precepts” and now has to free itself from what was once important. It is imperative to move Halakha forward and respond to a new and different Jewish world, especially because the State of Israel has drastically changed the situation of world Jewry and created a state of affairs never before encountered by Halakha. The incident with my brother is merely a symptom of the major problem with its application today. We are asked to be “a light unto the nations,” and it is our duty to inspire them to come closer to God and adopt high standards of morality.

This can be done only if we approach the non-Jewish world in a positive way. The law of yayin nesekh and others like it are not conducive to reaching that goal. It is high time that our rabbis adopt the approach of Rabbi Menachem Me’iri. Surely we should continue to drink only kosher wine made by Jews, but we should, in my humble opinion, waive the restriction concerning non-Jews moving our wines.

What we are badly in need of is a humane but aggressive, proud and prophetic Halakha that does not look over its shoulder but moves the Jewish tradition to the forefront of the world as a leading guide.
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My exemption from attending school on Saturdays got me into trouble with one of the teachers. He was a highly frustrated man who taught us Latin and Greek, and nobody liked him, as he would constantly make obnoxious comments about us. He taught us twice a week, and one of those days was Saturday. Since I no longer came on Saturdays, he hated me with a passion. On one occasion, he asked me a question, which he knew I could not answer since it had been discussed on the previous Saturday and was not in any of the books I studied on Sunday. It was a deliberate act to embarrass me. When I could not respond, he was outraged, took the blackboard eraser and threw it at me. I ducked just in time, and the weapon shattered the large window behind me. There was total silence in the classroom, and the teacher turned pale. I got up, walked out of the room without permission and went to see the vice principle who had helped free me from having to attend on Saturdays. I told him exactly what had happened. He got up, walked with me to the scene of the crime, and ordered the teacher to leave on the spot. As far as I remember, he was fired—an act that propelled me to stardom. I became somewhat of a celebrity in school and made many more friends. This was quite remarkable since I was a quiet kid, rather formal and stiff (today, I am much more easygoing), although I was chosen to be the class representative for several years. This meant that I represented my class on various occasions and advocated for my fellow students if they were in trouble with the school administration. Though I had become somewhat of an outsider due to my keen interest in Judaism, I was never asked to step down—even when I told my friends that I would no longer be dancing with the girls at parties that took place in the homes of classmates. I had actually been to dance school and had learned the art! But I had to tell my friends that I would no longer participate since Judaism did not look favorably upon this activity. In all honesty, although I believe that dancing is an art and in fact very beautiful, I must admit that I never really enjoyed it. I also told my classmates that I would not be able to eat anything non-kosher. Yet, instead of excommunicating me, my friends always made sure that there was a fruit available or other article of food that I was permitted to eat. Now, so many years later, I wonder what went through the minds of all these young people who had such a strange bedfellow in their class.
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One of the most wondrous religious experiences in all of my life happened during my years at the gymnasium. While I walked around bareheaded in the school, I would put a kippa on my head whenever I ate. This was the greatest moment of my day. Covering my head was truly a religious experience; I felt as if I was taken to a higher plane. It was extraordinary. It was not wearing the kippa on my head that did it but actually putting it on. It was a daring act because by doing so I presented myself before God—a declaration that I wanted to live in His presence, not just as a spiritual condition but as an act of elevation, of spiritual grandeur. It was a happening. After all, the main purpose of the kippa, as with all of Halakha, is to disturb. To wake people up and tell them that nothing is to be taken for granted. In my case it worked miracles! It made me wonderfully uneasy. I remember that my hands trembled when I put my kippa on.

But it is this very kippa that now causes me problems. I have a love-hate relationship with it. Now that it’s on my head all the time, it has nearly lost all its meaning. It used to excite me; now, 50 years later, it deadens me. It has little to do with my awareness that I live in God’s presence and has become an act of mindless self-indulgence, just something to make me feel good.

Deep down I know what to do. In order for my kippa to remind me of God, I need to take it off so that I can occasionally put it on. Hopefully, it would bring back the religious experience and take me out of this dull place called religious observance. But what can I do? What would my grandchildren think? This has become a major challenge in my life, for the problem of the kippa is simply a symptom of something much bigger. I have become so used to living an observant life, by all the requirements of Halakha, that I sincerely wonder whether I am still religious. “Faith is not a state of passivity, of quiet acceptance….Faith requires action….bold initiative rather than continuity. Faith is forever contingent on the courage of the believer” (Heschel, A Passion for Truth, p. 192).
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Scientific research has often revealed particles of matter in our universe that can stir the heart of man in ways that were not possible in earlier times. Scientists dedicate their lives to the minutest properties of our physical world. They are fascinated by the behavior of cells, the habits of insects and the peculiarities of the DNA code. God is in the details, the saying goes. So, too, halakhic authorities look for the smallest details to make people sensitive to every fine point of life so that one may discover God. By demanding of us meticulousness in how much matza to eat, what size lulav to use, and to what degree our etrog should be spotless, they create a subconscious awareness in us that the so-called trivialities of life are really opportune moments to meet God. Halakha is meant to be a protest against all forms of spiritual dullness. It is the microscopic search for God. But it only works when you hear the music behind the law. That is art at its ultimate. But do we still listen?

One of the greatest challenges confronting Judaism is behaviorism. People get used to the way Judaism informs them to respond to all of life, and instead of being nothing less than extraordinary, life becomes ordinary and insipid. Halakhic living becomes self-defeating. It actually encourages what it wishes to prevent. In the spirit of Nietzsche’s observation of how much wisdom lies in the superficiality of man, I would suggest that one of the great tragedies of today’s halakhic man is his obliviousness to the profundity behind his halakhic superficiality.
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After my conversion, I wanted to study in a yeshiva. I had read about such places and was deeply impressed. It seemed like a dream world to me, although I had little knowledge about it. I believed a yeshiva was a place where all the great questions about life and religiosity were discussed and where the debates were of a theological and philosophical nature—the topics closest to my heart. When I actually entered the famous Gateshead Yeshiva, Europe’s largest talmudic college, I was greatly disappointed to learn that most of the studies were about legal discussions in the Talmud. On top of this, I did not have even the most elementary knowledge necessary to participate in such discussions. I lacked all the basic tools. Only later did I realize that I knew many things about Judaism that the yeshiva students and some of their rabbis didn’t know. Matters related to the weltanschauung/philosophy of Judaism and the many schools of thought concerning its nature were never studied, or were given so little time that it was meaningless. The classic Kuzari, in which 12th century Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi offered his understanding of Judaism, was not at all discussed. And certainly not Maimonides’ Moreh Nevukhim (Guide for the Perplexed) let alone later and modern classics. I was told in yeshiva that these works were of minor importance and what was really essential was the shakla ve-tarya, the give-and-take in talmudic legal discussion. When I asked what the religious and philosophical implications of all these talmudic debates were and how it touched their lives, there was total silence. I remember that when I asked how my fellow students were so sure that God exists, or that the Torah is min ha-shamayim (from heaven), most of them used poor arguments, if any, and were astonished that I dared to ask these questions.

When I approached one of the main rabbis and asked him a question related to the German philosopher Leibniz, who had argued that this world was the best world God could have created, he told me in great humility that he had no idea what I was talking about. It took me a long time to grasp that this was the wrong address for these questions, although I did still realize that the great legal debates made Judaism very special. Unlike other religions, they reflect the need for God to enter the marketplace, the courtroom and all that is mundane. Judaism is pragmatic, realistic and cognizant of the fact that to be a veritable way of spiritual living it needs to be available and attainable.

The rashei yeshiva and other rabbis showed incredible integrity, deep religiosity, and the total absence of any personal agenda. What counted was the service of God through the study of the Talmud. This monumental text took them back to Mount Sinai, and through its pages they relived the greatest moment in all of Jewish history. I have never seen anything like that anywhere else. Paradoxically, there was a certain naiveté, a withdrawal from the rest of the world, which made them seem like human angels while studying the laws of damages and injuries. Much later, I understood that even the brilliant legal discussions had tremendous religious meaning, but this was never discussed in the yeshiva. Once I understood that it was not philosophy but the legal intricacies of Halakha that kept yeshiva students fascinated, I was able to enjoy the studies. To this day, I get excited about Rabbi Aryeh Leib HaCohen Heller’s Ketzot HaHoshen and similar works created by other talmudic geniuses.

I spent 12 years in yeshivot, and today when I speak with many people who reject the yeshiva world and criticize it harshly for all its faults, I realize that although I agree with many of their critical assessments, they fail to understand the inner music of these institutions. They do not realize that this introverted but remarkable world somehow lifted the Jews out of their misery throughout history and gave them the strength to survive all their enemies under the most intolerable conditions brought on by anti-Semitism. It was this denial of time that made the Jews eternal. The yeshiva world was no doubt very small compared to what it is now, but up until the emancipation it was the pride of the entire Jewish world. The Talmud afforded the Jews wings, enabling them to fly to other worlds, to return to the past that no longer existed and to look toward worlds that were still to come. It became the Jews’ portable homeland, and their complete immersion in its texts made them indestructible even as they were tortured and killed. The Talmud became their survival kit, which ultimately empowered them to establish the State of Israel, nearly 2000 years after they were exiled from their land. This is unprecedented in all of the history of mankind. Regretfully, most Israelis do not realize this.
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We can no longer afford to have yeshivot teaching only Talmud, and the manner in which it is taught also needs to be drastically changed. Its many tractates must be made relevant by getting behind the text and understanding its music, poetry and, above all, its religiosity. This requires a radical restructuring of the yeshiva curriculum. We should challenge the more sophisticated students by studying secular texts with them—Spinoza, John Locke and many others—and see how the Talmud, the Midrash and all other classical sources respond to these important writings. In that way, one can reveal the profundity of these Jewish texts. Heschel, Buber, Rosenzweig, Berkovits, the great Hassidic masters such as the Mei HaShiloah by Rabbi Mordechai Yosef of Izbitze, and many others should be carefully read. Students must learn how to convey to others why they are religious, and why Judaism is of vital importance not just for the Jews but for all of mankind. I often wonder: what if Spinoza had met these spiritual giants? Would he have realized that his interpretation of Judaism was based on a very rigid and faulty reading, part of which he adopted from his rabbinical teachers in Amsterdam and part of which was his own often deliberate misreading of the nature of Judaism? Would he have turned into a Sefardi Kotzker Rebbe with his near obsession for the truth and nothing but the truth? Would he have understood that all power corrupts, including the power of using reason exclusively?
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There was one philosophy text, of several volumes, that was extremely popular in Gateshead Yeshiva: Mikhtav Me-Eliyahu by Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler (1892-1953), one of the most influential mussar teachers in modern times. But unlike other mussar books, this is a rare combination of philosophy, Kabbala, Hassidut, and Mussar. He even borrowed ideas from modern psychology. Its publication caused quite a stir, since the teachings contained therein were drastically different from anything known in the yeshiva world until then. These volumes opened a world well beyond the study halls of Gateshead Yeshiva. In fact, it laid the foundations for some radical thinking, far exceeding what Rabbi Dessler himself wanted to accomplish. It reminded me a bit of how Spinoza, lehavdil, had taken Maimonides’ ideas about God and radicalized them to the extent of ending up with a form of pantheism. Spinoza was not the greatest philosopher in history but certainly the most daring one, at least in classical philosophy. In some ways that is true about Rabbi Dessler’s writings and several Hassidic texts as well.

Mikhtav Me-Eliyahu triggered some thoughts that would later lead me to form a different approach to Judaism, though still deeply rooted in tradition. A novel understanding of God, Torah min ha-shamayim, human autonomy, religious wonder, universalism, the problem of halakhic behaviorism and much more were clearly alluded to in Mikhtav Me-Eliyahu. This despite the fact that Rabbi Dessler, an ultra-conformist, never moved away from the official yeshiva world. He never mentioned any of these topics in an unconventional way, but it was all there between the lines.

Interestingly, Rabbi Dessler reminds me of the famous Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook (1865-1935), who was the most powerful and perhaps most controversial Orthodox thinker in Israel. No doubt, Rabbi Kook was much more daring and universalistic than Rabbi Dessler, but one cannot deny the similarity.

While studying in Gateshead, I had never heard about Rabbi Kook; he was a Zionist and considered much too radical. The other great thinker never to be mentioned was Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik, also known as the Rav. He, too, was a Zionist, and he held a doctorate in philosophy! As such, he was persona non grata in Gateshead Yeshiva. I only discovered these great men when I came to live in Israel many years later. They, together with other philosophers such as Will Herberg, Eliezer Berkovits, Heschel, Norman Lamm, Michael Wyschogrod, Arthur Green and even the Israeli rebel Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, had a great influence on me. Included in this list are many profound non-Jewish thinkers as well, such as Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr.
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One of the major tasks of Jewish education is to deliberately create an atmosphere of rebellion among its students. Rebellion, after all, is the great emancipator. We owe nearly all of our knowledge and achievements not to those who agreed but to those who differed. It is this virtue that brought Judaism into existence. Avraham was the first rebel, destroying idols; he was followed by his children, then by Moshe, and then by the Jewish people.

