National Scholar Updates

            The rabbis depict our forebears Abraham and Sarah spreading the knowledge of Hashem far and wide. Some formulations of this idea actually use the verb gayyer (=to convert).^[2] Moreover, the Talmud ascribes to God, no less, the designation of the partriarchs as “those who first made Me known in the world” and to Israel the claim “we have made Thee known in the world”.^[3] But why marshall texts to demonstrate the obvious: Torah and Talmud mostly^[4] see Israel as having received the Torah that they might be its torch-bearers. Thus in rabbinic tradition welcoming gere sedeq (=righteous converts) into the covenant is deemed to be a misvah.^[5] So giyyoor being a misvah giyyoor was sacrosanct. Or at least so we thought.

            Then early last year news broke of men and women who had converted to Judaism under the auspices of respected Israeli rabbis and were now being declared gentiles. The initial perplexity that greeted the news turned into disbelief as reports began to speak of conversions anulled in the hundreds and thousands by Israel’s supreme rabbinic court. Eventually we managed to procure a copy of that court’s decision that allegedly set in motion the overturning of conversions. The following is the picture as it emerges from the pages of that document.

            It all begins in Ashdod when a couple appears before the local rabbinic court seeking a divorce. The court informs the couple that it is impossible to get divorced unless one was first married. Jewish law, it explains, does not recognize marriage between a Jew and a gentile. And because the woman is a gentile, the court does not look upon them as husband and wife. Having lived in the belief that she was Jewish ever since her conversion many years prior, the woman is flabbergasted. She appeals to the supreme rabbinic court in Jerusalem. On February 2^nd, 2008, that august body issues its reasoned pesaq in a 53 page document that essentially upholds the Ashdod ruling.

            The Beth Din’s Pesaq of February 2008 (hereafter BDP) is problematic in at least three areas. First, it makes assertions that are inconsistent with the facts. For example, it states that all the posqeem (=halakhic decisors) throughout the generations have ruled conversion retroactively invalid if the convert fails to live up to his/her commitments. When we consult the posqeem - whether it be Rambam,^[6] Tur,^[7] or Shulhan Arukh^[8] to mention three of the most eminent - we find them saying the exact opposite. Indeed, there seems to be only a single dissenting rishon, namely the author of Hagahot Mordecai.^[9] Now in order to appreciate the Hagahot Mordecai’s position we need to recall the talmudic passage from which he claims to derive the idea of retroactively invalid giyyoor. The Mishnah at Yebamoth 24b reads:

A man who was alleged to have had relations with ... a non-Jewish woman and she later converted he shall not marry [the woman]. If, however, he married her they shall not be separated. If a man was alleged to have had relations with a married woman and she was subsequently divorced, then even if they went ahead and married they shall be separated.

The convert of this Mishnah is one whose motives for conversion cannot help but raise doubts. Nevertheless, in ruling that “if married they shall not be separated”, the Mishnah implies the conversion to be valid. But can this implication be correct when it would seem to contradict another tannaic source? That is what the Gemara wants to know, and it begins by citing the counter source.

Surely we have learnt in a Baraitha: Whether it is a man who converts for the sake of a woman or a woman for the sake of a man; whether the person converts for the sake of the royal table or to be employed by Solomon - none of these are converts according to R. Nehemiah. For R. Nehemiah would say: those who convert for fear of lions; those who convert on the prompting of a dream; those who converted in the days of Mordecai and Esther - none of these are converts ...

Inasmuch as he invalidates conversions undertaken for less than the purest motives, R. Nehemiah is irreconcilable with our Mishnah - or rather with the inference the Gemara had drawn from it. So ought that initial inference to be rejected? No, says the Gemara, because apropos of this very issue R. Yitzhak bar Shemuel bar Marta transmitted in the name of Rav that the law is KE-DIBRE HA-OMER (=according to the one who says) ‘They are all converts’ (Yeb. ibid.).

            Now Rav (d. around 250) having bestraddled the tannaic and amoraic eras, is allowed to dispute a tanna^[10] - a licence not granted other amoraim. However, it is not on the strength of his quasi-tannaic status that Rav rules here at Yeb. 24b, but rather does he side with the anonymous tanna who disagreed with R. Nehemiah and “says ‘They are all converts’”. Hence the Gemara’s original inference is vindicated; for though it places our Mishnah at odds with R. Nehemiah, it keeps it in line with the tanna cited and seconded by Rav. And it is the decision of Rav (which the Gemara identifies as consistent with the Mishnah) that post talmudic halakhists follow almost to a man. But as noted earlier, there is a dissenter: Hagahot Mordecai.

Although the Talmud rules there [at Yeb. 24b] that they are all full proselytes, we could say that it refers only to cases where we see them rectifying their ways even if their initial motive was marriage etc. ...^[11] I prefer this interpretation to the alternative which would posit an amora [i.e. Rav] ruling not in accordance with the baraitha of R. Nehemiah. Moreover, the undisputed baraitha [cited Yeb. ibid.] that says no converts were accepted in the days of David and Solomon [for fear of ulterior motives] supports us.^[12] What I have written here is my own opinion, not what I received from my teachers; and my understanding should not be relied upon.

            One has to wonder whether Hagahot Mordecai had the words KE-DIBRE HA-OMER in his copy of the Talmud. Be that as may, there is nothing anomalous about a halakhist relying upon a variant reading of the Talmud. Similarly, halakhists will occasionally argue for following a da‘at yaheed (=minority opinion). However, what is so disconcerting about BDP is its insistence that the exceptional view of Hagahot Mordecai is shared by all posqeem throughout the generations.^[13]

            The second bone we have to pick with BDP is over its ad hominem slurs. Stooping to the level of personal attacks is usually a sign of desperation. How else to explain its ploy of declaring venerable members of named Israeli judiciaries to be resha‘eem? And classifying people resha‘eem is tantamount to impugning their credentials to act as witnesses - and by analogy also as judges.^[14] The prohibition to accept the testimony of a rasha‘ is derived from Scripture, as explained by the Talmud and conveniently codified by Rambam:

“Resha‘eem [=unjust or guilty persons; felons] are disqualified from giving testimony as it says [Exod 23:1] ‘You shall not make common cause with a rasha‘ to be a witness of hamas. Tradition understands this scripture to be saying ‘Do not let a rasha‘ be a witness’.” (Yad, Edut 10:1)

Proclaiming a dayyan (= judge of a rabbinic court; plural: dayyaneem) a rasha‘ is a grave matter and one would expect to learn which court of law convicted him and on what count. Instead BDP arrogates to itself the authority of ruling fellow dayyaneem resha‘eem without even hearing the men’s defence. If that were not egregious enough, the primary charge it cites against the dayyaneem rests on the following circular reasoning. Conversion requires a beth din (see Yeb.46b). Since they are resha‘eem, their court is no court, and consequently the people they convert remain gentiles. The Torah pronounces a curse on anyone who leads a blind person astray (Deut 27:18 cf. Lev 19:14). In making the people they convert believe themselves to have become Jews when in fact they are still gentiles, they are guilty of the sin of leading the blind astray.^[15] Hence such dayyaneem fall into the category of resha‘eem.

            Additional charges bandied about by BDP include: 1) forgery, 2) heresy and 3) brazenly disparaging Torah. The forgery charge alleges that the rasha‘ judge signed conversion certificates presided over by dayyaneem other than himself. Now these types of certificates begin with the formulaic opening be-mothab telatha ka-hada (= the three of us sat in judgment etc.) - because it is the same three judges who form the converting beth din that also go on to sign the certificate. Needless to say, a judge who did not personally sit on the court cannot lawfully put his name to such a document. But that, alleges BDP, is precisely what the ‘delinquent’ dayyan went and did. If true, nobody would dispute the impropriety of such behavior. However, the Talmud lays down a principle sheluho shel adam ke-motho.^[16] Of course misvot she-begufo i.e. duties that demand personal involvement cannot be deputized; and signing a document that claims its signatories were party to the transaction described in that document is surely such a duty. Yet it is conceivable that a senior judge might, albeit mistakenly, think of his trusted juniors as emissaries. Furthermore, unlike a bill of divorce or even a marriage contract, a giyyoor certificate has no halakhic function whatsoever. It is granted merely to serve the convert as ready proof in the future when facing bureaucracies and the like. All in all then, the forgery indictment seems a stretch.

            The heresy charge (levelled originally by the Ashdod court but cited approvingly by BDP) is even more baffling. The actual term used is epiqoros - which in popular parlance is generic for heretic. The Talmud, however, defines the epithet more narrowly. The tenth chapter of Mishnah Sanhedrin^[17] lists reprobates who forfeit their share in the world to come. One of them is the epiqoros. And it is in the course of expounding the Mishnah that the Gemara records the following definitions.

Rav and R. Haninah both say he [the epiqoros] is somebody who insults a Torah scholar. R. Yohanan and R. Yehoshua b. Levi say he is somebody who insults his fellow in the presence of a Torah scholar. Now those who classify the epiqoros as somebody who insults his fellow in the presence of a Torah scholar, the one who insults the scholar himself they classify as megalleh paneem ba-torah shelo ka-halakhah (= a brazen disparager of Torah). But for those who define epiqoros as one who insults the scholar himself, what kind of person is the megalleh paneem ba-torah? He is somebody like Manasseh son of Hezekiah^[18] (San. 99b).

Since BDP does not elaborate, one cannot be sure which definition of epiqoros it has in mind. On reflection, though, it is probably the vernacular meaning since it would be rich beyond belief for BDP to accuse another of disparaging a Torah scholar! More substantively, what is the point of BDP branding the dayyan of its disfavor an epiqoros?

            It will be recalled that, based on Exodus 23:1, resha‘eem are disqualified from giving testimony. Besides rasha‘, Exodus 23:1 contains another operative word: hamas.^[19] The Talmud (San. 27a) records a dispute between Abayye and Rava as to whether or not hamas modifies rasha‘. Rava holds that the word hamas modifies rasha‘; hence anti-social behavior is prerequisite for witness disqualification. For Abayye, on the other hand, even non-hamas wrongdoing (e.g. ritual delinquency that is a matter between a person and God), is sufficient to lose a witness his credibility. Thus Abbaye would disqualify not only a mumar le-te’avon^[20] but also a mumar le-hakh‘ees. But even according to Abbaye a person is disqualified to testify by virtue of wrong action. Yes; wrong action, not unorthodox thought. Yet Rambam, writes:

“Informers and epiqorseen ... ^[21] the Sages had no need to name in their list of people unfit to give evidence because they listed only Jewish miscreants. But such rebellious infidels are worse than idolaters...” (Yad Edut 11:10)

There is nothing odd about the inclusion of informers because their guilt yesh bo ma‘aseh (=involves action)^[22] and is consequently ascertainable (and where appropriate punishable) by a human tribunal. But the appearance of heretics, whose fate the Mishnah leaves to divine judgment, is striking.^[23] Nevertheless, by means of an ingenious a fortiori argument of Rambam’s own devising, heresy is made a crime for courts to discover and to act upon - in this case invalidating the testimony of such that are found to be heretics.

            By dragging in heretics Rambam breaks new ground. Magistrates on the watch for heresy are a far cry from the Talmud’s standards of objectivity, and, what is more, seem dangerously close to the murky realm of inquisitions and thought police. So the question is, Why would Rambam have introduced this drastic innovation? We know it was not conformity to the Talmud that impelled him, because the Talmud never mentions heretics in connection with testimony. Moreover, as we saw, Rambam makes no secret of the fact that heretics transpired as a result of his own extrapolation. Something other than the Talmud, then, must have impelled Rambam to bring up heretics. In any event, once epiqorseen are blacklisted and Rambam’s ruling is adopted by later codes, declaring someone an epiqoros immediately impugns his eligibility to testify or to adjudicate. Hence, in levelling its heresy charge, BDP aims to undermine the authority of its targeted beth din.

            The related aspersion megalleh paneem ba-torah shelo ka-halakhah (again, borrowed and endorsed by BDP p.4) is meant to inculpate the dayyan in question with insulting scholars (rather than imitating Manasseh - see San. 99b cited above).^[24] If you ask ‘which scholars? What insult?’ BDP has its answer pat. We have already met BDP’s assertion that ‘all the posqeem throughout the generations have ruled conversion retroactively invalid if the convert fails to live up to his/her commitments’. That being BDP’s premise, it follows as night follows day, that to flout such a unanimous ruling of halakhists down the ages is nothing short of brazen effrontery.

            Finally, BDP’s gravest imputation of all: the ‘rogue’ beth din failed to elicit qabbalat misvot^[25] from those it purported to convert. Now qabbalat misvot is an integral component of giyyoor and in the opinion of many posqeem it is also a sine qua non. That any beth din could skip qabbalat misvot seems incredible. Yet that is what happened according to the allegation repeated over and over in BDP.^[26]

POSTSCRIPT

            What are we supposed to make of this document and its extraordinary contentions? Manifestly the 53 page screed is animated by more than sober halakhic logic; dare one say by something akin to polemical zeal? But whereas the written word has a life of its own and must be judged on its merits, people should always be given the benefit of the doubt. Indeed, because of the imperative to judge men charitably,^[27] one wants to try and extenuate that zeal. Clues within BDP suggest that recent tendencies towards a politicization of giyyoor may have raised its authors’ hackles.^[28]

            For there is no denying the attempt in certain quarters to fuse the ideas of nationality and divinity in a manner redolent of the old Baalism. What follows is an example of this phenomenon.      

From the Rambam’s words we learn that candidates for conversion must express their wish to join, simultaneously, both the people of Israel and its Torah. ‘Entering the covenant’ [in Rambam’s formulation, Issure Bi‘ah 13:4] refers to the congregation of Israel that consists of children of the covenant. ‘Taking shelter under the Shekhinah’s wings’ [Rambam’s formulation ibid.] means living as a member of the Jewish religion ... The requirement to express this twofold identification with the Jewish nation as well as with its God and Torah, was learnt by our sages of blessed memory from Ruth the Moabitess. When seeking to impress her mother-in-law Naomi of her [Ruth’s] spiritual and practical preparedness to cast her lot with Judaism, Ruth speaks the words “... Your people is my people and your God is my God”. The equal emphasis on the people and its God as the objects of [the convert’s] adoptive identity clearly demonstrates that the religion and the nationhood are a single indivisible entity in Judaism ... Clearly, then, already in such an early era [as Ruth’s], conversion was conceived of as a procedure simultaneously both religious and national, whose elements are inseperable.” (Mi Hu Yehudi? by Avner Shaki, vol. 2 Jerusalem 1978 p. 343).

Shaki’s enunciation of the nation-divinity amalgam would not merit citation were it not that he invokes Scripture, Sages and Maimonides in support. But seeing that he does, it behooves us to examine these sources’ alleged espousal of ‘Shakian dualism’. Ruth’s “Your people” we shall consider shortly. As for the unsubstantiated claim that the sages deduced from Ruth “a twofold identification with the Jewish nation as well as with its God and Torah” we are unable to comment upon, since no source is indicated.^[29] Rambam certainly mentions covenant: “Similarly throughout the generations, when a non-Jew wishes to enter the covenant and take shelter under the Shekhinah’s wings...”. The only question is whether Rambam was using the phrase ‘entering the covenant’ as shorthand for joining the polity of the children of the covenant. Rambam’s classic commentators refer us to a baraitha in Keritot that mandates all subsequent conversions to reenact, as it were, the conversion leading up to the Sinai/Horeb covenant.^[30]

Ribbi [Judah the Partriach] says as with your forefathers so with [proselytes] throughout your generations. Just as your forefathers did not enter into the [Sinaitic] covenant except through circumcision, immersion and propitiation by means of blood [sacrifice] neither shall they enter the covenant except through circumcision, immersion and propitiation by means of blood [sacrifice] (Ker. 9a).

