The Best Passover Reads, 5772

A large part of what I do for JID is sift through hundreds and hundreds of items posted online in an effort to find the good stuff (which is then sifted further to post the best stuff). You would not believe how much Pesach-related material appears every year. Every local newspaper, Jewish and general, has something on it. There's not a lot to get excited about, but there is the occasional piece that makes you sit up and pay attention. Here are this year's Pesach pieces that quickened my pulse a bit:

1. 1. Leon Wieseltier's review of the New Ameratzishe American Haggadah. Yes, it's a hatchet job and he overstates the case, but the central critique seems to be that re-inventing the wheel (in this case composing a brand new translation of the haggadah) does not necessarily mean doing it better. It's part of a larger debate about innovation and conservatism (see, for example, Zak Braiterman's response to Wieseltier, and the earlier exchange between me and Braiterman).
2. Judith Shulevitz has a Levinasian reading of the Talmud's derivation of the requirement to seek out hametz with a light. The contrived scriptural acrobatics point toward a deeper theological anthropology. Terrific.
3. Howard Jacobson muses on the poem "Dayenu". Jacobson is the greatest living Jewish writer (in English). Here, he comes up with witty and profound sentences like: "The Dayenu is a series of self-generating conditional clauses, composed, if you like, in that most kop-dreying of all tenses, the Judaeo-hypothetic-preconditional, in which problems are imagined in advance of their occurring, imagined, indeed, in spite of their having been averted, and there is no fathoming the sequence of causation: Do our travails precede our giving thanks, or does our giving thanks occasion our travails?"
4. Thanks to S. of On the Main Line and Dr. Paul Shaviv of CHAT, we can now listen to Pesach tunes of 370 years ago. Read the whole story here.
5. This is not limited to one article, but it is certainly a trend: Pesach has long had a culture of chumra, but it seems that things may be starting to change (or maybe it's a function of my shifting vantage point). This year, I've seen popular pieces about a kezayit being the size of an olive, about scaling back what is included in kitniyot, about going easy on the Pesach cleaning, and about not using horseradish for maror (see also this earlier article; this last one is not really a kula, but when I was growing up the general sense was that horseradish was the "real" stuff and that lettuce was some sort of leniency). Trend or no?

That's it (so far) for 5772. Take a look at some posts of Pesach past for more goodies.

Of Revolutionary Women and Straw Men

Cross posted to Hirhurim.
I do not envy the task that Michal Tukochinsky set for herself in writing “How Women’s Talmud Study is Unique” (New York Jewish Week, April 12, 2011). She wishes to describe how the new (second) generation of women’s Talmud study differs from the first, differs from men’s Talmud study, and yet remains part of the halakhic community despite its discomfort—typical of all traditional communities—with revolutions. Unfortunately, in order to accomplish this task, she oversimplifies the contrast groups while grossly understating the current state of women’s (or feminine, or feminist) Talmud study. The result is a flawed view of the uniqueness and contribution of the program she heads.

To begin with, she certainly does not give much credit to the pioneering women who first entered the male-dominated world of Talmud study. She unflatteringly describes these women as modeling themselves after and “aping” the manner in which their male counterparts studied Talmud. To be sure, many of these pioneering women may have been motivated, consciously or otherwise, by the prospect of breaking into a typically masculine world. Indeed, many traditionalist opponents of this first generation accused them of just that. However, such motivation, even when present, would not render them methodological copycats. They wished to learn Talmud from whoever was willing to teach it. The reality was that they found willing teachers in Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and his disciples, thus exposing them to one specific methodology, which also happened to be highly conceptual and famously devoid of “worldly awareness” in its talmudic analysis.

Tukochinsky’s second error, perhaps related to the first generation’s limited exposure to various methodologies, lies in describing the entire world of male Talmud study in terms that apply to only one school of thought within it. Granted, this school, the “Brisker” school founded by Rabbi Chaim Soloveichik more than a century ago, became the dominant methodology in the world of yeshivot, conquering, in turn, Lithuanian, greater European, and ultimately even Sephardic institutions. From a historical perspective, however, the Brisker school is a relative newcomer and never even came close to monopolizing Talmud study worldwide. Much of Tukochinsky’s critique may be justifiably applied to this school, but there are and always have been other ways of learning that she may admit are more “feminine,” or less “isolated from the world.”

Relating to some of these other ways of reading and studying Talmud makes it difficult indeed to defend the uniqueness of Tukochinsky’s beit midrash. For centuries, the dominant Sephardic mode of Talmud study was “aliba de-hilkheta” – with the specific goal of eventual application of the Talmud to life. Although not terribly popular in mainstream yeshivot, its practitioners included those who emerged as the greatest poskim, including, inter alia, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and the still-living Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv. It is no accident that those who studied Talmud with an eye on “life itself” earned the trust of the community when it came to applying the Talmud to life.

In 1986, Rabbi Marc-Alain Ouaknin published Le livre brûlé, Lire le Talmud, in which Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, Blanchot, and other European thinkers are brought to bear on the Talmud and other traditional Jewish texts (here’s an excellent review). It was published in English in 1995 as The Burnt Book: Reading the Talmud. Indeed, Derrida himself was no foreigner to the world of the Talmud; a major influence on him—though they certainly had their differences—was the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, who notably articulated many of his philosophical teachings in the form of talmudic readings (three volumes of which have thus far been translated into English, and two into Hebrew).

There is still much good to be gained from studying Talmud in light of postmodern continental philosophers. However, to relate to it as unprecedented or revolutionary ignores at least 25 years and arguably a half century of French-Jewish intellectual creativity. The fact that the circles that comprised “Vilna on the Seine” are little-known outside the Francophone Jewish community may say something about the creativity of Tukochinsky’s student, but cannot possibly say anything about how the second generation of women’s Talmud study is revolutionary.