What has been entirely forgotten is that the Torah was the first audacious text to appear in world history. Its purpose was to protest. It set in motion a rebel movement of cosmic proportions the likes of which we have never known. The text includes all the radical heresies of the past, present and future. It calls idol-worship an abomination, immorality abhorrent, and the worship of man a catastrophe. It protests against complacency, self-satisfaction, imitation, and negation of the spirit. It calls for radical thinking and drastic action, without compromise, even when it means standing alone, being condemned and ridiculed.

All of this seems to be entirely lost on our religious establishment. We are instructing our students and children to obey, to fit in, to conform and not stand out. We teach them that their religious leaders are great people because they are “all-right-niks” who would never think of disturbing the established religious and social norms. We teach them that they are the ideal to be emulated. By doing so, we turn our backs on authentic Judaism and communicate the very opposite of what Judaism is meant to convey.

By using clichés instead of the language of opposition, we deny our students the excitement of being Jewish: excitement resulting from the realization that one makes a huge difference and takes pride in it, no matter the cost; excitement at the awareness that one is part of a great mission for which one is prepared to die, knowing that it will make the world a better place.

When we tell our children to eat kosher, we need to inform them that this is an act of disobedience against consumerism that encourages human beings to eat anything as long as it tastes good. When we go to synagogue, it is a protest against man’s arrogance in thinking that he can do it all himself. When couples observe the laws of family purity, it is a rebellion against the obsession with sex. The celebration of Shabbat must be presented as an enormous challenge to our contemporary world that believes our happiness depends on how much we produce.

As long as our religious teachers continue to teach Jewish texts as models of approval, instead of manifestations of protest against the mediocrity of our world, we will lose more of our young people to that very mediocrity.
Judaism is in its essence an act of dissent, not of consent. Dissent leads to renewal. It creates loyalty. It is the force through which the world is able to grow. To forget this crucial element is to betray Judaism.
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When my wife and I moved to Israel with our three children, intending to stay for two years so that I could continue to learn in yeshivot, I was approached by the administration of a well-known ba’al teshuva yeshiva in Jerusalem, for non-religious young people interested in learning about Judaism. The ba’al teshuva movement was not as widespread as it is today, and I had never heard about such an institution. The directors asked me whether I was prepared to give some lectures. In response to my inquiry about the nature of the school, they told me it was an institution that functioned as a bridge between Harvard University and Ponevezh Yeshiva in B’nei Brak. The latter was then the most famous yeshiva in Israel. I liked the idea, it seemed to fit my way of thinking, and I started lecturing there on a daily basis. I had already begun giving daily lectures in a large ba’al teshuva seminary for women and greatly enjoyed it.
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While teaching in this yeshiva, I began studying more intensively the works of Heschel. His were some of the most remarkable ideas I would ever encounter. Heschel came from a deeply Hassidic family and was surrounded by a great number of authentically religious people including famous Hassidic rebbes. His great-great-grandfather and namesake was Avraham Yehoshua Heschel, the Apter Rav (1755-1825), known as the Ohev Yisrael (lover of Israel) who was an exceptional proponent of the mitzva of loving one’s fellow Jew. Heschel spoke their spiritual language but began writing in poetic, sensitive and emotional style once he came to the United States.

There was also Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929), the great German Jewish philosopher who had nearly converted to Christianity, but changed his mind after attending Yom Kippur services at a small Orthodox synagogue in Berlin, which sparked in him a spiritual explosion. He devoted the rest of his life to teaching and writing about Judaism.
These philosophers opened a new world for me, and I began reading very interesting books by Conservative and Reform rabbis and thinkers. Some were outstanding and taught me a lot, although there were areas where I felt they were mistaken. My thoughts on Judaism began to change. I realized that it was actually even more beautiful and that the narrow reading of hareidi Judaism did not tell its entire story and even caused it to stagnate. At the same time, I understood that the existential problems that confronted Judaism and the Jewish people would not be solved by the Reform or Conservative movements. They required authentic, rebellious Orthodox Judaism that would correct its mistakes, stop acting defensively and start being creative and daring.
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I began to include in my lectures some of the ideas I had read. One of the rabbis at the yeshiva where I was teaching had shown me a Reform rabbi’s interpretation of a certain narrative in the Torah. I thought it was good and used it in one of my lectures, mentioning the rabbi’s name. The administration heard about it and was very upset that I dared to not only use an interpretation that was “not kosher” but to mention the name of the Reform rabbi as well. They questioned me about it, and I answered them candidly that I did not see anything wrong with the interpretation and that I thought it would be small-minded not to mention the Reforms rabbi’s name. This was not taken in good spirit and created much tension between the yeshiva rabbis and me.

On another occasion, I had defended Rabbi Shlomo Riskin who had published a piece in the Jerusalem Post and had written that Moshe Rabeinu was perhaps not the greatest communicator and teacher. This was anathema to the yeshiva heads. I believed that while one did not have to agree with Rabbi Riskin’s approach, he was definitely entitled to his opinion and it did not constitute heresy.
I once published an open letter in The Jerusalem Post to Shulamit Aloni, a secular, left-wing member of the Knesset. She had ridiculed Judaism for its backwardness. I wrote that all her arguments were outdated and irrelevant, and that I hoped she would come up with some substantial criticism that would dare the rabbis to rethink Judaism. My students at the yeshiva were very impressed by my letter and hung it up in the building where I taught. This, too, was not appreciated. I think that my willingness to reassess Judaism was too much for the leadership of the yeshiva to accept. It reached a point when they wanted to place a herem on me, and due to my inexperience I made the mistake of fighting it. Nothing would have been more beneficial to me than to have been put under a ban. Many more of my books would have been sold and my ideas disseminated. But alas, I succeeded in preventing it. Still, all these unfortunate incidents led me to leave the yeshiva. I no longer felt at home, and the directors were uncomfortable with me teaching there. Looking back, I realize what a blessing it was. I was able to develop my ideas independently and felt great relief. It set me on a road that gave me the opportunity to discover new worlds. Most disturbing was the fact that with the exception of one, none of my colleagues at the yeshiva, including a former professor, had the integrity and courage to stay in contact with me. I never heard from them.

Still, I owe the yeshiva and the women’s college much gratitude since they gave me the opportunity to teach. Even more important, they sent me on lecture tours to the United States, Canada, England and South Africa, all of which opened new doors for me.
****

One of my daughters asked me whether I ever regretted my decision to become fully Jewish. I consider this a very important question. My answer is unequivocal: I have never regretted it. It’s the best decision I’ve ever made. Furthermore, even had I not been a “father Jew,” and of zera Yisrael, and even had I not felt this Jewishness running through my blood, I have not the slightest doubt that I still would have fallen in love with Judaism had I encountered it. Once you discover it, there is no turning back! But would conversion in that case have been the right step? I have my doubts. What would have stopped me is the overwhelming notion that mankind is urgently in need of a new universal religion. Judaism gave birth to two most important and powerful religions—Christianity and Islam. But both have failed miserably. And now there is a need for Judaism to once again give birth to a new religion for non-Jews. It has a wealth of resources to work with. I wonder whether if I had remained non-Jewish I could have been instrumental in creating such a religion, which would be something similar to Judaism. But today, as an Orthodox Jew, it is much harder to be fully involved in this. It requires a leader, a mover, and that means being fully dedicated to the religion that one has helped create, and living accordingly. That would be impossible for a Jew living by the demands of Halakha. It would involve violating certain commandments that only apply to Jews. Having been born into my family, my only choice was to go all the way and fully integrate into the Jewish people and Judaism. The joy it gives me is ineffable. The task of creating and leading a new religion must be left to others, although I hope to play a role from a distance.
The world is waiting for this. Non-Jews need a Shabbat experience, some degree of kashrut (dietary laws), taharat ha-mishpaha (laws of family purity and sexual intimacy between husband and wife) and even laws such as shemitta (the seventh year of the seven-year agricultural cycle, when one does not work the land). The latter could also be applied to the car and computer industries, as well as other technologies that are overproducing and creating financial instability. This religion would include all halakhic requirements of the Seven Mitzvot B’nei Noah, the commandments that—according to the Talmud—were given by God to Noah as a binding set of laws for all mankind. As in the case of the Ten Commandments, they actually include numerous branches with many more mitzvot. Both these sets of laws are the grundnorm (fundamental norm) from which many other ethical and religious ideas follow.

A religion such as this would also need to build synagogues for non-Jews and create rituals to inspire. Suggestions like how to perform marriages for non-Jews with some kind of Jewish ceremony will be very important. How Jewish should we make burial rituals for non-Jews? Should non-Jews make kiddush, refrain from driving, and limit their use of electricity on their day of rest? Should we introduce Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur into this new religion, for are not all humans judged on these days? One cannot really answer or even contemplate these complex questions without a proper understanding of Talmud and the later authorities.
****

A strong sense of mission overwhelms me. I realize that my life is different from most other people’s, including religious Jews. What I experience is the Hand from Above that gives me no rest and humbles me. I’m driven by it but do not always know where I am going. Often, I feel the need to step out of all this and start living a normal life. But, much as I have tried, it just doesn’t work. I am convinced that although I may never know what it is, there is great meaning behind this seemingly absurd life of mine. It is beautiful and demanding, yet quite frightening. I often wonder why God chose me to be born into this family, from a Torah-forbidden marriage, and why I had to encounter Judaism in such an unusual way. I realize that by biblical standards I should never have been. Am I the product of a divine comedy? And am I living up to it?

God has blessed me with the ability to inspire, and I try to not just convey my ideas in lectures but to actually live them, like a musician who lives his music. This has a lot to do with my background. There are moments when I feel like a Marrano; other times like a Hassid in a state of d’vekut (religious ecstasy through bonding with God); and sometimes I identify with Spinoza’s level-headed sub specie aeternitatis! Inside me lives the arrogant Portuguese Jew with his joie de vivre, extravagant attire, top hat and tailcoat, praying in the Esnoga of Amsterdam and filled with Spanish gravidade (dignity). On some occasions I immerse myself in a mikva, longing for kedusha (holiness), which is nearly impossible to attain. But all these exceptional experiences are not of my making. I did not ask for them, nor did I work to achieve them. They are divine gifts, and I carry them with me. I only pray that all these different dimensions blend well and make me a balanced person.
****

I often wonder whether my non-Jewish grandparents, whom I never knew, have any connection to all this. I do not feel at all affiliated with them. They are complete strangers to me, and my mother never spoke about them. I do not say kaddish for them, nor do I even know when they died or where they are buried. Perhaps their graves have already been removed and I should have prevented it. But there is nothing internal that pulls me to find out or take action. Is this right? After all, am I not of their blood, and are they not part of my strange story? On the other hand, I love to meet my brother’s children who, while proud of their Jewish background, live in a non-Jewish world. My children, also, are in regular contact with them, and this gives me great joy. I even have two first cousins from my mother’s side with whom I stay in touch. So, why do I feel a kinship to them, but not to my grandparents? Am I the victim of Freud’s subconscious repression and denial?

We are all neighbors of ourselves, watching our own lives through a distant window. Do I even know myself? Although we are married more than 45 years, am I a stranger to my dear wife because I was incapable of telling her what was happening in my innermost self since the day I contemplated giyur? For years, my giyur was absent from my conscious life. I had forgotten about it, and even today, when I hear Jews make discriminating remarks about gerim, it never touches me personally. I am a Jew like all others. So why do I suddenly feel a moral obligation to tell my story in order to inspire? And is the good Lord behind this?

My children and grandchildren are all aware of my background and do not seem to be bothered by it. They’re actually proud of it. But to what extent does my story play a role, perhaps subconsciously, in their lives? I will never forget when one of my daughters, as a child (now the mother of four), came home one Friday night crying and refusing to look at me. When we asked her what had happened, she said that her best friend had just informed her that her father was a goy! My wife and I then realized that unlike with our other children we had forgotten to tell her about my background. Only after we explained it all did she calm down and allow me to once again be her father!

