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In the modern period, several distinguished thinkers have denied that there is such a thing as Judaic values. For them, Judaism is so radically legalistic that it does not recognize any ethical demands that are not grounded in halakha. Quite aside from this philosophical position, there is a prevalent attitude in the contemporary observant Jewish community that regards the sole goal of religious life as adherence to halakha.

In this article, I argue that an approach to Judaism that is limited to observance of Jewish law is inconsistent with numerous classical, medieval, and modern rabbinic sources. Indeed, these sources emphasise and present perspectives on life that transcend concern with halakhic rules. An approach to life based on Torah ideas carries serious implications, both for character development and for standards of behavior that complement the demands of halakha.

In the final section of the article, I expand on these sources to elucidate the pivotal importance of outlook, character development and ethical and spiritual behavior for a Torah life. While this would be true in any generation, it is all the more crucial that we address these concerns in our own time. The relative neglect of these matters in Jewish scholarship and Jewish life is highly regrettable, and the need to redress that neglect is essential.

Reducing Judaism to a Legal System

In his book, Judaism, Human Values and the Jewish State, the late Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz contends that Judaism does not “consist of a specific ethic.” Leibowitz argues that Judaism produced no ethical theory of its own and “made no pretences of representing a specific moral point of view.”[1] According to Leibowitz’s thesis, Judaism consists of halakha—the body of commandments that are to be observed for the sole reason that God commanded them and without appeal to any underlying or overarching value system.

The position that Judaism is defined exclusively by the legal decisions of halakha was also embraced by such an eclectic range of scholars as Baruch Spinoza, Moses Mendelssohn, Immanuel Kant, and Marvin Fox. [2]

The limitation of Judaic norms to halakha, far from being confined to the writings of philosophers, is a pervasive feature of contemporary Jewish religious life. The late Rabbi Yehuda Amital contrasts this common attitude with the religious approach that was prevalent in his youth:

We live in an era in which educated religious circles like to emphasize the centrality of Halakha, and commitment to it, in Judaism. I can say that in my youth in pre-Holocaust Hungary, I didn't hear people talking all the time about "Halakha." People conducted themselves in the tradition of their forefathers, and where any halakhic problems arose, they consulted a rabbi.... The impression created is that there is nothing in Torah but that which exists in Halakha, and that in any confrontation with the new problems that arise in modern society, answers should be sought exclusively in books of Halakha.[3]

R. Amital deplores a commonplace equation of Judaism with the observance of halakha. This attitude sometimes manifests itself in subtle ways. Rabbi Micha Berger notes that, even those diligent students who show up for “Mussar Seder” in yeshiva, often choose the Laws of Lashon haRa as their topic of study. Such subject matter, although of undeniable importance, is focused on halakhic behavior rather than character development. The emphasis is on behaving in accordance with Jewish law rather than developing an attitude toward life that is rooted in Torah sources.[4]

Rabbi Eugene Korn[5] presents an insightful explanation for the development of this attitude within the observant Jewish community. R. Korn notes that, over the generations, Jews have been threatened by Greek and Roman culture, the Church, the Enlightenment, rationalism and post-modernism. The Jewish community responded with a reaffirmation of their commitment that generated an antipathy toward explaining the underlying values behind specific mitzvot as well as more general philosophical reflection on the purpose of God’s covenant with the Jewish people. The latter pursuits were deemphasised in favor of a focus on the importance of authority. Historical explanations aside, it behoves us to ask whether this approach to Judaism is consistent with the approach of Torah authorities throughout the generations.

In 1942, Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler delivered a provocative talk at the Gateshead Kollel. Central to R. Dessler’s presentation was the thesis that a Jew can observe all the laws of the Shulhan Arukh and still only reach “the aleph of Judaism.” R. Dessler’s student, Rabbi Aryeh Carmel, testifies that this assertion stimulated a good deal of heated discussion. In this next section, I will discuss some of the sources that I believe underlie the position that Judaism requires us to transcend observance of the laws of the Shulhan Arukh.

The Centrality of Judaic Values: Worldview, Character, and Behavior

A proper understanding of Jewish sources reveals a concern, not only with proper conduct, but with the development of an appropriate worldview. In a pertinent verse in Sefer Mishlei, we are told that “Without a vision, the people perish.”[6] Indeed, a true understanding of Jewish tradition is one that includes a vision for the Jewish People and for the world.

The importance of outlook and attitude can be understood through analysis of the Rambam’s statements regarding the importance of the mitzvah of tsedaka. In Hilkhot Matanot Aniyim, the Rambam writes: “We are obligated to be meticulous with the mitzva of charity more than with all [other] positive commandments.”[7]

As Rabbi Judah Goldberg has noted,[8] there seems to be no halakhic basis for Rambam's assertion that one must take more care over the mitzvah of tsedaka. Halakha does not distinguish between the legal force of the obligation of tsedaka and that of other positive commandments. The actual basis of the Rambam’s position can be seen from his affirmation that “tsedaka is a mark of the righteous descendants of our father Abraham.” The Rambam quotes from Sefer Bereshit, where Hashem reveals the reason why He singled out Abraham for a special relationship:

For I have known him in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of God to do righteousness [“tsedaka”] and justice, so that God may bring upon Avraham that which He has spoken of him. [9]

We see in from this that the Rambam’s basis for his emphasis on the mitzvah of tsedaka is not based on its legal status but through identification of tsedaka as fundamental to the Jewish mission and to our identity as the progeny of Abraham.

In modern times, the importance of developing a Judaic philosophy through which one understands and evaluates one’s life experience was emphasised by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch:

The ideal of a perfect personal and national life, along with an understanding of the ultimate goal of all human development, are to be derived from the knowledge of the Torah. It is this ideal and this understanding that, first of all, must become the standard by which to measure and evaluate the modern non-Jewish world with all its spiritual, moral, and social phenomena that mark the lives of men and nations.[10]

As Dayan Isidor Grunfeld explains, Rabbi Hirsch understood that such philosophies should be extrapolated from halakhic texts.[11] In a similar vein, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik supports the development of what he calls “reconstructionist explanations” to discern what religious ideas are presented through the laws. Although R. Soloveitchik rejects the legitimacy of asking about the reason that Hashem gave us particular commandments or even how observance of mitzvoth achieves its desired effect, he does endorse the quest to find the meaningfulness of mitzvoth for the individual and society. According to R. Soloveitchik, Torah-observant Jews should not suffice with compliance to halakhic obligation but should ask themselves the question: “How can I integrate and assimilate this mitzvah into my religious consciousness and outlook?”[12]

On other occasions, R. Soloveitchik emphasised the importance of basing one’s worldview on an understanding of Tanakh. The Rav’s dismay at the failure to read the Bible in this way is instructive:

Many Jews don’t look to the Bible for guidance, and its spiritual message, so indispensable for man today, is completely ignored... the most beautiful aspect of the Bible is its Weltanschauung, its world view, its spiritual outlook upon both the world and man.[13]

The approach exemplified by Rambam and advocated by R Hirsch, R Soloveitchik and others is that Judaism teaches a philosophy of life which, while sometimes grounded in halakhic texts, is not limited to commitment to their specific imperatives. The development of a Judaic worldview impacts on another important facet of Torah life—character development. In the understanding of our Sages, Jews are not only expected to develop a worldview but also to develop certain virtuous dispositions.

Indeed, in Shabbat 113b, Abba Shaul is quoted as emphasising the imperative to emulate the characteristics of Hashem: “Be like Him! Just as He is gracious and compassionate, you shall be gracious and compassionate!”[14]

This understanding is supported by the Rambam in Hilkhot De’ot, where he explains the mitzvah of walking in the way of God to require an emulation of His attributes. He writes that this involves developing the characteristics of grace, mercy, and holiness. The Rambam continues:

In a similar manner, the prophets called God by other titles: "Slow to anger," "Abundant in kindness," "Righteous," "Just," "Perfect," "Almighty," "Powerful," and the like. [They did so] to inform us that these are good and just paths. A person is obligated to accustom himself to these paths and [to try to] resemble Him to the extent of his ability.[15]

These rulings are consistent with Rambam’s writing in Hilkhot Teshuvah. In a statement that explicitly negates the notion that Judaism is concerned with behavior alone, the Rambam writes:

You mustn’t say that teshuvah (repentance) only applies to sins that involve action such as promiscuity and robbery and theft. Rather, just as a man needs to do teshuvah for sins involving actions, so too he needs to search to identify his evil attributes. He must do teshuvah for anger and for hatred and for jealousy and for frivolity and for the pursuit of money and honor and for the pursuit of foods and the like. He must do teshuvah for all of these.[16]

The character traits listed by the Rambam do not violate any particular negative transgression. Nevertheless, as Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein argues, the fact that the Rambam uses this term to describe them suggests that, to the extent that they are corrosive to one’s optimal spiritual personality, they are sinful.[17]

The same understanding was advanced in the sixteenth century by Rabbi Eliezer Azkiri in his Sefer Hareidim. In his explanation of the mitzvah to walk in the ways of Hashem, R. Azkiri cites the rabbinic interpretation that one should emulate the merciful and gracious attributes of God and that one should adopt the golden mean with regard to all character traits.[18]

According to the Vilna Gaon, the development of appropriate character traits is not only essential but foundational to our lives as religious Jews. In Even Shelemah, the Gaon is quoted as comparing the relationship of Torah to the soul to that of rain and the ground. Just as rain causes the growth of whatever was planted prior to the rain, so too “Torah causes what is in his heart to grow”:

If what is in his heart is good, his fear [of God] will grow; if what is in his heart is a “root sprouting poison weed and wormwood” then the bitterness that is in his head will grow. As it is written, “the righteous will walk in it, and sinners will stumble in it” (Hoshea 14:10, as explained by Hazal), and as it is written, “To those who go to the right side of it, it is a medicine of life; to those who go to its left, it is a deadly poison,” (Shabbat 88b)... One who is lazy in weeding out an evil middah is not helped by all the legal fences and protections that he practices. For with any disease which is not cured from within...even the fence of the Torah, which protects and saves, will be useless because of his laziness.[19]

The Vilna Gaon’s position, based on classical sources in Hazal, carries a remarkable message! If a person whose character traits are desirable learns Torah, he becomes even greater as a result. But learning Torah without attention to character refinement will simply produce more forceful personalities with inappropriate character traits.

As Rabbi Soloveitchik explains, developing appropriate character traits also impacts on the performance of mitzvoth:

When a person visits the sick, he must join in with their pain; when he comforts the mourners, he must mourn with them in his heart; and when he gives a person charity, he must bear that person’s burden and empathize with his pain.[20]

Elsewhere, the Rav gives homiletical expression to this approach when he discusses Hashem’s choice of the Patriarchs and His choice of the Jewish nation at Sinai. The patriarchal covenant is compared to the process of ibud, or treating parchment in order to render it suitable for being used as a Torah scroll. The Sinai covenant is compared to the actual writing of the letters on the scroll. The meaning of this analogy is that, just as the letters of the scroll cannot be written without ibud, the Jew cannot properly observe the laws of the Sinai covenant, unless he performs ibud on his personality—that is to say, he develops a character that is modeled on that of the Patriarchs. The Rav explains that this ibud involves efforts to control desire and passion as well as the development of empathy and compassion toward others.[21] From Rav Soloveitchik’s discourse we learn that, in seeking to develop a character in line with Jewish norms, we must model ourselves, not only on the divine attributes, but also on the characteristics of our biblical ancestors.

Thus far, we have discussed the importance of developing both a Judaic worldview and a character modeled on our understanding of the divine characteristics and the examples set by our biblical role models. Both worldview and character relate primarily to the internal world of the intellect and emotion. However, the relevance of Jewish values extends beyond these realms and into the sphere of behavior. Our sources are clear that a Jew must not suffice with ensuring his conduct is consistent with Jewish law. In addition to halakhic compliance, he must behave in a way consistent with broader values.

Marc Shapiro offers anecdotal support for this proposition from an encounter he had with a pre-eminent sage of the late twentieth century. Shapiro relates that he once went to Gateshead to interview Rabbi Betzalel Rakov, the Gateshead Rov, about the latter’s relationship with Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg. Prior to the meeting, Shapiro visited the local Jewish book store. He was informed that, if he were a yeshiva student, he could purchase a book at a discounted price. When Shapiro later met with R. Rakov, he asked him if it would have been acceptable for one of the yeshiva students to buy the book at a discount and for Shapiro to reimburse him. R Rakov replied that there was certainly no halakhic problem involved. But he then added: “Yet it would not be ethical.”[22]

R. Rakov’s response would seem shocking to those who assume that Judaic norms can be reduced to halakhic rules. In actual fact, though, R. Rakov is following in the tradition of the Ramban who wrote explicitly that it would be impossible for the Torah to provide instruction for all morally challenging scenarios. The nature of moral decision-making is too dependent on the specific context and situation within which they occur to be defined, in all instances, by technical halakhic rulings. In many instances, the answer to a moral question cannot be answered by learning the relevant area of halakha but, rather, by the application of ethical principles to the given dilemma.[23]

Shapiro’s anecdote does not reveal R. Rakov’s understanding of the basis for his judgment that the behavior in question was unethical. As we shall see, however, our traditional literature presents a number of approaches to moral judgment that complement the Jew’s compliance with halakhic imperatives.

An intimation of such an approach can be found in Rabbenu Bahya’s introduction to Duties of the Heart. Quoting a wise man who had referred to wisdom in the hearts of the wise, he explains that “[t]he meaning is that wisdom is implanted in man’s nature, in his character and his powers of perception.” This intellectual stimulus, explains Rabbenu Bahya, helps man to praise truth, denigrate falsity, choose righteousness and condemn injustice. Rabbenu Bahya identifies a moral compass within the recesses of man’s intellect that he understands to be, in some instances, a reliable arbiter of correct behavior. It is not clear from this passage, however, that he understands that this can lead to moral judgements that are not already incorporated within halakha.

Such an approach, is, however, affirmed by the Rambam who writes in his Guide for the Perplexed that a person will be rewarded for doing what is right and honorable and punished for any deed that he understands to be improper, even if it is not specifically forbidden.[24] According to the Rambam, an action can be considered neutral from the vantage point of halakha but recognized by the moral intuition to be inappropriate behavior.

This understanding was affirmed in a different context by the thirteenth century talmudic commentator, Rabbi Menachem Meiri. In explanation of the Talmud’s requirement that human beings be treated with the reverence due to a Torah scroll, the Meiri writes that humans are endowed with the capacity for discerning, with their own minds, obligations that are not explicitly stated in the Torah.[25] Hence, it is Meiri’s view that human beings possess an innate moral sense with which they can discern ethical imperatives and that, amongst them, there are obligations that are not required by halakha.

In more modern times, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch writes at some length about the moral law that he understands to be implanted in every man. He often writes of “the conscience which is embedded in every human beast” and he stresses that this human conscience is a manifestation of the voice of God.[26] For R Hirsch, therefore, while revelation is encapsulated in the obligations and strictures of halakha it is also manifest in the moral conscience.

We see from the foregoing discussion that, according to an important strand of Judaic thought, a person is expected to use his moral intuition as well as his halakhic knowledge when deciding how to behave. Some of our authorities explicitly recognize this intuitive capacity as a receptivity of human beings to the wisdom of Hashem.

For many authorities, however, the source of Judaic values lies more in Torah sources than the moral intuition.[27] Although the knowledge of halakha is a non-negotiable for the committed Jew, it is necessary to learn both halakhic and aggadic texts with an eye for their underlying values.

One concept that has been used as a foundation for Jewish norms beyond halakhic compliance is the notion of imitatio Dei. In the Gemara in Sotah, the rabbis interpret the imperative to walk in the way of God[28] as mandating the performance of benevolent actions such as clothing the naked, visiting the sick, comforting mourners, and burying the dead.[29] As discussed above, the concept of imitatio Dei was understood by the Rambam and others to require the development of dispositions. Nevertheless, the Rambam also adhered to the interpretation requiring certain modes of behavior on this basis:

This commandment is also repeated in the verse: “Walk after God your Lord.” This too is explained as emulating the good deeds and fine attributes which are used to allegorically describe God, Who is immeasurably exalted over everything.[30]

Another key concept in the understanding of Judaic norms is the paradoxical obligation of lifnim mishurat haDin (going beyond the letter of the law).[31] This principle is applied to the returning of lost property and helping a stranded donkey driver load his donkey,[32] the paying of compensation for a loss caused only indirectly,[33] and returning a purchased parcel of land to the original owner who had reason to regret having sold it.[34]

That this obligation is of the utmost importance can be demonstrated by reference to the statement of Rav Yochanan, who cites the failure to go beyond the letter of the law as the reason for the destruction of Jerusalem.[35] We see from this the concept of lifnim mishurat hadin that even a generation that complies with all the regulations of Jewish law can be found so guilty as to be deserving of the destruction of the Temple.[36]

According to the Ramban, the requirement to act lifnim mishurat hadin is required by the biblical verse instructing us to “do what is upright and good in the eyes of God.” Rabbi Simcha Zissel Broide, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Hevron, explains the Ramban’s approach as requiring an extrapolation of general principles of behavior based on an in-depth study of mitzvoth:

“And do the right and the good” is not a specific mitzva but a general mitzva: to delve deeply into the understanding of mitzvot and the reasons behind them; to comprehend and contemplate and appreciate, through the mitzvot that we are commanded to perform, also those obligations that are not explicit. We must develop an understanding of what is really God’s desire from us, and what is good and right in His eyes.[37]

Hence, from the Ramban’s perspective, legal imperatives legislated by the Torah constitute a non-exhaustive list of examples of how the ideals of Judaism can be realised. Study of the underlying principles facilitates their application beyond the scope of halakhic observance.

The acceptance of an extra-halakhic norm in Judaism is the unmistakable conclusion from numerous rabbinic sources. According to Hazal,[38] a person who fails to pray for another in need is categorized as a sinner. Although such a person would not be in violation of any specific halakhic rule, his insensitivity and inaction warrants such a description. Indeed, according to the Talmud, taking a loaf that a pauper was about to pick up, raising one’s hand to strike another, and making a vow in God’s name even though one fulfills it, stigmatize the perpetrator as wicked even though there is no violation of halakha.[39]

In the ninth century, Rabbenu Bahya ibn Paquda wrote Duties of the Heart, one of the great classics of Jewish ethics and spirituality. In the middle of his Gate of Service of God, he asserts that halakha “divides human actions into three categories: commands, prohibitions, and permitted acts.” However, in his ensuing elaboration, Rabbenu Bahya explains that those actions that might be regarded from a technical perspective as permitted are, from the vantage point of a broader Judaic ethic, either obligatory or prohibited.

If one is engaging in a (halakhically permissible) activity in order to fulfill his basic needs, he is, in fact, fulfilling a commandment.[40] To engage excessively in that which is technically permitted—whether it is drinking, eating, wearing extravagant dress, living in overly large homes, talking excessively or being overly preoccupied with money and material possessions—is contrary to many principles found in Sefer Mishlei and to the spirit of certain passages in Sefer Devarim. They are, states Rabbenu Bahya, contemptible because they bring a person to engage in that which is prohibited. If, on the other hand, a person takes less physical sustenance than he needs then, if he is motivated by piety, his behavior is appropriately classified as a mitzvah. On the other hand, if one takes less than necessary in order to save money or in order that he be praised, then this is, in fact forbidden.