            The covenant Rambam alludes to is the very one under discussion in Keritot; which, in turn, is the Torah’s covenant mediated by Moses between God and the people who were to become the covenantal community. In other words, the pledge made at Sinai as understood by tradition was to God rather than to a group of human beings. Hence, the proselyte’s entering into the covenant, modelled on the Sinai prototype, is about the neophyte’s commitment to God rather than to a group that Shaki calls ‘children of the covenant’.

            Needless to say, among Jews who take their faith seriously, equating a person’s political choices with his/her choice to ‘enter under the shekhinah’s wings’ must seem to border on the sacriligious. Without belittling one iota tribal and national allegiances, they are surely of a different order from the plighting of one’s troth to Hashem. Moreover, the Talmud categorically forbids associating the Name of Heaven with anything else.^[31] Hence the extreme unease that attempts such as Shaki’s to politicize giyyoor engender in the bosom of many a Torah-oriented Jew who ponders Scriptures such as 2Kgs 17:26-28.

It was reported to the king of Assyria saying ‘The peoples that you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land and he sent among them lions that are devouring them because they know not the law of the god of the land’. The king of Assyria gave orders that one of the priests who had been deported from there should be sent back in order to teach them the law of the god of the land. So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came back and dwelt in Bethel and taught them how to fear Hashem.

Two irreconcilable voices speak to us in these verses. The first is the voice of paganism whose gods are territorial, each presiding over his/her national borders. Then in verse 28 we hear the Torah’s voice, that instead of the idolatrous ‘god of the land’, speaks of fearing Hashem. A closely related pagan concept to the territorial, is the national god that is essentially an apotheosis of a people and its collective identity and aspirations. Naomi recognizes the nation-god nexus of Moabite religion when she says to Ruth ‘Behold your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods’ (Ruth 1:15). Perhaps Ruth was projecting some such Moabite territorial theology onto Hashem when she responded ‘Your people shall be my people and your God my God’ (v. 16).^[32]

            But even if one shares BDP’s dismay at the way politics has come to invade and dilute giyyoor (and other aspects of religion), it is quite another proposition to condone the methodology it employs to counter the lamentable trend (assuming such trends to be BDP’s driving gripe). Besides, even a cause worthy in the abstract, has to yield if it leads to real people suffering. This was the way of our Sages who opened a back-door for gereem gerureem when conventional giyyoor was inapplicable.^[33] They even offered a halfway conversion whereby a person attained the status of ger toshav (as distinct from ger sedeq). Ger toshav is not a mere synonym for Noahide. No. The ger toshav formally forswore idolatry and accepted faith in Hashem and belief in revelation.^[34] Withal, never did the Sages say let idolaters stew in their idolatry. Today, when the ger toshav option has fallen into desuetude, extra vigilance is called for. Not so much in order to catch and keep out ‘rotten apples’ (though that too), but to ensure that no seeker after Hashem is left out in the cold.

[1]      See Job 31:32, and especially its midrashic interpretations (e.g. Exod. Rab. 19:4).

[2]      See, for example, Targum Yonathan to Gen 12:5.

[3]      Men.53a.

[4]      The word ‘mostly’ is used advisedly because some - notably priests whose status was inherited - seem to have conceived of Jewishness as also being hereditary. The Talmud suggests that there were priests who looked askance upon both converts and conversion (see Mihnah Rosh Hash. 1:7; Yom. 71b et al).

[5]      Yeb. 47b.

[6]      Issure Bi‘ah 13:17.

[7]      Yore De‘ah 268 end.

[8]      Yore De‘ah 268:12.

[9]      The author of the glosses known as Hagahot Mordecai remains elusive. R. Hayim Yoseph Daveed Azulai (HYDA d.1806) surmizes that he lived a century or so after R. Mordecai b. Hillel ha-Kohen (d. 1298) whose work he glossates.

[10]    See Erub. 50b, Ket. 8a, Git. 38b, San. 83b.

[11]    These words of the Hagahot imply that if the convert’s subsequent behavior does not exhibit “rectitude of ways”, then the conversion is retroactively null and void.

[12]    Since it does not address the be-de‘abad (=post factum) situation, it is unclear how the David-Solomon baraitha supports R. Nehemia. On the contrary, had the David-Solomon baraitha emanated from the school of R. Nehemiah we know how it would have been worded. For at Yeb. 76a-b we learn the reason converts were not accepted in the halcyon days of David and his son “because their motive is likely to have been the royal table”. And conversion undertaken with an eye on the royal board is invalidated by R. Nehemia even be-de‘abad : “whether the person converts for the sake of the royal table or to be employed by Solomon - none of these are converts”.

[13]    More than a century ago when R. Yitzhak Schmelkes chose to follow the Hagahot Mordecai he did not dissimulate his own predilection for the tentative proposal of Hagahot Mordecai. Rather did R. Schmelkes opt for full disclosure: “Although he [Hagahot Mordecai] wrote that his understanding was not to be relied on, we rely upon his understanding” (Beth Yitzhak vol. Yore De‘ah responsum 100 [p.86]).

[14]    Actually a judge’s moral qualifications are spelled out in the Torah (see Exod 18:21; Deut 1:13, 16:18). Nevertheless for a ruling to be anulled on grounds of the judge’s unfitness, there would have to be evidence of resha‘ .

[15]    BDP devotes five pages (7-12) to lifne ivver (= the sin of misleading the blind).

[16]    Literally ‘one’s proxy is like oneself’. As a legal concept it means that a person can appoint a shaliah (=proxy) to deputize on his/her behalf in carrying out non-personal duties. The Talmud provides numerous examples such as priests offering sacrifices on behalf of the laity; tithing; effecting betrothal by conveying the medium of betrothal from a man to his destined bride; most familiar, perhaps, is the shaliah sibboor or precentor who recites the prayers on behalf of the congregation (see Qid. 41b-42a et al.).

[17]    In many editions it appears as the eleventh chapter.

[18]    Described earlier on San. 99b as a man who would use his sermons to mock Torah: Did Moses have nothing better to write than ‘Lotan’s sister was Timna’ (Gen 36:22)? or ‘Timna was a concubine to Eliphaz’ (Gen 36:12)? or ‘Reuben went in harvest time and found mandrakes’ (Gen 30:14)?

[19]    Hamas is often translated violence. Rabbinic sources render some occurrences of hamas ‘robbery’ or ‘armed robbery’ (see Targums and Rashi to Gen 6:13). At San. 27a the rasha‘ of hamas is defined as someone who in the act of transgressing misvot causes material harm also to fellow humans - which definition embraces also venal folks who will do anything for lucre.

[20]    Literally ‘a renegade out of expediency [or for pleasure]’ e.g. a person who eats non-kosher food because it is cheaper than kosher (see Rashi San. 27a s.v. h”g mumar okhel nevelot le-te’avon).

[21]    In many printed editions the text continues “and mumars”. Others omit mumars (see Lehem Mishneh ad loc.). The editio princeps (Rome 1480) instead of mumars has “sectarians (minin) and apostates (meshumadin).

[22]    Or at least treacherous speech. While some reckon speech as ‘action’, according to all tannaim wrong thought is outside the purview of the courts (see San. 65a-b et al).

[23]    Especially when we recall Rambam’s own definitions of epiqorseen as persons guilty not of wrong speech but of heterodox opinions (even if they happen to verbalize those opinions). “There are three that are called epiqorseen: 1) the person who denies prophecy and the possibility of knowledge reaching the human heart from the Creator; 2) one who denies the prophecy of Moses our teacher; 3) one who says the Creator has no knowledge of the affairs of man. Each of these is an epiqoros” (Yad, Teshubah 3:8 and see Kesef Mishneh’s comment ad loc.).

[24]    Both the long form megalleh paneem ba-torah shelo ka-halakhah and the short megalleh paneem ba-torah occur at San. 99b and are used there interchangeably, as we saw. At Avot 3:11 most MSS have the short form whereas printed editions typically the long. Incidentally, the dispute over the definition of megalleh paneem seems not to have been resolved; hardly surprising seeing that there are no ramifications for earthly bate din. Thus Rashi explains the megalleh paneem of Avot with reference to Manasseh, while Rambam identifies the megalleh as one who brazenly and ostentatiously defies Torah.

[25]    Literally: acceptance of misvot. The requirement for the prospective ger to express his/her acceptance after being apprised of the liabilities as well as the privileges inherent in Judaism is laid down in the baraitha.“They acquaint him with some of the easier misvot and some of the heavier misvot; they acquaint him with the sin of [neglecting] to leave behind for the poor fallen or forgotten sheaves or the ‘corner’ and of [neglecting] to give the tithe of the poor. Furthermore... they say to him ‘hitherto if you ate suet you were not liable for kareth; if you desecrated the Sabbath you were not liable for seqilah but henceforth you will be liable’... And just as they acquaint him with the punishments for [breaking] misvot similarly do they acquaint him with their [the misvot’s] rewards. They say to him ‘Know that the world-to-come is reserved for the righteous, but Israel at present is unable to receive (le-qabbel) either great good or great travail’. They do not burden him with more [words] or with stringencies. If he ACCEPTS, he is circumcised forthwith...” (Yeb. 47a-b).

[26]    “The woman bringing the appeal did not accept observance of misvot” (p.1); “qabbalat misvot did not occur in the case of the appellant” (p.3); “an additional transgression is their declaring a non-Jew who did not accept to observe the misvot of Hashem’s Torah... to be a Jew” (p.7) etc.

[27]    Avot 1:6.

[28]    E.g. “The conversion of [a certain] deaf-mute will not bring her to a state of misvah observance... The only possible consequence of the conversion would be a social one - something that neither constitutes conversion nor bestows any zekhut (=spiritual advantage)...” ( p.19); “There is certainly no misvah upon a beth din or any other Israelite to make efforts to bring non-Jews into the Israelite fold [sic] - a fortiori when the person’s only attachment will be of a national kind and not an attachment to the God of Israel and the Torah of Israel.” (p.20); “Despite what was said, national or social goals must not be recognized ... they see themselves belonging to the Jewish people only in the national-social sense without any inward religious connection ...” (p.21) etc.

[29]    If anything, the Talmud would seem to invest Ruth’s ostensibly national ‘Your people' clause with religious significance. “She [Naomi] said to her ...‘We have 613 commandments’. She [Ruth] replied ‘Your people is my people...’” (Yeb. 47b).

[30]    Rabbinic sources typically consider the Hebrews to have had the status of Noahides prior to the giving of the Torah (see, for example, Rashi at San. 82a “It was prior to Sinai that Moses had married Jethro’s daughter, all at that time having the status of Noahides. When the Torah was given they all, she [Jethro’s daughter] as well as proselytes of the mixed multitude included, entered into full misvah-hood”).

[31]    Suk. 45b, San. 63a.

[32]    Boaz, while applauding both, separates her commitment to God (Ruth 2:12) from her national and familial loyalties (v. 11). Moreover, the distinctive phrase la-hasot tahat kenafaim (taking refuge or shelter under wings) Scripture uses exclusively of the relationship between an individual and Hashem (cf. Ps 36:8, 57:2, 91:4).

[33]    See Yeb. 79a, Avod Zar. 3b, 24a; Yerushalmi Qid. 65c, San. 23d.

[34]    “The person who accepts them [the seven misvot] is called a ger toshav; but the acceptance must be solemnized in the presence of three haberim [that constitute a beth din]. Whoever accepts the seven misvot and is careful to keep them behold he is of the pious among the nations and has a share in the world-to-come. That is provided he accepts them and does them because Hashem commanded them in the Torah...” (Yad, Melakim 8:10-11; cf. Issure Bi‘ah 14:7).

1. A recent conversion case

Recently, a Hareidi rabbinical court in Monsey, NY, required that a family (which includes a parent who converted to Judaism) commit to educate their children in a Hareidi school, un-enroll their children in the modern Orthodox school, and leave the community with which they affiliate. The Hareidi rabbinical court did not even contact the modern Orthodox community, school, or rabbinate to fact find regarding the family. The modern Orthodox school feels rejected, dejected, angry, and is in a quandary as how to respond. A suggested response is to disallow and to reject the conversions of the offending rabbinical court

2. What are kosher conversion standards?

The threshold of conversion observance standards and requirements is a dicey issue, both sociologically and halakhically. If the convert, in the presence of a court of three observant laymen, accepts the commandments, i.e., Judaism as a divinely ordained system, that person is Jewish. From this perspective, retaliation against the Monsey rabbinical court by "invalidating" their actions [heftsa] is wrong for several reasons:
•the court has a right to its standards
•vengeance is forbidden by Torah law
•unless it can be determined that the Monsey ultra-Orthodox rabbinical court violated, knowingly and with malice, the statutes of known, settled Oral Torah law, their converts are Jewish and punitive reciprocity cannot be sanctioned.
•We do not issue Jewish religious rulings "from the gut," in response to a slight or as retaliation, when innocent, third parties are unintended victims.

The convert to Judaism stands again at Sinai, re-enacting the Sinai Torah pact, by accepting the Torah as a system. Both Moses b. Amram and R. Moses b. Maimon realized that the Torah/book/document/heftsa was committed to writing just before the former Moses died. The case of the yefat to'ar, the captive war bride who converts after a month, demonstrates this Biblical doctrine. This war bride was given a month to mourn her former life before she converted and became an Israelite wife. Kabbalat ha-Mitsvot does not mean that the candidate agrees to follow every law according to every possible opinion; it means accepting Judaism as a system. In his responsum, Pe'er haDor 132, based upon bBaba Kama 66b, Hilkhot Gezela ve-Aveida 1:5 and 2:2, 6, 8, Maimonides prefers an inadequate conversion in which the formal technical requirements are observed to an intermarriage.

Rabbi Isaac Schmelkes [Bes Yitzkhok, Yoreh Deah 100] rules, against all precedent, that the subsequent non-observance of a convert nullifies a conversion, even after the fact, and disqualifies the Jewishness of that person's progeny, and their marriages, should the convert be a woman. Ironically, the nullification of marriages to solve the aguna problem is rejected by this version of Orthodoxy. To compound the irony, marriage nullification does enjoy some precedent in Talmudic literature and was advocated by two modern Orthodox gedolim, Rabbi Menachem Elon and one of my personal rabbinic heroes, Rabbi Meir S. Feldblum, zatsa"l. In an oral communication, Rabbi Shelomo Risken learnedly and lovingly also called for adopting this approach, of nullifying marriages, to solve the aguna problem.

The difference between these two Orthodoxies, one parochial and one cosmopolitan, is in the orientation to the sacred canon and to the received culture. If marriages are declared to be invalid because conversions are invalidated by invoking R. Schmelkes' reformation of Jewish law, parochial Orthodoxy, like the cosmopolitan Orthodoxy, is willing to nullify marriages and create the taint mamzereut/legal illegitimacy. The two Orthodoxies differ in their agenda. While both Orthodox Judaisms are using radical methods, the ideologies underlying the shared radicalism are themselves radically divergent. Parochial Orthodoxy wants Judaism to be exclusive and will de-authorize the law to attain its ends, while cosmopolitan Orthodoxy seeks to be inclusive, using the letter of Torah law as its welcoming guide, to use Rabbi Daniel Sperber's wise, apt idiom, to make Judaism "user friendly."

