Notes on the Jewish Week Article about Rav Bina

The New York Jewish Week has a feature article this week about Rabbi Aharon Bina, the Rosh Yeshiva of Netiv Aryeh. It describes his "tough love" approach and how it inspires much love and much loathing, and very little in between. If you couldn't surmise who is behind the article, it was co-written by Gary Rosenblatt.

The article is very solid, but there are two elements that I think could have enhanced it immeasurably:
1) Rav Bina's approach is explicitly modeled on that of his father's, Rav Aryeh Bina. The elder Bina was a legendary educator and founder of the prestigious Netiv Meir yeshiva high school, whose alumni is a virtual Who's Who among prominent Religious Zionists (incidentally, the list skews left by Religious Zionist standards, and Junior has come to the defense of some of his father's students). Rav Aharon Bina, however, is not his father, and does not run an elite institution like his father did. In order to really understand who Rav Aharon Bina is and what he is trying to accomplish, one must start with his father, and with the relationship between father and son.
2) This issue gets back to the problem of the "charismatic educator" (let's define charisma as the condition in which the educator's personality overshadows the material being taught) that I've written about several times, most recently when the Motti Elon scandal first broke.Rav Bina fits Paul Shaviv's description of a "Pied Piper" rabbi (cited in that post on R. Elon). Let's see:

A charismatic teacher will deeply affect and influence some students, but will almost always leave a trail of emotional wreckage in is/her wake.

Check.

The emotional dependency and entanglement between teacher and student leads to boundaries being crossed.

Check.
 

The teacher becomes party to knowledge about students and their families that reinforces the teacher’s view that they are the only teachers who ‘really’ are reaching the students. The teacher, however, is neither a trained counselor nor a social worker. That knowledge becomes power.

Check.

A really charismatic teacher can end up running a ‘school within a school’. 

Check (until he started his own school).

The teacher will often employ techniques (and texts) which take students to the extremes of emotion or logic, and will then triumphantly show them how they are holding they key to resolution (‘At this moment, you have agreed that life has no meaning -- but here is the answer’).

Check.

As soon as they are disillusioned or dropped, they are written out of the teacher’s story. Often such students, very hurt, leave the school.

Check (once had a kid at my Shabbat table tell me he was no longer religious because of R. Bina. There are other such stories, and some appear in the NYJW article. I suspect many of these kids would drop observance anyway, but it's telling that Rav Bina becomes the object of their loathing).

Mild characteristics of cult leaders may be observed. 

Check.


I don't think Paul Shaviv is a prophet, and I don't think he was writing about any particular educator. He's been around the block a few times, and he has learned to identify global issues. The NYJW article misses something when it makes the issue about Rav Bina specifically, since the problem is present in virtually every school, even if he might be an extreme example of it.

Two Articles: One on Modiin and one on Baltimore

A few weeks ago, on the last day of Chanukkah, JID ran an article of mine on ancient and modern Modiin. I relate to Modiin as the Columbia, Maryland of Israel, but then move off of that to discuss a different dimension of my town. The article is here.

Today I posted on a Ravens fan blog, arguing (against conventional wisdom) that Joe Flacco actually played really well against the Texans. It's here.

I hope to post an update on my series about Eastern European rabbis in America this week.

Talking about Sex in the Modern Orthodox Community

In my newest Jewish Ideas Daily article, I try to give an overview of trends that have emerged in the American Modern Orthodox community over the past decade. I then look at three recent events - the same-sex chuppah in DC, the YU Beacon article, and (le-havdil) the publication of The Newlywed's Guide to Physical Intimacy - and try to contextualize them within these trends.
One of my very first (rambling) posts was about the need for reform in Jewish sexual education, and I occasionally returned to matters of gender and sexuality (two separate areas, I know, but with some overlap and, alas, on this blog, one label).
So I hope you enjoy Orthosexuality. It seems to be making the rounds and generating some discussion.

Window Dressing

On Monday, Jewish Ideas Daily published an article I wrote about the recent Tzohar/ Rabbanut controversy.
Here it is: Love, Marriage, and the Israeli Rabbinate

Exploring the Sermons of Eastern European Rabbis in America

I've been giving a "parsha shiur" in the local synagogue for over a year now. I like exploring a different theme each year; this year we're studying sermons of Orthodox rabbis who came to America from Eastern Europe during the great wave of migration between 1881 and 1924. The goal is to appreciate the intersection between the old world and the new, to see how these rabbis responded to the intellectual and social climate of the day.

Today was the fourth class in the series, so here's a little recap of what we've studied so far. All of the texts we've studied are available on hebrewbooks.org, supplemented by biographical information from other sources.

Noach: We studied pp. 13-17 of R. Yehuda Leib Graubart's Yabia Omer. Discussed it as autobiographical, considering that these rabbonim might have seen Noach as a role model. given his status as a "lonely man of faith" in a corrupt world.