When each of my children entered the world of shidduchim, I made sure the other party knew about me before the two would meet. When one of my granddaughters was rejected twice for a marriage proposal because of my background, it hit me like a bolt of lightning. I felt very bad for her, but it did not touch me personally. I view the people who rejected her, and those who advised them, as being guilty of violating Halakha and not having a clue as to what Judaism is all about.
****

I often ask myself why I have merited these many blessings: discovering Judaism just at the right time, when I was still young, unmarried and open to new ideas; being married to a wonderful woman; having the opportunity to learn, write and speak about Torah for most of my life; and, of course, living in Israel. It still frightens me when I think of how close I was to marrying a non-Jew. There is not a moment when I take it for granted that I have Jewish children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who are all deeply religious. Could it be z’khut avot (the merits of our forefathers)? Or perhaps divine intervention? More and more, I believe it is the z’khut of my mother who had the courage to hide my father, his mother, brothers, sister and their wives and husband right under the noses of the Nazis in the center of Amsterdam, and saved all of them from the atrocities of Auschwitz. She risked her life several times, telling the Nazis that her husband and family had already been taken to the camps while they were actually hiding behind cupboards six feet away from where she stood. The same strength she displayed at my birth.
****

What I’ve learned over the years from my own story is that I don’t believe it’s possible to be steadily and persistently religious. One can only be in that state at certain moments, when one experiences a unique, ineffable encounter with God. All we can do is live in a religious context that will constantly remind us to long for that unparalleled moment.

To be a Jew is so much more than just being part of the Jewish people, having a Jewish mother, or even converting. It is living in the spiritual order of Judaism; living through the Jews of the past, the present and the future. One becomes somewhat Jewish when one realizes there cannot be life in the absence of moral conscience and without an often complicated encounter with God. To be a Jew is to challenge the stabilization of accepted values; to live in dissent and protest; to overcome stagnation and move beyond trivialities and clichés; to be involved in radical thinking. It is to dare to stand before God and, if need be, to challenge Him. To be a Jew is to realize that we Jews are either indispensable or superfluous. Only when we comprehend this and live accordingly can we slowly grow into real Jews.

I am still on the road. When will I arrive and be an authentic Jew? Just as Judaism is still in the making, so am I.
****
With thanks to Channa Shapiro, Jerusalem

aking, so am I. **** With thanks to Channa Shapiro, Jerusalem

In 1919, Rabbi Benzion Uziel, then a young rabbi, spoke to a conference of rabbis in Jerusalem. He stated: "Israel, the nation of peace, does not want and never will want to be built on the ruins of others....Let all the nations hear our blessing of peace, and let them return to us a hand for true peace, so that they may be blessed with the blessing of peace." In 1939, when Rabbi Uziel became Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, he delivered his inaugural address in Hebrew, and then added words in Arabic. He appealed to the Arab community: "We reach our hands out to you in peace, pure and trustworthy....Make peace with us and we will make peace with you. Together all of us will benefit from the blessing of God on His land; with quiet and peace, with love and fellowship, with goodwill and pure heart we will find the way of peace."

At around the time that the State of Israel was being recognized by the United Nations, the Chief Rabbis of Israel wrote a letter in Arabic to the Arab world. The Sephardic Chief Rabbi Benzion Uziel, who was fluent in Arabic, likely wrote this letter that was signed by him and the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Herzog. They wrote:

21 Kislev, 5708
"A Call to the Leaders of Islam for Peace and Brotherhood."

To the Heads of The Islamic Religion in the Land of Israel and throughout
the Arab lands near and far, Shalom U'Vracha:

Brothers, at this hour, as the Jewish people have returned to its land and
state, per the word of God and the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, and in
accordance with the decision of the United Nations, we approach you in peace and brotherhood, in the name of God's Torah and the Holy Scriptures, and we say to you:

Please remember the peaceful and friendly relations that existed between us
when we lived together in Arab lands and under Islamic Rulers during the
Golden Age, when together we developed brilliant intellectual insights of
wisdom and science for all of humanity's benefit. Please remember the sacred words of the prophet Malachi, who said: "Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we break faith with one another, profaning the covenant of our ancestors?" (Malachi 2:10).

We were brothers, and we shall once again be brothers, working together in
cordial and neighborly relations in this Holy Land, so that we will build it
and make it flourish, for the benefit of all of its inhabitants, without
discrimination against anyone. We shall do so in faithful and calm
collaboration, so that we may all merit God's blessing on His land, from
which there shall radiate the light of peace to the entire world.

Signed,
Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel
Yitschak Isaac Ha-Levi Herzog

The words of Rabbi Uziel and Rabbi Herzog reflected the wishes of the tiny Jewish community in the land of Israel in those times. Those words still reflect the wishes of the Jewish community of Israel today. Hawks and doves alike would like nothing better than genuine, secure peace. They would like Israeli society to be free and happy, without the specter of warfare and terrorism, without the constant threat and reality of Arab military, economic and political attacks. They would like to live in harmony with their Arab neighbors-and to trust that their Arab neighbors will want to live in harmony with them.

We applaud the United Arab Emirates and the State of Israel for reaching the decision to establish full diplomatic relations. The President of the United States and his representatives played an important role in this historic peace-making process. We pray that other Arab nations will join the "circle of peace," by establishing peaceful, harmonious and productive relations with Israel.

It takes courage and wisdom to work for peace. It takes courage and wisdom to maintain an environment of peace and mutual respect. Israel and the United Arab Emirates have taken a giant step forward. May others follow their example.

What guided our sages’ decisions when they placed aggadic (non-legalistic) passages in the Talmud? Perhaps they came armed with a treasure trove of quality material, such as the account of R. Shimon bar Yohai in the cave and the final moments of R. Hanina ben Teradyon’s life, and they simply looked for associations enabling the insertion of this material into the Talmud. If so, analyzing the placement will not contribute to meaning. Alternatively, the sages built upon thematic connections in arranging the aggadot. Talmudic stories can connect to themes of the tractate, the chapter, or a preceding sugya (talmudic passage), be it halakhic or aggadic. If so, study of placement enhances understanding.

As far as I know, the major traditional commentaries on aggadic material, Maharsha (R. Shemuel Eidels, 1555–1631) and Maharal (R. Yehudah Loeb of Prague, 1520–1609), did not raise questions of placement. However, in the nineteenth century, R. Zadok Hakohen from Lublin made a programmatic statement that all aggadot relate conceptually to their talmudic location. Stories about the Temple’s destruction are found on pages 55b–58a of Gittin, a tractate about marriage and divorce, since the destruction represents a breach in the marital relationship between God and the Jewish people.[1] Aggadot about the manna can be read on pages 74b–76a of Yoma, a tractate about the laws of Yom Kippur, because eating this heavenly food reflects a less corporeal consumption that reminds us of the angelic transcendence of the physical on Yom Kippur.[2]

R. Zadok also notes how placement at the beginning of tractate can set the tone for the entire tractate. Pesahim (mainly concerned with the laws of Pesah) begins with a long discussion about what the word “ohr” means in the opening Mishnah. It then proceeds to a discussion of different values involved in speaking well, including refined speech, clear discourse, and brevity. For R. Zadok, this fits the topic of the exodus since he connects refined speech with yihus, lineage or pedigree, and sees the exodus as emphasizing Jewish uniqueness.[3] I would like to suggest an alternative connection. Dialogue plays a bigger role on Pesah than on any other holiday. The Torah commands us to relate the exodus story over to our children, and the Seder attempts to facilitate this momentous conversation. Therefore, the tractate begins with a study of proper discourse.

R. Zadok assumes purposeful placement regarding every aggada. Such an assumption expresses his belief in omnisignificance, an apt term coined by Dr. James Kugel describing the eschewal of technical explanations in the search for a maximum of religious meaning.[4] R. Zadok goes so far as to suggest a deeper explanation for why the mitzvah to write a Sefer Torah appears specifically in siman 270 of the Shulhan Arukh. This commandment corrects the sin of Judah’s son Er (see Genesis 38), whose gematriya (the numerical value of the Hebrew letters) is 270.[5] Many of us will find this degree of omnisignificance too extreme, but we can still accept a more moderate version of R. Zadok. Perhaps some placement is meaningful while others are more arbitrary.

Let us move from the Batei Midrash of nineteenth-century Poland to the libraries of contemporary academia. Yonah Fraenkel deserves a lot of credit for initiating literary academic study of talmudic stories. He showed that these tales are not merely historical accounts but finely  crafted literary creations. Fraenkel also insisted in the principle of “closure,” which reads each story as an independent unit. His approach resembles the literary theory called New Criticism, which champions focusing on the poem itself, with an indifference to the biography of the author or historical context. Along similar lines, Fraenkel contends that we should analyze an individual story about a given sage without bringing in information from other stories. A sage can be poor in one tale and quite wealthy in another.[6]

Fraenkel notes a contrast between biblical and talmudic writing, in that only the former operates within a historical framework. Megillat Rut begins with a historical context, the time of the judges, and ends with a clear historical direction, heading toward the Davidic dynasty. Talmudic stories do not function that way. Even when a string of stories on roughly the same theme appear together, such as the aforementioned aggadot about the Temple’s destruction, they are not seriously connected to each other in a chronological or thematic fashion.

More recent scholars disagree with Fraenkel arguing that context does matter. Ofra Meir utilizes different versions of stories in rabbinic literature to show how they are shaped by context. The story of R. Shimon bar Yohai hiding in the cave appears in the Jerusalem Talmud without the Babylonian Talmud’s theme of the tension between Torah study and mundane work. In the Babylonian Talmud’s immediately preceding Gemara (Shabbat 33b), R. Shimon bar Yohai states that the illness called askara is a punishment for bittul Torah (wasting time on activities unrelated to Torah). Thus, R. Shimon’s call for intense dedication to Torah study was already lurking in the background of this passage and helped focus the ensuing presentation. Furthermore, R. Elazar son of R. Yossi attributes askara to the sin of lashon hara (gossip), which also appears in the story when Yehuda ben Gerim relates the rabbinic conversation to the Roman authorities.[7]

Meir notes the identical phenomena regarding two versions of R. Hananya ben Hakhinai spending over a decade away from home studying Torah and then shocking his wife upon returning home. In the Babylonian Talmud (Ketubot 62b), the story appears in a larger context discussing when husbands have the legal right to eschew domestic responsibilities in order to study Torah. In a midrash (Vaiykra Rabba 21:8), the story supports a theme of not suddenly entering one’s abode, fitting the biblical context of Aaron’s sons illegally entering the Holy of Holies. Meir shows how differences between the two accounts reflect the themes of each version.[8]

Jeffrey Rubenstein adds more arguments in favor of looking beyond the story itself. [9] He notes literary connections running through extended passages such as key words and thematic continuity. For example, the verb tikun comes up repeatedly in Shabbat 33b, first as something the Romans do, then as something R. Shimon bar Yohai does, and finally as something our patriarch Jacob does.[10] To use an example from Fraenkel himself, a series of stories about husbands spending significant time away from home to study Torah play off each other (Ketubot 62b). In one story, R. Hama bar Bisa tries to avoid the mistake of R. Hananya ben Hakhinai from the preceding tale. Furthermore, the entire picture balances stories critical of the rabbis for avoiding domestic responsibility with the successful model of R. Akiva spending many years away.[11]

Yonatan Feintuch’s recent book, Panim el Panim, makes a major contribution to aggada study and brings more evidence showing the importance of context. He points to a series of stories about confronting the evil inclination (Kiddushin 82a). In the first few, rabbis struggle with sexual urges and the tales encourage great precaution to prevent sin. However, in the final story, we see R. Hiyya renouncing sexuality with his wife leads to martial tension, R. Hiyya consorting with someone he thinks is a prostitute, and R. Hiyya punishing himself by sitting in a burning oven. This balances the preceding message; we cannot address the challenges of temptation with complete abstinence. These examples indicate that reading each story in isolation will miss some of the force of the overarching message.[12] 

Beyond literary context, Rubenstein also stresses the importance of cultural context. We can turn to other talmudic sources for help “when confronted by a symbol, such as a column of fire, or a motif, such as a sage forgetting his studies.”[13] To use an example of my own, carob trees appear in the stories of Honi haMe’agel sleeping for 70 years (Ta’anit 23a), in the oven of Ahkhinai when R. Elazar utilizes miracles to support his halakhic position (Baba Mezia 59b), and when R. Shimon and his son live in the cave (Shabbat 33b). Consistent usage of the same tree does not seem to be coincidence. In the Honi story, carob trees produce fruit only after an extremely long duration. Maharsha suggests that the choice of carob trees adds to the miraculous quality of R. Shimon’s survival in the cave since the tree that grows to feed him normally takes decades to bear fruit.[14]

To be fair, Fraenkel himself did not always adhere to his closure principle. He understands the significance of Moshe sitting in the Bet Midrash’s eighteenth row (Menahot 29b) based on a different talmudic story (Hulin 137b).[15] In a chapter on future directions for aggadic scholarship, he mentions the idea of a topos, a commonplace theme in a given body of literature.[16] Thus, even the champion of “closure” occasionally saw the value of looking beyond the individual story.

