Evanston Jew

Thank You Dear Readers

2007-01-07T08:08:00.000-06:00

Today will be my last post on my blog, at least for now. I will keep my blog up indefinitely, but in time I will block all new comments. I have personal reasons for stopping. The books are piling up. I don’t learn enough. I need to catch up with my life.

When I started the blog, I wanted to see if it was possible to write a blog about Jewish life, using a language that would be secular, humanistic, ironic and progressive. I wanted the subjects of my posts to be able to recognize themselves in what I wrote, and to feel that even if I was critical I had made some effort to look at them deeply and with empathy. My hope was that the experience of being seen and understood at least in part, would have a positive and pleasurable effect.

Another goal I set for myself was to explain the mixture of Hebrew, Yiddish, and English called yinglish/ yeshivish. I didn’t go overboard in stressing this, but I hope I made some contribution that would enable non- Orthodox Jews to feel more comfortable with the language and culture of Orthodox Jewish life.

I also wanted to offer an alternative to Torah U’Madah (Torah and Secular Knowledge). My view is, “I like Torah. I like Madah… Hold the U (and).” I tried to show how in practice one can shift back and forth between Orthodox and secular ideas without going through the compulsion to integrate that is so frequently found in Modern Orthodoxy. In order for me to elaborate on this charedi-secular combo I would now have to talk about Slifkin, (I am anti Slifkin, pro evolution) and the role of Jewish and Bible studies. I tried to work up some of my thoughts on these topics and I sent drafts to The Vaad (Committee) for the Protection of Evanston Jew’s Posterior. The Vaad advised I either bury these essays, ask my doctor for an increase dosage of Prilosec, or write a book and do it right. I have ordered the Prilosec and someday I might try to elaborate on these issues, but not now.

I don’t sense any great Orthodox demand for new philosophical ideas about Judaism, and I’m not sure the internet is the right vehicle, especially when the ideas are anti –Platonist, anti-naïve realist, anti-essentialist (anti-Brisk), historicizing, and naturalist. (Hint: It’s not the historicism that is causing all the problems, it is the naïve realism.)Speaking schematically, I believe it is possible to construct a philosophy of Judaism that would be open to the world but give a leading role to charedi life; a theology that used pragmatist conceptions of rationality and ontology, a sort of Rorty/Putnam hybrid that would hopefully work in a deeper and less painful way with the actual practices of Orthodoxy than the current mix of theologies. It would provide a philosophical basis for Torah and mitzvoth that would at least be comprehensible to non-religious Jews .Unfortunately, a serious presentation of new theological ideas doesn’t lend itself to my chosen style of schmoozing out of my own experience. It is possible I might try another limited series sometime in the future if I can find a way to present such ideas in a reader friendly, experience near way.

My request to remain anonymous remains. Even if someone disagrees with my outlook, it should be apparent I have tried to act in a sincere and constructive way. I very much want to maintain my privacy.

Considering the baggage I was carrying going into this blog, I think it’s to the credit of my readers, especially my Orthodox readers, that they gave me a chance to lay out my tentative ideas without coming down on me too hard. I want to thank all those who wrote comments as well as my readers, especially those who began reading at an early point and stayed with me. I would also like to thank Rabbi Student and Rabbi Maryles for saying nice things about my blog. Special thanks are due to the Vaad mentioned above as well as the Vaad for the Preservation of Tznius in Downtown Evanston. I couldn’t have proceeded with the same confidence without you. Finally, I would like to thank my assistant for learning how to spell charedi, chasidish, and austritt, and for her sound advice in matters of style and syntax.

Thank you dear readers. It has been a joy and a privilege to have this conversation.

Foucault and Charedim

2007-01-04T08:11:00.000-06:00

I want to continue seeing what could be done with my Foucault-ish idea that charedi society, in its public space, is devoted to a sort of negation of power, money and secular knowledge. I think charedim carry it even further. If we understand power and money as the sad realities of the way the world really is, we can say that charedim are intent on deconstructing reality while offstage recognizing all too well what the world is really like. I’m reminded of the romantic poet , some say Novalis, who worked himself up into lather because he felt he was oppressed by time. The story goes every day he found he was getting older, no matter what he did, and no one had asked him if it was okay by him. So being the romantic poet that he was, he decided that he wouldn’t stand for this anymore, but would rise in full rebellion against the hegemony of time. He committed suicide thus showing time it was not all powerful. I have a feeling time wasn’t impressed.

Let’s talk about college. Charedim insist kids shouldn’t go to college. Torah, Torah, Torah! Parents tear their hair out, at least they used to in my day. No college, no degree, no skills, no profession, no money, is this a way? This no-college thing is getting worse and worse, year by year. Why are they doing this? Why are they willfully impoverishing an entire generation? I think it is important to notice a small fact about charedi life. They don’t want anyone to go to college, but if someone went to college and became something really impressive, they are awfully happy. No one ever got shunned for being an astrophysicist. I remember when I was young, a man fainted during davening and three guys jumped up, all doctors. Everybody went, “Ooooohh, isn’t this something else? In our little shteibel, three doctors. Nachis.” We must conclude that what charedim don’t want is for anyone to go to college. They’re never against someone having gone to college, even though it is true it is impossible to have gone to college, unless you went to college. The objection is to an attitude which goes, “I study Torah AND I’m trying to be an accountant.” No, no, no. The way to do it is study Torah, and somehow, you end up being an accountant. How? Don’t ask how. Summer school at night, transfer credits from Israel, twist this way and turn that way. Just don’t say Torah and accounting in the same breath. Why, because you are paying respects to the constraints imposed by reality. Charedim like to negate reality.

The whole exercise can be compared to a sort of W.A.S.P way of dealing with money and work. There’s a certain type of W.A.S.P that even if he’s working eighty hours a week and is in a total panic if you ask him how it’s going, he’ll say something about his tennis game. It’s somehow in bad taste to acknowledge that you’re working hard or anxious. Think Cary Grant and Fred Astaire. The ideal is to make it look easy and effortless. Similarly, it’s not nice to talk a great deal about money. If you have money, you sort of make-believe it’s not important. Your house is shabby- chic, Sister Parish style, lived-in, eclectic, god-forbid a decorator. It might cost more money to achieve a hand-me-down look, than to construct a glitzy, bling-bling Architectural Digest interior. It’s not easy to create an appearance that money is irrelevant, when you’re living an expensive lifestyle. In Evanston, they used to joke that if you had two cars, a Toyota and Mercedes, you keep the Toyota up front and the Mercedes hidden in the garage. In Highland Park (Jewish), you keep the Mercedes upfront, and the Toyota in the garage. It was a joke.

Let’s run this idea one more time. Kollelim. Guys don’t work, women work a little, umpteen children. Everybody rings their hands. How’s this going to work? Answer, you’re supposed to make it work. Kolel guys are good at this. A government program here, a little subsidized housing there, a supportive father-in-law somewhere, and fiddler-on the-roof style, they pull it off. Why are they asking people not to face reality? Don’t they recognize how much money it takes to have a large family? Charedim want a front-and-center religious space that doesn’t bow down to the gods of money, reality, and power.

One last example which is too long a story for now but fits here….Most every Israeli lives in the State of Israel. Charedim live in the land of Israel. A state requires an army and a draft and the exercise of military power. Charedim don’t believe in exhibiting secular power, certainly not secular military power. Soldiers, fighters, physical and military strength…not in the charedi lexicon. If no one went to the army how would the state defend itself? Answer, don’t bother us with reality, we don’t do tanks.

I know, I know, I know that the kolel life doesn’t always work. I know, I know, I know that everyone knows many tragedies, and what I have said is far from a justification of this way of life. I am not offering it as a justification. I’m trying to show what the spirit of charedi practices is all about. I feel this is very much needed since so many people do little but criticize charedim, with hardly a kind and understanding word.

We all know the sad reality that money plays an extraordinarily important part in Orthodox Jewish life. We all know that people are measured by how much money they have. It has come to a point where people are seated at weddings according to their estimated wealth. In shiduchim, money is not a sub-text, it’s the text itself. We also know that Orthodox Jewish life, at least in its upper-tier, is very fast lane. It takes big bucks to play. I can go on. What makes charedi life tolerable is that money and power is kept, in some ways, in the background. A person can always take solace that he is of great worth because he is a serious student of Torah and devoted to a life of study and mitzvoth. And he is.

Postscript: People familiar with the post- Foucault academic literature will quickly recognize the charedi package can be given a radical left twist. I believe charedi society is a radical counterculture, and though there are authoritarian elements in its decision making, it is at heart, in its refusal to fully accept modernism, in its dream quality of being outside history, in its commitment to a world where books and ideas are the highest values a radicalism of the left. Chardal (charedi Religious Zionist, yes there is this new mutation), and Religious Zionists that support the settlers programme are a radicalism of the right, even when they wear charedi outfits.

Gedolim and Charedi High Society

2007-01-03T08:41:00.000-06:00

I have already mentioned I am an avid reader of charedi publications. They are all so great, it is difficult to choose a favorite; but I try to be a constant reader of Hamodiah or Yated Ne’eman. I like keeping up with the melave malkas and fund raisers, finding out which women’s group Rabbi Dishon will be speaking to next and which bris Rabbi Kutler just attended. My main reason though for buying these papers is the centerfolds. They contain lots of photos of gedolim (the rabbinic leadership). I agree with the charedim in this respect. It is important to have visual images of rabbis in your head. Otherwise it’s Brad Pitt and Brittany Spears and Donald Trump and George Bush. Better the Rachmistrivka Rebbe.

This week was no different….lots of goodies, gedolim aplenty. I’ll mention a few. Rav Don Ungarisher, Rav Shlomo Feivel Schustal, Rav Moshe Heinemann, Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky, Rav Chaim Stein, Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, Rav Aharon Schechter, the Boyaner Rebbe. Now we are not talking little rebbes here, guys with a heimish minyan that exists because the rebbetzin makes a delicious kugel. We are talking heavy hitters, first and foremost, of course being Rav Elyashiv. I chose this sub-group from this week’s Yated for a reason. I have a fairly clear idea who they are. I have, in all sincerity, high opinions of all of them, every single one. Even the baby in the group, Rav Schustal is as solid as they come. If there are such things as gedolim in our time, here is an impressive lineup.

Some are wise….the Boyaner Rebbe is growing in stature because of his sound advice. Some are important poskim (jurists)…Rabbi Heineman and of course Rabbi Elyashiv. Some are lomdim (Talmudic scholars) of utmost seriousness, who have spent a life in holiness and purity, learning day and night, never wavering such as Rav Ungarisher. The rest are important heads of major yeshivot.

I want to make a sort of obvious point. These gedolim were not ‘in the news’ in the past week. They were photographed at simchas, weddings, bar-mitzvas and the like. They didn’t do anything special in virtue of which they were the one’s chosen to be looked at by the charedi world. They were there in the paper not for what they did, but for who they are. These are society photographs similar to the pictures in the New York Times Sunday Style Section. You might call Yated the Town and Country, the W, the HELLO! of charedi society. The fact that Rabbi X made an appearance at the party is the newsworthy event.

Only gedolim and accidentally the bar mitvah boy/chasan and an occasional bystander are ever caught in these photos. Why is this? Even if one accepts the most stringent interpretation of daas torah there is no obligation to show photographs only of gedolim. If you think about it, charedi society has many socialites/stars/celebrities other than these rabbis. Charedi society, as we all know or should know is stratified with a small upper tier and a much larger base. The upper tier consists of rich charedim, very rich charedim and so rich you can’t believe the number being quoted charedim. The rich make this whole society work. There are thousands of professionals, high powered lawyers, doctors, professors, deans, scientists, high tech entrepreneurs, low tech entrepreneurs, hedge fund operators, real estate developers, nursing home owners and rich, lazy and spoiled children of all the above. These people step out; they are famous in their own way. Never a picture. Invisible. Why?

So here is my little hermeneutic, my drashette …Think of these individual rabbis as being parts of a sort of aggregated collective, the gedoli yisrael, the current rabbinic leadership, or the leading most important rabbis. Think of the gedolei yisroel as a single entity, just as a sovereign government is a single entity even if power is divided between different branches of government. The gedoli yisrael , understood now as a unique singular entity is the sovereign, the head, of the charedim. Leave aside the extent of the gedolim’s power, or which rabbis constitute the gedoli yisrael. Let’s say charedi Judaism is an absolute or constitutional monarchy, so they have all or none of the power. Assume your rabbis of choice are part of or the gedolim. Whatever their de jure and de facto powers are and however constituted, the gedolim is the sovereign of the charedi polity, no different than the Emperor of Japan is the head of the Japanese people and Queen Elizabeth is the Queen of Great Britain and the Commonwealth nations. The gedolim are not the kings (pl.) of Israel. No. The collective as a whole is the sovereign of the charedi world.

