R. Zvi Leshem on Kitniyot

Of everything that's come out in English on kitniyot, this is the best. By best I mean the one that remains true to Ashkenazic custom while accepting certain commonsense arguments (i.e., that if the kitniyot did not come into contact with water, it's permitted; that there is room for leniency in recently discovered species, etc.). There are some other Hebrew articles that are at least as good (including R. Leshem's own original Hebrew article and the article by R. Yehuda Fris that appeared in Tehumin; a cached version of the latter article can be found at the end of this thread), but for the English-speaking world, this is about as good as it gets:

Kitniot.doc

2 Pieces: One Serious, One for Purim

I have a feature article on R. Moshe Feinstein at Jewish Ideas Daily. The only real "chiddush", I believe, is in the idea of "reluctant leniency" as a strategy for enabling the mekilim without denigrating the machmirim, as it's quite clear--and R. Moshe said on occasion--that he paskened le-kula because that's what he believed, not because of any constraints. I enjoyed researching and writing the article, and I believe that we've just started scratching the surface of R. Moshe's p'sak.

While working on that article, I was also working on a shul Purim shpiel (talk about compartmentalization) which should be up on youtube by the end of the weekend. I also helped with the Lord Chief Rabbi Sacks-style translation of this excellent Purim parody by Elli Schorr:
2011 אנעים זמורות

A gut Shabbos and a freilichen Purim!

Transparency as a Jewish Value

The following midrash addresses the detailed audit of the construction of the Mishkan conducted by Moshe. The issue of transparency has come up quite a bit in context of Jewish and Israeli religious and secular leadership. The upshot of this midrash is that nobody--not even Moses himself--can or should get away without giving an accounting. If opacity was not tolerated from Moshe, kal va-chomer anyone else. I wrote about this midrash 3 years ago, but it's worth repeating from time to time.

 מדרש תנחומא (ורשא) פרשת פקודי סימן ז

אמר משה יודע אני שישראל רוגנים הם הריני עושה להם חשבון מכל מלאכת המשכן, התחיל לעשות חשבון עמהם אלה פקודי המשכן והוא נותן להם חשבון על כל דבר ודבר לזהב ולכסף ולנחשת וכסף פקודי העדה מאת ככר ואלף ושבע מאות ויהי מאת ככר הכסף לצקת ונחשת התנופה שבעים ככר, עם שהוא עושה חשבון והולך על כל דבר ודבר שעשויין כסדר בתוך המשכן שכח אלף ושבע מאות וחמשה ושבעים שקל שעשה מהן ווין לעמודין ולא היו נראין, התחיל עומד תמה ואומר עכשיו ימצאו ידיהם של ישראל עלי לומר שאני נטלתי אותם והוא חוזר לבוא על כל מלאכה ומלאכה, מיד האיר הקב"ה את עיניו ותלה עיניו וראה שהיו עשוין ווין לעמודים, התחיל להשיב להם בקול רם ואת האלף ושבע המאות וחמשה ושבעים עשה ווים לעמודים באותה שעה נתפייסו ישראל, מי גרם לו על ידי שישב ועשה חשבון אלה פקודי המשכן, ולמה עשה חשבון הקב"ה מאמינו שנא' (במדבר יב) בכל ביתי נאמן הוא ומשה נתן חשבון, אלא מפני ששמע ליצני הדור שהיו משיחין אחריו שנאמר והיה כצאת משה וגו' והביטו אחרי משה, ומה היו אומרים ר' יצחק היה דורש לשבח (וכו' כדאיתא לעיל סדר כי תשא סימן כ"ז) וחברו משיבו ריקה אדם שנתמנה על מלאכת המשכן על ככרי כסף ועל ככרי זהב שאין לו חקר ולא משקל ולא מנין מה אתה רוצה שלא יהיה עשיר, כששמע כן אמר חייכם משנגמרה מלאכת המשכן אני נותן להם חשבון כיון שנגמרה אמר להם אלה פקודי המשכן.

Midrash Tanchuma, Pekudei 7

“Moshe said: ‘I know that the Israelites are malcontents. Therefore, I will audit the entire construction of the Mishkan’. He began making an accounting: ‘These are the records of the Mishkan’ and he began reporting everything, the gold, silver and bronze, and the silver of the public census 100 kikar of silver and 1700 [shekel]. 100 kikar went to cast…and 70 kikar of bronze for crafting…. He continued reckoning each item in the Mishkan in order, but forgot 1575 shekels from which the hooks on the pillars were fashioned, but which were not generally visible. He stood bewildered and said: ‘Now they will lay their hands on me, saying that I took it’, and he went back to recalculate. Immediately, God opened Moshe’s eyes and showed him that the silver was used in the hooks on the pillars. He began to reply to them, saying: ‘and 1575 were fashioned into pillar hooks’ and the Israelites were immediately appeased. What enabled this? The fact that he sat and made an accounting.