On the basis of this analysis, Rabbenu Bahya affirms that “it is now evident that all human actions are either commanded or prohibited.” Rabbenu Bahya, when discussing the technical legal status of human actions, had affirmed the existence of the category of the permitted. He now insists that even that which is halakhically permissible must be considered in the light of broader axiological considerations to be either praiseworthy or reprehensible.[41]

For the Rambam, too, The norms of the Torah extend beyond the obligations and prescriptions of halakha. In Mishneh Torah, he rules that it is permissible to depart from the land of Israel to learn Torah or to engage in commerce. Indeed, it is permissible to dwell outside the land of Israel indefinitely in the circumstance of a severe famine. After recording this ruling, the Rambam continues:

Even though it is permitted to leave, it is not pious behavior, for behold, Machlon and  Kilyon were two giants of their generation and they left out of great distress and they incurred destruction from God.[42]

Hence, according to the Rambam, leaving in such circumstances is halakhically permissible but could be so inappropriate as to warrant premature death! [43]

Congruous with this passage is the Rambam’s ruling that “a person who separates from the ways of the community” is “as if he were not from [the Jewish People]” and “has no share in the World to Come” even if “he has not committed any transgressions.”[44]

It seems remarkable that the Rambam considers excluding someone from the World to Come even though he has not committed any transgressions! However, this position is well understood when Judaism is seen as not merely avoidance of transgression and observance of precepts but also as an existential bond to the Jewish nation and its destiny. Indeed, Rav Soloveitchik has referred to this passage as an example of the Rambam’s ascribing importance to the covenant established amongst the Jewish People through their common experience in Egypt, in addition to the covenant that was forged at Sinai.[45]

Perhaps the most famous affirmation of the unacceptability of a minimal compliance with Jewish law is found in Ramban’s celebrated commentary to the mitzvah of kedoshim tiheyu (be holy). In this passage, Ramban claims that a person could “indulge in perversion with his wife, or many wives, and revel in wine, eat meat to excess, and use foul language to his heart’s content” and still not be in violation of halakha as “there is no prohibition against this explicit in the Torah.” In a revealing phrase, the Ramban explains that such a person would be in the category of a “scoundrel with the permission of the Torah.”[46] This means that a person can live in a way that is in accordance with the regulations found in the Torah and still behave in such a way that, from the perspective of the value system of the Torah, is deeply reprehensible.[47]

In his Shaarei Teshuvah, Rabbenu Yonah listed the different categories of people who do not merit a share in the next world (considered the most severe of all punishments). Included in those categories are those who cannot receive the divine presence, namely, scoffers, liars, fawners, and talebearers.[48] Despite the exceptional condemnation allocated to the perpetrators of such behavior, it is striking that only the last of these practices is explicitly forbidden by the Torah.[49]

In the nineteenth century, Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin contrasted a life of compliance with halakha with the more exemplary conduct of our forefathers:

And this was the praise of the Patriarchs, that besides their being tzaddikim, hassidim, and lovers of God in the most perfect way, they were also yesharim; that is, they conducted themselves toward others, even toward despicable idol worshippers, with love; they cared about providing for their benefit, as that keeps the world in existence. Thus, we see that our patriarch Avraham prayed for the city of Sedom, even though he hated them and their king with the utmost enmity due to their evil ways, as is clear from his statement to the king of Sedom; still, he sought their survival… For this reason, the book of Bereishit, which delineates the actions of the Patriarchs, is known as sefer ha-yashar.

According to the Netziv, the Patriarchs were not merely righteous but were upright (yashar). Far from being limited to righteous behavior, they behaved with love and care toward all human beings.[50]

Judaic Values and Contemporary Jewry

In the previous section, we have demonstrated that there is a pervasive theme in the writings of Torah authorities to the effect that Judaism requires us to develop a worldview based on Judaic sources. We have argued that such a worldview carries consequences for our approach to character development. Both the character traits that Jews must develop and the worldview that they must adopt carry implications for how they must behave. In this section, we will explain the significance of this emphasis for the Jewish religious life. Although these areas of normative Judaism are essential for any generation in history, we will argue that they are particularly vital for the current Jewish generation. This importance renders the neglect of these areas all the more regrettable and the need to redress that neglect, all the more essential.

Rabbi Yehuda Levi has compared one who carefully studies halakha but fails to develop a Torah worldview to a person who drives very carefully and takes good care of his car but forgets to check whether he is on the correct road and going in the right direction.[51] This analogy is most apt and we will have more to say later on in explanation of the religious significance of an individual’s worldview. Before doing so, however, I would like to apply R. Levy’s analogy to the Jewish community. As rabbis and religious communal leaders, we rightly seek to promote the observance of halakha. But, in the light of the sources discussed in the previous section, we must also develop an understanding of what the values (other than keeping halakha) a Jewish community should represent. Jewish leaders in every generation must develop a vision for their community—a vision that is based on a sound understanding of Torah sources. It is essential to teach the Jewish community which road we must travel on and in which direction.

Indeed, it is often this very vision that is lacking in our own generation. In Seymour Fox’s 1973 essay, “Toward a General Theory of Jewish Education,” he argues that issues such as insufficient hours of study and a lack of qualified personnel and curricula were really symptoms of a deeper problem: the lack of a vision of what should be achieved through Jewish education.

“In short,” writes Fox:

I maintain that the most urgent problem facing Jewish education today is its lack of        purpose and, consequently, blandness... [I]t is my feeling that the investigation of most forms of Jewish education, except for the ultra-Orthodox, would reveal that their curricula and methods of teacher training bear little resemblance to what the leadership of the given movement, school, or institution claims to be central in its conception of education.[52]

The need for a strong focus on outlook and values in contemporary Jewish education can be further substantiated through reference to the attitude of contemporary Jews toward charity and social justice. In the course of this article, the importance of loving kindness from a Torah perspective has been supported by reference to the raison d’être of the Jewish People, the goal and imperative of imitatio Dei and the example set by the Biblical patriarchs. Despite this, the bestowal of loving kindness is amongst those mitzvoth for which halakha does not define a set measure.[53] This means that the extent to which one is focused on giving to others, and, in many respects, the way in which one does so are not determined by the halakha but must be decided based on Judaic values. As such, a significant facet of a Judaic outlook would be concerned with our attitude toward these issues.

It is, therefore, of great concern that contemporary Jews do not seem to have heard this message. Commenting on the efforts to secure Jewish continuity in England over the last two decades, Dr. Jonathan Boyd, Executive Director of the Jewish Institute for Policy Research in London, reports a worrying state of affairs. Although many Jews are involved in supporting Israel and fighting anti-Semitism, far fewer are regularly involved in charity work. Indeed, the research shows that over a third of Jewish students polled disagreed with the idea that being Jewish is about volunteering or donating to charity or supporting social justice causes. While the aforementioned activities certainly do not amount to an adequate expression of Judaism, the failure to identify them as core aspects of a Torah life suggest that Jewish leaders and educators have failed to communicate this core Jewish value. Boyd perceptively expresses concern about a generation of Jews who seem to have been shaped more by the negative forces that seek to do damage to the Jewish People than by Judaism’s own positive internal values system.[54]

On the other side of the pond, the evidence suggests that young Jews in the United States do, indeed, engage in charitable activity. However, the very same reports record that the vast majority of such Jews fail to connect such volunteerism to Jewish identity or Jewish values.[55]

Given the nature of many of the programmes advanced under the banner of “tikkun olam,” this should not come as a surprise. Often, such projects lack any distinctive Judaic basis and simply resemble what is being done by people of conscience the world over. If this is the case, it is difficult to see how such activities, while valuable in their own right, can constitute a meaningful expression of distinctive Jewish values. As Dr. Yehudah Mirsky has noted, humanitarianism, social justice and ecological advocacy are not distinctively “Jewish” as such. Mirsky writes:

[E]ncouraging young people who are otherwise indifferent to or estranged from Jewish life to engage in humanitarian work with no distinctive—let alone transformative—Jewish dimensions other than the label "Tikkun Olam" will strengthen neither Jewish identities nor Jewish life. [56]

Indeed, if Jewish educators and communal leaders are to engage contemporary Jewry with the substance of Jewish tradition, what is necessary is not the promotion of a bland social justice agenda. Rather, there is a need for a serious exploration of the way in which Judaic values and Jewish life can illuminate problems and potential solutions to issues of broad human concern that might otherwise go undiscovered.[57]

Our recognition of the disparity between Torah values and the outlook of contemporary Jews compounds our conviction that we must address the question of how we can model an educational and communal structure to actualise a vision for a community representing Jewish values. In accordance with the ideology of Torah im derekh erets, the Torah’s value system can and should be applied to the whole range of worldly endeavours.[58] Contemporary Jews must be taught that Torah has relevance to all areas of human life and should not be seen as confined to technical halakhic questions. In this respect too, our generation often falls short. In explaining what he sees as one of the main causes of defection from Judaism, Rabbi Berel Wein identifies our failure to articulate a national vision:

The Torah [has ideas], but someone has to articulate them. What’s our attitude toward the poorer sections of society? Toward the Arabs? Toward anything?... We don’t say that we are going to fix the world; we don’t say those things even though it is part of our heritage, even though that’s part of Torah.[59]

If we neglect to articulate these values, people will see Judaism as unconnected to the issues and realities with which they grapple. At worst, this results in a failure to engage the present generation of Jews. At best, those who are faithful to Judaism will be divided personalities, unable to integrate Judaic wisdom with their worldly activity.

We have argued throughout this article that a focus on the observance of halakha must be balanced by a concentration on the Judaic worldview, character and behavior that extends beyond compliance with Jewish law. Nothing could be further from the intent of this writer than the claim that values provide an alternative to adherence to halakha. On the contrary, a focus on Jewish values should reinforce halakhic observance. Our success in inspiring our students and communities to keep halakha will be enhanced immensely if we develop and disseminate a consciousness of the underlying values of Jewish laws. Professor of psychology and education Aharon Hersh Fried, has written cogently in this vein. With regard to the halakhot relating to appropriate speech, Fried emphasises that children will observe these laws when an appreciation is developed for their underlying values:

We must teach our children to respect others and to refrain from disparaging others. Much time and effort is spent on teaching our children the issurim involved in speaking lashon haRa. Thus we teach them that there are 16 lavim involved in every lashon haRa.   But that is not enough. Unless and until we teach children to respect other people’s privacy, and unless we teach them that sticking our proverbial noses into other people’s business is inherently disgusting, they will not cease to find “heteirim” for speaking lashon haRa, if only for the most “juicy pieces.”[60]

While Fried refers to the education of children, the same principle holds for our own efforts to adhere to halakhic strictures as well as to our endeavours in educating and guiding adults toward mitzvah observance.

This approach is effective in reinforcing halakhic commitment as it elicits a sense of the meaningfulness of the observance of a given mitzvah. However, the significance of the appreciation of the spiritual meaning of the mitzvot is not confined to its resulting in a more punctilious observance of mitzvot. R Soloveichik has emphasised the intrinsic importance of avodah she-ba-lev—worship of the heart—in every religious act:

The ritual as well as moral actions must be endowed with emotional warmth, love and joy and the mechanical act converted into a living experience. Of course, all this unattainable if there is no message to deliver, no idea to suggest, no enriching meaning. In order to offer God my heart and soul, in order to serve Him inwardly, one thing is indispensible- understanding, the involvement of the logos.[61]

The Rav explains that an appreciation of the spiritual meaning of a mitzvah is essential, not only as a means of decreasing the rate of halakhic infraction but as facilitating the passion and spiritual connection that should characterise our avodat Hashem.

While these considerations are relevant to every generation, there is reason to believe that they are particularly essential in our own time. Writing about educational priorities in Hareidi schools, Jonathan Rosenbloom has warned that

[I]n our headlong pursuit of covering ever greater amounts of material in the classroom— which is too often the criterion by which our educational institutions compete—we have come to view middos development or explaining the deeper meaning of the mitzvos as something not quite serious, something "ba'al teshuvish."[62]

A failure to concentrate on such elements can lead to an erosion of halakhic commitment. In her study of formerly Orthodox Jews who had left the path of halakhic observance, Faranak Margolese enquired as to the level of spiritual enrichment that such Jews had experienced in the context of halakhic practice. Only 24 percent of respondents felt that their community had fostered spirituality while 56 percent declined to agree that “Orthodox Judaism will make you more spiritual.”[63] What this shows is that our community has been unsuccessful in communicating to its members the spiritual richness that can be found in a halakhic observance based on an appreciation of its underlying meaning. The Jewish poet, Roger Kamenetz, relates that a young woman once told him that “to her, Judaism is an old man saying no.”[64] Unless there is an appreciation for the positive values expressed through Jewish practice, halakhic observance will often seem like a set of arbitrary restrictions, dissociated from its true spiritual richness.

Having reflected on the importance of defining communal and individual objectives based on Torah values and understanding mitzvot in such a way that facilitates a committed and passionate observance, we must now reflect on the duty to measure one’s behavior against the standards of Jewish ethics. Referring to both Rav Amital’s observations of the contemporary Jewish scene and the Ramban’s aforementioned condemnation of an unspiritual life within halakhic boundaries, Marc Shapiro has commented insightfully on the occurrence of legal scandals amongst those purporting to be observant Jews:

A major problem we have is that it is often the case that all sorts of halakhic justifications can be offered for these illegal activities. One whose only focus is on halakhah, without any interest in the broad ethical underpinnings of Judaism, and the Ramban’s conception of Kedoshim Tihyu, can entirely lose his bearings and turn into a “scoundrel with Torah license.[65]

Shapiro’s comments are confirmed by Rosenblum’s description of the low priority accorded to middot development. He notes that such concerns tend to get “pushed toward the bottom of a crowded curriculum.” More fundamentally, Rosenblum bemoans the prevalent attitude that “developing good middos is treated as something primarily of concern for young children.”[66] A failure to inculcate a Torah approach to character beyond the stage of infancy is likely to perpetuate a society in which immoral and unspiritual behavior is overlooked due to a veneer of halakhic acceptability.

All the considerations we have discussed above constitute essential elements of a Torah life. They affect our standing before Hashem and apply independently of how they are perceived by other human beings. Nevertheless, there is no denying of the centrality of considerations of Kiddush Hashem (and its opposite) to our mandate as committed Jews or of its relevance to the matter at hand. We recall the warning of Chazal concerning the potential for those who claim fealty to Torah to bring the name of Hashem into disrepute:

He who studies Scripture and Mishnah and serves scholars, but is not honest in his business dealings and whose conversations with his fellow-beings are not calm. What do people say about such a person? “Woe to so-and-so for having learned Torah...”.[67]

Conversely, the potential exists to glorify the Torah and its Author:

The Name of Heaven shall become beloved through you; [this obligated a Jew to] study Scripture and Mishnah, serve scholars, conduct his business dealings honestly and converse with his fellow-beings in a calm manner. What do people say about such a person? “More power to his father who taught him Torah, more power to his teacher who taught him Torah, woe t those who did not learn Torah.”[68]

The concept of Kiddush Hashem incorporates a concern, not only for correct behavior but for how that behavior is perceived. Bnei Torah will not succeed in sanctifying the Name of Hashem if our way of life is seen to be lacking in moral rectitude and spiritual depth. When we read that 60 percent of formerly observant Jews interviewed by Margolese declined to affirm the position that “Orthodox Judaism will make you a better person,”[69] we must ask ourselves questions about the reputation of our community and how it is impacting on the reputation of Hashem.

In a powerful and candid article, Rabbi Ilan Feldman accounts for the decreasing tide of Kiruv in exactly these terms. While the goal of Torah observance is to give expression to the glorious spiritual nature of man, R Feldman notes that those who enter the observant Jewish community “will not necessarily discover giants at all”! R Feldman asks the reader to picture a committed family man who respects wisdom and volunteers for good causes joining a world in which Shabbat table talk assesses political candidates “purely on selfish concerns of the religious community, with little concern for their impact on broader society.” Such attitudes, while deeply problematic in their own right, are distinctly unattractive and, according to R Feldman, lie at the heart of the decreasing tide of kiruv in our generation.[70]

Conclusion

We have argued that both the philosophical position and the sociological attitude that limits Judaic norms to halakhic observance are inconsistent with numerous principles advanced by our great rabbis, from Talmudic times until the modern era. We have discussed the potential consequences of a failure to study, teach and implement Torah ideas relating to worldview, character development and standards of behavior that raise the bar higher than halakhic practice. Such neglect can lead to a lack of clarity in our own lives and those of our students and communities as to how our lives should be guided by the distinctive principles of a Torah worldview. In some cases, a mechanistic halakhic life, unconnected to a deeper sense of meaning and purpose, can lead to attrition from the ranks of the religiously committed. In the best case scenario, the mitzvah observance will lack the passion that is expected of one who has the privilege of fulfilling the ratson Hashem. As Ohavei Hashem, we yearn for a world in which humanity recognises the Chosen People as reflecting the highest ideals and the greatest wisdom. We will move closer to this goal when we complement our essential commitment to halakhic knowledge and practice with a concerted effort to learn, develop and disseminate a Torah understanding of how we can live our lives in the light of Hashem—leHagdil Torah u-leHadirah.

The practice of halakha changes. Every shift in materials, technology, economic structure, and political framework necessarily creates new practical halakha. Can plastics be kashered? Is the completion of an electrical circuit forbidden on Shabbat? May Jews own stock in a corporation that serves hametz in its cafeteria over Pesah? How should we relate to a secular but Jewish State? What are our responsibilities in a secular multi-faith democracy? No matter what answer one chooses, any unprecedented situation creates unprecedented practical halakha.  

The fact of practical change, however, can be explained in many different ways. One can argue for the existence of an unchanging, abstract halakha, and understand practical change as the assignment of new cases to existing categories: Are plastics ceramics or glass? Conversely, one can argue that halakha has no necessary trans-temporal identity, and is merely whatever the Jewish people decide it is at any given moment. Plastics may be ceramics today and glass tomorrow, and a category unto themselves the day after, and the day after that the question may seem wholly irrelevant to religious life.

Modern Orthodoxy is driven in part by a valorization and hyperawareness of change, by identification with “There cannot be a House of Study without creative contribution” (BT Hagigah 2b), far more than with “The new is forbidden by the Torah” (Mishnah Orlah 3:9 as creatively repurposed by Hatam Sofer). We therefore must grapple seriously with the profound theological and practical challenges posed by the acknowledgement of change, including the following:

1. The legitimacy of our worldview and the authority of our halakhic interpretations are grounded in the claim that they represent a current embodiment of a living tradition extending back to Sinai. Change raises the question of identity: If we are not thinking and practicing the same way as our ancestors, what justifies our claim to be their Torah heirs? The power of this question is roughly proportional to the radicalness of the halakhic and hashkafic changes we acknowledge.

2. In the absence of a recognized central authority, change in our community inevitably happens piecemeal and haphazardly. What maintains us as a community when our thoughts and practices vary widely? To what extent should change be limited by the desire or necessity to have all members of our community be able to eat together, pray together, recognize each other as Jewish, and so forth?

3. Change raises the question of standards. If conformity to the past is not necessary, how do we distinguish legitimate from illegitimate changes? Might this be an issue of quantity as well as quality? Is this a decision we make with complete autonomy, or are we to some extent constrained by the opinions of other Torah communities that we acknowledge as legitimate even while we disagree with them profoundly? Must we sharply distinguish ourselves from Conservative Judaism’s theories of change, or can we say that we disagree only with its application of those theories, or even that change is not necessarily a point of denominational disagreement?

4. Change increases responsibility. Rabbis who proclaim the immutability of halakha can, when confronted by moral challenges to halakha as it stands, proclaim their deepest sympathies and yet contend that they cannot change anything. Acknowledging change means that the status quo has much more limited deference, and that critiques, even those rooted in externally derived values, have more force. This has been brought home to me many times at events related to agunot.

Modern Orthodoxy urgently needs a persuasive theory and compelling rhetoric of halakhic change to deal effectively with these issues. We have a great deal of philosophic work to do before we get there. My goal in this article is to advance the conversation by addressing some implications, strengths, and weaknesses of a rhetorical device that is often understood as representing a theory: the assertion that “halakha evolves.”

Why is saying “halakha evolves” different than saying “halakha changes”? Theories are often embodied in metaphors, and metaphors for liberal arts subjects are often drawn from science (which itself relies more on metaphors than is commonly acknowledged). For at least the past 150 years, the most popular scientific metaphor for change has been Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Saying that “halakha evolves” implicitly makes the claim that the process of halakhic change shares vital characteristics with the process of biological change that Darwin described and sought to explain.

But this metaphor needs to be interrogated to see what it means, and whether it is true and useful either intellectually or rhetorically.

A fundamental challenge to the intellectual usefulness of the evolutionary metaphor is that scientific theories are descriptive and predictive, whereas a theory of halakha will in addition be prescriptive. Any claim about how halakha has developed in the past carries with it the implicit argument that similar development should be expected and approved in the future. This confusion between facts and values, between “will be” and “ought,” is familiar from Social Darwinism, and theorists of halakha should not fall prey to it.

A fundamental challenge to the rhetorical usefulness of the evolutionary metaphor is that it (deliberately) alienates those who reject evolutionary science from our halakhic community. “Halakha evolves” has the effect of connecting the acceptance of halakhic change with willingness to engage contemporary science. This is good for morale, and builds support within our community, which has little outward tolerance for obscurantism. But I suspect that it also creates a bias against our position among people who have ranged themselves against macro-evolutionary biology, and makes them less willing to consider our position legitimate. 