We can now understand in a way why these rabbis, and no one else, are up front and center in the charedi world. They are the stars, the celebrities, even if they have no real power. Their arrival at a party is like the Queen’s attendance at a royal function. Why? Because the gedolei yisrael embody our traditions; and our religious traditions, our Torah is understood as the will of God. In honoring them, we honor the will of God and thereby honor God. Even if there was no doctrine of daas torah, which attempts to inflate the gedolim’s power beyond their traditional roles, there would still be a point in the charedi way of organizing its society. If we were to celebrate the rich, the aggressive established professionals, the machers and shvitzers in charedi life, we would be honoring and worshipping power and money.

It is to the great credit of charedi society that whatever the sordid reality, they act as if money and power is a nothing, invisible, gurnisht. Charedim also devalue and deflate the knowledge that leads to material power. The only knowledge they publicly value is the knowledge of Torah, especially when the knowledge is acquired by learning Torah for its own sake. We look at, honor, love and obsess about frail, old rabbis who have spent their lives hidden inside the holy books. In doing so, we destroy, at least symbolically, the idols of our time, money, power, and secular knowledge.

To Be Continued…

Is Liberal Judaism Too Liberal?

2007-01-01T11:26:00.000-06:00

Jack Wertheimer, the Provost of JTS has been writing for the last twenty years on the theme of the sky is falling. In the June 2006 issue of Commentary, he slugs away once again at his favorite thesis, the oncoming demise of American Jewry. This time his variation is the lack of ethnic cohesiveness and feeling of Jewish peoplehood in the ranks of American Jews. In ritual fashion, he trots out the by now fairly well known statistics. In 1989, 73% of all Jews agreed that caring about Israel is really important. By 2005, we have fallen to 57%, with younger adults exhibiting even weaker attachments to Israel. Today, 75% of those 65 and over believe that Jews all around the world share a common destiny, whereas only 47% of adults under 35 agree.

There are more than enough culprits to account for these changes. Higher rates of intermarriage alone could account for most of it. When that fails, one can always look to such threats as the children of baby boomers, unlike their parents, having mostly non-Jewish friends. Social interactions of younger American Jews are far more likely today to be mainly with non-Jews. There is nothing in American society to promote ethnic separateness. Unlike other countries, ethnicity is a weak form of identification. All this used to be described positively as the melting pot of America bringing about acculturation and assimilation. Now, Wertheimer says it’s the effect of multiculturalism and the requirement to honor diversity, thus offering a political innuendo and a sociological narrative in less than a sentence. I can understand why Jews are against affirmative action since it works directly against our self interest. It’s a stretch to claim the desire for diversity is responsible for young Jews having non-Jewish friends.

I would agree with Wertheimer that liberal Judaism is too far to the left only in one respect. I agree that the Reform movement has had too great an identification with the left wing of the Democratic Party. No religious group should be totally committed to some secular political party no matter how congenial. The lesson I would draw is that each issue ought to be looked at separately and decided on its own merits. In some areas the Reform should end up on the radical anarchist and socialist left, on some they should be on the right. The Reform movement should stop asking "what would Hubert Humphrey and Adlai Stevenson have said?"

What I don’t like about Wertheimer’s views is that he takes the sad facts of assimilation and gives it a right-wing political twist. He concludes American Judaism is too spiritual and private, much too therapeutic and quest-oriented. Rabbis don’t speak enough of the everlasting covenant between God and the Jewish people, and talk much too much about universal moral concerns and the need for personal transcendence. We need more sermons about how the world hates us and Israel is beleaguered by enemies on all sides, and fewer sermons about Darfur and relief for the victims of Katrina. If Jews are to survive, there is no choice but to separate from non-Jewish America, become more tribal and forget about tikun haolam, and spirituality. (See my earlier discussion of austritt.)The entire article is an implicit plug for Conservative and Orthodox right-wing politics. It is an open attack against Reform Judaism and liberal secular Jews and their special ideas about social justice and global charity.

Chicken Little works both ways. There has been no shortage of rabbis for the last fifty years beating the drums on behalf of Zionism. Apparently the endless appeals to the dire situation in Israel are having diminishing marginal returns. If talking up how Jews are a people apart would stop assimilation there has been no shortage of that kind of rhetoric even in Reform temples over the years. It didn’t have the desired effect. Looking at the larger picture, large segments of Jewish life were already substantially secular already in Eastern Europe despite the absence of Reform and Conservatives. Charedim and religious Zionists were in the minority throughout Eastern Europe even before the First World War. The Jewish people were tribal enough in the 30’s 40’s and 50’s. Yet it is correct to say that the bulk of the assimilation that is currently driving intermarriage occurred during those decades. It is the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of people who were perhaps nominally religious but certainly ethnic and tribal that have intermarried. Myron Cohen never stopped anyone from marrying a shiksa.

It’s always tempting to project one’s faults onto the assimilated and the intermarried American Jews. Easy to rally the troops that way, and no one is going to complain. If you want to do something about this problem, you can’t substitute a few statistics and a right-wing political agenda for a detailed understanding of what assimilated Jews are actually feeling. An analysis that goes…if they weren’t liberal, if they were right wing conservative, if they were gush emunim supporters they would feel strongly about Israel, explains nothing. If they wore sheitlach and black hats, if they lived in a walled hermetically sealed ghetto…. but they don’t. What they might have been doesn’t explain why they are the way they are, or how to stop such Jews from continuing on their path.

There is no better way of understanding than asking the Jews who are walking away what they feel and believe. Wertheimer doesn’t care for this internal approach because he would then have to list all the complaints against Israel’s right wing politics and all the contempt for meaningless religious services. Some American Jews have tired of the hundred year tragic war that is being played out in Israel. I don’t think Wertheimer is keen on explaining to secular Peace Now types how Israel has had absolutely no choice but to build settlements for forty tears. Wertheimer knows better than most the quality of rabbis that have been produced by the liberal rabbinical establishment. I doubt if he wants to engage in debates on whether any of the blame is to be attributed to the seminaries and rabbinical organizations including JTS. Better to beat up on the assimilated and re-describe effects as causes than to internalize any responsibility inside the religious core. And what better way to do this than to do an Ann Coulter and make liberal sound Jewishly sinful. It makes no difference that making marginal Jews feel guilty is counterproductive. These ‘scientific’ sociological researches are really a way of reassuring the believers….you see, you sent your kids to Solomon Schecter, and they all married Jews.

I’ll end with an analogy. Make believe Jewland is like Portugal. Assuming no restrictions on immigation, why would people live in Portugal and not in America? There can be only two reasons. The first is life in Portugal is better. The second is that even if life in the United States is more promising, the transportation costs are too high, so that net-net you are no better off moving than staying at home. You cannot do anything at the margins of Jewland to increase the transportation costs. Increasing such costs only works in the space between Orthodoxy and the rest of Jewry. At the margin, people are assimilated already and fit easily into American society. Secession from America or from the world is not a real policy option. The only thing that can be done is to make the Jewish world a more attractive place to live. When it comes to the little puzzle how to make the Jewish space attractive to liberal and secular Jews all the Chicken Little apparatchiks don’t have a clue.

Postscript: Rabbi Maryles has written an essay (12/31/06) criticizing ideas I put out the other day on how to make Jewish life more vibrant in my post ‘Five Ideas for a More Jewish America’ (12/28). This new essay is in addition to and an elaboration of his comments to my original post. Readers interested in the topic will find his new essay stimulating. I have written and posted on his site a longish comment to his new article, and, of course, Rabbi Maryles has responded.

Sex Before Marriage

2006-12-31T08:49:00.000-06:00

Rabbi Maryles wrote an essay on Immorality in Western Culture (12/22/06). In the comments section I took issue with what he said. The following post is a reworking of some of my remarks on the narrower topic of immorality in the liberal Jewish world.

Socially conservative Orthodox Jews often feel that outside their walled city, America is experiencing a serious decline of morals. My feeling is there are many, many reasons why one ought to be Orthodox, but the fear that otherwise one’s children will become drug-addicted, sex-obsessed degenerates is not one of them. There are two reasons why I believe this. I don’t believe America is drug-addicted or sex-obsessed, and I don’t believe that children of liberal Jews end up in a bad way.

We first need a sort of clarifying point. Let’s say it’s true that no Orthodox child ever ended up taking heroin, and let’s say that a tenth of one percent of non-Orthodox children ended up heroin addicts, i.e. 5,000 addicts. Would that be a reason, in and of itself, to be Orthodox? I think not. A certain number of people die every year on a highway, we continue driving. A certain number of people die every year swimming in the ocean, or mountain climbing, or taking an airplane, or living in Chicago. Most people will not run away from these activities, because there is some slight danger. So, the argument from drugs, I think, can be dismissed straight out. The danger is too small, even if it is thousands of times larger than in Orthodoxy.

Let us now turn to the issue of sex. It is not true, in my opinion, that most non-frum kids are promiscuous or sex-obsessed. I believe what happens in general is this… Many if not most non-Orthodox Jewish people have or hope to have premarital sex. That is they meet, they date, they have sex, they move in together and they eventually split or get engaged. The full cycle is from 6 months to five years. The big problem in secular American Jewish life is that both young men and women can’t find suitable partners to begin the cycle. The typical marriage age is in the mid thirties which is a human and a Jewish tragedy.

Young singles may not even enter a relationship with the intent to marry, but they are not 'sleeping around'. They take a wait and see attitude towards marriage, but such behavior cannot be described as casual sex or promiscuous. The point may be something less than obvious to some. I remind everyone the meaning of promiscuous is having casual sexual relations frequently with a number of different partners; or having sex in an indiscriminate way and lacking standards of selection. The liberal Jewish kids are in violation of halacha for multiple reasons, the most serious being the woman are menstruating and are not going to the mikvah. They may not be acting properly according to senses of propriety and baalbatishkeit that were dominant in the past, and are still prevalent in Orthodoxy and other socially conservative Jewish circles. But they do have standards, even if they are newly developed standards, and there is a logic to their behavior. With a 50% divorce rate there is something to be said for people who for independent reasons do not feel bound by halacha, and are still finding themselves as individuals to try things out for a while and see how it goes.

I doubt if there is a serious attempt being made in liberal Jewish life to promote abstinence before marriage. It is accepted as natural part of the dating and marriage ritual. Even where there are intense feelings about abstinence, religion in general seems to have little impact on premarital sex. 80 percent of Americans are Christians, 90 percent believe in God, 70 percent pray regularly, and half attend church at least once a month. Evangelicals are one third of the population or 100 million. Roman Catholics are 60 million. Both preach abstinence and are conservative on social issues. More than 80% of the population has premarital sex. Preaching and teaching against sex without marriage, outside of Orthodoxy, is something of a beracha levatalaw, ( invoking God’s name in vain.)

People who believe the basic rule for sexual encounters in society is casual sex disassociated from feeling do not take into account the very real fears of AIDS and the many types of s.t.d.'s. Jewish kids in general are careful, do not get pregnant and take care of themselves in a responsible way. I can’t prove this, but I can offer anecdotal evidence. I have never, ever heard parents of non religious Jewish college kids voice any serious concerns about the dangers their children are facing in college and after. Having asserted that the dangers are not overwhelming, I acknowledge some young Jewish singles and some not so young singles act out and are promiscuous for a while. Nobody knows the percentages, but it is much, much more than in Orthodox life. Here the danger is not so low that it can be dismissed easily. To put a number on it, say 10-20 % are shall we say partying too intensely. Even here the behavior has to be put into a context. The average American kid has sex while still in high school. Jewish kids marry in their late 20's early 30's. They say the average age in the NYTimes only simchas pages is 32. They are not being promiscuous for 14 years straight. It doesn't go like that. People go through periods, people are different, and most everyone stops. Some don’t. They are for the most part guys, aspiring Don Juans These guys are indeed cads, do a fair amount of damage and frequently end up alone and depressed.

