Since posting my interpretation of the Rabbanut’s procedural changes with regard to RCA-approved conversions, I’ve found myself at or near the center of what’s fast becoming a major news story the Jewish and Orthodox print and electronic media. A number of Jewish bloggers linked back to my post, including one of the most venerable, twice.
The Jewish Week has featured an article on this for the second week in a row (plus a letter from the RCA hoohas), and this week’s interpretation is a lot closer to mine than last week’s was. The speculation about a Tendler family vendetta has been virtually (and thankfully) silenced, and procedural and personnel changes within the Rabbanut have become the focus of attention. I have no idea if my post or my pseudonymous letter to the editor of TJW (which didn’t make it into the paper) had anything to do with their re-evaluation, but it doesn’t seem unlikely.
I’ve altered my original thesis since Monday, as I learn more and have more conversations, but I maintain the central point, namely, that the Vaad HoRabbonim Haolami LeInyonei Giyur stands behind the current ‘procedural changes’ in the Rabbanut, and that they are consciously trying to disenfranchise the American Modern Orthodox Rabbinate. Since there have been a number of disagreements, refutations, arguments and counter-arguments about this thesis and the details surrounding it, I will try respond and clarify.
There were several details that I got completely wrong. I insinuated that there’s really no difference between Rabbis Ohana and Krispel, and even related to personal interaction that I had with R’ Ohana. The major shift in procedure happened when R’ Krispel replaced R’ Ohana, which happened during the tenure of Chief Rabbi Amar. There seems to be a much broader shake-up going on in the conversion authority. See, for example, this article, which hasn’t been discussed much, but states:
certain rabbinic judges and administrative managers are recalcitrant hardliners who refuse to adhere to authority and have adopted unnecessarily stringent criteria for conversion
R’ Krispel refers to a sort of ‘kitchen cabinet’ of three Rabbis who evaluate conversion affidavits, and who are quite literally starting from scratch, with everyone presumed to be unqualified until it’s shown to be otherwise.
So the question is, why was there a personnel shake-up, and why did it result in stricter policies for the acceptance of conversions?
Part of the answer is with Chief Rabbi Amar. He is a very strong advocate of universal conversion standards. At the EJF conference, he criticized the American Rabbinate for not being as systematic as the Rabbanut, and that there should be more centralization of conversion. Personally, I feel very strongly that the large, impersonal, bureaucratic, and despised Rabbanut has much to learn from the American Rabbinate. That’s why institutions like Itim are so crucial. Furthermore, there is, of necessity, a certain amount of flexibility when it comes to a pre-conversion curriculum (the Rambam and Shulchan Arukh are extremely vague about what must be taught) and subjectivity when determining the sincerity of the potential convert (as the Beis Yosef says in YD 268, following Tos. Shabbos 31a). There are certain issues which are the subject of dispute (for example, if a woman will not cover her hair, or will wear pants, can she be accepted as a convert?), but for which context is extremely important. The situation in a community where women simply don’t cover their hair is different than the situation in Monsey. Without justifying anything, do we demand, a priori, the same degree of commitment from someone who will not have communal support as someone who will? More than ‘experts’ in the issue of giyur (which, after all, is one relatively short siman in Shulchan Arukh), there’s a need for sensitive and compassionate Rabbonim. You’re more likely to find those in out-of-town shuls than behind the desks of the Rabbanut.
The temporal proximity of the change in Rabbanut policy and the EJF conference was, I thought, more than coincidence. EJF’s agenda is very different than the Rabbanut’s or the Vaad’s – the want to encourage the conversion of gentile spouses of Jews. Nevertheless, the issue of standards is an inevitable part of these endeavors.
The EJF states that they follow the guidance of R’ Dovid and R’ Reuven Feinstein and R’ Elyashiv on these matters. That’s not a monolithic group. R’ Elyashiv is far more machmir than the Feinsteins, a point which apparently caused a bit of exasperation for R’ Dovid (IIRC – only one was there, and I’m not sure which), who had a difficult time during a panel discussion dominated by outspoken members of R’ Elyashiv’s camp – R’ Leib Tropper, R’ Nachum Eisenstein, and Dayan Ehrentrau. R’ Hershel Schachter did not attend the conference because of an illness, but gave a single shiur via satellite hook-up.
Thus, the cards are stacked. R’ Amar wants to universalize conversion procedures. EJF does as well, though it’s more of a secondary goal. The Vaad/ R’ Elyashiv camp, and R’ Nochum in particular, has a very long history of opposition to numerous conversion procedures and a desire to universalize according to their own interpretations. R’ Nochum also has a history of animosity toward the RCA, as I think I documented pretty darn well.
Thus, all parties at this conference – the EJF organizers, R’ Amar, the Vaad – can agree that they want to universalize standards and that the greatest barrier to that is the RCA. R’ Schachter wasn’t there, but even if he was, is known to be very independent; he would not feel compelled to defend the RCA. R’ Reuven and R’ Dovid – well, they’re R’ Mordy Tendler’s uncles. Keep quiet, perhaps. Stand up to defend the RCA? No way.
R’ Amar’s relationship with the R’ Elyashiv camp is deeper, though. They were the Israeli contingent at EJF. R’ Amar owes his job to R’ Elyashiv, and even though this is not a halakhic issue per se, it’s naïve to think that R’ Elyashiv’s team would try to influence even procedural issues. R’ Amar, at least according to the Yated, has followed the lead of the Vaad on conversion issues in Israel as well.