3. The Rabbi Amsalem Case

A Sephardic Rabbi and MK Rabbi Hayyim Amsalem (Shas) asked for relaxed conversion standards for men who have served and risked their lives in the Israeli army. This position is strikingly similar to the position of R. Obadia Yosef, Yabi'a 'Omer 8 YD 24, 33-34, who cites and endorses Maimonides' Pe'er ha-Dor, 132, cited above. It strains credulity that R. Schmelkes' reform, that kosher conversions may be retroactively nullified if the candidate proves to be insufficiently observant, has the standing to override Maimonides' ruling. By appealing to zera Yisrael, R. Amsalem's position is grounded in the Maimonidean Pe'er ha-Dor case cited above. If these ethnic but not halakhic Jews are prepared to die for the State of Israel, the lenient precedents suffice to allow them to make the adjustment to live in the State of Israel. Rabbi Amsalem's standards are:

•sanctifying the wine on Shabbat
•fasting on Yom Kippur
•observing the holidays
•keeping a Kosher for Passover home

4. The Hareidi critique of Rabbi Amsalem and its implications

In the "Lithuanian" or so-called "intellectual," non-Hassidic version of Hareidi Judaism's newspaper, Yated Neeman, it is reported that "Rabbis and rabbinical judges expressed their disgust with MK Haim Amsalem's impetuous and blasphemous declaration to apply leniencies when converting goyim from the former Soviet Union who serve in the IDF." Rabbi Nahum Eisenstein, taken to be an expert in conversions who is loyal to the Ashkenazi Hareidi rabbinic elite, claimed that Rabbi Amsalem's remarks were [1] controversial statements, [2] a "publicity stunt" and [3] designed to advance his personal career. Furthermore, "unnamed rabbis and rabbinical judges ... [said] that Amsalem's comments were
•"a mockery of Halakha handed down from generation to generation that conversion necessitates full adherence to an Orthodox lifestyle."
•"Amsalem has caused incalculable damage to the Orthodox position on conversions," said Eisenstein, who helped write the Yated article.
•"He [Rabbi Amsalem] gives the impression that our demand that every convert must accept the yoke of mitzvot is nothing but an unnecessary stringency.
•By saying those things while at the same calling himself rabbi, he is cheapening the rabbinical institution. "He is worse than a Conservative Jew."

From the above comments we learn the following lessons regarding the actual tenets of Hareidi religion:

1. Being controversial is improper. Following this rule, most Orthodox leaders may not take positions unless they are cleared and endorsed. Note well that every biblical hero, from Moses to Daniel, was controversial.
2. It is fitting and appropriate to negatively interpret and then demean the unstated intentions of a political opponent. In Judaism, we must first demonstrate and not proclaim error, and we may not demean ourselves inadvertently by demeaning others intentionally.
3. It is proper to declare that R. Amsalem, who is denied his rabbinic honorific by the editorial, is an implicit unbeliever who modifies God's word, which he does not accept, for personal, pecuniary, careerist motives. In historical Judaism, only God and His designated prophets are endowed with the Spiritus Sanctum/Holy Spirit/Ruah ha-Kodesh whereby one human may divine the inner thoughts of another human
4. When criticizing others who are ideologically challenged, one may do so with anonymity in order to spare oneself accountability, reprisal, or responsibility. According to Shulhan Arukh Hoshen Mishpat 34, one is not religiously suspect unless one violates an explicit norm of the halakhic system, and does so knowing that the act is wrong. Therefore, disagreeing with R. Schmelkes' 19th century innovation is not only not sinful, it would to this reviewers' view be mandatory.
5. God's revealed covenant is defined not as the norm of the canonical Oral and Written Torah library, but as the culture and lifestyle that the right reverend rabbis robustly revere. This position seems to undermine the Sinaitic covenant in three ways:
a. It confuses the "Tradition" of mimetic culture, which is convention, with the "Tradition" that is canon, ending with Rabina and Rab Ashi,
b. It imputes virtual infallibility and divine approval for whatever Jews do. Leviticus 4 and Horayyot 2-3 seem to suggest that God has a more precise benchmark for Jewish normativity.
c. The position taken, what de facto is normative in Hareidi society, is de jure binding on all Israel, echoes the Catholic Israel approach of Solomon Schechter and the "Peoplehood" doctrine of the Reconstructionist founder, Mordecai Kaplan.
6. Since Rabbi Amsalem disagrees with the theologically correct rabbis who are "Orthodox," i.e., in exclusive possession of theologically correct doctrine, he is [a] not Orthodox and [b] may not be accorded the rabbinic honorific, which is reserved for really Orthodox rabbis. Since Rabbi Amsalem is observant of Jewish law, which most but not all Conservative rabbis are not, he is worse, more dangerous, and more threatening than Conservative rabbis, because he frontally challenges the Hareidi claim to political hegemony over the Jewish people.
7. Challenging the Hareidi consensus causes "incalculable damage to the [sic, my emphasis] position" on conversions. The Hareidi position on conversions is not the historical position of Judaism on conversions. Abraham Sherman, the Hareidi ideologue who defamed R. Haim Druckman, conceded as much in a lecture at Mosad Harav Kook. R. Sherman pointed out that there were two opposing views in Jewish thought to converting non-Jews to Judaism. One approach sees conversion as a very positive act that should be encouraged because it brings people closer to the true monotheistic faith. However, R. Sherman argues that for the unity of the Jewish people, all should defer to the Hareidi rabbinic elite. Therefore, by his own words, Judaism's normativity is found not in canonical, normative books [heftsa] accepted by all Israel, but rather by canonical, normative people [gavra] who claim authority over all Israel.
8. Failure to defer to the divinely inspired intuition of canonical people is controversial, dangerous, and ultimately, for parochial Orthodoxy, heretical.

5. What is at stake in this Contentious Conversation?

At stake in this conversation is the nature of Orthodox Judaism and who has the right to speak as an authentic Orthodox Jewish leader. Hareidi Judaism preaches that we must not only avoid slander, motsi shem ra, false negative speech, but we must also avoid lashon ha-ra, negative speech that is true. By regarding opposition as heretical, for stigmatizing ideological opponents as outside the pale of Jewish Orthodoxy, the protection of Jewish law does not accrue to deviant religionists while objections to Hareidi positions on textual and theological grounds is objectionable "bashing," because as R. Sherman declared, all Israel must defer to his elite rabbis so that this elite may confer legitimacy upon them. Thus, in Hareidi Orthodoxy, "Tradition" is not a sacred library or even what our parents practiced; like the Magisterium of the Roman Church the self-selected elite, with inspired intuition, will selectively cite and apply the literary canon of Israel as it alone reads the canon. A philological reading of Judaism is heretical not because it denies God's voice, but because its findings and the readings of sacred texts that philology provides denies any elite the right to explicitly and exclusively appropriate God's voice, to determine, on instrumental grounds, which halakhic rules may be referenced [only high extra-halakhic conversion standards] and which rules may be suppressed [that conversions may not be nullified because of non-observance].

6. What is at stake in this contentious conversation?

According to Jewish law, the binding rules of Judaism are recorded in the Talmud. Post-Talmudic authority is reflected authority, providing windows and insights regarding Israel's covenantal obligation. By conceding that there have historically been two competing orientations to conversion to Judaism, R. Sherman denies the Judaism of the statute ultimate normativity. Rather, God's will is located in the social vision and inspired intuition of his own preferred rabbinic elite. They are empowered to defame dissenters, outlaw alternatives, and to declare without documented demonstration what devoted Jews ought to be doing.

This approach, that treats the thick culture of Hareidi society as if it were the essence of canonical Judaism, actually and ironically approximates the secular religion of Mordecai M. Kaplan, as noted above. For Kaplan, the "Jewish people" define Judaism and not the canonical text sacred library, which for Kaplan carries "a voice but not a veto." For R. Sherman, only the living textual charismatic, saintly person/gavra super rabbi, or godol, is authorized to read, parse, apply the canonical document/heftsa. Although the Torah was given to all Israel, its access is mediated by an unmediated elite. Like the Roman Catholic Magisterium, Hareidi "tradition," the living thick culture of the community as defined by divine right leaders, supersedes the revealed religious canon. Ironically, Hareidi religion appropriates a page from Conservative Judaism's political/theological playbook by affirming, against God's original Torah that is subject to neither addition nor to subtraction, [Deuteronomy 4:2] a doctrine of "continuous legal revelation," that is formally outlawed by the Oral Torah in the Ochnai oven narrative of bBava Metsia 59b.

Slandering a sage is a very serious offense according to Jewish law. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik was slandered by Nison Wolpin of the currently defunct Agudist Jewish Observer. R. Hillel Goldberg has slandered Rabbi Saul Lieberman; R. Abraham Sherman slandered Rabbi Drukman, and the late R. Elya Svei slandered Rabbi Norman Lamm of Yeshiva University. The unwillingness-or absence of nerve-of cosmopolitan Orthodoxy's rabbinate to defend the dignity of its own teachers brings the neutral observer as well as the parochial Orthodox to conclude that cosmopolitan Orthodoxy has more respect-or fear- of Hareidi intimidation than it own sense of what God expects of them. When commenting to a cosmopolitan/modern Orthodox dayyan, or rabbinical judge, that exempting yeshiva young men and Hareidi Orthodox women from Israeli military service, is improper-even though Rabbi Solomon Lorincz reported that his own mentor, Rabbi Abraham Karelitz, ruled that advocating a conscription of Hareidi youth renders the offending culprit a disqualified witness, the Jewish legal designation of an evil person, I was warned by this profoundly learned, exquisitely fine, and socially astute sage, "don't go there," i.e., avoid this issue like the blow of the plague. But the Talmud, Sota 44b, requires a military conscription during a defensive war, and without the breastplate oracle, the Urim and Tumim and the Supreme Court of halakhic Israel, sadly in recess until the fallen Davidic Temple is restored, all wars in Israel are defensive so that the situation demands universal conscription of yeshiva men and Orthodox women. Unless there is a renewed Supreme Court convened to override the Talmud, authentically Orthodox Jews who believe that God authored the Torah will defer to the sages of the Talmud and not to Rabbi Karelitz. Hareidi leaders have a right to disagree with Rabbis Soloveitchik, Lieberman, Drukman and Lamm if they wish, but they must do so in refined, textually argued, respectful demonstration of what they believe God's recorded voice is saying.

7. What should be done in light of current realities?

The Rabbinical Council of America must accept the conversions of all duly vetted and accepted members. It should defend the validity of all conversions performed by its members, and not buckle under to Hareidi pressures. Moreover, as a Zionist as well as Orthodox body, it must affirm the obligation of military service for any rabbi in Israel who earns a state rabbinic salary. Hareidi rabbis who refuse to serve in the Israel Defense Forces should not be eligible for employment by the State of Israel.

This article began with a problem created by a Hareidi bet din in Monsey. The question is: how is the Modern Orthodox community to respond? We must make clear that any Bet Din that knowingly violates Jewish law by insulting sages, by forbidding required military service in Israel, and demanding that its rabbis require deference and privilege-such a Bet Din does not meet the standard for piety and probity. The rulings of such a Bet Din should be disregarded by our community. If particular individuals choose to follow their rulings, that is their business. But we should encourage people to bring their issues to proper Modern Orthodox rabbinic leadership and proper batei din that adhere faithfully to our Torah texts and traditions.

In 1964, Rabbi Dr. Joseph Soloveitchik (the Rav), the formative intellectual leader of postwar American Modern Orthodoxy, wrote that Jewish-Christian interfaith relations "must be outer-directed and related to the secular orders with which men of faith come face to face. In the secular sphere, we may discuss positions to be taken, ideas to be evolved, and plans to be formulated. In these matters, religious communities may together recommend action to be developed and may seize the initiative to be implemented later by general society."[1] In 1966 this mandate was practically formulated by the Rabbinical Council of America to mean that interfaith work ought to be about positively affecting "the public world of humanitarian and cultural endeavors...on such topics as War and Peace, Poverty, Freedom, ... Moral Values, ...Secularism, Technology... , Civil Rights."[2]

The flip side of this position emphasizing social justice work as the sole authentic purpose of interfaith dialogue was that interfaith discussion on the level of doctrinal dialogue was disallowed. Indeed, the Rav had made that point explicit. In good neo-Kantian fashion, he posited that authentic revelatory religion is ultimately a private affair and there is no point in debating it.

The Rav's existentialist bent further buttressed a philosophic argument against doctrinal dialogue. Since the human condition centers around an individual's loneliness and search for meaning through, in his model, the Halakhic life and its faith, any attempt at communication about the content of this ultimately incommunicable commitment to members of other religions would not only be futile, but a diminution of the covenantal experience itself. The Rav's position arguing for worldly civic engagement rather than abstracted theological negotiation became the Halakhic guidepost by which the centrist wing of traditional Jewry has historically measured its joint efforts with non-Jewish partners in faith.

The Rabbinical Council of America's 1966 statement crystallizing the Rav's philosophic language into praxis was a direct reaction to the Second Vatican Council's declaration of Nostra Aetate seeking more open, collegial discussion with Jews "especially, by way of biblical and theological enquiry and through friendly discussions."[3] However earnest and positive Nostra Aetate turned out to be, at that early date of its initiation, and just two decades after the Holocaust perpetrated by Christian Europe, the Rav could not easily let go of concerns based on centuries of persecution of Jews, both in general but historically often taking the form of theological disputations.

Notwithstanding that historical backdrop, I am convinced that, based on his essential neo-Kantianism, the Rav really did believe in principle that it was purposeless to embark on discussions about the nature of the Divine. Nothing really serious could come of that. Rather, shared human concerns, emanating from general religious convictions that speak to the practical needs of man in the secular sphere, would be a more realizable effort in both substance and usefulness in the material world, with which, after all, the Rav's ideal human type, Halakhic man, is most concerned.

Interfaith scholar Rabbi Dr. Eugene Korn notes that the Rav never signed an outright ban on interfaith dialogue promulgated by the universally respected Halakhic arbiter Rabbi Moshe Feinstein.[4] This makes clear that the Rav's objection to interfaith dialogue was one of degree at the speculative level of joint covenantal rumination, but not one of kind altogether to the interfaith project in and of itself.

Of course, the Rav's stature as the pre-eminent Halakhist of Modern Orthodoxy makes his judgment in any arena the primary stance one has to take into account when embarking on a related effort. But, there is also a cogency to his argument on both intuitive and philosophic levels which I think was historically prescient.

On the intuitive level, if religion is ultimately about grasping for the ineffable through one's own tradition, is it really possible to communicate in mere human language, whether through argument about a particular piece of text or dogma, the universe of feeling behind that lived faith? Furthermore, I wouldn't put it past the Rav to have recognized in the early nineteen sixties that globalization and a more pluralistic bundle of identities was upon us. We had firmly left the medieval world of absolutes, and even the Enlightenment world of universal reason.

Philosophically then, we are living in a period that presumes a confidence in the authenticity of one's own cultural context, obviating the need to negotiate one's particularistic convictions. Rabbi Dr. Walter Wurzburger wrote that the Rav was a Halakhic judge for post-moderns precisely because of his "objection to the employment of modern historic and textual scholarship to ascertain the meaning of halakha," which "reflects not naive traditionalism but highly sophisticated post-modern critical thought. He insists that halakha operate with its own unique canons of interpretation."[5] In their own ways, text-based postmodern philosophers Derrida and Gadamer came to the same conclusion.

Our age is one of multiple global identities not necessarily in competition with one another, but rather ideally co-existing in their happily independent and authentic cultural lives based on their own self-understood communally transmitted truths. The Rav's thinking in 1964 on the relationship between diverse faith communities may be viewed as not just courageous for staking out a unique claim against the public tide of the time, but in fact turns out to be an apt description of current postmodern social mores.