Orthodox Jews when confronted with a 10-20% chance their child might act out even for a short period of time find the possibility so horrendous they feel reconfirmed in their way of life. Liberal Jews, though hoping such an event never comes to pass are more understanding and accepting of the dangers of freedom. They consider the possibility of going off the beaten path, of stumbling and becoming confused part of the process of growing up as an autonomous free person. They feel you can’t both encourage children to think for themselves, develop their own unique personalities and creativity and guarantee there will never be any false steps. I would say the key difference between Orthodoxy and the rest of Jewish society, besides the obvious halacic considerations, is not the attitudes towards risk. Most galuth Jews are not gamblers and buy insurance. I think the main difference lies in the degree of perfectionism. It is less horrendous to a liberal Jew that their child is not firmly on the road to carrying out a coherent life plan. They have a greater tolerance for the false starts that frequently occur, the late adolescence, the lack of clarity or firm purpose, the need to experiment and find oneself throughout the life cycle. As in life, so in sex and marriage. Liberal Jews are more tolerant of grey, Orthodox Jews less so.

IMHO, from the little I know, the current scene isn’t ‘chassidish,’ but it is quite different from the sixties, which was wild and really immature. Political conservatives keep on talking about America as if everyone is today in the middle of Haight Ashberry in the summer of love. Vice and sin are everywhere. (We must keep in mind that liberal Jews are not part of the quasi permanent welfare underclass, where indeed there are many who lead chaotic lives) Why they feel the need to see America as sexually irresponsible and out of control is an interesting question that lends itself to different possible interpretations. For one thing, they might be right and I am the one who refuses to see the world as it really is. A person’s attitude to pre-marital sex is as good a test as any to find out where one stands on the liberal- conservative spectrum. I prefer to see the world as a friendly and safe place, full of opportunities and interesting possibilities for all Jews.

Five Ideas for a More Jewish America

2006-12-28T08:18:00.000-06:00

There are many rich Jews in America who would like to engage in a meaningful Jewish charity. At times it is difficult for them to know how to go about doing this. I want to make some suggestions. Since I am not involved in any institution and I’m not asking for any money, I feel I am somewhere on the road to being impartial. I believe that one of the big problems in American Judaism, outside New York, is that there is no place for Jews to meet. I’ll discuss this problem in terms of Chicago. But what is true of Chicago, is true in dozens and dozens of cities all across America.

A Jew who is not religious or does not attend synagogue on a regular basis can not rely on religious services to provide something of a Jewish social life. There are only a few alternatives. One can belong to a Jewish country club or one can belong to the Standard Club downtown. Both are rather expensive and, in the case of country clubs, it only works if you’re interested in golf and having frequent meals at the club. A non-davening Jew who is not interested in golf has a problem. The way the problem is solved is that people and couples meet one-on-one. Here’s the way it goes…you ask your wife, let’s say today, if she would like to go out with the So-and-So’s; she says yes. She calls. Mrs. So-and-so says, “Yes, Let me look in my daybook. I’ll be away for the holidays and then I’m booked for the first two Saturday nights in January. What about the Saturday night after that?” Twenty minutes later, after daybook meets daybook, they have penciled in March 12th.

The problem with young people is even more serious. How does a young man or woman in the city of Chicago meet someone their age that is Jewish? Even if one is willing to go to a bar and try one’s luck, there are, to the best of my knowledge, no Jewish bars on Rush Street or anywhere in the city. The Federations have funded, in a very generous way, the JCCs. As far as I can tell, these community centers are being used by children for swimming and by older women for mahjong and card games. Middle-aged people, between 18 and 78, fall through the rafters. The Federation having funded the JCCs is not about to cough up big bucks to solve this problem.

I propose a five-part solution:

Makor everywhere…Michael Steinhardt was onto something very important when he bought a building in mid-town Manhattan and dedicated the space solely to young people to meet, hang out, watch movies, etc. Makor has become an important part of the social lives of young single Jews in Manhattan. A similar project should be started in Chicago and across the country. It would be a great success. I estimate the cost at around 1-2 million plus annual expenses of around 100 thousand, maybe less depending on location. Some of the events could be self-funding. Creating such spaces nationwide is the single most important thing that can be done to help young Jewish people get married.

Coffee houses…Jews who would like to talk to other Jews have no place to meet. Coffee houses, even pubs are the solution. It is particularly important to have some such space for the western, southern and northwestern suburbs, where Jews are really isolated. The entire city can be covered with six-seven establishments. They would contain Jewish magazines, newspapers, some political and cultural events. There could be debates, discussions, readings, movies, etc. These places might run at a slight deficit but the total amount should not be a big number. If Starbucks can get rich, these places should be able to get close to breaking even.

Develop a Jewish mall… There is no shortage of iffy strip malls. A real estate person who has a penchant for good deeds should buy one and put in 10 Jewish retail spaces. A restaurant, a book store, and stores that are not so obvious, maybe one of the coffee houses mentioned above. Borough Park in a mall. I would get a secular restaurateur of some renown, to develop the restaurant. Let’s face it; Orthodox Jews should not be in the restaurant business. It should be kosher but not visibly so, thus attracting all segments of the population. In Chicago there are many places you can find a Talmud lecture. People love to shop. Try finding a pleasant Jewish shopping experience.

A restaurant downtown …Subsidize if necessary a good kosher business- restaurant downtown. Here again Jews need a space to meet. Jews around the country want to know they can travel to a city and find places to eat. The lack of such confidence keeps Jews close to home. Chicago’s Jewish life would benefit from more Jewish visitors.

Cultural events… Create a serious cultural events program similar to the 92nd street Y, but with a somewhat greater Jewish focus. The emphasis would be on the frequency and quality of events. The goal would be to get Jews out of their easy chairs for something worthwhile that isn’t a simcha or a fundraiser. Different synagogues and organizations sponsor events, but they are infrequent, uncoordinated and all too often uninteresting. One of the main problems with American Judaism is that it has a tendency to boredom. A dynamic cultural series requires planning and funding. If done right it could revitalize the Jewish life in a city.

I see that Skokie is building a Holocaust Museum at a cost of $42 million dollars. In L.A. the Wiesenthal Center raises hundreds of millions of dollars. YIVO, Yad Veshem, the History Museum in NY, the Holocaust Center in Washington all manage to raise large amounts of money to celebrate and remember dead Jews. It is easier to raise money for backward looking charities than for forward looking life affirming strategies. I do not even want to speculate why dead Jews are more popular with big donors than present and future of Jews.

There is so much to do. There is so much money out there. The world and even the Jewish world is awash with cash. Funding Jewish education requires hundreds of millions, maybe billions. ($ 10,000 per child x 12 years x 100,000 children =12 billion.) The projects I mentioned make a noticeable difference for a couple of million.

Why, with so many Jewish apparatchiks is there such an absence of utopian thinking? Why is American Jewish life both complacent and pessimistic? Everyone has their own answer. I attribute this triad of ‘everything is ok, nothing can be done, the future is grim’ to the wholesale abandonment of the utopian left by American Jews. The great grandfather might have been a socialist-anarchist. The grandfather was a FDR Democrat. The father was a Scoop Jackson Democrat. The son is a neo-con Republican. The grandchild dreams of Goldman Sachs.

Hannah and Martin

2006-12-27T08:39:00.000-06:00

In my last blog I used an idea from the philosopher Martin Heidegger to explain a feature of Orthodoxy. Heidegger was a full fledged Nazi, and was tried as a war criminal after the war. He was an academic and did not directly kill anyone; but he was a Nazi supporter from the beginning. He never recanted and continued defending the ideals of Nazism though not all the genocidal acts of the Hitler regime. If the reader thinks this use of Heidegger is inappropriate and perverse I can certainly understand such an objection. Nevertheless I ask the reader to consider the following:

Two of the greatest philosophers of Judaism in the last 50 years, by world if not internal Jewish standards are Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, both French Jews. They both became who they are through trying to understand where they disagree with Heidegger. He is already deeply embedded in contemporary secular Jewish philosophy. I know it is very strange and ironic.

Heidegger has entered Jewish life in an even stranger and more twisted way. Hannah Arendt when she was in her twenties was the lover of her university professor Martin Heidegger. The latter, afraid that his wife would discover the affair eventually broke with his Jewish mistress. Hannah Arendt went on to marry a Jew, got divorced, and then married a non-Jewish German communist. In the 30’s while living in France she worked on behalf of Jewish refugee causes. Arendt spoke on Heideggers behalf at his de-nazification hearings. The non-Jewish philosopher Karl Jaspers and Arendt’s second philosophical mentor spoke against Heidegger at these same hearings, suggesting he would have a detrimental influence on German students because of his powerful teaching.

When the Eichman trial came she was sent by the New Yorker as a correspondent, and her articles were published in book form under the title “Eichman in Jerusalem”. Hanna Arendt went on to have a long and distinguished career as a political philosopher. Besides her work on Eichman, Arendt published two other books on Jewish themes, one on Rachel Vahniger, a Jewish apostate salonieren in the Berlin of the 1790’s, and one on general themes of being a Jewish refugee and other topics.

When the Eichman book came out it caused a literary food fight the likes of which I have never seen before or since. She wrote mean and maybe unfair things about how Jews cooperated with Nazis in organizing the ghettos, how the Nazis would have murdered fewer Jews had the Jews not been so passive, the banality of evil and much more. She drew blood and the carnage was not pretty. In the end it was something of a stalemate. She was not discredited, but she did not score any victories.

What was not known at the time but is widely known today is that during this entire episode Arendt was writing to Heidegger. She visited him and his wife Elfriede throughout her lifetime. We now know that the Heideggers had an ‘open marriage’ with both parties having engaged in multiple affairs. Nevertheless Elfriede remained insanely jealous of Arendt throughout her life. Arendt wrote to Karl Jaspers and others long letters trying to get her hands around the problem of her philosophical indebtedness to a man who would have had her murdered. Most significant were her printed attempts to sanitize her ex lover and make his philosophy acceptable in the liberal democracies. It is fair to say that Hannah Arendt, knowing of her continued and past relationship with Heidegger should never have accepted the Eichman assignment. Had it been known at the time, her opponents would have buried her.

And it becomes even more interesting. An edited subset of the Heidegger- Arendt correspondence is available in German. There must be more important and in all likelihood embarrassing material in the sealed archives which will eventually come out. If you ask me, I am convinced Hanna never stopped loving Martin, and Martin never stopped loving Hannah. As the Valley girls are apt to say “it is so very, very weird”, a lifelong love affair between a beautiful Jewish woman from Koenigsberg and a Catholic Nazi from rural Messkirch. If it hadn’t happened no one could have thought this up.

Hannah Arendt is the most complex and subtle example of Jewish self hatred I have ever encountered.

Postscript…I showed this post to a friend and he wasn’t too happy with it. One point he makes … how do I know that Arendt’s behavior can’t be accounted for simply by her being in love. How do I know it is self hatred? My response it that we know from her other correspondence that she has very harsh comments and much contempt for the many Jews who were beneath her culturally. So we begin with someone who wasn’t exactly an ohaeiv yisroel (a lover of fellow Jews), who having been rejected by her lover who then becomes an active Nazi, spends formidable energy in rehabilitating his reputation. It sure looks to me as similar to the psychopathologies found in Sandor Gillman and Peter Gay.

I’ll close (lekaf zechus) with my friend’s question: Why blog negatively on Arendt's oddness, rather than amaze at it? What if she was the smartest Jewess ever?

Yekke Man, Galitzianer Man

2006-12-26T09:27:00.000-06:00

I have noticed on internet dating sites Orthodox people include in their self representations religious virtues and character traits, whereas secular Jewish people usually list common interests and activities (see my post 6/18). I want to know why this is so? Here’s my thought:

The Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger constructed the valuable abstract concept of dasein, the distinctive way a human being has of being in the world, his way of going through life, his relationship to his future & to his surroundings, the sort of human he is. Dasein is different from what is called a lifestyle. I dislike the term ‘lifestyle’. What is its antonym, a death style? Can you go through life without a lifestyle? Can you lose your lifestyle? I much prefer the term ‘dasein’, because the idea of lifestyle is usually spelled out in terms of activities, and the corresponding consumerism

There is a difference, a major one between the dasein of Orthodoxy and the rest of Judaism. There is no special way of being in the world as a Reform Jew. Whatever way a human is, his style, his sensibility, his personality, how he walks through life, is not in general essentially determined by his reformness. He’s a weasel or a macher, he’s anxious or not, depressed or happy or bipolar. Whatever he is, he is. Going to Temple does not affect how he is, though it might change his identity. The same is true for Conservatives and all the rest, except Ultra Orthodox. Modern Orthodoxy is generally the same as UO, but to the extent it is like all the rest, to that extent the Ultra Orthodox have a problem with it.