There has, in fact, been a feminist revolution in Talmud study, though Tukochinsky makes no mention of it. The late Chana Safrai, a pioneering Orthodox feminist, was arguably the first to apply the feminist critique to the Talmud from within a traditional context. Daniel Boyarin’s Carnal Israel (1993) is already considered a classic work of feminist Talmud study. More recently, Tal Ilan has begun a large project, the Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud, of which several volumes have already been published. Rather than relating to some unique or creative or new method of Talmud study and attributing it to the women’s revolution, these works directly address how gender shaped the worldview of those who produced the Talmud.

In other circles, the second generation of women's Talmud study has taken different contours. Talmud study for women is taken for granted to the point that it is no longer seen as a revolution. The self-consciousness of being revolutionary that characterized the first generation is diminishing among their daughters. Furthermore, by the time many young women graduate high school, they are as bored with and turned off to Talmud study as their male counterparts (though hardly because of a desire to imitate them). It is significant that the second generation, in many respects, is NOT characterized by revolution.

In the final analysis, however, there is clearly a difference between the first and second generations of women studying Talmud, which coincides with broader shifts in the general world of talmudic scholarship. The Talmud has always been “broader than the sea,” endlessly mined, using a dizzying variety of hermeneutical tools, to create sense and meaning for living Jews. In today’s universities, yeshivot, and rabbinical schools, one can find men and women reading the Talmud according to the Brisker method, in light of legal theory, source-, form-, and gender-critically, in comparison with contemporaneous Christian, Zoroastrian, or Sectarian texts, with an eye on the dominant Roman and Persian cultures, as literature, as a mystical tract, or as a guide to life.

One may argue that some of these modes of reading are more “masculine” or “feminine” than others—whether practiced by men or women. However, that would mask the exciting reality that different people with different ways of thinking are applying their prodigious talents and creativity to a text that has long been the lifeblood of the Jewish people. There is no doubt that women Talmud scholars still face barriers to advancement in yeshivot and even universities. Let us hope, along with Michal Tukochinsky, that these barriers erode, allowing women to more fully add their voices to the diverse, exciting, and ever-expanding world of Talmud study.

Of Revolutionary Women and Straw Men

This piece will appear as a cross-post tomorrow, at which time I'll re-post here.

The Promise of Ekev

[This is based on a shiur I gave this week, itself based on several older blog posts]

  דברים פרק ז  יד) בָּרוּךְ תִּהְיֶה מִכָּל הָעַמִּים לֹא יִהְיֶה בְךָ עָקָר וַעֲקָרָה וּבִבְהֶמְתֶּךָ

You shall be blessed over all peoples; there shall be no sterile or barren among you or your livestock.

Who cares if there are sterile males amongst the livestock? Not every male needs to be fertile in order for the flocks to be productive; on the contrary, only the ‘best’ males are used to fertilize the females. Is there any kind of value or ideal if there are no infertile male animals?

A few possible answers:

1. It’s easier that way. Things can happen without the owner having to make them happen, without having to engage in husbandry. Not much net gain, but less work.
2. The last word is only going back on the word before it. The expanded verse (without contracting by use of conjunctions) would read: There will be no barren males among you. There will be no barren females among you. There will be no barren females among your animals.
3. We’ll have an abundance of fertile males which we’ll be able to sell to non-Jews, who aren’t recipients of this Divine blessing

As is often the case, looking at something contextually can often supply a better and deeper answer. In the present case, this specific blessing is at the beginning of the larger brakha of “Ekev,” which has some distinguishing features.

In the book of Devarim, there are a number of recapitulations of the consequences for obedience and disobedience in the Land of Israel (R’ Elchanan Samet counts 12); each one is subtly different. In this instance, the word “ekev” is key. It’s a metaphoric term that means “because” – the metaphor points to a heel, as in “on the heels of”, as a result of, as an immediate consequence.

The word עקב appears only 5 times in all of Chumash as a subordinating conjunction.

בראשית פרק כב

יז) כִּי בָרֵךְ אֲבָרֶכְךָ וְהַרְבָּה אַרְבֶּה אֶת זַרְעֲךָ כְּכוֹכְבֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם וְכַחוֹל אֲשֶׁר עַל שְׂפַת הַיָּם וְיִרַשׁ זַרְעֲךָ אֵת שַׁעַר אֹיְבָיו: יח) וְהִתְבָּרֲכוּ בְזַרְעֲךָ כֹּל גּוֹיֵי הָאָרֶץ עֵקֶב אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַעְתָּ בְּקֹלִי:

בראשית פרק כו

ג) גּוּר בָּאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת וְאֶהְיֶה עִמְּךָ וַאֲבָרְכֶךָּ כִּי לְךָ וּלְזַרְעֲךָ אֶתֵּן אֶת כָּל הָאֲרָצֹת הָאֵל וַהֲקִמֹתִי אֶת הַשְּׁבֻעָה אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּעְתִּי לְאַבְרָהָם אָבִיךָ: ד) וְהִרְבֵּיתִי אֶת זַרְעֲךָ כְּכוֹכְבֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם וְנָתַתִּי לְזַרְעֲךָ אֵת כָּל הָאֲרָצֹת הָאֵל וְהִתְבָּרֲכוּ בְזַרְעֲךָ כֹּל גּוֹיֵי הָאָרֶץ: ה) עֵקֶב אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַע אַבְרָהָם בְּקֹלִי וַיִּשְׁמֹר מִשְׁמַרְתִּי מִצְוֹתַי חֻקּוֹתַי וְתוֹרֹתָי:

במדבר פרק יד

כד) וְעַבְדִּי כָלֵב עֵקֶב הָיְתָה רוּחַ אַחֶרֶת עִמּוֹ וַיְמַלֵּא אַחֲרָי וַהֲבִיאֹתִיו אֶל הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר בָּא שָׁמָּה וְזַרְעוֹ יוֹרִשֶׁנָּה:

The last two are in this parsha, at the beginning of the blessings and the end of the curses. 7:12 and 8:20.