Why should this matter? Darwin famously sought to account for the origin of species. Speciation classically occurs when two populations with a common ancestry diverge to the point that they can no longer interbreed. There are two potential halakhic analogues to this process:

1. when scholars from two halakhic camps no longer allow each other’s ideas to fertilize their Torah conversations
2. when the halakhic positions of two halakhic communities lead them to forbid intermarriage with each other.

Each of these, I submit, should be avoided—the halakhic locus for my contention is the prohibition of lo titgodedu, “Do not form factions.” So we might be better off keeping these two issues separated.  

It must be noted that the interbreeding standard for speciation can be challenged in a variety of ways. Claddists focus on the extent of genetic difference rather than on the compatibility of genitalia, and many intuitively distinct species, such as lions and tigers, turn out to be biologically compatible and reproductively separated only by practicality, such as incompatibility of habitat or waking hours. It is not clear to me which concept of speciation is the best analogy to the halakhic factionalization that the Torah opposes.

Now scientific theories themselves change (evolve?) over time, and this has been particularly true of the Theory of Evolution. For example: Is evolution gradual, as Darwin himself thought, or characterized by “punctuated equilibrium,” that is, by long periods of stability interrupted by brief periods of dramatic change, as Stephen Jay Gould proposes? Clearly, “halakha evolves” will have very different implications depending on which version of the theory one adopts as metaphor.

My sense is that most users of the phrase intend it gradualistically, as a way to respond to concerns that proposed changes might snowball. But that approach did poorly explaining the fossil record, and it might do as poorly explaining the history of halakha. Perhaps we are living in the midst of a halakhic equivalent of the Cambrian explosion. It is not obvious to me that we should only legitimate incremental change, or that all the changes currently being considered within Modern Orthodoxy are incremental.

Darwin’s theory became much more attractive once it was paired with Natural Selection, or “survival of the fittest,” as its causal mechanism. Natural selection is often taken to suggest that change over time inevitably works out for the best, as only those mutations that increase “fitness” survive. So too, we might think, halakhic change is always for the good over time, as the negative changes will die out and the positive changes will reproduce, and overall the halakha that emerges will be fitter.

But this is a misunderstanding of both science and halakha. Survival of the fittest is a tautology: It cannot independently predict anything, as we cannot know in advance what is fittest. Moreover, short-term fitness often leads to medium-term extinction. Halakhic Judaism is not parallel to the entire arena of life, nor even to the animal kingdom; it is at most a species, and thus every mutation puts it at risk of extinction. Biological evolution is horribly inefficient, and can afford to be, but halakha does not have the same luxury.

The second great modification of Darwin came with the discovery of genetics. This field itself has been in almost constant flux, but here are two ongoing developments that I think are significant for the halakhic analogy. First, the connection between genotype and phenotype grows ever more complex—the same gene or set of genes can find radically different expression depending on environment and a whole set of iterative genetic “switches.” Second, mutations more and more seem predictable, in the sense that we know which proteins in which places on the DNA strands are most likely to be replaced, and by which other protein. This means that wholly new “mutations of first impression” are extremely unlikely.

Put together, these developments suggest that even radical changes are rarely unprecedented, and that significant biological changes are rarely the result of a single mutation. If halakhic change is analogous to biological change, then “halakha evolves” is not a good description of what happens when a particular halakhic responsum drives a social change. On the other hand, the recognition that an organism with a fundamentally stable genotype can, under the right circumstances, produce radically different phenotypes might provide a very useful analogy to halakhic change: “Even that which a veteran student will rule in the future in the presence of his teacher was already said to Moses at Sinai” (Yerushalmi Peah 2:4).

Genetic change occurs in two ways: recombination through sexual reproduction and mutation. The intellectual analogue of sexual reproduction is serious, open-minded conversation. A culture in which students can have only one teacher, or learn in only one school, will produce the equivalent of inbreeding. At the same time, a specific genetic combination, especially if many of the genes involved are recessive, will often survive only if it is given the opportunity to reproduce for some time in an isolated breeding group. To what extent is Modern Orthodoxy an established subspecies whose health will be enhanced by mingling its genes with a larger population, and to what extent does it yet need to be sheltered?

Mutations happen all the time, but particularly harmful mutations are often the result of extreme environmental pressure, such as radiation. Some mutations are helpful when carried but harmful when expressed, or helpful in some environments but damaging in others. If the analogy is valid, we should be careful to distinguish halakhic changes that arise from unending regular engagement with Talmud Torah, and those that reflect engagement with external thoughts and realities, and perhaps be more suspicious of the latter. Or perhaps we should see takkanot as radical mutations, and interpretations as new expressions of the existing genome. Perhaps viral insertion and symbiosis leading to incorporation have halakhic analogues as well.

Regardless, a fundamental failing of the analogy may be that halakhic change is not, cannot be, and ought not be blind. I might argue that Modern Orthodox halakha should be seen instead as the product of an expertly supervised breeding program.

In sum: The evolutionary analogy can be intellectually stimulating, but it does not serve as shorthand for a compelling account of halakhic change. We must also acknowledge that where the analogy seems apt, its implications may challenge rather than support the legitimacy of particular Modern Orthodox innovations.

A variety of other analogies may yield more consistently authentic and useful results. Within the realm of science, for example, the Copenhagen model of quantum mechanics, in which only probabilities exist before the act of measurement “collapses the wave-function,” seems to me a useful and true way of describing the relationship of halakha decision-making, or pesak, to abstract study of halakha. The idea that the self is constructed via narrative, that we are the same people we were as infants because we can tell coherent stories using the word “I” throughout, may be very helpful in determining the parameters of change. But these and others have yet to be effectively exploited and synthesized.

Out of a vast array of intellectual resources, a Modern Orthodox conception of halakhic change awaits formulation.

“And afterwards, the Rabbanan Sabborai saw that Jewish women were becoming dependent upon the Gentiles to get divorces from their husbands by force … from which ruin emanates.”

—Responsum of Rav Sherira Gaon,

  Head of Academy at Pumpedita, Tenth Century[1]

Introduction[2]

            The problem of the agunah,[3] the Jewish woman whose husband will not or cannot give her a get, a religious writ of divorcement, thus forcing her to remain chained to a dead marriage, engendered enormous debate in the Orthodox Jewish community in America in the late twentieth century. The debate touched on many difficult emotional and philosophical issues for American Orthodox Jews. In an increasingly secular and rights-oriented America, the agunah issue served as a reminder that traditional Jewish thought was at ever-increasing odds with modern society. Especially as the women’s liberation movement took the national stage in the 1960s and 1970s, Orthodox women became sensitized to, and sometimes resentful of, how different their lives were under American law and Jewish law. At the same time, Orthodox rabbinic leaders saw themselves as increasingly on the defensive, fighting against feminism and other modern ideologies that, in their perception, threatened the stability of Jewish tradition. Lastly, Orthodox rabbis had to negotiate what they believed the proper relationship of the secular state apparatus should be to the internal Jewish communal problem of the agunah. All of these questions cut to the heart of how late- twentieth-century American Orthodox rabbis saw the relationship between Orthodoxy and modern America. 

The desire to differentiate themselves from the Conservative movement, and an ever-increasing fear of halakhic activism led Orthodox rabbinic leadership in America to foreswear any systemic halakhic solutions to the agunah problem by the late 1960s. However, as the Modern Orthodox community began to engage in debate about feminism and questions of equity in Jewish divorce law in the early 1970s, the Modern Orthodox rabbinate was forced to respond with some sort of a solution to the agunah problem. Seeing that Jewish women had already learned that the civil courts would assist them in obtaining their gittin, Jewish divorces, the rabbis understood that they could either let individual women access the civil courts on their own in a manner that might prove halakhically problematic, or they could channel the way Orthodox women used the civil courts to receive a get. By the mid-1990s, the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), the rabbinic body of the modern/centrist Union of Orthodox Congregations of America, had supported the passage of two pieces of legislation in the State of New York and had adopted the use of a civil prenuptial agreement to be signed by couples to prevent situations of aginut, or “chained-ness.”

On the other hand, the right-wing sector of the American Orthodox rabbinate, those who maintained membership in the Agudath haRabonim or Agudath Israel organizations, never permitted a conversation about feminism to occur within their ranks. When right-wing Orthodox rabbis and community leaders discussed feminism in the twentieth century, they did so only in order to quash it as anti-Torah and destructive to Jewish tradition. Without public pressure from women within their ranks, the right-wing rabbinate did not feel the same urgency to come up with a workable solution to the agunah problem. Furthermore, right-wing Orthodox rabbis found the prospect of turning over the agunah problem to the civil courts to be potentially dangerous. Sympathy to the cause of women’s rights in state courts, they quickly realized, could undermine the power of Batei Din, Jewish courts, to decide issues of divorce law according to strict interpretations of halakha. The right-wing Orthodox rabbinate viewed the civil courts as a place for one thing only—receiving one’s civil divorce.

In one critical way, however, the Modern and right-wing Orthodox rabbinates remained unified throughout the twentieth century, and that was in their ultimate refusal to adopt a systemic halakhic solution to the agunah problem. The solutions adopted by both wings of Orthodoxy were imperfect and left many Orthodox women at the mercy of blackmailing husbands and corrupt Batei Din. Most of all, they were utterly reliant on the enforcement powers of the civil courts. In the end, feminist ferment went only so far in swaying the opinions and actions of the Orthodox rabbinate.[4]

Background: The Agunah Problem in the Modern Era

Although there is evidence of the existence of agunot in Jewish communities since the times of the Talmud, the combination of the decline of rabbinic authority and the rise in the incidence of divorce in modern European states, together with the massive Jewish migrations of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, exacerbated the problem significantly. In pre-modern Europe, Batei Din were vested with the power of the state to arbitrate litigation of a civil or religious nature for the Jewish communities. However, as Jews were emancipated in many Western European countries during the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, civil governments divested the Batei Din of their power, and expected that Jews would use state courts to settle their disputes. This led to a disintegration of Jewish communal authority that meant that a husband did not have to listen to a Bet Din that ordered him to give his wife a get. He could simply leave the religious community, move to a different jurisdiction, or even emigrate, leaving Europe for America or other countries. Such a man could even marry another woman in a new location without suffering the condemnation of rabbinic authority whence he came. This constellation of factors was toxic: When divorces were few and far between, and the Bet Din had coercive power in the Jewish community, the agunah problem was kept in check, but the greater number of divorces coupled with the ever-lessening power of the Bet Din created fertile ground for the growing of the modern agunah problem.[5]

            By the post-World War II era, due to a decline in international migration and increased affluence, occurrences of American Jewish husbands deserting their wives were becoming less prevalent. The agunah problem did not disappear, though. Instead, the majority of agunah cases became those in which a husband simply refused to grant his wife a get out of spite, or used get withholding as a tool to coerce his wife to give up claims to marital property or even custody of children.[6] Batei Din had few halakhic tools to prevent such agunah cases, and in many instances, in order to ensure that a woman would receive her get, rabbis encouraged women to submit to their husband’s financial and other demands. 

Turning to the Secular State

In 1953, in light of the new form of agunah that had emerged, the Conservative movement presented a new solution to the agunah issue. This solution became known as the “Lieberman Clause,” named after its drafter, Rabbi Saul Lieberman, the world-renowned halakhic authority and Talmud professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. This Aramaic clause, which was to be inserted into Conservative ketubot, was intended to reinvest the Bet Din with the power to order a husband to give his wife a get by using the secular courts to enforce compliance. It provided that upon civil divorce, either husband or wife could bring the other before the Conservative movement’s Bet Din for effectuation of a Jewish divorce. If either spouse either refused to appear before the Bet Din or refused to comply with the Bet Din’s order, the other spouse could seek redress in civil court. This was the first time that a body of American Jewish rabbis had created a policy that employed the secular state apparatus to assist in solving the agunah problem.[7]

            Due to the stature of Saul Lieberman, it initially appeared that the Lieberman Clause might gain traction beyond the Conservative movement. In the mid-1950s Lieberman met secretly with Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University (RIETS) to discuss creating a national Bet Din, recognized by both the Conservative and Orthodox movements as having exclusive authority with respect to issues of Jewish family law. According to the plan, Lieberman and Soloveitchik would jointly appoint the members of the Bet Din, all of whom would be Orthodox. Lieberman and Soloveitchik also agreed that the Lieberman clause would be revised to meet with Soloveitchik’s approval and included in Orthodox ketubot as well as Conservative ones. In the end, the plan never took effect because it was voted down by the RCA. Even the imprimatur of Soloveitchik was not sufficient to take away the sting of Lieberman’s participation.[8]

            Even in the Conservative movement, though, the Lieberman clause did not have the power to solve the agunah problem. Most importantly, it could only resolve agunah situations in which the couple had the clause physically present in their ketubah. Additionally, rather than presenting a systemic halakhic solution to the problem, the Lieberman clause was merely an arbitration clause that stated that the couple agreed to abide by the decisions of the Conservative Bet Din, and could enforce any Bet Din decision in civil court. The clause did not empower the Bet Din with any powers it did not previously have, neither did it present any halakhic innovation. Lastly, it was unclear whether the clause, as part of a religious document, was actually enforceable in a civil court.

            Despite the fact that the Lieberman Clause was more of a glorified arbitration clause than a halakhic innovation, both the Modern and right-wing Orthodox rabbinate united in strong and unyielding opposition to it. The RCA and the Rabbinical Alliance of America Bet Din issued a joint statement forbidding their members from officiating at any ceremony using the revised ketubah, and declaring that they would not recognize as valid any acts or decisions of the Conservative Bet Din. The statement warned that remarrying based on any such divorce could endanger the religious status of offspring of the new union.[9] The right-wing Agudath haRabanim also issued a scathing statement against the Lieberman clause, labeling Conservative rabbis “porshim miDarkei haTzibbur” (seceders from the correct ways of religious Jewry) and ordering that they not “be entrusted with any rabbinic functions.”[10]

But the Orthodox response extended beyond a halakhic critique. Herbert Berman, lawyer for the “Orthodox groups” opposing the Lieberman clause said that in addition to the halakhic problems, the clause created “serious legal problems” by potentially breaching the First Amendment by putting a secular court in the position of having to enforce the decision of a religious body, i.e., the Bet Din.[11] In a similar vein, Yeshiva University published a short pamphlet in 1955 entitled “New Provisions in the Ketubah: A Legal Opinion” in which legal scholar A. Leo Levin and Rabbi Mayer Kramer outlined ostensive legal problems with the Lieberman clause. In the introduction, Rabbi Morris Finer, Director of the Community Service Division of Yeshiva University laid bare the real reason behind the publication, declaring, “It is devoutly to be hoped that a viable solution might be developed, one that would be acceptable to the Orthodox rabbinate which alone possesses the collective scholarship and the religious authority to deal with the matter.”[12] While the legal questions raised by Orthodox leaders were valid—the Lieberman Clause had not yet been tested in any civil court, and would not be tested until the late 1980s—the way Orthodox leaders raised them showed that they meant to discredit the clause, not to engage in serious legal debate about a potential solution to aginut.

Meanwhile, individual Orthodox women began to realize that they could turn to another forum to seek receipt of a get—the civil courts. In 1954, a Queens, New York, trial court issued a significant decision in a divorce case called Koeppel v. Koeppel. Maureen and William Koeppel had entered into a post-nuptial contract that specified that each of them would appear before a Bet Din to execute a get. Maureen Koeppel filed suit against William Koeppel for refusing to abide by this contract. The court did not view the contract as constitutionally problematic, noting that “[c]omplying with his agreement would not compel the defendant to practice any religion. … Specific performance herein would merely require the defendant to do what he voluntarily agreed to do.”[13] Although the trial court ultimately dismissed Maureen Koeppel’s complaint for specific performance of the contract because she had already remarried at a ceremony officiated at by a Reform rabbi, it had, at least in theory, upheld an agreement to give a get. [14]

            The Koeppel case was significant on two levels. First, it showed that the secular courts would, in theory, uphold a contract to ensure the effectuation of a get.  However, there was a darker side to the Koeppel decision for the Orthodox rabbinate. The secular court did not understand, neither did it care, that according to Orthodox Jewish law, the Koeppels (especially Maureen) still needed a get to remarry. The fact that Maureen Koeppel managed to find a rabbi to remarry her did not change that reality. Indeed, any children born to Maureen Koeppel and her new husband would be mamzerim, and would not be allowed to marry anyone but other mamzerim under Orthodox and Conservative Jewish law. Therefore, if the secular court system was to be an acceptable agent for the Orthodox rabbinate in ameliorating the agunah crisis, it would have to be under very strict supervision of Orthodox rabbis.

            The combination of the Conservative movement’s adoption of the Lieberman Clause and the Koeppel decision evidenced a new trend of turning to the secular courts for assistance in solving the agunah problem. The secular court solution might have initially seemed unseemly to Orthodox leaders because the Conservative movement was the first to raise it, and because it certainly posed significant halakhic challenges. However, Orthodox rabbis began to realize that if they could shape how the secular courts assisted agunot, use of the secular legal system could prove extremely productive. Indeed, the first record of an American Orthodox rabbi suggesting the use of the secular courts as an avenue to help agunot occurred in the same year as the Koeppel court decision and the adoption of the Lieberman clause. None other than Rabbi Soloveitchik wondered:

[W]ould it not be possible through the legislatures of certain states to have legislation passed whereby there will be an understanding that a civil divorce would not become final until a satisfactory disposition, in keeping with halakhic standards, was made concerning the get?[15]

Secular legislation that comported with halakha would be the best of all worlds: Orthodox rabbis could solve the agunah problem without having to take a halakhic stand, and at the same time, could ensure that the state did not create more halakhic problems than it solved.

            Before the Orthodox rabbinate could proceed along this path, however, it was faced with responding to a proposed systemic halakhic solution.[16] In a book published in 1966 called T’nai Be-Nisuin U’ve-Get (Conditional Clause in the Marriage and Divorce Agreements), Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, a Modern-Centrist Orthodox rabbi and scholar, presented a number of different possible halakhic solutions to the agunah problem, all of which were based in some way on making the nisuin, or the Jewish marriage, conditional. One solution Berkovits proposed was that the validity of a marriage would be made contingent on an agreement that the marriage would be invalidated if two years after its civil dissolution, the husband refused to give his wife a get. Another, based on the talmudic principle that “whoever marries does so with the agreement of the rabbis,” provided that the Bet Din could have the power to annul marriages under certain particular circumstances to be determined by halakhic authorities.[17]

            Initially, Berkovits’ proposals seemed to meet with lukewarm support from Orthodox rabbis. The revered European halakhist Rabbi Yehiel Yakov Weinberg responded to the book with cautious approval.[18] He wrote an extensive approbation in which he emphasized the importance of addressing the agunah problem, particularly at that time when more and more husbands were refusing to grant their wives gittin, and more and more women were simply remarrying in civil ceremonies.[19] In a similar vein, Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits, the newly appointed Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, in a review of Berkovits’ book in 1966, noted that although the book would “no doubt meet with much determined opposition,” he hoped it would “be a powerful impetus to an intensified search for procedures” to solve the agunah problem.”[20]

However, Berkovits’ proposals soon met their demise. In 1968, the Conservative movement, discouraged by the failure of the Lieberman Clause to solve the agunah problem, adopted a combination of two of Berkovits’ proposals as law.[21] The Conservative Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards unanimously voted to adopt the insertion of a clause into the ketubah that made marriage conditional upon the husband granting a get without six months of a civil divorce. If the husband did not grant the get, then the bet din had the power to annul the marriage. This clause put an end to the agunah problem in the Conservative movement once and for all. Following the Conservative movement’s decision, Orthodox thinkers began to speak more critically regarding Berkovits’s proposals. In 1969, Menachem Kasher an Orthodox rabbi and editor of Noam, an annual journal on Orthodox Jewish thought, published an article forcefully attacking Berkovits’s book. The article included a letter from Rabbi Weinberg stating that he regretted ever having written his approbation in support of Berkovits’ book to begin with. The letter stated:

At the time that I wrote my letter, I was unaware of the discussion that had occurred in America…. Furthermore, I am surprised that the author [Berkovits], who certainly knew of the entire correspondence in this matter, dragged me into this controversy. Because of my poor health, I am not capable now of dealing with a matter of such serious implications and I regret ever having written the letter to him.[22]

As Marc Shapiro relates in a lengthy footnote in his book on Rabbi Weinberg, there is strong evidence, although no proof, that Kasher forged the letter. Until the end of his life, Berkovits claimed that the letter was a forgery, and Kasher never produced the original.[23] Whether or not the letter published by Kasher was forged, the damage to Berkovits’s work was done. Future writings by Orthodox rabbis regarding the agunah issue either categorically rejected Berkovits’s proposals or ignored them entirely.[24]         

            Thus, in the early 1970s, the agunah problem in America remained as unsolved as ever in Orthodox Judaism. Orthodox rabbis bemoaned the plight of the agunah, and some worked to solve individual cases for individual women, but no one offered any systemic solutions.[25] Luckily for the Orthodox rabbinate, divorce was still relatively rare among Orthodox Jews, and communal knowledge about the agunah issue was spotty at best. However, another element was about to be introduced into the agunah debate—the advent of Orthodox feminism. Whereas previously, it was non-Orthodox Jews who complained about the inequality of Jewish divorce law, the 1970s saw the emergence of a critique by individuals who remained squarely within the Centrist Orthodox camp.

