National Scholar Updates

KEHILA KEDOSHA JANINA IS HONORED TO WELCOME

RABBI MARC D. ANGEL

FOR A SPECIAL PRESENTATION ON HIS LATEST BOOK
A NEW WORLD: AN AMERICAN SEPHARDIC MEMOIR

Orthodox Judaism in the ideal is very different from Orthodox Judaism as it is today.

In the ideal, Orthodoxy is a beautiful way of life that inspires an abiding spirituality and an ethical lifestyle. It links us to thousands of years of Jewish texts and traditions, to time-honored mitzvoth and customs. At the same time, it allows us—and encourages us—to develop ourselves as thinking, feeling and creative human beings. At its best, Orthodoxy provides a worldview that is intellectually vibrant, compassionate, and inclusive. Torah and mitzvoth provide us with a framework for developing ourselves as full and vibrant human beings, drawing on the wide range of our talents and propensities.

When Rabbi Hayyim Angel was still a rabbinical student, he wrote a short statement responding to the question: Who are religious Jews? That statement well reflects ideal Orthodox Judaism. He wrote: “Religious Jews are those whose hearts smile when their mouths do. Religious Jews feel pain in another’s misery, joy in another’s happiness. They know that perfection is impossible, yet they strive for it. They are trees rooted in the earth with their branches extending towards the heavens. Religious Jews are cisterns who do not lose a drop; they are springs of water which steadily increase. They observe the commandments with an adult’s intelligence and a child’s enthusiasm. They act in a manner that is a credit to themselves and which earns them the respect of both Jew and non-Jew. They are prepared to sacrifice for God, their people, their laws, and their homeland. Religious Jews are a unified mass of sand, yet individual stars who shine on the world.”

Fortunately, adherents of ideal Orthodox Judaism do exist and they are models of human excellence.

However, the general tone of Orthodox Judaism today falls considerably short of the ideal Orthodoxy just described. To an increasing degree, it is identified with authoritarianism, obscurantism, conformity, coerciveness, and mechanical observance of ritual commandments. This is true not only in “Hareidi” Orthodoxy but also in “Modern” Orthodoxy.

For us to strive toward an ideal Orthodoxy, we need to clarify our thinking on basic issues of our religious worldview. This essay focuses on ideas and ideals, in the belief that without a clear and firm intellectual foundation, Orthodoxy will continue to drift in less than ideal directions. The hope is that if enough Jews take these ideas and ideals seriously, they will have strong impact in moving beyond the status quo and into a finer Orthodoxy that represents Torah teachings at their best.

How Does Orthodoxy “Brand” Itself?

A popularly used phrase for identifying an Orthodox Jew is shomer Shabbat or shomer Shabbos. Proprietors who wish to attract Orthodox customers put signs in their store windows or on their packaging labels, indicating that they are Shomer Shabbos. The phrase is code for: “We are Orthodox Jews who observe Torah and mitzvoth. If we observe Shabbat, that means we’re serious about observing mitzvoth. You can trust us, we’re one of you.” Orthodox Jews, presumably, will want to patronize such businesses of fellow observant Jews.

Some years ago, I received a letter from a Jewish cemetery in the Midwestern United States, proudly announcing “the establishment of an exclusive area for the burial of Shomrei Shabbos [sic] Jews….It will feature wide paths to ensure that graves are not walked upon, separate burial section for men and women, as well as burial for husbands and wives side by side.” To earn the right to be buried in this exclusive Shomrei Shabbos area, those purchasing graves would need to provide two letters from two Orthodox rabbis testifying that the purchasers are in fact Shomer Shabbos [sic].”

I wrote a letter to the rabbinic group that was involved in sponsoring/supervising this exclusive area of the cemetery. Here are excerpts of that letter (dated October 18, 1994):

"It is exceedingly distasteful to foster distinctions among Jews and to encourage self-righteousness all the way into the grave….[This] will only serve to further isolate Orthodox Jews and to make us appear extremist, exclusionary, self-righteous, and arrogant. These are all qualities that we should find repulsive to us….Moreover, the policy itself is remarkably problematic. What if a person keeps Shabbat, but is a thief, or does not observe the laws of niddah, or is not careful in other very serious mitzvoth? Should we create cemetery spaces only for those who eat glatt kosher, or for those who keep various humrot? Why don’t we leave it to the Almighty to decide where we belong in the overall scale of righteousness?"

If popular parlance identifies religiosity with being shomer Shabbat/shomer Shabbos, this is also reflected in the domain of rabbis and Batei Din. This is especially apparent in the area of conversion to Judaism. Invariably, rabbis/Batei Din require kabbalat haMitzvoth, i.e. that the candidate for conversion accept the obligations of the mitzvoth. Although there is considerable discussion as to the exact nature of kabbalat haMitzvoth—ranging from a general acceptance of commandments to an absolute commitment to observe every jot and tittle of halakha—the common requirements of a candidate are often presented as Shabbat, kashruth, and laws of family purity.[1] The requirements generally also include a commitment to give children a Jewish education, i.e. to send them to an Orthodox Day School.

A major Orthodox Bet Din asks sponsoring rabbis to attest that the candidate “has accepted the yoke of commandments and is fully observant of Orthodox Jewish law, including the laws of Shabbat, Kashruth, and family purity.” In conversations I have had with hundreds of converts over the years, the almost universal experience they have had with Orthodox Batei Din reflects the demands for careful ritual observance. These demands have gone beyond Shabbat, kashruth, and family purity—although these three are always at the top of the list. Candidates for conversion report that they are asked to recite blessings, to identify the parashat haShavua, to give an accounting about the observances of our various holy days and fast days.

Batei Din often go further in their demands upon a candidate for conversion. Here are some cases I have dealt with in recent years. A woman, whom the Bet Din agreed was fully observant and sincere, was rejected for conversion because the Bet Din did not think her intended Jewish spouse was Orthodox enough, i.e., was not careful enough in his Shabbat observance. In another case, a woman was told that she must move into an Orthodox neighborhood in order to qualify for conversion. When she told the Bet Din that she was living in an area where there is an Orthodox synagogue and that she indeed attends that synagogue regularly, the Bet Din told her that they did not think that the members of that Orthodox synagogue were “frum” enough. A male candidate was grilled by an Orthodox rabbi on fine details of Jewish law, including knowing the parashiyot inside the tefillin. The candidate answered correctly but was unable to explain the difference of opinion between Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam on the order of the parashiyot. He was turned away, and told he needed more time for studying before conversion would be possible.

Without belaboring the point, acceptance of Orthodoxy is generally seen in terms of halakhot relating to ritual commandments.[2] When people describe someone as being “frum,” this invariably means to convey that the person is careful in the observance of Shabbat, kashruth, and laws of family purity. Surely, ritual commandments are vital components of a religious Jewish way of life; but they are components, not the full picture. Orthodoxy, in focusing so heavily on ritual observance, seems to be ignoring the totality of our human reality.

Religious Worldview

Along with its “shomer Shabbat/shomer Shabbos” self-image, Orthodoxy is popularly represented by “authorities” who identify it with narrow, obscurantist viewpoints. While this is more evident in the “Hareidi” world, it also is reflected in the “Modern” Orthodox community. There seems to be a “religiously correct” movement, which seeks to circumscribe Orthodoxy and to de-legitimize anyone who crosses the lines it sets. The result is to limit the free range of opinions, even when these opinions have proper foundations in traditional Jewish sources. As I’ve written elsewhere,

"We must face this problem squarely and candidly: the narrowing of horizons is a reality within contemporary Orthodoxy. The fear to dissent from ‘acceptable’ positions is palpable. But if individuals are not allowed to think independently, if they may not ask questions and raise alternatives—then we as a community suffer a loss of vitality and dynamism. Fear and timidity become our hallmark."[3]

There is a feeling among a significant segment of Orthodoxy that the Gedolim, great rabbinic sages, are the only ones authorized to propound the “true” views of Torah. Only they have full access to daas Torah/daat Torah. Yet, the only ones who qualify to be in the ranks of the Gedolim are those who pretty much subscribe to the dominant right-wing Orthodox worldview. Other very learned and pious men and women—who are no less erudite than the “accepted” Gedolim—are marginalized as being not “really” Orthodox, or not “Orthodox enough.”

The veneration of Gedolim was clearly expressed by Rabbi Bernard Weinberger, an avatar of Hareidi Orthodoxy:

"Gedolei Yisrael possess a special endowment or capacity to penetrate objective reality, recognize the facts as they really are and apply the pertinent halakhic principles. This endowment is a form of ru’ah haKodesh [divine inspiration], as it were, bordering, if only remotely, on the periphery of prophecy….Gedolei Yisrael inherently ought to be the final and sole arbiters of all aspects of Jewish communal policy and questions of hashkafa…[E]ven knowledgeable rabbis who may differ with the Gedolim on a particular issue must submit to the superior wisdom of the Gedolim and demonstrate emunat Hakhamim [faith in our sages]."[4]

This astounding statement is problematic in so many ways. How does Rabbi Weinberger (or anyone else) know for a fact that Gedolei Yisrael are endowed with supernatural powers akin to prophecy? If they are indeed endowed with divine wisdom, why are there so many disagreements—and outright feuds—among those who are considered to be Gedolei Yisrael? Even if sages are erudite in Torah and halakha, why should anyone accept the notion that these sages should be the “final and sole arbiters” in matters of policy and religious worldview? Does Judaism really demand belief in the infallibility, or even the quasi-infallibility, of Torah scholars? Certainly not!

The veneration of Gedolim, though, is too often presented as an essential feature of Orthodoxy. This tendency leads to authoritarianism, conformity, and passivity. It promotes narrow and obscurantist views as being the sole legitimate views of Orthodox Jews. This is a vast disservice to Orthodoxy in general, and a particular disservice to thinking Jews who seek to live a Torah life without turning off their own brains.

As examples of the problems I am describing, I reprint below several of my “Angel for Shabbat” columns that have appeared on our Institute’s website, jewishideas.org.

The Age of the Universe: Thoughts on Parashat Bereishith, October 25, 2008

The Torah begins with a majestic description of God's creation of the universe. The powerful language is remarkable for its poetic beauty, evocative imagery, and profound spirituality. When we read these paragraphs thoughtfully, we feel that we are in the presence of God at the very moment of creation.

The language of the creation story is religious/poetic, not scientific. The Torah, in its infinite wisdom, wants us to sense the wonder and grandeur of God's creation. It does not present a cold scientific treatise, but a lofty, emotionally compelling account.

Regrettably, the notion has arisen in some religious circles that the creation story in Genesis is to be taken literally—that God created the world in six 24-hour days. Proponents of this view have then made calculations based on biblical narratives and have concluded that the universe is 5,770 years old plus six days. They have declared this to be a non-negotiable religious "truth.” One right-wing Orthodox Jewish group requires that would-be converts answer a question on "the Torah view on the age of the universe.”

One elderly "sage" in Israel was quoted as invalidating religious rites performed by Orthodox rabbis who believe the universe is older than 5,770 years. A number of rabbis and teachers insist that dinosaurs never existed, since scientists claim that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago—an evident impossibility if the universe is only 5,770 years old.

The fundamentalist view is not only scientifically incorrect, but is intellectually flawed on its own terms. Since the sun was not created until the fourth day, how could there have been sunset and sunrise on the first three days? What could the Torah have meant by the words "evening" and "morning" in a universe that had no sun, moon, or stars? Moreover, why do fundamentalists feel compelled to defend a position that is clearly at odds with the unequivocal findings of scientific research? Maimonides taught, quite correctly, that the Torah and Nature (governed by scientifically verifiable laws) were created by the same Author—and cannot be in basic conflict with each other. Scientists have dated the universe at approximately 15 billion years. They have discovered and dated dinosaur fossils going back many millions of years. If these are indeed established facts (and they are), then why would fundamentalists demand that religionists deny clear scientific evidence—especially when there is no theological reason to do so? Why should religious people be asked to become unthinking, unscientific, unreasonable beings?

The "days" in the creation story surely do not refer to 24-hour periods. Rather, they might better be understood as periods of time of undetermined length. They might each have been billions of years long. The universe was created in stages, with each stage involving an evening (erev, a period of mixture) and a morning (boker, a period of clarity, when the mixed state of matter solidified into identifiable things). The Torah does not indicate how long these "days" were, and it makes no attempt to frame the story in scientific terms.

Since these first six "days" might have been billions of years long, there was ample time for dinosaurs to live and become extinct before the creation of Adam in the "afternoon" of the sixth "day.”

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan cited classic rabbinic texts asserting that the world is far older than the 5,770 years implied by our current dating system. The Sefer haTemunah, attributed to the Tanna Rabbi Nuhunya ben haKanah, suggested that there were other worlds before Adam was created. The Talmud (Hagigah 13b) records the view that there were 974 generations before Adam. Most interesting is the view of Rabbi Yitzhak of Akko, a student and colleague of Ramban, and one of the foremost kabbalists of his time (thirteenth century). Rabbi Kaplan made calculations based on Rabbi Yitzhak's writings, indicating that Rabbi Yitzhak thought the universe was 15.3 billion years old! This is incredibly close to the "big bang" theory posited by modern-day scientists. (For more information on this and related topics, please see my article, "Reflections on Torah Education and Mis-Education," available online at the Institute's website, www.jewishideas.org.)

Rabbi Yitzhak of Akko and the other sages who posited a universe far older than 5,770 years had no theological problem suggesting these views. These opinions were not seen as heretical in any way. It was not felt by these sages, nor by the many others who read their views without raising objections, that it was a vital principle of Judaism to believe the universe is only a few thousand years old.

The creation story that opens the Torah should inspire us to come closer to God, to appreciate His grandeur and unfathomable wisdom. It should excite our minds to want to learn more about God's ways as manifested in the laws of nature. It should help foster a spirit of scientific inquiry, intellectual curiosity, and a profound love and reverence for God. The opening chapter of Bereishith should open our minds with wonder, not close them in a fundamentalist, anti-scientific—and ultimately anti-religious—mindset.

Torah and Evolution: Thoughts for Parashat Bereishith, October 22, 2011

I recently received an email communication from an Orthodox Jewish organization stating in unequivocal terms that “Orthodox Judaism rejects the theory of evolution.” In certain Orthodox circles, it is posited as a matter of faith that “true” Judaism does not and cannot accept evolution. God created the universe; God created Adam and Eve. This is clear from the first chapter of Bereishith, and there is nothing more to say on the subject. Any other position is heresy.

Actually, there is much more to say on the subject. I believe that it is religiously incorrect to state that “Orthodox Judaism rejects the theory of evolution.” This is not only an invalid statement from an intellectual point of view, it is also invalid from an Orthodox religious point of view. The statement reflects obscurantism, not faith.

The first chapter of Bereishith presents a lofty, beautiful, and poetic account of creation. It does not present a scientific account of creation. It does not describe how God created things, only that He did indeed create the world.

It has been pointed out that the six “days” of creation are not 24-hour days as we know them today; the sun wasn’t created until day four! Rather, the Torah poetically speaks of six periods of time—each of which could have been billions of years long—in which the universe came into being. Current scientific calculations place the “big bang” at a bit over 13 billion years ago. These calculations are not based on idle speculation but on carefully studied cosmic phenomena. Religious Jews, along with all thinking people, should feel comfortable embracing the findings of science. There is no contradiction at all between Torah and the “big bang” calculations.

The theory of evolution, which has a strong body of scientific support, posits that life emerged gradually, over the course of many millions of years. Simple life forms gradually evolved into more complex life forms. Human beings ultimately emerged from a long process of evolution. The Torah neither affirms nor denies the theory of evolution. It makes clear, though, that God created the world; things did not develop randomly. God could have created things in an instant; or He could have created things by a process of evolution spanning millions of years. When the Torah states that God created Adam from the dust of the earth, this could mean that God created Adam via a process of evolution spanning a vast period of time—beginning with the simplest cells found in the dust and ultimately developing into thinking human beings. The Torah simply does not provide us with scientific details about the formation of human beings.

Since the weight of scientific information indicates a gradual development of life, we can embrace this information without religious qualms or conflicts. The Torah tells us that God created the world; scientists have been trying to figure out the process of the creation. Thus, the theory of evolution poses no threat whatever to our religious tradition. Rather, it fills in scientific information that was not discussed in the Torah.