There are several commonalities between each instance of the term:

• In EVERY occasion, the consequence is predicated as a reward for having hearkened (or not hearkened) to the word of God (the root שמע appears each time)
• In EVERY instance, the promise of children is reiterated.
• EVERY instance is related to God’s covenant with the Patriarchs.
• In 4 of the 5 occasions, the ‘consequence’ introduced by the term ‘ekev’ is inheriting the Land of Israel. The exception is Bereishit 22:18, at the end of the Akeida. However, according to the Rashbam, the entire episode may have been a test of Avraham’s` relationship to the land.
• 4 of the 5 instances are related specifically to brit Avot, the original covenant between God and the Abrahamic family.

Throughout the Torah, the most consistent consequences for obedience are possession of the land for ourselves and our posterity, and the land yielding its fruits to us, as an expression of the covenant between God and Abraham. Ekev seems to be a code word that invokes this covenant, and the unique character of the blessings and curses at the beginning of the parsha lies in the fact that it’s a restatement of Brit Avot. But there’s more.

The second verse of the parsha, in addition to invoking the Land of Israel as the locus of the fulfillment of God’s covenant, restates the very first brakha to man: Be fruitful and multiply. Throughout the book of Bereshit, this brakha is reiterated whenever God establishes or re-establishes His Covenant. This is straight through until Ve-Yechi, where Yaakov takes the birth of Ephraim and Menashe as the ultimate fulfillment of the promise that God made to him during his second visit to Beit-El. In essence, Bereishit charts the course of this brakha from Adam through Yaakov, after which it becomes the blessing of a whole family, not just an individual. The brakha continues at the beginning of Shemot – the description of the Israelite population explosion uses those terms of pru u-revu. As is well known, Chazal comment on that description that sextuplets were the norm. This blessing is one of uncontrolled fertility and boundless virility. In fact, before that brakha was given to man, it was given to animals. The brakha of Ekev, as the manifestation of this original brakha extends to the animal kingdom as well. Thus, the animals will also experience this incredible fecundity.

Conceptually, the promise and consequences of Ekev bear similarity to the man’s initial conditions in the world: fruitfulness and control of the land on one hand, versus exile and unproductivity on the other. In Eden, Adam’s disobedience resulted in exile and in having to work much harder to be productive. It also carried a terrible curse that affected human fecundity – the pain of childbirth. And in fact, the first time that the root עקב is used in the Torah, meaning “heel”, is related to that first disobedience and subsequent exile: ve-hu yeshufenu akeiv – in the sentencing of the Snake.

The upshot of this connection to Eden is that life in the Land of Israel is to correspond to life in Eden – disobedience results in expulsion. It also means that it is insufficient for the goal of Jewish life in the land to be the fulfillment of “Jewishness” – it is supposed to bring about the fullness of our humanity.

What does that mean? What are the duties or values that “Ekev” calls upon us to embody? What “humanity” does it wish us to fulfill?

The opening verse of the parsha refers specifically to obeying Mishpatim – the laws that govern interpersonal relations. Throughout Tanakh, Mishpat, law, is seen as a key to redemption – Tziyon be-mishpat tipadeh.  Rashi, as is well known, speaks of the “little things that one tramples underfoot.” Combining these two elements yields an awesome insight – that the fullness of our humanity, the ultimate goal of life in Israel, is realized through the ‘little things’ of our interactions with other humans. We might have been tempted to say that Rashi's instructing us to be vigilant about the observance of lesser rituals, the small print of Orach Chayim. But the presence of mishpatim – tzedakah and chesed, taking care of widows and orphans, welcoming the stranger, etc. – radically alters the implications of Rashi’s words. It's the 'little' and 'trampled', routine engagement with other people which form the basis of this promise.

There is often a great danger that when one believes in a “big idea,” in a “greater good,” it ends up obscuring the “little things” that we trample underfoot. There is a tendency to see the blood of revolution as inevitable, to accept collateral damage, to regard evil as “necessary.” Rashi is warning us about the dangers of focusing on the greater good and allowing the individual to get caught in its gears.

The following passage expresses those dangers better than I ever could. It’s from a book called Life and Fate by Russian-Jewish author named Vasily Grossman, and it appears in an essay called “Beyond Memory” by Emanuel Levinas, in his book In the Time of Nations. Grossman writes:

...I do not believe in the good, I believe in kindness...Not even Herod shed blood in the name of evil...

Humanity had never yet heard those words [from the New Testament - AR]: "Judge not, that ye shall not be judged...Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you. Bless them that curse you. Pray for those who curse you..."
What did that doctrine of peace and love bring to humanity? The tortures of the Inquisition, the struggle against heresies in France, Italy, and Germany, the war between Catholics and Protestants...

I have been able to see in action the implacable force of the idea of social good born in our country (i.e., Russia - AR). I saw it again in 1937; I saw that in the name of an idea of good as humane as Christianity, people were exterminated. I saw entire villages starving; in Siberia I saw the children of deported peasants dying in the snow...