This phenomenon caused a two-pronged response. On the one hand, a feminist critique from within could not be shut down by simply claiming that the speakers were outside the pale of Orthodoxy. The agitators were the wives, mothers, and daughters of Orthodox rabbis, leaders, donors, and synagogue members. They could not be dismissed that easily. On the other hand, if not properly answered, feminism could cause significant damage to Orthodoxy by weakening the faith and commitment of those who had become sensitized to issues regarding equality of women. Over the next two decades, Centrist Orthodox rabbis learned to tread carefully around the feminist issue, both invalidating feminist arguments and incorporating more pro-woman language into Orthodox discourse at the same time.

Although the women’s liberation movement began in America in the early 1960s, feminist ideas took some time to percolate into the socially conservative and traditional Orthodox community. By 1972, however, discussions of women’s rights within Orthodox Judaism had become prevalent enough to be covered by the New York Times. One young Orthodox woman, Deborah Weissman, stated, “Most of us have had these feelings of being left out but we never conceptualized them. The women’s movement has galvanized us.” Defining Weissman’s statements as evidence of a new trend, the article went on to quote Dr. Irving Greenberg, a left-leaning Centrist Orthodox rabbi in Riverdale, New York, who noted:

At one time most people who felt strongly about such things checked out of the religion. Now we have people who are not leaving but are committed to the Orthodox experience and are challenging from within… they are ahead of their time, but I think they are the spearhead.”[26]

Although feminist ferment had already reached the Reform and Conservative movements of Judaism, the critique noticed by Greenberg was new both because it came from within Orthodoxy and because those engaged in it refused to leave. Rather than seeking greener pastures in a more liberal branch of American Judaism or by leaving Judaism altogether, these women wanted to see change within Orthodoxy.[27]

            It was not long before a modern Orthodox thinker explicitly labeled the agunah problem as a feminist issue. In a seminal 1973 essay, the left-leaning Rabbi Saul Berman, Chair of the Judaic Studies Department at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University, engaged in a critical exploration of women’s issues in Orthodox Judaism. Linking the agunah issue to the feminist critique of Orthodoxy, Berman declared, “From her complete silence at the traditional wedding ceremony, to the problem of the Agunah, the law seems to make women not only passive, but impotent to remedy the marital tragedies in which they may be involved….” He suggested a turn to the civil courts to “solve our problem for us” with the use of an ante-nuptial agreement that would require the parties to, at the dissolution of a marriage, “consent to and execute the issuance and acceptance of the Jewish divorce.”[28]

In the same year that Berman’s article appeared in Tradition, three different divorce cases addressing issues with respect to agunot were reported by New York courts.[29] Orthodox Jews were not immune to the increase in divorce rates in 1970s America, and as more Orthodox divorces made their way through the civil court system, the courts had more and more opportunities to weigh in on the agunah issue.[30] The decisions in these three cases would have a significant impact on the way the Modern/Centrist Orthodox community viewed the agunah problem. More than ever before, Modern/Centrist Orthodox rabbis would advocate a turn to the civil justice system to solve the problem for them, and more than ever before, they would realize how important it was for their hands to be guiding that system’s efforts.

The first of the three cases, Margulies v. Margulies, involved a stipulation signed by the couple after their divorce that provided that the husband would grant his wife a get. The husband failed to comply with this stipulation, and was held in contempt of court, for which he was fined, and ultimately sentenced to jail for fifteen days. Although the Appellate Division overturned the incarceration order, it replaced it with a $450 fine, stating “…[W]e can only conclude that the defendant never intended to carry out the terms of the open court stipulation and that he utilized the court for his own ulterior motives. Such behavior may not be countenanced.”[31] Later that same year, in a case called Rubin v. Rubin, a Bronx, New York, court cited Koeppel in upholding a couple’s post-nuptial agreement to give a get, stating explicitly that the New York courts “have recognized the validity of an agreement to obtain a Get.”

In Pal v. Pal, the last agunah case reported in 1973, the trial court upheld a post-nuptial agreement that not only specified that the parties had to effectuate a get, but also detailed how the rabbis on the Bet Din should be selected.[32] On appeal, the Appellate Division reversed, holding that the trial court “had no authority to, in effect, convene a rabbinical tribunal.” Because the trial court has interfered in the actual get giving process, a religious procedure, it had strayed into forbidden territory. However, it went on to say that the husband, by failing to grant his ex-wife a get in keeping with the divorce judgment, did not come into court with “clean hands.” Thus, while the court refused to uphold the trial court’s interference in the actual convening of a Bet Din, it also was unwilling to let Mr. Pal get away with refusing to grant his former wife a get as had been ordered.[33]

All three of these court cases showed that, at least in theory, New York courts were willing to enforce agreements to render a get. Orthodox rabbis concerned with the agunah problem took note, and began to ponder how the civil courts could best assist them in encouraging recalcitrant husbands to grant their wives gittin. One of the first ideas explored by Orthodox rabbis was the implementation of ante-nuptial agreements, as Saul Berman had suggested in his 1973 article on women’s rights. Ante-nuptial agreements in contemplation of divorce had, up until this point, been considered void by most states because they were deemed contrary to public policy for giving incentive to divorce. However, the law with respect to such agreements was changing in the early 1970s due to the increased social acceptability of divorce and the corresponding surge in divorce cases. The Modern/Centrist Orthodox community had taken notice of the new legal acceptability of such agreements, and rabbis published a number of articles in the early 1970s exploring the halakhic and legal ramifications of using some type of prenuptial agreement to prevent situations of aginut.[34] As divorce rates continued to rise, and rabbis from liberal branches of Judaism increasingly performed weddings for couples no matter the status of their previous marriages, Orthodox rabbis feared that if they did not figure out a way to solve the agunah problem, they would be faced with scores of mamzerim in the coming generations.[35] Furthermore, rabbis perceived the feminist critique of Orthodox divorce law as a threat to the stability of the Orthodox community. At the same time, however, Orthodox rabbis did not want to be seen as caving in to pressure from the feminist community, and they feared systemic halakhic solutions that empowered the Bet Din to grant a get when a husband was unable or unwilling to do so. Thus, any solution to the agunah problem would have to tow a fine line between solving the problem and not appearing too radical or transformative of normative Orthodox practice.[36]

Thus, while pressure by feminists and agunah activists on Orthodox rabbis to free agunot continued to increase during the 1970s and 1980s, the pressure did not lead to their desired results. Although the Orthodox rabbinate increasingly discussed more global solutions to the agunah problem in addition to its traditional focus on getting individual recalcitrant husbands to grant gittin, the solutions they came up with not only lacked effectiveness, but also outsourced the problem to the secular courts. At the same time, centrist rabbinic leaders maintained a constant barrage of criticism toward feminists and agunah activists for undermining God’s will and millennia of Jewish life and law.  

One of the first rabbinic responses to the link between feminism and the agunah problem was penned by Moshe Meiselman, then-Rosh Yeshiva at the Yeshivath Brisk in Chicago. Discounting Saul Berman’s feminist critique of Orthodox theology, Meiselman sneered, “What are the forces of the male dominated society of which Rabbi Berman speaks? They are none other than the Almighty Himself and the divinely inspired Psalmist, David, King of Israel.” Protesting that Orthodox Judaism was already sufficiently concerned with the lot of women, Meiselman declared, “It goes without saying that we must be concerned with the religious quest and observance of women. It also goes without saying, something that Rabbi Berman implicitly seems to deny, that this has always been true of religious leaders throughout the millennia.”[37] With respect to the agunah issue, Meiselman dismissed Berman’s potential solution of an ante-nuptial agreement out of hand. Like the Orthodox critique of the Lieberman clause, Meiselman couched his dismissal of the idea in both halakhic and legal terms. “One does not arrive at solutions as quickly and easily as Rabbi Berman suggests,” he scorned:

His form of antenuptial agreement, I have been told, would not be upheld in court. A secular court cannot enforce a contract to perform a religious act. While there are countless varieties of antenuptial agreements that could be drawn up, I seriously tend to doubt that most people would sign them.

Meiselman’s comments about the legal validity of ante-nuptial agreements were, of course, flawed. By 1975, the New York State courts had made it quite clear that they would, in fact, enforce a properly-worded contract to effectuate the giving of a get. Meiselman’s response to the agunah problem was to discount any proposed solution.[38]

            Meanwhile, the New York State courts continued to uphold agreements to effectuate gittin. In the 1976 case of Waxstein v. Waxstein, the court enforced a provision in the couple’s separation agreement requiring the husband to grant his wife a get, stating unequivocally, “A separation agreement is a contract, and if lawful when made will be enforced by the courts like any other contract….” The Appellate Division unanimously upheld the trial court’s ruling, and the Court of Appeals denied Arthur Waxstein’s motion for leave to appeal. The Waxstein decision left no question that the New York State courts were willing to enforce agreements to give a get.[39] 

At the same time, Orthodox Jews, especially women, were speaking out more and more about issues that troubled them in Orthodox Judaism, particularly the situation of agunot. The year 1977 saw a rash of articles in Jewish publications about women’s issues in traditional Judaism, and particularly about Jewish divorce law. One author, Blu Greenberg, who later became known as the “mother of Orthodox feminism,”[40] criticized the Orthodox rabbinate for inaccurately portraying Jewish law with respect to agunot, declaring, “men can no longer decide that it’s alright for women to suffer indiscriminately.”[41] At the 1977 RCA Annual Convention, the rabbinical organization took the unprecedented step of organizing a public session on issues of women and Orthodox Judaism. The all-male panel of three found themselves facing the difficult questions of rabbis’ wives, angry about the plight of agunot.[42]

More than just talking, Orthodox women were beginning to organize. In 1979, a group of women from the Young Israel of Flatbush in Brooklyn, New York founded an organization called Getting Equitable Treatment, or G.E.T. Gloria Greenman, the founder and first president said, “We were commiserating over a friend’s daughter (who had been unable to obtain a get), and I just said, ‘Let’s stop talking, let’s do something.’” The organization assisted women through the Bet Din process and advocated for the social shunning of recalcitrant husbands, including preventing them from receiving synagogue honors. By 1984 the organization had 400 members, most of whom were Orthodox. Greenman noted that G.E.T. had wrought significant changes in the attitudes of the rabbis. “The rabbis have felt the need more than ever to do something,” she observed.[43] 

            However, at least in writing, much of the Centrist Orthodox leadership claimed to be uninfluenced by feminist ferment. In 1978, Yeshiva University Press published a book as part of its Library of Jewish Law and Ethics that it touted as an “in-depth treatment of Jewish feminism.” The book, entitled Jewish Woman in Jewish Law, was written by Moshe Meiselman, the same rabbi who had critiqued Saul Berman’s piece on Orthodox women’s issues in 1975 and sported an Editor’s Forward written by Norman Lamm, the President of Yeshiva University.[44] Arguing that feminism “is based on a very definite value structure which is at odds with Jewish values on a number of basic points,” Meiselman defended the Orthodox status quo regarding the agunah problem, dismissing all those who had, throughout the past century, attempted to suggest systemic halakhic solutions as being “not sufficiently versed in the Jewish marriage and divorce laws.”[45] 

            After scathing critiques of the Lieberman and Berkovits proposals, Meiselman concluded, “The only remedy that seems to be consistent with Jewish law is the one specifically suggested by the Talmud—the use of the secular judicial system.”[46] However, although he reviewed in detail the New York case law on the subject, Meiselman equivocated even about this possible solution. “At this time,” he wrote, “it is still unclear what direction the courts will take.” “Fortunately,” Meiselman reassured his readers, “cases where husbands refuse to grant divorces when required by Jewish law are few and far between, and a beth-din very often has sufficient power, by using social pressure, to secure compliance with its decision.”[47]

Unwittingly, Meiselman created a template for the late twentieth century American Orthodox party line in his analysis of the agunah problem. He created a pattern of (1) discounting any systemic halakhic solution, (2) minimizing the problem, (3) calling for a solution that used the secular judicial system, and (4) refusing to outline what such a solution might look like. Meiselman’s book did not bring the Orthodox establishment any closer to solving the agunah problem; it simply supported the status-quo. However, in one way Meiselman’s book represented a sea change: By the late 1970s, the Centrist Orthodox rabbinate was addressing the feminist critique of Orthodoxy and the issue of agunot more frequently and in a more in-depth fashion than ever before. While solutions were not forthcoming, the issue was no longer being ignored.[48]

The arguments of Meiselman and others like him did not stop the feminist critique of Orthodoxy. In 1981, Blu Greenberg published a book on Orthodox feminism entitled On Women and Judaism, in which she devoted an extensive chapter to the issue of divorce in Jewish law. After reviewing the history of rabbinic debate over the issue, Greenberg called for a systemic halakhic solution to solve the problem once and for all. To rabbinic leadership who would call her ideas anti-halakhic, Greenberg responded thus:

To say [rabbis’] hands are tied, or to say they can resolve an individual problem, but not find a global solution, is to deny their collective responsibility. Worse, it bespeaks a lack of rabbinic will to find a halakhic way. What they are really saying is they are not worthy of the authority vested in them, for well they know that the only person whose hands are tied is the woman whose family must pay blackmail.

Greenberg went on to warn rabbis of the potential results of their inaction: “Growing numbers of Jews [will] solve their problems elsewhere.”[49] The fact that Tradition published two extensive reviews critiquing Greenberg’s book showed that hers was a voice that the Orthodox rabbinate could not ignore.[50]

            Interestingly, however, when rabbis finally acted to implement some solution to the agunah problem, the action did not come from the centrist camp, but rather from the right-wing Agudath Israel. A number of reasons likely contributed to this development. First, even in the early 1980s the Agudah still had more experience advocating for specifically Orthodox Jewish causes in the public sphere than the RCA or OU.[51] Additionally, while Centrist Orthodox rabbis remained fearful of appearing to cave to feminist pressure, right-wing Orthodox rabbis were sufficiently distanced from feminist ferment. Lastly, Centrist Orthodox rabbis were far more concerned with their standing in the eyes of the right wing than vice-versa, and likely feared the reaction of the right to any solution they might raise to the agunah problem.

In 1981, the same year as Greenberg’s book was published, Rabbi Moshe Sherer, President of Agudath Israel of America, gathered a group of nationally-known Jewish lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, Nathan Lewin, and Aaron Twersky at the Agudah’s offices in New York City. Sherer, who had close connections with Speaker of the New York State Assembly Sheldon Silver, believed he could get some form of legislation passed in this area, and he wanted these lawyers to help him come up with what the legislation should be.[52] The proposed law ultimately drafted by the group required the filing of an affidavit by the plaintiff in any divorce action that stated that “to the best of his or her knowledge, he or she has … taken all steps solely within his or her power to remove all barriers to the defendant's remarriage….; or that the defendant has waived in writing the requirements of this subdivision.”[53] Before sending it to Sheldon Silver, the Agudah sent the draft bill for approval by rabbinic heavyweights including Rabbi Moses Feinstein. All the rabbis consulted gave the bill their stamp of approval, assuring that a get given as a result of this law would not qualify as a halakhically invalid “get meuseh,” a coerced get.

Despite several objections on church-state separation grounds, the Get Bill passed with ease through the New York State Legislature and was signed into law by Governor Mario Cuomo on August 10, 1983.[54] At the ceremonial signing of the bill into law, Sherer triumphantly declared, “This is a happy day for many sad people.” The Centrist Orthodox rabbinate also touted the new law. The Orthodox Union, at its 84^th National Convention in 1983, passed a resolution entitled “Divorce,” which read:

All member congregations are urged to deny the benefits of membership; and community sanction to men who refuse to grant their wives a get following civil divorces….The Orthodox Union and its constituent synagogues shall work to create legislation in all states comparable to New York’s [Get] Law, which seeks to ensure that all impediments to a successful civil divorce, including the granting of a get, are removed before a divorce is granted.

The publicity surrounding the law said nothing about the possibility of halakhic solutions to the problem. Indeed, the Agudah scored a public relations coup, portrayed in the press as an activist and politically savvy organization that used its power to help agunot.[55]

Notwithstanding all the hoopla surrounding passage of the 1983 Get Law, the actual effectiveness of the law was minimal at best. The law was only effective against plaintiffs in civil divorce actions in the State of New York. Thus, in the far more common situation in which the recalcitrant husband was the defendant in the divorce action, he would not be required to file an affidavit before receiving his divorce. And of course, the law could do nothing to help women seeking a get outside New York. In the wake of the passage of the 1983 Get Law, the only solutions offered by the Orthodox rabbinate for the plight of agunot were communal sanctions, and the largely ineffective law itself. [56]

At the same time, Centrist Orthodox rabbis continued to rail against feminists and their arguments on behalf of agunot. Rabbi Emanuel Feldman, the Associate Editor of Tradition published a contemptuous critique of Blu Greenberg’s On Women and Judaism in 1984. He scathingly declared the book to be

a recounting of feminist arguments of the most conforming sort, papered over with occasional halakhic rhetoric which barely conceals that which lies underneath: imprecise scholarship, slippery logic, and major conclusions often based on nothing more than personal feelings, emotions and intuitions.[57]

Feldman concluded that Greenberg’s book was “an object lesson in how not to approach the halakhic system,” one that created “a web of confusion in which halakhah—and ultimately, women themselves—emerge the losers.”[58]

However, another response to feminist ferment also emerged. The OU began to take pains to be seen as concerned with women’s status in Orthodox Judaism. That same year, it passed a resolution entitled “The Orthodox Woman in Contemporary Society” which read:

The Orthodox Union supports women in their ongoing quest for greater involvement within the Orthodox community.… Rabbis and congregations are urged to seek to increase the participation of women in Torah study programs.… Member congregations shall take all necessary steps to enable female members to participate more fully in synagogue programs.

Such a resolution, although toothless, portrayed to the Orthodox rank-and-file that their rabbinate was concerned with women’s issues and helped bolster arguments that the Orthodox rabbinate was not ignoring women’s complaints about Orthodox Judaism.

Meanwhile, in 1983 the highest court in New York State issued the strongest statement of any American civil court yet about the enforceability of an agreement to give a get. The case, Avitzur v. Avitzur, interestingly involved a couple who had been married using the Conservative ketubah that incorporated the Lieberman Clause into its text. Following the couple’s civil divorce in 1978, Boaz Avitzur refused to comply with the Lieberman Clause and grant his ex-wife a get. The case ultimately ended up in the Court of Appeals, the highest court in New York State, which ruled that the Lieberman Clause of the ketubah was enforceable just like any other contract; there was “nothing in law or public policy to prevent judicial recognition and enforcement of the secular terms of such an agreement.”[59] Boaz Avitzur appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States which declined to hear the case, thus allowing the decision of the Court of Appeals to stand.