What’s still not determined is the degree to which the Vaad is actually influencing the Rabbanut. That they’re bedfellows in the attempt to undermine or replace (and I think that the Vaad definitely wants to replace, not reform) the RCA as the dominant conversion authority in America is, to my mind, clear. Has R’ Amar bought into the Vaad’s anti-RCA rhetoric? Has he retained them as his advisors or consultants, perhaps as members of R’ Krispel’s 3-man advisory panel? I don’t know for certain. That there’s a relationship is undeniable. And that the Vaad would jump on any opportunity to expand its influence and take down its opponents is equally undeniable.
[UPDATE: An anonymous commenter reports that R' Nochum Eisenstein is a member of R' Yigal Krispel's advisory panel; if this is true, as I suspected, then there's nothing left to talk about].
Regarding the semantics of MO vs. Chareidi, Modern Orthodoxy here doesn’t refer to an ideology. Take, for example, my friend, mora d’asra and abdk”k Yehupitz. He’s not what you’d call ideologically MO. But being in Yehupitz, or wherever else, and dealing with PEOPLE, leading a flock, means engaging them ba-asher hem sham. R’ Nochum, representing the eretzyisruldike approach, deems this to be a compromise of the ‘truth’, and chazer-treif. I’m not just talking about conversions now; American Orthodox pulpit Rabbis, as a class, are made out to be a quai-Reform group of one-time Bnei Torah (perhaps) who use their polished English to say what the balabatim want to hear. As such, they are deemed to be inherently untrustworthy. The color of your hat or the yeshiva you attended has nothing to do with it (just ask Natan Slifkin). For American Orthodox Rabbis, there’s no chezkas kashrus: guilty until proven innocent.
Has the Rabbanut bought that story? Again, it’s speculative. But their disregard of the main body of American Orthodox Rabbis indicates that, at least practically speaking, this position has been adopted. Otherwise, there would have been a different process of accreditation of trustworthy Rabbis. Corrupt or unqualified conversion courts – we all have our lists of batei din which we suspect or know are a sham – can be investigated without disenfranchising the RCA. R’ Gedalya Dov Schwartz wouldn’t have been treated as he was. It wouldn’t have been so quick and taken so many off guard.
This battle is over the Rabbanut. The Vaad is using the Rabbanut, to the degree that it can, to advance its own agenda. Our response is twofold – advocate and articulate out own positions vis-à-vis giyur and our credentials to be involved in them, and clean house so that kangaroo conversion courts are, if not disqualified, identified.
5/11/2006
5/09/2006
The RCA Conversion Scandal: What’s the Real Issue?
The lead story in the Jewish Week this week (also covered here and here), is the Israeli Chief Rabbinate’s non-acceptance of RCA-approved gerut. There’s speculation in TJW that this is all political, has to do with the Tendler family, etc. Ayen sham, ve-acamo”l.
It seems, however, that the group behind the Rabbanut’s policy is called “The Vaad HaRabbonim Haolami LeInyonei Giyur”. This group’s agenda is to try to create a universally recognized standard of conversion. They played a strong role in the recent “Eternal Jewish Family” conference in Florida. In addition to the RCA, they have opposed Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbinate of the IDF, Norwegian Chief Rabbi and former MK Michael Melchior, and, ironically, the Rabbanut itself. One would be hard-pressed to find a Rabbinical organization that they don’t slam. Their agenda is not limited to American Rabbis and not to those who provoked the Tendlers.
The issue at hand is the credibility of Modern Orthodox Rabbis, no more, no less. Founded by R’ Chaim Kreisworth ob”m, the man whose name is most closely associated with the Vaad is R’ Nachum Eisenstein, an American-born chareidi Rav in the Ma’a lot Dafna neighborhood of Jerusalem. If you live in Ma’alot Dafna, learn in kollel, and don’t wish to pay municipal taxes, R’ Nachum will write a letter on your behalf explaining that you have no real source of income; whether or not you can afford it and are merely exploiting a loophole in a system which doesn’t account for rich in-laws is a side issue. He is also the author of the following statement:
R’ Nachum counts himself as a strong adherent of R’ Elyashiv. You may remember that it was R’ Elyashiv’s inner circle who brokered the deal that brought the current Chief Rabbis of the State of Israel into office. They’d get the jobs, though unqualified, but they’d be under R’ Elyashiv’s thumb for any significant halakhic matter. Those were the terms of the deal, and the current situation is one of its ramifications.
The Rabbanut gets affidavits from batei din the world over. There’s an office within the Rabbanut that’s supposed to decide on those courts, but, of course, that office is occupied by a middling bureaucrat whose credentials include being the nephew of someone with clout. I’ve met with the first occupant of that office, Yitchak Ochanna. The man speaks not a word of English, yet the status of the entire American Modern Orthodox Rabbinate is in his hands. Unable to handle all of this, they turn to an outside organization to make their decisions. That organization is called – you guessed it - the Vaad HaRabbonim Haolami LeInyonei Giyur. Thus, in essence, Rav Nachum Eisenstein is in the position to be approving or disapproving every Orthodox convert in the US who wishes to make aliyah or get married in Israel. It’s pretty much all spelled out in this article, which seems to be the basis for the recent scandal.
This Vaad is highly problematic on several levels. In the issue of giyur, there are a lot of things that one would hope for lechatchila, but which bediavad don’t disqualify the conversion. As any out-of-town Rabbi can tell you, or anyone who’s ever worked with Ethiopian Jews, Bnei Anusim, or Russian-Israelis, for that matter, we don’t live in a lechatchila world. Sure, we’d love it if every potential convert could do the pin-test of Shmiras Shabbos Kehilchesa before going for a dip, but that’s not realistic. We, in the trenches, might just have a greater sensitivity to the human being that the bureaucrats are so good at disregarding. I’d take Itim over the Vaad any day of the week.