It’s easier to explain this concept via a concrete example. Imagine a human being is a movie star, say Humphrey Bogart. Going to temple will not affect his dasein in the world. If he enters as Bogart, sitting in some pew will not turn him into Cary Grant or even Edgar Bronfman. Not so Ultra Orthodoxy. A man starts out as Bogart, becomes a Satmar Chasid, yeshivish, a Breuer yekke, a Belzer chasid, whatever, provided it is Ultra Orthodox, he isn’t coming out as Bogart. He’ll come out as a Satmarer, a yeshiva Torah person, a Torah im derech eretz Orthodox, a Galitzianer chasid. Becoming a stripe of Ultra Orthodoxy changes your being-in-the-world, because in becoming Ultra Orthodox you discover how to be a member of your stripe, and that involves a change in your dasein. There are no special classes, no Reb Yoelish for Dummies, not at all. Nevertheless, hang in Satmar for a year or two, provided you have enough cultural capital to speak the languages and socialize, you’ll end up a Satmarer, you’ll slouch the way they slouch, you’ll talk the way they talk, the hat will be tilted the way they tilt. In time you’ll think the way they think, serve God in their distinctive way and so on. Eventually you’ll say things like ‘’those Zionists y’’ms(may they disappear from the face of the earth).’’ It’s magical. The religion gets to your kishkes; it shapes and informs the very being that you are.

For those familiar with Rabbi Solovetchik’s famous essay Halakhhic Man, I am saying there is not only a phenomenology of being a Brisker lamdan, there is also a distinct way of being a frum yekke , a galitzianer chasid and so on. There is Yekke Man, Galizianer Man, but no Reform Man. A talented and sensitive writer should be able to give a phenomenological account of what it is like to be a representative man of any one of these UO stripes.

Being UO is more like being a Hells Angel or a Chinese peasant or a member of the high British aristocracy, than say being a dentist, or a golfer. The attractiveness of the Orthodox way of life is not just that it is an off the rack set of rules how to act. It is first and foremost a way to be. It’s difficult to put into words, but a dasein, a way of being in the world is deeper, much deeper than a person’s identity, (in the sense of the term popularized by Erikson), or self, (in the Kohut sense of an arc of ambitions and ideals). Being Ultra Orthodox, results in a special way of being alive at a particular place and time. The study of Torah, the performance of rituals and prayer, and the multiple acts of personal charity changes the very way you go through life, and the way you are attached to this world.

I feel Reform and Conservative Judaism would be more successful if they could create and exhibit ideal types that people could internalize and use as an ideal, which in turn would bring about a distinctive way of being Conservative or being Reform. (See my post on Conservative Baseball Cards, 8/10.)

The Chances of Getting Married

2006-12-24T08:41:00.000-06:00

Secular and liberal Jews in America are disappearing for many reasons, one of them being they marry so late in life that there isn’t enough time to have many children. By age 35, 52 percent of Jewish men are unmarried and 36 percent of Jewish women are unmarried. The key is that when the little darlings decide it’s time to get married, they should find someone in a reasonable amount of time. I mean, if a kid doesn’t get serious until their late twenties and it takes them three to five years to find their bashert, plus two to four years of hanging out and living together before they are certain, we’re talking mid-to late-thirties. It is not easy to have twelve kinderlach when you start in your late thirties.

I came across a formidable study from MIT- Sloan that discusses the topic of mate preferences in online dating. You know JDate has arrived if the social scientists are trying to figure out how to game the system. The results are not breathtaking, yet there are some interesting ideas. The study was of 23,000 people spanning a number of dating sites. The authors were allowed access to the clicks, i.e. when one person clicked on some profile, and then were given access to the list of subsequent e-mails. So the statisticians have this large database when a click results in an e-mail. If you make the assumption that e-mails are correlated to marriage, you now have a large statistical sample of what makes somebody an attractive candidate for marriage. I will now list some results with comments.

1.) Men who indicate a preference for a less than serious relationship are contacted less often than men who are serious. Women are not affected by such indications and, in fact, if they’re looking for a casual relationship, they get 17% more first contact e-mails.
2.) Outcomes are strongly impacted by looks, with the results similar both for men and women. Height matters both for men and women but in opposite directions. Women like tall men, preferably in the 6’3-6’4 range, while the ideal height for women is in the 5’3-5’8 range. Taller women experience increasingly worse outcomes.
3.) The optimal BMI for men is 27. Such a BMI is considered slightly overweight. The optimal BMI for women is 17, which is considered underweight and corresponds with the figure of a supermodel. A woman with such a BMI receives 90% more first contact e-mails than a woman with a BMI of 25. The lesson is obvious, though the means of achieving these goals is of course difficult. I’ve already discussed this problem in detail in my “Zlata Wears Prada” post and I’m pleased to see my casual observations confirmed.
4.) Income strongly affects the success of men. Outcomes improve monotonically for income levels above $50,000. The success of women is at most marginally related to their income. Higher incomes do not appear to improve outcomes. (It would be interesting to know if this result is also true for Jews.)
5.) Occupation also influences success for men, but not for women. In fact, professional women have a slightly lower success rate. In the sample used in the study, the improvement in outcomes for men was 62% for lawyers, 45% for firemen, 38% for the military, and 35% for doctors. (Clearly, they were not sampling a predominantly Jewish population. To the best of my knowledge, Jewish women do not have a thing for firemen.)
6.) Women have a preference for men with equivalent education levels. Men with college or graduate degrees do not necessarily prefer women with a similar education level. Both educated men and women are avoided by those with only a high school education. (Since men are willing to marry women with less education, but women are not, the market isn’t going to clear for very educated women.)
7.) Women discriminate more strongly against members of different ethnicities than men. (See my blog of 10/06.)There is abundant ethnic group discrimination online. Blacks and Hispanics receive half as many first contacts from white women relative to white men, while Asian men receive fewer than 25% percent. (I believe the least popular group in America is Asian men.)

I’ll say what I learnt from this study. If you are a guy you should always present yourself as seriously searching for a mate, even if you’re only looking around. A girl should talk of having fun, her interests, etc. even if she is chalishing/dying to marry and have babies (#1).

Since search times are correlated with desirability, tall women, short guys and chubby everybody ought to start looking early. Having a personal trainer and going to a gym is not a luxury when it comes to a shiduch. (#2 & #3).

The real problem comes when a young woman has to decide on going to graduate school and working for an M.A. and/or doctorate. OTOH-OTOH. The world is such that women are discriminated against in the job market, and a masters and more is always helpful in overcoming these barriers. On the other hand, there is evidence that very educated women have a harder time finding mates. I find this fact one of the great injustices that women must endure. It’s outrageous that a woman is penalized for intelligence. I think, bottom line, most intelligent women refuse to accommodate themselves to this injustice, go on to acquire as much education as they want or need and let the shiduchim problem take care of itself. While I admire these women’s courage, I must say it is a cause of the lower than average birth rate of Jews.

Two final thoughts. Internet dating in particular share features of a winner take all phenomena. Imagine a woman who is in the second lowest quartile in terms of desirable features, such as looks, personality, etc. When there are so many desirable women ranked above her, why should she choose a guy in a similar rank and vice versa. There is every incentive to aim much higher, use a scatter gun approach and hope to get lucky. The learning curve is needlessly prolonged. Because of the number of opportunities available, it takes much longer to become realistic about one’s prospects. I think Rebbetzin Jungreis has achieved the success she has by making people in their thirties aware of these biases.

I read in the Sunday NY Times Magazine (12/13/06) that homophily is the new buzzword in social networks. We seem to have an inexorable tendency to link up with others in ways that confirm rather than test our core beliefs. The result is that people’s personal networks are homogeneous. In other words we like someone like ourselves online and off. Besides explaining why MO and UO tend to cluster in non-overlapping groups it is also a useful tool in finding a mate. One can cut down on search times by only looking for mates similar to oneself. There is a way of doubling up on this insight…look for someone who is similar to you in hating the same people. A second article in the magazine claimed we enjoy meeting people who dislike the same people. I don’t think I need to elaborate on this insight after I have written four posts on how austritt holds a community together.

Have I just written Jewish self help column? (See Thursday’s post.) I hope not. I think of it as more of a gaming column, similar to how to win at twenty-one in Las Vegas.

Orthodox Self Help Books

2006-12-21T08:44:00.000-06:00

I see there is something of a market in Orthodox Jewish self-help books. I am thinking of getting into the business, as a sideline of course. I wouldn’t give up my night job of writing a blog. First there are the advice books on how to date and find the right match. I’ve already dealt with some of these issues in my discussions of JDate. I could adapt my posts to a more lonely-hearts form. Second there are these books on how to have a good marriage. No problem there. I need some stories of bad marriages that I saved with my sound advice. Maybe I’ll attend a few lectures of Rebbetzin Jungreis. She must be selling some tapes. Rebbetzin Jungreis is for me a model of self help. She was already famous and popular when I was a teenager, and she looks better than ever. Then there are the standard self-help problems…feelings of failure, depression, anxiety, etc. I know how to say, ‘’Yes you can’’, ten different ways, and if necessary I could always use “Be satisfied with your lot.” I guess you need some stories, case histories and such. I can ask around and read some other self-help books. I know a psychiatrist who specializes in post-partum depression. I can always ring her up.

References from the Talmud are always good…I can handle the Torah side, especially since its Torah light. Over the years I’ve made it a point to study the history of musar (traditional pietistic and ethical discourses). There must be some decent quotes from the Alter of Somewhere or Other. I am not fond of Novardik, but Kelm works. I’ve always liked the parables of the Dubno Magid. No question I could get into this line of work.

I am teasing. I would rather eat cardboard than write the sort of stuff that is frequently found in Jewish self help books. Don’t get me wrong. I have an ongoing interest in musar. I hate self-help. I think it is pretty much of a racket. The biggest customers for a new self-help book are those who already bought a self-help book. You would think they were already helped. But noooo…when they finish the first self-help book, they find themselves in need of a booster-shot shortly thereafter. Self- help books are like diet books. The only thing diet books really accomplish is to motivate people to buy a second diet book. There’s something about self-administered medicines or cures that lead to a certain excess. People who take vitamins don’t gobble a few vitamins; they swallow handfuls of the stuff. Vitamins lead to more vitamins. Diets bring on more diets. Self-help books, even Orthodox Jewish ones, generate more self-help books.

In the case of self-help books, the reason is clear enough. I think of musar as having two goals, deepening a Jew’s love and fear of God, and shaping character. I think of self help books as dealing primarily with personality issues. (My criticism doesn’t apply to writers who have some practical knowledge on how to game a system such as useful tricks on how to do this or that; for example, how to fix a faucet or contest a parking ticket.) Character can be dealt with top down, maybe. You can hopefully train yourself to overcome sloth or gluttony. Personality changes generally need to come from the bottom up, where many of the impulses and motives are largely unconscious. A person who is looking to improve his mental/emotional state will find it very difficult to talk himself into the cure. It only occurs if there’s a structural change inside the person, which frequently only occurs if the person understand the aetiology and actually grasps what he is doing in a vivid, moving way. Let’s say a person is guarded and pinched with his emotions. Telling yourself to cut it out and be more expansive and warm frequently leads to a guarded pinched person with a smiley face. You have to know where this trait came from; you have to see how it works in your life. It’s a very slow process. Following a ten-step program frequently just doesn’t work. When psychotherapy is called for, self help acts at most as a palliative, not as a viable substitute.

One more thought on the topic of musar and self-help: I read a while back that some rabbi was talking at a Torah Umesorah Convention. He was trying to explain to teachers, rebees in yeshivas how to inspire their students to be more enthusiastic about learning. He starts on this rant about self-esteem and the importance of confidence…one shouldn’t tell the kid he’s a dummy or a retard no matter how slow the child is, you have to make him feel that he is about to become a chasheva bochur (distinguished student) with just a little more effort. I said to myself, who allowed this idea of self-esteem into Jewish life? Was there an Agudah convention I missed? I recently learnt some late 19th century musar books borrowed the idea of a self improvement ledger from Benjamin Franklin. An idea that comes from outside Jewish thought can be made Jewish if it lasts long enough inside Jewish circles. Self-esteem, however, even in its pop psychology version is borrowed from fairly recent developments in clinical psychology, and the abundant literature on narcissism. If you look in musar seforim (books), there’s all this talk about gaiveh (arrogance) and breaking of the self. Its humility and modesty and unpretentiousness we want. Egotism, pomposity, pretension all big no-no’s. Everyone knows the chassidish punch line: “The “I” (the ha’anochi) stands between you and God.” In self-esteem talk, we try to make the person feel more important and significant. We mirror the person, confirm and strengthen his self image. In musar discourses about humility, the goal is try to make the person feel unimportant and insignificant.