Our conflict is not with the theory of evolution per se. Our conflict is with those who claim that evolution happened entirely on its own, without any divine impetus. Religious Jews may properly accept the findings of science, but must always make clear that it was God who fashioned the universe, who set things in motion, and who indeed created the scientific phenomena upon which the scientists are drawing their conclusions.

During the Middle Ages, a conflict raged between science and religion on the question of the nature of matter. Science, as represented by Aristotle, argued for the eternity of matter. Religious tradition, based on the first chapter of Bereishith, argued for a created universe. Maimonides, in his Guide of the Perplexed 2:25, maintained the traditional religious view of God as creator. He argued that it is philosophically impossible to prove the eternity of matter. On the other hand, since it is philosophically plausible to posit God as creator of matter, we can safely rely on religious tradition to teach us that which science/philosophy cannot teach.

At the same time, Maimonides points out that if indeed it could be demonstrated that matter is eternal, then we would necessarily accept scientific truth. Since God is the Author of both Torah and Science, it is impossible for the two to be in conflict. If science could prove the eternity of matter, then the Torah would need to be re-interpreted accordingly:

"Know that our shunning the affirmation of the eternity of the world is not due to a text figuring in the Torah according to which the world has been produced in time. For the texts indicating that the world has been produced in time are not more numerous than those indicating that the deity is a body. Nor are the gates of figurative interpretation shut in our faces or impossible of access to us regarding the subject of the creation of the world in time. For we could interpret them as figurative, as we have done when denying His corporeality."

Maimonides’ methodology is of profound significance. Religious texts do not and cannot conflict with demonstrated scientific truths. If the texts seem to conflict with scientific truth, then the texts need to be re-interpreted.

People are welcome to accept or reject the theory of evolution as they think best after they have actually studied the scientific data carefully. But regardless of their personal opinion, they are not entitled to say that “Orthodox Judaism rejects the theory of evolution.” If the theory of evolution is scientifically valid, then religious Jews—along with all thinking people—should necessarily accept it—with the proviso that the process of evolution itself was God’s means for creating life.

Thoughts about Thinking: Thoughts on Parashat Nitzavim, September 15, 2012

The Torah calls on us to think, to evaluate, and to act righteously. It challenges us to serve the Almighty with our intelligence and personal responsibility; not from blind obedience.

In this week’s Torah portion, we read: “For this command that I command you today is not a wonder to you, and it is not distant….For the thing is very near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, to do it.” The Torah is not an esoteric document that can be deciphered only by an elite group of prophets or sages; rather, it is the heritage of the entire people. Each of us has access to the truths of the Torah by means of our own intellectual and emotional efforts.

In his book, The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Dr. Yoram Hazony makes an impassioned case that the Bible is essentially a reasonable and philosophically sound literary corpus. While so many have mistakenly characterized the Hebrew Bible as a simplistic work that demands nothing but blind obedience to the word of God, Dr. Hazony demonstrates that the Bible is actually a very sophisticated intellectual enterprise. If one is able to study the Bible on its own terms, understanding its own literary and philosophical methods, then one will find it to be not only a magnificent collection of literature and laws, but also a profound exploration of ideas and ethics.

The Hebrew Bible includes a wide range of texts, with varying—and sometimes contradictory—viewpoints. Rather than presenting us with dogmatic “truths” in the form of a catechism, it offers historical narratives, laws, prophetic orations, wisdom literature. Dr. Hazony notes that “the purpose of the biblical editors, in gathering together such diverse and often sharply conflicting texts, was not to construct a unitary work with an unequivocal message. It was rather to assemble a work capable of capturing and reflecting a given tradition of inquiry so readers could strive to understand the various perspectives embraced by this tradition, and in so doing build up an understanding of their own….The reader who takes up the Hebrew Bible is thus invited and challenged to take up a place within this tradition of inquiry, and to continue its elaboration out of his or her own resources” (p. 65).

Judaism calls on us to engage in this “tradition of inquiry,” to be seekers of truth. Certainly, the Torah offers laws that we are commanded to obey. But it offers vastly more than this; it offers a spiritual context for life, a respect for our personal religious and philosophic strivings, a realistic and humble awareness of our strengths and limitations as human beings.

Judaism is at its best when its adherents are intellectually and emotionally engaged with its teachings. It is far below its best when its adherents sink into the abyss of blind obedience.

Some months ago, Forbes Magazine published a list of the 10 richest rabbis in Israel. The rabbis’ net worths ranged from 9 million dollars to 335 million dollars! It appears that all (or nearly all) of these rabbis have reputations as wonder workers, Sephardic kabbalists, or Hassidic rebbes of huge dynasties. These rabbis have amassed huge fortunes because the public is willing to pay them for their blessings, amulets, holy water, and so forth. It seems that a considerable segment of the public does not believe in its own ability to pray to God, but wants the intercession of holy men who supposedly have an inside track with God. Many people aren’t interested in a “spirit of inquiry”—they want “truth” as promised to them by wonder working rabbis.

If these wonder working rabbis indeed have such magical powers and can control God, then why don’t they use these powers to disarm Israel’s enemies; to uproot anti-Semitism; to punish the wicked; to provide for all the sick, poor, and hungry of the world?

A tendency has arisen in segments of the Jewish world that grants magical, even infallible, powers to certain “sages.” This tendency leads to a vast perversion of Judaism, and veers in the direction of superstition and cultic behavior. It fosters authoritarianism, obscurantism, and dogmatism. It undermines freedom of thought, religious inquiry, independence of spirit. The fact that cultic rabbinic figures can amass so many millions of dollars is an indication of how deeply this negative tendency has taken root.

It is essential that we reclaim Judaism as an intellectually vibrant, creative, and dynamic religious way of life. This entails personal commitment, a sense of responsibility, and a commitment to the “spirit of inquiry” that characterizes a healthy Judaism. We need to have the self-respect and religious dignity to think...and to keep thinking.

Religion and Superstition: Thoughts for Parashat Vayikra, March 12, 2011

During the past week, I received an email from an organization in Israel seeking donations for which donors would merit success, happy marriage, and good health. The organization offered to have a Torah scholar pray at the Kotel from the Fast of Esther through the seventh day of Passover. They assured donors that this is a "very powerful time for hidden blessings to be revealed."

Not long after getting this spam, I received in the mail a glitzy brochure from another organization seeking donations so that the "gedolei haDor" will pray on our behalf at the Kotel. The brochure features photos of sages with long white beards, who assure us that by supporting this charity we will gain wonderful rewards.

These are recent examples of the ongoing process of cheapening Jewish prayer, and of undermining the spiritual foundations of the Jewish people. The above charities, and many others as well, prey on the gullibility and fears of the public. They claim to have direct access to God—through their "Torah scholars" and "gedolei haDor"— that the rest of us lack. They claim that these prayers at the Kotel will be effective, whereas our own prayers anywhere else will not be as effective. Charlatans abound who promise miracles, if only we will give them ample donations. They will write us amulets, bless red strings, send us holy water or food, pray for us at the Kotel.

There is, of course, a long history of charlatanism and shamanism in religion—including Judaism. There have always been those who claim to have the keys to God's inner chambers, and that—for a price—they would intercede on behalf of those who turned to them.

Superstitious practices and beliefs, even if dressed in holy garb, are inimical to the purity of religion. They blur the line between religion and superstition, degrading and disgracing true religion.

As we approach the Purim holiday, we recall that Esther requested that the Jews fast during their hour of distress. Rabbinic tradition has understood this as a call to prayer and repentance. Esther did not ask Jews to send donations to holy people at the Kotel; or to pay for prayers by supposed saints and scholars. No, she called on each Jew to reach out to God from the depths of his/her heart. And the Jews were redeemed.

Let us each turn to the Almighty in sincere and pure prayer. This is the special privilege and responsibility that Judaism offers us: to stand before the Master of the Universe directly. The Torah of God is pure; we must not allow it to be defiled by misguided superstitious beliefs and practices.

To Be a Human Being

In speaking to Orthodox audiences over the years, I often have made the following statement: “We are not just Jews, we are also human beings.” Some in the audience chuckle, some seem startled, some light up with a flash of happy insight: yes, we are human beings! The thought, even though so obvious, is liberating for many Orthodox Jews. It reminds them that their lives can have broader horizons, and that everything human belongs to them as much as to anyone else in the world. While religious observance keeps us within the four cubits of halakha, it does not limit our minds and spirits, it does not require us to forfeit our intellectual, emotional, cultural and aesthetic selves.

“Hareidi” Orthodoxy looks askance at the study of general subjects such as philosophy, literature, history, the arts, theoretical science. “Modern” Orthodoxy anguishes as it tries to justify the study of such subjects. It feels the deep need to defend Torah im Derekh Eretz and Torah uMadda as legitimate expressions of Orthodox Judaism.

Ideally, though, Orthodoxy should embrace general knowledge as a normal and natural part of the human adventure. Since we are human beings, we should obviously be interested in the entire expanse of human experience. “General studies” belong to us as much as to any other human beings. It does not require any apologetics or intellectual acrobatics to “prove” that it’s kosher to study literature, the arts, science, and philosophy. This is something to be taken for granted as our natural right.

Certainly, our experience of the “secular” world needs to be shaped by Torah values and halakhot. An ideally Orthodox Jew will seek to experience his or her humanity within the framework of his or her religious commitments. The Torah and halakha help us achieve our human potential within a religiously meaningful framework.

Professor Shalom Rosenberg has offered an important insight by distinguishing between humanism and humaneness. “The Torah instructs us in humaneness, not humanism. This trait is one of the defining characteristics of every truly religious person….The humanist believes in man as the ultimate lawmaker, the final arbiter of ethical behavior. The believer refuses to accept that premise. While often agreeing with the humanist regarding the content of his values, he disagrees about their origin. The source of humane behavior is not human; it is divine.” [5]

The goal of Torah is to create humane personalities—kind, compassionate, thoughtful. Humaneness originates in our relationship with God, the Creator and Giver of the Torah. It is our spiritual/intellectual connection with God that imbues mitzvoth with their power.

Jewish folk wisdom has understood the centrality of our being good, upstanding people. In designating the “ideal” type of person, Yiddish-speakers use the word mentsch, literally, a human being! Ladino-speakers use the word benatham (i.e. ben adam), also meaning: a human being! Folk wisdom has recognized that we achieve our ideal personhood when we are fully moral, fully compassionate, fully decent human beings.

Insights from Rabbi Benzion Uziel

One of the great luminaries of the modern period was Rabbi Benzion Uziel (1880–1953), who served as Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1939 to 1953.[6] Rabbi Uziel offered keen insights in Jewish law, philosophy, ethics, and worldview.

Rabbi Uziel taught that the Torah tradition calls on us to be engaged in the overall development of society—yishuvo shel olam. We are to be involved in study and deed that advance human civilization. In order to fulfill our specific mission as Jews, it is essential that we play our role on the stage of humanity.[7] Since we are part of human civilization, we necessarily have a symbiotic relationship with other nations—we learn from them, we teach them, we share with them the responsibility for creating an ethical society.

Rabbi Uziel wrote:

"Each country and each nation which respects itself, does not and cannot be satisfied with its narrow boundaries and limited domains. Rather, they desire to bring in all that is good and beautiful, that is helpful and glorious to the national [cultural] treasure. And they wish to give the maximum flow of their own blessings to the [cultural] treasury of humanity as a whole. [Each self-respecting nation desires] to establish a link of love and friendship among all nations, for the enrichment of the human storehouse of intellectual and ethical ideas and for the uncovering of the secrets of nature….Woe unto that country and nation that encloses itself in its own four cubits and limits itself to its own narrow boundaries, lacking anything of its own to contribute [to humanity] and lacking the tools to receive [cultural contributions] from others.” [8]

The distinctive quality of Judaism is its understanding that our goal in life is to serve God, to “walk in His ways.” This spiritual worldview imbues our entire lives. “Our holiness will not be complete if we separate ourselves from human life, from human phenomena, pleasures and charms, but [only if we are] nourished by all the new developments in the world, by all the wondrous discoveries, by all the philosophical and scientific ideas which flourish and multiply in our world. We are enriched and nourished by sharing in the knowledge of the world. At the same time, though, this knowledge does not change our essence, which is composed of holiness and appreciation of God’s exaltedness.” [9]

Rabbi Uziel insisted that we are not just Jews, but are also human beings. As Jews, we must be devoted to a spiritual, righteous life following the teachings of Torah; as human beings, we must play our role in human society, learning what we can from others and teaching what we can to them. We are not to be an enclave separated from humanity, but a nation that is an integral part of humanity.

Thoughts from Rabbi Kook

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935), an older colleague of Rabbi Uziel, was a gifted thinker, writer ,and teacher. In 1919, he became the first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Eretz Israel.

He taught that in order to fulfill ourselves as Jews, we need to develop our intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic potentials.

Commenting on the works of modern literature, Rabbi Kook noted that even though many of them tend toward mundane matters, they “are nothing else than preparatory levels for the supernal purity of the exalted glory that will appear in the world.” [10] Aesthetic and creative endeavors by talented human beings lead to the overall spiritual development of humanity—including Jews. Dr. Pinchas Polonsky, in his commentary on this passage by Rabbi Kook, notes that

"a person who does not grow spiritually, who does not read secular literature, cannot develop a sense of the awe or of love, so as to apprehend God’s glory at the necessary level….[T]he literature and philosophy of one’s generation and the desire to comprehend the beauty and richness of the world are necessary components of spiritual development….In some sense, secular literature and Torah are part of the same spiritual realm."[11]

Rabbi Kook believed that a full religious experience demands a full human experience—a human experience rooted in broad and deep knowledge and a heightened imagination. To attain understanding of God’s greatness “a person must truly study all the sciences of the world, all ideologies of life, all the ways of the various cultures and the content of the morality and religion of every nation and language. [Then] with a greatness of spirit, he will know how to purify them all.” [12] The study of the ideas and cultures of other peoples is a basic component in developing a strong Jewish religious life. Surely, it is not realistic for each Jew to be a world-class scholar in all fields of civilization; yet each Jew can learn what he or she is able to learn, and can at least maintain intellectual curiosity about the many things one is not able to learn. Rabbi Kook thought that our intellects should range as far as possible, with the goal of “purifying” whatever general knowledge we come upon. We can learn profound truths from the arts and sciences, from human civilizations, from history and culture. All these truths can then be incorporated into a grand religious worldview, faithful to Torah, faithful to God.

Narrow Horizons, Narrow Thoughts

It often seems to me that spokespeople for Torah Judaism view Orthodoxy as a sect rather than as a world religion. The “outside” world is viewed with suspicion if not outright denigration. The goal seems to be to stay within our own fortress of faith and leave the rest of humanity to their own devices.

This narrow approach to Torah Judaism is popularly espoused in the Hareidi world, where people live in close-knit neighborhoods, and where “foreign” ideas and teachings are kept out to the extent possible. But it also is prevalent within Modern Orthodoxy, where the “move to the right” has certainly had an impact.[13]

The desire to insulate ourselves from outside influences stems from fear. If we don’t insulate ourselves, then we and our children may become tainted, may lose faith, may stop observing mitzvoth as good Orthodox Jews. Yet, a heavy price is paid for this approach to Judaism. Over the years I (and I’m sure many readers as well) have dealt with Jews who were raised Orthodox, but who eventually rebelled. Orthodoxy seemed claustrophobic; it limited free thought; it limited creativity; it demanded oppressive conformity in thought, action, and dress. It simply didn’t let us be ourselves, but forced us to fit in to a rigid way of life without reference to our own inclinations, talents, and abilities.

Others have rebelled because the “Yeshiva system” did not properly inoculate them to deal with intellectual problems they faced when they attended college. They were shocked when their physics teachers told them that the world was billions of years old; they were stunned when the professor of biblical literature treated the Bible as a literary text composed by various authors at various times; they were baffled when they learned about evolution; they were thrown off balance when they studied history, philosophy, art, and literature—and realized that Jews and their Torah represent an infinitesimal segment of humanity rather than being at the center of human civilization. In trying to “insulate” students from the prevailing intellectual trends, the system actually makes students more vulnerable to “infection” when they ultimately are exposed to these trends. The students would have been much better served if they learned a broad range of topics—including the most problematic and controversial topics—but had learned them from a religious teacher who fully grasped the intellectual currents and scientific knowledge of the day. Then, when they later came into confrontation with these ideas, they would already have had exposure to them and would better be able to grapple with them.