There exists, side by side with this so terrible greater good, human kindness in everyday life. It is the kindness of an old lady who gives a piece of bread to a convict along the roadside. It is the kindness of a soldier who holds his canteen out to a wounded enemy. The kindness of youth taking pity on old age, the kindness of a peasant who hides a Jew in his barn. It is the kindness of those prison guards who risk their own freedom, smuggle the letters of prisoners out to wives and mothers...

The history of man is the struggle of evil trying to crush the tiny seed of humanity. But if even now the human has not been killed in man, evil will never prevail.

The Gedolei HaDor, Leftist Intellectuals, and Peace with Syria

This week’s parsha affords people the opportunity to transpose the sin of the spies onto contemporary anti-Israel or anti-Zionist leaders. It can really be a lot of fun. Perhaps the two best-known expositions along these lines are those of the Sefat Emet and that of Emanuel Levinas.

The former appears in his posthumous magnum opus on the Parsha. He basically calls the spies “gedolei ha-dor” whose flaw was that they wished to remain in the idyllic desert existence where they could focus on spiritual pursuits and bask in God’s presense instead of engaging in agriculture and fighting wars.

The latter appears in the chapter entitled “Promised Land or Permitted Land” in Nine Talmudic Readings where he explicitly calls the spies “European leftist intellectuals” for whom engagement in the business of nation-building and putting ideals into practice sullies the pristine, ideal philosophical concepts at they exist in the academy.

I believe that, although the targets differ, the approach is essentially the same. Both groups wish to keep the Torah (which, in Levinas’ writings, is an ethical system) pristine, and fear that “bringing it to life” would damage and sully it.

Another approach which resonates today is that of the Zohar. It says that these men were, indeed, leaders, but they felt that they would lose their power once they came to Israel. Their hold on power corrupted them into going against the good of the people and the wishes of God out of self-interest. To my mind, in addition to being a flaw of the spies, it’s also a flaw in the system which allows it to happen (power tends to corrupt…). The system of government must make a greater effort to keep people in power from facing dilemmas which pit the right thing to do against the one in which they stand to gain the most. One need not look too hard to find examples of this same phenomenon today. Note that the Zohar believes that this can even happen to great rabbinic leaders, not just politicians.

The Syrian peace thing is a throw in. The only thing that Israel has to gain from peace with Syria is the disruption of the IranàSyriaàHamas/Hizbullah pipeline. Syria made it clear that this isn’t going to happen. That makes me wonder whether certain of our elected officials aren’t facing the dilemma of the spies according to the Zohar (this example being really one of many). I hope I’m wrong though.

I really want Israel to make a real peace with Syria. My reasons, however, are unabashedly self-interested. You see, if there’s peace with Syria, them I can take the greatest road trip ever. It’s in the plans. I’m going to take a road trip one day to the fjords of Norway. I will tour Europe in my own car. It will be epic. Once there’s peace with Syria, there will be territorial contiguity between Israel and Europe via friendly nations. I can’t wait.

Talmudic Accounts of the Creation of Man: Part I

[This will be cross-posted to Reshimu, where I will now be a contributor]

The fourth chapter of Masechet Sanhedrin is a treasure-trove of Rabbinic contemplations regarding the creation and station of mankind. The discussion is launched as a result of Mishnaic account of the way in which witnesses in capital cases were impressed with the importance of human life. These Mishnayot themselves are the source of well-known Rabbinic statements such as “One who saves a single [Jewish/human, depending on MSS] life is as if he saved an entire world”, “The world was created for me”, and “Man was created unique”. The Talmud introduces a number of discussions and narratives which expand on this theme of mankind’s creation. I felt it appropriate to look into some of these passages in the days before Rosh Hashana, traditionally celebrated as man’s collective birthday.

We’ll start with a short one, but a good one:

תלמוד בבלי מסכת סנהדרין פרק ד - אחד דיני ממונות דף לח עמוד א-ב
תניא, היה רבי מאיר אומר: אדם הראשון מכל העולם כולו הוצבר עפרו, שנאמר +תהלים קל"ט+ גלמי ראו עיניך, (וכתיב +דברי הימים ב' ט"ז+ כי ה' עיניו משטטות בכל הארץ). אמר רב אושעיא משמיה דרב: אדם הראשון [דף לח עמוד ב] גופו מבבל וראשו מארץ ישראל, ואבריו משאר ארצות. עגבותיו - אמר רב אחא: מאקרא דאגמא.

We have learned that Rabbi Meir used to say: Original Man’s dirt was collected from over the entire world, as it says “Your eyes perceived my form” (Tehillim 139) and it says “The eyes of God scan the entire earth” (Divrei Hayamim II 16). Rav Oshaya says in the name of Rav: Original Man’s body was from Babylon, head was from the Land of Israel, and limbs were from the other lands. What about his buttocks? Rav Acha said: from Akra de-Agma.

There are three distinct statements in this little passage. They are clearly related by their subject matter, as each discusses the origin of Original Man’s dirt. I think it would be a mistake to assume, however, that these statements were said as part of a single discussion (which they clearly weren’t, since they are attributed to Sages who lived centuries and countries apart), or that they even have the same agenda. Thus, each should be evaluated independently.
Rabbi Meir’s statement is very different from the subsequent Amoraic statements. He does not mention particular lands and brings Biblical prooftexts for his assertion. He is saying that man was made from the entire world. What does that mean?