The desire to create a universal standard for giyur is both misleading and misguided. It is misleading because it sounds like a unifying agent, when in fact it means that they are trying to create a chareidi monopoly on conversions by passuling every conversion that’s not chareidi in the hopes that it will force the MO Rabbinate to simply acquiesce. By referring to the Modern Orthodox Rabbinate as ‘so-called Orthodox’, or to the “orthodox” Rabbinical Council of America (R’ Nachum himself puts the quotation marks on the word ‘orthodox’), or describing the RCA by saying “This is the organization of rabbis who call themselves Orthodox, but are known as modern”, R' Nachum and the good folks at the Yated are basically saying that MO Rabbis aren't really Rabbis and Modern Orthodoxy isn't really orthodox. Instead of coming out and saying it, they'll use obnoxious innuendo and quotation mark. Recognizing only individual RCA members means that the Vaad is setting itself up to be the arbiter of which Rabbis are kosher enough. The desire for ‘unity’ is nothing less than a declaration of war on the MO Rabbinate.
It is misguided because there is not, and cannot be, a universal standard for giyur. The Shulchan Arukh says quite clearly that there are certain things which are very difficult to gauge, about which the individual courts must make a judgment. Furthermore, as stated earlier, there is lechatchila and bediavad. Creating a universal standard basically means doing away with the entire question of a bediavad conversion. That may be easy to do from Ma’alot Dafna, but there’s a reason that the concept exists.
Conversion is THE issue which essentially determines whether a particular Rabbi is kosher or treif. When there’s talk of not accepting R and C Rabbis, it basically means that their conversions are not considered good conversions, no more and no less. Now, MO Rabbis are threatened with the same treatment. This is not some political issue that will blow over by next Tuesday. R’ Nachum and his ilk have gained a measure of control over an apparatus that threatens to completely discredit the MO Rabbinate.
This is a moment of truth for the American Modern Orthodox Rabbinate. If we do not find a way to win this battle, legitimate the work that we do across the continent and assert our commitment to and execution of das Moshe Ve-Yisrael, then our voices will join our Conservative and Reform colleagues as spectators who can make noise but are barred from playing the game.
It seems, however, that the group behind the Rabbanut’s policy is called “The Vaad HaRabbonim Haolami LeInyonei Giyur”. This group’s agenda is to try to create a universally recognized standard of conversion. They played a strong role in the recent “Eternal Jewish Family” conference in Florida. In addition to the RCA, they have opposed Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbinate of the IDF, Norwegian Chief Rabbi and former MK Michael Melchior, and, ironically, the Rabbanut itself. One would be hard-pressed to find a Rabbinical organization that they don’t slam. Their agenda is not limited to American Rabbis and not to those who provoked the Tendlers.
The issue at hand is the credibility of Modern Orthodox Rabbis, no more, no less. Founded by R’ Chaim Kreisworth ob”m, the man whose name is most closely associated with the Vaad is R’ Nachum Eisenstein, an American-born chareidi Rav in the Ma’a lot Dafna neighborhood of Jerusalem. If you live in Ma’alot Dafna, learn in kollel, and don’t wish to pay municipal taxes, R’ Nachum will write a letter on your behalf explaining that you have no real source of income; whether or not you can afford it and are merely exploiting a loophole in a system which doesn’t account for rich in-laws is a side issue. He is also the author of the following statement:
The month of Nisan is the month of geula and we must be strong in our conviction to oppose any cooperation and recognition of the Reform and Conservative before we can be zoche to true redemption.and other obnoxious statements that can be found here, here, here, and here.
R’ Nachum counts himself as a strong adherent of R’ Elyashiv. You may remember that it was R’ Elyashiv’s inner circle who brokered the deal that brought the current Chief Rabbis of the State of Israel into office. They’d get the jobs, though unqualified, but they’d be under R’ Elyashiv’s thumb for any significant halakhic matter. Those were the terms of the deal, and the current situation is one of its ramifications.
The Rabbanut gets affidavits from batei din the world over. There’s an office within the Rabbanut that’s supposed to decide on those courts, but, of course, that office is occupied by a middling bureaucrat whose credentials include being the nephew of someone with clout. I’ve met with the first occupant of that office, Yitchak Ochanna. The man speaks not a word of English, yet the status of the entire American Modern Orthodox Rabbinate is in his hands. Unable to handle all of this, they turn to an outside organization to make their decisions. That organization is called – you guessed it - the Vaad HaRabbonim Haolami LeInyonei Giyur. Thus, in essence, Rav Nachum Eisenstein is in the position to be approving or disapproving every Orthodox convert in the US who wishes to make aliyah or get married in Israel. It’s pretty much all spelled out in this article, which seems to be the basis for the recent scandal.
This Vaad is highly problematic on several levels. In the issue of giyur, there are a lot of things that one would hope for lechatchila, but which bediavad don’t disqualify the conversion. As any out-of-town Rabbi can tell you, or anyone who’s ever worked with Ethiopian Jews, Bnei Anusim, or Russian-Israelis, for that matter, we don’t live in a lechatchila world. Sure, we’d love it if every potential convert could do the pin-test of Shmiras Shabbos Kehilchesa before going for a dip, but that’s not realistic. We, in the trenches, might just have a greater sensitivity to the human being that the bureaucrats are so good at disregarding. I’d take Itim over the Vaad any day of the week.