This is the intellectual setting of a new interfaith effort called the Faith and Public Policy Roundtable. It was established to address the secular arena of public policy the Rav felt it appropriate for this type of forum to consider. In September of 2008, as the American economy was clearly on its way to a sudden and sharp contraction, a group of New York area Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant religious leaders gathered as a think tank to explore whether they might develop language and programmatic ideas that could offer a way of religiously speaking to our deepest civic concerns as Americans. The agenda formulated at our founding continues to drive us: to demonstrate that mainstream religious communal figures outside the fundamentalist orbit could generate a public theology and speak to social issues as strongly and definitively as the evangelical sector.

The invitation that went out to founding steering committee members explicitly invoked the Rav's mandate to focus on shared public concerns by informing participants that "This is not a group devoted to doctrinal negotiation, but rather a think tank concerned with offering a language that joins the concerns of faith to the concerns of the polity."[6] This idea of not dealing with doctrine extended organically to any joint work on the roundtable between me as an Orthodox member and non-Orthodox Rabbinic colleagues. Our task was not to reconcile differing faith perspectives, but rather to address the polis as a religious voice concerned with public policy.

At subsequent meetings, the Rav's position was openly discussed and seemed natural. Our sense as a group of American clergy and academics is that we are living in an era during which our religious communities do not feel palpably threatened, either from outside forces or by each other. The global sensibility I think the Rav intuited is an organic part of contemporary social life.

As meetings went on, it became clear that we all hoped our activity would not only add a spiritual dimension to the public space, but reinvigorate our respective faith communities' populations to deepen their own civic engagement as well. We bemoaned the overwhelming reality we shared anecdotally that our organizations' members often lead bifurcated lives as religious adherents without somehow extending that commitment to the whole of life beyond distinctly ritualistic settings such as prayer services. Each of us brought to the table a gnawing frustration that our communities didn't quite catch that their traditions are ultimately prophetic and seek out justice as a core value.

We recognized through 2008 into 2009 that public outrage was growing over the practices of some of our largest corporations alongside an ongoing debate about how government ought to react. It seemed clear that Americans were now reflecting upon what our democracy has come to. Perhaps this was in fact our group's time to make a case to our own communities as much as to the world at large that the religious life is an activist life demanding accountability at all levels of the human family.

It was immediately clear that the economic downturn had to be the first issue we tackled. After all, it was a distillation, all too real in its crushing impact, of values, now clearly askew, that Americans had been taking for granted in recent decades. British Chief Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks suggests that a United States once claiming Biblical ideals of shared republican purpose as its lodestar is increasingly speaking in terms of a crass individualism supporting only the protection of private interests. The volunteeristic skin of de Tocqueville's America has been shed.[7] Political scientist Robert Putnam's famous 2001 study of the decline in American civic participation[8] only proved Rabbi Sacks' sad premonition. We've learned all too clearly by now that a political and economic culture driven solely by an ethos of privatism is unsustainable. This is where the perspective of faith and its values may step in to provide some guidance.

The Faith and Public Policy Roundtable seeks to capture the immediacy of conviction and language exemplified by public theologians of a previous era such as Heschel and Niebuhr. Those kinds of prophetic voices are conspicuous by their absence from American public life today. As our Co-Chair Rev. Dr. Gary Mills claims, "We are convinced that it is high time for mainstream, non-fundamentalist religious leadership and scholars to re-emerge in the American conversation on issues like the economy, education, war and peace, and healthcare, to name just a few."[9]

At the end of 2009 the Roundtable released its debut position paper, a Statement on the Economy. This paper illuminates the religious dimension of economic justice. It seeks to begin generating a non-fundamentalist public theology by positing essential religious values as a lens through which to evaluate policy.

To follow up on the release of the economy statement, the Roundtable organized a Call to Action Weekend for November 20-22, 2009, the weekend before Thanksgiving, which featured charitable advocacy and thematically coordinated sermons on social justice at seventy three New York area houses of worship.

The Statement on the Economy has been signed to date by thirty four religious leaders, ranging from the Catholic Archbishop of New York to major leaders representing Orthodoxy and the Conservative and Reform movements. Additionally, five major area academic and religious institutions such as Fordham University and Wagner College are hosting our statement on their websites.

Father Patrick Ryan, S.J., a founding steering committee member, put it succinctly when he stated, "This economy has opened up a window for discussion of the common values" that "bind us together as Americans and as members of the human family. Our task is to articulate those values and provide thinking on their civic and spiritual dimensions."[10] Our next task is to take on the immigration issue. To that end, we are drafting a new position paper and will host a conference in Spring featuring panelists who speak to the issue of immigration from the perspective of faith.

This has been a broad introduction to the context and mission of our Roundtable. But, as an Orthodox Rabbi, there is yet one more dimension to this work that is perhaps its most important attribute. It is to live out the wise teaching of the Rav, so sensible as sevarah, clearly reasoned logic, and yet at the same time so in tune with the classic mesorah, the fundamental tendency of the tradition. The Rav's argument is one that simultaneously speaks to justice and the observant Jew's mandated involvement with his or her world.

While the Rav correctly surmised that Torah could not be translated into neutral language, he believed that, both as descendants of Adam and Abraham, our lives as Jews are bound up with the state of our all too human universe. The Halakhic life demands a rigorous engagement with every facet of the human condition. Retreating from vigorous involvement with society at large is a retreat from humanity itself, and that is not, finally, the Jewish way.

[1]1 Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Confrontation, Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Thought, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1964

[2] Boston College, Center for Jewish-Christian Learning, http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/center/conferences/so...
Conference, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik on Interreligious Dialogue: Forty Years Later, November, 2003 
[3] Nostra Aetate, DECLARATION ON THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE CHURCH TO NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS, Second Vatican Council, October 28, 1965
[4] Eugene Korn, The Man of Faith and Religious Dialogue: Revisiting "Confrontation" After Forty Years http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/center/conferences/so... Boston College, Center for Jewish-Christian Learning, Conference, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik on Interreligious Dialogue: Forty Years Later, November, 2003

5 Walter S. Wurzburger, Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik as Posek of post-modern Orthodoxy, Tradition, Vol. 29, No. 1, 1994

[5] 
[6] Letter of Invitation, Faith and Public Policy Roundtable, September 2, 2008
[7] Jonathan Sacks, The Persistence of Faith, London: Continuum, 1991
[8] Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001
[9] Faith and Public Policy Roundtable, Press Release, Fordham University, Bronx, New York, and Wagner College, Staten Island, New York, November 3, 2009
[10] Faith and Public Policy Roundtable, Press Release, Fordham University, Bronx, New York, and Wagner College, Staten Island, New York, November 3, 2009

FAITH AND PUBLIC POLICY ROUNDTABLE
STATEMENT ON THE ECONOMY
NOVEMBER 2009
In the fall of 2008, amidst the financial and political turmoil enveloping America and the world, a group of religious leaders came together in New York City to consider the role of non-fundamentalist religious voices in the American public space. Meeting regularly, this group developed consensus for approaching public policy issues. Our immediate concern is the economy in both its domestic and global dimensions.
The economic crisis is a moral issue. Therefore, our response to it must be framed in moral terms. As our President has said, if our country is to recover its prosperity--not simply for our own good, but for the good of our interdependent world--then we must reinvest in society not only with money but with a renewed sense of shared civic responsibility. 
Millions of people, here in America and around the world, are suffering from severe economic distress. Unemployment and bankruptcy are increasing. Foreclosure and fraud have multiplied. Poverty persists and deepens. This has occurred, in many cases, because of a disengagement of the financial sector from civil society and neglect of their responsibilities within it.
Neither is government or the citizenry exempt from responsibility. Our civic and public institutions have clearly weakened as checks on institutional gluttony. There is a feeling on Main Street that our largest institutions, whether public or private, are far removed from the disempowered voices of America. Decisions are being made at a distance from those among us most affected by this economic crisis.
Our personal and collective responsibilities to each other, locally, nationally, and globally, are rooted in our belief in the sacredness of human life. We believe that every human being has been created in God's image and ought to be treated accordingly. This conviction suggests criteria for evaluating policy. 
At all times, but especially during this time of recession, these criteria or values are: reinvestment in families and strong communities, protection of basic human rights, consideration of the common good, a weighted concern for the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable in society, stewardship of the natural world, and most importantly, a renewed sense of interconnectedness across the breadth of the human family, crossing ethnic, religious, racial, economic and ideological lines.
We call for the unequivocal accountability of corporate America to America. The corporation has the same responsibilities as any other citizen of civil society. Economic profit should not exclude moral purpose. 
We call on government to listen more closely to America. 
Today, the narrative of Exodus and redemption from oppression calls every person of faith to action-to be God's hands in freeing God's creatures from the oppression and moral corruption to which we all bear witness. But the Exodus was not only about freedom from oppression-it was also about the forging of a just society. 
The words of the prophets call on us whether as individual people of faith, as members of religious communities, or as religious leaders, to organize and work for social change. We must reinvest in our society on civic and religious grounds lest its healing be impaired. 
The public message of faith today calls on every American to become more profoundly engaged in our nation's civic life through service and advocacy, to demand deeper accountability of our public and private institutions. 
May the prayers of our lips, the work of our hands, and the spirit of our hearts come together to bring about a new era infused with justice, suffused with dignity, committed to the vision of a more perfect union.
For more information and to become involved, email the Faith and Public Policy Roundtable at [email protected]

FAITH AND PUBLIC POLICY ROUNDTABLE
STEERING COMMITTEE 
In alphabetical order

Noah Arnow, 
senior student, Jewish Theological Seminary

Rabbi David Lincoln, 
Rabbi Emeritus, Park Avenue Synagogue, New York, NY

*The Reverend Dr. Gary Mills, 
Assistant to the Bishop for Global and Multicultural Administration, Metropolitan New York Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Rabbi Stephanie Ruskay,
National Education Director, Avodah: The Jewish Service Corps

The Reverend Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., 
Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, Fordham University

Dr. Henry Schwalbenberg, 
Director, Graduate Program in International Political Economy and Development (IPED), Fordham University

The Reverend Jared R. Stahler, 
Associate Pastor, St. Peter's Church, New York, NY

*Rabbi Dr. Abraham Unger, 
Assistant Professor and Director of Urban Programs, Department of Government and Politics & Campus Rabbi, Wagner College
Rabbi, Congregation Ahavath Israel, Staten Islan, NY

*Steering Committee Co-chair

Signatories to the Faith and Public Policy Roundtable Statement on the Economy

New Signatory 
His Excellency, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan
Archdiocese of New York

Signatories
In alphabetical order

Rabbi Marc D. Angel, 
Founder and Director, Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals

The Reverend Eduardo Arias, 
Pastor, Iglesia Luterana Sion, New York, NY

Noah Arnow, 
senior student, Jewish Theological Seminary

The Reverend J. Elise Brown, 
Pastor, Advent Lutheran Church, New York, NY

The Reverend Perucy Butiko, 
Pastor, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Hollis, New York

The Reverend Amandus J. Derr, 
Senior Pastor, Saint Peter's Church, New York, NY

Rabbi Dr. David Ellenson,
President, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion

The Reverend Sarah Geddada, 
Pastor, Floral Park, New York

Rabbi Jason Herman, 
Executive Director, International Rabbinic Fellowship

Dr. Serene Jones, 
President, Union Theological Seminary

The Reverend Kathleen Koran, 
Assistant to the Bishop, Metropolitan New York Synod, 
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 
New York, NY

The Reverend Barrie Lawless, Pastor, 
Our Saviour's Atonement Lutheran Church, 
New York, NY

Rabbi David Lincoln, 
Rabbi Emeritus, Park Avenue Synagogue, New York, NY

The Reverend Jonathan Linman, 
Assistant to the Bishop, 
Metropolitan New York Synod,
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 
New York, NY

Rabbi Dov Linzer, 
Rosh HaYeshiva and 
Dean, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School

The Reverend Joseph M. McShane, S.J., 
President, Fordham University

The Reverend Christopher Mietlowski, 
Pastor, Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church,
New York, NY

The Reverend Dr. Gary Mills, 
Assistant to the Bishop for Global and Multicultural Administration, Metropolitan New York Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Rabbi Jack Moline, 
Director of Public Policy, The Rabbinical Assembly

The Reverend Daniel Peter Penumaka, 
Pastor, St. Paul's International Lutheran Church, 
Floral Park, New York

The Very Reverend Robert Rimbo, 
Bishop, Metropolitan New York Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in American, New York, NY

The Reverend. David Rommereim, 
Pastor, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church,
Brooklyn, NY

Rabbi Stephanie Ruskay, 
National Education Director, Avodah: The Jewish Service Corps,

The Reverend Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., 
Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, Fordham University

The Reverend Giovanny Sanchez, 
Pastor, Espiritu Santo Lutheran Church, Brooklyn, NY

Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, 
Executive Vice President, The Rabbinical Assembly

Dr. Henry Schwalbenberg, 
Director, Graduate Program in International Political Economy and Development (IPED), Fordham University

The Reverend Kaji R. Spellman, 
Associate Pastor, Saint Peter's Church, New York, NY

The Reverend Jared R. Stahler, 
Associate Pastor, St. Peter's Church, New York, NY

The Reverend Donald Stiger, 
Senior Vice President for Mission and Spiritual Care, Lutheran Health Care, Brooklyn, NY

Rabbi Dr. Abraham Unger, 
Assistant Professor and Director of Urban Programs, Department of Government and Politics & Campus Rabbi, Wagner College
Rabbi, Congregation Ahavath Israel, Staten Island, NY

Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, 
Executive Vice President, Emeritus, Orthodox Union

Rabbi Jeffrey Wohlberg, 
President, The Rabbinical Assembly

Institutional affiliations for identification purposes only

Maimonides, Spinoza and Us: Toward an Intellectually Vibrant Judaism
by
Rabbi Marc D. Angel

has been selected as a finalist of the

2009 NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD
in the category of
Scholarship

This book was selected after careful analysis by a panel of three judges who are all authorities in their field. The judges encountered a great deal of difficulty in making their decisions this year. Several categories offered many viable candidates, which made the selection even harder. It is gratifying to know there is a wide range of Jewish content books available. This book now joins the ranks of the hundreds of well-respected, classic Jewish books that have been National Jewish Book Award finalists. The National Jewish Book Awards, now in its 59th year, is the longest-running program of its kind in North America.

Copies of "Maimonides, Spinoza and Us" are available from the online store at www.jewishideas.org. Institute members receive a 20% discount. This book is not only a great addition to your home library, but will make an excellent gift.

In the spring of 2003, a handful of young people in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who regularly attended the only Orthodox minyan in town, were looking for a change. I was among them, and like the others who had attended Darkhei Noam in New York or Shira Hadasha in Jerusalem, I was inspired by the possibility of praying in a minyan that was grounded in a commitment to halakha, but that created a prayer space that belonged to men and women alike.

Prior to our first prayer together, it was unclear how many people would show up, or how long the minyan might continue to function. Today, six years later, Minyan Tehillah is still around, and has continued to go strong ever since. As testimony to its feeling of permanence, the board conducted its first survey in the spring of 2008 in an effort to gain insight into who Tehillah's members are, what they like about the minyan, and in what areas they would like to see the minyan grow. The first part of this article draws on the survey results to provide a demographic description of the minyan, while the second part of the article discusses a number of challenges Tehillah faces as a minyan that works to negotiate a delicate line between Orthodoxy and feminism.