In his Talmudic readings, Levinas asserts, based on the teachings of his mentor, the enigmatic Mr. Shoshani, that whenever the Gemara cites a verse, that verse must be understood in context in order to fully understand the Talmudic passage. I generally like to avoid blanket ‘rules’ about how to learn Gemara – different methods are better for different scenarios – and I’ve come across particular cases where this Levinasian assertion quite clearly seems to fall short. However, in this instance, I believe it to be ‘spot on’. I submit that Chapter 139 of Tehillim would be a fantastic candidate to be the ‘Shir Shel Yom’ of Rosh Hashana. It describes God’s creation of Man and God’s intimate knowledge of Man’s innermost workings. The Psalmist describes his own transparency before God and how he comes to grips with it and even welcomes it, as his allegiance is to God alone. The whole Psalm is permeated with what Rudolf Otto might call “creature feeling”, the feeling of a created entity before its Master and Creator, that sense of absolute dependence, loss of identity, and lack of control.

Thus, on one level, Rabbi Meir is saying that Man is as much a part of Creation as the rest of the world – indeed, on the same page of Gemara, it is suggested that Man was created just before Shabbat so that he would not claim that he participated in Creation. Man is a creature, just like everything else. On the other hand, Rabbi Meir’s statement also suggests something very different. Man’s relationship with the world is not a marriage of distinct entities. Man is of the world. In a sense, the study of the world – physics, chemistry, geology, biology, and so forth – is part of Man’s effort to write his own autobiography. Additionally, this passage expresses a certain universality of Man. No land is preferred over another. All men belong to the whole Earth. This idea can lend itself to an environmentalist reading of this passage as well.

Rav Oshaya, speaking in Rav’s name, does not seem to be the logical conclusion of Rabbi Meir’s statement. Perhaps he works off of Rabbi Meir’s statement, and perhaps not; either way, he is saying something very different. He notices, as the Maharal points out, that different places have different ‘personalities’ just as different parts of the body serve different functions. He is making a statement about the correspondence between human characteristics and the characteristics of various places in the known world. Thus, man’s head, the seat of the spirit and intellect, originates in the Land of Israel, whose very air makes one wise according to Our Sages, who never met an Israeli politician. The supremacy of the Land of Israel in matters of spirit has always been acknowledged as the land of prophecy, as the place on Earth closest to God.
Babylonia, on the other hand, is distinguished by other features. As Maharal notes, the Torah knows Babylon as the cradle of civilization, where Man first built cities, and from where he began to extend his reach across the land. This metaphor of Bavel as the torso from which the appendages begin to reach out parallels the development of mankind as a whole. This passage sees the unfolding of human history as something that was built-in to man’s very creation.

Additionally, if Israel represents man’s spiritual side, then Babylon can lay a strong claim to his physical side. It is, after all, Mesopotamia, the most fertile region of the ancient world. In the Talmudic worldview, these two lands are the important places, and other lands are considered trivial. Perhaps they fulfill functional roles. The notion that the limbs are from the ‘rest of the world’ reflects this bias. Perhaps it can be compared to Israel and the United States in today’s Jewish world. There are other places, but the majority of World Jewry, living in those two places, finds it easy and convenient to ignore everything else.

The last line is by far the most jarring part of this passage. Is Rav Acha serious? Perhaps not. I wonder if he meant it as a joke. I remember my first time at Port Authority in Manhattan; I believe it was on the way to the Siyum Shas at Madison Square Garden almost 20 years ago. I remember that it was like nothing I had ever seen before in terms of the griminess and promiscuity of the place (before the city decided to clean it up). I remember my father quoting my uncle as saying that if God had to give the world an enema, He’d stick the nozzle in Port Authority. Is Rav Acha expressing a similar sentiment? The Sefer Ha-Aggadah understands that Akra de-Agma was indeed a promiscuous place.

Alternatively, maybe it’s not a joke. Every part of the human anatomy serves a function, however unpleasant. Perhaps the same can be said of the Earth. We need coal mines and peat bogs, too. Cities need dumps, sewage treatment plants, and all sorts of other industries which are essential but which I’d prefer not to live near. Perhaps Rav Acha is reminding us to appreciate these places, even if from a distance.

The Long and Short of the Ba’al Teshuvah Experience

This past Shabbos, while schmoozing with a scholar-in-residence and a local student, the student made a point which he thought was pragmatic, and I thought pointed to a very fundamental reality. This particular student comes from a non-observant but traditional Conservative home. Over the past couple of years, especially in college, he has become steadily more involved with the Orthodox community. Nevertheless, he probably would resist identifying himself as ‘Orthodox’ for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that he hasn’t really bought into all of the ‘dox’. He gave two main reasons for his attraction to Orthodoxy:

1. Its emphasis on life-long learning


2. The closeness of Orthodox communities

I told him that those 2 reasons were at the top of my list as well (and in fact I blogged a similar point from R’ Kook’s writing here). In other words, for this student, and for many others that I’ve met over the years, the process by which one joins the Orthodox community is very gradual and devoid of experiences that one might call ‘Conversion Experiences’.

I remember another occasion when I was on a Beis Din for a giyur of a young gentleman who, while becoming more involved in observance, recognized that the giyur that a matrilineal ancestor underwent was entirely insufficient. The Av Beis Din (who, I guarantee, is accepted across the board) asked all of the questions about accepting the mitzvoth, easy ones and hard ones, and summed up by asking if this young man undertakes to be an Orthodox Jew to the best of his ability. He responded that he’s uncomfortable with the label ‘Orthodox’. The Av Beis Din then reformulated the question, asking if the young man undertakes to live a halakhic lifestyle to the best of his ability, to which he answered in the affirmative, and, to make a long story short, the giyur was fine. Again, for this young man, the process was gradual and devoid of conversion experiences.

This isn’t just a ‘one-step-at-a-time’ approach; that approach, which is also pretty common, can mean that one accepts the truth of something, but hasn’t yet overcome old habits enough to implement it. I’m trying to describe a process in which there’s no ‘jump’ or ‘leap’, rather a continuum of natural development.