Lekh Lekha: We studied R. Gedalia Silverstone's speech commemorating the 100th yahrzeit of Thomas Kennedy in 1932. Kennedy was an early advocate of Jewish rights in Maryland, and paid a dear price for it.
pp. 26-29 of Matok Mi-dvash vol. III.

Vayera: We studied pp. 44-50 of R. Avraham Guranovsky's "Even Yisrael" (a bio appears at the beginning of the volume; he was Eastern European, but trained at the Hildesheimer Rabbinerseminary in Berlin and arrived in America in 1869). This (rather long-winded) sermon is an extended Lamarckian reading of the concept of Ma'aseh Avot Siman Le-banim - Avraham's trials were akin to the giraffe stretching its neck; acquired traits could be passed on from one generation to the next according to Lamarck - whose theories were quite popular when R. Guranovsky was speaking these words in the 1870s.

Chayei Sarah: Today we studied R. Moshe Shimon Sivitz's sermon on what to look for in a potential spouse (pp. 102-107 of Heker Da'at). He rails against men who are more concerned with how many languages his wife speaks than whether she will be a good mother, and criticizes women for being gold-diggers. He criticize those who marry because they fell in love, saying that marriage should precede love. He also criticizes men who let their wives participate in the bread-winning, quipping that Adam started the trend, and look where it got him.

It's been a thoroughly enjoyable series so far. I'll update how it's gone every month or so.

The End of "Eat Fish Out" Orthodoxy?

Despite my surname and, presumably, the occupation of one of my patrilineal ancestors, I do not eat fish. The taste of fish makes me gag.
It was therefore never difficult for me to paskin that one may not eat out at non-certified fish restaurants and sushi bars. I had no problem accepting the conventional wisdom of the Orthodox establishment that there were often cases of mixing and mislabeling. Though I had never gone into a fish restaurant to check out the situation first hand (I can only recall being asked about this issue once), I trusted the wisdom I grew up on, which did not acknowledge a category of Orthodoxy that eats fish out.In any event, it appears that the conventional wisdom was, in fact, wise. A new Boston Globe expose shows that the phenomenon of mislabeling fish, especially by restaurants, is phenomenally high. Some of the substitute species - swai and some types of escolar, for example - are not kosher. I would be curious to know whether there are statistics about mislabeling fish in kosher restaurants and/or guidelines that kosher certifications agencies have in place to prevent mislabeling. I also wonder whether such an agency would certify an establishment that it knows to be substituting one kosher species with a kosher but inferior species. Is this a possible niche for the Tav Ha-Yosher?

[On a lighter note, perhaps this uncertainty about the identity of fish species explains the origin of the name of one such species. ?מה היא? מה היא ]

Celebrate Gilad like there’s No Tomorrow

Human beings have an amazing capacity to block out life’s travails during the course of a celebration. Couples get married and nations declare independence in the midst of wars. We celebrate a year’s harvest not knowing whether next year’s crop will be thin or blighted. We enjoy life, despite the inevitability of death.

Jewish celebrations are no exception. We celebrate Purim even though we remained Persian subjects in the aftermath of its miraculous salvation. The miracle of Chanukah is celebrated even though it took place during a lull in the middle of a war, and even though the independence wrought was short-lived. On Yom Ha-Atzma’ut, we celebrate Israel’s independence even though it transformed a local conflict into a multinational one.

Perhaps more than any other Jewish holiday, we rejoice on Sukkot even as we acknowledge the frailty of life. We move into makeshift huts as the weather turns cold, and we face uncertainty about whether the coming winter will be rainy enough to sustain us. Again and again, we call out to God: “Hosanna! Save us!” We read the Book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), all about the futility of human life and activity. And yet, in our liturgy it is called “z’man simchateinu” – “the season of our joy,” and is considered the most joyous of Jewish holidays. It is almost as though we acknowledge that the lightness of being, far from unbearable, is in fact liberating and comforting.

For more than five years, Israelis have debated the pros and cons of working out a deal for Gilad Shalit with Hamas. Now that the deal is done, the arguments for and against will cease to be theoretical claims and will be borne out in concrete results. I certainly do not envy those who had to make this decision.

Serendipitously, the news of the deal for Gilad broke just before the onset of Sukkot. In the spirit of this holiday, which teaches us that we may rejoice in the face of our own frailties and uncertainties, can we please, at least until the end of the holiday, rejoice with Noam and Aviva Shalit without considering the deal’s consequences? Perhaps the most famous passage in Kohelet tells us that there is a time and season for everything. These times and seasons turn with an astonishing rapidity, and part of our challenge is to keep them from encroaching upon one another. In that spirit, the spirit of Sukkot, let us acknowledge Gilad’s release as a time to laugh, a time to dance, a time to embrace, and a time to love.