Tehilla's adult members number approximately 100, with slightly more marrieds than singles. Our minyan is relatively young, with the bulk of our members-some 70 percent- being between the ages of 26 and 34. Among the married people, about two-thirds have children, the overwhelming majority of whom are ages three and under. Tehillah holds services two Shabbat mornings a month and one Friday evening a month. We meet in a variety of spaces, which we rent from established Jewish institutions in Cambridge. Our decision not to meet every Shabbat is a pragmatic one as well as an ideological one. On the pragmatic side, it takes tremendous energy to organize a service each time we meet. This is in part due to the fact that we are a lay-led, relatively transient community, and in part due to the fact that we are thinly spread across Cambridge, with very few people living close to the synagogue where we generally meet on Shabbat mornings. In fact, the majority of our members live over a mile-walk away from this locale. Because we do not begin the Shaharit service without the presence of both ten men and ten women, each time we meet we work to get a commitment from twenty people to arrive on time-a difficult task, given the distance combined with the fact that a large portion of our minyan is composed of young families.

But there are also social and ideological reasons for not meeting each week. The Tehillah community overlaps very strongly with several other prayer communities in town. Indeed, almost all of our members regularly attend other minyanim in Cambridge on the weeks that Tehillah does not meet. The strongest overlap is with the Harvard Hillel Orthodox Minyan, and the next strongest overlap is with Cambridge Minyan, which is traditional-egalitarian. One of the reasons people are satisfied with Tehillah meeting only every other week, is because they are loathe to give up their connections with the other prayer communities to which belong.

Although Tehillah was started by a group of people who all identified as Orthodox and were all committed to a feminist mission, it has filled other sorts of religious and social needs as well. First, the spirited and intentional tefilla is one of the attractions of Tehillah. From the minyan's inception, great effort has been placed on creating a spiritually uplifting service; led by hazzanim who are well-prepared, who engage the kahal with lively tunes, and who lead the service with seriousness of purpose. Secondly, the minyan fills an important demographic niche in Cambridge for people who are no longer students or for those who want to be part a prayer community that is not affiliated with the university, but is their own. More than that, Tehillah is a creative project, run by people with tremendous energy, commitment, and imagination. In this sense, it offers a place for religious expression that is fresh, relevant, and meaningful-an aspect of tefilla that often feels absent in well-established and structured institutional life.

In short, Tehillah fills a number of complex needs for the variety of people who attend. It is a warm, open social space, which provides an environment that bridges the long-standing traditional American religious divide between Orthodox and Conservative. Yet, despite this innovation, Tehillah is also quite conservative (with a lowercase c). We have developed our own set of customs, and are relatively resistant to change. As a community, we are focused primarily on the prayer service itself, with almost no emphasis on social justice programs, or social events not linked to prayer.

With this background, I will turn now to discuss three of the pressing issues and challenges that the minyan currently faces. Perhaps the most complicated issue among them are questions surrounding halakhic authority and religious decision-making. Like other minyanim that are working to negotiate the difficult relationship between halakha and feminism (and which have been classified by the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance as "Partnership Minyanim"), Minyan Tehillah has not been sanctioned by widely recognized religious authorities. There are, of course, rabbis with Orthodox semikha who do support minyanim like ours, but they are on the margins of what is widely considered to be the Orthodox establishment. For this reason, some argue that it is illegitimate for us to call ourselves-or even think of ourselves-as Orthodox. "And why bother?" they may press, "Just join the Conservative movement; women can lead davening there."
I propose a two-part answer to this challenge. First, it is not un-Orthodox to address the spiritual needs of women-needs that are inherently defined by the cultural and social contingencies of time and place; that is to say-needs that are very different today than they were in the past. Secondly, what we have consciously done at Tehillah is to separate between contemporary Orthodox institutional life-on the one hand-and the Orthodox halakhic process on the other. While we may be marginalized from the first, we understand ourselves to be squarely within the parameters of the second.

This approach helps to resolve the angst-at least for some of us-surrounding questions about the legitimacy of our work. But it still leaves us with a very practical set of problems. How should ritual decisions be made, and who should be invested with the power to make such decisions? 
Classically, a community brings its religious questions to its rabbi. In our effort to address the spiritual needs of women, however, we are acutely aware of the fact that we are living in a time when women are able to receive the same level of religious education and knowledge as men, in institutions that are sanctioned by the Orthodox establishment. Yet the title Rabbi comes from passing an exam that women are simply not allowed to take.

There is a logical inconsistency here, which I believe has led to some loss of credibility for the office. We cannot help but ask: What does it really mean to be a halakhic authority and a community's religious leader? And if it need not necessarily be a Rabbi whom we turn to, then who, and based on what criteria? These are serious questions that we face at Tehillah and for which we have not yet come up with a definitive answer. 
Along these lines, there is another more subtle and vexing problem: One of the reasons that Tehillah is such a success is because it offers a prayer service that people refer to as meaningful. This is in contrast to a sense that can pervade established religious institutions, where the service may feel stale and impersonal. I think it is not a coincidence that at Tehillah the quest for personal relevance in tefilla is accompanied by a desire to be involved in the process of religious decision-making. Rather than handing over this responsibility to a religious authority who does the work and then provides an answer that must be passively accepted, there is an interest in being actively involved in the process: in the learning, understanding, and questioning that goes on when a halakhic decision is made. This approach calls for a new model or new way of thinking about religious authority.

The second pressing issue that Tehillah faces is that of gender, and its place in the service. Currently, gender plays a strong role in Tehillah. A mehitsa runs down the middle of our sanctuary, and we do not begin the service until both ten men and ten women are present. Women and men alike may receive aliyot and read from the Torah, however, when a woman is slotted to read from the Torah, only a woman may be called up for that aliya, and vice versa. In all of these examples we might say that male and female are separate but equal: The gender category is preserved, while still allowing both men and women to be full participants in the tefilla.

In the critical area of leading the service, however, this is not the case. Women are permitted to lead parts of the service, but not all, whereas men are permitted to lead all. For me, this difference is palpable each time I lead pesukei deZimrah for the congregation. When I get to the last paragraph, I cannot help but grapple with the fact that a man will-and must-take over from me because as a woman I may not lead Shaharit, although this same man may have led pesukei deZimrah in place of me. This transition is a difficult point in the service because it raises questions about what we are ultimately looking for. Are we looking to find a halakhic way in which women, like men, can be full participants in all parts of the service? That is to say, are we working toward erasing gender as a category? If this is the case than the current form of our service appears to be only one step towards fully egalitarian roles in the synagogue. Or are we looking to keep gender as a salient aspect of our prayer experience. I would suggest that some of us (myself included) do want to recognize our femininity (or masculinity) as an essential aspect of the way in which we address God and come together as a community. In this case, the key question is whether we might occupy the synagogue as women (or men) and pray as women (or men), while simultaneously being fully integrated in the synagogue service, and remaining within the parameters of halakha.

The third pressing issue facing Tehillah is the question of the minyan's sustainability and the place that it occupies within the wider Jewish world. We currently rent space from established institutions at a very low rate and we have no salaried staff. These factors allow our membership dues to remain nominal-which is critical for our relatively young, transient population.

The result of such low financial stakes is a tremendous amount of freedom and independence in making decisions and running our organization. On the other hand, this leaves us in a childlike position, where we are drawing on the larger local community's resources without being full contributors. And as long as we remain in this position, our feminist, Orthodox project cannot be fully realized. Right now there are some ten to fifteen Partnership Minyanim across the globe, but they are mostly all in urban centers and college campuses. I ask myself every Shabbat-where is my family going to pray if and when we leave Cambridge? For our project to be taken seriously, and for it to expand beyond the centers that it now occupies, we need institutional backing, educational resources, and professional leadership. As we move forward, the challenge will be to build and maintain communal infrastructure while still remaining fresh, innovative and meaningful.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook wrote, “The wise do not complain of darkness rather they increase the light.” The Orthodox and greater Jewish community seems racked by scandal after scandal where laymen, political leaders and rabbis are demonstrating what can only be termed ”ethicopathy”- the complete disregard for ethical living and consciousness.  While it may be instinctive to invoke the aphorism, ”There is always a bad apple in every bunch” thus placing the onus of responsibility on the individual’s lack of moral scruples, I believe this would not do justice to what I sense is a systemic and communal responsibility in how we are educating are children, adults as well as our rabbis.  As a member of the Orthodox community my focus will be on my own religious community which I am most familiar with and which sadly seems as of late quite efficient in producing rare but nonetheless ethicopaths of the first order.

Allow me to begin with a seemingly ridiculous question, ”Does the Orthodox community care about ethical living?” As an Orthodox rabbi I would immediately reply, “Ofcourse we do- what an absurd question! Look at all the commandments that touch on ethical living, look at all the statements of our Talmudic sages that emphasize the importance of ethics in business and in one’s personal dealings, look at all the stories of the righteous past and present and the behavior they have modeled for generation after generation and look at the contemporary books on Jewish ethics available at Judaica stores.” Clearly, everything in the above statement is true, however, if we refine the question in light of the above rebuttal I believe the point that is seeking to be made will crystallize. I mean to ask, ”Do we ‘emphasize’ and ‘prioritize’ ethical living in the education of our children, adults and rabbis?” Now to this question the rebuttal does not come so simply. When I consider what the Orthodox community “emphasizes” and “prioritizes” in all honesty ethical living does not immediately appear to register as very high on the totem pole of concerns. If you will allow me to free associate the emphasis of our community seems to be: Daf Yomi, Daily Minyan, Shabbat, Kashrut, Berachot, Niddah, Eruv’s, Theology, Holidays, Tzniyut and Women’s Issues, Conversion, Carlebach davening and Israel. Our children spending the vast majority of their sacred studies school time focused on classical text study of Chumash, Nach, Mishna, Talmud and Mishna Berurah with a dose of Hebrew Language and Zionsim within the more Modern contexts and yes we will attend a Darfur rally as well.”

Now, a little voice inside me says, ”I know this may not sound like we emphasize and prioritize ethics but they are laden within all the Torah we are studying and in our communal way of living.” Now, this answer albeit sincere is what I will call the theory of ethical development through “osmosis”. This approach was once marshaled against Rabbi Yisrael Salanter zt’l the founder of the 19^th century Mussar movement who attempted with limited success to instill a particular focus on psychological awareness and ethical cultivation within the traditional Yeshiva system.  His rabbinic opponents then and now argued that Torah alone sufficed for generations and there was no special need for “wasting time” from Torah study for Mussar. His response was that while a spiritual diet of Torah alone may have sufficed for prior generations this was not viable in the historical situation they found themselves in -think late 19^th century! So, if we fast forward to the early 21^st century and we survey our receding moral landscape let us ask some very simple questions: Is there any Orthodox High School from Left to Right that offers its students a 6 month class 1 hr a week in “Ethical Living in the Modern World”? Are any of our rabbinical seminaries from the Left to Right preparing our rabbis to deal with the ethical and psychological challenges they will face in their professional capacities as teachers, counselors, mentors and fundraisers?

I believe the answer to these questions are as follows: There is no such High School program within Orthodoxy focusing on ethical living in a modern context according to Torah. To the extent that any rabbis are being prepared for the ethical and psychological challenges of the rabbinate this is at best limited to Modern Orthodox seminaries like Yeshiva University and Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and this is quite recent and what further questionable how well and thoroughly they are being prepared.

So if we are operating on an ethics by osmosis educational theory than we should not be surprised that some individuals even rabbis have less an ability to develop into ethical human beings via this method. Consequently, they produce the outrageous moral scandals and immoral wonders of the rabbinic world that we get to read about in the paper to our shock, indignation and horror. Alternatively, and what is more often the case these ethical failings are kept under wraps or are simply unknown until at times an all out catastrophe occurs. Then we all lament the gross desecration of God’s name for a week and then go back to “Torah life as usual” until the cycle repeats and the next ethicopath surfaces in the headlines. If we would take the “Salanterian approach” or the,” What would Rav Yisroel do?” We would make the focus on both psychological awareness and ethical cultivation a fundamental part of our schooling of both our children, adults and our rabbis. In my opinion we are not doing this. We are placing our emphasis on learning limited and narrow portions of Tanakh, Mishna, Talmud and Halakha- the halakhic portion of which mostly revolves around the holidays, shabbat, prayer and daily ritual life. In the Modern Orthodox community we also emphasize and prioritize that our children learn Modern Hebrew and get a “College” preparatory education. Make no mistake I would be very happy for my children to go to Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Princeton or Stanford and for them to make aliyah but like you I do not want any of them ending up with the moral profiles of some of the rabbis, political leaders or laymen that have been dis-gracing the newspapers and television networks.

Now, one could argue that if ethics are so dear to me than I should focus on this at home. However, this suggestion strikes me as prima fascia absurd as I do not believe it is asking very much (for 15-25k a year per pupil) for rabbis who are dedicating their lives to Torah education and in light of the recent and not so recent scandalous events to realize the importance of incorporating a contemporary moral and ethical curriculum into the very fabric of our Torah High Schools. If our Yeshivot were living and breathing an ethical vision and emphasis than those individuals who for whatever reason of nature and nurture are psychologically and morally challenged they will have a more supportive environment within which to grow and will feel more of a responsibility to live up to the standards we all hold dear. Our Torah curriculum cares primarily about mastering basic and intermediate Biblical, Talmudic and Post Talmudic textual skills, covering what are designated as essential Talmudic texts, getting into the routine of twice or thrice daily prayer with as much attention and meaning as possible, learning Modern Hebrew and learning about the holidays, basic Jewish thought and history. Again, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with this curriculum, however please do not imagine that our schools are focused on creating ethically sensitive and educated young adults who are prepared for the ethical challenges of modern living- they are not and do not expect a university education even at Yeshiva University to be of much assistance either.    

Let me be clear, that attention to “Middot” (Character Development) while important, is necessary but not sufficient. Ethical living involves the application of Middot in highly charged real life contexts that transcend being nice to one’s classmates and not speaking Lashon Hara. Additionally, I do not believe that any school really makes even Middot a true focus (unless you consider derech eretz for teachers the summum bonum of ethics and being quiet on a bus or hallway a predictor or ethical refinement). Rather, even Middot are a side dish for the “meat, bread and potatoes” and is typically given tangential emphasis with a little story sent home in the bulletin or a tidbit of a story shared in class. Usually “Middot” only becomes a real focus when a child has real behavioral problems. Just because one’s child is not problematic does not mean that one’s child is being ethically cultivated and groomed.

It would be quite wrong to presume that holiness, devotional piety, Torah knowledge and observance of ritual law are identical with or somehow per force lead to ethical behavior. In reality, holiness, devotional piety, Torah knowledge and observance of ritual law are not only not identical to ethical behavior they sometimes can mislead a person into believing that they are beyond the need for ethical behavior! Additionally, the analytic and highly complex interpretive methodologies one is trained in, the rabbinic legal fictions one is exposed to and the endless divergence of opinions and divergences of opinions built on divergences of opinions can be enlisted to rationalize unethical behavior. Think this is the ramblings of a Modern mind who has studied too much Freud and Kant? The tradition itself points these concerns out, ”Once (Torah) wisdom enters a person cunning enters within them.” (Talmud Bavli Sotah 21b)  The sages warned against becoming a, ”Pervert with permission of the Torah.”(Rambam on Parashat Kedoshim 19:2)  They also shared with us a story of two Kohanim (the embodiments of holiness) racing up the altar (the embodiment of divine service) so that they could be first to perform the initial temple service of the day. What is the result of these holy aspirants eagerness to express their religious devotionalism? One Kohen stabs and kills the other! (The embodiment of a lack of ethics). Then the top concern of the Kohanim becomes preserving the ritual purity of the knife! (embodiment of observance of ritual Law). This is the knife that is still stuck in the heart of the dying Kohen who is withering around in pain and blood. This Aggadah is teaching us explicitly what distorted religious priorities and values look like. The rabbis in the Talmud reflecting on this story say that,”The purity of ritual vessels was greater to them in importance than murder!” (Talmud Bavli Yoma 23a) Just in case you are wondering what the end game was it was called the Destruction of the Second Temple. Of the rare individuals who are listed in the Mishna Sanhedrin (10:2)   as not having a portion in the World to Come a couple of them were among the greatest Torah scholars of their generation, were I imagine quite frum and ofcourse were prominent members of their rabbinic associations and their Yeshiva Alumni. There is a reason our rabbis tell us these stories and teachings- yet do we really collectively take them in? Do we allow them to change how we are educating?     