The desire to create a universal standard for giyur is both misleading and misguided. It is misleading because it sounds like a unifying agent, when in fact it means that they are trying to create a chareidi monopoly on conversions by passuling every conversion that’s not chareidi in the hopes that it will force the MO Rabbinate to simply acquiesce. By referring to the Modern Orthodox Rabbinate as ‘so-called Orthodox’, or to the “orthodox” Rabbinical Council of America (R’ Nachum himself puts the quotation marks on the word ‘orthodox’), or describing the RCA by saying “This is the organization of rabbis who call themselves Orthodox, but are known as modern”, R' Nachum and the good folks at the Yated are basically saying that MO Rabbis aren't really Rabbis and Modern Orthodoxy isn't really orthodox. Instead of coming out and saying it, they'll use obnoxious innuendo and quotation mark. Recognizing only individual RCA members means that the Vaad is setting itself up to be the arbiter of which Rabbis are kosher enough. The desire for ‘unity’ is nothing less than a declaration of war on the MO Rabbinate.
It is misguided because there is not, and cannot be, a universal standard for giyur. The Shulchan Arukh says quite clearly that there are certain things which are very difficult to gauge, about which the individual courts must make a judgment. Furthermore, as stated earlier, there is lechatchila and bediavad. Creating a universal standard basically means doing away with the entire question of a bediavad conversion. That may be easy to do from Ma’alot Dafna, but there’s a reason that the concept exists.
Conversion is THE issue which essentially determines whether a particular Rabbi is kosher or treif. When there’s talk of not accepting R and C Rabbis, it basically means that their conversions are not considered good conversions, no more and no less. Now, MO Rabbis are threatened with the same treatment. This is not some political issue that will blow over by next Tuesday. R’ Nachum and his ilk have gained a measure of control over an apparatus that threatens to completely discredit the MO Rabbinate.
This is a moment of truth for the American Modern Orthodox Rabbinate. If we do not find a way to win this battle, legitimate the work that we do across the continent and assert our commitment to and execution of das Moshe Ve-Yisrael, then our voices will join our Conservative and Reform colleagues as spectators who can make noise but are barred from playing the game.
5/07/2006
R' Shimon and Jacob: R' Shimon b. Yochai part XII
[Continued from Intro, I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX , X, XI]
Since a miracle has occurred, said he, let me go and amend something, for it is written, “and Jacob came whole to the city of Shechem”, which Rav interpreted: Bodily whole, financially whole, and whole in his Torah. “And he graced the city”- Rav said: He instituted coinage for them. Samuel said: He instituted markets for them; R. Yohanan said: He instituted baths for them.
With the interjection of this seemingly unrelated story about Jacob’s arrival in the city of Shechem, the Gemara again superimposes a mythic dimension onto this narrative. The Patriarch Jacob, the progenitor of Israel, had fled his homeland from his brother Esav, the progenitor of Rome in the Rabbinic imagination. After spending many years in exile, Jacob returns to his homeland and finds a way to make peace with his brother. It is at this moment, having successfully encountered his brother, that Jacob arrives ‘whole’ in the city of Shechem. R’ Shimon, too, flees and returns better for it. He will also make his peace with Rome.
Rav speaks of three different types of ‘wholeness’ that Jacob has attained: Physical, financial, and ‘in Torah’. R’ Kook understands that these are essentially three aspects of the same over-arching wholeness, with each component reaching its perfection only in relation to the others. One cannot be whole in Torah if he is not whole financially, and vice versa. R’ Shimon had begun with an attitude that these elements impinge upon each other, but had acquired the ‘naivete’ (temimut) of Jacob the ‘simple man’, which takes a simpler, more whole vision which integrates that which R’ Shimon had compartmentalized.
Upon achieving wholeness, Jacob sought to extend it, to share it and make it available to others. Wholeness doesn’t happen in the cave, in an exile, but in the public sphere, where it can contribute and encounter others. The Rabbis suggest three ways in which Jacob sought to extend his wholeness to society. Minting coins, which standardizes purchase power, limits confusion, and builds trust between people. Building markets, which encourages and enhances interactions between people. Building baths, which encourages cleanliness and purity within society.
These were the very institutions that R’ Shimon criticizes at the beginning of the story. He now seeks to enhance them. Rather than seeing them as evil, he sees and seeks to develop their potential to participate in the ‘whole’ picture.
Since a miracle has occurred, said he, let me go and amend something, for it is written, “and Jacob came whole to the city of Shechem”, which Rav interpreted: Bodily whole, financially whole, and whole in his Torah. “And he graced the city”- Rav said: He instituted coinage for them. Samuel said: He instituted markets for them; R. Yohanan said: He instituted baths for them.
With the interjection of this seemingly unrelated story about Jacob’s arrival in the city of Shechem, the Gemara again superimposes a mythic dimension onto this narrative. The Patriarch Jacob, the progenitor of Israel, had fled his homeland from his brother Esav, the progenitor of Rome in the Rabbinic imagination. After spending many years in exile, Jacob returns to his homeland and finds a way to make peace with his brother. It is at this moment, having successfully encountered his brother, that Jacob arrives ‘whole’ in the city of Shechem. R’ Shimon, too, flees and returns better for it. He will also make his peace with Rome.
Rav speaks of three different types of ‘wholeness’ that Jacob has attained: Physical, financial, and ‘in Torah’. R’ Kook understands that these are essentially three aspects of the same over-arching wholeness, with each component reaching its perfection only in relation to the others. One cannot be whole in Torah if he is not whole financially, and vice versa. R’ Shimon had begun with an attitude that these elements impinge upon each other, but had acquired the ‘naivete’ (temimut) of Jacob the ‘simple man’, which takes a simpler, more whole vision which integrates that which R’ Shimon had compartmentalized.