One of the problems of our educational system is that Judaic studies teachers are not always blessed with a solid general education. They themselves don’t know about biblical criticism, or evolution, or philosophy, or art. Since they often have received a narrow Orthodox education, it is not likely that they will have the competence or the interest to enlighten their students on topics beyond their ken.

Moreover, schools—including Modern Orthodox schools—are reluctant to offer an open, engaging general education. They fear that the general studies teachers may not be sensitive enough to religious concerns, and may inadvertently plant seeds of doubt in the minds of the students. They instruct general studies teachers to avoid topics, such as evolution or biblical criticism, that may be deemed “controversial” in some Orthodox circles.

But instead of serving to protect our children’s religiosity, these policies can and do have the opposite result. When the children grow up and come into contact with “threatening” ideas, they have little ability to cope with them. They may conclude that their science, philosophy, and literature professors know a lot more than their rebbes did; and as they lose confidence in what their rebbes did and (and did not) teach them, they are far more likely to fall under the sway of secularist and anti-religious professors.

The Legitimacy and Necessity of Diversity

Orthodoxy does itself a vast disservice if it posits only one correct answer to every question in halakha and hashkafa. In fact, there are many valid opinions and approaches within the realms of halakha and hashkafa. The Torah world has included authoritative teachers in many lands, spanning many centuries, speaking many languages, offering many different insights. We are blessed with an incredible array of teachings representing various ways of interpreting texts and experiencing God—rationalists and mystics, women and men, Sephardim and Ashkenazim, Hassidim and Mitnagdim…and so much more.

Instead of presenting Orthodoxy as a monochromatic way of life, we would be more truthful and more effective if we were to highlight the roominess of Orthodoxy. It is not a straightjacket, but a repository of spirituality and wisdom in which every yearning soul can find a place. We should encourage ourselves and others to learn about and be open to the variety of religious experience within Torah Judaism.
Let us review some of the qualities that are necessary if we are to foster an ideal Orthodoxy:

1. To see Torah and halakha as wellsprings of spiritual wisdom and strength;
2. To avoid defining Orthodoxy exclusively or mainly in terms of observance of ritual mitzvoth;
3. To maintain an intellectually vibrant framework that includes proper study of Torah and halakha, as well as science, literature, philosophy, the arts, and so forth.
4. To avoid turning off our brains by blindly following “authorities” who, in fact, have very limited knowledge beyond their narrow Torah studies.
5. To see Torah and mitzvoth as means of helping us to develop our humanity, our individual talents and predilections, while helping us to live our lives in the context of serving God.
6. To promote an Orthodox vision for the welfare of all the Jewish people, and all society. As Jews, we are responsible for all other Jews. As human beings, we are responsible for yishuvo shel olam—participating in the advancement of all humanity.
7. To teach Torah and general knowledge with confidence, not fear; to help our younger generations understand the best in Torah and the best in the wisdom of the world.
8. To respect, value and learn from the vast diversity of legitimate opinions in halakha and hashkafa; to take pride in the Jewish communities throughout the ages and throughout the world who have contributed to the spiritual treasury of the Jewish people.

If enough of us share these ideals; if enough of us are willing to work to promote these ideals; if we can impact on synagogues, schools, and yeshivot—then perhaps these ideals will actually be realized in our community.

Right now this is a dream in the minds of ideal Orthodox Jews scattered around the world. In due time, though, we believe and trust that this dream will be realized in a Jewish people that is committed to a life of Torah, intellectual vibrancy, compassion, righteousness, and inclusiveness. Bimheira beyameinu.

[1] See my book, Choosing to Be Jewish: The Orthodox Road to Conversion, Ktav Publishing House, Jersey City, 2005; and my article, “Conversion to Judaism: Halakha, Hashkafa, and Historic Challenge, Hakirah, vol. 7, winter 2009, pp. 25–49.
[2] Batei Din often require the candidate for conversion to know Rambam’s 13 principles of faith, but rarely actually enter a serious discussion of these topics. As long as the candidate can recite the main principles by rote, that is generally deemed to be sufficient. See Marc Shapiro, The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides' Thirteen Principles Reappraised, Oxford, 2004.
[3] See my article, “Orthodoxy and Diversity,” Conversations, no. 12, winter 2012, p. 52.
[4] Cited by Lawrence Kaplan, “Daas Torah: A Modern Conception of Rabbinic Authority,” in Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy, ed. Moshe Sokol, Northvale, Jason Aronson, 1992, p. 17.
[5] Shalom Rosenberg, In the Footsteps of the Kuzari: An Introduction to Jewish Philosophy, vol. 1, Ed. Joel Linsider, Trans. Gila Weinberg, Yashar Books, New York, 2007, pp. 92–93.
[6] For more on Rabbi Uziel’s life and teachings, see my book, Loving Truth and Peace: The Grand Religious Worldview of Rabbi Benzion Uziel, Jason Aronson, Northvale, 1999.
[7] See his Hegyonei Uziel, vol. 2, Jerusalem, 5714, p. 98.
[8] Ibid., p. 127.
[9] See Ibid., pp. 121–125.
[10] Selected Paragraphs from Arfilei Tohar, with commentaries by Pinchas Polonsky, Machanaim, Newton, 2012, p. 70.
[11] Ibid., p. 71.
[12] Ibid. p. 76.
[13] Samuel Heilman, Sliding to the Right: The Contest for the Future of American Jewish Orthodoxy, Berkely, University of California Press, 2006.

To our members and friends

We are hitting the ground running in August-September, as we launch another year of classes and programs for the Institute.

Special Symposia on Rabbi Marc Angel’s Thought

We are about to embark on a historic year for our Institute, as we celebrate Rabbi Marc D. Angel’s fifty years in the rabbinate. On Sunday, September 15, from 10:00-12:00, we will hold a symposium on Rabbi Angel’s teachings, featuring Rabbi Angel, who will offer personal reflections on his fifty years in the rabbinate, and I will give a lecture on the core teachings of Rabbi Angel. The program is free and open to the public, and will be held at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in Manhattan (125 East 85^th Street between Park-Lexington Avenues). The symposium also will be posted on YouTube. At the event, we will distribute complimentary copies of Conversations 34, a newly-published collection of essays by Rabbi Angel.

Looking ahead to Sunday, May 3, the International Rabbinic Fellowship, which was co-founded by Rabbi Angel, will hold a special study program at their annual convention that will be open to the public exploring the thought and contributions of Rabbi Angel. The program also will be held at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in Manhattan. We will give more details of this unique program as it gets closer.

Scholar-in-residence Shabbat in Deal, New Jersey

On Shabbat August 23-24, I will be the Shabbat scholar-in-residence in Deal, New Jersey. Hosted by the Sephardic Community Alliance, I will be speaking on “Rambam and other Rabbis on Jewish Belief,” and “Afterlife in Jewish Tradition and Implications for Today.” Talks are free and open to the public. For more information, go to https://www.scaupdates.org/home.

Classes in September

On Mondays and Wednesdays, September 4, 9, 11, 16, 18, 23, from 12:00-12:45 pm, I will give a six-part series on the Book of Jonah and other Haftarot of the Holiday Season for the Beit Midrash of Teaneck, at the Teaneck Jewish Center (70 Sterling Place, Teaneck, NJ). Free and open to the public.

On Sunday, September 8, 10:30-11:15 am, I will give a lecture on “The Binding of Isaac: Extremely Religious without Religious Extremism.” It will be held at CareOne Teaneck (544 Teaneck Road, Teaneck, NJ). Free and open to the public.

On Mondays September 9 and 16, 1:00-2:15 pm, I will give a two-part series on “Insights into Kohelet.” They will be at Lamdeinu Teaneck, at Congregation Beth Aaron (950 Queen Anne Road, Teaneck, NJ). For registration, go to https://www.lamdeinu.org/.

University Network

We have lined up a wonderful group of college students as Campus Fellows for our University Network. We welcome the following fellows for the 2019-2020 academic year:

Yona Benjamin (Columbia University), Matt Jelen (Harvard University), Mikey Pollack (University of Maryland), Aryeh Roberts (University of Maryland), Zachary Tankel (McGill University), Sara Evans (Queens College), Raffi Levi (Rutgers University), Ben Nechmad (Rutgers University), Jakob Glogauer (Ryerson University), Ora Friedman (Stern College, Yeshiva University), Ari Barbalat (University of Toronto), Ayelet Rubenstein (University of Pennsylvania), Daniel Fridman (Yale University), Yoni Abrams (Yeshiva College, Yeshiva University), and Steven Gotlib (Yeshiva University, RIETS).

If you know of qualified college students on other campuses who would be good leaders and ambassadors for the Institute, please have them contact me, [email protected].

Sephardic Initiative

Over the past two years, we have run several very successful Educators Conferences in New York-New Jersey and in Los Angeles. Educators learned how to better incorporate Sephardic voices into their Elementary and High School classrooms, and reported back on how they have implemented the ideas we provided in their classrooms. We hope to expand our network significantly and run further educators conferences, distribute our publications, and further our efforts to teach the wholeness of Judaism through its plethora of great thinkers from all ages and locations.

As always, thank you for your ongoing support of our programming and efforts to disseminate our ideas and ideals throughout North America and beyond.

Rabbi Hayyim Angel

National Scholar

More than 20 years ago, as an undergraduate at Princeton University, I found myself rooming with a bright, young religious Lutheran from Iowa. It was, to be sure, a somewhat unusual mix, and he never could quite comprehend why I was rushing off to prayer services every day or checking the ingredients on various food packages. But he was a cosmopolitan and studious sort, one whose desk was constantly piled high with books, and his curiosity about the world and impressive intelligence often made for some intriguing conversations.

So when I asked him once how many Jews he thought lived in America, I was more than a little stunned when he insisted, in all seriousness, that "there must be at least 50 million Jews in this country." Asked to explain the basis for his calculation, my friend shrugged and told me, "Well, I grew up in a town in middle America, and our family doctor was Jewish, my dad's lawyer was Jewish and so was his accountant. And," he added," there are so many prominent Jews in various fields, that there simply must be 50 million or more of you guys out there." Only after I showed him a reference book which listed the world Jewish population at approximately 13 million, was he satisfied that his estimate had been wide of the mark.

            I often reflect back on that conversation, as it touched on key questions such as the perception of Jews, our role in society and the impact that we as a people have on the world. But I think that it also raises still another, perhaps even more compelling issue, one that is rarely if ever addressed with the seriousness that it deserves: does it matter how many Jews there are in the world?

Traditionally, of course, we have never placed a great deal of emphasis on the size or dimensions of the Jewish people. For the past 2000 years, living at the mercy of others, we tended to focus more on quality rather than quantity. That, quite possibly, is why many Jews tend to discount or minimize the importance of our numbers, arguing that what really matters is whether we are working effectively to fulfill our national destiny.[i]

But I believe this mode of thinking is a product of exile, a function of the fact that we were more concerned with surviving, rather than thriving, during the long, dark night of our wanderings in foreign lands. In the process, we tended to lose sight of the important role that numbers can and do play in the life of a nation. And we have even gone so far as to elevate our numerical weakness into a value, infuse it with meaning, and now hold it up as the ideal.

Neither Jewish sources nor Jewish history justify this view, and it is time that we revisit the question, not merely because it is an interesting intellectual exercise, but rather due to the critical importance that it has to shaping our community's policies, future and world-view.

It is a well-known principle of Jewish belief that the Creator chose the Jewish people to be His unique instrument in this world. "And you shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,"[ii] God instructs Moses to tell Israel just prior to giving them the Torah at Mount Sinai.

Later, in the book of Devarim, Israel's special relationship with God is described in even more intimate terms: "You are the children of the Lord your God… you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be His own treasure out of all peoples that are upon the face of the earth"[iii].

From these verses, it is clear that God did not choose a family or a small tribe to serve His purposes in this world. He chose an entire nation, the people of Israel. Obviously, then, a critical mass is essential to carry out our sacred mission, for if it were not, then He could easily have placed the responsibility on just a handful of shoulders.

In other words, numbers do matter. Critics often assail this line of thinking, asserting that quantity without quality is of little value in ensuring the Jewish future. But what they fail to realize is that the opposite is equally true. A tiny and shrinking Jewish people, consisting only of a small core of committed members, will hardly be able to meet the challenges and threats to our survival, be they physical or spiritual.

And that, perhaps, is why God promised the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that the Jewish people would one day be as numerous as the stars in the sky or the sand by the sea. For only then can we possibly be in a position to fulfill our role.

Indeed, even a cursory look at the Torah and the commentaries reveals that the demographic prowess of the Jewish people is repeatedly emphasized in God's pledges to our forefathers.

"And I will make your seed as the dust of the earth," God assures Abraham, telling him, "so that if a man can number the dust of the earth then so shall your seed also be numbered".[iv]  Rashi understands this promise to be literal, not metaphorical. He explains the verse as follows: "Just as the dust cannot be counted, so too shall your seed be beyond counting."[v]

Similar pledges were made to Isaac and Jacob,[vi] and when Moses addressed Israel before his death, he too prophesied that God would multiply them "a thousand times over".[vii] This, says the Netziv, is a promise that relates both to the quality and quantity of the Jewish people.[viii]

            Over a millennia later, during the Herodian period, the Jewish people had in fact grown to be a sizeable force on the world stage. As historian Paul Johnson has pointed out,

One calculation is that during the Herodian period there were about eight million Jews in the world, of whom 2,350,000 to 2,500,000 lived in Palestine, the Jews thus constituting about 10 percent of the Roman empire. This expanding nation and teeming diaspora were the sources of Herod's wealth and influence.[ix] (emphasis added)

It is interesting to note that at around the same time, what historians have described as the earliest preserved census in the world was taken in China, in the eighth month of the year 2 C.E.[x] It found that there were a total of 57.5 million Chinese, or seven Chinese for every Jew then living.

Jump ahead 2000 years to the present, and the numbers are of course quite different, with China having soared to more than 1.1 billion people, even as world Jewry barely numbers more than 13 million souls.

Needless to say, the difference is attributable to all the expulsions and persecutions that have been our lot, which have shorn away untold numbers of Jews from our ranks, leaving just a small remnant of what might have been.

This sad reality was brought into even sharper focus last year, when distinguished demographer Sergio Della Pergola of the Hebrew University released a chilling study which concluded that had it not been for the Holocaust, there would be 32 million Jews in the world today.[xi]

The Holocaust, he wrote, had "struck a mortal blow particularly at the Jews of Eastern Europe because of their especially young age structure." This, he said, had caused "significant long-term demographic damage" with ramifications "far beyond what we think."

Indeed, as Della Pergola pointed out, the percentage of Jews in the world today is steadily declining. Whereas prior to World War II, there were eight Jews per thousand people in the world, the figure now stands at just two per every thousand, and it is heading southward.

The findings are a timely and distressing reminder of the unfathomable destruction which the Holocaust wrought. Not only did it claim the six million who were murdered by the Germans and their collaborators, but it also took away their children, grandchildren and all of their descendants, forever depriving the Jewish people of untold millions of precious souls. In other words, the scope of the killing, magnified over time, becomes ever more extensive and incomprehensible.

Just imagine a world in which a vibrant and ample Jewish people, more than double its present size, were not beset by the constant threat of demographic diminution and assimilatory attenuation.

Consider for a moment the cultural and spiritual riches that we would be producing, the mighty intellectual and cerebral contributions to mankind that we could be making, and you begin to realize the extent of what has been lost.

SOMEHOW, while we were getting collectively beaten up in the Diaspora over the centuries, we seem to have moved away from this approach. But now might be just the time to start rethinking it. After all, size does matter, whether in basketball, business or international diplomacy. And to make a difference in the world and live up to our Divine national mission as Jews, we need a much larger and more diverse "team" at our disposal.

            This means that we not only need to work harder at keeping Jews Jewish, but we also must expand our horizons and look for ways consistent with halakha to boost our numbers.

A good place to start would be with descendants of Jews, with communities that have a historical connection with the Jewish people and are now interested in returning. These include the Bnei Menashe of northeastern India, who are descended from a lost tribe of Israel, the Bnei Anousim of Spain, Portugal and South America (whom historians refer to by the derogatory term "Marranos"), the "Hidden Jews" of Poland from the Holocaust-era, as well as others.

Through no fault of their own, these people's ancestors were taken by force from the Jewish people, and we owe it to them and their descendants to embrace them and give them the opportunity to come home. Doing so will not only right a historical wrong, but it will strengthen us numerically and spiritually as well.