I find this type of ‘Ba’al Teshuva Story’ to be much more inspiring than instances which involve running away from or rejecting a prior lifestyle. It strikes me as a more complete, organic, and individuated process with a very high rate of ‘mainstreaming’.

I’ll close by citing two high-profile examples which I find to be particularly inspiring:
The first is the noted klezmer artist Andy Statman. After he had already become an accomplished jazz and bluegrass musician, and had decided to explore his own Jewish roots through klezmer, he began a journey which took him to the roots of klezmer in Chassidic niggunim, and as he deepened and developed his own musical style, he became a chassid himself. I’m oversimplifying, but the upshot is that what brought him ‘tachat kanfei ha-shechina’ was a natural progression of what he already had become.

The second example that comes to mind is the late French-Jewish philosopher and activist Benny Levy. A pupil of Levinas and Sartre, his own penetration into the quandaries of existential philosophy led him back to the Judaism that he forsook in his youth. I think that he’s the person who the main character in the central novella of Sabato’s ‘Emet me-Are”tz Titzmach’ (Aleppo Tales) is based.

Haloscan comments

Ran Out of Adderall, so Here's the Most Random Post Ever

1. I’m participating in a panel on ‘the compatibility of religion and humor’ later this week, with a Priest and a Minister (it even sounds like the beginning of a joke). I’ve got some ideas, but am on the lookout for more. There’s so much there. I want to start w/ the idea that God has a sense of humor (‘yosheiv shamayim yischak, HASHEM yil’ag lamo’) and move forward from there, but any ideas would be great. When I agreed to participate in this panel in November, none of us had any idea how timely the topic would be.
2. In preparation for the date that my 5-year-old daughter and I have to see ‘Curious George’ this Sunday, we viewed some trailers on my laptop. [I should mention that our mutual fascination with George started 2 years ago, when she and I went as George and the Man in the Yellow Hat for Purim. We were awesome!] Anyhow, she asked me why George was on my computer. I explained to her that he isn’t. Really, George is on a computer somewhere far away, probably California. I sent a signal telling that computer to send George to my screen. My computer talks to the computer where George is by flying through the air from my computer to the neighbor’s computer, and from there through wires all the way to George’s computer. And the whole thing takes just a few seconds. I’m in awe of the fact that this is the kind of thing that she’ll grow up taking for granted.
3. Krum recommends that the Arab world “give Denmark the French treatment. Re-name the Danish the Pastry of Muhammed (sic)”. ROTFLMAO!
4. It was nice to see another blogger posting about Levinas for a change!
5. The officials robbed the Seahawks of a Super Bowl victory.
6. Parshat Bo reminds me of one of my favorite teaching stories. I was teaching a pre-Pesach series on the development and structure of the Hagaddah (it wasn’t nearly as boring as that sounded) entitled “From Moses to Maxwell House” to a group of adults at a Conservative Synagogue. We started by learning the relevant parts of the Chumash. Reading the latter portion of Parshat Bo inside. We were trying to make sense of it – what parts are God to Moses, what parts are Moses to the Israelites, what’s about ‘Chag Ha-Matzot’, what’s about ‘Chag Ha-Pesach’, what’s one-time instruction, and what’s for posterity? One of the women in the group, trying to figure all of this out, looks up from her Etz Hayim Chumash and says “This is really complicated stuff”. She was in her fifties, and had finally graduated third grade!

8th Candle: Broader Horizons

So as not to give any sense of closure, the final installment of this Chanukah series will be a list for further reading. Foremost, R’ Lichtenstein has some great essays on the topic, one in particular which takes a contrast between the figures/books of Job and Prometheus as a starting point for a contrast between Judaism and Hellenism. It can be accessed here. R’ Aharon’s writing is both proponent and paradigm of fruitful coexistence between Jerusalem and Athens. I’d also recommend this essay by R’ Lichtenstein, on a similar topic, but there’s a bunch to choose from if you go here.

Amongst the sources that R’ Lichtenstein refers to, there’s a well-known (the same was that certain Rashis are ‘well-known’) chapter called ‘Hellenism and Hebraism’ in Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy (I love free books). Arnold bears no relation to the protagonist of the Chanukah story who bears the same first name.

If I haven’t plugged Levinas enough, here goes again. READ LEVINAS. His three volumes of Talmudic Readings (which I linked to in this post) are wonderful examples of how the ongoing collision between Judaism and Hellenism yet bears fruit, as Levinas himself wrote, “The Septuagint is still incomplete”.

There are some wonderful books in English and Hebrew about themes of Chanukah, some of which are truly wonderful. My goal was to draw attention to the way that the mythic clash between these two civilizations has been understood and applied in different generations.

Next year, who knows? There’ll still be what to blog…

4th Candle: The Problem of Translation

It once happened that five elders wrote the Torah for King Ptolemy in Greek, and that day was as ominous for Israel as the day on which the golden calf was made, since the Torah could not be accurately translated

Minor Tractates, Soferim 1:7

When the work was completed, Demetrius collected together the Jewish population in the place where the translation had been made, and read it over to all, in the presence of the translators, who met with a great reception also from the people, because of the great benefits which they had conferred upon them. They bestowed warm praise upon Demetrius, too, and urged him to have the whole law transcribed and present a copy to their leaders. After the books had been read, the priests and the elders of the translators and the Jewish community and the leaders of the people stood up and said, that since so excellent and sacred and accurate a translation had been made, it was only right that it should remain as it was and no alteration should be made in it. And when the whole company expressed their approval, they bade them pronounce a curse in accordance with their custom upon any one who should make any alteration either by adding anything or changing in any way whatever any of the words which had been written or making any omission. This was a very wise precaution to ensure that the book might be preserved for all the future time unchanged. When the matter was reported to the king, he rejoiced greatly, for he felt that the design which he had formed had been safely carried out. The whole book was read over to him and he was greatly astonished at the spirit of the lawgiver. And he said to Demetrius, 'How is it that none of the historians or the poets have ever thought it worth their while to allude to such a wonderful achievement?'