Upon achieving wholeness, Jacob sought to extend it, to share it and make it available to others. Wholeness doesn’t happen in the cave, in an exile, but in the public sphere, where it can contribute and encounter others. The Rabbis suggest three ways in which Jacob sought to extend his wholeness to society. Minting coins, which standardizes purchase power, limits confusion, and builds trust between people. Building markets, which encourages and enhances interactions between people. Building baths, which encourages cleanliness and purity within society.
These were the very institutions that R’ Shimon criticizes at the beginning of the story. He now seeks to enhance them. Rather than seeing them as evil, he sees and seeks to develop their potential to participate in the ‘whole’ picture.
From the Mouths of Babes...
Walking home from shul today, my daughter picked a wildflower. I said to her, “You can’t pick flowers today; it’s Shabbos. Please put the flower down.” She responded by saying “No. I’m not Jewish.” Stunned, I ignored her response until we got home.
We have a non-Jewish neighbor in the same apartment building with a little boy my daughter’s age. They play together all the time. My daughter is aware that he’s not Jewish, though she’ll sometimes use ‘Jewish’ words expecting everyone to understand. She knows that when it comes to things like food and Shabbos, there are major differences.
With all of this in mind, the Rebbetzin and I had a short conversation with my daughter later that day. We asked her if she really meant that she didn’t want to be Jewish. She said yes. We asked if she liked Pesach, Chanukah, Purim, Kiddush, Havdalah, and Israel, because those things are all special for Jews. She changed her mind and likes being Jewish.
I’m still not quite sure what to make of the whole exchange. It’s not that I’m worried that she, all of five years old, isn’t absorbing the right values from us. She wanted to pick a flower and applied a ‘hetter’ to herself. It just made me wonder about the nature and construction of Jewish identity and how that appears to the 5-year old mind.
[PS: She fell asleep in her Shabbos clothes last night, waiting for me to come home from shul. At around 3:30AM, she wakes up and enters our bedroom, crying that she wants to hear havdalah. I sang some havdalah tunes as lullabys, and promised to make it for her in the morning.]
We have a non-Jewish neighbor in the same apartment building with a little boy my daughter’s age. They play together all the time. My daughter is aware that he’s not Jewish, though she’ll sometimes use ‘Jewish’ words expecting everyone to understand. She knows that when it comes to things like food and Shabbos, there are major differences.
With all of this in mind, the Rebbetzin and I had a short conversation with my daughter later that day. We asked her if she really meant that she didn’t want to be Jewish. She said yes. We asked if she liked Pesach, Chanukah, Purim, Kiddush, Havdalah, and Israel, because those things are all special for Jews. She changed her mind and likes being Jewish.
I’m still not quite sure what to make of the whole exchange. It’s not that I’m worried that she, all of five years old, isn’t absorbing the right values from us. She wanted to pick a flower and applied a ‘hetter’ to herself. It just made me wonder about the nature and construction of Jewish identity and how that appears to the 5-year old mind.
[PS: She fell asleep in her Shabbos clothes last night, waiting for me to come home from shul. At around 3:30AM, she wakes up and enters our bedroom, crying that she wants to hear havdalah. I sang some havdalah tunes as lullabys, and promised to make it for her in the morning.]
Rabbis, Rabbis, Rabbis
Three interesting news items from the last few weeks, all regarding Rabbis.
The first is about Rabbi Michael Cook of HUC, who thinks that ignorance of the New Testament is the Jews’ Achilles’ Heel. Interesting. I always thought it was ignorance of the old one. Shockingly, the guy is a professor of New Testament studies. When you’ve got a hammer, the whole world is your nail.
The second is about the Rabbanut’s outrageous non-recognition of RCA conversions. I agree that there are problems with giyur in the American Orthodox world, just are there problems with the Rabbanut and their conversion process (understatement of the year). But this is such an incredible slap in the face of American Orthodoxy. Perhaps the most disturbing part is the response of the RCA president. His job is to be outraged, not to try to diminish the magnitude of this. The politically-appointed Rabbis that fill the ranks of the Rabbanut bureaucracy are left to measure the tzitzis of American Orthodox Rabbis who are often the only access to yahadus and Torah around. It’s sickening. Now, I’m sure that some of my Conservative readers will see some poetic justice in this. I think it’s different, ve-acamo”l.
The third is an article about the ordination of Haviva Ner-David as an Orthodox Rabbi. I’ve written about the need to create a recognizable means of acknowledging learned Orthodox women for a variety of practical purposes. The watering-down of semikha in general (I’ve heard of a semikha where one is tested on 50 blatt Gemara of their choice and Kitzur Shulchan Arukh) has turned this whole thing into a joke. Arguments that suggest that women haven’t achieved the level of scholarship deserving of the title should consider my third-grade Rebbe. In this case, I’ve actually read her book
. Pioneering, but really bizarre; what you’d probably expect from the person trying to become the first female Orthodox Rabbi. There’s some solid critique, but I found her approach to ritual commandments to border on fetishism, and didn’t find myself enriched by this book. I had my reasons for becoming a Rabbi; anger wasn’t amongst them. So forgive me for my lack of excitement that she has joined our ranks. This will inevitably open doors for more women which can become positive development.
5/04/2006
Listening to Music Religiously
For some people, listening to music is a religious experience. I’m not one of those people. But I do like some kinds of music. And listening to it can occur in a variety of religious contexts, producing some great moments.
With one of the kids crying for his mother on the way to daycare today, I turned on the radio, because the kid loves music. I’m ambivalent about listening to music during sefirah, so I usually don’t. Three songs came on between when I turned the radio on and when I dropped the kid off: American Pie, Live and Let Die (Beatles, not GnR), and Bohemian Rhapsody. The older kid absolutely LOVED American Pie. And I admit, we stayed in the car idling until the last song ended.