‘These are the records of the Mishkan’ - But why did he make an accounting? Did not God trust him, as it says: ‘He is trusted in all My house’, yet Moshe made an accounting? It’s only because he heard the cynics talking behind his back, as it says ‘And when Moshe left…they looked back at Moshe’. What did they say? R. Yitzhak said that people spoke positively. Then others would chime in: ‘Imbecile! He’s the one who controlled the entire enterprise of the Mishkan – kikarim of gold and silver that were not counted, weighed, or numbered! Wouldn’t you expect that he be rich?’ When Moshe heard this, he said: ‘My word! When the Mishkan is completed, I will make an accounting’, as it says ‘These are the records of the Mishkan.’”

Dozens/ Hundreds of Rabbis Say…

… that homosexuals should be welcomed into the Orthodox community

… that Jews should not rent property to non-Jews in the Land of Israel

… that they oppose the rabbis who signed on the above
… that brain stem death constitutes halakhic death [HT: Ben]

… that Rupert Murdoch should sanction Glenn Beck for attacking George Soros

… that the Interior Ministry should recognize all Orthodox conversions in North America

… that convicted rapist and former President Moshe Katzav is a victim of injustice

… that the rabbis who signed on the above should renege

Am I missing any from the past 10 months or so?

[Full disclosure: I signed on the first letter, before there was a trend.]

Getting 100 rabbis to sign on something used to be difficult. After all, the “escape clause” on the rabbinic ban on polygamy, now over 1,000 years old, allowed the husband of a woman who could not or would not accept divorce to marry a second wife if he could obtain the signatures of 100 rabbis from 100 different communities. This loophole was designed to make sure that the ban on polygamy would be difficult to circumvent. It appears not to be too difficult anymore.

The trend is disturbing for several reasons. Firstly, there are tens of thousands of rabbis in the world, if not more than 100,000; there is no rabbinic consensus on virtually any issue. Thus, getting a bunch of rabbis to support one thing or another is not difficult, but it can give the mistaken impression that there is some sort of broad agreement on an issue.

When numerous rabbis sign on a single document, it flattens dialogue. Positions tend toward sound-bites and away from nuance. There is little room for shades of grey, and there is little room for the rabbis with unique voices to create their own space. Furthermore, these letters tend to give the erroneous impression that all rabbinic voices are equal. A social media-savvy recent rabbinical school grad is not the same as a gadol be-Yisrael, but on a petition they each get one vote.

Rabbinic disagreement has classically taken place in a beit midrash or through the exchange of personal letters. Rarely were there public pronouncements that did not invite dialogue. It would be terrible if as a result of these letters different groups stop having dialogue with each other. As Rav Shach once lamented to Rav Amital, “we’ve grown so far apart that we don’t even argue anymore.”

Finally, people will eventually stop listening to rabbis who cry “Wolf!” When everything is worth a public petition, those things that really demand a public outcry will be ignored. Rav Moshe Lichtenstein calls this “inflation.”

I hope that rabbis, individually and collectively, begin to realize that the cost of these statements are not worth the benefits and, accordingly, think long and hard before affixing their signatures to such petitions.

If the rabbi is like an angel...

According to the Talmud (Mo'ed Katan 17a), one should only study under a rabbi who is angelic:

אמר רבי יוחנן, מאי דכתיב +מלאכי ב'+ כי שפתי כהן ישמרו דעת ותורה יבקשו מפיהו כי מלאך ה' צבאות הוא אם דומה הרב למלאך ה' - יבקשו תורה מפיו. ואם לאו - אל יבקשו תורה מפיו

Rabbi Yohanan said:  What is meant by (Malachi 2:7) "For the lips of the priest guard knowledge, and they shall seek Torah from his mouth, for he is a messenger/angel of the Lord of Hosts"? If the rabbi is angelic--seek Torah from his mouth. If not--do not seek Torah from his mouth.

Several years ago, I wrote about why it's a dangerous passage; after all, angels are lousy role models.

But every once in a while, a delicious irony presents itself. The most recent case (HT: FailedMessiah) of a rabbi being charged with sexual abuse involves the scion of a little known-offshoot of Chabad and ally of Satmar called "The Malochim." So we can now go completely against that Gemara and say, "If the rabbi is like a malach, stay far the heck away."
Another talmudic passage that I would advise against on similar grounds appears in Brakhot 28b:

מנעו בניכם מן ההגיון והושיבום בין ברכי תלמידי חכמים

Keep your sons away from logic, and seat them between the knees of Torah scholars.

That can actually be the motto of certain yeshivas.