Imagine a rebee who told a kid, “You know what you’re like. You’re like a potsherd that breaks a shadow that passes a dream that flies away. You’re a nothing. You came from dust and you’ll return to dust.” He’d be fired the same day and sent to reebe rehab. Who allowed all this self-esteem talk into Jewish life? Why wasn’t the introduction of a totally new way of talking a halachic rabbinical question? I say the change from humility talk to self-esteem talk is a bigger change than most of the insignificant issues people keep on fighting about. It’s a revolutionary change in how we understand a human being. (See my posts 10/20/06-10/23/06). It came right into charedi life, unannounced, and now has the imprint of Artscroll and Feldheim.

I think the self-esteem case is an example of a new idea that is taken up in Jewish life because it’s the right idea at the right time. It was an idea that worked and was therefore adopted side by side with older more traditional ideas. If you ask a rabbi, what about humility, is that important? He’ll, of course, say yes. Ask him ten minutes later about self-esteem, he’ll also say yes. Is this a crisis? Do we need a Slifkin of musar to reconcile the two? How there can be two parallel contradictory discourses/languages, and whether or not there’s any need for integration is an interesting topic.

Becoming Not Frum

2006-12-20T08:45:00.000-06:00

The National Jewish Population Survey of 2001 reported that 20% of adult American Jews were raised Orthodox, but only 10% of adult American Jews currently identified as Orthodox. 17% of current Reform Jews were raised Orthodox. I have no idea exactly how to read these figures and I understand there are statistical problems involved in this study. It also might not be indicative of the situation today going forward. What is clear is that even today, with a much frumer population and with every step being taken to prevent anyone from dropping out, there are still a substantial number of Jews, especially young Jews in late adolescence and in their early twenties, who leave Orthodoxy.

There has been an ongoing discussion in Orthodox circles what to do about kids who don’t fit into the yeshiva system, most recently by Rabbi Maryles (11/26). There is a two lane highway into the walled city called Orthodoxy .The baal teshuvahs (repentants) are moving in; the skeptics and troubled youth are on their way out. Yeshivot are elite institutions with high standards, and are not made for everyone. Some kids are too dumb to excel. Some kids are smart but don’t excel in the topics the yeshivas teach. Some kids are just plain-out rebellious and high-spirited. Some, and I don’t think the numbers are large, were mistreated or molested by parents or someone in the community. Each of these groups requires special attention and special solutions. The common sense answer is to have many different institutions specializing in each of these different types of troubled young people with courses designed to speak to their strengths and, in turn, finding ways to keep them in the fold. Easy to say, hard to do. How to shape the curriculum and how to create such schools is an issue for educators and concerned parents, and not one I am really equipped to talk about.

I do have a few comments on the general issue. I feel that many times the most rebellious kids are amongst the best. Submission to authority is not always a virtue in a teenager, and breaking a kid, so that he toes the line, is not the best way to go. Sex and the very natural eagerness of adolescents to become involved in sexual activities must also be a factor. The philosopher Bertrand Russell, forever the wise guy, advocated allowing 12-13 year olds to have full sexual relations on the grounds that they would have the peace of mind to do mathematics. Teachers and counselors need some direction in how to deal with this issue. Being very strict might cause even greater rebellion. It requires a person who has above average emotional intelligence and some psychological training and aptitude to handle rebellious adolescents.

It might be a prejudice on my part, but I tend to believe that large and very large families have something to do with the problem. I simply don’t see how parents with eleven-thirteen kids can pay adequate attention to each child from birth through adolescence. I have two concerns in this regard. My suspicion is that children are raising children in some of these large families. I suspect some kids just fall between the rafters. I acknowledge I have seen many large and very large families where all the kids turned out great. My question is whether any significant correlation exists between troubled youth and larger families. My other question is whether there are any correlations between I.Q. scores and larger families? Even if a large component of I.Q. is genetic, there has to be some relationship between family environment, and in particular mother-child bonding in the first few years of life, and alertness and other cognitive skills. Does the size of a family make a difference? If the answer is yes, and I don’t know this, then having very large families is not a free lunch. It is not inconceivable that as we go forward, future generations of charedi youth will be less intelligent than their parents and grandparents.

The young people that leave Orthodoxy because of theological questions pose a different problem. In Israel, they call Jews who leave Orthodoxy chozerim be'she'alah (returning to a state of skepticism).Usually they are bright, educated, honest, and full of common sense. Rosh yeshivas and rabbis who have no college education or only a minimal amount are not fully equipped to talk to these people. In a free society, guilt and shame only go so far. I don’t even believe that the people who engage in kiruv (helping secular Jews become Orthodox) are well-equipped to deal with such people. The world looks very different to a potential baal teshuva looking in than to an f.f.b. (frum from birth) looking out. The talk has to be different or so it seems to me. You need people who can handle any theological challenge, and can also find a way to deal with the underlying emotions and feelings behind the challenge.

There is a third problem which interests no one. Suppose somebody actually leaves, walks away from Orthodox life and tries to establish life elsewhere in the Jewish spectrum. Many times such people are troubled both theologically and psychologically. They need a little extra help to get started in their ‘new’ life. They are certainly not going to get any help from the Orthodox group they left. And there is no evangelical kiruv movement on the part of Conservative or Reform Jews which could help these Orthodox refugees to become more integrated into liberal Jewish life. They are on their own. I read that in Israel, there are organizations that help the chozerim be'she'alah, but I know of no such groups in America. The problem is accentuated because, like bad marriages, each Jew who was Orthodox and has left is different. Orthodox tend to be somewhat more homogenous; skeptics are skeptical each in their own way, some more reserved and troubled, some ‘acting out’ like there is no tomorrow. It is difficult to create an apikorsim (heretics) minyan.

Finally, I have had a long standing disagreement with friends whether it is best for an emotionally/religiously troubled young person to go to an Orthodox psychotherapist or a secular psychotherapist. I am on the secular side of the debate, but it’s a long topic and not for today.

What is Modern Orthodox?

2006-12-19T08:20:00.000-06:00

I love the category Modern Orthodox. It‘s a guaranteed lifetime employment for bloggers. We can talk about the interface of MO and charedi life and MO and Conservative forever and then some. After we decide on how to define the end points we can go on to discuss its essence, what it really is and what it really means. And what’s so great about the topic is everyone on either side of the divides is a maven. Not only is the category systemically misleading it depends on how it is said. When you look at the self representations they are clear enough. It’s the more formal definitions that have proven difficult. Here are some ideas what it is to be MO that are said by actual people:

It means someone who keeps all the mitzvot and loves Torah but goes to the movies, perhaps owns a TV.

Mizrachi, love of Israel, less ritualistic, no hypocrisy.

Take mitzvot seriously and do my best. I believe in the keddusha (holiness)of medinat yisrael (State of Israel) and believe that a secular education is an asset in appreciating Hashem's world.

The formal definitions are even more high brow and ideological. I myself believe the name Modern Orthodox and its various subdivisions are way too pop-sociological, theory laden and lead to endless confusion. (See as an example the Hirhurim post here, with close to 700 comments, and the ur-text in the Jewish Press here.) I think it is high time somebody returned to the circle of terms in everyday use. If you look at everyday discourse, at least in many circles, the terms that are actually used are neither the ideological beliefs that separate Modern Orthodoxy from Ultra Orthodoxy or the categories used on dating sites or on blogs. In my view, ordinary people (i.e. non-sociologists, non-bloggers, and non- internet daters) are looking at marginal, but symbolic, activities that tend to be good indicators of piety and fun. Too much piety is usually as unacceptable as too much levity. If your moniker is MO, you’re neither a total ascetic saint nor a party animal. All the other terms are used to fine tune that spread.

I would like to define the various terms in the sense of explaining them and offering more (my) plausible plain talk substitutions. Here are some terms and my suggested substitute words which I would like to see used:

MODERN Orthodox = Halachic laxness or compromise with halacha to suit oneself and the pace of modern society. I would substitute ‘You call THAT Orthodox ?’ If that label is a mouthful, maybe, ‘‘Shakes hands with women’’ or ‘Eats hot- milchig out Orthodox’. I’ll go with 'Eats fish out Orthodox'.

Modern ORTHODOX = Keeping up with the times Orthodox. Very confusing since everyone integrates advances in the world with halacha. I prefer ‘With It Orthodox’ or as a friend of mine calls ‘Vit It Orthodox’ as in ‘He’s very much vit it.’

My 'being vit it' condition is to be compared with Rabbi Student’s formulation: ''You approve of exploring some or much of general culture in order to find beauty and meaning in it.'' I find the latter condition much too high minded and not at all what people are thinking. They mean stuff like going to the movies and knowing where there is a decent jazz club or not feeling very uncomfortable in a singles bar. Beauty and meaning is much too stringent and would preclude middle and low brow people from being MO.

MO Machmir = Strict adherence to Halacha and stricter than other legitimate opinions, but still vit it. I find what is a chumra (overly strict) and what not confusing. Is the base line Reb Moshe or the Chazon Ish ? Much too difficult. How about ‘a little bit fachnukt (fanatic)’ or ‘moderately farshvantzevatit (religiously extremist?)’? OK, maybe not. I prefer ''Shomer negiah (no touching opposite sex until marriage) farfrumt (overly, very frum) but vit it Orthodox.'' Chuck the modern; who are we kidding?

MO Liberal… 'Liberal' is a bad choice and should be confined to Orthodox who are on the left wing of the Democratic Party as in ''Can you believe it he’s Orthodox and a liberal. What they won’t think up next?''. I would like to call it 'Old fashioned MO before everyone lost their marbles'. Too many words. What about ‘Young Israel MO?’ Won’t do since using the reference Young Israel shows a very unvit it and somewhat older person. I would go with Edah MO, or YCT Modern Orthodox, but the term would be meaningless to the Israeli branch of MO. In Israel we have to call it ‘Shira Chadashaw Orthodox’ or maybe ’Hartmanesque Orthodox’. My replacement is ''Vit it but not farfrumt.''

We really don’t need the neologisms ‘RIGHT wing’ and ‘LEFT Wing’ which requires everyone to remember how the parties were seated in the French Assembly. Besides, the association of the right with the monarchists and fascists and the left with libertarians and communists makes everyone unhappy.

My categories work so much better than the older terms. The shadchenta suggests a bochur. She knows the family is MO, and says, ‘Very fine boy, college graduate, on his way to becoming a perodontist. Wonderful family. OK, I admit a little challenged in the height department, but a very sweet guy’. The family armed with my terms counterattacks…''You say MO, tell us how vit it is he? Looking down people’s throats might make him a few shekels, but our daughter is very modern, and she won’t take a farchnukte, farfrumt guy.'' ''No, no,'' says the shadchente, ''He’s very vit it. He goes to plays, movies, the works.'' Our family can now come back with a pinpoint second strike. ''Broadway or Off Broadway, studio or indies. Our Pesha Kimberly wants only a guy who likes indy films.'' The shadchante recovers, but barely. ‘’I promise, he chalishes for indy films. When he’s not working on teeth, he’s at Sundance waiting for the festival.'' The family sees through the ruse. ''No, no, no'' they say, ''this bochur won’t do at all. Our daughter is, in the end, a heimish girl. Hanging around Sundance, gutenu…you call that Orthodox? Next thing you are going to tell us he air kisses movie stars. In our family we draw the line …eating fish out, not so aye,yai yai, but we understand. Kiss, kiss definitely not. Maybe at YCT its ok, but our daughter wants someone more farfrumt than those YCT guys.’’

Have I solved the problem or what?

Not So Frum Orthodox

2006-12-17T08:30:00.000-06:00

I want to describe a type of Modern Orthodox that used to be very popular but doesn’t get much attention these days; a group that I call, for lack of a better term, Not So Frum Orthodox (NSFO). In the fifties of the last century, Modern Orthodoxy was more or less synonymous with this kind of Jew. In more recent times, because of the criticism from charedim and the efforts of the sincere and self-conscious religious elements at Yeshiva University, this type had gone underground, and to some extent, disappeared from the ranks of Orthodoxy.