As the first decision by the highest court of any state to address issues of get acquisition, Avitzur was closely watched by the Orthodox community.[60] It did not take long for Orthodox leadership to analyze the meaning of Avitzur from both a legal and halakhic perspective. Amazingly, such analyses often continued to discount the possibility of using a civil agreement to ameliorate the agunah problem. Rabbi J. David Bleich, now a Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva University, reiterated the oft-stated Orthodox rabbinic claim that “there were, and indeed still are—many serious questions regarding the enforceability of [an ante-nuptial] agreement in civil courts.” Such arguments held little water in the wake of Avitzur, a fact Bleich begrudgingly admitted when he wrote that the decision in Avitzur “serves to endow this document with some legal authority.” [61]

In the years following the Avitzur decision, though, due to continued pressure from women within their ranks and incontrovertible evidence of acceptability from civil courts, Centrist Orthodox rabbis became increasingly open to the idea of prenuptial agreements, even if not in the form taken by the Lieberman Clause. Indeed, J. David Bleich himself published an article in Tradition in 1986 arguing in favor of a particular format for a prenuptial agreement which he argued would address both halakhic and American legal issues.[62] A few years later, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, a well-respected member of the Centrist Orthodox rabbinate’s more liberal wing, published a book entitled Women and Jewish Divorce: The Rebellious Wife, The Agunah and the Right of Women to Initiate Divorce in Jewish Law, a Halakhic Solution. The book argued for a systemic halakhic solution to the agunah problem, but realizing that adoption of any such solution would be nearly impossible, Riskin concluded with a far more practical call for the use of prenuptial agreements that would cause a husband to pay his wife a specific sum on a daily basis until he gave her a get.[63]

As Centrist Orthodoxy warmed to the idea of prenuptial agreements to prevent agunot, right-wing Orthodoxy continued to avoid acknowledging the extent of the agunah problem and remained steadfast in its opposition to any innovation to solve it other than communal sanctions and the 1983 New York Get Law. In a 1988 Jewish Observer article dedicated to discussion of marital problems and divorce in the Orthodox world, Aaron Twerski, one of the attorneys who had worked on the 1983 Get Law, came out staunchly against taking divorce disputes to civil court. While Orthodox agunah activists had often claimed that the Bet Din system favored men over women, Twerski assured his readers that “in fact, batei din that deal with family law problems are staffed with fine, ehrliche rabbanim—men of integrity who do their utmost to deal with the issues honestly, conscientiously, and in a manner consistent with Torah principles.” Not once in the entire article did Twerski mention the word “get” or “agunah,” although he discussed many other issues that could arise in a matrimonial dispute, including counseling, child custody battles, and impact of divorce upon children.[64]

The Agudah also worked to discredit feminists who criticized the rabbis for not solving the agunah problem. In 1990, the Jewish Observer published an article by Rabbi Yissochar Frand that was a scathing critique of feminism in general, and Blu Greenberg specifically. Frand firmly closed the door on the possibility of any halakhic innovation to assist agunot, declaring emphatically, “What was assur (forbidden) yesterday, remains assur today, and what is mutar (permitted) today was always mutar…. Halacha is not an amorphous area wherein changing social needs can be legislated….” Railing against feminism as a “subtle and insidious” threat to Judaism, Frand discounted feminist critiques of the Orthodox rabbinate’s failure to help agunot. He objected that the rabbis cared enormously about agunot, relating a hagiographic story that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein suffered from a stomach ailment that flared up each time he had to deal with an agunah question.  “Yet,” he protested, “these militant feminists claim that the rabbis don’t care!” Like his rabbinic predecessors had done with respect to other civil court solutions, Frand insisted that “according to legal experts in the U.S., this type of [ante-nuptial] agreement is probably not enforceable in most jurisdictions.” Frand’s solution to the agunah problem was social ostracism until the husband gives a get. He admitted that a recalcitrant husband could go to a different community and avoid such punishment, and also that there were cases in which such a “scoundrel could buy… himself a beis din which rules in his favor.” Despite this, Frand concluded his discussion by invalidating any legal or halakhic solution to the agunah problem, saying that Orthodox Jews “must continue to seek social cures for what is essentially a social malaise.”[65]

Such arguments were no longer working for many Orthodox women denied a get, and they and their attorneys increasingly turned to civil courts to obtain relief. The courts responded. In 1992, a New York Appellate Division decision called Golding v. Golding opened a window into the internal workings of some Batei Din during agunah cases. David Golding told his wife that he would not give her a get unless she gave into every demand he made with respect to the divorce settlement. The parties appeared before a Bet Din, and the rabbis presented Mrs. Golding with a document in Hebrew listing all of her husband’s demands and told her to sign it or she would not receive her get. Fearing becoming an agunah, Mrs. Golding signed the document. The court held that the settlement was invalid because it constituted “inequitable conduct” and that there had been “no indication of rabbinical arbitration.” Despite the evident coercion that existed in the Golding case, an Orthodox rabbi quoted by the New York Times in an article about the decision continued to claim that Batei Din took care to make sure that women would not be victimized by any “spitefulness or revenge on the part of husbands.”[66]

Cases like Golding were embarrassing to the Orthodox rabbinate. Not only did they portray Jewish divorce law as inequitable and unfair to women, they also exposed the failings of some Batei Din to act ethically in protecting women’s rights. While the Agudah continued to deny the existence of a problem, the Modern/Centrist Orthodox rabbinate, with its more rights-oriented congregants, was no longer able to do so. Thus, in 1991, as the trial court’s decision in the Golding case was winding its way through the Appellate Division, the RCA issued a resolution acknowledging the abuses taking place, and acknowledging that such abuses were a “chillul Hashem,” an embarrassment to the Jewish community. Among other things, the resolution called for the RCA Halacha Committee to develop a legally and halakhically valid pre- or post-nuptial contract that would help solve the agunah problem, and condemned “in the strongest terms” using the withholding of a get as a form of blackmail. This was the strongest institutional statement yet to come from an Orthodox rabbinic body acknowledging the existence of a serious problem of abuse of the get process.[67]

As the RCA was passing its 1991 resolution, a New York state trial court was hearing another agunah case that would soon become notorious in the Orthodox world. The case, Schwartz v. Schwartz, involved the divorce of a well-known couple in the Orthodox community—Naomi Schwartz’s father was the publisher of the national Centrist Orthodox weekly newspaper, The Jewish Press. Her husband, Yehuda Schwartz refused to give her a get unless she turned over a large number of shares in the Jewish Press. The case was splashed across the pages of the Jewish Press for close to a year, and was even picked up by other mainstream New York periodicals.

More than any previous agunah case, Schwartz v. Schwartz raised awareness in the American Jewish community and in New York State at large, about the agunah problem and the suffering of agunot. Articles about the case related in lurid detail the regularly-occurring instances of husbands blackmailing their wives to turn over property and large sums of money in exchange for a get. One article in the Village Voice detailed the particularly egregious case of a man who was separated from his Holocaust-survivor wife. The man refused to give his wife a get unless she turned over the money she received in war reparations from the Germans. Another article, published in New York Magazine, detailed the story of a woman whose husband was withholding her get. As the article related, the woman ended up receiving the get because her husband “dragged her for a block as she held on to the open door of his car, breaking her leg. She got her get after giving him $15,000 and agreeing not to file assault charges.” The press depicted the Orthodox rabbinate as sexist and patriarchal, and therefore unwilling to find solutions to such abuses.[68]

Ultimately, the court in Schwartz v. Schwartz, pointedly noting “the unequal allocation of power between spouses to terminate a religious marriage—particularly where the partners are of the Jewish faith,” allowed Naomi Schwartz to bring in evidence of Yehuda Schwartz’s coercion and withholding of the get at the future hearing on property division.[69] At that hearing, the court held that, because he withheld the get, Yehuda Schwartz forfeited his claim to a substantial amount of marital property totaling $184,500. In the interim, in October 1993, he finally gave his former wife her get.[70] 

In the wake of the Schwartz ruling, Sheldon Silver, the New York State Assemblyman who had proposed the 1983 Get Law, proposed another bill to assist agunot. This bill essentially codified the holding of the Schwartz court, providing that a judge could consider the existence of a barrier to remarriage as a factor in the distribution of assets in a divorce action in the State of New York. It was passed unanimously by both the Assembly and the Senate in 1992, and was signed into law by Governor Cuomo later that year. As in the case of the 1983 Get Law, Orthodox organizations sent letters to the governor urging him to sign the new get bill into law. However, this time, there was a glaring difference: while three centrist Orthodox organizations—COLPA, the National Council of Young Israel, and the OU—wrote in support of the law, the Agudah did not. Indeed, the Agudah strongly opposed the law, even threatening to fight for its repeal, because its rabbinic leadership felt that it would cause violations of the prohibition against a get meuseh, a coerced get. If a husband faced financial repercussions for withholding a get, the right-wing Orthodox rabbinate argued, this constituted coercion on him. Since a get meuseh was halakhically invalid, the 1992 Get Law could cause the invalidation of numerous gittin, with all the requisite problems such invalidation would create.[71] 

The Agudah’s articulation of its opposition to the law showed its hostility toward feminist activists as well as its ongoing passivity regarding any possible solution to the agunah problem. In a 1993 Jewish Observer article, Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, the Director of Government Affairs and General Counsel for the Agudah, acknowledged the existence of an agunah problem, but quickly added:

To be sure, there is ample basis to cast a skeptical eye on the claims that have been advanced by certain “aguna activists” about the alleged magnitude of the problem within the Orthodox Jewish community. There is also good reason to beware the larger agenda of the some of these activists, whose rhetoric often cultivates disrespect for established halachic procedures and rabbinic leaders, and who use the aguna issue to promote some of the most insidious anti-Torah values of contemporary secular feminism.

Zweibel went on to argue that “there are situations where a husband may be fully justified in not wanting to give his wife a get, or where a wife is not entirely without blame herself for her husband’s recalcitrance.” Although he closed by reminding readers that “we must not lost sight of the seriousness of the aguna problem and of the urgent moral imperative it places on us,” Zwiebel did not offer any solution to the agunah problem; he simply discredited the 1992 Get Law and those who supported it and renewed the decades-old vague call for rabbis to give “careful study” to proposed solutions.[72]

The 1992 New York Get Law proved far more effective than its 1983 predecessor in addressing individual cases in which a recalcitrant husband refused to give his wife a get, however it, too, was limited in its ability to systemically solve the agunah problem. First, it only affected divorce cases filed in the State of New York. While the vast majority of Orthodox Jews in America lived in New York, there were certainly large Orthodox communities in other states with agunot who could not be helped by the New York Get Laws. Furthermore, the 1992 law would do nothing to assist an agunah who had no significant marital assets at issue. Without the division of the marital estate to hold over a recalcitrant husband’s head, there would be no economic impetus for him to grant his wife a get. The same held true for very wealthy men who had retained assets outside their marriages. Such men would not need the assets from their marriage, and thus would not be pushed to give gittin to their former wives.

While agunah activists celebrated the 1992 Get Law, they also recognized its shortcomings and continued to argue for a systemic halakhic solution to the problem. As the ranks of activists grew through the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Modern/Centrist Orthodox rabbinate found it more and more difficult to ignore or discredit their voices. In addition to G.E.T., another agunah rights group called Agunah, Inc. had been founded in 1987 by a group of Orthodox women agunah activists, including Rivka Haut. Whereas G.E.T. worked behind the scenes to advocate for individual women to receive their gittin, Agunah, Inc. took a more activist path. Women from Agunah, Inc. spoke out frequently about Batei Din that permitted husbands to blackmail their wives in return for a get, and issued repeated calls for systemic halakhic action on the part of the Orthodox rabbinate to solve the agunah crisis. They led protests in the streets of Brooklyn, in front of the homes of recalcitrant husbands, and even at two of Agudath Israel’s Annual Conventions. On a more national level, a 1989 documentary about Jewish feminism in the United States, Canada, and Israel presented Orthodox feminist Alice Shalvi publicly calling Orthodox rabbis to task for not working harder to solve the agunah problem. “If the rabbis really heeded the basic meaning of Judaism,” she declared, “they could not possibly behave in as uncompassionate a manner as they do without relating to the pain and … misery” of agunot.[73]

 Thus, as feminist ferment and publicity about the agunah problem continued to grow and spread, the Centrist Orthodox rabbinate found itself forced to offer a more substantive solution or risk appearing uncompassionate and closed-minded in the face of women’s suffering. In 1993, the Centrist Orthodox Caucus unveiled a new prenuptial agreement that would, it claimed, solve the agunah problem for those who signed it. The agreement, drafted by Rabbi Mordechai Willig, provided that every day that husband and wife are separated without a get, even prior to the issuing of a civil divorce, the wife was entitled to receive a per diem sum of money for her support. The husband and wife also contracted to appear before an agreed-upon Bet Din to arbitrate the get. If the wife should fail to appear before the Bet Din, or fail to abide by its decision, the husband’s financial obligation toward her would terminate.

As one of the roshei yeshiva at RIETS, Willig had the stature and halakhic authority in the centrist Orthodox world to draft such a document. No friend of feminism, Willig had been one of the famed “RIETS 5,” a group of five rabbis at RIETS that had issued a proclamation in 1984 outlawing Orthodox women’s prayer groups. Willig would not be accused by other Orthodox rabbis as pandering to the left-wing of Orthodoxy or to feminists.[74] Furthermore, in contradiction to his forebears who painted such agreements as dangerous inventions of those not sufficiently concerned with halakha, Willig presented the prenuptial agreement as being rooted in a centuries-old precedent, arguing that this should assuage the “reluctance of rabbanim to introduce innovations to the institution of marriage.”[75]

The Centrist Orthodox rabbinate quickly rallied around Willig’s prenuptial agreement, celebrating the agreement as an effective tool to reduce the number of agunot in America. One Orthodox rabbinic leader went so far as to call it “a light at the end of the tunnel” for the agunah problem. The RCA immediately adopted a resolution in June 1993 calling upon its members to utilize Willig’s or another rabbinically approved prenuptial agreement prior to performing any wedding, an act “which will aid in our community’s efforts to guarantee that the get will not be used as a negotiating tool in divorce proceedings.” The Orthodox Caucus disseminated copious information about the agreement, ultimately publishing a booklet in 1996 containing the text of the agreement and instructions for its use together with articles about the history of the agunah problem, the halakhic justification for the Willig prenuptial agreement, and a list of approbations for the agreement received from halakhic authorities in America and Israel. While a number of Centrist Orthodox rabbis since the 1970s had proposed the use of prenuptial agreements to help solve the agunah problem, many others had objected to such agreements as unhalakhic. The Willig prenuptial agreement ended all of these objections.[76]

Agunah activists greeted the news of what quickly became known as the “Willig prenup” with less excitement than did their rabbinic leaders. Although they were relieved that the rabbis were finally attempting to implement a more global solution to the agunah problem, they saw the RCA’s embracing of the Willig prenup as too little, too late. Pointing out that prenuptial agreements similar to Willig’s had been in use for years, they complained that rabbinic leaders were “the last to endorse the agreements.” Furthermore, like every solution implemented by rabbis in the twentieth century, they recognized that the Willig prenup was flawed in its ability to protect women from becoming agunot. Of course, like the Lieberman Clause, the Willig prenup was only helpful if the couple signed it. Even once signed, the goal of the agreement was not to get the woman her get, but rather to get the couple to appear before the Bet Din. Under the agreement, if the wife failed to appear to the Bet Din, or failed to abide by the Bet Din rulings, she forfeited her right to the “support payments” from her husband. Rather than ensuring that each woman who signed the Willig prenuptial agreement would receive a get, the agreement merely ensured that the couple would submit to the authority of the Bet Din, authority that had over and over again failed to help agunot. Additionally, like all the civil court solutions, the Willig prenuptial agreement would not assist women whose husbands had disappeared, had become insane or otherwise incapacitated, had no assets, or were wealthy and vindictive. Lastly, in order to enforce the financial provisions of the prenuptial agreement, a woman would have had to file suit in civil court, a process sure to cost her copious legal fees and a great deal of time. Rather than solving the agunah problem, the Willig prenuptial agreement merely ensured that the Batei Din would retain their control over Orthodox Jewish divorce cases, control that had done little over the past century to help agunot in America.[77]  

The Agudah, for its part, did not embrace the use of prenuptial agreements. Rather, it continued to insist on the efficacy of the 1983 New York Get Law and the use of social sanctions to assist agunot. Using the 1992 Get Law or the Willig prenuptial agreement to obtain a get required a woman to use the secular court system, something the Agudah was loathe to permit its members to do. Indeed, in 1993, the Jewish Observer published another article by Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, which warned readers that halakha mandated that they litigate all matters in the Batei Din, not civil courts.[78] The fact that women almost always fared better in terms of property division in civil court was of no concern to right-wing Orthodox rabbis. In fact, many right-wing Batei Din refused to hear cases if the woman had already filed suit in civil court. The end of the twentieth century saw few developments to assist agunot in the right wing Orthodox world.[79]

Conclusion

In the waning years of the twentieth century, the strongest champions Orthodox women had in their fight against becoming agunot were the civil courts. Throughout the century, Orthodox rabbis had failed to put forth effective solutions to solve the agunah problem, preferring to use the secular state apparatus resulting in solutions that were flawed and inadequate. In the wake of the decision in Schwartz v. Schwartz, Rivka Haut wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times saying:

The Orthodox rabbinate has abandoned the Torah principles of justice and compassion, persistently refusing to implement Jewish law appropriately and to provide true justice, leaving it up to the civil courts of this state to protect Jewish women and children. Perhaps the rabbis will now follow the model set by civil court judges and will utilize Jewish law in order to help those who abide by it.

Haut’s letter reflected the view of agunah activists and Orthodox feminists that a solution to the problem had not been achieved.  Although permitting an open dialogue about women’s rights ultimately forced the Centrist Orthodox rabbinate out of its passivity about the agunah problem, the solutions it implemented were flawed at best. The right-wing Orthodox rabbinate, by never opening itself up to feminist ferment, was able to offer up a largely ineffective law as its only solution to the agunah problem. In the end, twentieth century American Orthodox women, like their tenth-century forebears, were dependent on the non-Jewish world around them to protect them from get extortion and to save them from becoming agunot.  

            Tanakh lies at the heart and soul of Judaism. The Talmud and Midrash, Jewish philosophy and mysticism, and Jewish thought all find their deepest roots in the Bible. For millennia, Jews and other faith communities have been transformed by this unparalleled collection of 24 books. Tanakh is accessible and enjoyable to small children and to the most sophisticated scholars and thinkers. It is a singular privilege to encounter its sacred words, to engage with its eternal messages, and to be galvanized to greater ethical and social action and spiritual growth as a result of our study.[1]

            From the perspective of contemporary religious students of Tanakh, we have remarkable opportunities today. Scholars publish critical editions of our classical commentators so that we have access to the most accurate texts from our greatest teachers. Scholars discover and publish previously obscure rabbinic works, enabling us to broaden our understanding of the range of interpretation in the classical period. They also advance the field of biblical study in areas including, but not limited to, literary analysis, archaeology and history, and linguistics. The information readily available in books, online resources, and classes is breathtaking.

            At the same time, however, these opportunities also pose serious challenges to our enterprise. How do we balance this flood of knowledge and methodology with the fact that many scholars in the field are not Orthodox Jews and therefore bring their own assumptions and biases to their work? Are there means for sorting through which information and methodology is beneficial for our religious growth and which must be discarded or modified? Ultimately, the litmus test of success for our study of Tanakh is that it deepens our religious commitments and inspires us to greater ethical behavior. How do we shape the contours of this discussion to maximize those benefits and characterize that process with intellectual honesty and integrity?

When we learn and teach Tanakh properly, we convey a sense of holiness and reverence, coupled with respect for individuality and intellectual struggle with our most sacred texts and traditions. Tanakh has the singular ability to inspire and edify people of all ages and backgrounds. The potent combination of rabbinic commentary and contemporary scholarship enables our minds, hearts, and souls to complement one another in a holistic spiritual and intellectual experience. The maturation of sophisticated Tanakh study provides us with a system with which to navigate the complicated contours of scholarship and religious growth. Rabbis and educators have the immense responsibility to sort through available information, commentaries, and methodologies in order to steer the discussion for the benefit of the community.

In theory, the text analysis in the yeshivah and the academy could be identical, since both engage in the quest for truth. The fundamental difference between the two is that in the yeshivah, we study Tanakh as a means to understanding revelation as the expression of God’s will. The scholarly conclusions we reach impact directly on our lives and our religious worldview. In the academy, on the other hand, truth is pursued as an intellectual activity for its own sake, usually as an end in itself. There also are no accompanying beliefs in the revelation of the text.