Ruling of Rav Ovadia Yosef and Rav Shlomo Amar on Conversions

The full translation appears at Kol Ha-Rav. I’ve added my own comments and analysis in square brackets below.

This is the Law that Emerges from the Three Aforementioned Court Rulings:

Conversion (geirut) is a purely halakhic concept. It is not subject to substitution or punditry (parshanut). It is thus mandatory that geirut be in accordance with the halakha as explained by Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh.

[Classic Rav Ovadia. Rambam and Shulchan Arukh represent an approach to conversion that avoids extremes, is very straightforward, and trusts that the rabbinical court is qualified to make judgment calls. It’s amazing that such a classical, traditional, and mainstream approach to giyur generates so much controversy. We have become accustomed to the extremes of rubber-stamp conversions and draconian standards]

1. A convert who was circumcised and immersed but did not accept the commandments (mitzvot) of the Torah in the presence of three who are qualified to judge, is not a convert at all. Even if he accepted the mitzvot upon himself, if it was not in the presence of three who are qualified to judge, it is meaningless.

[This is the clause that will allow Israeli rabbinical courts to disqualify conversions of certain courts—mainly non-Orthodox courts, but it’s elastic enough to exclude conversions of some Orthodox courts or include the conversions of certain non-Orthodox courts]

2. The rabbinical conversion court (beit din) must adequately examine whether the prospective convert has studied and knows the fundamentals of faith, and also has studied the rudimentary halakhot of Judaism (as practiced in Israeli rabbinical courts).

3. Similarly, they will examine his motives and objectives for conversion. They will examine whether he is sincere in saying that he accepts the Torah and mitzvot upon himself, and is not deceiving the rabbinical court.

[Clauses b. and c. are extremely important and often misunderstood. The ruling speaks to what conversion courts ought to do. It opposes conversions if the prospective convert is unfamiliar with Jewish practice or has hidden and ulterior motives. However, it does not disqualify such a conversion. There is clearly a hierarchy of le-khatchila (ab initio) and be-di’avad (ex post facto). There is how conversion should be done, then there is a less-than-ideal but still valid conversion (clauses b, c, and d), and finally there are invalid conversions (clause a)].

4. If their assessment is that he will certainly not uphold the mitzvot, they should not accept him as a convert.

[This is the shortest but most significant clause in the entire ruling. Here are some implications:

1. The court is given discretion to assess the sincerity and motivation of the prospective convert. Both extremes within Orthodox conversion tend to be bureaucratic—by insisting on either maximal or minimal standards that leave little room to gauge the individual. This is a return to a classical model in which the court actually gets to know the convert.
2. The court should not accept a convert who, in its opinion “will certainly not uphold the mitzvot.” The clear—if shocking—implication is that one who might uphold the mitzvot should be accepted for conversion. This is serious Hillel territory.
3. Once again, “should not” does not mean “it is invalid if they do.” In fact, it means the conversion is valid, though less than ideal as it could lead to the scenario described in clause e.]

5. A convert who was circumcised and immersed and accepted the mitzvot of the Torah in the presence of three who are qualified to judge, and everything was done properly and halakhically, and he then reverted to his mistaken ways and violates the mitzvot of the Torah, he is like an apostate Jew: his wine is forbidden, but his marriage and divorce are valid, as is stated explicitly in the Talmud, the code of Maimonides, and the Shulchan Arukh.

[This means that there’s not such thing as a retroactive annulment of conversions that were done properly to begin with.]

Where were you 25 years ago today?

On February 11, 1986, Anatoly Scharansky crossed the Glienicke Bridge into freedom.
25 years ago today.

Documentary on the Life of Rav Ovadia Yosef

Forthcoming documentary film. Here is a clip discussing his release of agunot in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War.

UPDATE: Menachem Mendel posted about this within minutes of when I did. He links to a different clip and points out that the film is airing on Channel 10 tonight at 10pm, JST.

Update #2: The entire film is available here.

Joseph's Overcoat

Marjorie Ingall has a profile of Simms Taback's work in Tablet today. I'm familiar only with Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, but based on what she wrote about it, I suspect that she misses some of his Jewish messages. Writing about Joseph, Ingall says: "Hidden in the illustrations are a collaged Tevye poster, photos of different fabrics, a teeny copy of the Yiddish Forward—so much texture you could plotz."
What makes the book Jewish to her is the fact that it uses Jewish "texture" and was based on a Yiddish folk song.


As I wrote about Joseph a few years ago, the Jewish message is one of loss of tradition, urbanization, and nostalgia. Whereas Judaism was once a nice, thick overcoat, it slowly but surely eroded and morphed into an ethnic culture or nostalgia; what passes for "Jewish" at the end of the book is but a pale shadow of what there was at the beginning. That's the tragedy of the folk tale--compounded by the fact that the tragedy is lost on so many contemporary readers.