In the fifties, the way it went was that if a person davened in an Orthodox shul, he was Orthodox; if he davened in a Conservative shul, he was Conservative, and so on. Not only did NSFO daven in an Orthodox shul with a mechitza (divider between men and women), they refused to daven in a Conservative shul, again because they were Orthodox. They kept kosher and shabbus in a global sort of way, without particular attention to the halachic details. In the case of kosher, they did not hesitate for a minute to eat everything but meat and treif food in non-kosher restaurants. If someone told them that halachically this wasn’t the way to go, it would have little effect. To them, kosher meant to eat kosher food, which meant not eating visible treif (non-kosher). At home, they had four sets of dishes. (Meat , milk, and again for Passover) Outside, they would be happy to go to a cheese and wine bar, except there weren’t any in the fifties. In the case of shabbus, they had no hesitation carrying their keys and a handkerchief, but not a wallet, on shabbus even in places where there was no eruv. For all I know, they occasionally turned on a light on shabbus. But unlike their Conservative counterparts, they never violated the halachic laws of shabbus openly and in public. They would generally not drive on shabbus, for example, whereas, Conservative Jews have no hesitation to drive their cars into the parking lot of the synagogue when they attended services. Conservative Jews relied on the ruling of the Conservative rabbinate permitting them, if necessary, to drive to the synagogue on shabbus. Even when an NSFO drove on shabbus to shul, and a few actually did, they would park the car blocks away and walk to shul. It wasn’t just because they were ashamed of breaking the law. They thought it was respectful of the synagogue and of shabbus itself to keep their violation of the laws of shabbus hidden, private and away from public view.

In some ways being an NSFO versus a Reform Jew is similar to the difference between a liar and a bulls****er. As Harry Frankfurt has argued in his famous book, “On Bullshit,” the difference between the two is that a liar knows what the truth is and deliberately tells a falsehood, whereas the latter has lost the concept of truth. He’ll say anything to make his case. NSFO’s recognize the sovereignty of halacha, they just don’t want to keep all of it. A Reform Jew refuses to recognize halacha as normative. In Reform Judaism, the extent of religious rituals and traditions is largely an autonomous decision. The two concepts are very different even if in some respect, their behaviors are similar. The connections between NSFOs and Conservative Jews are complex because Conservative Jewry is in flux and tends to exhibit permanent disconnects between its theory and practice. Here too Harry Frankfort’s book is relevant.

Many of the issues that are front and center in contemporary Modern Orthodoxy are foreign to the sensibility of the NSFO’s. Since in general they were not intellectual or didn’t intellectualize their Judaism, they had no opinions whether academic methods are relevant to the study of the Bible and the Talmud. Nor were they particular feminist and concerned with greater participation of women in Orthodox religious life. Most importantly they didn’t emphasize the Modern part of Modern Orthodox. In the fifties, many were Europeans who barely spoke English. They had no great concern with being involved in secular culture. The only thing they “knew” that was “modern” was that Chasidim, with their eighteenth century dress, were off their rockers.

I’ll sum this up by saying Not So Frum Orthodox Jews are Jews who happen to be Orthodox. They were born Orthodox, they are comfortable in the world of Orthodoxy, they wouldn’t dream of being anything else but Orthodox, but they are not ABOUT being Orthodox. Contemporary Modern Orthodoxy, at least in its self-conscious version, is ABOUT being Orthodox. A self-conscious MO would never allow anyone to say of him that he is anything less than halachically observant. An NSFO couldn’t care less. He is not about defending himself from charedim, he is not self-conscious, he’s not trying to prove anything. He goes to shul, keeps shabbus, keeps kosher, and goes about his life.

Today these NSFO Jews have no obvious home. They don’t belong in a Conservative movement; they are not entirely comfortable in the Orthodox world.

Patrilineal Descent and Me

2006-12-14T08:08:00.000-06:00

Since I’ve been talking of late about Reform Judaism I thought I would tell the story of the minute in my life when I had an infinitesimal chance of preventing the Reform rule concerning patrilineal descent.

I was invited to this cocktail party that was given by my friend and his wife. My friend calls up and says he would love for me to come. I will know many of the invited guests, and he also invited his rabbi. By the way, he can’t handle them all. Would I do him a favor and talk to the rabbi? I agree. I come to the party. It’s a ritzy affair. There’s the rabbi. We talk, nice enough guy; and before long he tells me the following: “You know, I am very busy these days. I am the principle author of the proposed legislation on patrilineal descent at the forthcoming Reform Rabbinical Convention.” I say, “Come again?” And he says, “Yes, I am writing the legislation. I have to consult with my colleagues, but it looks to me it’s finally going to happen.”

At the time, the issue had already been discussed at some length in the Jewish newspapers and I had formed a very strong and almost violent opinion against patrilineal descent. The issues are well known and I don’t have to go over them at this point. So, when he tells me this, in my mind I start shouting, “Yes! Yes!” and I am beside myself with excitement. OTOH-OTOH. Part of me wants to take this guy into the bedroom and strangle him, thus postponing the issue of patrilineal descent for at least a year. I hear the voice of my parents, “We didn’t raise you to go around murdering Reform rabbis. We are baalabatish people. Just think how this will look to the community.” I see the headlines in the newspaper---‘’RABBI MURDERED IN LAKESHORE CONDO…PATRILINEAL DESCENT SUSPECTED MOTIVE.” The more rational part of me realizes I have to speak nicely to this rabbi if I am to have any hope of influencing him even in the slightest way. I have less than 15 seconds to decide what I am going to do.

I begin to panic and out comes this totally stupid sentence. I say to the man, “It’s an honor to meet somebody like you. After all you’re going to go down in history as the man responsible for splitting the Jewish people into two. What can I say? I am so very excited to meet you. It’s almost as good as meeting Cher.” In those days, Sonny and Cher were very big. The moment I said that, I realized I had said something really dumb. It came out this way because I was rowing as fast as I could to reconcile two competing impulses. The rabbi pulls back, shocked that anyone would tell him something as dumb as my remark. I work hard to try to make up for it, I get the conversation back on track, but I had blown my chance of having any influence however small.

Nevertheless, he was eager to talk and he told me a story which I remember until today. He said, “When I was a rabbi in rural Michigan, 80% of my congregants had one parent that wasn’t Jewish, Almost no one in my temple lost any relatives in the Holocaust or had any family involvement in European Jewish history. They have no clue what the word yiddishkeit means. How was I supposed to be an effective rabbi? Should I have told a third of my congregation to leave because they didn’t have the right parent that was Jewish? And in any event, if I had converted all those whose father was Jewish but not their mother, what difference would it have made? Nobody recognizes my conversions anyway. The Orthodox and the Conservatives think of me as the enemy, and the State of Israel is in their pocket.” The rabbi had a point.

I believe today, so many years after this historical legislation, despite all the pessimistic forecasts, not too much has happened. It is true that by allowing for patrilineal descent the Reform eliminated a barrier to intermarriage. When a non-Jewish woman doesn’t want to convert and the man or his parents want his children to be Jews, patrilineal descent is a useful doctrine. The same doctrine can be used in a positive way to keep the family inside Reform Judaism. Otherwise there is no small danger of the entire family winding up in a church. In order to say something definitive there is a need for some serious statistical studies. I am ignorant of the social science literature on this topic. If any reader knows of any studies that attempt to measure the total consequences of patrilineal descent please write a comment.

A major practical change that has already occurred is that the Israeli Chief Rabbinate now assumes a Reform Jew is of patrilineal descent and will not perform as matter of course a marriage ceremony. I do not know whether such a presumption can be defeated, and if the testimony of the applicant’s Reform rabbi would make any difference.

Orthodox and Conservatives do not recognize the child of a Reform woman convert as a Jew. A child of a gentile mother and a Jewish father is also not considered a Jew. As the number of children of converts and of patrilineal descent grows we are quickly becoming a people with two distinct subgroups that can not easily intermarry. I would expect eventually a Reform Jewish person of matrilineal descent who wants to marry in an Orthodox ceremony without any proof of lineage even in the US will be required to undergo the same rituals as a convert. Because so many Reform Jews will be converts or of patrilineal descent, the Orthodox rabbis will fear the worst and feel forced to assume the person in question is Jewish via patrilineal descent.

The status of Jews of patrilineal descent with respect to the Law of Return was and remains a problem. There are new developments in the works and the Israeli Supreme Court is expected to issue some new rulings. Details can be found here. Symbolically the ‘’Who is a Jew’’ issue means a great deal to Reform community and their fight to keep intermarried families inside Jewish life. In practice the number of people involved is small.

What remains important for me in what the rabbi told me those many years ago is this: the rabbi’s congregation in rural Michigan is still out there, thinking of themselves as Jews and, in many instances, raising children who are looking to marry other Jews, including Jews of matrilineal descent. These children who will go on to marry Jews of matrilineal descent will create a new generation of Jews of matrilineal descent and a new generation of Jews of patrilineal descent roughly in equal numbers. They need and want rabbis and temples to provide pastoral care, moral inspiration, and assistance in celebrating life cycle events. Their numbers are huge and growing.

I remain undecided how to think about the many non-Jews who have married Jews and the offspring of such unions. There are a variety of cases each with a particular halachic configuration combined with different degrees of Jewish identification. Is there a principled way of deciding how efforts to maintain Jewish continuity be understood? Should it be a triage approach where resources are channeled to the most marginal of Jews or should our efforts be confined only to core Jews and traditional Jewish life, especially when resources are so limited? My gut feeling is that it is always a mistake to walk away from any person who self identifies as a Jew irrespective of halachic status. The difficulty is that intuitions are often poor guidelines for public policy.

The Agudah

2006-12-13T08:24:00.000-06:00

Now that every Jewish blogger and his cousin is piling on the Agudah (here,12/08-12/12) because they were so dense and so full of themselves at their last convention, and have their fingers, if not their hand, in the Kolko affair, I thought it would be a good idea to say some nice things about the Agudah. Like, how wonderful they were and such.

When one talks about the post-World War II Agudah, one can not speak of it in isolation of the American yeshivoth that supported the Agudah. Not every rosh yeshiva was active in the Agudah but many were, and those that weren’t were not opposed; they just weren’t active. The yeshivoth, especially the elementary schools, sent their students to Pirchei, the youth movement of the Agudah, and its camp, sensibly enough called Camp Agudah.

Torah Vodaath, Chaim Berlin, Mir …all the famous strict Orthodox yeshivoth were inextricably tied to the Agudah and vice versa. So, to accuse the Agudah as being a retard organization is also to criticize the entire way of life to which it was tied. Let me mention some of the practices that are part of a large complex that went to make up charedi life. 1). Bais Yakov schools and the camps associated with these girl schools were run by married women , whose husbands came from these famous yeshivoth, and who frequently belonged to the women's branch of the Agudah in their youth. 2).The endless shiduchim between bais yakov girls and yeshiva guys created families whose children went on to go to Agudah style camps and the many yeshivoth and girl schools that were close to the Agudah. 3). The friendships that came from knowing people in the different yeshivoth created a pattern of being tied into a charedi world that was only reinforced by the social experiences in camp and the experiences of hanging out in the Agudah shuls and the like.Similarly for women. If you grew up in that world ,you didn’t know everyone, but if you were at all social you knew ‘’almost everyone’’ 4.) The Agudah, together with the yeshivoth, provided an ideology and a hashkafah (outlook) about the Jewish world. When bloggers say the Agudah's leadership ought to issue a rabbinical ruling saying it should disappear they don’t realize that it’s not a question of the particular organization, but of an outlook that is to the left of Satmar and to the right of Mizrachi. An entire generation of people was raised on a political outlook that is less pro-Zionist than the outlook of the religious Zionists. If the Agudah were to disappear, there would be another organization just like it to fulfill this political ideological function. 5.) It provided, together with the yeshivoth, a way of identifying with European Jewry both chassidish and litvish. If it weren’t for the double punch of the Agudah and these great yeshivoth, American kids would never have dreamt of carrying on the way of life destroyed in Europe by the Holocaust. It was a thread of continuity that was very important for everyone until today. The Agudah is one of the institutions that was and is constitutive of charedi life.