This is not a call to missionizing, nor a plea to start converting gentiles. It is about opening the door to our lost brethren, known as Zera Yisrael ("the seed of Israel"), and reinforcing the bond between us.

Take, for example, the Bnei Anousim, whose ancestors were forcibly converted to Catholicism during the 14^th and 15^th centuries in Spain and Portugal, but who continued to preserve their Jewish identity in secret down through the generations. Five centuries later, a growing number of their descendants are now emerging from the shadows, seeking to reclaim their long-lost Jewish heritage.

It is a phenomenon of unprecedented proportions, stretching from Lisbon to Lima and from Madrid to Mexico. People throughout the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world are now choosing to explore their families' Jewish roots, which were often buried under the weight of history.

The extent to which that legacy still lives on was underlined by the findings of a noteworthy paper published in the American Journal of Human Genetics in late 2008, in which a team of biologists declared that 20% of the population of Spain and Portugal has Sephardic Jewish ancestry.[xii] Since their combined populations exceed 50 million, that means more than 10 million Spaniards and Portuguese are descendants of Jews.

These are not wild-eyed speculations, but rather cold, hard results straight out of a petri dish in a laboratory. The study, led by Mark Jobling of the University of Leicester in England and Francesco Calafell of the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, analyzed the Y chromosomes of Sephardim in communities where Jews had migrated after the expulsion from Spain in 1492. Their chromosomal signatures were then compared with the Y chromosomes of more than 1,000 men living throughout Spain and Portugal. Since the Y chromosome is passed from father to son, the geneticists were able to measure the two groups up against each other, leading to the remarkable finding that one-fifth of Iberians are of Jewish descent.

Think about it: it is as if a large mirror were suddenly being held up in front of every Spanish and Portuguese person, forcing them to look at themselves and see the reality of their national, and individual, history.

But even more compelling than what it says about the past is what it might just say about the future. If Israel and the Jewish people undertake a concerted outreach effort toward our genetic brethren in Iberia, it could have a profound impact in a variety of fields. The very fact that such large numbers of Spaniards and Portuguese have Jewish ancestry could have a significant effect on their attitudes toward Jews and Israel.

As Chairman of Shavei Israel, which works with "lost Jews" around the world, I have seen it time and time again - when a person discovers, or rediscovers, their Jewish roots, they inevitably develop a certain affinity to the Jewish people and a greater sympathy for Israel and Jewish causes. Obviously, not all of the millions of people of Jewish descent will rush to convert back to Judaism or seek to make aliyah. But some undoubtedly will return to our people and strengthen our ranks.

The idea that such "lost Jews" will ultimately return is both long-standing and deeply-rooted in Jewish thought, even if most of us may not realize it.

Take, for example, the prophet Isaiah's vision that, "It shall come to pass on that day, that a great shofar will be blown and they that were lost in the land of Assyria shall come and they that were dispersed in the land of Egypt, and they shall bow to God on the holy mountain in Jerusalem".[xiii] According to Rashi, the first part of the verse - "they that were lost in the land of Assyria" - means those "who were dispersed far beyond the Sambatyon river"[xiv], a reference to the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel who went into exile more than 2700 years ago.[xv] In other words, their descendants, despite being lost for so many centuries, will in fact come back.

The same holds true for the Bnei Anousim. The great Don Isaac Abarbanel, who witnessed the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, writes movingly in his commentary to Sefer Devarim that many of the Bnei Anousim "shall be mixed in among them [i.e. the nations] and considered like them, but in their hearts they will return to God…. and those who leave the religion [i.e. Judaism] because of compulsion, about them does it say, 'and He will return and gather you from among the peoples'".[xvi]

The illustrious Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin goes even further, stating that all descendants of Jews will one day return to our people. In his work Resisei Layla, he writes that this includes even those who are of Jewish descent but do not know it: "for everyone who is from the seed of Israel, none shall be banished".[xvii]

From its very inception, the nation of Israel was divided into 12 tribes, each with its own unique traits, talents and blessings. God, in His ultimate wisdom, deemed it necessary for our people to be forged into unity through diversity, like an orchestra comprised of different musicians, each playing his own instrument even as he follows the same book of music.

We are living in a world that is growing smaller by the day, thanks to the reach of the Internet. In order to thrive in this global village, we need Chinese Jews and Indian Jews and Polish Jews no less than American and Australian Jews. We are one nation, with many faces, and we have to learn to leverage our diversity and view it as a strength rather than a weakness. We might never be able to match China's demographics, but we can and should look for new opportunities for growth. That is why the time has come to undertake a concerted outreach effort to descendants of Jews.

Our precarious state as a people, and the threats we face at home and abroad, demand as much. And so, I might add, does our destiny.

 It was a Torah lesson on Track 13-W. 

And none of the “teachers” were Jewish.

Settling into my seat, I barely heard the two women, 20ish, speaking across the aisle from each other, one row in front of me, on a southbound Amtrak train, in the second-last car from the rear, one recent afternoon.

But a woman in a seat behind them did.

“This is a Quiet Car," she said firmly but friendly, pointing to one of the ubiquitous signs in the Amtrak car that designated that venue as a respite from cellphone conversations or discussions between seatmates that can be overheard by other travelers. "You can't talk so loudly that other people can hear you,” she added, making her point clear – she had heard them.

The woman, wearing an Amtrak uniform (she was off-duty, enjoying a free ride, one of the perks of an Amtrak job), bore an air of authority.

She was stating company policy. But the train had not started its route out of New York City, it was still taking on passengers in the depths of Penn Station, and I was sure that the two women engaged in audible palaver would take offense or protest that the trip technically had not begun.

Instead, they ceased their talking. Immediately. They did not frown or sulk or cop an attitude.

They apparently understood the posted rules of the space they were occupying, and, caught in the act of violating them, corrected their miscreant behavior. Not a further word was exchanged between them as the train rolled for hours toward Richmond. They had been wrong, they knew it, and sheket prevailed.

They held their tongues. No pilpul about the details of the railway’s etiquette regulations.

Their almost-whispered words had not bothered me; their conversation had been tolerable. But on Amtrak, rules are rules; no almost-Quiet-Car.

I opened a book and started to read.

In the ensuing silence, my mind drifted to synagogue. To several synagogues where I have prayed.

How many times, I thought, have I witnessed people (primarily men, because that is the section of shul in which I always sit) talking loudly and disturbingly in violation of fellow worshipers' kavana and the shul's unwritten and often-written (posted in conspicuous Hebrew signs ) warnings about the halachic impropriety and derech-eretz implications of talking during times of Shemoneh Esrei, leining of the Torah and other times when spoken interruptions are inappropriate.

The signs don't work.

Neither does humor; in one shtiebel I once spotted a sign in Hebrew that stated, “It is forbidden to pray or read the Torah during time of talking.”

Nor rabbis’ frequent reminders and sermons and shiurim.

Nor gabbais’ halting of the Torah reading and/or the chazores haShatz until the buzz in the seats ceases.

Nor the why-not-to-talk-during-davening booklets distributed in many places of tefillah, and various organizations’ similar awareness campaigns.

Nor the stares or glares or "shaa!"s of people trying to pray.

The talkers are usually indifferent to all of this; maybe they are speaking too loudly to pay attention.

What's the difference between Amtrak’s Northeast Regional and our corner congregation? Why do Amtrak passengers obey, literally without a peep (my experience aside, you rarely hear an out-of-line sound in the Quiet Car), especially when corrected?

And it’s not only the Quiet Car.

It’s taken for granted that silence rules in some other places. Like a library. Who would raise his or her voice there? Or a movie theater? Or a classical music concert? Or the fans’ gallery of a major golf tournament where a contending player is lining up an important putt?

Why is a minyan exempt?

Many explanations come to mind: a shul is the daveners’ home, they’re not guests, they determine what goes; the people shushing them are friends, who can be ignored, unlike the strangers sharing a train coach; the people doing the talking aren’t necessarily interested in the worship experience of the morning in shul, unlike the shushers; away from work, the talkers aren’t about to take orders from anyone; they resent the challenge to their machismo; davening is long, especially on Shabbat and yom tov, and maintaining one’s level of concentration for several hours can be a challenge; there’s no penalty for out-of-place talking – no one’s likely to be asked to leave.

Basically, they talk because they don’t think about illicit words’ wider ethical implications, and they know they can get away with it.

Unlike the situation on Amtrak, where Quiet Car talking is not an assertion of one-upmanship.

The capitol’s monthly Washingtonian magazine offered a history of the national carrier’s “silent oasis” a few years ago. A blessedly quiet car has become a feature of every pricy Acela train and its slower-and-less-expensive cousin, the Northeast Regional because of “that greatest of American traditions: mob rule.”

Almost two decades ago, according to the magazine, some regulars on the Northeast Direct 151, an early-morning run from Philadelphia to DC, “decided they’d had enough of other riders yakking on their cell phones while they tried to sleep.” So the offended riders asked the crew to unofficially designate a noise-free car for the trip. An instant success.

When Amtrak bosses saw how effectively the gang had managed to enforce the silence, they agreed to institutionalize the practice and keep it self-policing.

A Quiet Car was an idea whose time had come. Today, if a passenger is listening to something on an electronic device, the sound must not penetrate beyond the headphones.

Today, nothing above a whisper.

“Nowadays,” Washingtonian reports, “the quiet car is the most prized spot on any train, and its culture is one of strict constructionism. Make a peep and the mob will crush you with icy glares, aggressive shushing, and … a ton of subtweeting.”

To reinforce this, Amtrak has produced “Shhh” cards in English and Spanish to be handed to talkative riders who may not have noticed the ever-present signs.

The Quiet Car’s atmosphere is conducive to silence – subdued lighting like in a classy restaurant; pages of books or magazines are quietly turned; loudness simply seems out of place.

The article also cited, on a bipartisan nature, some previous prominent offenders of the no-talking culture – FBI Director Louis Freeh, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (Republican) and Sen. Al Franken (Democrat).

All were shamed, by fellow riders or by rigorous Amtrak employees, into curtailing their obtrusive remarks or moving to another car, where talking is permitted.

The talkers reluctantly comply with the prevailing respectful atmosphere.

If only public censure and disapproval were as effective in shul.

While the talkers in the pews are selectively deaf to the expressed concerns of their fellow daveners, they decidedly are not mute.

This is not a recent phenomenon. Chazal have been discussing this topic and offering suggestions to counter it -- apparently without success -- for hundreds of years. Articles in heimish newspapers and magazines often offer suggestions.

No panacea has turned up.

This is not a location-specific phenomenon, not only present in big-city congregations.

Several years ago, I davened in a small, "out'-of-town" synagogue that had as members a large number of Jewishly educated men who alternated giving drushas on Saturday mornings. One week, when one of those men returned from shacharit, his wife asked, "Who talked in shul today?" In other words, who was thedarshan de jure?

"Everybody," her husband answered. In other words, it was not a quiet davening.

Common courtesy dictates that one should be still when any noise distracts others. Halacha sets higher standards; our prayers should be audible to ourselves – and to G-d – but not to the person standing next to us. Besides being rude and contrary to Jewish law, talking when silence should prevail undoubtedly hinders one's kavana. How many of us have the power of concentration to focus fully on our tefillot when our neighbors in the pews are talking about the stock market, the previous night's ballgame, their kids, their upcoming trip to Eretz Yisroel or other sundry matters best left for Kiddush time, over a plate of kugel?

I’ve seen some people protest such talking infractions.

A friend of mine in a shul near New York told me he had once proposed a seating plan to the congregation's rabbi: have signs displayed in certain areas, like state markers at a political convention, indicating that area's topic of conversation during davening -- "Sports," "Careers," "Weather," etc. My friend did not get the rabbi's permission, but the rabbi got the sarcastic point. A WWII D-Day veteran who did not consider himself the most stringent of halacha observers, my friend took his time in shul seriously. During davening, he wanted no distractions.

At a large congregation in Brooklyn's Boro Park neighborhood, a young chassid, shtreimel atop his head, will ask his fellow mitpallim, when the decibel level during tefillah becomes intolerable, "If you come here to talk, where do you go to pray?”The question is rhetorical.The answer should be also -- shul is for talking only to the One Above.

A rabbi in a Berlin synagogue where I attended Shabbat services several years ago had an effective idea. In the years after large numbers of Jews immigrated from the Soviet Union, many ended up in Germany, particularly in the country’s major cities.

The rav of the shul, wanting to strengthen the Yiddishkeit of emigres who had spent decades in a culture where any practice of religion, or any education thereof, was strictly verboten, sought to attract the Jewish newcomers -- especially the senior citizens who had some sentimental memories of Judaism in their home -- to his synagogue. But he recognized that they would have little inclination to properly spend time in unfamiliar, hours-long worship services. And if they came, they would talk.

Instead, he offered an alternative during minyan time – a social hour or two that would include some schmoozing with their landsleit, some snacks, some divrei Torah and some explanations of the prayers that were taking place, without interruptions, elsewhere in the building.

Everyone gained.

The sanctity of the tefillah was preserved; and some of the ex-Soviet Jews, once they learned about the meaning of the contents of the siddur, in time came to minyan. As worshipers, not talkers.

Some schnapps and herring did the trick. Reminders and scolding and lectures wouldn’t help.

For the short-run, is it better that people interested in being in shul on Shabbat but not in minyan have another option? Literally lo b’shma ba l’shma; they might come eventually for the right reason.

The problem is that minyanim frequented by talkers tend to be friendly, welcoming minyanim, where people feel at home. They’re the minyanim someone would want to join. On the other hand, the quieter minyanim are, I have found, largely cold and unwelcoming. In the former, a stranger is likely to be approached by the regulars, offered a tallit or an aliyah or a Shabbos meal invitation; in the latter, you’re more likely to be ignored.

The friendliness, which is laudable, breeds the comfort to talk.The challenge is to combine the best of both worlds.

The Amtrak example, and some observation of various minyanim I’ve attended, suggests some methods to reinforce the desired behavior:

Display “No talking zone during davening” signs in conspicuous spots throughout the sanctuary so no one can plead ignorance.

Have the gabbai or rabbi announce at the start of every worship service that “this is a no-talking minyan.”

If you’re the person being disturbed by the talking, don’t compound the situation by being rude; simply, and quietly, indicate that you’re in a no-talking minyan. The purpose is silence, not embarrassment.

At least simply establish an official, identified, recognized no-talking zone in the sanctuary or beit midrash where davening takes place, rows of pews where adherence to that policy is the norm. In other words. Make that the prestigious makom in shul.

Make no talking the norm; so the talkers become the outliers.

If someone tries to talk to you during davening, don’t respond; smile, put your finger to your lips and point to your place in the siddur.

Teach these type of gentle reminders to the folks who want to pray, so they can politely but effectively and consistently get the point across.

Provide options – a room where the people who prefers talking to tefillah can go while staying in shul; offer shiurim there so those folks can gainfully spend their time outside of the Beit HaKnesset.

Position non-talkers throughout the pews, so the talkers cannot congregate among themselves.

Make the talkers pay – literally. While a writer in Fortune magazine suggested that a seat in a (coveted) Quiet Car might cost more than one in an undesignated car, the reverse should be the case in shul; charge more to sit in a talkers’ minyan. Maybe the onus, if not the financial penalty, will serve as a deterrent.

Reward the people who refrain from inappropriate gabbing; maybe a frequent-complier certificate.

On the other hand, no aliyot or other honors for habitual talkers.

Thank the people who have changed their gabby behavior.

Finally, institute a penalty for the incorrigibles. A friend, who years ago served as a gabbai in his congregation’s hashkama minyan, pleaded at length with a member of the minyan, a prominent member of the synagogue, to curtail the constant chatter during davening. To no avail. My friend then sent a letter to chatterer, uninviting him from attending the minyan. The chatterer was predictably offended by the banning, but he complied, and the sanctity of the minyan was preserved.

Amtrak has the right idea – there’s a time and place for friendly conversation, but a Quiet Car and a minyan are not the place; a minyan certainly is not the time.

Maybe we don't need rabbis to enforce decorum in shul. Maybe we should invite some Amtrak conductors and passengers to our minyanim.

All aboard?

The Conversion Scandal

By Rabbi Haim Amsalem

We have a scandal in Israel relating to the evil practice that is spreading: the annulment or non-recognition of conversions performed by private rabbinical courts in their localities. These conversions are performed according to the halakha, with circumcision, ritual immersion in the mikva, and acceptance of the mitzvoth.