Last month, I took the car to a manual carwash, y’know, w/ vacuums and hoses and whatever, to clean the car for Pesach. There was some fellow who was cleaning his car and listening to some very loud entertainment (I am loath to call it ‘music’) which I didn’t find very entertaining. Aside from the fact that I simply didn’t enjoy the sound, I found the lyrics, which their incessant use of the n-word, the b-word, the f-word, and descriptions and boasts about permutations of those three words, to be very offensive. I turned the radio on, as loud as it goes, hoping that I’d find something to drown out the other stuff. First song – Bohemian Rhapsody.
Great radio station, no?
With one of the kids crying for his mother on the way to daycare today, I turned on the radio, because the kid loves music. I’m ambivalent about listening to music during sefirah, so I usually don’t. Three songs came on between when I turned the radio on and when I dropped the kid off: American Pie, Live and Let Die (Beatles, not GnR), and Bohemian Rhapsody. The older kid absolutely LOVED American Pie. And I admit, we stayed in the car idling until the last song ended.
Last month, I took the car to a manual carwash, y’know, w/ vacuums and hoses and whatever, to clean the car for Pesach. There was some fellow who was cleaning his car and listening to some very loud entertainment (I am loath to call it ‘music’) which I didn’t find very entertaining. Aside from the fact that I simply didn’t enjoy the sound, I found the lyrics, which their incessant use of the n-word, the b-word, the f-word, and descriptions and boasts about permutations of those three words, to be very offensive. I turned the radio on, as loud as it goes, hoping that I’d find something to drown out the other stuff. First song – Bohemian Rhapsody.
Great radio station, no?
Stay Close; Keep your Distance
This week’s Parsha opens with a prohibition against entering the Sanctum Sanctorum whenever one wishes, and recalls the death of Nadav and Avihu, who perished as a result of coming ‘too close’ to God. The Torah then describes the special Yom Kippur offerings. Following that is the prohibition of Shechutei Chutz, bringing sacrifices outside the precincts of the Temple, which the Torah explicitly compares to foreign worship, here called ‘zivchei se’irim’.
These two prohibitions are antipodal. The first prohibits unrestrained ‘closeness’, the second, too much distance. The first is rooted in an unchecked ahava, a love which bespeaks too much familiarity. Distance between man and God must be maintained. The second is similar to idolatry in that both relate to deities as awesome powers, to be revered but not loved. As gravity threatens to consume the Earth in the sun, and as inertia alone would send the Earth hurtling off into space, so, too must fear and love operate in lockstep. Each becomes most valuable in the presence of the other.
The passages in between describe two particular services on Yom Kippur which are the exceptions to each rule. The High Priest on Yom Kippur must perform a service inside the Sanctum Sanctorum itself. There’s also the service of the Se’ir La-Azazel, when a ‘scapegoat’ is hurled off of a desert cliff. This is the only sacrifice brought outside the Temple. Whether this sacrifice is merely done outside or is actually a sanctioned form of worship of a non-God (as Ramban states, and as is borne out by the connection between Shchutei Chutz and ‘zivchei se’irim) really makes little difference, as the two are conceptually linked.
What can this teach about Yom Kippur, the day upon which these prohibitions are prohibited? There are two conceptual possibilities: that Yom Kippur is a day of heightened balance, or that it’s a day of no balance. The first possibility means that the essential dangers of ‘too close’ or ‘too far’ remain, so permitting one mandates permitting the second to balance. Yom Kippur is thus a day when we allow ourselves extreme religious experiences, provided that they remain balanced. This approach would not, however, explain why an extreme but balanced religious approach would be prohibited at other times.
The second approach, adopted by R’ Zadok in Dover Tzedek, pp.98-99, suggests that on Yom Kippur, normal restraints are unchained. We allow ourselves to get close enough to be burnt, or far enough to become paralyzed, and in these circumstances it’s OK. ‘These circumstances’ – the ‘be-zot’ of the beginning of the Parsha – refer to a state of being, unique to Yom Kippur, when all self-consciousness dissolves into God’s pure, all-embracing Will. This state transcends the dissociation of good and evil, as in it, there is nothing but God. Thus, these two commandments are subsumed under the notion of Aveirah Lishmah – an act that within the paramount reality is a transgression, but within certain states of consciousness become essential. R’ Zadok spells this out, specifically with regard to the Se’ir Ha-Mishtalei’ach – the scapegoat – in paragraph #40 of Tzidkas Ha-Tzaddik.
R’ Zadok (in the Dover Tzedek piece) detects this theme of balance between love and fear in several episodes in TaNach, beginning with the story of Nadav and Avihu and finally achieving balance in the episode of Eliyahu at Mt. Carmel, where Eliyahu brings the people closer to God through the medium of Shchutei Chutz. Along the way, he discusses Pinchas as a character who is struggling to achieve balance. It’s a wonderful piece. Ve-acamo”l. I specifically wanted to bring his points on the beginning of the Parsha, since the textual structure (which R’ Zadok was not so concerned with) and his conceptualization of these mitzvoth dovetail so well.
These two prohibitions are antipodal. The first prohibits unrestrained ‘closeness’, the second, too much distance. The first is rooted in an unchecked ahava, a love which bespeaks too much familiarity. Distance between man and God must be maintained. The second is similar to idolatry in that both relate to deities as awesome powers, to be revered but not loved. As gravity threatens to consume the Earth in the sun, and as inertia alone would send the Earth hurtling off into space, so, too must fear and love operate in lockstep. Each becomes most valuable in the presence of the other.