Feintuch’s work includes several models of how aggadic stories impact on adjacent halakhic sugyot. They can present another opinion. The halakhic discussion of the five afflictions of Yom Kippur ultimately decides that only not eating and drinking are included in the biblical command of afflicting oneself on Yom Kippur whereas the other prohibitions come from a different source. Feintuch shows how the subsequent aggadot (Yoma 74b–78a) relate to abstinence as a kind of innuy (affliction), differing from the preceding halakhic texts.[17] From this aggadic perspective, innuy is not only concrete discomfort or pain but even the absence of pleasure.

Secondly, the aggada can reveal some of the difficulties in applying the abstract halakha in the real world. One Gemara (Bava Batra 22a) grants special selling privileges to scholars who function as traveling salesmen. In a following story, R. Dimi comes to a town intending to sell dates. One of the locals, R. Ada bar Ahava, asks R. Dimi an obscure halakhic question and stumps the latter. R. Dimi doesn’t receive the privileges of a scholar and his dates therefore turn rotten. Feintuch suggests that applying this law proves difficult in practice since determining who qualifies as a talmid hakham (sage) can bring out scholarly competition and become a major source of social tension. The aggadic tale adds an important dimension to the legal ruling.[18]

Finally, a talmudic story can convey a level of extralegal piety. Berakhot 33a teaches that someone engaged in prayer interrupts his prayer if a life-threatening situation emerges. For example, a snake may not endanger the person praying but a scorpion will. Nevertheless, a preceding story tells of a pious fellow who does not interrupt his prayer to return the greeting of an important Roman official. In theory, ignoring the Roman is a very dangerous gambit. Feintuch explains that this story presents a level of super piety, which would allow for taking on risks in the pursuit of intense devotion to God.[19]

Yakov Blidstein offers a similar read of aggadic stories about not destroying trees. In one tale, the son of R. Hanina apparently perishes for cutting down a tree. In another, Rava bar R. Hana resists eliminating his own tree despite its negative impact on his neighbor, R. Yosef (Baba Batra 26a). Rava was willing to have R. Yosef remove the tree but refused to do the act himself.[20] Blidstein explains that while halakha actually allows for cutting down such trees, the aggadic material reflects a religious attitude extremely committed to the ideal of bal tashhit (not being destructive). 

R. Zadok and university professors obviously do not approach Talmud from the same vantage point, yet the parallels between them are intriguing. Both think that placement and context matter, and both find religious meaning in their analysis of these literary issues. I would like to close with one further parallel. We noted earlier how R. Zadok thinks that placement of a sugya at the beginning of a tractate can be telling. Several academics have made the identical suggestion about an aggada at the beginning of Avoda Zara relating how the nations of the world complained that they were not given a chance to accept the Torah. This conversation appropriately sets the stage for a tractate about the relationship between Jews and gentiles.[21] 

Perhaps this happens on a meta level at the beginning of the entire Talmud. The first line in the Talmud questions how the Mishnah could simply jump into the details of keriat shema without initially establishing the existence of a mitzvah to recite the Shema. The Gemara answers that the Mishnah works off biblical verses establishing the Shema requirement. R. Zadok and a contemporary Israeli scholar think that this opening question and answer begin the Talmud to establish an idea that the reader will carry through the entirety of the Talmud. R. Zadok explains that the rabbinical discussions found in all of the Talmud are rooted in the biblical world. This ancient legal dialogue is not just a conversation of intelligent humans but a discussion of the divine word.[22] Ruth Calderon says this opening conveys how each rabbinic text builds upon earlier texts. Unlike R. Zadok who speaks of God, Calderon writes about the nature of being part of an ongoing literary canon. Both think the placement here at the start of our talmudic journey was purposeful.[23]

Parallels between Hassidic rebbes and university professors should encourage us to realize that these two worlds need not always remain completely apart. The yeshiva world has much to gain from the keen insights of Fraenkel, Rubenstein, and others. Conversely, academics would benefit from utilizing the interpretations of traditional rabbinic commentary. We need not collapse methodological distinctions and theological assumptions to learn from each other.

America.

That was the dream of so many poor Jews in the

old Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 20th

century. America was hope, a chance for a better

life, a way out of poverty and squalor, a bastion of

freedom.

America.

Enthusiasm for the new “promised land” spread

from heart to heart. Thousands of hopeful souls

uprooted themselves from the old world and set sail

for the new.

Among them, in 1908, were Bohor Yehuda Angel

and his eldest son Moshe. They left the Island of

Rhodes and made the long, arduous trip to Seattle,

Washington, where a small community of Rhodes

Jews had already settled.

Bohor Yehuda was a sturdy, pious man. He left his

six young children in Rhodes with his wife Bulissa

Esther. He and Moshe planned to work hard, earn

money, and bring the entire family to Seattle as soon

as possible.

Bohor Yehuda opened a shoe-shine stand in

downtown Seattle. Moshe worked at various odd

jobs. They lived simply and with great self-sacrifice.

They regularly sent money to their family in Rhodes

to sustain them until they could save enough to

bring them all to Seattle. It took them three years

of toil and scrimping before they finally raised the

necessary funds.

Bulissa Esther received the news with ineffable joy.

The past three years had been difficult. Separation

from a husband so many thousands of miles away in

a strange land was not easy. Caring for six children

in the absence of their father was a huge challenge.

Although she was blessed with great wisdom and

patience, Bulissa Esther was taxed to the limit of

her abilities. At last, she could now arrange to travel

with her children to America and the family could

once again be united.

Bulissa Esther and her six children set sail in the

summer of 1911. They traveled steerage, but no one

complained. They were on their way to the freedom,

happiness, and the promise of America. They were

on their way to family reunion.

When they arrived in New York harbor, they looked

forward to stepping onto American soil. They would

soon take a train cross-country to Seattle. All would

be well.

As they exited the ship, all passengers were brought

to the immigration office. American officials checked

their names, their places of origin, their ultimate

destinations in the United States. They asked many

questions, although most of the immigrants did not

know English and could not understand what was

being asked of them. Somehow, though, most of

the passengers answered well enough and received

papers admitting them into the United States.

When the turn of Bulissa Esther and her six children

came, she stood before the examining officers with

trembling anticipation. She told the officials that

they were on their way to Seattle to reunite with her

husband and eldest son.

One of the officials, following standard immigration

procedures, checked the family members to

determine if they had any obvious diseases or health

issues that would prohibit their entry into the

United States. Bulissa Esther and five of her children

were deemed to be healthy. Her nine-year-old son,

Joseph, was found to have a scalp disease, tinias.

This was not a serious health problem in itself; but

the immigration official ruled that Joseph could not

be admitted into the country due to his disease.

Bulissa Esther’s heart jumped a beat when she was

made to understand that Joseph could not enter the

United States. She broke down crying. She pleaded

with the officials. He is just a little boy, we will get

medicine for his tinias, please let him in, what am I

to do if you do not admit him? We’ve waited three

years for my husband and son to raise the funds to

bring us here! We can’t go back to Rhodes again!

No, said the official, you don’t have to go back to

Rhodes. You and five of your children can continue

your trip to Seattle. But Joseph can’t be admitted

into the United States.

Please, have mercy on a mother and her children.

Have mercy on a nine year old boy. How can we

separate him from the rest of us? How will he go

back to Rhodes alone? Who will care for him there?

That is not our problem, said the official. Joseph

cannot be admitted. You need to decide what to do

now.

America.

The promised land. A land with laws, but without

mercy. A land that would turn a young boy away,

that would break the hearts of a good, honest family.

Bulissa Esther was beside herself with grief. She

could not bring her family back to Rhodes. But

neither could she abandon little Joseph.

As it happened, a Jewish man from Rhodes, who

had been on the same ship as Bulissa Esther, was also

denied entry into the United States due to a health

problem. He had no choice but to return to Rhodes.

When he heard Bulissa Esther crying, he came over

to her and learned of the problem with Joseph. He

volunteered to bring Joseph back to Rhodes with

him, to settle him in with a family of relatives until

such time as Bohor Yehuda could raise enough

money to pay passage for Joseph to join the family

in Seattle.

Bulissa Esther had no other realistic option. She

thanked the man profusely for agreeing to look

after Joseph. So she kissed her beloved son and said

goodbye. All the brothers and sisters hugged Joseph

and promised that they would see him again soon.

Bulissa Esther and five of her children traveled on

to Seattle, reunited with Bohor Yehuda and Moshe,

and gradually adapted to their new lives in America.

Joseph was brought to the home of relatives in

Rhodes. Bulissa Esther prayed for the day when

Joseph could be brought together with the rest of

the family in Seattle.

That day never came.

Bohor Yehuda could scarcely earn enough to

support his large family in Seattle, let alone to save

money to buy passage for Joseph. Meanwhile, world

events were impacting on life in Rhodes, making

Joseph’s travel to the United States increasingly

unlikely.

War broke out between Italy and Turkey, with

Italian forces occupying the Island of Rhodes in

May 1912. After nearly four centuries of Turkish

dominion, Rhodes was now under Italian control.

Italy was officially granted Rhodes in July 1923 under

the Treaty of Lausanne. The Jews of Rhodes, along

with the other residents of the island, soon began to

speak Italian, to think Italian, to be Italian subjects.

Economic life in Rhodes blossomed. Little Joseph

grew up at a time of growing optimism among the

Jews of Rhodes.

He couldn’t easily travel to America during the

Turco-Italian War years. Then World War I broke

out in July 1914, making travel across the Atlantic

Ocean dangerous if not impossible. By the time the

war ended in November 1918, Joseph was a young

man, already comfortable in his life in Italian-ruled

Rhodes. In due course, he was married to a lovely wife,

Sinyorou; and they went on to have four children—

two boys and two girls. Life was moving along well.

They could see no reason to move to America; and

in any case, American quota laws of 1921 and 1924

dramatically limited the number of immigrants

eligible to enter the United States. Joseph had been

turned away from America once; he had no desire to

face American immigration officials a second time.

But conditions in Rhodes were to change radically.

In June 1936, Italy aligned itself with Nazi Germany.

Jews living in Italian territories—like Jews living in

Germany—became victims of a horrific policy of anti-

Semitism.

The Jews of Rhodes were thunderstruck

by the dramatic undermining of their lives and

their livelihoods. The Rabbinical College of Rhodes

was forced to close. Jews in Rhodes were required

to keep their stores open on the Jewish Sabbath

and festivals. In September 1938, anti-Jewish laws

went into effect in Rhodes that prohibited kosher

slaughter of animals. Jews were no longer allowed

to buy property, employ non-Jewish servants, send

their children to government schools. Non-Jews

were forbidden from patronizing Jewish doctors or

pharmacists. Jews who had settled in Rhodes after

January 1919 were expelled from the Island. (They

were the fortunate ones!)

For a short period in the early 1940s, there was

a slight easing of the anti-Jewish measures. Yet,

conditions were dire. Aside from dealing with their

loss of civil status and human dignity, they had to

deal with the ongoing hardships of living in a war

zone. British planes dropped bombs on Rhodes in

their effort to defeat the Axis powers, and dozens of

Jews were among those killed in these attacks.

When Mussolini was removed from power in July

1943, the Jews of Rhodes thought their troubles

were over. But contrary to their expectations, the

Germans occupied Rhodes. The situation of the

Jews worsened precipitously. In July 1944, the Jews

of Rhodes had all their valuables confiscated by

the Germans. They were then crowded into three

small freight ships. Of the nearly 1,700 Rhodes Jews

deported by the Nazis, only 151 survived. Almost

all the Jews of Rhodes were viciously murdered in

Auschwitz.

Among those who suffered this cruel and inhuman

death were the entire family of Joseph Angel.

Little did the American immigration official realize

in 1911, that by turning away a little boy with a scalp

infection, he was condemning that boy and family

to a calamitous destruction. That official no doubt

slept peacefully the night he sent Joseph back to

Rhodes, separating the young son from his mother

and siblings. The official was following the rules.

If that official was still alive in July 1944, he probably

slept the sleep of the innocent, not realizing that

his actions led to the death of an entire family. His

dreams were not haunted by nightmares of the

ghosts of Joseph’s family.

How does the Torah and Jewish Thought relate to the rest of humanity?
Join National Scholar Rabbi Hayyim Angel for a three-part series on
topics such as The Chosen People, Judaism and Racism, The Resident
Alien in the Bible, and other pertinent discussions pertaining to a
Jewish outlook toward Israel and the Nations.

Wednesdays August 12, 19, and 26, from 12:00-1:00pm Eastern Daylight Time.