This unprecedented aspersion of halakhically valid conversions emanates from Israel’s Chief Rabbinate which sees itself as though it were the great Sanhedrin of old. The Rabbanut unjustly invalidates conversions not performed under its authority or by those who are obedient to its authority. They annul or invalidate halakhic conversions [not done under their authority], something unprecedented and blatantly against the halakha. This position is in violation of the Talmud’s clear statement (Yevamot 47b): ”One who has immersed and emerged from the mikva is a Jew in all matters. What is the legal implication of this statement?  If he later repudiates [his conversion] he is to be considered as an apostate Jew. If he marries a Jewish women, the marriage is valid [since he is Jewish].”

Maimonides rules according to this Talmudic passage (Laws of Forbidden Relationships 13:18), as does the Shulhan Arukh (Y.D. 268:12).  Even if the convert repudiates the conversion—the conversion is not annulled! Yet, today, the Rabbanut [and its followers] invalidate and annul conversions with a light hand even when the convert loudly proclaims that he/she is Jewish!!! Maimonides ruled that even a convert with many shortcomings is still a valid convert. Even if the rabbinic court did not check on his motives, even if he did not openly accept the mitzvoth, even if it was known that he converted for ulterior motives, and even if he later changed his mind—even so, such a person is a valid convert!

Maimonides (Ibid., 15 and 16) explains that even though the Great Court was not pleased with conversions done for Samson and King Solomon, [these conversions were done under private auspices], the Great Court did not invalidate them….

Rabbi Shimon ben Tsemah Duran, in his Responsa (3:47) acknowledged the principle that conversions are valid and not subject to annulment even if the convert changes his mind immediately after the conversion. But now the Rabbanut and its followers overlook the previous halakhic rulings and issue unfounded and incorrect rulings that annul and don’t recognize conversions done by other rabbis.

This creates a situation of absolute desecration of God’s name….It simply has not happened in recent history that a conversion performed by proper and learned rabbis has been invalidated.  Rabbinic authorities have urged that one should not be overly lenient in accepting converts etc; but to actually invalidate a conversion once it has been performed—this is unheard of!...

It is an obligation for all those who seek truth and upright thinking to rise and protest loudly against this great sin that entails an absolute desecration of God’s name. Certainly in this matter there is not only a desecration of God’s name but also the sin of oppressing converts.  Terrible problems arises when halakhic converts are deemed to be non-Jewish. Those who [so oppress converts by not accepting the validity of their conversions] stand guilty and they will have to face the judgment of Heaven.

Is it important to wear a black hat from a hashkafic perspective?

The answer depends on one’s hashkafa! If one thinks it is desirable to have “frum” men all dressed in the same uniform, then it’s important.

However, if one’s hashkafa favors diversity, personal responsibility, individualism…then one must be troubled by the insistence that “frum” boys and men wear black hats and the rest of the “hashkafic” uniform that goes with the hat. Conformity of dress tends to conformity in thought, a surrender of one’s own thinking to the demands of the group and/or the group’s authorities.

Diversity is a positive value. The Talmud (Berakhot 58a) teaches that one recites a special blessing when witnessing a vast throng of Jews, praising the Almighty who is hakham harazim, the One who understands the root and inner thoughts of each individual. Their thoughts are not alike and their appearance is not alike. Respect for individuality and diversity is a sine qua non of healthy human life.

Insistence on the “black hat” uniform leads to artificial stereotyping. People are judged by how they dress, not by who they are. Moreover, boys and men from non-Ashkenazic backgrounds feel pressure to adopt the Ashkenazic “frum” look, leading to needless intra-family and intra-communal tensions. Why not allow people to dress as they think best within the bounds of modesty? Why ostracize those who refuse to conform to an artificial standard of religious garb?

The black hat fedora first appeared in 1882 as a female hat, worn by a character in a French play named Princess Fedora Romanoff. In 1924, Prince Edward of Britain adopted it as a male head covering. It’s difficult to see why the “frum” community would find a hat with this history to be a mark of proper Torah hashkafa!

If a Jew wins the lottery, should he continue working?  Or should he quit his job and study Torah all day?

The real question is: if a Jew—male or female—is wealthy enough, what is the ideal way to spend one’s life? The answer is: each person needs to decide for himself/herself what will be most meaningful, most constructive, most appropriate in the eyes of the Almighty.

There is no one ideal path, not even studying Torah all day. Each person is endowed with particular talents and inclinations, and must find the best path forward based on his/her realities. Some may find their fulfillment by devoting full time to Torah study. Others may find different ways to serve Hashem, based on the gifts that Hashem has given to him/her.

It is obviously desirable for everyone—whether employed or so rich as not to need a job—to spend time each day studying Torah. But it’s also important to follow one’s own path in life.

Should a wonderful rabbi, Torah teacher, kiruv professional quit the job and thereby abandon all those he/she is influencing for the good?

Should a gifted research scientist abandon scientific work that can lead to improvement of the lives of millions of people?

Should a successful business owner close his/her business and thereby deprive employees of their livelihoods?

Should people who genuinely find satisfaction in their work be told to quit their jobs in order to study Torah full time for the rest of their lives?

“If I were a rich man”…couldn’t I do wonderful hessed work, make massive improvements in yeshivot and day schools, finance Torah publications, support the needy here and in Israel etc.? Couldn’t I devote time and resources to art, music, medicine, environmentalism, social justice, world peace?

Suggesting one ideal road for all people is inherently misguided…and unjust.

Is it proper to plan a vacation in a location that doesn't have a daily minyan?

Here are a few things a man must consider when planning a vacation.

Will there be a daily minyan—preferably according to my minhag—in the vacation destination?

Will my wife and children be happy vacationing there? Does my wife have a different preference?

Even if the locale has a daily minyan, is it really a place where I want to spend my vacation time? Is it beautiful? Does it provide proper facilities for rest and recreation?

What if I and my family enjoy camping, where there will be no daily minyan? What if we wish to travel to National Parks or other scenic destinations where we can’t be sure of finding a daily minyan? May we travel to various countries where we will surely learn a lot about other cultures and see world famous landmarks…but where no daily minyan may be available?

The answer to these questions is: each person must make a personal decision. One must weigh the pluses and minuses of each option, and then make plans that will be appropriate for oneself and one’s family.

Whatever decision is reached, please enjoy your vacation…and remember to pray with kavana and gratitude.

n…and remember to pray with kavana and gratitude.

The book of Ezra-Nehemiah (viewed by Jewish tradition as a single book, to be called EN) chronicles some of the final episodes of the biblical era. The Return to Zion and the rebuilding of the Temple lie at the heart of the first period in EN (538–516 b.c.e.). Zerubbabel, the political leader, and Jeshua, the High Priest, lead the community in tandem. These men are generally mentioned together, and they both work closely with the people.

In contrast, the two great leaders of EN’s second period (458–432 b.c.e.)—Ezra, the priest-sage; and Nehemiah, the political leader—model distinct leadership typologies in their attempts to guide their community to a more committed religious life.

EN introduces Ezra with an extended pedigree tracing all the way back to Aaron the Priest (Ezra 7:1–5). Ezra emigrates from Babylonia to Israel in 458 b.c.e., bearing a document from King Artaxerxes of Persia according him virtually unlimited halakhic authority over the people (Ezra 7:11–26). Given this remarkable introduction, one may expect Ezra to dominate the narrative and exert power over the people, both as a priest and as a sage. Yet, the opposite proves to be the case.

The first half of Ezra 8 lists those who returned to Israel along with Ezra. Ezra involves others and gives them credit for their participation. At the conclusion of the roster, Ezra invites others to help bring Levites to Israel (Ezra 8:15–20). A certain Levite named Sherebiah is a particular success story for Ezra. He remains prominent throughout EN after having been empowered by Ezra (see Ezra 8:18, 24; Neh. 8:7; 9:4–5; 10:13; 12:8, 24). Ezra similarly appoints twelve other priests—though he is one himself—to care for the Temple treasures (Ezra 8:24–30). Despite the immense power and authority granted to him by King Artaxerxes, Ezra involves others and is surrounded by name lists. These features of Ezra’s leadership set the tone for his transferring most of his authority to the people.

Ezra’s reaction to the scourge of intermarriage follows the same pattern. Upon learning of the problem, Ezra pulls his hair in grief and prays on behalf of his people. Members of the community spontaneously join him:

When I heard this, I rent my garment and robe, I tore hair out of my head and beard, and I sat desolate. Around me gathered all who were concerned over the words of the God of Israel because of the returning exiles’ trespass…. (Ezra 9:3–4. All biblical quotations are NJPS translations.)

While Ezra was praying and making confession…a very great crowd of Israelites gathered about him…the people were weeping bitterly. (Ezra 10:1)

After the completion of this prayer, the people propose and implement the solution, with Ezra simply endorsing their plan (Ezra 10:2–4).

According to Ralbag on Ezra 10:44, Ezra was a brilliant strategist. He realized that confrontational top-down rebuke would not be effective, and he therefore contrived an alternate plan to bring members of his community into the process. However, one could argue that Ezra believed in this model of leadership as the ideal. He was not an authoritarian leader. He wanted others to take active leadership and participatory roles. He also wanted to create a leadership that could perpetuate itself, rather than forcing the community to become entirely dependent on him. Ezra is an exemplar of the dictum attributed to the Men of the Great Assembly in the first Mishnah in Avot: Ve-ha’amidu talmidim harbeh— raise up many disciples.

Nehemiah also is a strong God-fearing leader, but he is characterized differently from Ezra. When Nehemiah comes from Babylonia to Israel in 445 b.c.e., no other names are listed with him. Nehemiah dominates the narrative and forcefully exerts his own power and authority.

When Ezra had come to Israel thirteen years earlier, he declined a military escort, since he wanted to sanctify God’s Name to the King of Persia:

I proclaimed a fast there by the Ahava River to afflict ourselves before our God to beseech Him for a smooth journey for us and for our children and for all our possessions; for I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us against any enemy on the way, since we had told the king, “The benevolent care of our God is for all who seek Him, while His fierce anger is against all who forsake Him.” So we fasted and besought our God for this, and He responded to our plea. (Ezra 8:21–23)

In contrast, Nehemiah accepted a military escort:

The king also sent army officers and cavalry with me. (Neh. 2:9)

            We have seen that Ezra pulled his hair in sorrow upon learning of the intermarriage in his community. In contrast, Nehemiah threatens and uses physical force against the people:

Also at that time, I saw that Jews had married Ashdodite, Ammonite, and Moabite women; a good number of their children spoke the language of Ashdod and the language of those various peoples, and did not know how to speak Judean. I censured them, cursed them, flogged them, tore out their hair, and adjured them by God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters in marriage to their sons, or take any of their daughters for your sons or yourselves. (Neh. 13:23–25)

Ezra tears out his own hair; Nehemiah tears out others’ hair.

Another significant contrast between the two leaders arises during the one occasion they are seen together: the religious revival and covenant recorded in Nehemiah 8–10. The people gather together and invite Ezra—their accepted teacher—to read from the Torah. Ezra is not the one who initiates the ceremony. Ezra is flanked by thirteen other people (Neh. 8:4), again highlighting his allowing others to initiate and share center stage in every aspect of his leadership. The people voluntarily turn to Ezra because they respect him as a teacher, not because he exerts his authority over them.

Despite the narrator’s assertion that the people initiated the reformation and covenant (Neh. 8–10; cf. 12:44–47; 13:1–3), Nehemiah casts himself differently in his first-person report (Neh. 13). He repeatedly gives himself credit, almost as a poetic refrain:

O my God, remember me favorably for this, and do not blot out the devotion I showed toward the House of my God and its attendants. (v. 14)

This too, O my God, remember to my credit, and spare me in accord with your abundant faithfulness. (v. 22)

O my God, remember it to my credit! (v. 31)

And also:

O my God, remember to my credit all that I have done for this people! (Neh. 5:19)

Nehemiah’s repeated stress on his personal accomplishments stands out starkly, especially after the narrative in EN, which credits the people for their initiatives. Additionally, Nehemiah makes it appear that the religious state of the people was entirely dependent on him. He attributes the spiritual decline and other woes on the fact that he had left the community and returned to Babylonia (Neh. 13:6).

            To summarize, Ezra was given immense authority—but deliberately moderated it. Instead, he raised new leaders and engaged the members of the community to take active roles in their spiritual development. He surrounded himself with people and shared or transferred authority to others. He raised many disciples, thereby broadening the base of the leadership and also ensuring continuity rather than dependence on him. In turn, the people voluntarily gravitated to him for guidance and teaching. Nehemiah, on the other hand, tended to occupy center stage. He gave orders to others, and often threatened them and used physical force to implement his goals. He credited himself for his accomplishments, even though the narrator credits the people for their initiatives. He portrayed himself as an indispensable leader whose community failed as soon as he left them.

Both Ezra and Nehemiah were God-fearing individuals dedicated to rebuilding Israel physically and spiritually, and both were effective to a large degree. There are no explicit evaluations of either Ezra or Nehemiah by the narrator, typical of biblical narrative. Several rabbinic traditions give clear preference to Ezra, while showing ambivalence toward Nehemiah.

Rabbi Yosei said: Had Moses not preceded him, Ezra would have been worthy of receiving the Torah for Israel. (Sanhedrin 21b)

When [Hillel] died, they lamented over him, “Alas, the pious man! Alas, the humble man! Disciple of Ezra!” (Sotah 48b; cf. Sanhedrin 11a, Sukkah 20a)

By likening Ezra to Moses and by using Ezra as a paradigm for their beloved Hillel, these Sages enshrine Ezra as one of the greatest biblical figures.

Working on the assumption that Ezra and Nehemiah co-authored EN, the Sages wondered why the book was called only “Ezra” (as they referred to it). One responded that Nehemiah was penalized for his self-aggrandizement by having his name excluded from the title of the book:

The whole subject matter of [the book of] Ezra was narrated by Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah; why then was the book not called by his name? R. Jeremiah b. Abba said: Because he claimed merit for himself, as it is written (Neh. 5:19), “O my God, remember to my credit.” (Sanhedrin 93b)

Another believed that Nehemiah viewed himself as indispensible, while denigrating all other leaders as ineffective, though some of his predecessors certainly were righteous and competent:

R. Joseph said: Because he spoke disparagingly of his predecessors, as it is written (Neh. 5:15), “The former governors who preceded me laid heavy burdens on the people, and took from them bread and wine more than forty shekels of silver, etc.” (Sanhedrin 93b)

            It appears that the aforementioned Sages have balanced Nehemiah’s positive and negative traits when compared and contrasted with Ezra. These exceptional individuals from the biblical period, as interpreted in traditional rabbinic sources, have much to teach contemporary Jewish leaders about leadership.

For further study, see my article, “The Literary Significance of the Name Lists in Ezra-Nehemiah,” Jewish Bible Quarterly 35:3 (2007), pp. 143–152; and Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, In an Age of Prose: A Literary Approach to Ezra-Nehemiah (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988).

Many years ago, the parents of a young man who was thrown out of yeshiva high school reached out to me for help. They recently discovered that their son, who never went back to any school ever again, and instead took his GED and was now college-aged and living on his own, was no longer shomer mitzvot—no longer observing the precepts of our Holy Torah. They were beside themselves with grief. Their worst fears from the time when he was forced to leave the yeshiva in the middle of his senior year had come true.

I went to see the young man, a boy whom I have known since his early childhood, and we spent hours talking in the park about Judaism, Hashem, and Torah. The conversation was warm and open and natural—a respectful intellectual conversation. Until he broke down crying.

When he finally recomposed himself, he reached into his pocket and to my surprise pulled out a kippah. And this is what he said to me as he clenched that kippah tightly in his hand:

“I know what you want, and I know what my parents want. They want me to put this back on my head. But that will never happen again. I will always carry it with me, because this is my heritage. But I don’t get to wear this. The rabbis who gave up on me, and who give up on so many of my friends, have made that perfectly clear. And don’t get me wrong; I respect them. I respect the Torah with every fiber of my being. I get it.

“But that’s just the thing,” he explained as he held up his kippah. “I know what this stands for. And I know what I am. And I am not this.