The passages in between describe two particular services on Yom Kippur which are the exceptions to each rule. The High Priest on Yom Kippur must perform a service inside the Sanctum Sanctorum itself. There’s also the service of the Se’ir La-Azazel, when a ‘scapegoat’ is hurled off of a desert cliff. This is the only sacrifice brought outside the Temple. Whether this sacrifice is merely done outside or is actually a sanctioned form of worship of a non-God (as Ramban states, and as is borne out by the connection between Shchutei Chutz and ‘zivchei se’irim) really makes little difference, as the two are conceptually linked.
What can this teach about Yom Kippur, the day upon which these prohibitions are prohibited? There are two conceptual possibilities: that Yom Kippur is a day of heightened balance, or that it’s a day of no balance. The first possibility means that the essential dangers of ‘too close’ or ‘too far’ remain, so permitting one mandates permitting the second to balance. Yom Kippur is thus a day when we allow ourselves extreme religious experiences, provided that they remain balanced. This approach would not, however, explain why an extreme but balanced religious approach would be prohibited at other times.
The second approach, adopted by R’ Zadok in Dover Tzedek, pp.98-99, suggests that on Yom Kippur, normal restraints are unchained. We allow ourselves to get close enough to be burnt, or far enough to become paralyzed, and in these circumstances it’s OK. ‘These circumstances’ – the ‘be-zot’ of the beginning of the Parsha – refer to a state of being, unique to Yom Kippur, when all self-consciousness dissolves into God’s pure, all-embracing Will. This state transcends the dissociation of good and evil, as in it, there is nothing but God. Thus, these two commandments are subsumed under the notion of Aveirah Lishmah – an act that within the paramount reality is a transgression, but within certain states of consciousness become essential. R’ Zadok spells this out, specifically with regard to the Se’ir Ha-Mishtalei’ach – the scapegoat – in paragraph #40 of Tzidkas Ha-Tzaddik.
R’ Zadok (in the Dover Tzedek piece) detects this theme of balance between love and fear in several episodes in TaNach, beginning with the story of Nadav and Avihu and finally achieving balance in the episode of Eliyahu at Mt. Carmel, where Eliyahu brings the people closer to God through the medium of Shchutei Chutz. Along the way, he discusses Pinchas as a character who is struggling to achieve balance. It’s a wonderful piece. Ve-acamo”l. I specifically wanted to bring his points on the beginning of the Parsha, since the textual structure (which R’ Zadok was not so concerned with) and his conceptualization of these mitzvoth dovetail so well.
5/02/2006
Rejoining Society: R' Shimon b. Yochai Part XI
Just a few days left until Lag B’Omer, the day upon which I began this series last year. My goal is to finish by then. After this one, there will be only 2 or 3 more installments.
[Continued from Intro, I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX , X]
R’ Pinchas’s tears cause R’ Shimon pain. Earlier, R’ Shimon had related to pain as a form of weakness, stating that to buckle under the pressure of torture was weak-willed and womanly. Now, he is able to feel the pain of others, to empathize. His condition is painless for him; however, since it causes pain to others, he must sensitize himself to how others will perceive his own state. This is part of social life.
The paradox of full withdrawal and full engagement appears again. R’ Pinchas only sees the misfortune of the former. R’ Shimon points out that it was only through this withdrawal that he became able to engage, that he could be ‘found’, that he could articulate himself in a way that would be intelligible to those around him. In this model, the more self-aware and self-sufficient one is, the less threatened he is by a changing world. Adaptability is a function of self-security. The more abstract one’s apprehension of God’s will, the more easily one can apply it to a variety of circumstances. Thus R’ Shimon displays his Talmudic virtuosity.
But it’s not just about finding more solutions to a particular problem. Throughout this narrative, the number twelve has stood for a complete cycle. R’ Pinchas’s knowledge may have been thorough, but R’ Shimon’s surpasses it qualitatively. He no longer asks questions. His knowledge of Torah is not just complete; it’s whole. ‘Time’ and ‘Place’ become mere variables in the Torah’s infinite permutation.
Having experience this paradox whereby full withdrawal has facilitated full engagement, this ‘miracle’ of existing both inside and outside of time, of having both Zakhor and Shamor, he wishes to engage in public works, expressing the most sublime in the most concrete.
[Continued from Intro, I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX , X]
R’ Shimon, in his withdrawal from humanity, had lived ascetically, neglecting his body and allowing it to wither. However, in order to reclaim a place in the social order, he must pay closer attention to the physical to prepare it to become a vehicle for the transcendent. In other words, he must live up to the duality (which is really no duality) of Shamor and Zakhor, described earlier. The place that R’ Shimon chooses to renew his focus upon the body is the very bath that he originally criticized for being a place where the body is glorified. No longer reactionary, he can appreciate and participate in this element of the prevailing culture, and, indeed, appropriate it for his own ends.
R. Phinchas b. Ya'ir his son-in-law heard and went out to meet him. He took him into the baths and massaged his flesh. Seeing the clefts in his body, he wept and the tears fell from his eyes, causing him to scream. 'Woe to me that I see you in such a state!' he cried out. 'Happy are you that you see me like this,' he retorted, 'for if you did not see me in such a state you would not find me so learned. For originally, when R. Simeon b. Yohai raised a difficulty, R. Phinehas b. Ya'ir would give him thirteen answers, whereas subsequently when R. Phinehas b. Ya'ir raised a difficulty, R. Simeon b. Yohai would give him twenty-four answers.