The ostensible conflicts between traditional and academic scholarship have led some scholars, including several who identify with the Orthodox community, to conclude that traditional faith is incompatible with scholarship. This supposition has led some to reject traditional belief outright, or to radically redefine faith to make it compatible with their scholarly conclusions, or to radically reinterpret classical sources in an attempt to justify such paradigm shifts as being within tradition. These positions have led to counter-reactions in some Orthodox circles that adopt excessively dogmatic and restrictive positions to prohibit scholarly inquiry or peshat learning altogether. Both sides may be motivated by a profound and authentic religious desire to connect to God and the Torah, but they distort aspects of tradition and create dangerous and unnecessary rifts between us.

In Ad HaYom HaZeh, Rabbi Amnon Bazak, one of the bright stars at Yeshivat Har Etzion and its affiliated Herzog College, offers a sophisticated understanding of Tanakh and our faith axioms while simultaneously being fully open to contemporary scholarship. Addressing the fact that many in the Orthodox world disregard contemporary academic scholarship, Rabbi Bazak offers three reasons why such willful ignorance is inexcusable: (1) On educational grounds these issues are widely publicized, and therefore rabbis and religious educators must be able to address them intelligently. (2) Many of the questions are genuine, and must be taken seriously on scholarly grounds. (3) We often gain a better understanding of Tanakh with the aid of contemporary scholarship.

Rabbi Bazak’s central premise is that we must distinguish between facts and compelling tools of analysis, which must be considered in our learning; and the assumptions of scholars, which we reject when they conflict with traditional beliefs. Rabbi Bazak argues that nothing based on facts forces one to choose between faith and scholarship.[2]

The growing popularity of what Rabbi Shalom Carmy calls the “literary-theological” approach to Tanakh study has been transforming the way we approach our most sacred texts. This methodology demands a finely tuned text reading, along with a focus on the religious significance of the passage. The premises of this approach include: (1) Oral Law and classical commentaries are central to the way we understand the revealed word of God, and (2) it is vital to study biblical passages in their literary and historical context.[3]

Over the past two centuries, analysis of literary tools, comparative linguistics, and the discovery of a wealth of ancient texts and artifacts have contributed immensely to our understanding the rich tapestry and complexity of biblical texts. Much also has improved since the 1970s as a result of the literary revolution in biblical scholarship. After generations of dissecting the Torah and the rest of Tanakh, many Bible scholars have recognized that the Torah and later biblical books can be analyzed effectively as unified texts. Every word is valuable. Passages are multilayered. Understanding the interplay between texts is vital.

Great traditional scholars of the previous generation such as the authors and editors of the Da’at Mikra commentary series,[4] Professor Nehama Leibowitz,[5] and Rabbi Mordechai Breuer,[6] exemplified different aspects of how one could benefit from the information and methodology of academic Bible scholarship through the prism of traditional faith. Similarly, the prolific writings of leading contemporary rabbinic scholars such as Yoel Bin‑Nun,[7] Elhanan Samet,[8] and Shalom Carmy[9] are intellectually and spiritually stimulating, as they benefit from the academy while working from the viewpoint of the yeshivah.[10]

The ideal learning framework espouses traditional beliefs and studies as a means to a religious end while striving for intellectual openness and honesty. Reaching this synthesis is difficult, since it requires passionate commitment alongside an effort to be detached while learning in order to refine knowledge and understanding.

To benefit from contemporary biblical scholarship properly, we first must understand our own tradition—to have a grasp of our texts, assumptions, and the range of traditional interpretations. This educational process points to a much larger issue. For example, studying comparative religion should be broadening. However, people unfamiliar with their own tradition, or who know it primarily from non-traditional teachers or textbooks, will have little more than a shallow basis for comparison.

Religious scholarship benefits from contemporary findings—both information and methodology. Outside perspectives prod us to be more critical in our own learning. On the other side of the equation, the academy stands to benefit from those who are heirs to thousands of years of tradition, who approach every word of Tanakh with awe and reverence, and who care deeply about the intricate relationship between texts.[11] The academy also must become more aware of its own underlying biases.[12]

Ultimately, we must recognize the strengths and weaknesses in the approaches of the yeshivah and the academy. By doing so, we can study the eternal words of Tanakh using the best of classical and contemporary scholarship. This process gives us an ever-refining ability to deepen our relationship with God, the world community, and ourselves. It also enables us to build bridges within our community.

Dr. Norman Lamm has set the tone for this inquiry:

Torah is a “Torah of truth,” and to hide from the facts is to distort that truth into myth.… It is this kind of position which honest men, particularly honest believers in God and Torah, must adopt at all times, and especially in our times. Conventional dogmas, even if endowed with the authority of an Aristotle—ancient or modern—must be tested vigorously. If they are found wanting, we need not bother with them. But if they are found to be substantially correct, we may not overlook them. We must then use newly discovered truths the better to understand our Torah—the “Torah of truth.”[13]

The eternally relevant vision of the Torah and prophets is available for the taking. What we make of the journey is up to us, to learn and transform, and work on building the ideal self and society envisioned by our prophetic tradition as we develop our own relationships between God and humanity through the inspired words of Tanakh.

Our early morning daily liturgy challenges us: “Ever shall a person be God-fearing in secret as in public, with truth in his heart as on his lips.” May we be worthy of pursuing that noble combination.

We continue to reach thousands of people annually through our National Scholar program, combining classes, teacher trainings, and publications to promote the core values of our Institute.

            There are several upcoming classes and programs in February:

On Wednesday, February 14, 7:30 pm, there will be a book reception for my latest book, The Keys to the Palace: Essays Exploring the Religious Value of Reading the Bible. It will be held at Ben Porat Yosef Yeshiva Day School, 243 Frisch Court, Paramus, New Jersey. I will give a talk on “Building Bridges in Scholarship and Jewish Community.” Books will be available for purchase and signing. For the flyer with more information, please see https://www.jewishideas.org/keys-palace

Since the beginning of September, I have served as the Tanakh Education Scholar at Ben Porat Yeshiva Day School, in Paramus, New Jersey. I am developing a new Tanakh curriculum for grades 1-8, that reflects our core religious values at the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. I also have given lectures to the Ben Porat Yosef parent community in this capacity.

I also will be giving several classes in various locations:

On Mondays, February 5, 12, 26, March 5, 12, 19: Mondays 1:00-2:15 pm, I will teach a six-part mini-series at Lamdeinu Teaneck on: The book of Chronicles: A Glimpse into the Mind of the Prophets. Classes are held at Congregation Beth Aaron, 950 Queen Anne Road, Teaneck, New Jersey.

For more information and to register, go to http://www.lamdeinu.org/

On Shabbat, February 9-10, I will be a scholar-in-residence at the Baron Hirsch Synagogue in Memphis, Tennessee (400 South Yates Rd, Memphis, TN).

The classes are free and open to the public.

On Sundays, February 18 and 25, 7:30-8:30 pm, I will teach a two-part series at the Young Israel of Jamaica Estates in Queens (83-10 188^th Street, Jamaica, New York) on Megillat Esther: What They Didn’t Teach in Yeshiva Day School.

The classes are free and open to the public.

Our University Network, which I now coordinate, continues to do incredible work to promote our religious ideology and vision on campuses across the United States and Canada. We have added several new campuses and fellows this semester. Please see my December report on our Campus Fellows on our website: https://www.jewishideas.org/article/campus-fellows-report-december-2017

As always, I thank you for your support and encouragement, and look forward to promoting our core values through these and many more venues.

Rabbi Hayyim Angel

National Scholar

Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals

Rabbi Hayyim Angel's Latest Book

Keys to the Palace

Essays Exploring the Religious

Value of Reading the Bible

I can still hear the voices of my grandparents, parents and elder relatives speaking and singing in Judeo-Spanish. Although they have passed away years ago, I still feel their presence especially on Shabbat and holidays and at family celebrations.

I grew up in Seattle among Jews who had come from Turkey and the Island of Rhodes and whose mother-tongue was Judeo-Spanish. It did not occur to me to ask: why were people from Turkey and Rhodes speaking a Hispanic language? Why did they carry themselves with such self-respect and pride, even though many of them were simple laborers with modest formal education? What was the link between my relatives and medieval Sephardic Jewry in the Iberian Peninsula? What was the nature of the Judeo-Spanish civilization of the past centuries that produced the worldview and practices that imbued the lives of the elders of my family?

As I grew older, it began to dawn on me that my generation is the last to have lived among people who spoke Judeo-Spanish as their mother tongue, and whose lives were thoroughly shaped by Judeo-Spanish civilization. The language and many of the cultural characteristics are coming to the end of their historical lives. The new generations no longer speak Judeo-Spanish as their native language, and do not live in a communal context that is conducive to maintaining the language and traditions.

And yet, the voices of our elders stay with us and want to be heard. They-and their ancestors going back 500 years and more-were part of a vital, thriving and powerful Sephardic civilization that spanned the Ottoman Empire and stretched into Europe and the New World. This civilization produced great sages, poets, writers, journalists, dramatists, intellectuals; it fostered a lively, optimistic folk culture. Judeo-Spanish civilization is a treasure not just for members of our group, but for the entire Jewish people. But so little scholarly attention has been given to Jews of the Judeo-Spanish tradition, to trying to understand who they were, what they felt and believed.

It is not possible to bring Judeo-Spanish civilization back to life. Yes, there is a resurgence of interest in Ladino folk songs; there are Ladino chat rooms on the internet; there is more scholarly attention being given to the language and literature of the Sephardim of the Ottoman Empire. Yet, none of these things can restore the old civilization as a natural, living communal organism.

If I still hear the voices of my ancestors, the echo of those voices will diminish with each passing generation-as children and grandchildren will not have had the direct experience and interaction with these ancestors. But their story is not over; it is only transitioning into a new phase.

Judeo-Spanish civilization has fostered significant ideas and values. Our task is to study that civilization as deeply as we can, and to draw out and transmit that which is meaningful to us and future generations. Some of the lasting teachings relate to personal pride and self-respect; humor; a natural, healthy view of religion and our relationship with God; optimism; aesthetics and proper comportment; love of life.

In my book, "Foundations of Sephardic Spirituality: The Inner Life of Jews of the Ottoman Empire", I present a study of Judeo-Spanish civilization-providing historical context, but focusing on the inner life of our people-the ideas, values and traditions that shaped generations of Sephardic Jews-and that can still help shape future generations of our people. I call my book "a nostalgic history", since it is written not as a scholarly outsider, but as one who is himself a product of the Judeo-Spanish tradition.

My grandfather, Marco Romey, used to say-based on a kabbalistic teaching-that each person was put on earth to accomplish a unique mission. I think this is true not just for individuals, but for civilizations. The Judeo-Spanish era thrived for five centuries and has now entered its historical sunset. Yet, its mission is far from over. As we study and ponder the manifold aspects of Judeo-Spanish civilization, we will find that it has much to teach us-and much to give to future generations. The voices of our ancestors are not silenced, and will not be silenced.

We can get a glimpse of a people's values through their everyday proverbs. Here's a small sampling of Judeo-Spanish proverbs, originally collected by my Uncle Dave Romey in the 1950s among the Sephardim of Seattle.

Self-worth, Self-reliance

El rey es kon la gente—The king is with the people-- true nobility is characterized by closeness to the people, not haughty aloofness

En lo ke estamos bendigamos—We bless God for what we have—enjoy what you have, don’t be greedy or jealous

No es este banko, otro mas alto—If not this bench, another one even higher—don’t be frustrated by failure; next time you’ll do even better.

Poko ke sea mio ke sea—Let it be little but let it be mine.

Un dia en la siya del rey es un dia— One day on the throne of the king is one day. All people are essentially equal.

Good Manners, Concern for the Feelings of Others

Un bukado un dukado—One mouthful is worth one ducat—a nice compliment to someone who has served you tasty food

El harto no cree al hambierto—The one who is sated does not believe the one who is hungry—have empathy for the less fortunate

Va ande te yaman y no ande te keren—

Go where you are invited, not where (you think) you are wanted…don’t impose yourself on others.

Observations on Human Nature

Muncha miel bulanea—Too much honey nauseates. People who try too hard to be sweet…are repulsive.

El prove piedre tiempo en kontando la rikeza del rico—

The poor man wastes time counting the wealth of the rich.

Una piedresika ke no pensas rompe la kavesa—

A tiny pebble which you don’t think about-- can break your head. Pay attention to seemingly small dangers

De los ocho fina los ochenta—From eight to eighty—one’s character doesn’t change from childhood through old age.

Humorous Witticisms

Kuando te yaman azno, mira si tienes kola—

When they call you a jackass, look to see if you have a tail. Perhaps there’s truth when people criticize you.

Fuyi del prexil me kresio en la nariz—

I ran from the parsley, it grew on my nose!—you try to get away from someone or some problem, and all of a sudden you confront it in spite of your efforts to escape.

• Min HaMuvhar
• Rabbi Marc D. Angel

“I waited for some answers to many theological questions but answers not as abstract as in a theological treatise, just on that border between the intellect and our imagination, a border so rarely explored today in religious thinking.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           —C. Milosz, in a letter to Thomas Merton

I.   Introduction: Religious Sensibility

Abraham Joshua Heschel sits comfortably between philosophy and poetry. His classic, God in Search of Man, provides lyrical perception and insight, religious and philosophic, not to be forgotten. A critic, skeptical of Heschel’s preference for poetry over theology, remarked, “You think it’s all just poetry?!” He responded (roughly), “Just poetry? What could be more elevated.”

Some years back, having returned to religious life in part inspired by Heschel, I was attending some lectures on Maimonides at UCLA. The contrast between Heschel and Maimonides, a philosopher’s philosopher, was stark. With Heschel I was exploring themes in Midrash, its parables and imaginative flights, some by way of biblical interpretation, some by way of reflection on religious life, religious ideas. For the midrashic imagination, God is anthropomorphically conceived: He nurtures, bestows gifts of love, He forgives, He judges righteously…. On the darker side, He is subject to anger, sometimes rage, to jealousy (for example, in Hosea, directed at Israel and her lovers). These lists can of course be lengthened.

Heschel’s view of prophecy is especially pertinent to the contrast with Maimonides. The prophet is, for Heschel, in a unique position vis-à-vis God and humanity. The prophet “gets” us; he knows from inside, as it were, what it’s like for us, what we think, what and how we feel. But, unlike the rest of us, he also gets God (much better than we do); the prophet understands, empathizes with, the divine pathos. The costs of such dual empathy are substantial. The prophet lives in painful elevation; despite his blessings he is appreciated by few, resented by many.

I’m not sure it’s accurate to report Maimonides as taking such views of God and prophecy to be heretical. But it’s not off by much. Maimonides is an Aristotelean; he takes Aristotle’s God and the Jewish God to be one and the same, surely not subject to any such human ways. Maimonides’ anti-anthropomorphism is as strict as it can be, on a par with that of the modern arch-naturalist Spinoza. The comparison with goes deep. Maimonides’s great philosophic work, Guide of the Perplexed, is in part a translation manual, one that reveals the anthropomorphic biblical imagery to be nothing more than what Bishop Berkeley called “speaking with the vulgar,” (all the while “thinking with the learned”).[1]

The Maimonides lectures at UCLA were given by Rabbi David Hartman, z’l. Hartman painted a vivid picture: The religious outlook of the Guide rejects the idea of God as caring, loving, forgiving, or angry, vengeful, and the rest. God was beyond all that, a Perfect Being, remote rather than available, for example, for interaction. God’s remoteness was not that of someone hiding (the Bible speaks of God hiding His face). God’s remoteness was more like that of a mathematical equation. Perhaps impersonal would be more to the point.

How in the world, I wanted to know, might these two conceptions reside in the same religious tradition? How could Maimonides fail to engage in a more human way, a less reductive way, with the powerful anthropomorphic text of Tanakh, not to speak of the sometimes hyper-anthropomorphic Midrash, the rabbinic religious imagination? Seeing God as loving, as caring about us, about justice—these are no throwaways; they seem central to Jewish tradition, and more generally to religious life.[2]

Hartman responded that Maimonides and the midrashic imagination represent different “religious sensibilities.” The phrase, not common currency in my experience, seized my imagination. The idea increasingly took on importance. One might pray—in the same pew—with one who inhabits a very different religious sensibility. One might experience the world through the biblical religious imagination; one’s fellow might eschew anthropomorphism. Or, one might see the divine in terms of the metaphysically supernatural and the other’s approach might be more naturalistic. At the same time, one’s religious sensibility might well be shared by another in a very different religious tradition. Religious sensibility seemed to me, and still does, important, and relatively underexplored.

Religious sensibility, as I conceive it, is analogous to musical sensibility.[3] “Sensibility” is related of course to “sense” (think: sense organs, but also “my sense of him”) and “sensation.” It’s something like a way of sensing or a taste/preference in the realm of sense, as with musical sensibility. There is some resonance here of the bodily, something I appreciate in connection with my thinking of faith as a stance, an attitude (in an almost nautical sense) of the whole person, this as opposed to a matter of cognitive assent to a proposition. As William James suggests, religion is largely a matter of the gut, surely not purely of the head.

II.Rabbinic Sensibility and the Rabbinic Project

Maimonides’s religious sensibility, at least as suggested in the Guide, is grounded in a philosophic outlook. It’s from philosophy, thinks Maimonides, that we know that God could not really be human-like, as described in Tanakh and Midrash. Maimonides suggests at the end of the Guide that the moment of solitary philosophic contemplation is the religious moment. This is striking; the contrast is with thinking of paradigm religious moments as standing before God in prayer—often communal prayer— or deeply engaged with talmudic issues.

The Rabbis of the talmud, skeptical about philosophy, inhabited a different sensibility, one to which Heschel’s outlook is closer. Max Kadushin, in The Rabbinic Mind, presents a compelling sketch: The Rabbis did not begin with a concept of God. In a way, they had no such concept, certainly not a philosophically well-developed one. What they had was their experience of God (of course against the background of the tradition and the biblical text). And that experience was of a God who loves, who provides, who cares, who is sometimes remote—at a great distance—and sometimes almost immediate, who may be angry and inscrutable; in short, the God of biblical imagination. But—and here’s the rub—that same experience yielded the sense that somehow God was altogether beyond all of this, that He could not be so like us.

Their touchstone experience thus yields two incompatible ideas. How does one live with such paradox? Is there a resolution in the offing? And what does such paradoxical experience yield by way of religious sensibility?

There is a wonderful scene in Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters in which a Jewish mother responds to her son’s question of where God was during the Holocaust with this remark: “Max, you tell him.” Max’s response: “How the hell do I know why there were Nazis? I don't know how the can opener works!” It goes deep in our tradition that our understanding of God’s ways is severely limited, that seeing God’s back—perhaps in a rear-view mirror—is about as close as anyone gets. Buber perhaps exaggerates when he writes that while everyone can speak to God, none can speak (coherently) about Him. In in important sense, we don’t know of what we speak. Accordingly, the Rabbis did not presume to resolve the paradox; nor even to address it. They had no pretensions of being theorists of God—the word is “theologian.” They appear to have had little patience for (what they knew of) philosophy. They were more akin to craftsmen or artists. They lived in the throes of the paradox.

The Rabbis were developing what we now know as Jewish religious practice. After the destruction of the Temple, their task was to find a way to reclaim Jewish religious life in the absence of its former central modes of worship. They were also practitioners of that life. They were thus craftspeople/artists in two senses: first, constructing and embellishing forms of worship, and second, creatively engaging in the practices. Their faith played a vital role in both of these modes. In the first, developing the practices, their ear, their sense of what it is to serve/worship/love/stand in awe of God, was foundational. In the second, the creative engagement with the practices, they were not unlike us, their descendants, seeing the life as a vocation and attending to it in that spirit.

To see the life as a vocation is to bring to bear great focus, imagination, and energy, to engage with it with the seriousness one (ideally) brings to one’s intimate relationships. No one loves quite the way anyone else does, but each (again ideally) brings himself to it with care, nuance, and focus. No one is a mother or father in quite the way others are. Parents, at their best times, do it creatively, with great attention to detail, with art one might say.