“And when I look into my soul, and search as hard as I can for the potential to live up to this, I know that I don’t have that ability. DON’T YOU SEE,” he exclaimed as tears welled up in his eyes again, “I don’t GET to wear this!
“I never will.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Since that time, nearly 20 years ago, I have counseled scores of men and women and boys and girls who have strained relationships with their Judaism—teenagers, singles, married individuals and couples, parents, and even rabbis. Furthermore, via TheLockers.net, an anonymous online community for Jewish teens that I administered from 2003–2011, I had the privilege of being the proverbial fly on the wall as thousands of young Jews openly discussed their most intimate lives. Today I lead JamShalom, a grassroots Jewish outreach movement that provides Shabbat experiences for the 16- to 30-year-old attendees at rock music festivals, wherein I have engaged with over 1,000 young Jews of various backgrounds.

One of the most heartbreaking truths I have realized is that the majority of individuals I have encountered who were raised observant, but who are not anymore, have not left Judaism because they dismissed the Torah and our heritage. Rather, they have left because they have dismissed themselves as candidates to keep the Torah and to live up to our heritage. It is not Judaism they have given up on. It is themselves.
And as I have sought through the years to regain ground and close the painful chasm that left these beautiful and caring souls separated from their Judaism, it was imperative for me to understand how and why this was happening.
Here are my observations.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A Crisis of Faith

We have been in exile for 2,000 years. This exile has left scars upon us. Among those scars is a double-pronged insecurity. The first prong is born of a defensive fear—a fear for the continued preservation and continuity of Torah Judaism in the face of overwhelmingly negative odds. And this leads us to defend the traditional or “preserved” form of Judaism fiercely, and to “push” that rigid Judaism. Hard.
The second prong of this insecurity is born of centuries of anti-Semitism, forced conversions, and assimilation, and it causes us to fearfully struggle to minimize our children’s exposure to outside faiths and philosophies. This, despite the fact that sages such as the Rambam specifically allowed and practiced the incorporation of non-Jewish philosophies into the teachings of Judaism.

Yet in a modern world of digital and social transparency, our defensiveness and isolationism projects an air of deep insecurity to our children, an insecurity that ultimately conveys as a fundamental lack of emmunah, faith: We do not trust the Torah to resonate on its own merit.

We convey a fear that if a Jew were exposed to an outside faith, and that faith was placed side-by-side with Judaism, the alternative faith might be the winning choice.
Of course, one can argue the merit and demerits of more open exposure to outside ideas and ideals all that one wants to. But those arguments, in today’s information age, are largely irrelevant—because our youth already are exposed to outside faiths and values. We can shut down our personal conversation with them if we don’t like the topic, but we cannot shut down their search.

We live in an information age, an age where every value, temptation, religion, and ideal is on the table before our youth, and before any seeking or religiously unsettled person in the Jewish community. The circled wagons of yesterday’s Jewish community have suddenly collapsed. And today, the question we must answer is: In a world with every idea and every value and every temptation on the table, why would our children—why would we—choose Judaism?

We must dig deep to find compelling answers. We must rise to the challenge, because in a world of open dialogue, you either get relevant, or you die.
Most importantly, we must reclaim our own faith in the everlasting relevance of our divine heritage. Because the Truth—any genuine Truth—does not need to be afraid of questions.

Recognizing the Presence of Truth

The very essence of Truth is that by its nature of being True, questions only serve to strengthen it, by proving its ability to stand up to “less-true” challenges.

How interesting it is that the Jewish holiday ritual whose entire purpose is to convey our heritage from one generation to the next, the Passover Seder, is geared to provoke our children into asking questions. The process of proving the relevance of our great spiritual dynasty to another generation is to throw down the gauntlet and say “Bring it on! We challenge you to start asking questions!” This is because questions, once answered, only prove a stronger Truth. And the fearless invitation to our children to ask their questions conveys an absolute emmunah in the timeless relevance of Torah.

Each and every one of us must ask ourselves: Do I truly believe there is a God? Do I truly believe there is such a thing as a Jewish Soul? Do I truly believe that the Torah is the very word of God revealed to that type of Soul for that Soul’s own good?
If so, then the Torah should not require any salesmanship! The connection of that Soul to that Source through that Word should be the most intuitive experience of connection in the world! It should be the greatest drug in the world!

And if it is not, it means one or more of these four things is true:
1) There is no God (and there is!).
2) There is no such thing as a Jewish Soul.
3) The Torah is not the True Word of God for that Soul.
4) Someone—our teachers, our rabbis, or we ourselves—has unwittingly corrupted the message or forgotten it somewhere along the way, so that it no longer resonates on its own merit.

Of course, items 1, 2, and 3 are not the problem. The problem is item 4, and it is representative of the scars of 2,000 years of exile.

The good news is, that one does not have to look far into Jewish spiritual literature, from the Ramchal to the Grah to Sifrei Kabbala, to know that it is the natural desire and yearning of the Soul to return to and unify with its Source. And with this in mind, we can reframe our entire notion of what it means to work to bring a Jew closer to his or her Judaism.

For if the Soul naturally wants to return to it’s Source, then the challenge is not in preventing Souls from wandering away or keeping them fenced in (with high walls and razor wire), but rather in bringing down the barriers and walls that stand between a Soul and Hashem; to identify and remove those elements that are obstructing a Jewish Soul from finding its way home—especially when that obstruction is our method of education itself.

We must contemplate this thoughtfully. For it becomes clear that the key to keeping people close to Judaism and in bringing them back lies not in keeping the outside elements outside, which today is impossible. Rather, it lies in understanding what is obstructing between that Soul and his or her Source, and helping to bring those barriers down. And this requires listening and deep personal connection.

We must understand and have Faith, that when the broadcast becomes clear, the Soul will know its way home. And it will migrate naturally and joyfully in that direction.
Someone once asked Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, zt”l, how he made so many tens of thousands of Jews become religious again. Reb Shlomo got very angry and said that he “never made anyone become anything!”

“I simply shared my love of Hashem and of Torah and Authentic Jewish Experiences with them, and accepted them as they are and without any agenda,” he explained. “After that, whatever happened came naturally from within themselves.”

The Fall of the Rabbi

There are rabbis out there who are jerks. There. I said it. And we have all met one or two on our own personal journeys.

The problem is, so have the vulnerable and spiritually frail Jews of our generation. And very often, one encounter like that was all that a frail Soul can take, and the pain of that experience then locks that Soul outside the Garden of Hashem forever.

There was a time when earning ordination as a rabbi was a rare and select thing. Moshe Rabbeinu only gave it to one person. And Rabbi Akiva, despite having tens of thousands of students who all were on the most saintly of levels, still only bestowed ordination upon five of them.

Indeed, throughout Jewish history, we have many stories of would-be rabbis who traveled all across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East as they sought the one rebbe who was meant to be their rebbe—the one that they would apprentice to for many years in the hope of one day having that rebbe rest his holy hands upon the head of the would-be rabbi and bestow upon him ordination.

But something changed, to my observation, after the Holocaust. In the aftermath of that horrible destruction, many of our remaining great sages set up new houses of study in the United States, Israel, England, and other parts of the world. During the time they were alive, most of these saintly rabbis personally knew every student who was accepted to his yeshiva and whom he ordained. There was still a “resting of hands” that took place between rabbi and apprentice, and any young man who went out with the status of rabbi was, indeed, a reflection of the quality, integrity, and the middot of the holy rabbi who ordained him.

But then these great rabbis died.

And several of the schools they created became “institutions.” And becoming a rabbi at these institutions became the equivalent of receiving a master’s degree in halakha.
Today, there are individuals with the most abrasive bedside manner and who are absolutely lacking in any spiritually intuitive skills, who still receive ordination from the Israeli Rabbinate or from any number of major rabbinical schools around the world. In fact, one can conduct most of his ordination from the Israeli Rabbinate via the Shema Yisrael email correspondence program, appearing before them only once among dozens of other applicants, for a final exam.

Personal character and the capacity to be a spiritual guide are no longer the carefully enforced prerequisites to become a rabbi. A good technical mind and hearty memorization skills, coupled with a pleasant demeanor when sitting before the admissions panel will often do the trick.

The evidence of this is highlighted all too well in a recent experience I had.
A moderately observant couple I was speaking with on a flight from the United States to Israel asked me in all sincerity why a person needs a rabbi nowadays, other than for funerals and weddings, when one can find all the answers to halakha that they need via Google. Their sincere question bespeaks all there is to say about what we have done to the lofty title of “rabbi,” and how badly our major rabbinical schools have allowed the standard of what a rabbi is to become degraded from what it historically stood for.
This couple was simply reflecting what most people experience today—that a rabbi is not by definition a spiritual guide; he is simply a source for halakhic facts and rulings, and a person to perform the functional component of lifecycle ceremonies (with no heart or passion required).

This encounter broke my heart. If their perception and experience was as it should have been, they would have known that a rabbi is much more than a human halakhic search engine. They would have experienced their encounters with a rabbi as an encounter with Torah spirituality and Hashem. They would have encountered a person of God, who, before seeing the law, saw the people in front of him and connected with them on a personal level. They would have encountered a person who, by his very being, took the time to understand them and where they were on their journey, before ever quoting any halakha to them. And when finally being given a pesak halakha, this couple would have encountered a guide who would present the opportunity to observe the halakha (a mitzvah of Hashem!) in a manner that would have connected those Souls in front of him to that Word from that Holiest Source—Hashem.

Looking back, when we think of the rabbis whom we most connect to throughout Jewish history, whether it was Moshe Rabbeinu, the Nevi’im, Rabbi Akiva, or even our own rebbe (if we are blessed to have one), we don’t think of them first for their halakhic rulings on how to kasher a pot. We think of them as spiritual guides.

But in a the modern era of impersonal halakhic rabbis, a catastrophic impact is manifest: Laypeople still believe rabbis to be the representative of the Jewish God and the Torah, and these laypeople judge themselves by the harsh and absolute attitudes of this newer generation of overly intellectual and lacking-in-spiritual-intuition rabbis. They are no longer drawn to the God and the Book of these rabbis. Rather, they are driven away—because if the person feels small, religiously inadequate, or not-quite-up-to-par when standing before the rabbi, then the person concludes that he or she is surely an irrelevant speck before God.

And so, in the place of a rabbi being the one who opens the doors and brings down the walls between a seeking Soul and Hashem, the emotionally disconnected halakhic rabbi becomes an armed guard at the gates, wielding an unforgiving and absolute sword of Torah, making it intimidating for a lost neshama to even approach.

All or Nothing, or Is It?

Most of us are taught Torah in absolute terms. Here are the 613 mitzvoth. Do them. Do them all. Do not fail.

Here are the teachings and guidelines of the rabbis. Do them. Do them all. Do not fail.
There are those who feel suffocated by what they perceive as a smothering mountain of humrot, stringencies, and halakhic fences. These humrot have been put around the mitzvoth of the Torah and directives of our sages in order to protect the observance of those mitzvoth. But of much greater concern is that for most people today, including among many of our teachers, the hierarchal distinction between what observances come from the Torah, which come from the rabbis, what is a syag, and what is a minhag (custom), has been totally overlooked or lost. The damage of this is threefold:

1) People often will violate a deOrayta mitzvah of the Torah for the sake of observing a minhag, and other such mistakes of incorrect prioritization. For instance, many yeshiva students will refuse to tuck in their tsitsith when asked by their father to do so, inadvertently violating a mitzvah deOrayta for the sake of a hiddur mitzvah.
2) Individuals who are not capable of taking on all of the mitzvoth are often intimidated or scared off by the overwhelming body of the “whole ball of wax” of all these combined components, and cannot separate between what is inherent to Hashem’s intentions, and what are the hiddurim (extras) that should only be practiced by an advanced servant of Hashem.
3) As a result, we surely have violated the spirit, and perhaps even the letter of the command of Hashem of Al Tosef (do not add to the Torah), for we have added to His Torah in a manner that has ultimately obstructed His Revelation from his nation.

But when we consider it closely, it becomes clear that any suggestion of the Torah as an all-or-nothing endeavor actually suggests a denial of the Torah as the Revelation of God. For if God is infinite, so too is His Word.

And the very nature of an Infinite Torah is that no person will ever “do it all.”
In fact, we all know very well that if we approached any great tsaddik or gadol, and asked him if he were doing “everything,” he would smile at us and say: “Not even close!”

Such is the nature of God’s Word.

But this confuses many people. What, one may ask, is being suggested here? Is the argument being made that Torah is a half-time commitment? That individuals can pick and choose? That a suggestion is being made that “Since no one can do everything, I’ll just do what I want!?”

Well...sort of.

Because that is what the revelation at Har Sinai was all about.

Na’aseh veNishmah—A Euphemism for the Ages

It is a bit crazy to suggest that we merited the Torah by saying, “We will do, and we will hear.” Okay, so God basically decided to give His Holiest Torah to a nation of consumer suckers? To the people who put their entire life savings on door number three, even though they had no idea what’s behind it?

And apparently this God does not want to deal with any circumspect customers that actually want to read the label on the package before buying it and taking it home. Strange.

But it actually is not strange at all, when we consider the ubiquitous perseverance of the expression “Na’aseh veNishmah” right up through the spoken languages of today. Think about it.

Imagine that someone you love—your parent or spouse or best friend—came up to you and asked: “Hey can you do me a really big favor?” How would you respond?
You would say, “Sure! What is it?” Na’aseh! veNishmah...

But if a total stranger came up to you on the street and made the same request, you would most likely respond: “It depends... What is it?” Nishmah... oolai Na’aseh...
So what does this mean?

It means that Na’aseh veNishmah is an expression that we reserve, to this very day, for people we love and trust. And it conveys two things:

1) Whatever you need, I want to do it 100 percent.
2) I trust you that whatever you have to ask, it can only be good for me. It will never compromise me or harm in any way.

In other words, the phrase communicates absolute commitment and absolute trust.

With a stranger, I am not certain of either of these things, and so my response is tentative and measured.

Therefore, we merited our Holy Torah because of our deep relationship with Hashem as evidence by our “Of course! What is it?” reply to Him. Total commitment. Total trust.
But now let us go back to our example of a loved one, and imagine that you were incapable of actually fulfilling the request, either for physical or emotional reasons. For example, perhaps you were asked to pick up your friend’s car from the mechanic next week, but you will be out of town. Does that make your statement of trust and commitment to your friend any less authentic or sincere?

Or perhaps your spouse asked you to clean the drain gutters on the roof, not knowing that you had a deathly fear of heights and might get vertigo and fall! Does that emotional limitation in anyway contradict your absolute love and devotion to the needs and wishes of your spouse, and your trust in him or her?

And so we come to an amazing hiddush: There is an absolute delineation and distinction between our Trust in Hashem, coupled with our commitment to doing what He asks of us on one side, and our actual capacity at any given moment to act upon that trust and commitment. And this is true whether that limitation is of an emotional or physical nature.

In other words, I can have perfect emmunah in Hashem, and accept the entire Torah, and still possibly not even be ready to say the first word of Shema or sit at a Shabbat table.

And there is no inherent contradiction in this.

But let’s go further.

A Fence around the Torah, God-Style

There is another peculiar element of Mattan Torah, the giving of the Torah. God tells Moshe to build a fence around the bottom of the mountain, lest the people come running up the mountain. For if they run up the mountain they will surely either burn up in fire, or it will cause the world to crash down on them (fire or stoning, and not by man, but as a spiritual event).

Moshe does as God instructs, and then climbs all the way up the mountain to meet Hashem. Upon arriving, Hashem tells Moshe to go down and warn the people again not to cross the boundary!

Moshe argues a bit with Hashem, reassuring Hashem that he has already set up a fence and the people already know very clearly not to cross the boundary. But Hashem insists that Moshe go down again and deliver this message one more time, and then he can come back up the mountain.

Very strange business.

First of all, Hashem gave Moshe the instructions the first time without Moshe having to climb a mountain for no apparent reason. So why have him come all the way back up, just to send him down again? Second, Moshe was correct: The people had been warned, a fence was in place, and there was no sign of any potential problem. Third, we know from the next events of the Torah that not only did the people not seek to climb the mountain, they sought to get as far back from it as possible!

So why would Hashem make such a production over something that He obviously knew was not ever going to be an actual issue?

The most obvious answer is that this explicit condition by Hashem that predicated Mattan Torah was meant to send a message to the Israelites. Hashem went as far as having Moshe climb up and down the mountain just to dramatically and powerfully drive this message home!