The classes are open to the first 100 registrants, so please register here

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In 1924, the State of Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act, criminalizing interracial marriages. There was a special dispensation built into the law, however. Through the so-called “Pocahontas exception,” Virginians proud of being descendants of Pocahontas who still wanted to classify as “white” were able to do so instead of being classified as “Native American.” Similarly politically-weighted claims of ancestry have received extensive coverage in recent years, including the question of why Barack Obama is widely considered a black man with a white mother, rather than a white man with a black father; President Trump’s questioning of Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren’s claimed Native American heritage (Trump has, on numerous occasions, referred to her as “Pocahontas”); and the extensive doubts recently raised about the Jewish identity of socialist New York State Senator Julia Salazar. As Rutgers professor Eviatar Zerubavel discusses in his Ancestors and Relatives: Genealogy, Identity, and Community (Oxford, 2011), how we define or frame our ancestry, and how others define it, is of tremendous importance.

Questions of genealogy are so vital because our ancestry is often a key element in our social structure, the axis on which many of our social interactions, obligations, loyalties, and emotional sentiments, turn. Although we like to believe in meritocracy, that individuals are self-made, our identities can be deeply tied to those from whom we descend. As Zerubavel writes, “Our psychological integrity depends very much upon...the extent to which we feel linked to our genealogical roots.... [S]triking a person’s name from his or her family’s genealogical records used to be one of the most dreaded punishments in China” (pp. 5, 7). And of course, biologically, heredity has a tremendous impact on our traits, personality, and self-perceptions. As Columbia University professor Robert Pollack has noted, our “genomes are a form of literature… a library of the most ancient, precious, and deeply important books” (Signs of Life: The Language and Meanings of DNA [Houghton Mifflin, 1994], 117). Through studying where we come from, we learn how to tell our own story.

Are Our Relatives… Relative?

In It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree (Simon & Schuster, 2017) humorist and author A. J. Jacobs recounts his attempt to assemble his extended, and by that I mean very extended, family, in the largest family reunion ever. After receiving an e-mail from a man in Israel claiming to be his 12th cousin, part of an 80,000-person family tree that included Karl Marx and some European aristocrats, Jacobs set out to bring as many of his living relatives together as he could, figuring “people [who spend countless hours tracing their family roots] want to feel connected and anchored. They want to visit what has been called the “Museum of Me.’” Utilizing online genealogical tools, he connected to countless celebrities, as well as former U.S. President George H. W. Bush. Through this project, Jacobs sought to make the case for people to be kinder to one another because of our shared “cousin-hood.”

Finding out about 79,999 relatives raised for Jacobs questions about the nature of family and the hierarchy of closeness we feel toward certain individuals. He argues that if all of humanity is one very large extended family, it is less important who our immediate relatives are. Maybe,

… we can sometimes make room in our hearts to love others without diminishing what we feel for those already dearest to us. Love is not a zero-sum game…. They tell of a seventeenth-century French missionary in Canada who tried to explain traditional monogamous marriage to a tribesman. The tribesman replied, “Thou hast no sense. You French people love only your own children, but we love all the children of our tribe.” Ignorance of their kids’ paternity apparently [can make] for a more compassionate society. (pp. 87, 150)

Taking this line of reasoning a step further, maybe our conception of family shouldn’t even be limited to biological relatives, or even people in our local community or tribe. One modern writer, Andrew Solomon, has even offered calling those who share your passion or worldview your “horizontal family” as opposed to your “vertical,” biological family. Though we would assume those with common interests are friends rather than family, Zerubavel gives some credence and sociological substance to this counterintuitive idea:

The family… is an inherently boundless community. Since there is no natural boundary separating recent ancestors from remote ones, there is also no such boundary separating close relatives from distant ones, or even relatives from nonrelatives. Any such boundary is therefore a product of social convention alone. Thus, although it is probably nature that determines that our obligations to others be proportional to our genealogical proximity to them, it is nevertheless unmistakably social norms that specify whose blood or honor we ought to avenge and determine the genealogical reach of family reunification policies. It is likewise social conventions that specify who can claim the share of blood money paid to relatives of homicide victims and determine who we invite to family reunions. Thus, whereas the range of other animals’ kin recognition is determined by nature, it is social norms, conventions, and traditions of classification that determine how widely humans’ range of kin recognition actually extends, and societies indeed often vary in where they draw the line between relatives and nonrelatives. (p. 72)

And as the renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson put it in a letter to Jacobs (p. 163):

My philosophy of root-finding may be unorthodox. I just don’t care. And that’s not a passive, but active sense of caring. In the tree of life, any two people in the world share a common ancestor—depending only on how far you look. So the line we draw to establish family and heritage is entirely arbitrary. When I wonder what I am capable of achieving, I don’t look to family lineage, I look to all human beings. That’s the genetic relationship that matters to me. The genius of Isaac Newton, the courage of Gandhi and MLK, the bravery of Joan of Arc, the athletic feats of Michael Jordan, the oratorical skills of Sir Winston Churchill, the compassion of Mother Teresa. I look to the entire human race for inspiration for what I can be—because I am human. [I] couldn’t care less if I were a descendant of kings and paupers, saints or sinners, the valorous or cowardly. My life is what I make of it.

Are You My Mother?

The challenge to the idea above, however, is that while it might make for a sound philosophical argument, it doesn’t seem to hold water empirically. There have been many experiments and contexts, including Israeli kibbutzim, in which children have been raised communally, as opposed to in a nuclear family model, only to discover it made parents and children less happy. There is social, psychological, and moral value provided by what we intuitively classify as our family, which, assuming it contains a generally positive dynamic, serves to aid in both general health and even survival, and inculcate values that an individual applies to his or her colleagues, neighbors, and friends. As the saying goes, “Men may change their clothes, their politics, their wives, their religions, their philosophies—[but] they cannot change their grandfathers.”

The Jewish Family

            Judaism, of course, is based upon the story of a family. The Book of Genesis is the story of chosen children, with the tales of those who were not chosen relegated to the periphery. Like many families, the Jewish family’s “dynastic mental structure” is conceived of as a “single identity” with “particular norms of remembrance” (Zerubavel, 19, 67). Thus, while one might refer to one’s country of origin a “motherland” or refer to the “founding fathers” of the United States, to the Jewish people, Israel is the land of our actual mothers and fathers, and our norms of family remembrance are found in the Torah. We are Benei Yisrael, the children of our forefather Israel.

Following the completion of the Bible, the advent of the monarchy, and the sweep of subsequent Jewish history, what has emerged within the story of the Children of Israel is the anticipated restoration of one particular line within our family. We hope and pray multiple times throughout our liturgy for the resumed authority of the Davidic line through the coming of the Messiah, the ultimate redeemer.

With this background in mind, let us examine the Book of Ruth, which ends with a genealogy culminating with the birth of David, the ancestor of the eventual Messiah. Let us also examine how the ancestral story of David’s family is told and how it might inform our understanding of family in our own lives.

Ten Generations

The Book of Ruth ends with a list of ten generations:

Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez begot Hezron; and Hezron begot Ram, and Ram begot Amminadab; and Amminadab begot Nahshon, and Nahshon begot Salmon; and Salmon begot Boaz, and Boaz begot Obed; and Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David. (Ruth 4:18–22)

A story that began with an Israelite family leaving Bethlehem and dwelling in Moab for around ten years (1:4), during which time a father and two sons died, now lists ten generations of progeny, a healthy and vibrant family line. The birthing of sons has replaced the death of sons. Beyond this portrayal of restoration, the list has a structure that serves a political function as well. The list could have started with Judah, father of Perez, or even Jacob, Judah’s father, but starting with Perez puts David tenth in line, matching an earlier biblical pattern. Just as there were ten generations from Adam to Noah, and another ten from Noah to Abraham, David is listed as the culmination of ten generations. This structure suggests that the book is situating David in the pantheon of foundational biblical figures (See Zvi Ron, “The Genealogical List in the Book of Ruth: A Symbolic Approach,” Jewish Bible Quarterly 38:2 [2010]: 85–92).

The “surprise ending” of David’s birth also reshapes our perception of the entire preceding narrative. Through the realization that this tale of a bereft Naomi and her former daughter-in-law, the Moabite Ruth, ends up producing the ultimate Israelite king, the reader sees how a savior is born through the acts of loyalty and kindness demonstrated by its characters. In the words of Professor André LaCocque in his Ruth: A Continental Commentary (Fortress Press, 2004):

The genealogy is their announcement of victory.... [I]n the West, individualism has become so excessive, so egocentric, that all devotedness to a future generation appears obsolete and even ridiculous in the eyes of some… but the facts of history do teach us that we cannot take the survival of the group for granted. After Auschwitz, the people of Naomi—who are also Ruth’s people—know that they are vulnerable. It was already so in ancient Israel. The discontinuation of the name—that is, of the family, the clan—meant annihilation…. [W]hat has to be assured is not the number but history, the promise, the hope. The typical modern individual does not have any history, only episodes, like the soap operas on television. But Israel has a history, a history oriented toward the coming of the kingdom of God and its regent, the Messiah…. [P]ut simply, the story of Ruth is pulled from the episodic and placed, from the perspective of Israel’s history, into salvation history. (p. 122)

Living during the troublesome era of the Book of Judges, in which each man did what was right in his own eyes because there was no ruler to unify the nation, Ruth merits the bearing the nation’s salvific figure, the conqueror of Jerusalem, and the singer of Psalms through her selfless acts. As Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer-Kensky suggest, “For an ancient audience this final genealogy would have been an exhilarating conclusion; good people have been rewarded with the high honor of illustrious progeny” (The JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth (Philadelphia: JPS, 2011), 92–93).

The Female Genealogy

            Like all such biblical lists, the final verses of Ruth list male progenitors. However, prior to those last few verses, the narratives offer what some have suggested is a female genealogy as well, one whose allusions offer even greater insight into the story of David’s birth. In this scene, in which Ruth is married to Boaz, the names of certain female biblical heroines are evoked:

And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said: “We are witnesses. May God make the woman that is coming into your house like Rachel and like Leah, those two who built the house of Israel; and be worthy in Ephrat, and be famous in Bethlehem; and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, of the seed which God shall give you of this young woman.” So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife; and he was intimate with her, and God gave her conception, and she bore a son. And the women said unto Naomi: “Blessed be God, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and let his name be famous in Israel. And he shall be for you a restorer of life, and a nourisher for you in your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has borne him.” And Naomi took the child, and laid embraced him, and became his nurse. And the women her neighbors gave it a name, saying: “There is a son born to Naomi”; and they called his name Obed; he is the father of Jesse, the father of David. (4:11–17)

This is the only time in the entire Bible where characters are blessed through the invoking of female characters. Ruth is mentioned as an analogue to none other than Rachel and Leah, two foundational women, mothers, and wives. In this radical acceptance of a stranger, a Moabite widow becomes an honorary biblical matriarch.

            In the coda of Ruth, the invocation of Rachel and Leah, as well as Tamar, is more than a simple reference to memorable female biblical characters. All three of these earlier women, along with the daughters of Lot, have been subtly alluded to over the course of Ruth’s tale. All of them, like Ruth, ensured the viability of their family line through personal sacrifice in the form of “bedtricks” of varying degrees of deception and morality. After fleeing the destruction of Sodom, the daughters of Lot made their father drunk and slept with him, thereby producing Amon and Moab, the latter of which is Ruth’s ancestor (Genesis 19). Leah was switched for Rachel on Jacob’s wedding night (Genesis 29:25) and the two sisters often fought over their husband, once trading a night with Jacob for mandrakes (30:16). (It can be noted that Leah was the mother of Judah, whose descendants include Boaz and David.) And Tamar dressed as a veiled harlot and slept with Judah (Genesis 38). However, as contemporary scholar Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel emphasizes in her Holiness and Transgression: Mothers of the Messiah in the Jewish Myth (Academic Studies Press, 2017), Ruth and Boaz’s story stands both among and beyond those earlier narratives:
 

In contrast to the masculine list, which is summarily “historical,” the feminine list is portrayed as “herstory” and as part of... Boaz and Ruth's wedding scene. This list functions as a connecting link for the formal closing of the book and a disposition to recast forbidden actions into “an expression of blessing” is prominent in it. Absent here is the unforgiving terminology found in the original story: the figure of the qedeisha or the prostitute at the entrance of Enaim, the problematic revelation at Boaz's feet, and the hesitation of the redeemer to corrupt his inheritance, the threat of the world's annihilation in the story of Lot's daughters and their abandonment to be raped in the beginning of the story of Sodom, the poverty, calamity, and death that accompany Ruth and Tamar, the clashing of the sisters Rachel and Leah. All of these are transformed into unified harmony in the mouths of the congratulators at the city's gate. (p. 14)

Through their mention in this story, these earlier women are woven into the fabric of Israel’s royal history, and their sacrifices reach an apex in Ruth’s actions. Whereas those earlier stories were tales of deceit, lack of knowledge, seduction, and trickery, Ruth’s “bedtrick” at the threshing floor was a call to action that necessitated recognition and awareness on the part of the individual actors, and that resulted in “fully legitimate, legally certified” marriage. From Lot’s daughters’ incest, to Rachel and Leah’s wedding night switch, to Tamar’s disguised harlotry, we have progressed, finally, to a public marriage ceremony at the city gates of Bethlehem. Through Ruth, those earlier episodes are thus redeemed, affirmed, and celebrated. Maybe this is why the male genealogical list begins with the name Perez, which means “breach.” Daring to breach propriety for the sake of family, these women not only ensured the continuation of their family line, they provided national salvation.