From "The Letter of Aristeas"

Here we have two texts describing the same event: the original translation of the Torah into Greek, the Septuagint. The first account is from a beraita, a work of the Rabbinic Tannaim. The second is from an apocryphal work which was produced by the Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt, and was not included in the Jewish canon.

[Linguistic sidenote: the Latin word apocrypha and the Aramaic word Beraita mean basically the same thing – a work that remains ‘outside’ a canonized text]

Taken together, these texts present the basic problem of translation. The translation issues recently discussed by Gil and Krum (esp. in the comments) touch the tip of the iceberg – the difficulty in finding the right words to convey the literal sense of the original. In every act of translation, something is left behind and becomes inaccessible to the new audience. At the same time, that audience gains access to a previously unintelligible source of wisdom. I discussed some of these elements in a post about the relationship between translation and mysticism here.
Translating from Hebrew into Greek has much higher stakes. On one hand, it’s an attempt to bridge an unbridgeable gap, to convey the language of revelation in the terminology of reason. On the other hand, it made the Torah into something that the entire world could access (see F. Rosenzweig quotation here). Greek translation occupies a special Halakhic status as well, according to the Mishna in Megillah. The Greek language, the beauty of Japeth, belongs in the tents of Shem.
This task, the translation of the Torah into Greek, continues in our day. As a Rabbi in the USA, I often think of my job as that of a translator, and still from Hebrew into Greek, just Greek today happens to be English (unless you ask the French). It’s still hard to capture the Torah in English, but it’s something we must do if we are to open the hearts and minds of contemporary Jews (and I’m not talking about “kiruv”). I’ve often considered accepting the 8th of Tevet, traditionally the day that the Septuagint was completed, and not observed as a theme of the 10th of Tevet, in order to reinforce the tension inherent within the awful but necessary task of translation.

Rather than continuing to (poorly) articulate this challenge myself, I’ll recommend three essays by Emmanuel Levinas, for whom this is a major (if not THE major) philosophical theme. The first is his introductory essay to Nine Talmudic Readings. The second is called “On the Translation of Scripture” and appears in a book called In the Time of Nations. The Third is called “The Pact” and appears in both Beyond the Verse and The Levinas Reader.

Inadequate Denominations

I’ve been arguing for a while, on-blog and in real life, that denominations are political conveniences and not ideologies. I think that Dov Bear’s question about the razor-thin line between Orthodoxy and Conservatism, as well as his observation (which is only impressive to someone who lives in a community like Woodmere; for us ‘out-of-towners’ it’s obvious) regarding the difficulty in drawing clear boundaries, fundamentally misunderstands the nature and function of denominating in the first place. It’s politically convenient for a synagogue in Boise, Idaho to align itself with a national organization that can help provide it with material and human resources. Thus, it will choose one of the ‘Big Three’ national organizations: OU, US, or UAHC. Of course, a UAHC Temple in Boise might look nothing like the one in, say, Tallahassee, religiously or socially, they are both, officially, ‘Reform’. The same applies to any of the other three. Of course, there are evolving standards. A Mechitza wasn’t always a sine qua non for membership in the OU, but it is now.

[There are a few ‘traditional’ congregations left, where there’s no mechitza, very few members are observant, but they insist on things like an Orthodox Rabbi whose job it is to make ‘ha-motzi’ at sisterhood functions. The only elements of tradition that it adheres to are those which keep the people unempowered. Let’s call it ‘Misogydoxy’ or ‘Ignoramodoxy’].

The main point is, that having denominations are a political necessity, which provide a great boon to those who want to slide comfortably into religious roles. “I don’t do that; I’m Reform”, or “I’m not Shomer Negi’ah, I’m Modern Orthodox”, etc. Once I label myself, I can basically continue to act out of habit, but the habit now has a name and, ostensibly, and ideology that someone, somewhere has articulated.

It can become pretty unsettling when those comfortable labels continue to evolve. I’ll repeat that in case you missed it: the labels evolve. What one meant by ‘Orthodox’ or ‘Conservative’ 50 years ago isn’t what one means by their use today. The social group that calls itself ‘Orthodox’ has evolved, and the connotation of the term has evolved accordingly.

Of course, there are members of any group who cease to evolve. These are the people who scream about ‘YU moving to the right’. To the right of what? Are they making up new halakhot? Are today's Roshei Yeshiva articulating a philosophy that’s radically different from or to the right of the philosophy of, say, R’ Dovid Lifschitz or R’ Yerucham Gorelick?

No. The Modern Orthodox community has evolved. Some of its members haven’t. They respond by trying to invent time-warps where we can all go back to the 50s or by creating brand-new categories like ‘Open Orthodoxy’ so that they can continue to feel comfortable within a label.

Ultimately, though, denominations aren’t religious categories. It’s not that there aren’t religious differences between the denominations, rather, that identification with one or the other particular denomination isn’t a religious choice, rather, a political choice. When discussing the religious possibilities, there are many more than 3 or 4 alternatives. There are thousands, perhaps even 600,000, alternatives. We’d do well not to confuse political and social differences with genuine religious differences.