Four Approaches to Fasting

Why do we fast? What is fasting supposed to accomplish?

Within Judaism and other religions, fasting is conceptualized in different ways. There are three, possibly four different approaches, only one of which has biblical support.

The first approach sees fasting as a form of expiation: my bodily suffering serves as retribution for bodily sin. I experience a little bit of pain or a little bit of death, and that cleanses me from the stigma of transgression. The pre-Yom Kippur ‘Tefilah Zakah’ prayer is an excellent example of this idea within the Jewish tradition. Line after line, the prayer expresses the hope that each element of suffering purges a corresponding area of sin: not wearing leather shoes atones for when my feet ran to do evil, not eating atones for forbidden foods I consumed, and so forth. The traditional ‘BeHa”B’ fasts are in this vein as well - fasts were observed after major Jewish holidays to atone for conspicuous consumption during the holidays.


The second approach views fasting as sobering corrective. I return to spirit by denying the body. By removing the distractions of the flesh I am able to turn back to the soul and nourish it with what it requires. This is the classic Platonic view of asceticism, that the body actually impedes the soul. One need not take an extreme ascetic view in order to see fasting as a manifestation of this idea; just as easily, fasting might be an attempt to restore balance between body and spirit. It is a temporary measure to create a certain atmosphere for a brief period of time, after which things return to normal. Perhaps the mitzvah to eat on the day before Yom Kippur echoes this view that asceticism has value, yet must be tempered. In the contemporary milieu, a form of this approach is advocated by those who cast fasts as days to reflect on personal food choices.


A third possible approach was taken by R. Tzadok Ha-kohen of Lublin. He turned the equation on its head by reconceptualizing fasting not as a set of behaviors intended to effect change, but as a set of behaviors that reflect a mood. On Yom Kippur, when your life hangs in the balance, food is the last thing on your mind. How can you think about eating? On Tisha B'Av, while contemplating the smoldering ruin of God's Temple and the destruction of Jewish civilization, who even has an appetite? Who can eat?


A fourth approach is implied in Chapter 58 of Isaiah, which is tellingly recited as the Haftara on the morning of Yom Kippur. The prophet begins by criticizing those who fast and beat their chests while continuing to oppress and persecute. He declares that this is not the fast that God wants. What, then, is the fast that God wants?

Is it not to...loose the fetters of wickedness, undo the bands of the yoke, let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke? Is it not to deal your bread to the hungry, and bring the homeless poor to your house? when thou see the naked, that you cover him, and that you do not ignore your own flesh? (Isa. 58:6-7)

 At first blush, the contrast seems to fail. The "fast that God desires" is not a fast at all - it is feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and sheltering the homeless. On further contemplation, however, an entirely different conceptualization of fasting emerges.


A Jewish "fast" is more than not eating or drinking. It included wearing sackcloth and ashes as well as congregating in public places to pray and mourn (see, for example, Mishna Taanit 2:1 or Ch. 4 of the Book of Esther). Isaiah's prescription for the fast that God desires addresses precisely these elements: when you gather in the town square to call out to God, think of the people who sleep there at night because they have no home. When you feel the pangs of hunger after not eating for a day, think about those for whom this is a regular occurrence. When you don your sackcloth and ashes and take off your comfortable shoes, remember that there are those who do not have what to wear. The point of fasting is to sensitize us to those for whom such denials are a daily occurrence, and not by choice.


This approach to fasting is shared by Islam. According to Islamic law, one who cannot fast on Ramadan must instead feed the poor for a day. This link between fasting and feeding the poor is precisely the same as the one made by Isaiah.


The Jewish people, if not prophets, remain the children of the prophets (b. Pesachim 66a). Although the synagogue has replaced the public square as the site of our fasts, and although Isaiah's linkage of fasting with social welfare goes largely ignored, it is refreshing and inspiring to see that the core instinct has not completely evaporated. Over the summer, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to protests their country's lack of social justice. Regardless of one's opinion of the protests' aims, this linkage between voluntary homelessness and sensitivity to social ills harks back to the prophecy of Isaiah.

Marginalia

Shai Secunda and I have co-authored a review of Joseph Cedar's award winning film Footnote (He'arat Shulayim). Our review appears in the new issue of Jewish Review of Books, and has appeared just in time for the film's Oscar nomination in the category of Best Foreign Film.

In the same issue, Yehudah Mirsky reviews By Faith Alone, the biography of Rav Amital that I translated.

Both reviews are currently behind a pay wall. JRB occasionally unlocks some articles. I'll let you know if the articles are made available.

UPDATE: The Mirsky review is no longer blocked. Read it here. [h/t: Nate and Reuven].
UPDATE #2: Now the Footnote review is unblocked. Read it here.