Struggles, Storytelling, and Salvation

By telling the story of King David’s genealogy through the Book of Ruth, the text is offering a nuanced framework for thinking about our own history, both national and familial. As psychologist Dr. Lisa Miller has demonstrated, the ability for families to articulate their struggles and challenges builds resilience among its members (see The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving [Picador, 2015], 291). Through the tale of a foreign, marginalized widow, whose personal risk mirrors that of other biblical mothers, we are reminded of the sacrifices that sustain the continuity of the Jewish people. We are reminded of the ability of kindness to heal. And we are reminded of the power of family, both biological and beyond. Ruth’s story inspires us to meet the challenges of our own circumstances. Through the tale of communal openness to a disconnected stranger, we are given the keys to redemption. After all, it is the offspring of Lot’s daughter, Rachel and Leah, Tamar, and Ruth, with its family bloodline of struggle, alienation, and foreignness, coupled with selfless dedication to continuity, who is uniquely suited to lead the Children of Israel and bring the nations of the world closer to God. Like Moses, whose virtues and leadership abilities were developed through his fractured, foreign experiences in both Egypt and Midian, Ruth, too, embodies the marginal figure’s messianic capabilities.

It is through our own striving to survive and flourish alongside our imperfections, struggles, and feelings of disconnectedness that will eventually repair a fractured world. To quote Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen in his discussion of the Messiah in Tzidkat HaTzadik (#111), “the lowest will become the highest.”

This is why Ruth is the progenitor of the Messiah, because the Messiah is the ultimate meishiv nefesh [Ruth 4:15], restorer of life and dignity when hope seems lost…. [T]o restore the name [Ruth 4:5] is to reach across the generations, and across interpersonal divide, and at times across the divide between aspects or periods within one’s own self, in active recognition, provoking true transformation. That is what compassionate redemption means…. [I]n the end, Ruth reminds us that nothing is more beautiful than friendship, that grace begets grace, that blessing flourishes in the place between memory and hope, that light shines most from broken vessels. What else is the Messiah about? (Nehemiah Polen, “Dark Ladies and Redemptive Compassion: Ruth and the Messianic Lineage in Judaism,” in Peter S. Hawkins and Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg, eds., Scrolls of Love: Ruth and the Song of Songs [Fordham University Press, 2006], 69, 74.)

In our striving to embody the values inspired by Ruth, may we merit the writing of the next chapter of the Jewish story. May we, as individuals, as members of our family, and as members of the Children of Israel, bring the world compassionate redemption.

Four Spaces:

Women’s Torah Study in American Modern Orthodoxy

 By Dean Rachel Friedman*

Nearly thirty years ago, I left my career as a lawyer to become a teacher of Torah.  As a teacher, I focus on text and substantive study.  But, inevitably, I am also an observer of Torah learning in the United States and of the place of women in that study.  I have witnessed many discussions, often heated, about women’s roles in studying and teaching Torah.  Rather than give a definitive perspective on those issues, I offer here something else:  a taxonomy of the discussion itself.  In any discussion, nothing can get done without knowing, first and foremost, what the discussion is actually about.

          In that vein, I have observed that discussions about women and Torah learning are not about any one thing.  This is natural, because Torah study itself is not a single thing.  Torah study is an aspect of formal Jewish education, but it is also preparation for professional careers.  And, perhaps more importantly than either of those, it is one of Judaism’s most significant religious and social acts.  Any discussion about women’s Torah learning, then, relates to one of four “spaces”: the education, the professional, the religious, and the social.  These spaces are all interconnected.  Teasing these out as separate spheres will do much to make our discussion of their significance more coherent.

The Education Space

The first context for discussing women’s Torah study, then, is education.  This context deals with what women learn as students in formal classrooms in elementary school, high school, seminaries, and college batei midrash.  Yeshiva day schools – including those I attended as a child -- have long emphasized women’s textual and primary-source learning in the form of Tanakh.  Indeed, because of this, girls’ schools were often thought to provide better Bible and Hebrew-language skills than their all-male counterparts. 

Traditionally, however, these day schools did not impart primary knowledge of torah she-ba’al peh or halakhah, focusing instead on bottom-line practice.  This has changed dramatically over the past two decades.  In both co-educational and girls-only schools, young women study the full panoply of torah she-ba’al peh, from Talmud to rishonim to modern piskei halakhah.  The basic Torah educations received by young Modern Orthodox women and men, therefore, resemble each other as never before.

Still, there is a caveat.  This is true of the basic education expected of our students.  At higher levels – those that follow high school – the quality and quantity of women’s and men’s offerings differ markedly.  A male high school graduate spending a gap year in Israel will, by default, end up in a program that emphasizes torah she-ba’al peh, unless he seeks out something different.  By contrast, a female student with the same background will, by default, end up in an institution that emphasizes areas of study other than gemara and text-based halakhah, unless she actively seeks admission to one of a small number of seminaries whose curricula resemble those of men’s yeshivot.

And the difference becomes more acute in college.  Men seeking intensive beit medrash study focusing on torah she-ba’al peh have a number of options, including at Modern Orthodoxy’s flagship institution, Yeshiva University.  The closest that women come to such an opportunity at YU is the Stern College Beit Midrash for Women.  Students have expressed, however, that the range of torah she-ba’al peh offerings at Stern, and the number of religious authorities who serve as teachers and mentors, does not approach that of the men’s campus.  See https://yucommentator.org/2020/05/making-strides-towards-a-stronger-beit-midrash-on-beren/. 

These differences in advanced learning may, of course, simply reflect that women’s learning of gemara and halakhah is, in historical perspective, a recent phenomenon.  And I would agree that the trajectory is towards greater opportunities for women and greater parity with men’s education options.  But it seems likely that women’s opportunities differ for structural reasons, also, which means that differences will not evaporate with time alone.  For men, advanced gemara and halakhah learning can lead to a title such as rabbi, and to the respect and jobs that come with the title.  Women’s opportunities for certification, such as a certificate from GPATS or the Drisha Scholars Circle or the title of maharat, lead to fewer professional opportunities and less communal recognition.  This means not only that women have less incentive to populate advanced Talmud classes, but that they may receive a subliminal message – intended or not – that men are the keepers of the torah she-ba’al peh and that women do not need to study its intricacies at an advanced level.  All of this lays the groundwork for our discussion of the second space for women’s learning: the professional. 

          The Professional Space

Here, women face a fundamental limitation in most Modern Orthodox communities because they cannot partake of a title such as rabbi.  This lack of a title makes it more difficult for a woman to signal that “I am a trained Jewish professional with significant learning under my belt.”

          Women have worked creatively around this limitation.  They have long taught Tanakh in yeshiva day schools and, in recent decades, have played more public roles as scholars-in-residence in synagogues.  For those trained in torah she-ba’al peh, many have found roles teaching (without a title) in high schools, in advanced programs like Lamdeinu, Drisha, Midreshet Nili, and in public speaking.  Following the Israeli precedent, a number of learned women have begun calling themselves rabbanit, a moniker which proves less controversial because it preserves the ambiguity of whether it signifies marriage to a rabbi, independent accomplishment in  high level Torah study, or both. Women have also found roles as yoatzot halakhah, toanot, and rebbetzins that allow them to partially take on some tasks traditionally performed by men.  Finally, women trained in torah she-ba’al peh have found communal roles – such as at federations, the UJA, and in kashrut organizations -- that take some advantage of their Torah training.

          Finding ways for women to use their learning is important not only for the professionals themselves, but for the community, which risks losing out on their individual and collective contributions.  Still, this is a delicate balancing act.  Fear of a feminism that runs counter to the Jewish value of women as the center of the Jewish home and family runs deep.  And Orthodox Judaism must be, by its nature, conservative in the Burkean sense.  It can absorb slow, incremental change, rather than measures that do too much too quickly.  I am likely not alone in wanting measured, gradual change that sticks, rather than a hasty and dramatic overhaul that does not, when it comes to creating professional roles for women. 

                   The two spaces we have discussed so far – the educational and professional – are important, but immediately relevant only for the subset of women still in school or entering Jewish communal work.  Torah learning, though, is much more than an educational or professional endeavor.  It is also a religious act and a facilitator of social connection.  I will focus next, therefore, on women’s Torah learning in religious and social space.

          The Religious Space

As a religious matter, it is generally understood that men have a formal obligation to study Torah, while women do not.  Kiddushin 29b.  Nevertheless, even in the absence of obligation, our community looks at women’s Torah study as valuable because it is a kiyyum mitzvah (fulfillment of a voluntary mitzvah) and, perhaps more importantly, an essential way of connecting to God.  See e.g. https://www.jpost.com/magazine/judaism/may-women-study-the-talmud.  Rabbinic leaders have recognized that, as a practical matter, women with sophisticated secular education and advanced professional roles may find it challenging to connect meaningfully to their religion without a similar opportunity for sophisticated engagement.  Id. 

          We must think carefully, therefore, about the messages we send to women with respect to their roles as Torah learners.  For example, what does it say to a spiritual woman, married or single, if her community encourages men to be kovei ittim and study be-havruta for hours each week, but offers no similar encouragement or form of engagement for her?  I do not claim to know the exact answer to this question.  But I do know two things.  First, it will be hard for some women to find fulfillment as observant Jews if we do not value their engagement with Torah study as a spiritual and religious act.  Second, in my experience, women’s thirst for this spiritual act is profound, judging by the fact that the beit midrash which houses Lamdeinu, the institution I founded and lead, is filled on weekdays with women learning Torah. 

          The Social Space

I move now to the fourth and final area of women’s Torah study:  learning as a social act.  For many, studying Torah is about more than the study itself.  It is a way to connect with friends who attend the same shiur or to bond with a study partner.  Torah study provides a framework for Jewish social life.

          With a few exceptions, Torah study for women comes much more frequently in the form of classes than havruta study.  By contrast, it is not uncommon for adult men – often retired or otherwise not working full-time -- to sit in a shul beit midrash studying in pairs.  In this way, Torah study offers more social interaction for men than for women.  This difference may reflect differing preferences, particularly among the older adults most likely to have time for Torah study and whose expectations were formed in an era when women’s discretionary learning was less common.  But, if these preferences are generational, we must be aware that future generations of women who are accustomed to participating in Torah study as an act of social connection, may expect more beit midrash style options.

          As a case in point, one of the most popular classes at Lamdeinu is a Parshanut haMikra shiur on Sefer Bereishit which includes guided havruta preparation followed by an interactive shiur. Strong personal friendships have formed between students, who often live considerable distances from each other, owing to their study of Torah and rabbinic sources in a havruta setting. These learning/social relationships have proven enduring; they have continued full force through zoom and telephone in the covid era.

          Concluding Thoughts

Having provided a taxonomy of women’s “Torah learning spaces” in 21^st century America, and of some attendant challenges, I offer a few remarks in conclusion.

 First, I do not imply that women’s Torah learning must be made to look exactly like its male counterpart.  Women, as a group, have needs, interests and desires that may differ from those of men, and we do ourselves no service by imitation for its own sake. 

Second, just as we ask about changing what Torah study for women looks like, we may ask the same about men.  For example might men benefit from incorporating a greater emphasis on tanakh into the traditional yeshivah curriculum and in their own discretionary learning?

          Finally, on a personal note, I feel blessed to have spent my adult life mi-yoshvei beit ha-midrash -- as a teacher of Torah and an administrator of high-level Jewish educational institutions.  Even as I contemplate the evolving role of women’s Torah study in Jewish communal life, I never forget that what brought me to this work – and what keeps me there – is not the new, but the ancient and eternal.  I am here because I love Torah and I love teaching it.  I cannot imagine a meaningful connection to ha-Kadosh Barukh Hu without it.  If I ask questions, it is only in the hope that others may be so blessed to connect with Judaism and God through Torah learning as I have.

*I am grateful to my son Rabbi Elie Friedman for his significant contributions to this article, and for deepening my understanding of Torah and humanity always.