What would such an ethical preparatory Torah curriculum look like for a Torah High School? I will share a few ideas with the disclaimer that we have many great and creative Torah educators and if they put their minds to it I am sure it will be the finest program in the world. I would say that for High School students the course should include a combination of case study and text study using a multi- media approach incorporating news articles, T.V. clips and where available documentaries. We take a case of a person who violated a Torah ethic and we examine how this played out for them. What was their life like before and after? What were their likely motivations for doing this? How did their unethical behavior impact others and their families? After having gotten this real life exposure to a practical expression of unethical living and the ensuing disaster, now let us examine with classical texts what the Torah says on these ethical and psychological issues. This could then generate class discussion and creative writing assignments with an emphasis on how students potenially may feel at all challenged in similar ways and how they can in the present and future cope with such challenges. I would also dare suggest that the class take a visit to a minimum security prison for white collar criminals and meet with some of the Jewish inmates and have a frank discussion with them about how they view their choices and what was going on with them that led to such choices. We could also bring in various professionals from the community and have them share how they have been challenged ethically in their respective professional lives and how they have navigated these challenges. Lastly, even the core curriculum that we teach can be taught in a way that emphasizes the ethical insights, fundamentals and applications of what is being learned.  I am quite confident that this course if done correctly would be the most interesting and memorable course in Torah our students ever had!   

In regards to preparing rabbis for their many psychological and ethical challenges they will face I would say that two things are utterly necessary and easily doable. Firstly, rabbis who function inevitably as psychological counselors, mentors and confidants should be made to undergo at least two years of individual or group psychotherapy to become simply said, ”more aware of themselves.” It is very unwise to create rabbis who know the rabbinic tradition infinitely more than they know themselves. The depth of one’s Talmudic or Halakhic learning will not directly help a rabbi in certain trials that rabbis face whereas knowing one’s underlying motivations, typical defense mechanisms and character weaknesses will. In addition, rabbinical students should be presented with in crystal clear and graphic terms the ways that other rabbis have morally failed and this should be dissected for them psychologically and halakhically no different than they pour over a Tosafot, Shach or a Bet Yosef. It would be quite helpful for rabbinic seminaries to bring in as possible the moral failures of the rabbinate (the repentant varieties) and have them share how they made the mistakes they made, what they think they should have done different and how in their view these mistakes could have been avoided. I think the shock value of even one of these morbid and heartbreaking lectures would do a lot of good. If its not realistic that it be firsthand then let it be second hand from someone who was close to them and watch it go down. It is only, in my view, through these two methods in tandem that there is any hope that those individuals who may be prone to moral failure will be given a head start at preempting their eventual moral decline and debasement.

Ask yourself of any of the rabbis who have morally collapsed that you are aware of –did any of them have any preparation for the psychological and ethical challenges they were to face? I can tell you from personal experience of knowing more than half a dozen of them throughout my twenty year student/teacher career-the answer is NO. Unless you consider: Parashat Hashuvuah, Nach, Talmud, Rishonim, Tur, Bet Yosef, Kabbalah and Chassidut with a dose of Yirat Shamayim shmoozes and Mesilat Yesharim sufficient preparation. Rabbis who molest children, who are sexually promiscuous with their congregants or students, who embezzle charity funds …. These are highly complex, distorted and struggling souls who to make matters worse are often brilliant, charismatic, articulate and highly motivated to learn, teach, lead and change the world-it’s a morally hazardous combination. True, they are a small minority but it is hard for me to believe that the moral and relatively speaking psychologically healthy majority will be harmed by this curricular enhancement and the consequences of not including it are dire for those who fly beneath the radar of their rabbinic teachers which may not at all be attuned to these matters which can be quite psychologically subtle and beneath the surface.

Consider, if lawyers, medical doctors, psychologists and accountants must study the ethical issues that they will face as part and parcel of their studies should not rabbis? This is in today’s vernacular a “no-brainer.” Yet, tell me one Yeshivah outside of Modern Orthodoxy that does anything sophisticated and thorough to prepare its rabbis for these ethical conflicts and challenges. Let me save you some time there are NONE. While there are no guarantees there are precautions that can be taken and we have enough experience to know by now I would hope that precautionary measures are necessary.    

If we are at all serious of not producing more ethicopaths who: defraud, steal, molest, abuse their power as clergy, show utter disregard for the life of non-Jewish human beings and collectively do not really take in the implications of desecrating the name of God then we must evolve beyond the educational theory of ethics by “osmosis” to the educational theory of ethics by “active prioritization”. We need to initiate an ethical renewal within Orthodoxy, a renewal that will be welcomed by our fellow co-religionist’s in Judaism and can serve as a bridge where we can all meet on level playing ground. If the first question we are asked when we encounter the heavenly tribunal is, ”Did you conduct yourselves honesty and with faith in your business dealings?” (Talmud Bavli Shabbat 31a) Then, I would imagine that there is an esteemed place for a structured curriculum that seeks to actively and directly inculcate contemporary applications for psychological and ethical awareness and moral development in our children, adults and our rabbis.  

Being a light unto the nations and a holy people is quite a challenge but let us at least not be an utter disgrace.  The world village that is rapidly emerging and the mass media technologies that provide instant audio and visual communication make it absolutely imperative to our spiritual mission as a people that we become more ethically focused, refined and developed. Please accept this essay as a modest call to that sacred end.          

Located on a landbridge between Africa and the Middle East, Israel is a small country with a unique environmental landscape and a wide range of climates and ecosystems. Within the span of just a few hours, it is possible to drive from the lowest point on earth, where you can swim in the Dead Sea, to the top of Mt. Hermon, where you can go skiing.

Before the creation of the State of Israel, the land was mostly empty and barren. The population density was low. In the last 60 years, Israel has transformed into one of the most densely populated countries on earth.

Israel has been side-tracked by rapid development, consecutive wars, and civil unrest, which have led to wanton use of scare resources and full-scale environmental destruction. With so many people fighting over ownership of the land, very few of the players have actually made the protection of the land itself a priority. Although many people are concerned about the existential threat to Israel, many overlook the very real threat to the health of Israeli citizens by environmental hazards. Recent research has shown that the number of deaths per year from environmental-related illnesses—including respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer—is in the thousands.

It is easy to get depressed when working in the environmental field here in Israel. There are so many problems, and environmental issues are generally not taken seriously. The ramifications of ignoring environmental issues are dire—they include health problems, energy shortages, and water shortages. Israel is on the brink of numerous disasters. That said, I am not worried about Israel at all. For better or worse, Israelis thrive on emergencies. Long-term planning is basically non-existent. Israelis fly by the seat of their pants—and one way or another, they generally end up on top. That is why, faced with the unmitigated environmental mess that Israel has right now, I have hope. The challenge will not be whether or not Israel can handle the challenge; it will be proving to the government and the average Israeli that the threat is real, imminent, and requires immediate action.

Israel is a small country with few natural resources but enormous scientific, engineering, and academic resources. The miracle of this country is that the threats that I am writing about today can be a thing of the past in just a few years. Israel already has within its borders enough ingenuity to transform its environment from one on the brink of disaster to a light unto the nations (based on renewable energy, of course).

Although creating solutions to environmental problems is initially costly and challenging, the reward is also very high. Not only will such solutions create a healthier population and ecosystem; but due to the demand for new technologies to solve the global environmental crisis, they will lead to enduring economic prosperity.

Israel is already a world leader in the new field of clean technology. But like Israel's best fruits, the best technology is being exported to other countries. This is not the fault of the companies themselves, many of which would like to see their technologies adopted regardless of any profit. Unfortunately they cannot overcome the bureaucratic barriers in place by government agencies that do not recognize the importance or potential of adopting clean technology into their infrastructure.

Industry and economic prosperity are no longer at odds with environmental protection. The systematic solution to Israel's problems is the creation of a thriving industry in clean technology.

In this article, I will outline Israel's basic environmental challenges and potential solutions. I will also introduce readers to new concepts of Israeli ingenuity that can lead to dramatic differences in the Israeli ecosystem over the next few years. Because Israel is an ecosystem, all things are connected; so too, in this article each section is connected to the other. I have broken the article into topics of water, air quality, transportation, and energy. Each of these subjects overlaps with the others. It is impossible to separate pollution from poor public transportation and air quality in general; but for the purpose of coherency, I will try to tackle each topic one at a time.

There are two very different schools of thought that are currently emerging into today's Israeli environmental movement: the "old school" of traditional conservationists versus the new clean technology field. While they should not be at odds, they have yet to join together. Traditional conservationists focus mainly on protecting resources, preventing development, and acting as a regulatory force for industrial development. Clean technology is a term that has developed over the last five years to describe new technologies that produce solutions for environmental problems—specifically in the areas of energy, transportation, and water.

Water

Water is Israel's most pressing environmental challenge—and is indeed the area where Israel has made the most progress. The barren landscape provides very few natural water resources, and the explosions of industry and population have led to a major drain on the sparse water resources that already exist. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Israel's water situation is dire and that the future of the country (and some say the future of peace in the Middle East) is dependent on the management of this precious resource.

The mighty Jordan river has been reduced to a trickle, and many of Israel's other rivers have either dried up or become contaminated by industrial discharge, sewage, and agricultural pollutants such as pesticides and fertilizer. Due to five years of low rainfall, Israel is in the midst of a draught. The Kinneret, Israel's only freshwater lake, consistently sinks below the minimum level that it needs to maintain its integrity without turning into a swamp; and even the Dead Sea is reaching record lows and is at risk of drying up completely. Most drinking water comes from coastal and mountain aquifers, which are quickly being drained or polluted. Demand and consumption have been increasing steadily, and supplies are dwindling.

Israelis have worked to improve the water economy in numerous ways—desalinization, water-saving technologies, extensive use of recycled water, purification systems for aquifers and fresh water systems, and the institution and enforcement of stricter regulation. The government has set up a new tax that gives all residents an allotment of water per month for a reasonable price. Those who go over this amount pay a hefty fee, which rises proportionally to the amount of water used, with people who use the most paying more per cubic meter. This policy has just been put into place, and it remains to be seen what the effect will be. Officials are optimistic.

Although Israel has been developing these technologies for domestic use, the technologies are proving to be groundbreaking in both innovation and application. Oceans cover 70 percent of the world's surface and constitute 97 percent of the world's water. Of the 3 percent of the world's fresh water, an estimated 70 percent is contained in the polar ice caps and is not available for human consumption—leaving only approximately 1 percent of the world's water available for human use. Until recently, fresh water has been considered to be a finite resource; but Israel is proving that this is not the case. Israel has developed and implemented the process of desalinization, which extracts fresh water from ocean water. This is a major innovation. By the end of 2009, desalinization will produce about 40 percent of the country's domestic consumption; this is expected to rise to 80 percent by 2014.

International agencies are now seeking Israeli solutions for help to solve the global freshwater shortage. It is estimated that there are more than 1 billion people worldwide who do not have access to clean water on a regular basis. The World Health Organization claims that poor drinking water and inadequate sanitation claim the lives of approximately 5 million people per year due to water- related health issues, including dysentery, schistosomiasis, trachoma, or infestation with ascaris, guinea worm, or hookworm.

Water security is one of Israel's chief concerns and the environmental issue that Israel is most successfully tackling. Israel's commitment to ensuring clean water availability for the future will not only help the population of the country but also, it seems, will help people around the world.

Air Quality

Air quality represents one of Israel's the most immediate health concerns and is often called an "invisible killer.” It is one of the most serious problems—but also one of the easiest environmental problems to solve. Air flows from one region to the next, and there is no need to actually clean the air; simply stopping to pollute it will fix the problem. Air pollution is easy to pinpoint and must be dealt with at its source. Emission standards, which are set and enforced by the government, are the most important aspect of any clean-air initiative. At this point, Israel's official standards are good, but they are poorly enforced; in many cities, pollutant levels are approximately 65 percent above the levels set by the World Health Organization.

Israel's air quality is measured by a national network that has over 2,000 stations throughout the country. There are various problems, depending on the region. Most air pollution is created by transportation, energy production, and industry, and these have all increased dramatically over the last few years. The number of vehicles in Israel has almost doubled within the last ten years, as has electricity consumption. The major air pollutants are particle matter, nitrous oxides, ozone, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and lead.

Air pollution in Israel is aggravated by its very own landscape. The small land area, arid climate, lack of rain, and coastal industries near densely populated communities create increasingly poor air quality. Haifa Bay is one of the hardest-hit areas, as it combines intense industrial activity with difficult atmospheric dispersion conditions caused by the Mediterranean Sea and the topography of Mount Carmel. This leads to high levels of pollutants that are not easily dispersed. Despite efforts over the years to reduce air pollution levels, they have been mostly unsuccessful. A new approach is being implemented that will now focus more on emission standards as opposed to ambient toxin levels in hopes of regulating the creation of the problem.

There are a number of simple and effective solutions that Israel can put in place to preserve air quality. One of the most important is to regulate industry. Tight controls on emissions from factories will reduce the amount of toxic chemicals released into the atmosphere.

Another problem, which has social implications, is the uncontrolled burning of garbage. Pound for pound, an uncontrolled fire can produce thousands of times more toxins into the atmosphere than a high-temperature incinerator. Garbage burning is particularly commonplace in Arab areas. This leads to extremely bad air quality in the villages and contributes to air pollution in general leading to significant health problems for the entire population.

Transportation is another major cause of air pollution. It is effective to set higher standards on car emissions, but that is not the ideal. The ideal is to get combustion engine vehicles off the road by switching to public transportation that is environmentally sustainable, such as light rails and trains. For those who want to continue to own their own car but lower their carbon footprint, Israel is introducing a network for electric cars that will be online in the next few years. This will be discussed in greater detail in the transportation section of this article.

Finally, energy production, which will also be discussed in more detail, is a major air pollutant. Coal-burning plants and fossil fuels are the main sources of air pollution spreading poisonous gases into the air. As with transportation, regulation of emissions on the current use of energy production is helpful; but the ideal is to switch energy production to new, cleaner resources such as solar, wind, and water power.

Transportation

Israel has become an increasingly mobile society. It is not uncommon for Israelis to make long commutes, travelling from one city to the next—and at times, from one side of the country to the other—for work. In the early years of the State, public transportation was a priority, and many people relied on Egged, the national bus company, to get from place to place; but this is no longer the case. Public transportation lacks funding, and many bureaucrats have been following the poor example set by the United States of building more roads as opposed to light rails and trains, which are common in Europe.

The majority of Israelis still travel by public transportation, primarily on buses. Egged is still the largest bus company, but it is not as ubiquitous as it once was. Despite the rise in people's mobility and their need for transportation, there has not been a significant rise in the number of buses since the 1980s. Private cars in Israel used to be seen as a luxury item, but due to rapid economic growth and poor government planning, many Israelis now need private cars because they lack alternative means of transportation. High gas prices and associated costs make owning a car extremely expensive; and it is not unheard of for people to spend up to one third of their monthly salary on a car and its associated costs. In 1960 there were 70,000 vehicles in Israel, and the vehicle density was ten cars for every kilometer of road. Today there are an estimated 2.1 million cars on the road, and the vehicle density has risen to an average of 120 cars per kilometer.