Needless to say, any such creativity—as craft or as art—requires solid grounding in the basics. In the case of actual art, say painting, one needs to know a great deal: about paint and its properties, the history of the art, and lots more. Much of the day to day, minute to minute, work tends toward the mundane. And so too with religious life. It’s at the odd moment that insight hits; insight, creativity, powerful realization and the like.[4]

I believe that the analogy with artistic endeavor goes deep. My teacher, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, used to speak of a virtue of deep engagement with Talmud: One learns to navigate life in terms of God’s categories.[5] A great artist like Cezanne tries with all his soul to capture a vision. Looking back on his work he may point to various paintings, some coming closer, others not as close. Hazal, steeped in the tradition, were trying to capture the taste, the feel, the spirit of the Torah they inherited. 

I’ve been describing a religious sensibility that is suggested by much in rabbinic tradition. Unlike Maimonides’s way, it is not attendant to, almost a consequence of, a philosophic outlook. Rather it takes its leave from religious life and experience. From this perspective, the medieval philosophical turn will seem paradigmatic of what Wittgenstein takes to be an occupational hazard of philosophy: the attempt to illuminate by reinterpreting the subject matter in terms we are equipped to handle. Faith then gives way to belief: cognitive assent to propositions. Mystery, the sense that we are over our heads in theorizing about God, gives way to doctrine.[6]^{, [7]}

III.Truth

The dominant conception of truth among philosophers is “truth as correspondence.” The idea is that a thought or a sentence is true just in case it corresponds to, matches the facts. The sentence “John is seven feet tall” (or the thought it expresses) is true just in case the person in question, John, is actually that height. Nothing mysterious here; it’s very intuitive and understandable. The question is whether such an idea of truth can apply to a religious position. And if it can’t, where does that leave us? We certainly want to think of our religious ways as capturing the truth.

Paramount here is what appears to be the unresolvable paradox: God’s anthropomorphic properties and His being beyond any such human-like properties. Logically speaking, you can’t have it both ways. But which is it? If Maimonides had his way, and our God became the God beyond anthropomorphism, we would have resolved the paradox. But then we lose the God who cares, forgives, with whom we live and share intimacy. Might we go the other way? Might we deny God’s radical otherness, His being beyond human ways? We would still have the anthropomorphic God to whom we relate. But in denying this far side of God, as it were, we sacrifice another aspect of our relationship with God, our standing in awe in the presence of mystery.[8] God’s transcendence is not any more optional than is his closeness. This is not a paradox to be resolved! Each of God’s incompatible aspects is absolutely essential to religious life. Giving either of them up, or reducing one to the other, no matter the intellectual attractiveness of resolving paradox, would cripple religious life. So the intellectual puzzle persists, thank God, one might say. But how then might our outlook be seen as a candidate for truth? The reality that is God cannot both have and lack anthropomorphic properties.

Perhaps the concept of truth does not always function in just the way the philosopher’s correspondence idea suggests.[9] When we speak of the truth of our vision of God, perhaps we are coming at truth in a different way. We speak, after all, of a “true friend,” and “true” there has nothing to do with correspondence; we mean a genuine friend. And it’s said that our concept of truth derives originally from expressions like “true saw” and “true North.” The root notion may be something like straight ahead, or one-to-be-trusted, or without distortion. (“Yashar” in Hebrew works here.) If we give pride of place to that idea, we might see a true thought as one that is to be trusted, one that does not distort. Still, in many contexts the idea of correspondence works well. But for the general case, there is no such simple formula.  

This way of approaching truth is perhaps on the road to something satisfactory, but more needs to be said. As Maimonides and friends will be happy to point out, we are still living with paradox. But the situation vis-à-vis truth is even more dire. If Maimonides’s theological view were seen as canonical in Jewish tradition, if it were seen as the only legitimate Jewish outlook, then paradox would evaporate. The cost would be the loss of anthropomorphism. I can’t myself fathom it, but Maimonides seems fine with it in the Guide. However, Maimonides’s philosophical view never did become canonical in our tradition. Jewish tradition is rich in diverse religious sensibilities and their attendant theological directions. There is no felt need to have a canonical theology, something that seems to go deep in the tradition’s sense of itself.[10] That is not to say that advocates of particular theological ways necessarily see themselves as advancing an optional outlook. I’m certain that Maimonides did not see his own view in that light. But still there are a multiplicity of ways to proceed and in the end, they are all available for purchase, so to speak. It’s as if the tradition overrules any claim to exclusivity.

The extent of theological diversity is almost astounding. I’ve spoken of Maimonides and the contrast with Hazal. But there are also the approaches of the Kabbalists, their elaborate theologies. And then there are lots of views that cut across these already mentioned differences, like the contrast between the Hassidim (a number of approaches there) and the Mitnagdim. And the view of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, those deriving from the Mussar movement, and the existentialism/phenomenology of Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik, not to mention the various trends in modern Sephardic thought.

Jewish tradition has an intriguing way with unresolvable halakhic differences of opinion. In the face of fierce reasoned opposition about the correct outcome of a legal dispute—where each seeks the truth and may oppose his opponents view as simply wrong—the tradition in its overview of the situation has it that both are “the words of the living God.”[11] It’s perhaps even more intriguing to contemplate the application of that idea to the philosophic/theological disputes in question. While none of these theological approaches is taken by the larger historical religious community as the correct one, each reflects something that itself approaches a vocation, a kind of calling, something to which its adherents pour their energies, l’shem shamayim, to come to grips with God and religion. Each represents a distinctive inflection of religious life, each with its own insights. Each is a reflection of the living God, in the sense that when one fully lives the tradition, one brings to it one’s own imagination, emotional life, and distinctive intelligence, this in the context of the contingencies of one’s family, one’s education, and prior influences.

If I am on the right track here, then the problem about truth reappears in a more general way. The paradox about God’s anthropomorphic properties made it difficult to apply the notion of truth, what I called “correspondence truth.” But now, even putting aside the paradox, given the multiplicity of legitimate theological orientations, how might truth apply? If each represents “the word of the living God,” where can the truth lie?

It’s tempting to suppose that what’s really true is what they all have in common, basic theological doctrines like the thesis of monotheism. If we were to go in that direction, this would apply as well to the paradox discussed above: While the paradoxical overall outlook cannot be true (in the sense of correspondence truth), it shares with all these theological orientations the basic thesis of monotheism. But here things get even more complicated. First, this approach—what the various views have in common—does not rescue the truth of a full-blooded religious outlook but rather a thin slice of such an outlook, like the idea of monotheism. In this way, it is reminiscent of people who say, “I’m not an adherent of a religion but I do believe in a God.”[12] Second, perhaps more significant, do these divergent outlooks really mean or think the same thing when they say that God exists and is unique? For example, Aristotle’s God—the Active Intellect, with which Maimonides identifies the God of Jewish tradition—may well not be that of Yehuda HaLevi. And the Lurianic Kabbalists seem to go in quite another direction.

At this point, I am not sure how to proceed. One might say that even if their conceptions of God differ, it’s the same God of whom they speak, the unique God about whom they offer different conceptions. Or in philosophic parlance, their concepts may differ but the intended divine referent is the same. Maybe. But the matter seems less than clear.

My inclination is to think about truth in another key, one suggested above in my discussion of Hazal. When we think of our religious outlook as capturing truth, we gesture toward something very large, something toward which we  can only gesture: toward how deep the religious vision goes, how it underscores, alerts us, sensitizes us, to features of reality that are as significant as they are elusive; how it can play a key role in constructing a life characterized by genuineness, yashrut. This is not truth as correspondence, but a way of thinking about truth that connects it more closely with the way literature and the arts capture truth.

If this is correct, we give up on the claim that our theology is true, that we have the true theory in this domain. But wasn’t it always part and parcel of our outlook that God is beyond our ken, that our privilege extends only to seeing his back, as it were? Why then suppose that we can get any closer than one or another of these attempts, l’shem shamayim, to bring to bear the best of our thinking and feeling on the subject. Nor can we get beyond the by-now well-rehearsed paradox, thank God.[13]

President Donald Trump and Congress are in the midst of discussions to legislatively address the status of DACA recipients. These are 800,000 young people who had arrived in the U.S. ten or more years ago at age 16 or younger. If Congress fails to restore the terms of DACA, a vast number of young people may face deportation, even though they have lived most of their lives in the United States. They are students, workers, dreamers who have hoped for better lives as constructive members of American society. Every society must have rule of law, and the US must have and must enforce its immigration laws. At the same time, every good society practices compassion and wisdom in dealing with complicated issues.

Below is an article I wrote some time ago, relating to our responsibility to “the stranger.”

 “Do not afflict or oppress the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 22:20)

“Do not oppress the stranger, for you know the soul of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 23:9)

“When a stranger lives with you in your land, do not afflict him. As one of your citizens, the stranger who lives with you shall be to you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt, I am the Lord your God.”   ( Lev. 19:33-34)

These and other verses in the Torah underscore our responsibility to not only be sympathetic to, but to identify with, those who are “strangers.” The Talmud (Bava Metsia 59b) posits that oppressing a stranger violates 36—and some say 46—Torah prohibitions.

The Torah obviously is teaching us to be compassionate and charitable. But in delineating the obligation to care for the stranger, it uses surprising language. The Torah could have said: have mercy on the oppressed, because you were oppressed in Egypt; or have compassion on slaves because you were slaves in Egypt.  But it does not say these things. Rather, it invokes our experience in Egypt as an impetus for us to identify with and help the stranger.

Who is a stranger? In the biblical times, this was a non-Israelite who lived among Israelites. (In later rabbinic thought, the stranger was identified as a proselyte.) In our days, it applies to a person of different nationality—an immigrant.

What is the nature of being a stranger?  The stranger is an “outsider,” someone not of our kin or clan, someone from another culture or religion, someone who is not “one of us.” We might naturally feel responsibility for our own group: but why should we be concerned with strangers?

The Torah—remarkably—commands us to love the stranger as ourselves.  The Torah justifies this commandment: “for you know the soul of the stranger.”  Because of our early experience as strangers in Egypt, we know first-hand what it means to be considered an alien. We not only suffered physical abuse as slaves in Egypt; we suffered psychological abuse. We were considered as lesser human beings; we were thought to be unworthy of basic human rights. We know deep in our own soul what it’s like to be a stranger; we are uniquely qualified to understand “the soul of the stranger.”

This lesson from antiquity has had ongoing meaning for Jews throughout our history. During the modern era, there have been dramatic demographic changes in the world. Most of the Jews today are living in countries different from those in which our ancestors of 150 years ago were living. Indeed, a huge percentage of Jews are themselves immigrants, children or grandchildren of immigrants.  We know the “soul of the stranger” because our families have been strangers. They have migrated to new lands to escape persecution or to find a better life for themselves and their children. They have made aliyah to Israel in fulfillment of Zionist dreams. They have had to learn new languages, adapt to new cultures. Our immigrant forebears often came to new lands with little money…but with great hope. They had to face physical hardships; and they had to cope with psychological sufferings.

Because we have been immigrants, we “know the soul” of immigrants. We have an inherent understanding of the challenges they face. We recognize the importance of helping them adapt to their new lands and to enable them to overcome the psychological stigma of being outsiders.

If the Torah needed to issue 36 commandments about caring for strangers, it means that we have a strong tendency not to be concerned for them. Indeed, there are many voices in contemporary society that take a dim view toward receiving immigrants. After all, these “outsiders” may be criminals or terrorists. They will cost us a lot of money in order to provide them social, educational and health services. They may take away jobs from native-born citizens. They can change the nature of our society if they come in excessively large numbers.

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 109a) suggests that the wicked city of Sodom was characterized by a policy that excluded immigrants. The Sodomites reasoned: why should we share our blessings with outsiders? Why should we make sacrifices for foreigners? It was this attitude that resulted in God’s punishment of Sodom for its iniquity.

As a rule, people do not become immigrants unless there are compelling reasons for them to leave their own lands. They are fleeing wars, violence, or terrorism. They are fleeing from oppressive governments. They are escaping desperate poverty. They seek a better life for themselves and their families.  Our instinctive response must be to lend a helping hand. We “know the soul of strangers” because we and our forebears were strangers.

Rabbi Yitzhak Shemuel Reggio, a 19^th century Italian Torah commentator, commented on the verse in Leviticus (19:18) commanding us to love our neighbor as ourselves. He pointed out that the verse should be understood to be saying: love your neighbor, because your neighbor is like yourself. Your neighbor is also created in the image of God.

The same comment applies to the commandment to love the stranger as ourselves. All human beings have a unique kinship. Instead of seeing others as “outsiders,” we need to see them as sharing a universal humanity based on all of us having been created by the Almighty.

The Torah knows that it is difficult to achieve this high level of understanding. That’s why it has underscored the obligation to care for the stranger 36 times. But it also knows that we are capable of achieving this level of understanding. And when we do, we not only fulfill God’s commandments; we fulfill our own humanity.

*For Anthony Polimeni, on assuming the Vice Presidency

 of Touro College.

1. The Native

            If by chance, a curious stranger were possibly permitted to enter David Mamet’s private study, he would suddenly find himself facing, among an assortment of general works, copies of his host’s many publications, all reflecting his catholic interests and tastes. Those publications consist of 36 plays and five collections of them; six screenplays; three novels; 13 prose works; three children’s books; 15 film scripts; 21 critical and biographical studies of his life; and, undoubtedly, the current and past issues of the Mamet Quarterly, which dealt critically with his life and works.

removed himself from his historic inheritance to become a menace to himself and his people.

            But before tracing that Wicked Son’s estrangement from his inheritance, as Mamet perceives it, the reader might be interested to learn, briefly, some of the story of our author’s family life, as well as his relationship with his own past. His mother’s family came from Warsaw, his father’s from the town of Hrubezow, in Poland, who on arriving on American shores during the early years of the last century, would “rehearse the rituals, perform the rites of their faith,” but generally did so not “without some embarrassment . . . the religious part of their Jewishness was hollowed out.” Of course, they “shared Jewish food, language, and jokes, which consoled them in their strange new land, but never with a conviction of their old religion.” In fact, we learn that his paternal grandfather “divorced his wife before he reached American shores, leaving her to arrive later, alone, with his child.” What they all wished, ultimately, to achieve on these shores was to move into the mainstream of American life by “modifying, omitting, suppressing, and acting their old faith.” Or, in Mamet’s own summation: “assimilation, apparently, was their ultimate goal.”

            Small wonder, therefore, that it became Mamet’s lot to live with that ambiguity: to deny what he was, and to live a life of hypocrisy for much of his youth. Consider this confessional:

It pleased me to think that I was putting myself over in myself . . . living in Vermont and doing things that it seemed were not acceptable behavior for a nice Jewish boy, whose family had the gene of liberalism—spending a lot of time gambling, hunting, fishing, etc. while hanging out in poolrooms, and I enjoyed life there.

Of some other memories of his youth he speaks with uncommon bitterness. Of his bar mitzvah, for instance, he has only this to say: “It seemed to me a watercolor of Jewishness, American good citizenship . . . with a sense of unfortunately Asiatic overtones.” And of his own Reform Jewish parents, he confesses, “they were determined to be so stalwart, so American, so non-Jewish,” that they overwhelmed him. To which he adds, not without some vitriol directed at his own parents: “Reform Judaism allowed faith to become a lifestyle”—including his own parents—“a mere modification of some central cultural truth out of supposedly secular but patent Christian culture.

            A good number of years later, however, something occurred in Mamet’s life that, among other experiences, “shook the foundations of my being.” He attended the bat mitzvah of his niece in apparently a traditional house of worship. While there, it suddenly occurred to him that he “hadn’t attended a synagogue service for some thirty years.” He was chagrined and shocked to find that it had something to do with a sense not only of assimilation, but also of self-hatred that was nobody’s fulfillment but his own. “And I thought I could remedy that.” In fact, in some three of his pays, he actually attempts to accomplish just that: Homicide, The Old Neighborhood, and The Old Religion. And in Some Freaks, another play, he has one of his characters exclaim: “God bless those in all generations who have embraced Jewishness . . . we are a beautiful people and a good people.”

            Obviously, therefore, it is with such people—his people—that Mamet now wishes to belong. So that during a television broadcast with Charlie Rose, he proclaimed: “To deny who you are, to deny what you want, is to live the life of hypocrisy, which leads to self-loathing.” Whether one belongs to the stage, or the movie set, or any other hermetic group, he finds “filial piety—a responsibility to learn and to instruct the heritage of one’s people—of primal significance.”

            And for Mamet, what better place to begin that search of his heritage than the ancient story of the Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt, as described in the Passover Haggadah, with its famous “Four Questions” and “Four Sons”—especially the “Wicked One,” who also becomes for Mamet a metaphor for all that ails American Jewry. He learned all that during the Seder, the “longest continuing ceremony in the history of the world.”

2. The Wicked Sons

            “Modern Epicureanism” as we know it broke out in the “Wild Sixties.” American and world youth, of whatever faith and tradition, and in surprisingly vast numbers, began to assert that the long-trusted beliefs and observances of their respected faiths and practices limited an individual’s freedom. Look instead, their argument ran, to all traditions and practices, since there is much to learn from all of them. The time has surely come, their cry rang out, when we must discard the “old” and adopt the “new,” forgetting, along the way, that such an act of submission to the new has long been known as “DeClarembault’s Syndrome,” usually described “as a condition of individuals and society, characterized by a breakdown or absence of social norms and values, as in the case of an uprooted people.”

            To better understand this condition of modern Jewry, Mamet chose the infamous “Wicked Son” of the Passover Haggadah, who, questioning and rejecting the tradition, rituals, and practices of his people, is moved to “purge the Jew in himself in order, eventually, to identify the Jews as others.” Or, as often proclaimed by these newfound Epicureans: “I’m not observant but my parents were . . . .” Yet, despite all or such similar declarations, “that Son suffers from a self-loathing, never wishing to admit that he is a Jew, that the world is not fond of Jews, and his only choice of safety lies with the Jews.” In his panic to escape his alienated condition of abandoning his Jewish heritage, the Wicked Son “prefers the irrationality of some new faith imported to the danger of his psyche of the truth.”

            In order to clarify how the Wicked Son, without anchor, suffers from, among other sicknesses, DeClarembault’s Syndrome, Mamet proceeds to present him as masquerading in three guises in certain unaccustomed roles, and in a delusional flight from his common past. They are “Apostate,” “Apikores” (or heretic), and “Assimilationist.”

The Apostate

Unlike the “Conversos” of Spain in the fourteenth century, who escaped the Inquisition by identifying themselves as Roman Catholic in public while practicing Judaism in the privacy of their homes, the Apostate  remains Jewish only by identification (“I’m not observant but my parents were . . .) in order to be accepted on life’s stage by the Christian community. Ignorant of all aspects of his religion, the Apostate will argue that because “my ancestors suffered persecution and prevailed, I will renounce their struggle and call my ingratitude enlightenment.”

            Now freed to enjoy an ongoing doctrine of lassitude and privilege by the same fathers whose religion he currently discards, the Apostate begins to believe that “ignorance and his supercilious superiority to its practices is a licensed diversion.” After transferring his fealty to those he considers the stronger group, accepting their authority and many practices, he forgets entirely, Mamet claims, “that his Christian friends and neighbors will never accept him. As a result, he is left with a certain anomie of restlessness, of purposelessness, in order to adopt the views of his enemies, the anti-Semites, so as to be accepted by them.”

            The Apostate may indeed convert, and often does, but he must still “guard himself against the inevitable scorn of those to whom he proclaims his freedom from his despised heritage.” To lessen that threat, he may one day seek his fellow Jews to no avail, for “the world,” Mamet wisely reminds the reader, “hates a turncoat.” Furthermore, in his hasty flight from his roots, the Apostate may one day adopt a new faith, and often does, but his “rejection of the old becomes anomie, a degradation of his self-image. And since the Christian may never accept him, he has adopted a new religion which offers him no peace.”

            And however much the Apostate might think of himself as superior to the members of his tribe because of his detachment, is he not aware, Mamet wonders bitterly, that a significant number of Arab and Hamas leaders, jihadists, and others of their ilk, often declare publicly—and multitudes privately—their plans to annihilate the State of Israel and its people? And that, sad to record, some 65 years after the Holocaust? To individuate himself, if ever, among his own people, “the Apostate must,” Mamet argues, “first deal with the trauma of human savagery. Only then will he be equipped to return to the ranks of his people.”