“I am Tunisian, but Jewish, which means that I am politically and socially an outcast. I speak the language of the country with a particular accent and emotionally I have nothing in common with Moslems. I am a Jew who has broken with the Jewish religion and the ghetto, is ignorant of Jewish culture and detests the middle class because it is phony. I am poor but desperately anxious not to be poor, and at the same time, I refuse to take the necessary steps to avoid poverty” (The Pillar of Salt, p. 331).

            In these few words in his autobiographical novel, Albert Memmi describes the dilemma of his life. He is an outcast. He does not belong to his religious community, to his nation, to any particular group. He is a human being, and wants to be a universal human being…but the world won’t let him out of his box.

            Memmi was born in Tunis (French Tunisia) in December 1920. He grew up in the Jewish ghetto and hated being a ghetto Jew. He attended the school of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, was drawn to French language and culture, and went on to study at the University of Algiers and later at the Sorbonne in Paris.

            During the Nazi occupation of Tunisia, he was imprisoned in a forced labor camp from which he later escaped. After World War II, he supported the independence movement in Tunisia but was unable to find a place in the movement because he was a Jew and because of his French education. He left Tunisia and settled in Paris where he became a prominent writer and teacher, and was especially well known for his works analyzing and criticizing Colonialism. He had a long and distinguished career; he died in May 2020 at age 99.

            Like many other Jewish intellectuals who grew up in ghettos, Memmi simply wanted to be a human being…like everyone else. He deeply resented living in a cocoon separated from the mainstream culture of the land. He found the Jewish religious leadership to be narrowly focused, unaware of or strongly opposed to prevailing intellectual currents of the time. Religion, to Memmi and others like him, was a combination of superstitions and traditions that lacked meaning except for the ignorant.

            Who could understand the dilemma of Memmi? Who could help him out of his self-enclosed world?  There was no religiously significant person within the Jewish religious establishment who could reach the young aspiring intellectual. And outside of the Jewish community, there was a wall of hatred, anti-Jewish prejudice, dehumanization. Memmi lamented: “I do not believe I have ever rejoiced in being a Jew. When I think of myself as a Jew, I am immediately conscious of a vague spiritual malaise, warm, persistent, always the same, that comes over me. The first thing that strikes me when I think of myself as a Jew is that I do not like to consider myself in that light” (Portrait of a Jew, p. 15). In his novel, he made it clear: “I did not want to be Alexandre Mordekhai Benillouche, I wanted to escape from myself and go out toward the others. I was not going to remain a Jew, an Oriental, a pauper; I belonged neither to my family nor to my religious community; I was a new being, utterly transparent, ready to be completely remade into a philosophy instructor” (The Pillar of Salt, p. 230).

            The Jewish predicament was forced upon him by a hostile non-Jewish world. “To be a Jew is first and foremost to find oneself called to account, to feel oneself continuously accused, explicitly or implicitly, clearly or obscurely….There is that constant hostility, that noxious haze in which the Jew is born, lives and dies” (Portrait of a Jew,  p. 57). Jews are accused for any and every ill in the world. “The moment a nation is struck by a catastrophe, we are the first to be abandoned….When a nation is in trouble, when the world is in trouble, I know now, from the experience of my short life, there is danger for the Jew: even if the malady has no connection with Jews” (Ibid., p. 208). The non-Jewish haters treat Jews not as fellow human beings, but as repulsive stereotypes. “I am not only suspected and accused, I am bullied, restricted, curtailed in my daily life, in my development as a man….For the most serious element, perhaps, the one most difficult to admit, is that the fate imposed on the Jews is a degrading fate” (Ibid., p. 321).

            How is a Jew to be liberated from this unpleasant fate? How can a Jew simply be accepted as an individual human being rather than as an ugly, hateful stereotype? Memmi reminisces: “When we graduated from the lycee at Tunis many of us decided to cut ourselves off from the past, the ghetto and our native land, to breathe fresh air and set off on the most beautiful of adventures. I no longer wanted to be that invalid called a Jew, mostly because I wanted to be a man; and because I wanted to join with all men to reconquer the humanity which was denied me” (The Liberation of the Jew, p. 22).  He, like many others, considered adapting to the styles and mores of the “majority.” By blending in, by accepting their way of life, he would be accepted. But he soon learned that no matter how much he—and other Jews—tried to assimilate, the non-Jews still saw them as Jews and still denigrated them for being Jewish.

            So Jews tended to create their own inner world, to protect themselves psychologically from the constant Jew-hatred of the non-Jews. “I came to discover at the same time a fundamental truth: the ghetto was also inside the Jew. It was more than a stone wall and wooden doors, more than a collective prison imposed by others; it was an inner wall, real and symbolic, which the Jew had built” (Ibid., p. 129).

            But Memmi ultimately came to a clear understanding of how to cope with being a member of an oppressed group. The first step is to admit the problem candidly. The next step is to deny oneself all camouflage and consolation for one’s misery. And then, above all, one must make an effective decision to put an end to the oppression. The oppressed person must take responsibility for shaking off the control of the oppressors. “The Jew, oppressed as a people, must find his autonomy and freedom to express his originality as a people” (Ibid., p 278). For Memmi, the ultimate goal is for Jews to live freely, independently, not under the thumb of others. In practical terms, that meant Jewish liberation is expressed through the State of Israel.  “The specific liberation of the Jews is a national liberation and for the last years this national liberation of the Jew has been the state of Israel….If Israel did not exist it would have to be created….For Israel alone can put an end to the negativity of the Jew and liberate his positivity” (Ibid., pp. 283, 294).

            From his personal struggles as a Jew, Memmi extrapolated his concerns to all oppressed peoples. In his classic work, The Colonizer and the Colonized, he underscored the arrogant assumptions of the European colonial powers. Colonialists posit an unbridgeable gulf between themselves and their victims. “The colonialist stresses those things which keep him separate, rather than emphasizing that which might contribute to the foundation of a joint community. In those differences, the colonized is always degraded and the colonialist finds justification for rejecting his subjects: (p. 71). The self-assured oppressor assumes all the virtues, and expects the victims to adapt to the ideas and values of their oppressors. “The point is that whether Negro, Jew or colonized, one must resemble the white man, the non-Jew, the colonizer” (p. 122). But no matter how hard the victims try to emulate the oppressors, they “can never succeed in becoming identified with the colonizer, not even in copying his role correctly” (p. 123). The situation is intolerable for the victims. “Must he, all his life, be ashamed of what is most real in him, of the only things not borrowed? Must he insist on denying himself, and, moreover, will he always be able to stand it? Must his liberation be accomplished through systematic self-denial?” (p. 123).

            The colonialist dehumanizes victims, treats them as inferior beings who deserve to be treated as inferiors. But at some point, the victims will find the courage to rebel and to repudiate the arrogance of the oppressors. “The West has discovered that it cannot live peacefully if the majority of the world’s inhabitants live in poverty, envious of the developed world. Because of its very progress, the West has become a fat glutton; it stuffs itself with food and destroys its toys like a spoiled child” (Decolonization and the Decolonized, p. 129.)

            Memmi devotes serious attention to the nature of racism. He sees the problem as impacting on almost everyone. “Each time one finds oneself in contact with an individual or group that is different and only poorly understood, one can react in a way that would signify a racism….We risk behaving in a racist manner each time we believe ourselves threatened in our privileges, in our well-being, or in our security” (Racism, p. 23). Racist attitudes/behaviors are characterized by building up oneself while devaluing others. To bolster one’s own ego, one tears down others who are perceived as threats or competitors. “Racists are people who are afraid; they feel fear because they attack, and they attack because they feel fear” (p. 97).

            In its limited sense, racism is the attribution of negative attributes based on biological factors. People of the victim race/group are branded as being biologically different, and the differences are innate and negative. But more broadly, the issue of racism transcends biology. “The word racism works perfectly well for the biological notion….Heterophobia would designate the many configurations of fear, hate and aggressiveness, that, directed against an other, attempt to justify themselves through different psychological, cultural, social or metaphysical means, of which racism in its biological sense is only one” (p. 118). Racism rejects others in the name of biological differences. Heterophobia rejects others in the name of no matter what difference.

            Racism and heterophobia are not limited to psychotic individuals or hateful groups. “In almost every person there is a tendency toward a racist mode of thinking that is unconscious, or perhaps partly conscious, or not unconscious at all…Racism, or perhaps I should say heterophobia, is ultimately the most widely shared attitude in the world” (pp. 131, 132).  People seek to bolster their own egos by attributing negative value to others who are different in any way. The most obvious targets of racists are the victims who are already the most oppressed. It is easiest to attack those who are weakest.

            How do individuals/groups overcome the tendency to racism and heterophobia? They must come to realize that “racism is a form of charging the oppressed for the crimes, whether actual or potential, of the oppressor” (p. 139). In other words, haters reflect their own negative traits when they brand others. Once they realize that their hatred is a reflection of their own fears and weaknesses, they can try to overcome it. They must not be frightened by people of different races, religions, nations. “Differences must be lucidly recognized, embrace and respected as such. Others must be granted their being as other, with all the enrichment of life that might be possible through their very differences” (p. 155).

            Memmi devoted his life to understanding and combatting racism and heterophobia. In spite of his monumental achievements as teacher and author, he never escaped the feeling that he was oppressed. His very Jewishness was a source of anguish to him because so many non-Jews viewed Jews as caricatures rather than as fellow human beings. Yet, his first hand feelings of being alienated and oppressed enabled him to fully identify with others who were victims of colonialism, racism, hatred. If Jewishness was a burden to him, it was also the source of his greatness.

            Although he was alienated from religion, he had a deep spiritual sense. In his novel, The Desert, he wrote almost longingly: “I have always loved those moments when one finds oneself alone with one’s Creator, and I wonder whether it is not for that reason that God requires prayer, for that daily encounter with ourselves” (pp. 54-55). But he found no rabbinic or spiritual personalities who could adequately address his concerns or cultivate his spirituality.

Memmi wrote: “Do not become a stranger to yourself, for you are lost from that day on; you will have no peace if there is not, somewhere within you, a corner of certainty, calm waters where you can take refuge in sleep” (The Pillar of Salt, p. 316). 

                                                          *     *     *

           To me, Albert Memmi represents generations of thinking Jews who have struggled with their Jewish identities. They have felt oppressed by ubiquitous anti-Jewish attitudes and actions; they have been dissatisfied with presentations of Judaism that are akin to superstition and blind obedience; they have felt unfairly stigmatized and set apart. They have wanted simply to be free and dignified human beings, judged by their individual actions. They have wanted to share in the life and culture of humanity as a whole, and they have wanted to contribute to the betterment of the world.

           In my long career as a Sephardic Orthodox rabbi, I have related to many Jews—young and old—who shared some of the feelings and concerns articulated by Albert Memmi. I have learned much from them, as I hope they have learned from me. When a Jew becomes a stranger to him/herself, inner peace and self-respect are endangered.  To be a liberated Jew means to be a self-respecting, confident, compassionate human being. It means accepting Judaism and Jewishness as great privileges that should be celebrated. Albert Memmi was a tormented soul who could not find his way clear to be a liberated, confident Jew. In his failure, though, there are seeds of redemption for other thinking Jews. We cannot allow ourselves to be boxed in by others. We must insist on our freedom and humanity.

JEREMIAH #1

JEREMIAH’S EARLY CAREER (627-609 B.C.E.)

                                             By Rabbi Hayyim Angel

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, one of the priests at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. The word of the Lord came to him in the days of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign, and throughout the days of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah son of Josiah of Judah, when Jerusalem went into exile in the fifth month. (Jer. 1:1-3)

The superscription dates the prophet’s career from the thirteenth year of Josiah (627 B.C.E.) until the eleventh year of Zedekiah (586 B.C.E.). In reality, Jeremiah’s career actually continued after the destruction of the Temple (chapters 40-44). Shadal explains that the superscription selectively presents Jeremiah’s career to convey the message that Jeremiah’s prophecies of the destruction were fulfilled. It also defines him as the prophet of the destruction.

The insertion and placement of chapter 52, which narrates the destruction of the Temple, also supports this conclusion. The “real” Book of Jeremiah had ended in the previous chapter:

And say, “Thus shall Babylon sink and never rise again, because of the disaster that I will bring upon it. And [nations] shall have wearied themselves [for fire].” Thus far the words of Jeremiah. (51:64)

In his introduction to his commentary on Jeremiah, Abarbanel suggests that the Men of the Great Assembly copied the last chapter from the Book of Kings and appended it to what became the final chapter of the Book of Jeremiah. The positioning of this appendix in the book’s climactic conclusion illustrates how the editor defines Jeremiah as the prophet of the destruction.