A prime example of this is the Modi'in area (between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv), which is touted as being one of the best planned cities in the country. Modi'in has been developed primarily over the past ten years, and the city is still under construction. The only public transportation is an inadequate bus system that does not connect to any of the outlying areas. In the center of Modi'in, there is a train station that connects to almost every major city in the country. Unfortunately, most bus lines do not stop at the train station, and surrounding villages have almost no access by public transportation at all. Extensive research has shown that for intercity public transportation to work there must be intracity public transportation as well. If people cannot easily travel from the train to their final destination, they will not take the train. This unfortunately leaves Modi'in with a beautiful new station and relatively few passengers.

Although public transportation is generally considered the ideal for environmental preservation, there are cleaner options for private transportation than the existing combustion engine car. Israel is about to become the first country in the world to have in place a national network of electric cars and charging stations. In a study done in 2009 (by Project Better Place), 57 percent of Israelis reported that they would make their next car purchase an electric vehicle if given the option.

Project Better Place is a private company based in Israel, with branches in the United States, Australia, Denmark, Canada, and Japan. They are the world's leading electric vehicle (EV) services provider, and they have already begun work on a series of charging stations throughout Israel. They have signed contracts with all of Israel's major malls, with train stations, and with Jerusalem's Mayor Nir Barkat, who will place charging stations throughout the city of Jerusalem for a pilot project starting this year.

Israel is currently the world leader in electric vehicle adoption, and it will be interesting to see how this develops in the near future. Electric cars are cleaner and better for the environment than gas guzzling combustion engines, but it begs the question: Where is Israel going to get the electricity to meet the country's transportation needs?

Energy

            As Israel develops technologically and the standard of living rises, its energy needs are also rising. From cars to air conditioners, Israelis are becoming used to amenities that were almost unheard of just a few years ago. This has led to electric blackouts in the summers when energy needs are highest, and is setting up a future energy crisis where Israel will not be able to meet the needs. Energy experts agree that Israel lacks the proper infrastructure to meet the growing demands. Immediate measures need to be taken to ensure the energy supply.

Israel is, unfortunately, dependent on fossil fuels for the production of electricity; but since it has no natural resources of fossil fuels, it has to depend mainly on long-term contracts with countries including Mexico, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Australia for oil. Israel is one of the only countries that has a power grid that is not connected to that of any other nation—making Israel into a virtual electric island. For security reasons, it is vital that Israel secure its power production. Due to the animosity of surrounding countries, Israel has no access to the copious amounts of oil from neighboring oil-rich nations. Because of that, Israel relies on coal, imported mainly from South Africa, for its electric power generating plants.

Coal is an extremely dirty source of fuel, creating hundreds of thousands of tons of ash per year. Burning coal releases mercury, selenium, boron, and dioxins, which are extremely dangerous, and the process also contributes to global warming by emitting carbon dioxide and methane (greenhouse gases). Burning coal also creates acid rain, which has harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and infrastructure. Environmental Minister Gilad Erdan has recently campaigned against the proposed coal power plant, which would increase existing emissions by more than 10 percent.

Last year, natural gas was found off the coast of Haifa, and plans are being made to use this resource for energy production. Although this could keep Israel running with its existing infrastructure, it will someday run out and leave the country in the same situation that it is in today.

New polices and alternative energy can help boost the level of energy available. A more intelligent use of existing resources can also help to avert the pending environmental crisis. This can be done by encouraging the use of energy-efficient appliances, doing things as simple as turning off lights in rooms that are not in use, and being selective about the use of air conditioners in the heat of summer. Simple actions such as planting trees can cut a house's energy usage by 15 percent due to the shade. Saving energy can be more effective than finding new (even "green”) ways to produce it.

Most important, Israel needs to change its source of energy to renewable sources such as solar, wind, wave, and bio fuels. Israeli companies are leading the way in technological innovation, but this innovation is being applied mainly in other countries. Prime Minister Netanyahu has claimed that the country is on a path toward energy independence, and Environmental Minister Gilad Erdan has expressed a commitment to following through on that claim.

Although it is a step in the right direction that the government has begun to see energy independence as a vital goal, it will be interesting to see how this will play out on the ground. As of now, there has been little progress to move this agenda forward.

Conclusion
 

Despite Israel's leap into the "first world" in regard to standards of living, Israel is still very much a third-world nation. Rampant pollution, poor resource management, and a government that has not taken environmental issues seriously have led Israel to the brink of major ecological crisis. Israeli citizens are paying the price for this with both their health and their financial resources. Israel can no longer afford to see the environment as an issue for the future; it must realize that now is the time to act.

The combination of lack of natural resources and political isolation has created the necessity for Israel to take its place as a world leader in clean technology and to lead by example. It is not enough for Israeli scientists and engineers to create companies for the Nasdaq. They must see their work in action, protecting both the environment in Israel and Israel's political interests.

The future of protecting the Israeli environment is a partnership between government, industry, clean-technology companies, and environmental protection agencies. Natural resources are finite, but renewable resources are not. The wind and the sun, plants and waves will continue to create energy long after the last oil mine has been tapped. If Israel chooses, it can lead the way not just in technology but also by example, creating a cleaner and better environment for its citizens and for the world.

1.

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
 

"Can you point me to rabbis or other leadership figures in the Orthodox Jewish community who have spoken or written about the moral aspects of the financial crash and the economic crisis – and about a specifically Jewish ethical and moral view of what happened, relating also to the prominent role of Jews, including and perhaps especially observant Jews?"

"Do you know of anyone who, in the period of the stock market and property manias in the nineties and the decade just ended, talked or wrote about the trends underway in the financial sector in the US and elsewhere, and/ or in the housing market, as moral and ethical issues that should concern us deeply -- and that Orthodox / observant/ Torah True Jews should have something to say about?

These are the kind of questions I have been posing to (an admittedly unscientific sample of) rabbinic teachers, colleagues and friends in recent months. The responses can be categorized as follows:

a. "No, but why don’t you ask so-and-so, he's 'into' that kind of thing."

b. "Yes, you should see/ look up / speak to so-and-so or this-and-that." However, these references led to material that was either overtly halakhic and very narrowly focused, or that indulged in very general ethical reflections (such as that the crash and crisis highlight the role of Divine providence at the global and individual levels, or the need to adopt and maintain a modest lifestyle).

c. "Yes", followed by a referral to articles or speeches by relevant Jewish personalities – but addressed to non-Jewish audiences.

Taken together, these responses are profoundly discouraging. The answers translate as follows:

1. Even people who have a definite interest in this topic haven't seen or heard of relevant material. They, like me, want to believe that said material exists, but have no hard evidence thereof. They – we – are deliberately indulging in wishful thinking, because the alternative is too awful for us to contemplate.
2. Many people, including – or perhaps especially -- rabbis and educators actually have no clear idea what ethical and moral issues are. More precisely, they have great difficulty distinguishing between legal/ halakhic and moral/ethical treatments of issues, preferring to subsume the latter in theological, or even mystical, conceptual frameworks
3. Those who have addressed the topic from a moral perspective have preferred to direct their remarks to non-Jews. This is much the most depressing response of all.

None of this is meant to suggest that what I am looking for does not exist. Both I and most of my interlocutors continue to assume that such material does exist, that various people at various times did address various aspects of these complex and multi-faceted issues. I would therefore hope that one of the results of this article will be that kind readers will point me to 'relevant material', thereby substantiating our naïve faith.

But finding a few righteous men in Sodom will not change the basic premise of this article, which is that Orthodox Judaism, as currently conceived and practiced, is morally challenged. The ongoing financial and economic crisis is arguably not even the most severe moral challenge facing it and us. Rather, the crisis has exposed the moral bankruptcy of much of Orthodoxy – of all streams, in both the Israel and the Diaspora -- so sharply that henceforth this sorry state of affairs will be difficult, if not impossible, to continue to ignore.

To apply Warren Buffett's famous aphorism, 'you only find out who's been swimming naked, when the tide goes out' – and for the Orthodox, the tide has gone out. In the same way that the crash is already seen as marking the end of an era -- that stretched from the end of the Second World War until 2007 -- in everything from economic theory to household financial behavior; so, I believe, it marks the end of an era in Jewish history – the era of recovery from the Holocaust, which featured demographic and cultural reconstruction which came to be led by the Orthodox, but also a restructuring of Jewish values. In the latter process, some old values were downgraded, marginalized or even dropped, while others – perhaps no less ancient – were upgraded and moved to center stage.

The crisis has exposed the existence of a widespread moral darkness within, indeed at the heart of, Orthodox Judaism. This black hole expresses itself the way all such negative moral phenomena do – via silence.

2.

In restless dreams I walked alone
 

Let's cut to the quick. What I am looking for is moral leadership, which I define as people with the courage to tell at least the members of their flock, if not the world at large, what is wrong with what they are doing and how they can and should do better. In the best case, this leadership should be demonstrated in real time – i.e. with regard to what is currently happening or likely to happen, but if it appears ex post, that is considerably better than nothing.

I expect this leadership to relate to the moral and ethical aspects of that broad swathe of human existence that is currently pigeonholed by the think-only-by, about and inside-the-box society that we live in, as 'macro-economics', 'finance' and 'labour'. My reading of Torah, Nakh, Talmud and Midrash suggests that this whole aspect of human activity is central to the theory and practice of Judaism. If, therefore, it is now enveloped in crisis, it is impossible that Judaism has nothing to say about it, beyond theological platitudes and/or legal formulations. It should, therefore, be impossible for the recognized leadership of Orthodox Judaism, which constantly stresses its credentials as THE ONLY authentic Judaism, to be silent.

What do I expect it to say? What, in other words, am I talking about others talking about? The simplest and best way of illustrating this is to give a concrete example of moral leadership, as defined above. The following is an extract from a speech given to a group of Canadian bankers and other financial sector types, in February 2009 at the very height of the crisis. The speaker is Paul Volcker, the octogenarian former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank who, when appointed by President Carter in 1979 with a mandate to end the inflation that had been eating away at the American economy and society for 15 years, proceeded to raise interest rates to 20% per annum and push the economy into not one, but two, recessions, in order to get the job done. Clearly, he is not someone afraid of a challenge or of making sacrifices to achieve essential goals.  We 'join' the audience in the midst of Volcker's description of what went wrong and how:

You might ask how [the housing/ mortage boom] went on as long as it did. The grading agencies didn't do their job and the banks didn't do their job and the accountants went haywire. I have my own take on this. There were two things that were particularly contributory and very simple. Compensation practices had gotten totally out of hand and spurred financial people to aim for a lot of short-term money without worrying about the eventual consequences. And then there was this obscure financial engineering that none of them understood, but all their mathematical experts were telling them to trust. These two things carried us over the brink.

One of the saddest days of my life was when my grandson – and he's a particularly brilliant grandson – went to college. He was good at mathematics. And after he had been at college for a year or two I asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up. He said, "I want to be a financial engineer." My heart sank. Why was he going to waste his life on this profession?

A year or so ago, my daughter had seen something in the paper, some disparaging remarks I had made about financial engineering. She sent it to my grandson, who normally didn't communicate with me very much. He sent me an email, "Grandpa, don't blame it on us! We were just following the orders we were getting from our bosses." The only thing I could do was send him back an email, "I will not accept the Nuremberg excuse."

Bear with me as I analyse these three paragraphs. This is the former Fed chairman talking to bankers. Does he use jargon – let alone numbers, formulae or Greek symbols? No. In one paragraph, seven sentences, 108 words, he says everything any semi-intelligent Martian would need to know to understand the sources and development of the crisis, through to its denouement.

But these are bankers he is talking to. They already 'know' all this. Precisely for that reason, Volcker lays it out for them in simple words, and then lays it in to them with a series of powerful, accurate blows: Incompetents – BIFF! Liars – POW! Greedy and irresponsible – WHAM! And the coup de grace, conceited fools – CRACK!!

Then the switch from his audience's generalized stupidity to his own intense personal pain: his grandson decides to squander his promise and potential on the alchemy of financial engineering. Volcker is well aware that his smart grandson can and probably will (in the pre-crash world) earn millions in his chosen career, but that does not prevent him from defining this decision – entirely correctly from a moral and a religious perspective – as 'wasting his life'.

Most of us, even if we felt that way, would not allow it to come between us and our beloved grandchild. Volcker did – and does not shrink from telling his (now-adult) grandson that his moral compass is on a par with that of a Nazi war criminal.

That kind of thinking is what I call moral clarity and that kind of talk, in public, is what I call moral leadership. So when I ask readers to point me to written or spoken words from Orthodox Jewish leaders relating to the entire gamut of moral issues thrown up by the boom, mania, crash and bust – from systemic risk to one young man's dilemmas in life – that's the kind of thing I'm looking for.

Do you know a rabbi, of any stripe, from any stream, who stood up before, during or at least after the crash and told his congregation of real-estate/ stock-market speculators that they were scoundrels and probably criminals to boot? Do you know of a rosh yeshiva who told a talmid looking to leave the yeshiva and get a job, not to 'waste his life' in a highly-regarded and very high-paying profession? Or an Admor who told a hassid that adopting the business practices of his bosses or colleagues was morally repugnant? If you do, you have the privilege of being exposed to moral leadership. I'm looking for it, so far unsuccessfully -- and if I can’t find it among rabbis, rashei yeshiva and Admorim, I'll take it where it's available.

Yet there is a concept that "by two witnesses' testimony shall the matter be established". Let me therefore quote another prominent figure in the financial sector, this time someone in the very heart of one of its most morally problematic areas, namely mutual fund management.

John Bogle is the founder of Vanguard, a company that pioneered low-cost fund management. This is hardly the place to examine the pros and cons of Bogle's approach, but it's not irrelevant to note that his concept is based on the premise that investors in regular mutual funds are consistently and systematically ripped-off by their fund managers' panoply of fees. Here he is in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in April 2009:

I recently received a letter from a Vanguard shareholder who described the global financial crisis as "a crisis of ethic proportions." Substituting "ethic" for "epic" is a fine turn of phrase, and it accurately places a heavy responsibility for the meltdown on a broad deterioration in traditional ethical standards.

Commerce, business and finance have hardly been exempt from this trend. Relying on Adam Smith's "invisible hand," through which our self-interest advances the interests of society, we have depended on the marketplace and competition to create prosperity and well-being.

But self-interest got out of hand. It created a bottom-line society in which success is measured in monetary terms. Dollars became the coin of the new realm. Unchecked market forces overwhelmed traditional standards of professional conduct, developed over centuries.

The result is a shift from moral absolutism to moral relativism. We've moved from a society in which "there are some things that one simply does not do" to one in which "if everyone else is doing it, I can too." Business ethics and professional standards were lost in the shuffle.

The driving force of any profession includes not only the special knowledge, skills and standards that it demands, but the duty to serve responsibly, selflessly and wisely, and to establish an inherently ethical relationship between professionals and society. The old notion of trusting and being trusted -- which once was not only the accepted standard of business but the key to success -- came to be seen as a quaint relic of an era long gone.

It's worth citing Bogle just to put that wonderful phrase – alas, of anonymous authorship – 'a crisis of ethic proportions', before a wider audience. But here, too, a few paragraphs suffice for a man with a functioning moral compass to pinpoint the moral rot that led to the systemic disaster that is still unfolding.

3.

And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
 

The foregoing examples not only illustrate what moral leadership is, they also provide at least a partial answer as to why it is so rare and why, in particular, virtually no prominent Orthodox leader has given voice to the moral outrage so palpable across America since the crash, and so prevalent within the Jewish community as well – but seething beneath the surface.