Imagine everyone’s faces, when, after three days of intense preparation Moshe ascends the mountain into the smoke. And then comes down many hours later and nothing has happened?! “Uh, Moshe... why are you back?” “Um, God really does not want you to cross the boundary that is here, because He wants to keep you from getting hurt while receiving His Torah. He is really concerned that in your enthusiasm to receive His Torah, you might rush your ascent toward Him, and ultimately bring spiritual self-destruction upon yourself.” “Uh, Okay. I mean, I think we already got that. But wow; if God sent you all the way back down here to tell us that, it must be pretty seriously important. This fence against over-enthusiasm and running too quickly up the mountain to Hashem must be fundamental to our receiving HaShem’s Torah. Got it.”

Want-To Judaism

When one examines the Torah’s expressions of Hashem’s desired relationship with us, it is startling how firmly love is emphasized. In fact, nearly all the times that awe (yir’ah) or service (avodah) of God is mentioned it is preceded by the foundation of love.

LeAhavah u’leYir’ah et Shemekha

LeAhavah et Hashem Elokeikhem, u’le’Ovdo

We are taught by our Sages that the world, in its very existence, is a manifestation of God’s love.

Our Shema prayer, the first words on our lips when we awaken, the last words when we go to bed, and the last words we are meant to utter in life, emphasizes loving Hashem with all our heart, Soul, and “umph”! And of course, the central observance of our faith, Shabbat, is an expression of God’s love.

But love is a funny thing. Because you can’t force it. You can only grow it. It has to call to you; to draw you in. As soon as someone pushes, love starts wilting.

And this perhaps helps us understand why our Mishkan, the first house of Hashem in the world, the precursor of the Synagogue, Church, and Mosque, has the root word M-Sh-kh—to draw in. Because if you want to see Hashem dwelling in the hearts of people (veShakhanti beTokham), you must create a space or experience that draws them in.

True spirituality, and true Judaism, is a “want-to” experience. Period.
How do you get the people to build a place for Hashem in their lives? “Kol NeDiv Libo”—help them open the doors of their hearts. The answer is already inside them.

Defining “Religious”

As I have matured in life, I have grown to wonder more and more about our definition of a Torah-observant or religious Jew. Certainly, our emphasis has become corrupt.
When asked, most people will identify an observant Jew as a person who keeps Shabbat, keeps Kosher, studies Torah, prays regularly, and observes the laws of family purity. But here’s the problem. All of those mitzvoth fall squarely in the category of ben adam leMakom—between people and God.

We have two categories of mitzvoth: Those that are between humans and their Creator, and those that are interpersonal.

So it would seem logical that it is absolutely outside our purview as human beings to be pulling out our spiritual yardsticks and measuring our fellow human beings according to those mitzvoth that fall under God’s jurisdiction! Right?

And how much more glaring and corrupt does this invasive arrogance become, when we play in God’s territory, while pretty much entirely under-emphasizing our own jurisdiction—the laws that govern human relationships!

After all, we all know that if we had a wonderfully humble and sweet Jew who devoted his entire life to social justice, tikkun olam, charity, helping the poor, and volunteering in orphanages—but did not keep Shabbat or kashruth—we would probably say: “Oy, someone should be mekarev that guy!”

But if we have a person who keeps kosher, keeps Shabbat, and keeps the laws of family purity, but is stingy, selfish, and obnoxious, we would still consider him or her quite frum.

In fact, that person might even be able to get ordination from a major rabbinical school.
When someone asked Hillel to teach the Torah while standing on one foot, the ikar (main thing) was how one treats other human beings.

The great Torah principle that Rabbi Akiva is most remembered for highlighting is based on how one treats other human beings.

Tens of thousands of Rabbi Akiva’s students missed this point, however, and for that baseless hatred between human beings we mourn 33 days, while the destruction of both Temples only gets three weeks.

When we sinned against God so many millennia ago and went into our first exile, it lasted 70 years. For sinning against our fellow human beings we are at 2,000 years and counting.

On Yom Kippur, our holiest day, God reassures us that any sins we committed against Him are forgiven without hesitation. But regarding our sins against another human being God is much more reserved, and tells us that we may not even approach Him until we have made it right with those we have harmed.

So what does it mean to be a religious Jew? How is true Jewish Torah observance defined?

Hillel seemed pretty clear. Rabbi Akiva seemed pretty clear (although his students missed his point). Yom Kippur is pretty clear. And our exile—the one we are trying so desperately to get out of—is pretty clear, too. But are we too much like Rabbi Akiva’s students to hear the message?

Is it the boy with tears in his eyes and a kippah in his fist who needs outreach? Or is it the rabbi who locked him out of Hashem’s garden with unforgiving judgment and readiness to throw away one Jewish Soul?

A Missing Relationship

To wander off topic for a moment, I love nature. I care a great deal about the environment, and seek to encourage others to be sensitive not to harm the fragile world in which we live.

But here’s the thing: You can talk all you want about the facts and statistics related to carbon emissions and the ozone, clean water, preserving natural resources and recycling. But if the person you are talking to does not have an existing sense of personal connection to nature—a relationship—then that person is not going to care too much about what you are saying. And that person is not going to make any serious lifestyle changes because of it, no matter how compelling the facts are.
Moshe Rabbeinu knew this. That’s why in Parashat VaEt-hanan he told us that “you should know today and bring to your heart that Hashem is God.” As my college rebbe, Rabbi Yitzchak Cohen, explained: “If it doesn’t get from your head to your heart, you aren’t going to change.”

In business they know this, too. They teach it as a component of every MBA degree. People don’t make business decisions intellectually; they make them emotionally, and then back them up with their intellect.

In other words, you have to care about something to change your life for it.
And at the essence of it all, this is what we have lost in the modern transmission of Judaism: A cultivation of a relationship with Hashem.

And it’s strange, because until the second or third grade we actually cultivate a very loving and joyous relationship, only to suddenly abandon this approach. I have done straw polls of hundreds of Jewish school alumni, and all seem to agree on this. Until about the third grade connecting to Hashem is fun and joyful, and that joy carries over into finding expression in the observances of daily mitzvoth, holidays and Shabbat. But then, for reasons unfathomable, the celebration comes to a screeching halt, and all education turns towards a growing list of “have-to” demands ascribed to a rather harsh and demanding God.

And the relationship dies.

We must ask ourselves why the Torah goes out of its way to predicate the service and awe (yir’ah) of Hashem with the prerequisite of loving God. And we must ask ourselves why our siddur, before discussing in the Shema our obligation to love God and serve Him, introduces the Shema with blessings that emphasize God’s abundant love for us.
In marriage, we subscribe to the disciplines and sacrifices involved because we love our spouse. And so too with parenthood.

Love gives the “have-to’s” of doing things for another person wings. Feeling compelled to serve another without a relationship has a word, too: It’s called slavery.
In so many ways, the Jewish educational experience has replaced our marriage to Hashem with a cold and harsh indenture to an Absolute and Cold Master. And we have convinced ourselves that the intellectual explorations and philosophies of mitzvoth are enough.

But learning that parks itself in the mind of the listener, by its very nature, does not translate into sustained action. A person is only moved a limited amount of distance by fear or argument. A lifestyle change requires an emotional connection. It requires a relationship.

The Power of Prayer

Every relationship depends upon communication. The ability to hear and be heard is where every relationship lives and dies.

Think about it. You cannot commence a relationship with someone, from a friendship to a first date, without first greeting the other person.

But let’s go deeper. Let’s imagine there was a person with whom you got along amazingly, except for one small annoying thing that the person did that drove you crazy. Yet you could not communicate with this person at all. Eventually, you would stop spending time with this person over their annoying habit, because there would be no way to fix it.

In contrast, imagine you knew someone with whom you had many, many differences. But the communication between the both of you was exceptional and you were always able to hear and share ideas with one another. You would love spending time with this person and the friendship would be strong, because you would always be growing together and learning from each other.

So too with HaShem. A relationship with Hashem starts with being able to talk to Him. If you can’t talk to Him, then He is still just an intellectual idea. A God you cannot talk to is not the All-Hearing and All-Knowing and All-Loving God of whom we teach.
If we want to give our children and ourselves a relationship with Judaism and Torah, it starts with a relationship with the Giver of that Torah and Faith. And a relationship with that Giver starts with being able to talk to Him. It grows when we know that He listens. And it thrives when we feel His response.

And if you found yourself wondering how we could ever know that He listens and responds, it is only because you, the reader of this article, have yet to make it a practice of talking to Hashem. Because if you did, you would already know that the rest flows quickly thereafter.

Last week at my Friday night Shabbat table, a young man stopped by after dinner to hang out. We have a very open home, and many young people drop in on Friday nights. This particular young man has been drifting away from his Orthodox upbringing for some time, but thankfully still feels very comfortable within our home on Shabbat.
Because it is Elul, the month we say is an acronym for the passage of Shir haShirim of “Ani leDodi veDodi Li—I am devoted to by Beloved, and my Beloved is devoted to me,” I spoke a bit about this essence of a loving relationship that is core to (re)approaching God on Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur.

This young man, we’ll call him David, sat down next to me a bit later to speak privately. He asked me: “If I wanted to start rebuilding a relationship with Hashem, how would I do that?”

So I explained to him about conversation being the cornerstone of any relationship, even with God. I pointed out to him that if we are interested in building a relationship with someone, we set a time to meet. And if we really like them, we will seek to make those meetings regular. So we agreed he would begin again with Hashem by setting a steady time a few days a week to talk to Hashem. I told him he could use his own words, for which I could give him a beautiful structure, or we could find some excerpts from a siddur.

And I cautioned him NOT to commit to too long a block of time to talk with Hashem (at least 10 minutes in order to have enough time to focus, but after that whatever feels comfortable), and not to commit to doing it too many times a week. Because the yetser haRah loves to get us to overcommit and burn out, and a good rebbe sometimes helps his students the most by holding them back and tempering their fire, rather than pushing them too hard and seeing them burn out. After all, it was Hashem Himself who had Moshe Rabbeinu put the first fence against a too-fast approach to Torah around Har Sinai.

So this week, for the first time in his life, this young man is talking with Hashem from his heart. And while for over 20 years he was observant, he called me this week to tell me that it is the first time in his life he has felt that Hashem is really there and really interested in him.

And from there it will grow. Naturally. Because the Source is real, the Torah is real, and the Jewish Soul is real. And the Soul naturally wants to swim to its Source. It just needs us to lower the obstacles and help it to hear its own voice.

Opening the Garden Gates

Judaism is a lifelong journey, not an array of perfunctory tasks. Our connection to God is a relationship, not an intellectual idea. The mitzvoth are a gift from God to enrich our lives through their meaningful observance, not to somehow entertain Him through their hollow performance.

We must cultivate true spiritual leaders who deserve the noble and great title of rabbi, and who are deserving representatives of a loving God and His loving and wise Torah.
We must trust and believe in the power of the Torah to prove itself against the world’s challenges, and its inherent ability to speak to and resonate within the individual Jewish Soul.

We must decouple the foundations of trusting God and believing in the infinite truth and beauty of all of His mitzvoth from the capacity to observe any specific mitzvoth at a given moment in an individual’s Journey.

We must encourage patient and graduated growth in the practice of mitzvoth, rather than creating an overwhelming feeling that everything must be fulfilled at once and nothing less is adequate.

We must find the approaches to engagement that cultivate desire, replacing the tools of intimidation that compel obedience.

We must become religious about the foundation of our Torah that emphasizes the mitzvoth of how we treat one another (ben adam leHaveiro), and avoid judging the stature of another Jew by the aspects of their Judaism that belong to God and the individual.

We must cultivate and openly celebrate personal relationships with God and the mitzvoth we practice, first in our own lives, and then in the way we share Judaism with our children and our students.

And we must learn to talk to God as we would talk to our closest friend. And discover as individuals how much He has always been waiting to hear from us, and how much He cares to be part of our lives.

The Garden of Judaism is beautiful. Let us re-open the gates for our children and for ourselves.

Not long ago, we celebrated Hag haShavuot, the Festival of Weeks, the holiday that traditionally commemorates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. At that particular juncture in history, the wandering, newly freed slaves went through a transition from being the Sons of Jacob to becoming the People of Israel. Translated into modern terms, they converted to Judaism. Prior to that time, they were halakhically considered to be Noahides, Benei-Noah. Interestingly enough, according to the rabbis, this national conversion was forced upon them. The Sages tell us that God suspended Mount Sinai over the Israelites and said: "If you accept the Torah, then that's all well and good. Otherwise, this is going to be your graveyard." (The rabbis go on to say that at a later point in history, in the time of Mordekhai and Esther, the Jews finally accepted God’s commandments of their own volition.) What the Sages are telling us here is that there was a transition in identity. The Israelites didn't really know what they were getting into; the Torah had not yet been given to them. Nevertheless, the people said, "na’aseh ve-nishma," we will do it, and we will learn what to do.

In this story, the Israelites took upon themselves the obligation to become different people without actually going through any formal conversion, a process we now call giyyur. It is on Hag haShavuot that we also read the story of Ruth, a beautiful tale in which we hear how Ruth takes upon herself a new identity to become part of the Jewish people. As she said in her famous words, "Where you go, I will go, your people will be my people, your God will be my God,” and so forth. Ruth, like the Israelites at Sinai, did not really know what she was getting into. She didn't ask questions as to what sort of commandments she would need to follow, how many sets of dishes she would need, or whether she would need to purchase separate dishtowels for milk and meat. She simply wanted to be a part of the Jewish people, and she took upon herself a new identity.

It is these sorts of sources, along with talmudic discussions, that led Maimonides to his formulation of the requirements of conversion to Judaism. He says that when a person comes to convert, he or she should first be discouraged. We say: “Do you really know what you're getting into? Surely it's easier to be a non-Jew. You can eat whatever you want; you can act more or less as you wish.” However, if the potential convert nonetheless says, "No, this is what I really want," then we teach that person a sprinkling of the laws, some of the more difficult commandments and some of the easier ones—and then we accept him or her as a Jew. The convert goes to a Bet Din, a religious court, which needs only to consist of three laymen (unlike today’s requirement for a convert to attend a Bet Din consisting of three rabbis). Maimonides goes on to say that if after the conversion process, the convert becomes an idolater, he or she has the status of an apostate Jew. In other words: Once a Jew, always a Jew. Maimonides’ position finds different formulations in subsequent sources, such as in a responsum of the Tashbetz, R. Simeon b. Tzemah Duran (vol. 3, no. 44). There is no way to retroactively revoke a conversion, regardless of the actions of the convert.

One of the great authorities of the beginning of the early twentieth century was Rabbi Hayyim Ozer Grodjinsky, the author of the Ahiezer Responsa. Rabbi Grodjinksky argued that the basic requirement for a conversion to Judaism is a renunciation of the convert’s former religious identity. Therefore, a person converting to Judaism need not immediately take on all the commandments; he or she doesn’t even need to know all of the commandments! Indeed, in earlier generations there were no classes for would-be converts. Rabbi Akiva Eger, for example, regarded such classes as inappropriate, since one is not permitted to teach Torah to a non-Jew. Even if nowadays we do not hold such a position, it is clear that in the past, at any rate, such future converts were not expected to have a detailed knowledge of halakha.

The conversion situation today is completely different. In Israel, in Europe, and in the United States, Orthodox Batei Din are very stringent. They make the conversion process an obstacle course for a person who wants to become Jewish: One needs to go through long courses of instruction. One must be adopted, as it were, by an Orthodox Jewish family in order to experience what it means to have a Jewish life. One must prove one’s knowledge and commitment to all of the commandments. And, after all of this work, the would-be convert might be accepted. This process—without a guarantee of acceptance—takes many, many years. 

Let me relate a story. Some time ago in Israel in the city of Ashdod, a woman came to get a divorce, a get, from the local Bet Din. The judges of the Bet Din examined her case, and they noted that the woman had converted to Judaism almost ten years earlier. When asked whether she observed the commandments, the woman answered honestly, "No, not so much nowadays." One of the judges then said, "In that case, your conversion is retroactively annulled." He then wrote a long response, in which he gave all the reasons for his decision. He argued that since the woman’s conversion has been retroactively annulled, she was never Jewish. She therefore was never married by Jewish law and would not require a religious divorce. The woman was shocked. One can imagine how she, who for a decade had believed herself to be a Jewish person, raising a Jewish family, suddenly is told that she and her children are not Jewish—and never had been! The woman appealed this ruling before the rabbinic Supreme Court, which had dissenting opinions. Some of judges in this court overruled the Ashdod decision. But three of the judges confirmed it—and went even further than the original judge in Ashdod, calling into question all the conversions that had been done by the Bet Din of Ashdod where this woman had been converted. This Bet Din was established in 1994; thus fifteen years’ worth of conversions were now cast into doubt. We're talking about more than 10,000 people who had been converted over that period of time in the Bet Din of Rabbi Druckman. The rabbinic Supreme Court judges who wrote this opinion added something I believe is completely preposterous: They argued that one of the reasons the Bet Din was invalid was because Rabbi Druckman was an apostate Jew! Why? Because his position on the issue of conversion was a liberal one, one different from their own. Anybody who knows Rabbi Druckman personally knows that he's a wonderful, warm, pious, charismatic person.