The Book of Jeremiah is presented out of chronological order, and to this day scholars debate how to structure the book. We present the central prophecies of the Book of Jeremiah in chronological order so that readers can appreciate how the prophet spoke to people in different historical periods.[1]

          The first time period in which Jeremiah prophesied was that of Josiah, a righteous king whose works are described in II Kings chapters 22-23. The finding of the Torah in 622 B.C.E. was the main catalyst in the king’s reformation. Jeremiah received his prophetic initiation five years earlier, in 627 B.C.E. Based on comparative chronologies of the period, Assurbanipal, the last great ruler of the Assyria Empire, died in 627 B.C.E. as well. Both Josiah and Jeremiah viewed these political changes as a spiritual window of opportunity.

          In 625 B.C.E., King Nabopolassar of Babylonia broke free from Assyria and began to capture Assyrian holdings. By 620 B.C.E., Assyria had retreated from Israel, and their collapse was sudden and total. In 612 B.C.E., their capital Nineveh fell to Babylonia. By now, nations no longer worried about Assyria, but instead became concerned about the rising power of Babylonia.

A decisive moment in Israel’s history came in 609 B.C.E. Egyptian forces marched northward through Israel to help Assyria make a last stand against Babylonia. Josiah tried to stop the Egyptians, so the Egyptians killed the righteous king. The abrupt death of Josiah dealt a traumatic blow to the religious factions in Judah, as Josiah’s successors were unfaithful to God. Egypt immediately deposed Jehoahaz, probably because he was pro-Babylonian. Egypt’s appointing Jehoiakim was the first time that a foreign power had installed a king of Israel.

In 605 B.C.E., the Babylonian army crushed the Egyptian-Assyrian forces in Carchemish (see Jer. 46:1-12), leaving Babylonia as the unchallenged power in the region. Nabopolassar died and his son Nebuchadnezzar assumed the throne of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

          In Israel, the idolatrous factions that had gone into hiding during Josiah’s Reformation came back out into the open. The wicked King Jehoiakim adopted an anti-Babylonian stance. In contrast, Jeremiah preached repentance and submission to Babylonia as means to survival  (e.g., chapters 25, 27). Meanwhile, Egypt encouraged the surrounding nations to ally against Babylonia. Judah was divided over how to respond politically to the Babylonian menace, with her very existence at stake.

In 597 B.C.E., Jehoiakim died and his son Jehoiachin took over. Nebuchadnezzar exiled the new king after three months along with 10,000 of Judah’s best and brightest. Many false prophets arose during this period, who contended that that the exile of Jehoiachin was temporary and that Babylonia would soon fall miraculously (chapters 23, 28-29). Their essential message was that Judah should revolt against Babylonia.

          The last king of Judah, Zedekiah (597-586 B.C.E.), came under enormous pressure from Egypt and his own nobility to revolt against Babylonia (chapters 21, 34, 37-39). Jeremiah pleaded for him to surrender but to no avail. Zedekiah revolted, Jerusalem fell, and the Temple went up in flames in 586 B.C.E.

Soon after the destruction, the pro-Babylonian governor Gedaliah was assassinated and many surviving Jews fled to Egypt against Jeremiah’s prophecy, dragging him along (chapters 40-43). The last chronological chapter in the book has Jeremiah rebuking the Jews in Egypt for their idol worship. They ignored him since they believed their sufferings had come because they had served God (chapter 44).

Jeremiah’s mission was to justify the destruction of the Temple and teach that the God-Israel relationship is eternal even though the Temple is not. He prophesies that Babylonia would fall in seventy years and Israel would be redeemed (chapters 29-33). His inspiring prophetic message of hope during biblical Israel’s bleakest moment is one of the reasons Israel has endured as a people.

We now turn to some of the central prophecies of Jeremiah in chronological sequence.

CHAPTER 1

Before I created you in the womb, I selected you; before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet concerning the nations…Have no fear of them, for I am with you to deliver you—declares the Lord…So you, gird up your loins, arise and speak to them all that I command you. Do not break down before them, lest I break you before them. I make you this day a fortified city, and an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land—against Judah’s kings and officers, and against its priests and citizens. They will attack you, but they shall not overcome you; for I am with you—declares the Lord —to save you. (1:5-19)

Radak and Abarbanel observe that God encourages Jeremiah during his initiation. He is the only prophet told that he was chosen before birth. Aside from the encouragement, God with this same phrase signals to the prophet that he has no choice but to prophesy (Menahem Boleh[2]).

After Jeremiah’s initiation, he offers a prophecy reminiscing about God’s beautiful relationship with Israel at the time of the exodus before Israel became unfaithful:

Go proclaim to Jerusalem: Thus said the Lord: I accounted to your favor the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride—how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of His harvest. All who ate of it were held guilty; disaster befell them—declares the Lord. (2:2-3)

That this prophecy is placed first does not demonstrate that it was Jeremiah’s first prophecy chronologically delivered to the people. However, its literary placement sets the tone for the book. The roots of love and hope existed at a time when it was remarkable to have any hope at all.

Rashi interprets God’s words as a plea for a restoration of the original relationship. Were Israel to repent, God happily would reaccept them. Abarbanel adds a personal dimension to Rashi’s reading. God was concerned that Jeremiah still was reluctant to prophesy, therefore, God opened with a positive prophecy. Not only would that encourage Israel, but it would give Jeremiah the strength to embark on a difficult career.

CHAPTERS 7, 26[3]

God’s encouragement to Jeremiah was certainly necessary. Although his initiation occurred during Josiah’s reign, Jeremiah’s rise to national fame began at the outset of the wicked Jekoiakim’s reign. Jeremiah 26 relates that the prophet entered the Temple precincts at the beginning of Jehoiakim’s reign (c. 609 B.C.E.) to threaten the destruction of the Temple if the people refused to repent. The people were outraged by Jeremiah’s message and tried him as a false prophet:

And when Jeremiah finished speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, shouting, “You shall die! How dare you prophesy in the name of the Lord that this House shall become like Shiloh and this city be made desolate, without inhabitants?” (Jer. 26:8-9)

It is interesting that the people were immediately convinced that Jeremiah should be executed as a false prophet. Superficially, one might conclude that they were wicked people who did not want to change their ways. While this explanation may account for some of their motivation, other factors also may have been involved.

In chapter 7—likely the parallel prophecy to the narrative in Jeremiah 26—Jeremiah censured the people for claiming that the Temple would never be destroyed:

Don’t put your trust in illusions and say, “The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord are these [buildings].” No, if you really mend your ways and your actions; if you execute justice between one man and another… (Jer. 7:4-5)

Jeremiah accused the people—who served God albeit in an inappropriate manner—of maintaining the pagan belief that no deity ever would destroy his own temple. They served God as pagans would serve their deities by offering sacrifices to appease God while persisting in their immoral behavior (Jer. 7:9-11).

Additionally, even a fully righteous individual might have suspected that Jeremiah was a false prophet. Jeremiah prophesied the destruction of the Temple shortly after Josiah met his abrupt death (609 B.C.E.). This critique of Judean society, then, came in the wake of Josiah’s reformation (622 B.C.E.)! How could Jeremiah presume to say that the people were so wicked that the Temple would be destroyed?

Though this critique is valid based on the account of Josiah’s reformation in the Book of Kings, Jeremiah offers a different perspective concerning the sincerity of the ostensibly penitent Judeans:

The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what Rebel Israel did, going to every high mountain and under every leafy tree, and whoring there? ... And after all that, her sister, Faithless Judah, did not return to Me wholeheartedly, but insincerely—declares the Lord. (Jer. 3:6, 10)

The Talmud suggests that Josiah also overestimated the positive spiritual state of the people:

R. Samuel b. Nahmani said in the name of R. Jonathan: Josiah was punished because he should have consulted Jeremiah and he did not. On what did Josiah rely? On the divine promise contained in the words, Neither shall the sword go through your land (Lev. 26:6)…. Josiah, however, did not know that his generation found but little favor [in the eyes of God]. (Ta’anit 22b)[4]

Furthermore, Jeremiah stated this prophecy of destruction less than a century after the miraculous salvation of Jerusalem in Isaiah’s time (701 B.C.E.):

“I will protect and save this city for My sake and for the sake of My servant David.” [That night] an angel of the Lord went out and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp, and the following morning they were all dead corpses. (Isa. 37:35-36)

In principle, the religious establishment might have cited this prophecy against Jeremiah.[5] Jeremiah could respond that Isaiah’s prophecy was intended for that generation, but times had changed and Jeremiah’s new prophetic revelation called for the destruction of Jerusalem. However, such a claim from an unproven prophet would be difficult to accept, even for the most righteous of the priests and scribes.

While the religious establishment who opposed Jeremiah might have appealed to Isaiah’s prophecy of Jerusalem’s salvation, several elders cited a different prophetic precedent from Isaiah’s contemporary Micah in Jeremiah’s support:

And some of the elders of the land arose and said to the entire assemblage of the people, “Micah the Morashtite, who prophesied in the days of King Hezekiah of Judah, said to all the people of Judah: ‘Thus said the Lord of Hosts: Zion shall be plowed as a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins and the Temple Mount a shrine in the woods.’ Did King Hezekiah of Judah, and all Judah, put him to death? Did he not rather fear the Lord and implore the Lord, so that the Lord renounced the punishment He had decreed against them? We are about to do great injury to ourselves!” (Jer. 26:17-19 [quoting Mic. 3:12[6]])

Jeremiah employed yet a third precedent, namely, the capture of the Ark and destruction of Shiloh in Eli’s time (I Sam. 4-7[7]). Just as the Ark did not save Israel when they had religious failings then; so Jerusalem and the Temple would not save Israel now unless the people repent (Jer. 7:12-15; 26:6).

Jeremiah’s argument could be framed as follows: only a prophet can know how and when to apply earlier prophecies and historical precedents to new circumstances. While the religious establishment could cite chapter and verse to support assertions for or against Jeremiah, only Jeremiah could know which precedent applied because he was a prophet.

This trial almost cost Jeremiah his life. How could he prove that he was not a false prophet? We have the Book of Jeremiah and therefore our tradition affirms that he was a true prophet. However, even a well-intentioned God-fearer in Jeremiah’s time would not necessarily have been sure. We explore this issue in the following chapter.

Are Pregnant Women Obligated to Fast on Religious Fast Days

opinion of  Rabbi Moshe Zuriel

Many Rabbis are questioned by pregnant women if they are obligated to fast on Yom Kippur and other fast days, such as Tisha B'Av. These women fear that fasting may lead to miscarriage or premature birth, with its consequent damages to the infant.

A respected rabbinic authority in Israel, Rabbi Israel Fisher, permitted pregnant women to eat and drink during Yom Kippur, if limited to small amounts, 30 grams of solids (about one ounce) and 40 grams of liquids, if no more than that is taken during any nine minute period. This can be done again and again at proper nine minute intervals. The reason for this, he claimed, is that to his knowledge tens of pregnant women doing this fast, had miscarriages. We know that Pikuah Nefesh, even of a fetus, takes priority over fasting.

Many prominent rabbis disagreed with this permissive ruling, citing the Shulhan Arukh which specifically prohibits eating or drinking anything on this day, even for pregnant women.

Rabbi Moshe Zuriel, a highly respected rabbinic scholar in Israel, has written an article in which he supports the view of Rabbi Fisher. Rabbi Zuriel checked with medical authorities and found that Rabbi Fisher is right!

Statistics gathered by the Siroka Hospital (Be-er Sheba) were drawn from the past twenty three years dealing with 744 births.  The study (http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/14767058.2014.954998)  has revealed that the risk factor was significantly higher among those Jewish women who were fasting on Yom Kippur. In cases of premature birth before 37 weeks of pregnancy, the percentages of death of the fetus were 75-80 percent.  Premature births also face problems relating to proper lung development, damage to the nerve system, stomach problems, sight and hearing problems.

In the Hebrew article that was published in the Israeli Techumin (volume 37, pages 71-81), Rabbi Zuriel cites a prominent Halakhic authority, Havot Yair who ruled that eating less than the prohibited quantity (Shi-ur akhila) is only Rabbinically prohibited. Therefore, if a pregnant woman feels weak and unable to fast the full day, she should be permitted to eat and drink less than the prohibited quantity.

Rabbi Zuriel cites other halakhic authorities who concur with Rabbi Fisher's ruling. The halakha calls for leniency when there is a doubt concerning saving human life. Pregnant women who feel great weakness due to the fast and had no chance to ask their doctor's advice before the fast day, and during the fast day have not the ability to ask their rabbi, should eat and drink the modicum amounts aforementioned at no less than nine minute intervals. It is advised that  pregnant women consult their doctor and rabbi prior to the onset of a fast day, in order to determine what is best in their own specific case.