I want to close with an extended analogy. If we are old enough, we know firsthand there comes a time when parents need a child’s care. Many times elderly parents become angry and difficult to deal with. Barring certain extreme circumstances, when parents were good enough and cared for the child, there is an absolute obligation on the part of the child to care for the parents. There is no obligation to care for the parents in the exact way the parents want to be cared for, because sometimes the parents are totally unreasonable as to what they believe they need. But there is an absolute obligation to guarantee the parents are not in need and are properly attended to when they can no longer take care of themselves. We have this obligation because we have a debt of gratitude, which we must repay. They enabled us to become functioning adults, and we must now recognize the good they did for us, even when they are mean and impossible. Since the demands of filial gratitude can only be discharged through love, then even when it’s impossible for one reason or another to love an aging parent, we have to pretend to be the kind of person who can fulfill the duty, in the hope that acting as if we love, will help us, in due course, really love as we should. Sometimes by wearing a mask, we grow to become the mask

In the same way, people who grew up in the charedi way of life, and benefited from the culture, the yeshivoth, and, yes, the Agudah as well, have a debt of gratitude to these institutions even if they’ve fallen on hard times, even if they have become impossible. The Agudah wants us to believe that despite the corruption that seems to have grown around the Kolko affair, they are innocent, pure and their preachers worthy of telling us how to think. Many of us believe the Kolko affair shows that, when it comes to questions of courage and morality, some of the rabbis in the charedi world are more than a bit challenged. Nevertheless, it is the duty of people who have benefited from the Agudah, who have grown up in its shadow, to help it now that it is no longer exactly fit to take care of itself. And we have this obligation, even though part of us says that the Rabbi Wachsmans and Rabbi Solomons of the world are in no position to presume to preach to all of Judiasm. Charedim have a duty, I feel, to act as if the Agudah is the Agudah of old, and to treat it with the respect and love that it deserved in previous generations. At the same time, one cannot allow unreasonable demands to prevail. No rational person is going to allow Rabbi Solomon to decide how to handle predator cases, and no sane person should be reassured when he says, “Leave it to us.” It is obvious at least to the blogging community that charedi rabbis are generally ill suited to investigate other rabbis. I feel it is incumbent upon the charedi and in particular the Agudah baalibatim (laity) to take hold of the situation, put the proper controls into effect, stop the Agudah from joining the Catholic church and lobbying against the necessary legislation, and do whatever it takes to guarantee that the problem of predators attacking children is solved. And while they’re at it, they should take steps to solve the problem of strict Orthodox rabbis who hit on innocent women. These issues are too important to leave to the American gedolim, who actually are, at this point, shamed, paralyzed, and ineffective. Once this goal is accomplished the baalibatim should thank the gedolim for their guidance.

It is true that many lay people left the predator issues to be dealt with by the rabbis. The reason was they trusted the rabbis. The lay people believed the rabbis were of great integrity. Most every Jew believes his rabbi is a man of integrity and trustworthy. It might be true that Daas Torah has something to do with the trust, but it certainly was not totally responsible. Charedim are very close to their rabbis, idealize them naturally, and believe the rabbis seek their good.

Autocratic Jewish Leadership

2006-12-11T09:41:00.000-06:00

(continued from previous post)

There’s a second way of allowing people to have a greater voice in Jewish affairs that would not require competitive campaigns for the Board of Directors of the Federation. It would not be very difficult to send each and every donor to the Federation a list of all the charities, a full description of their mission and what percent of the total funds each charity will receive. If a donor is not in agreement with the proposed distribution, he could indicate together with his contribution how he would like HIS money to be divided. Thus, if someone doesn’t want any money to go to Israel, he would reallocate the money to American charities. In the old days, this was considered a big problem because who would be able to keep track of all the small contributions to each individual charity; however with computers, there is no problem.

The reason why such a proposal is not being implemented is that neither the charities themselves nor the directors and Federation officials are in favor. The Federation apparatchiks don’t like any proposal that would take away their power and return it to the donors. The recipients of the funds do not want to gamble on how much money, if any, they will get from the Federation. Nevertheless, a proposal that would return the right to allocate money to the individual has a great deal to be said in its favor. Just as we do not allow bureaucrats to decide how consumers should allocate their funds between various consumer items, we should not allow it in this situation either. Is there any reason to believe that some director knows better how much money should go to the Bureau of Jewish Education versus the Solomon Schecter Day School? Has he thought through all the implications of a marginal dollar being spent on one charity rather than another? We know from markets, the more people that express an opinion the better chance of getting a more optimal allocation.

The proposal of allowing everyone to decide for themselves is not fully democratic because people who do not give any money will have nothing to say, and rich people will have greater influence than poor people, a point that should make all those who are afraid of direct democracy happy. Yet, it is better than the situation we have now where nobody has anything to say except for the dozen people on the board. The argument that many people have no opinion how to allocate the money can be spoken to by including a suggested allocation that the board of the Federation would recommend. You still would retain the great advantage of UJC charities…a donor can write one check and thereby donate money to fifty plus institutions.

The situation with the Federation is indicative of a larger problem in American Jewish life; to wit it is not democratic. Each of the twenty four leading Jewish organizations is run by a small coterie of individuals, frequently just one person who is more or less an autocrat. Take the ADL. Whenever Mr. Foxman wants to say something, he says it. He doesn’t consult with the total membership. If you don’t like what Foxman says, you have to get rid of him, which is not so easy to do; some say impossible. All these organizations are self-important and purport to represent the Jewish people in America. Someone like me who takes an interest in Jewish life would be hard-pressed to name half of these twenty-four leading Jewish organizations. And in any event, these organizations do not represent me since they never asked my opinion about anything and I frequently disagree with what they are doing. I certainly don’t feel, for example, that the Hadassah, charitable as it may be, represents my views on the Jewish issues of the day. Similarly, Morton Klein of the ZOA, who is frequently on the extreme right of Israeli politics, can not be said to represent the American Jewish community, and certainly not moi. If you take twenty-four of these non-representative organizations and you put them together into a new organization called the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, it is not obvious that you end up with an organization representative of American Jews. Yet the Conference together with the so called World Jewish Congress purports to speak for every Jew. No one ever voted for Malcolm Hoenlein or Edgar Bronfman to be Kings of the Jews. Very odd, very shtetl-like…rabbis and machers…machers and rabbis.

Two examples of how the undemocratic nature of Jewish organizations leads to problems. The Claims Conference is responsible for distributing billions of dollars to Holocaust victims. It was established in 1952 and to this day, members of the Jewish organizations that were dominant in the 1950s sit on the board of directors. A critical article in Haaretz charged that “The Claims Conference does not make public information about the amount of property in its hands and about the amount of income that is expected to come in during the coming years. The elder wheeler-dealers who sit on the board of directors take care to direct allocations to organizations that are close to them politically. There is justice in the Israeli charges that the organization is being run like a Jewish shtetl that has not yet heard about the establishment of the state.” Why are a bunch of self-appointed elderly Jews, with no responsibility to the general public or to the State of Israel, allowed to wield such power? I want to suggest that it’s part of the general culture of how many of these Jewish organizations are run.

A new disagreement is developing inside the Federations as to how much money should be allocated to help Jewish people who have intermarried remain Jewish. It’s a complicated issue. There is no simple principle to decide how much money should be spent to influence marginal Jews in their religious practices. In the absence of a principle that would be generally recognized, I don’t see any way of solving the problem in a reasonable way other than allowing the donors themselves to decide. What I think will happen is that the idea will get a hearing and, in order to avoid a big ruckus, a small amount of money will be allocated, which will do a small amount of good allowing the big problem of what happens to intermarried Jews to remain unsolved.

It is absolutely incredible that a Jewish community that donates $800 million a year to the Federations plus at least twice that amount to other Jewish charities in the attempt to keep itself intact has had such miserable results. My view is that the centralized, decision making process that is utilized in allocating the funds and the autocratic nature of the Jewish leadership are two of the culprits.

The Federation Campaigns

2006-12-10T09:19:00.000-06:00

For many years now I have been very unhappy with the way UJC( United Jewish Communities) /Federations are organized and the way they distribute the money they collect. My difficulties are both procedural and substantive. First, the procedural. The local Federation puts up a slate of candidates each year, which have been hand-picked by the existing board and the professional staff. If somebody wants to run a competitive slate because they disagree with whatever, it is almost impossible to win. If you get enough signatures, I imagine you can have the alternative slate included in the mailing, but there’s almost no way for an alternative slate to get the message out to the community without spending mega bucks on general newspaper and television ads. The upshot of this is that there is no competition for seats on the board of directors. When there’s no competition, it’s all very cozy. There aren’t too many disagreements, but then again, there aren’t too many new ideas. It’s steady as you go.

There’s an additional difficulty in challenging the status quo. There’s no guarantee that the old guard, who are major contributors, will not pick up their marbles and go home. No responsible person wants to destroy this magnificent fundraising mechanism that has been built up over so many years. Yet, there’s something really undemocratic when the organization is run by very rich people and their friends. JUF could be a primary vehicle for Jews to participate actively in their own communities. If there was competition with different ideas and approaches, and if voting meant something, people would be involved emotionally and intellectually. The process would stimulate debates and discussions. There would be a genuine election with all the excitement and interest that such an election generally stimulates. Instead, what we have is a yawn, if that.

My substantive disagreement is this…the way the system seems to work is there are all these organizations receiving a certain amount of money. All the directors decide is how to make slight changes at the margin depending on the money raised and other special conditions. So, if the Bureau of Helping Jews Who Have Trouble Making Their Condo Payments gets $200,000 every year, they will get $200,000 next year, plus or minus $20,000, depending on how they make their pitch, etc. When a new organization comes along with a good cause, they get added to the rolls and they, too, get a few dollars. The money is dissipated amongst many different organizations each with their own bureaucracy, each doing a little bit of good, each with a friend in high places. Very few of these organizations have any chance of making a big impact because their funding is limited. At the same time, they always get enough to keep on going, so they never fold. I believe it is preferable to fund a few organizations in a robust way than to subsidize many organizations in a marginal way.

I also object to giving 40-50% of the money raised to Israel. The danger to Jewish life in America right now is much greater than in Israel. We have an intermarriage of 50%, and liberal Jewry will effectively disappear way before the next century rolls around. It’s a triage situation. There isn’t enough money left over for America, once you give 40-50% to Israel. At present, the amount of money allocated to Jewish education, and what is euphemistically called The Jewish Future, will not have a sufficient impact to change the general direction of American Jewish life. The money spent on Israel can be used more effectively in America. Israel has a GNP of $157 billion as of 2005. A few hundred million is not going to make a big difference. The same money can make an enormous difference for Jewish education and in reducing the intermarriage rate. The only reason you wouldn’t choose America, where the danger of Jewish extinction is clearly greater, is that you have given up and written off the American Jewish community. I’m sure many Israelis feel that way. They feel they should try to get as much money from the American Jewish community while the going is good, but there is no long-term hope for any liberal Jewish community outside of Israel.

In America, in the last decade, 500,000+ Jews left Jewish life and began going to church. It is not inconceivable that two-three million Jews, even going forward, will leave Jewish life. From a people point of view, valuing each Jew equally, there’s a greater, and more certain, danger in America for the extinction of Jewish people than in Israel. In many a G.A. meeting there was the near total absence of anything having to do with the American Jewish life. Entire conferences were built around Israel. Israel in trouble is an established winning fundraising theme. Telling these same machers that their own friends and family are in trouble because of the danger of intermarriage is apparently a sure-fire way to reduce donations.

In the future I hope this will change. I feel the core theological and political focus ought to be the Jewish people, which would place the entire Jewish people at the center, rather than the State of Israel. The new emphasis would provide a basis for greater investments in local Jewish education, welfare and community development.

To be continued

Are Liberal Jews Necessary?

2006-12-07T09:13:00.000-06:00

(continued from the last post)

I want to address A Yid directly since much of what he wrote is not so uncommon, and yet in its own way very shocking.

You seem to accept the idea that if liberal Jews were to disappear, Israel’s situation would become more precarious. It doesn’t seem to worry you in comparison to the sin of acknowledging a non frum person. Let us then let us look at what a world without Israel c’’v (chas veshalom, God forbid) would be like in greater detail. We should think about the huge suffering that would be involved if the Jews would be forced to emigrate from Israel c’’v, even assuming no loss of life. The monetary loss would be staggering including huge losses to the Orthodox Jews you care about as well as to Jews whose losses do not interest you. There would be the loss of the greatest Torah center in history – populated largely by those who you think of as coreligionists, but funded largely by non frum Israelis through their tax dollars. If there was a loss of life c’’v because of military defeats, the loss could be too horrible to contemplate. Even if secular Jews are not your concern, in accordance with the NEW idea that a Jew who sins though a Jew is not your brother as is, there are a million Orthodox who could c’’v suffer.

I believe every rabbinical leader including the biggest zealots would if faced with a dilemma of the destruction of the secular State of Israel, and propping up liberal Judaism would ultimately act to insure Israel’s survival, even if they felt the state itself was not holy and in fact the handiwork of Satan. I can’t understand how you could look at such a possibility as a matter of indifference. You cannot both believe it is important to work for Israel’s continued existence AND be sanguine and passive to what happens to non-Orthodox Jews in America.