I’ll end with a line from Zalman Shazar’s memoirs, quoted by Levinas on p. 149 of In Time of Nations, discussing the categories of ‘assimilationism’ versus ‘nationalism’, a conflict which was plaguing the contemporaries of his youth:

“I remember a private conversation in which the baron [David Gunzberg] tried to convince be that the concepts “nationalism” and “assimilation”, which I used in speaking to my comrades, were “inadequate”…he produced the absolute, irrefutable argument: Maimonides! How could I define Maimonides, using the concepts I thought so solid? Would I say that Maimonides was a national thinker? But didn’t he live on the summits of world thinking in his time, his mind full of Greek wisdom, the friend of the princes of thought not from our land, writing his books in Arabic,…persecuted thereafter by the “faithful keepers of the walls” among our people? But…who summarized and organized the Halakhah for his and all future generations? Who formulated the principles of the Jewish credo…?

“It must therefore be recognized that the notions “national” and “assimilated”, so familiar to myself and my generation, do not express the complexity of the real, and are not suitable to their object.”

This should be required reading to anyone who would try to label RYBS as ‘Modern’ or “Ultra” Orthodox, RSL or RDW-H as ‘Orthodox’ or ‘Conservative’, or to cut F. Rosenzweig, Heschel, or Levinas himself down to size.

Historical Twins: Part II – Translation and Esotericism

The true goal of the mind is translating: only when a thing has been translated does it become truly vocal, no longer to be done away with. Only in the Septuagint has revelation come to be at home in the world, and so long as Homer did not speak Latin he was not a fact. The same holds good for translating from man to man.

- Franz Rosenzweig

The translation of the Septuagint is not yet complete…the
translation of biblical wisdom into the Greek language remains unfinished.

- Emmanuel Levinas

This one’s a bit more counterintuitive, that the act of ‘translation’ – which I hope to describe shortly, gives birth to mysticism. It’s related to the issue of Yeridat Ha-dorot as well.

We’ll start with a simple example. The King James Bible famously translates ‘על כנפי נשרים’ as ‘on eagles’ wings’. The correct translation, as is well known, would have been ‘on griffin vultures’ wings’. So is it a mistranslation? No. The original has a literal meaning which also has a cultural meaning. It denotes majesty, maternality, etc. Those meanings are best captured by the term ‘eagle’ than by ‘griffin vulture’. On the other hand, there’s inevitably a loss of meaning – not necessarily literal meaning, but the meaning that terms have within a particular cultural situation. If the manings aren’t really translatable, then there’s always something, by definition, that’s going to be ‘lost in translation’.

Translation is a necessity in order for one to be intelligible. The opening quote is the extreme form of this – I must translate my thoughts, somehow crystallize them and thereby rob them of some content – in order to communicate. Every act of communication runs the risk of complete misunderstanding. Yet, the alternative, complete silence, is even more impossible.

Thus, translation, as implied by the Levinas quote, is an ongoing process, asymptotically moving toward full recovery of meaning. I should add (and this is a thought from Rosenzweig), that full recovery becomes possible as the ‘translated-into’ language is enriched by the ‘translated-from’ language. For example, Jewish language had enriched English to the point that the term ‘Torah’ no longer needs to be translated. It’s but a drop in the bucket, and its meaning isn’t the same as in a sovereign Jewish context, but it has enriched and thereby made itself more intelligible in its new milieu.

This brings me to my definition of esoteric wisdom. It’s whatever remains untranslated. If there’s a language that I don’t speak, or a culture I don’t understand, I can try to translate it, to reconstruct its meanings in a painstaking manner and, as mentioned, run the substantial risk of complete misunderstanding. Alternatively, I can immerse myself in the other culture, appreciate it on its own terms, and internalize its meanings in a completely natural way. Even within one’s own mind, translation takes place. In order to understand that which isn’t translatable into my own thought-structures, an entirely new language must be created. Those initiated into these meanings can then go back and ‘borrow’ terms from a familiar language, but to refer to things that aren’t part of commonly held meanings, and thus begins the process by which the old language enriches the new. This give-and-take between different cultures can get pretty complicated, but the basic dichotomy remains; when translating from one language/culture/context to another, that which fails to translate is esoteric.

With this in hand, there are a few implications for understanding Chaza”l. There are certain statements of Chazal – not to leave fingernails lying around, the obligation of mayim acharaonim or netilat yadayim, etc. (the list is virtually endless) whose original meanings were simply lost along the way. At some point between Babylonia and the USA, whatever basic meanings they had were simply ‘lost in translation’. Thus, their meanings became attributed to ‘kabbalah’ – the danger of fingernails is ‘al pi kabbalah’. Anything pertaining to Ru’ach Ra’ah’ is ‘al pi kabbalah’. It’s not some metaphysical, supernatural powers that are addressed by these halakhot; it once made perfect sense, and no longer does; thus, its meaning is attributed to an esoteric tradition.

Another implication is that, it’s possible, that certain languages or cultures are broader and more ‘translatable-into’ than others. The esoteric and the translated are floating categories – always shifting depending on the prevailing culture. I believe that modern psychology provides the tools to understand much of that which was, in earlier generations, ‘esoteric’. Those meanings can be redeemed from the hidden world of esoteric wisdom to enrich our religious experience from within our milieu. We know of physical models which can provide better metaphors for the understanding of spiritual phenomena.

Taking these two implications together, I would posit that it’s worthwhile to attempt to recover those original meanings. We can be aware of the fact that not all is translatable, but try to do our darnedest to make as much as possible intelligible to us. Is an asymptotic endeavour – we’ll never fully finish the job – but it sure beats chalking up significant portions of our lives to reasons that are unintelligible to pretty much everyone.