R’ Pinchas’s tears cause R’ Shimon pain. Earlier, R’ Shimon had related to pain as a form of weakness, stating that to buckle under the pressure of torture was weak-willed and womanly. Now, he is able to feel the pain of others, to empathize. His condition is painless for him; however, since it causes pain to others, he must sensitize himself to how others will perceive his own state. This is part of social life.
The paradox of full withdrawal and full engagement appears again. R’ Pinchas only sees the misfortune of the former. R’ Shimon points out that it was only through this withdrawal that he became able to engage, that he could be ‘found’, that he could articulate himself in a way that would be intelligible to those around him. In this model, the more self-aware and self-sufficient one is, the less threatened he is by a changing world. Adaptability is a function of self-security. The more abstract one’s apprehension of God’s will, the more easily one can apply it to a variety of circumstances. Thus R’ Shimon displays his Talmudic virtuosity.
But it’s not just about finding more solutions to a particular problem. Throughout this narrative, the number twelve has stood for a complete cycle. R’ Pinchas’s knowledge may have been thorough, but R’ Shimon’s surpasses it qualitatively. He no longer asks questions. His knowledge of Torah is not just complete; it’s whole. ‘Time’ and ‘Place’ become mere variables in the Torah’s infinite permutation.
Having experience this paradox whereby full withdrawal has facilitated full engagement, this ‘miracle’ of existing both inside and outside of time, of having both Zakhor and Shamor, he wishes to engage in public works, expressing the most sublime in the most concrete.
5/01/2006
On the Hegemony of the Shulchan Arukh
My recent post about the Mishna Berurah is part of the broader topic of the ‘acceptance’ of certain works at ‘authoritative’ and the effects it has on the community. I posted about the relationship between Canon and Heresy in an older post, which is part of this topic as well.
The last such work to achieve this status was the Shulchan Arukh, but I’d like to define some terms, list the other works on this very short list, and note the communal effects of each ‘canonization’.
The genre that we’re talking about is what I’d call the ‘normative curriculum’. There’s no single work which is authoritative per se, in that it is always followed to the letter. However, certain works have become the central text (oral or written) for the study of Jewish Law. Even when the central text is not followed, the text is studied and normative practice noted to be in conflict with the text.
The first work to become a normative Jewish curriculum was – the Torah. Obviously, right? Well, not necessarily. It didn’t gain that status until the time of Ezra. Whatever you want to say about the text of the Torah during the time of the First Temple, it was not, in the minds of the people, the source for the answer to the question, “How should I live my life?” Thinkers like R’ Tzadok of Lublin to R’ David Weiss-Halivni have written about this, but really it’s rooting in Midrashim about Ezra and, in my opinion, from a simple but careful reading of the books of Ezra and Nechemiah. Ezra’s community, which was of historical necessity VERY exclusive, was constituted by ratifying the Torah as their law. Pshuto Ke-mashma’o, it was their constitution. This group became known as The Judeans who returned to Zion, which ultimately became ‘The Judeans’ or ‘The Jews’. Those not included in this community, basically, are known as goyim.
Of course, that’s a bit oversimplified. There were groups not in Ezra’s community who did have some version of the Torah. The real schism with that group, though, revolved around the second set of texts to be included in the normative curriculum – the Nevi’im. While not legal works, they contain a heckuva lot of stuff which refines the values and principles of the Torah (for example, that when the Torah talks about ‘the place that God will choose’, it means Jerusalem). There were groups, notably the Samaritans, who didn’t buy it.
The third set of texts was finally closed at around the time of the destruction of the 2nd Temple. There was a whole host of works that were included by this faction or that (Saducees, Dead Sea Sect, Egyptian community, etc.), so that there remains an entire set of texts, the Apocrypha or Sefarim Chitzonim which, though included in the canon of some communities, didn’t make it into the canon of the Pharisee or Rabbinite canon, which became the normative Jewish one.
Since the canonization of Tana”ch, there have been only TWO works which have gained the acceptance, as a normative curriculum by the mainstream Jewish world. They are:
The Babylonian Talmud and the Shulchan Arukh. That’s it.
The main accomplishment of the Geonic Era was in making the Bavli the single source for all of Rabbinic Judaism. It was not without a struggle. Some, like the communities in Eretz Yisrael, had their own traditions and customs, and also felt that they should remain the seat of Jewish law. Others, like the group that became known as the Karaites, reacted against the entire notion of a legally binding Rabbinic law. The community which accepted the Bavli, however, became the bearer of name and continuation of the historical entity called Judaism.
No work of the Rishonim ever gained widespread acceptance to the degree that it became THE curriculum for all of Israel. At the close of that period, with the twin publications of Beit Yosef and Shulchan Arukh, summarizing and deciding the works of the Rishonim, such a work finally arrived. A combination of factors – immediate distribution, quality of work, inclusion, within a few years, of both Ashkenazi and Sephardi custom, the sense of distance from the time of the Rishonim – contributed to the SA becoming the standard text for the study of Halakha. There were opponents of this as well; Maharshal and Levush felt that the Bavli should remain the source of the study of Halakha. It can even be argued that Chasidism is a rebellion against the rigidity and dryness of the lifestyle described in the SA. Either way, it never led to the type of splintering that accompanied each prior ‘canonization’.
So, will MB achieve this status? Is that what it means that ‘the MB is the last link in the shalsheles of Halakha? Hell, no. There are too many communities that didn’t accept it (like, for example, the entire Sephardic world). Much as ppl. say it is, it’s not, nor should it be. The list of times it DID happen that the community designated a book as its normative curriculum is very, very short (I count 5 times), and I don’t see us anywhere close to a 6th.
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