Moral leadership demands a larger measure of courage than most people have. This is especially the case when your job is on the line – as it most assuredly would be for most community rabbis, if they dared take a stand that directly challenged the moral mores of their immediate community and the wider stream or branch of Judaism that they and it belonged to. And if losing their livelihood was not enough for most pulpit rabbis, school principals and even rashei yeshiva, there are also the 'knock-on' effects of their audacity on their family, from their wives – who are usually also deeply engaged in community activities, to their children, whose education and, at least in some circles, marriage prospects would be at stake.

In that sense, Paul Volcker was free to speak his mind, because he held no post and his personal and family situation is not at risk. John Bogle, of course, is independently wealthy as a result of Vanguard's success and hence similarly worry-free.

But the 'excuse' of personal/ family vulnerability does not stand up to close examination. What would the average rabbi of an Orthodox community do, if his congregants became regular visitors to gambling joints? Strip clubs? Gay bars? If board members owned such outfits? If the president was a convicted pedophile?

In fact, there is no need to use such lurid examples. Owning shops selling pork, or any business operating on Shabbat, would be quite sufficient. In any of these cases, most rabbis would be forced to take a stand, even if they were weak and sought to avoid confrontations, and whether or not their job was on the line. Nor would most school principals or rashei yeshiva hesitate to act if people engaged in these problematic activities held positions on their boards.

There's the rub. Both public Sabbath transgression and overt trafficking in pork, despite their very different halakhic implications, are clear and obvious casus belli for Orthodox religious functionaries. In such cases, accusing a rabbi of exceeding what is expected of him would strike even irreligious or non-Jewish observers, as ludicrous. Yet taking a stand against persons found guilty of a broad range of 'white-collar crimes' is not considered an obvious casus belli, even for Orthodox Jews who define themselves as observant and/or 'Torah True'. Indeed, it may well be closer to hara kiri on the part of a rabbi who tries it.

This distinction has no basis in Jewish law, let alone in the corpus of rabbinic ethical literature. But it reflects the behavioral norms of many Orthodox Jews and the mores of many Orthodox communities.

Nor is the fear, or practical impossibility, of clashing with communal lay leaders – who are usually the religious leader's employer, whether directly or indirectly – the only factor behind the phenomenon of silence. Often, the claim will be made that speaking or writing in public about these issues will cause, or spur, anti-Semitism. Today, with anti-Jewish feeling and activity on the rise almost everywhere, that is certainly not a concern that can be lightly dismissed. But it can, nonetheless, be dismissed in most cases.

Two counter-arguments immediately suggest themselves. One is that most anti-Semitism is irrational and will always find itself a 'cause', or excuse, whether we provide it or not. The other is that it is not the principled stand against moral turpitude that will cause anti-Semitism, but the failure to denounce moral breakdown and thereby facilitate its continued spread. The prominence of Jews in the hated financial elite is, in today's charged atmosphere, causing far more anti-Semitism than would the explicit denunciation of the ills of the financial system by Jewish religious personalities.

But, of course, the real reason why the anti-Semitism argument is so weak is because we cannot agree, in principle and a fortiori, to conduct our communal life on the basis of what the reaction of anti-Semites might be. The content and tone of the intra-communal debate may take account of it, but it surely cannot set the agenda.

The silence of many religious leaders in the face of moral challenges stemming from the areas of business and finance reflects conflicts of interest on their part. In many cases, rabbis have an interest in the financial wellbeing of individuals who are prominent supporters of institutions that operate under their aegis. They are therefore compromised in their ability to address problematic aspects of the business areas in which those persons are engaged – let alone the specific business practices of those persons.

Many rabbis actually seem to believe that the means can and do justify the ends, so that the worthy goal of an educational institution or a charitable endeavor may require ignoring the source of the funds that realized that goal – both the person and the business activity in which he garnered his wealth. From there it is but a short step to the implicit recognition of using wealth obtained illegally or immorally to 'buy salvation'.

Finally, as a spate of cases has shown, leadership can be complicit not by merely ignoring the issues, but by direct involvement. Obviously, in such cases there is no point in discussing moral leadership – nor do moral issues resonate with the followers.

4.

Silence like a cancer grows
 

Was it ever thus? Was there always a huge gulf between the moral heroes and the lofty ethical principles depicted in the sacred literature, and the grubby reality of life as people – rabbis and laymen alike – lived it?

No doubt to some extent it was. But there is evidence that Orthodox Jewish society did not always feature a warped value system in which business ethics and money morality is relegated to second-class status, at best.

One of the few people who has devoted himself to writing and speaking about Jewish business ethics is Dr Meir Tamari. His work and research has generated several books, as well as numerous articles published in general and Orthodox newspapers and magazines.

Tamari is convinced that the phenomenon of religious bifurcation, in which ritualistic and theological/ mystical elements of Judaism have risen to prominence whilst inter-personal and, in particular, pecuniary moral and ethical practices have withered, is neither very recent – meaning post-Holocaust, nor very ancient – meaning pre-modern.

He suggests that it was the demise of the kehilla as the lynchpin of Jewish society that started the rot. This development can be traced back to the impact of the Khmelnitsky massacres in the mid-17^th century, and the subsequent descent of most of East European Jewry into chronic and deep poverty. The political dismemberment of Poland in the late 18^th century and the Napoleonic wars were the coup de grace for the old structure, leaving a society in which a very narrow stratum had wealth whilst the mass of people had nothing – except babies, in the huge population explosion of the 19^th century.

With no fiscal autonomy – because the kehilla's taxation powers were gone – the religious leadership became entirely dependent on the few rich people available for their own financial survival and that of their families and their institutions, whether these last were yeshivot or the courts of the hassidic leaders. That structure was inherently corrupt and served as a further spur to the process already underway, as Enlightenment ideas and values spread through Jewish population centers, of a growing estrangement and eventual mass flight of Jewish youth from their ancestral religion.

This undemocratic and unhealthy social structure has survived into the 21^st century, and indeed thrived, despite the fact that today's Jewish society is completely different from that of pre-Holocaust Europe, with affluence having replaced poverty, especially in the Western Diaspora. Much academic work needs to be done to understand and explain how the structure has proved so robust, but for the purposes of this article, the existence of this social structure and its salient characteristics, including its warped moral value system, must be accepted as fact.

The proof Tamari cites for his hypothesis is telling, because it comes from direct documentary evidence of social, religious and economic conditions and values among Orthodox Jews over the centuries – namely the responsa literature. He notes a sharp decline in the percentage of responsa dealing with 'money matters' – as opposed to ritual (food, Shabbat etc.) and personal status issues --  in the modern period compared to the earlier period of Jewish history in pre-Khmelnitsky Poland and, earlier still, in Spain and Franco-Germany. This is certainly something for scholars to subject to further scrutiny.

In the more recent period – the last century or so -- Tamari notes another change creeping into the responsa literature, a change that resonates to the sounds of silence. A typical pre-modern responsum relating to a monetary dispute would provide a thorough analysis of the legal aspects of the matter under discussion and conclude by presenting a legal ruling. Often, however, it would not stop there, but would append a short addendum that discussed the moral aspects of the dispute and suggest a possible extra-legal resolution which would probably require one or both parties to rise above the letter of the law and take an ethical, rather than a purely legal view of the situation. Tamari finds that this latter approach has fallen into desuetude and is rarely found in the recent and contemporary responsa literature.

This chimes well with what we see and hear all around us: rabbis and other religious functionaries have increasingly become religious technocrats, honed in their specialties and well-versed in the professional literature pertaining to these specialties – e.g. Shabbat or medical halakhot – but increasingly distant from the empathetic approach that might enable them and their questioners/ litigants to rise above the legal sphere of din to the moral sphere of 'lifnim mishurat hadin'.

In fact, the contemporary questioner may not even want that kind of answer. That is what Haym Soloveitchik highlighted in his article, Rupture & Reconstruction, especially in the final sentence: "[Contemporary Orthodox Jews], having lost the touch of His presence …now seek solace in the pressure of His yoke". In those areas of their lives where Orthodox Jews seek rabbinic guidance, they want din, not lifnim mishurat hadin. And in the wider context, people get the leadership and the leadership style that they want and deserve – in religion as in politics.

5

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
 

This is what John Bogle clearly understands and expressed so well in the article quoted above. The moral rot that found such dramatic expression in the financial crash of 2007-09 is rooted in the collapse of those basic human values – trust, reliability, mutual confidence – without which commercial and financial activity cannot take place. It requires no great intellectual leap to see that the same values are needed in the domestic sphere, to make marriage and family life work. The moral collapse is taking place across the board, even if the dynamics of breakdown differ between areas of human activity.

It is also essential not to fall into the trap of thinking that this is a recent process, dating back only a few years. Over twenty years ago, an investment banker of a bygone age whose name still has positive connotations for veteran New Yorkers (imagine – an investment banker who did good and was held in high esteem!), wrote a similar article making a similar point. That was Felix Rohatyn and he, too, was bemoaning the rise of a new and corrupt culture on Wall Street – a culture in which the moral concept of "it isn’t done" was replaced by the legal approach that if it isn't against the law, it's OK. Once the lawyers were in control, the next stage of the collapse of ethical behavior was the rise of the compliance culture, which effectively said that no-one can be trusted not to break the rules, so we'll watch everyone all the time.

But the moral decline of Wall Street in the 1980s that Rohatyn mourned, that Tom Wolfe lampooned in Bonfire of the Vanities and that Oliver Stone pilloried in his 1987 movie Wall Street, seems minor and almost childish compared to what we have witnessed this last decade.

Yet in the 1980s there were still relatively few Orthodox Jews in the big Wall Street banks and investment houses. By the time the naughties -- as the outgoing decade is sometimes called – rolled round, there were many, the product of hard work and excellent grades achieved in the top business schools. By this time, the obstacles to Orthodox Jews working in these lucrative and highly-regarded jobs had largely been solved – even the need to sometimes miss two consecutive working days, because of the incidence of Jewish festivals. Orthodox employees in leading firms in the world's two main financial centers of New York and London conducted minha services daily in corporate boardrooms and often managed to cram a daf yomi session, or other limmud Torah, into their long and hectic working days at the office. Their gentile colleagues thought nothing of the need to accommodate aspects of the Orthodox lifestyle. Multi-culturalism was the norm in downtown Manhattan as in London's Canary Wharf, so that trading rooms wherein bearded and skull-capped Moslems, Jews and Sikhs (turbans for them!) worked side by side became an unremarkable sight.

In between the praying, the learning, the kosher sushi and all the rest, the new generation of Orthodox youngsters participated, willingly and even enthusiastically, in the creation, design and sale to unsuspecting suckers across the country and around the world of those 'financial weapons of mass destruction' – in Warren Buffett's telling phrase -- that have inflicted massive damage on the American public and, ironically but fittingly, brought the entire Wall Street culture crashing down around them.

Most of these young people, despite (or is it because of?) their background in the world's leading yeshivot, seminaries and other institutes of advanced Jewish study,   never saw the inconsistency in this behavior. They made sure to raise the point in their job interviews with potential employers of their need to leave early on winter Fridays. Did any mention to their interviewer before taking the job, or to their superiors or peer reviewers in periodic meetings while on the job, that they felt uncomfortable – nay, sickened – by the foul-mouthed patter that was standard style on trading floors, or by the crude sexist banter and 'jokes' that were the norm in most departments of most firms?

Did any of them discuss, among themselves or with their rabbis, rebbes, mekubalim and other religious mentors, the moral chasm between the readings in the Torah and Prophets they heard read in synagogue on Shabbat morning, or the sentiments contained in their kids' divrei torah at the Shabbat table, and what they heard and did when they went back to work on Monday morning (if not on Sunday)? Were they confused? Did they feel disoriented? Or were they able to live totally compartmentalized lives?

It seems that many did and continue to do just that – as a survival mechanism for religious people in a secular and hence culturally hostile world. The multi-cultural ethos of 'live and let live' allows them to fulfill their religious obligations – washing before and reciting grace after meals, praying minha and even learning or reciting Psalms at work or while commuting – and still work in any sector, at any level.

But these achievements in the area of professional and workplace integration have exacted an enormous, terrible moral price. People integrated into companies, industries and professions where moral values have eroded or diluted have, inevitably even if unconsciously, become corrupted. Many of them are today either amoral or immoral, although they delude themselves into believing that their religion, as they understand and practice it, makes them morally superior and provides them with a large measure of immunity to the immoral wider culture in which they move.

Thus it is that there are many Orthodox Jews – from 'modern' to 'hareidi' – whose minds and hearts are already lost to Judaism. They lean emotionally toward Gordon Gekko, the villain of Wall Street, whose motto is simple and direct: "greed is good" – because it gets you what you want. Worse still, they lean intellectually toward Ayn Rand and her hero John Galt in Atlas Shrugged. Most of them, of course, have never heard of Rand, let alone read the ideas she put into John Galt's mouth. Yet the views of many of the younger generation of Orthodox Jews, especially but not only in the US, are aligned with her extreme capitalist ideology, despite its being profoundly anti-Jewish and, in the deepest sense, idolatrous.

6.

And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
 

The unfolding crisis has exposed the false gods once again as being unable to deliver the goods. Nothing new there – the young Abram tried to explain that to his father Terah in Ur of the Chaldees and it seems that Terah eventually got the point. Ayn Rand's most prominent devotee, Alan Greenspan – the man who followed Volcker as Fed chairman-- at least had the intellectual and moral courage to publicly admit that ideas he had held and nurtured for decades had been destroyed by the financial crash.

If Greenspan can see the light, there must surely be hope for all those others whose minds have been less severely poisoned. Unfortunately, the crash is likely to prove only the first stage of a prolonged crisis which will impose deep and painful changes on the economy and society of America and the entire Western world. But this trauma provides the opportunity for Orthodox Judaism to admit that it took the wrong turn some way back and needs to get onto a road that leads somewhere worth going.

How do we find our way back to where we went wrong, and how do we then go right?

Finding our way back is the definition of  teshuva, repentance. We know that the essential first step of teshuva is to accept and then admit that what we thought and/ or did was wrong. That means ending the fraudulent pretence that current Orthodox theology and lifestyle are good enough, let alone ideal.

From there, it's got to be back to basics – and basics in Judaism means education. But education can no longer mean what it is still widely taken to mean – the maintenance of traditional religious values and practices. As Haym Soloveitchik explained 15 years ago, the assumption that basic values will be effortlessly absorbed by Jewish children growing up in a Jewish culture is not true or workable in today's world.

Basic values that used to be commonly accepted and upheld by all Western societies, can no longer be taken for granted. They are going to have to be taught, imparted, inculcated – consciously and carefully. The values governing that huge part of people's lives encompassing work, income, wealth, spending and investment must be resuscitated and these activities rescued from the clutches of 'professional experts' -- and then re-integrated into an overall moral framework, along with family, health and well-being and all the other central components of our lives.

Jews have always prized learning and scholastic achievement, but they have also always had high regard for wealth and business acumen. Yissachar and Zevulun are both legitimate role models in the Jewish tradition, especially when they work in partnership. But there was always something else, more fundamental than either intellectual or material success. This something was so taken for granted that it actually went without saying -- until it now seems that it has gone completely, without even saying goodbye.

That intangible something is morality – an amorphous catch-all encompassing values such as honesty, integrity, responsibility. In the Ashkenazi-Jewish world it was termed 'mentchlichkeit' and among all Jews it was demanded of everyone, rich or poor, learned or ignorant. Before anything else and above all else, you had to be a mentsch.

One of the many aphorisms attributed to the Kotsker Rebbe relates to the way Megillat Esther introduces Mordechai as 'ish yehudi', 'a Jewish man'. The word ish seems superfluous – but that is not the case at all, said the Rebbe. First you have to be a mentsch, only then can you be a Jew.

That's what we have lost somewhere along the way and that's what we have to get back to.