The argumentation put forward by these three judges is problematic. First, slandering another person in a court ruling is unacceptable. Second, it is by no means clear whether one Bet Din can invalidate the ruling of another Bet Din. The reasons the judges gave were largely trivial and can be demolished by any basic rabbinic scholar. Moreover, the whole question of whether it's possible to retroactively annul a conversion is itself also questionable. Still, despite the holes in this ruling, it had an immediate and enormous impact on the Jewish community.

Ironically, this decision came to the public eye on Erev Shabbat of the Parashah in which we read of inui hager, the prohibition against afflicting a convert. Imagine families sitting around the Sabbath table not knowing whether they are Jewish or not; husbands uncertain whether they have lived for a decade with a non-Jewish wife; children who are educated in Jewish schools, not knowing whether they are Jewish or not; young women and men engaged to be married, wondering whether the Bet Din will accept them as Jews—or whether they will need to cancel their weddings. We are not talking about a single family. We're talking about thousands of families, perhaps even more than 10,000, who had undergone this whole process over more than a decade. Rabbi Druckman had been appointed by the government, by the Prime Minister's office to be in charge of the minhal ha-giyyur, the official government organization that deals with conversion. This government institution has two distinct courts that deal with conversion and are independent of the other Batei Din. One comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice, for personal status law; the other under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister's office. There has always been a tension between these two courts. The normal Batei Din always thought of themselves as the sole arbiters of Jewish law, and therefore they felt that they were a cut above the dayanim, the rabbinic judges, who dealt with conversion. Hence, there was political tension as a background to this particular problem; but it came to a head in this particular issue.

This conversion affair created a furor on the part of Modern Orthodoxy. Rav Amar, the head of the rabbinic Supreme Court, is the only person who has the authority to overrule this ruling, and he found himself in a very difficult situation. On the one hand, he was aware of the complete injustice of this court's ruling. On the other hand, he had gotten his appointment through the lobbying and support of the Hareidi community. He therefore felt, in a sense, subservient to that community and its leadership. After much hesitation, Rav Amar came out with a statement that he does recognize all these conversions. Nonetheless, the damage was done. The Hareidi community will not accept these converts or let their children marry Jews from families that include converts from the Bet Din in Ashdod.

In order to get to the heart of this issue, we need to understand what has happened to the rabbinic court system over the past few decades. Judges in the rabbinic court system are appointed by a special committee. This committee has been monopolized by the Hareidi community, since members of this community have a majority of votes. Unfortunately, everything in Israel is politicized—including religion. Over the past several years, this special committee has consistently appointed Hareidi rabbis to serve as dayanim. About a year ago, there were over a hundred young rabbis who had taken the examinations for the dayanut, and who were eligible for a position of dayan. There were only about six places available—and all of them went to Hareidim. This is also true of the previous period of some four years earlier. Representatives of the Modern Orthodox community went to the Supreme Court and argued that this discriminatory appointment process was unacceptable, and they demonstrated that there were other candidates who were no less eligible, according to their examination results. The Supreme Court then passed the issue over to the Minister of Justice, urging him to reconsider these nominations. The Minister did reconsider them, and eventually confirmed them all. After a great deal of pressure from the Modern Orthodox community, other positions were made available. Still, most of Israel’s Batei Din are ruled by dayanim that come from the Hareidi camp and who have very little general secular knowledge.

Many of you are acquainted with the agunah problem, in which women with recalcitrant husbands who refuse to grant them a get, or religious divorce, are “chained” in their unwanted marriages. We know that there are solutions to this problem, and there are solutions in Israel that are readily available because the law permits the exertion of social or monetary pressure to force a husband to give a get to his wife. The recalcitrant husband’s professional license may be taken away; his bank accounts may be frozen; he may even be jailed. However, the religious courts today do not use the authority vested in them because they are afraid of what is called a get me’useh, an enforced divorce. This seems strange, because according to halakha, one is permitted to force a person to give a divorce! Nevertheless, the dayanim, most of whom are functioning under the influence of Hareidi leadership, are not willing to use their authority because the way of Hareidi halakha is one of stringency, of humrot, rather than leniency.

In order to understand even more fully the situation that is emerging, let me relate to you yet another story. The head of the Bet Midrash at the Institute of Advanced Torah Studies at Bar Ilan University brought to my attention a ruling that was published by the rabbinic courts in Israel in the year 2000. The case was as follows: A young woman came to register for marriage. The Bet Din in Jerusalem— and we know who the dayanim are—looked into the case and noted that the bride-to-be’s mother had been a widow. This woman’s first husband had been blown up in a tank during the Yom Kippur War. In the Shulhan Arukh, in the section that deals with the question of agunot, it is stated that if a husband vanishes, and we do not know what happened to him (we do not find the majority of his body, or his face), then he is declared missing, and we cannot definitely declare him as dead. Even if we find his clothing, we cannot identify the corpse by this clothing because it is possible that somebody else borrowed those clothes. The court in Jerusalem that dealt with this subject stated that this former husband who had been blown up in a tank, and whose body had not survived, could not be definitively identified as being dead. Consequently, his wife was now presumed to have been an agunah, and since she had remarried, in accordance with the ruling of the army Bet Din, and subsequently gave birth to this daughter, her daughter has the status of a mamzeret, an illegitimate child. The 2000 ruling declared: “We advise [the mother of the bride-to-be] to go to such and such a court, a Bet Din that has dayanim who are God-fearing people!” Such a slur upon the military Batei Din is absolutely unconscionable.

The dayanim in this case were apparently unaware of what happens in a tank. When a tank is blown up, nothing much remains in that tank: maybe slivers of bone, maybe bits of charred flesh, stains of blood on the metal walls. The soldier's identity tags will probably survive, and there are always at least two, one which he has around his neck, and the other which he keeps in a little slot in his leather boot—but his body and his face will not survive. Unfortunately, I know this all too well because during the Lebanese War, I witnessed first-hand the picking up of the remnants of bodies in blown up tanks. I know how one climbs into a burnt tank, scrapes the walls, and picks up little bits and pieces, and puts them into plastic bags, and brings them for identification. One asks neighboring tank units to give additional testimony, and the bits of body parts that do remain are then examined for their DNA. This is the process of identification—and there is no doubt as to the identity of the killed soldiers. Apparently the dayanim in this “learned” Jerusalem Bet Din had absolutely no idea what the identification process entails. And what did they do? They declared the woman an agunah, and a possible adulteress, and her daughter as a possible mamzeret.

There are two areas in halakha where the law states very clearly that you always should take a lenient position: One of these is in the case of an agunah. Our sages went so far as to change the laws of testimony in the case of the agunah: One can rule on the basis of one single witness and not two. One can accept a woman's testimony, which is normally not accepted. One can receive hearsay as evidence, and so on and so forth. Maimonides states very clearly that even though it may look as though this is a serious issue of arayot, forbidden marriages, and one may justly ask why halakha should have gone so far to change the laws of testimony, it is in order to free an enchained woman, and to do this we must do everything we can to take the lenient path.

The other area in which the halakha goes out of its way to reduce a person's pain, anguish, and stigma, is, of course, the issue of mamzerut. The Talmud tells a story of a woman whose husband went abroad for a year. At the end of that year, the woman gave birth to a baby. How did she give birth to a baby if her husband was not there for a year? We are told to suspect that she was pregnant for the full twelve months. Now, medically this is not a likely scenario. Nevertheless, the rabbis, who were fully aware of this vast improbability, were willing to go so far in order not to create the stigmatic situation of a mamzer. Furthermore, one of the great authorities of the Gaonic period rules that if a man went away from his wife for eighteen months or two years, and she gives birth after that period of time, we should suspect that the husband came back secretly without telling anybody but his wife, unless he states clearly that he did not do so. In other words, the rabbis were willing to go to all sorts of lengths in order to save the child from the situation of mamzerut. Many generations of rabbis would find solutions for cases of suspected mamzerut. But what did this Jerusalem Bet Din do? In one single sentence, based on a complete lack of understanding of the situation in the army, they cast doubt upon the legitimacy and the validity of the ruling of the military Bet Din, they declared the woman an agunah, and her daughter a mamzeret.

Thus far, we have seen the way the Hareidi leadership has delegitimized the  conversion system of the rabbinate and the decisions of the military rabbinic courts. We have also seen how the Hareidi authorities have instituted halakhically unnecessary stringencies in cases of agunot and possible mamzerut. And again, just as an example of what is happening now: less than a year ago, at the onset of Sabbatical year, the Hareidi authorities created a situation that caused numerous Jews to transgress laws of Shemitah. Rav Kook came out with a ruling in 1912 to bypass the problems presented by the Sabbatical year, problems that would create enormous social and economic hardships, and probably endanger the continuity of the yishuv. He permitted the selling of the arable land in Israel to a non-Jew during the Shemitah year. This ruling, called heter mekhirah, has been accepted for nearly a century. Every seven years, the government of Israel sells the arable land of Israel to a non-Jew in order to avoid the problems of working the land during the Shemitah year.

For the recent Sabbatical year, for the very first time, the longstanding policy of Rav Kook was challenged. When the current Chief Rabbi was appointed through a majority that came about through the lobbying of the Hareidim, there was a condition made that he had to accept, namely that he would not sanction the heter mekhirah. Thus, when the Shemitah year came along, the Chief Rabbinate could no longer carry out this particular rabbinic procedure. You have to understand what the implications for the people of the State of Israel would be if there were no heter mekhirah. In the Diaspora, one may not be so acquainted with all the ins and outs of the Shemitah. But in Israel, without a heter mechirah, any produce that is grown during the Sabbatical year is deemed to have the status of kedushat shevi’it, the sanctity of the Sabbatical year. There are numerous laws regarding kedushat shevi’it. One cannot buy produce of the land in a regular way. One cannot pay for it in a normal fashion in a supermarket. One cannot even weigh this produce in the normal fashion. One cannot cook the food as one usually does. The leftover Sabbatical produce cannot be simply thrown away, but must be put in a separate receptacle and disposed of in a special fashion.

At least 80 percent of the population of Israel has no understanding of Shemitah. Whether Orthodox or non-Orthodox, most Jews haven't learned these complicated laws; Jews in Israel have previously functioned according to the heter mekhirah. The direct result of not having a heter mekhirah is that the majority of the population of Israel would be doing more and more sins on a daily basis. Every time they bought, every time they paid, every time they weighed, every time they cooked, every time they threw away leftover food products, there would be a ritual transgression connected in some way with kedushat shevi’it. This is a completely unacceptable situation.

Again, in this instance, there was a considerable outcry from the Modern Orthodox rabbis who felt that the halakha had been hijacked by the Hareidi leadership, and that the rabbinate was not functioning in the best interests of all Jews. We have here an anomalous situation. Non-Orthodox Jews are generally not interested in the rulings of the Chief Rabbinate. If fact, the Batei Din and their rabbis all too often act in such a way that they repel many non-Orthodox people. The truth is that many Orthodox Jews would also prefer not to have to go through the Hareidi Chief Rabbinate’s procedures. The Hareidi community itself does not need the Chief Rabbinate; it has its own community rabbis and local Batei Din. So the only people who are truly affected by the State Batei Din and Chief Rabbinate are members of the Modern Orthodox community. Ironically, this community is not serviced by the Chief Rabbinate, whose stance on most issues reflects a Hareidi outlook and a rejection of Modern Orthodox ideology and halakhic principles.

In fact, Modern Orthodoxy in Israel feels itself beleaguered on all sides. It has been marginalized and delegitimized by the Hareidim, while at the same time, the non-Orthodox community and governmental authorities are not exactly friendly toward it. It was only a few months ago that the Minister of Education, Professor Yuli Tamir, declared that there would be no funding for the Sherut Le’umi program, a national service program for Modern Orthodox women in lieu of army service. The program would need to be cancelled. Over two and a half thousand Sherut Le’umi women, who every year for the past many years have been serving the community in a remarkable fashion, in hospitals, in schools, in all walks of life, would no longer be able to function. Fortunately, in this particular case, there was sufficient pressure brought about within the governmental framework by relevant parties that at the last moment they agreed to find the necessary budget. Although this problem was averted, it is clear that the Modern Orthodox community and religious worldview is being attacked from all sides.

One should bear in mind that this problem is not only an Israeli one. The Council of European Rabbis met a few months ago, after the scandalous conversion affair in Ashdod became publicized. These rabbis came to a decision that only those Batei Din that are sanctioned by the Edah Hareidit, headed by Rabbi Eliashiv, would be acceptable to them. Therefore any conversion that was carried out by a Bet Din that was not recognized by the Hareidim and their leadership would not be recognized in Europe. Many American rabbis are also taking increasingly stringent positions on conversion. Hence when any Diaspora Jew comes to Israel with a document of conversion, if the rabbi who was involved in the conversion is not on the “approved list,” he/she will find himself/herself with considerable problems. Children will not be able to register for marriage. There will be a question as to their status as a Jew.

 Basically, this issue threatens Modern Orthodox society all over the globe.

To some extent, we, the Modern Orthodox, are at fault for these woes. We are at fault because we have not been sufficiently stalwart in our own convictions. We have not given our Modern Orthodox rabbis sufficient support. We have not been sufficiently unified, unlike the Hareidi community which functions largely as a unified mass, politically and in other ways. We are not proud enough of our own convictions, and perhaps we are not always certain that our ideology is the correct one. We need to be much more definite that our way of halakha, our way of religious life, is a completely legitimate one, one which should be supported and confirmed and affirmed. We do not have strong, authoritarian leadership, perhaps because we are too individualistic. We have to support those institutions that propagate Modern Orthodox ideology. I think that Bar-Ilan University is probably the largest single organization or institution in this world with an ideology that promotes Modern Orthodoxy. That does not mean that all the students are Orthodox; not even all the teachers are. But its ideology is one of inclusiveness, one of welcoming everybody within our congregation, one in which everybody should and can feel at home, in a pluralistic, religiously oriented environment. We need to develop a cadre of learned and well-educated independent-thinking rabbis, who will lead their congregations along this path of "client-friendly" halakha, and whose voice will be heard even more strongly and forcefully as a counterbalance to the Hareidi juggernaut.

We, at the Institute of Advanced Torah Studies, at Bar Ilan University, are involved in just such an initiative, through training and placing brilliant young academically qualified students with a rich Torah background in key communities, hoping they will be models to be replicated throughout even more congregations. Bet Morashah in Jerusalem is involved in similar such activities on a lesser scale. Such initiatives require massive support in order to succeed and really stamp a new cultural imprint on Modern Orthodox society. If we do not support organizations such as Bar-Ilan, and Tzohar, an organization of over 400 independent Modern Orthodox rabbis in Israel (and such efforts as the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals and the International Rabbinic Fellowship in the United States)—if we do not give them the full and massive support they require, then we will not be able to confront with strength and with authority the challenges that are being placed before us by the monopolizing Hareidi leadership which is marginalizing and delegitimizing us, our congregations, our leaders, our schools, our courts, and our religious authority. For must we really buy and eat only food products with a Hareidi hekhsher? Isn’t the hekhsher of rabbanut Yerushalayim equally acceptable for us? The Hareidi community is bombarding us with “kosher” cell phones, and is deciding which kind of music we are permitted to hear. Avraham Fried will no longer receive their hekhsher, and his discs will be banned! Must women be told the absolute requirements for the length of their sleeves and the height of their collars?

It lies with us, the people, the grassroots to create a new awareness of the dangers, to confront those dangers, and to support a leadership that will be able to bring us out into the right and proper light. Then we will be able to have a religious leadership that will be welcoming, inclusive, a leadership that will not repel people, pushing them away from Orthodoxy, but one that will draw them in. And, as I reiterate, it is up to the grassroots community to create the infrastructures, whatever they be, to ensure that future generations will be able to successfully confront this major challenge for the Modern Orthodox community.