The Apikoros

In his glossary at the very end of this book, Mamet defines the term apikoros, derived from the name of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, “as a heretic learned in Judaism but rejects it.” Truthfully, however, one is moved to remind Mamet that his definition of this term is entirely different from the one used in classic Jewish sources, with which he may be only marginally acquainted. For the definition found in the Talmud and summarized definitively by Maimonides, among others, in his Book of Repentance 3:8, reads as follows: an Apikoros is anyone who “denies the concept of prophecy, which reaches from God to the heart of man, or, anyone who denies the prophetic powers of Moses; or anyone who denies God’s knowledge of man’s actions, deeds, or works.” Obviously, then, one need not be a “learned person” to be called an Apikoros: It is enough that he dismisses any of the fundamental principles of the Torah.

            One of those principles—the ritual of circumcision—first established by Abraham, the biblical father of Jews and Judaism, has often been declared, by liberal fanatics and their cohorts, as nothing more than a “savage mutilation . . . irrational and ludicrous, an empty ceremony, which is not the continuation of Judaism but may also be some sort of ritual ceremony by a secret society.” But this particular ritual has literally been central to the survival of the Jewish people. Anyone denying its validity and historical relevance Mamet calls an Apikoros, who will inevitably find himself immortalized into nothingness.

            In that world of nothingness, the modern Apikoros commits, in addition, the most heinous of all sins, summarized in biblical terms, as the worship of the “golden calf.” If “modern man cannot control the gods,” his argument runs, “they do not exist . . . how then may I control them, through gold . . . I will therefore worship gold.” The “gold” in that argument, surprisingly, is in Mamet’s considered view the current bar and bat mitzvah celebration. It is standard practice, for the wealthy parents of the young celebrant, aided and directed by a professional “party manager,” to plan the most ostentatious of all such celebrations. And whoever has attended such a Saturday night affair will immediately recall that, on entering the vast ballroom, two blazing orchestras are in full swing, the endless platters of hors d’oeuvres are served by gracious waitresses, the seven- or eight-course dinner, the after dinner refreshments, the dancing girls, the singers, crooners, comedians, the stacked bars every few feet, and even a professional clown for the entertainment of the little ones in attendance. All ends with the rising sun the next morning.

            After that night of revelry, the previous morning’s prayer service, the Torah reading, the confirmant’s speech, the sermon, have long been forgotten in this consuming worship of the “golden calf.” All of which results in Mamet’s bitter reaction to such “idolatry,” with a warning that such celebrations are “not the continuation but the death of Judaism . . . for even if parents mime their devotion, the children are aware of the sham; they will endure as they must, but most will be reluctant to impose that tax on their offspring, which the next generation may likely turn against all things Jewish.”

            To prevent that next generation from renouncing all forms of Jewish life, except perhaps the acknowledgment of their birth, Mamet seriously suggests that all such worshippers of this “golden calf” return to the ancient doctrine of teshuva, or repentance. In fact, Mamet actually devotes a chapter in this work, entitled “Lies or Teshuva” heralding the need for a total transformation of this Apikoros’ personality from his alienated status as a Jew only by a quirk of heredity, who “refers to his forbearer, much as a wealthy man might allude to an ancestor as a horse thief.”

            Repentance for this wicked son must begin, Mamet insists, not in, say, a Temple, where the “members of the spiritually inert may praise each other’s monetary contributions as true Judaism, and still remain an unaligned Jew.” Should this Apikoros truly search for authenticity, he must begin, Mamet strongly recommends, in a “classic shul, or synagogue, without any gilding: no golden pews, gymnasia, organ music, abbreviated services, or mixed choirs.” This Apikoros might even begin his transformation, argues Mamet, in an old-fashioned shtiebel, or small, sometimes even unkempt room, or hall, where wealth is pointless. To be sure, “wealthy support would surely be welcome, but wealth is definitely not worshipped.” Such services are often led by a pious rabbi, who owns a sound knowledge of Bible, Talmud, Midrash, and their commentaries, as well as “a strong sympathetic concern for the underprivileged, the depressed, the forlorn, and the poor.” Were this idol-worshipping Apikoros to avail himself regularly of such an environment, he “might find himself radically transformed into a Jew again, with no false gods, no idols,” and, of course, no mixing of milk and meat.

The Assimilationist

            The “Assimilationist Jew,” as Mamet depicts him is basically a “winter Jew.” Torn between the conflicting claims of the solstice holidays—Hanukka and Christmas—the Assimilationist will argue that we dare never deprive our children of a “deserved treat” by denying them the pleasure of celebrating Christmas, “while posturing themselves before the waning sun, singing heartily a wide variety of carols,” thereby confirming that “Jewish guilt” and “Jewish anxiety” are not necessarily Jewish at all but “rather a universal desire to revert to paganism.” For that hurtful “abandonment of his own race and culture, the Assimilationist will suffer the pangs of his treason. For the trimming of a ‘Hanukka bush’ is really a desire of man to revert to paganism.”

            But religion came into being, Mamet argues, to supplant the anomie and excess of paganism. Humans, individually, and all religions, generally, have always been caught in a “dynamic struggle between reverting or deciding to supersede the pagan.” Hence the answer for the Christian should naturally be Christianity and for the Jew, Judaism. But because the modern Jew, in the main, is less aware of his own religion and “its opportunities for the fundamental,” he may suppose that the “errors he finds in his own religion can only be cured by the embrace of another,” resulting, of course, in a vast increase of current Assimilationsts.

            Of all the many Assimilationists roaming our present American Jewish world, Mamet chose for a healthy share of opprobrium none other than Noam Chomsky, the famous, or is it infamous, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Displaying a special dislike of him, Mamet derides this disaffected Jew, who declares consistently, among other things, that “Zionism is criminal,” and nothing more than a late twentieth-century affirmation that all Jews are “business cheats.” And though Chomsky may argue that “to endorse a vendetta against the innocent based on religion is obscene criminality,” he still sees fit “to understand such vendettas, as long as they are carried out against the Jews generally, and Israel in particular.” Hence, our distinguished academic refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, referring to it only as a “phantom state with no right to exist.”

            Furthermore, though Chomsky would argue that Jews in France, for example, have “a right to live unmolested lives” but that “Israel has no right to protect its citizens.”

Small wonder, therefore, that those who follow Chomsky repeat constantly this jarring assertion: “My parents were Jewish but I do not consider myself Jewish . . . .” To such disoriented negativists, Mamet raises this inevitable question: “Are over four thousand years of cultural, genetic, and religious affirmatives now to be abrogated by the hearty embrace of secularity?” To which Mamet replies: “Should Chomsky and his variety of assimilationists ever find themselves in trouble in either the Arab, French, or in any other country across the globe they so lovingly admire, they should forever know that “Israel would offer them a home under the ‘Right of Return.’”

            Taken together these three “brotherly” representatives of the Wicked Son, seeking to acculturate or assimilate into American life, have willfully separated themselves from the faith of their fathers. The religious past of their Jewishness was, obviously, also hollowed out. How thin and fragile, therefore, their grasp of the old world they left behind and the new world they swiftly adopted. Moving rapidly into the mainstream of American life, they apparently persuaded themselves to modify, omit, or suppress the traditions of their own people.

            This de-emphasis of their heritage, cultural identity, and religious observance actually mirrors, in good part, Mamet’s own life. For he too recognizes that his early disassociation with his people was the “result not only of assimilation but even of self-hatred, something that was no one’s fault but his own.” As indicated above, it took an attendance at the bat mitzvah services for his niece, among some other such experiences, to connect him with his race, people, Israel, his own history, and the wisdom and solace of his own tradition.

            In addition to tradition, one is motivated to ask, is there possibly a cure for the Wicked Sons of our day? Chief among the cures, Mamet frequently suggests, is the element of “belonging.” In fact, he devotes a chapter in this work to the absolute need for the same, entitled “Belonging.” “To me,” he begins with this glowing assertion, “life consists in belonging . . . because the opposite of tribal life is a life of anxiety, loneliness, and loss.” And for him, the ultimate virtue of “belonging,” of course, is the theater, movies, and the arts. Of all the hermetic groups he has ever joined in his life, the theater remains most impressive and consistent because it revolves around “filial piety.” While working there, he constantly experienced its “human language, responsibility to learn, to instruct, and its sense of timelessness and history.” Lessons, too, of how to control “anger, sloth, lust on the one hand, and on the other, acts of kindness, helpfulness forbearance, or even silence,” all of which came naturally to him while on the set.

            Needless to say, however, not everyone could be as fortunate as Mamet. Others can experience similar virtues by joining any of a host of organizations dealing with poverty, health care, senior citizens, orphans, and so forth, all of which confirms Mamet’s own view that the “Jew is not only made and instructed but also commanded to live in the world and enjoy those things God has permitted him.”

            But we also know that, lest we continue raising additional generations of “Wicked Sons,” the Jew is instructed, first and foremost, as mentioned above, to become a Jew. It begins simply, as Mamet agrees, with daily prayer, to be followed ideally with an hour or two of study of some classic Judaic texts, fully translated and annotated, of Bible, Talmud, Midrash, Jewish history, ethics—alone or with friends. And, lest we dare forget—the Passover Haggadah.

            And if Mamet boasts that he never walked through a “stage door or onto a movie set without the thrill of belonging,” he was fortunate in experiencing that thrill while attending, and participating, in the celebration of the Passover Seder. He proudly records that experience for the common reader: “This love of community, this love of knowledge, this joy of immersion in history, this thirst for group approval, for moral perfection, this endless variety of vertical and horizontal connection, these are all open to the Jew as both his right and his responsibility.”

3. Anti-Semitism

            Whatever their present or future orientation on the American and/or world scene, these “Four Sons” will inevitably face a condition that has plagued world Jewry for four millennia, or ever since the birth of the biblical brothers Isaac and Ishmael, and Jacob and Esau. And that, of course, is the question of anti-Semitism, in all its raging and grisly forms ever since then, up to our very own day. For throughout the history of mankind, anti-Semitism “has been inevitable, at times waxing or waning, but always inevitable.” What troubles Mamet most, however, is that it has become so rampant in our own day, especially since the establishment of the State of Israel, some 60 years ago, that it has “morphed into the rhetoric of reason.”

            In fact, Mamet actually categorizes the general arguments of our average Christian neighbors, past and present, in these terms: a) I have nothing against the Jews per se, I am merely speaking against Israel; b) I am merely stating the obvious, for I mean no harm to individual Jews or the Jewish people, but it is a fact that Jews control . . . . I do not say this is good or bad, only that it is so; c) Jews killed the Christian god. I do not say this should influence our contemporary thinking but there it is in the Gospels.” And in the Arab world, Israel is denounced as a modern instance of the “blood libel,” with Muslim replacing Christian blood. And Israel’s response to the constant bombings of its innocent citizens is listed by them as “reprisals and retaliation,” when, in fact, they are made by Israel only in self-defense, or in its unending struggle for survival.

            All of which is not to say that Mamet has in this, and other recent works, suddenly awakened to the ravages of anti-Semitism everywhere in the world, especially in or about Israel. It is the result, in good measure, to the recent awakening of the Jew inside himself, in addition to the continued ferment in his mind of the condition of world Jewry. For, outside the theater and movie set, he has searched his own beginnings to find not only what may be missing in his life but also the life of his fellow Jews in America. For how else explain his extended critique of American Jewry in this work—and under what authority? But when one truly cares, authority may not always be necessary. And Mamet cares.

            Cares enough, in fact, that some 12 years ago, in another volume of short essays, Make-Believe Town, he reasoned more powerfully—for this reader, at least—than in The Wicked Son the shallowness of our general reasoning of the causes of anti-Semitism. It demands a careful reading:

Jew hating is not caused by Jews. It does not even arise out of a misconception. It does not even arise of a need to hate Jews. It arises from a need to hate. We Jews are not the cause of anti-Semitism, nothing we have done caused it. We are just its approved victim . . . . we cannot cure it, and it is not only folly but self-destructive to try. We can only defend ourselves against it. Explanation, reason, and, importantly, tolerance in response to anti-Semitism are disastrous forces . . . . It is not that anti-Semites will make the problem worse, but they will distract us from the danger of defenselessness. Reason is not a defense against anti-Semitism. The least appearance of race hatred is a questioning whose end is murder . . . . anti-Semitism is not ignorance, it is insanity—human rage against a target deemed both allowed and unprotected. It is caused by the victim.

To all that genuine reasoning, the common reader would say “Amen.”

            Mamet, in his sympathetic mood, adds this postscript: “Should the Wise Son ever ask: ‘Why the Holocaust?’ he is expressing a wish that this generation should be spared.”

4. The Exogamist as Wicked Son

            Of all the fascinating titles Mamet assigned to each of the 37 short chapters of this work, none is more intriguing than the one he chose for the thirty-third: “Judaism: the House that Ruth Built.” It moves the reader to wonder at once: What do Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and Babe Ruth have in common with Judaism? Obviously, one realizes immediately: really nothing. For Mamet’s clever reference here is rather to the biblical Ruth, who, after much personal suffering, built a “Ruthian” home of historical and future royalty in Bethlehem, millennia ago. For Mamet, apparently, the biblical Ruth became the paradigm for “exogamy,” or “marriage outside of a specific tribe, or a similar social unit.”

            Deciding to employ this clever metaphor to his promotion of exogamy as a possible solution to some of Jewry’s problems of survival, he apparently forgot to study a little more carefully the Book of Ruth, itself a “little epic and idyllic whole,” with some of its classical commentaries. Had he done so, he would have learned the historical significance of two unforgettable statements Ruth uttered when Naomi, her destitute mother-in-law, suggested sadly that Ruth, in her own widowhood, return to her Moabite people and their past. Ruth refused—utterly! She intoned, instead, her two heartrending replies, after insisting on cleaving to Naomi: “Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God.” By which she obviously meant to convey, of course, her unalterable commitment to His laws given at Sinai, including, as Rashi adds, “all the various punishments for their transgressions.” In other words: no compromises!

            And, if destiny should decide one day that Ruth would marry the “kinsman” who would “redeem” her, he too would be required to observe the laws and customs appertaining to exogamy, as defined in chapter four of her Book. All of which Boaz, her “kinsman,” performed unconditionally, of course, in front of a group of Judges and an assembly of scholarly witnesses.

            What puzzles this reader, however, is why Mamet, lecturing the multitude of “fallen away” Jews on the issue of their Jewish survival, did not first cite those famous earlier lines, uttered by his own favorite biblical figure, the patriarch Abraham, the father of his people? Seriously concerned about his son’s marital life, we need only recall, Abraham uttered his unforgettably restrictive words to his senior servant, before sending him on his way, to search for the appropriate wife for his son. “And Abraham said: I will make you swear by the Lord . . . that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, but will go to the land of my birth and get a wife for my son Isaac . . . . The Lord . . . will send his angel before you and you will get a wife for my son from there” (Gen. 24:1–6).

            And Rebecca, in turn, thinking of her son Jacob’s future married life, cried, in her angst, to Isaac: “I am disgusted with my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries a Hittite woman . . . what good would my life be to me?” (Gen. 27:46).

            So Isaac sent for Jacob and blessed him. He instructed him, saying: “You shall not take a wife from the Canaanite women. Go to Padden-Aram to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and take a wife from the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother . . . . Jacob obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Paddan-Aram” (Gen. 28:1–6).

            And even Esau, the incarnation of the “Wicked Son,” realizing his parents’ objection to exogamy, followed suit and went to Ishmael, and took a wife in addition to those he already had: Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, son of Abraham, sister of Nabaioth . . . .” (Gen. 28:1–7).

            Lest one conclude that the Jewish denunciation of exogamy remained forever buried in ancient biblical times, we are repeatedly reminded that what Abraham rigorously championed filtered down steadily through the ages till all the laws prohibiting exogamy were clearly enumerated at Sinai, as recorded formally in the Talmud and later incorporated in Maimonides and the Codes of Civil Law. And thereafter discussed endlessly, in all of its legal, social, and communal intricacies in the vast responsa literature written and published since then to our very day. What happened in Bethlehem merely reaffirmed what was previously formulated at Sinai and practiced faithfully since then in all instances.

            Nevertheless, Mamet persists in believing that “Ruthian homes,” built on “modern exogamy,” should be spread across America. So that he opens this chapter with a little story he had often heard about a “fallen away Jew,” who when asked “Why did you give it up?” (it meaning Judaism), replies: “I had a bad experience with a rabbi.” And he defends himself further with a tautology: “I left because rabbis are bad; rabbis are bad because Judaism is bad; I know this because I met a bad rabbi.” If “bad rabbis” cause that continuing “falling away of so many Jews,” why then does Mamet continue to quote, approvingly, a formal statement by a large contingent of rabbis, who promote exogamy, to save the many “fallen away Jews,” who continue “to give it up?”

            Here, then, is that statement:

Many contemporary rabbis have written most positively about the benefits of modern intermarriage. It is not, they point out, the non-Jews who dilute and threaten the community with so many ‘fallen away Jews.’ We have seen frequent examples of the non-Jewish partners bringing his or her spouse back to Judaism.

One is tempted to inquire immediately whether one of these “nameless rabbis” may have been responsible for denying him a meaningful bar mitzvah celebration he laments so bitterly. Or maybe one or two of them, or more, ratified his personal experiences with exogamy? And how many of these rabbis may have added, sadly, to the countless “fallen away Jews” who now constitute some 48 to 51 percent of American Jewry and have left the fold permanently? Or, were they motivated to spread exogamy to fill some of their own diminishing membership files?

            And even if, as Mamet argues further, exogamy might encourage the non-Jewish partner to persuade his or her spouse to attend Sabbath services, neither one knows or understands the barest meaning of the prayer book, its traditions, or practices. Even the most modern translation of that book hardly ever results in any greater religious practice, unless one is first taught by competent instructors, or highly educated and concerned teachers of whatever rank the classic meaning of prayers. Otherwise, confusion and uninterest follow. “Belonging” alone, despite Mamet’s advocacy of it, shall not, as indicated above, accomplish any significant change in the exogamist. As everyone should know, the laws, practices, and traditions or any other aspect of Judaism demands consistent study, reading, practice, and meaningful experience.

            Truthfully, need one really have to remind Mamet that even in the House that Ruth built in the Bronx, or in any other of such “Ruthian houses” across America, there exist any number of works—the most current being Official Rules Book of Major League Baseball of some 224-page length—without which nothing could proceed successfully on, or off, the playing field? And woe unto the umpire or baseball executive who, failing to recall consistently—especially umpires—any of those rules during a challenged play or other crisis, would then find themselves threatened, or verbally assaulted, by players and fans, or worse, demoted to the minor leagues, or even to the amateur little leagues. True of baseball, it is no less true—even more so, in fact—of the house that “Ruth” built in Bethlehem. All of which moves this sympathetic reader to conclude that, lest infatuation trump judgment, Mamet, in chapter 27 of this engaging book, finds himself striking out.

            Before returning this book to the shelves of Mamet’s “self-authored” library, this reader was moved to recall, interestingly, Clem Yeobright, the native in Thomas Hardy’s novel The Return of the Native. For Clem, “inwoven” with the heath of his boyhood, severed his relations, with his roots by, of all things, working for a jeweler in Paris, a “place and occupation at the opposite pole from the heath.” In returning to the “heath,” Clem “unconsciously wishes to recover the organic connections with his roots.” But, having acquired radical ideas in Paris, he genuinely aims to educate and modernize the “heath” folk, without realizing that he would, by making them self-consciously critical, destroy the organic community he wishes to rejoin.

            In some ways Mamet, too, left his people to gain national and international acclaim as one of America’s leading playwrights and movie producers. Having acquired some new and radical ideas in Hollywood, theaters, and movies across the country, including “exogamy,” he now wishes to modernize the “heath” folk of his own past with some new ideas, such as advanced in this book, by promoting “Ruthian homes” across the country. All of which would certainly have a deleterious effect on the American Jewish community. The return of this native’s ideas would surely create chaos, a chaos that would sadly rob the Jew of his identity.

            And yet, it becomes abundantly clear to any Mamet enthusiast, if asked to which “House” does our renowned playwright belong, the House in the Bronx, or the House in Bethlehem, should direct the questioner to the following passage in this work: “Judaism as a spiritual, ethical, or social practice has at its core a mystery so deep that not only is its existence hidden from the uninitiated, but its practices are hated, scorned, reviled, and murdered as necromancers. What is the fear the Jew engenders that manifests itself as hatred? Perhaps it is caused by his historical absolute, terrifying with certainty, that there is a God.”