The last paragraph is written from your point of view. I myself feel each and every Jew has intrinsic value irrespective of what good he may or may not do to benefit Orthodox Jews. Furthermore I feel I have an obligation to seek and pray for the welfare and well being of all Jews as they are today. I gladly give money to charities that help the Jewish poor irrespective of their degree of religiosity, something I assume you would consider way out of line. You quickly forget that your wife delivered her babies, your children had their tonsils removed, etc. in a hospital named Beth Israel, Cedar Sinai, Hadassah, funded by those dreaded liberal Jews. The irrelevant doctor, the one you have read out of the Jewish people, who took care of them on Shabbos and YomTov was a non-frum unter-Jew named Goldstein and Horowitz,etc. I have been to many hospitals in my day. I have never ever seen a frum Jew in an oncology or cardiology ward say "my mazal, my doctor is a secular Jew. If only I could have gotten a God fearing Pakastani or Bulgarian doctor."

I turn now to a second issue you raise: You argue…Judaism is a religion. The only valid form of that religion is Orthodoxy. All Jews are obligated by God to be Orthodox… It does not follow that from an Orthodox point of view there is absolutely no difference between Conservative, Reform or secular(CRS), as you suggest. All that follows are that all CRSers are not Orthodox. I would say some are not Orthodox in more spectacular ways than others, like by becoming apostates. The Talmud does count the number of prohibitions involved in a prohibited act. The idea that all non-Orthodox Jews are alike is a bit like saying all Chinese are alike, none of them are Caucasian.

Most of the ways Orthodoxy can benefit CRS-ers do not involve any dilution of Orthodoxy, with two caveats. If there is a mitzvah to openly express scorn and hostility to liberal Jews, it would indeed be difficult to be of much benefit. I assume it is permissible for an Orthodox Jew to act in a mentschlich way to the 11 million Jews who do not share his beliefs. I am not discussing what goes on in one’s heart or mind or how one acts in front of children. If you believe there is a mitzvah to hate Jews who are not Orthodox and to express your contempt for their ways whenever possible, then indeed there are problems. Second, I assume helping liberal Jews stabilize in place is not in and of itself a dilution of Orthodoxy. I do not think it is helping someone to sin. If you came across a Liberal Jew drowning in a puddle and you turned him around and saved his life, it would not be correct to say you enabled him to sin by allowing him to continue in his sinful ways. In helping a liberal Jew remain a Jew, you are diminishing the chances he will totally disappear from the Jewish world. The choice is not liberal or Orthodox, but liberal that might in a few decades go poof! and be gone. I feel most opportunities out there today are liberal Judaism benefits and the Orthodox do not lose (i.e. the current situation is not even Praeto optimal).

You cannot believe that if the 11 million Jews refuse to become Orthodox, they ought to disappear because then they would not be doing aveirot (sins). Is a world with 2 million Orthodox and no CRS Jews better? More desirable to you and to Hashem on your understanding of his will than the current world? Is a world where the 11 million ultimately became Christian, Muslim or atheist better than the current situation? I say no.

When there is a dilution of Orthodoxy, as you call it, there are again two cases. Halachic dilution and non-halachic dilution. There is only one case if every custom, hidur, chumrah (supererogatory acts) and expression of Daas Torah is ultimately halachic. I am the wrong address for debating this last point. Looking at halachic dilutions I agree that an Orthodox Jew is not obligated to sin so that the chances of a liberal surviving as a Jew are improved. Certain sin vs. uncertain future benefits is not a big contest. I could try to create dramatic conflicts, but I won’t right now since it is not and never was my intent to suggest any Jew violate halacha.

I want to look at one more variant that wasn’t brought up by you but is common enough. It goes like this. We as Orthodox Jews cannot tolerate others who openly disobey the Torah. It is outrageous to lift a finger to help them grow their temples and spread their pernicious doctrines, though of course we do not mean or hope for any harm to their person. If they become goyim, it’s their fault and will remain forever a signal to Orthodox Jews what happens when one throws off the guidance and yoke of Torah. As for Israel, maybe something bad will happen, maybe not. It’s not our job to guarantee how history plays itself out. Our job is to prey to Hashem to have mercy, obey the Torah and listen to the gedolim. Period. The rest is up to God.

I agree only heaven will ultimately decide how we will fare. I nevertheless think it is dumb to base our future just on prayers and hopes that Hashem will save us. If a policy appears to have certain terrible consequences we should do what we can to avoid the consequences including changing the policy. It is on par with a kolel view that one need not work and Hashem will provide, which is perfectly true except in those cases where He doesn’t. Once one goes down this road the logical outcome is Satmar –Breuer style anti Zionism. A passive Zionism that doesn’t try to anticipate the future shouldn’t get out of bed.

So one more time, here’s the deal. As things stand now the prospects for liberal Judaism are far from rosy. Many will disappear in a few generations, probably less. An American community that is overwhelmingly Orthodox will be so fragmented and weak it will have difficulty governing a neighborhood. Israel needs a strong American Jewish community. So do Jews in other countries. Orthodox attitudes toward the rest of Jewry would make a difference. As I will argue in a later post, many American Jews, (my guess is 500,000 +), have begun attending church services in the past 10-15 years. For the life of me I can’t see how Orthodox Jews can be passive and indifferent. I truly do not understand why a Jew would close himself off from 11 million Jews. How can anyone have a shita (an ideological position) that either you are one of us or ich hub dich teif tire in dred (go to hell)? I believe it goes hand in hand with closing oneself off from secular studies, from secular culture, from the arts and sciences. Austritt all the way down!

The Jewish People

2006-12-06T08:39:00.000-06:00

There was comments on my first Austritt post (12/05) by someone whose nom de plume is A Yid that was incisive and relevant. My post is in response to his comment. I believe the following can be understood more or less on its own, but if someone has the time and interest, it should be read in conjunction with A Yid’s two comments and my two responses.

I said in my response to A Yid, “I think of the Jewish people as empirical entities, all the Jews who are alive today plus, in an extended way, all those Jews who lived and died and all those that will be born in the future.” He responded in part, “What is your view based on? Do you mean a sort of white supremacist racial Jew? Or outdated 19th century nationalism? Or just a fuzzy-wuzzy feeling of Jewishness with no definition at all?” My answer is, “Yes, Yes, Yes, plus a lot more.”

I want to introduce Wittgenstein’s concept of family resemblance. There are many terms that do not have a full and complete definition. The instances of the term share certain similarities and relations with each other, but these traits need not be identical in every instance. Some words don’t have to be totally defined and yet we still know how to use the word, because we are familiar with various clear cases and we know some of the relevant traits. These family resemblances might pick out fuzzy sets, concepts with blurred edges. A fuzzy set is not a problem when we are not thinking as Talmudists. The lack of precision does not make the expression meaningless.

Back to our topic: In order to use the concept ‘the Jewish people’ there need not be any one thing they share in common. The edges of the concept may be and in fact are blurred. There are halachic definitions of who is a Jew to be sure, and I am talking today of halachic Jews. Patrilineal-descent-Jews and goyim who identify as Jews are a separate topic, but any reasonable Volkish opinion depends on the idea that Orthodoxy is not the only legitimate way of understanding what is meant by ‘’the Jewish people.’’

What do the Jewish people have in common, if not a common specific religious belief and practice? The answer is many are religious, although the specific religious beliefs and practices are not identical but are similar to a greater or lesser degree. Some have no religious beliefs, but share other traits, i.e. common history, culture, and responsibilities such as being part of the IDF. Some are related genetically to the majority of Jews, but common genes are not necessary; it is just one more common trait. Some have a fuzzy feeling of Jewishness, which is another trait that they may share in common with other Jews. Neither feeling fuzzy nor feeling- Jewish are absolutely necessary. Some share what A Yid called an “outdated 19th century nationalism” i.e. Zionism, by living in Israel and speaking Hebrew. (We should all be so lucky to live in a world where nationalism is outdated.) And there are many other traits that I have not mentioned or need to mention since I am not defining the term by stating necessary and sufficient conditions.

Imagine a center, out of which come many ropes. Each separate rope is tied to an individual Jew. The various ropes are made up of different strands. The strands are not identical but overlap. Mr. A is tied by a rope with strands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5: Mrs. B is tied by a rope with strands 2, 3,4,5,6. Ms. C. is tied by a rope with strands 2, 3, 4. As we get out further from the center, there are people who are tied with only one strand. There are even cases of people who believe they are tied to the Jewish people and are not.

When it says that all Jews co-sign for each other, in my view it means at least all who are halachically Jews, even though they do not share the exact same connection, to the center. If someone wants to assert that ropes with strands 17-22 are the primary ropes and all others are secondary, that’s fine by me. If they go on to say it’s the one true rope and the only one God really approves of, again okay. All I am arguing is that we are connected with receive benefits from and have responsibilities to other Jews who are Jewish in non-paradigmatic ways. I therefore reject A Yid’s thesis that if Orthodoxy is the one true religion of the Jews, then what is good for Orthodoxy is good for the Jewish people. There may be things that religiously or otherwise strengthen an Orthodox Jew, but cause many other Jews to be less connected both to the center and to other Jews. Floating away from Judaism and the Jewish people is not good for a Jew. An example might be if all charity money went only to Orthodox Jews. (For examples how Daas Torah and halacha can conflict even with an Orthodox Jew’s welfare and well being in this world see my post ‘Gadol-Gadol on the Wall’, 8/14. )

I believe our responsibility to Jews who are dead and to our own history is less than our responsibility to Jews who are alive. Although we speak of praying for the elevation of the souls of our departed, that obligation is, relatively speaking, a minor obligation. In the same way, we have to discount our responsibilities to future generations of Jews. I can not count the interests of a Jew five generations forward as being of the same value as a Jew alive today from a public policy point of view. So although I am arguing for a sort of catholic Israel, I acknowledge a high discount rate both for the past and the distant future is plausible.

If A Yid discounts the welfare and well being of non-Orthodox Jews at such a high rate that effectively they can float out to sea for all he cares, it is not for me to tell him how to readjust his preferences. I do believe however that non Orthodox Jews would be very interested in knowing if his attitude is typical. I believe it is eccentric even for charedim.

Two more items…I want to emphasize the obvious that the primary responsibility for remaining connected to the Jewish people is on the individual Jew. There is only so much others can do if a Jew wants to walk out the door. Nevertheless, even though our communal responsibilities to each other are not endless or infinite, they do exist, and they exist even with respect to Jews who have violated the rules of the Torah.

The fact that I and others feel we must argue these points show how we have become fractured and separated. It also shows how our language coarsens our perceptions and feelings. Our language has become politicized with terms like frum and not frum, Orthodox or not, right wing this and left wing that. We constantly measure each other by degrees of religiosity. A poet, a dreamer, an artist, a philosopher, a social person who cares for people as such would have other primary ways of relating to the world than by immediately thinking…frum , he exists…not frum, he’s off our radar screen. Where did we all learn to speak and think this way? Where did we learn to think and feel this way?

To be continued

Austritt Psychology

2006-12-05T08:46:00.000-06:00

I want to try to characterize the psychological /attitudinal profile of a Jewish secessionist. They are meant to apply to the many cases described in my last two posts to a greater or lesser extent. In some instances one or other of the characteristics does not apply at all. (As a philosophical aside, if the following is adequate it shows that it is possible to explicate a concept without giving a definition, i.e. necessary and sufficient conditions. I feel that many of the ideological problems Jews face stem from an essentialist philosophy. An essentialist believes being an X (Jew, UO, M0, heimish, etc.) can be given an essentialist definition thus allowing for the move "you call that an X? He believes or does Y.")

Some of the main characteristics are:

Dualism …They tend to divide the world between the “good” insiders and the demonized “bad” outsiders. Sometimes this is put in Jewish theological terms as a difference between the chosen of Israel and the mixed multitude (erev rav). Israel draws on holiness whereas the outside group sustains itself from the forces of impurity. There are multiple metaphors for characterizing the inside versus the outside. The common thread is the distinction is being used for religious political aims. In modern times and in America, there’s less of a tendency to characterize the opposition as working for the satanic dark side. In the Jerusalem based anti-Zionist literature, describing secular Zionists as part of the “other” side (sitra achra) is very common.

Separatism…Because the outside is demonized, it is of utmost importance to separate from the evil ones. This separation takes many different forms. In Ultra-Orthodox circles, it even requires the religious person to be visibly different from non-religious Jews, hence the outfits, the beard, and all the rest. In the old days, the Edah Hacharedis refused to speak Hebrew because it was the language of the evil Zionists. The obligation of separation is absolute and requires that the inside and the outside group should have very little contact. Modern Orthodox differentiate themselves, to some extent, by relaxing these restrictions. It is no accident, on my view, that the Frankfurt secessionists were, in their heyday, also very much anti-Zionist. Better to wait for the Messiah who will vanquish the secular Zionists than to compromise and build Eretz Yisrael with the secular enemy. The austritt yekkes felt any activity that would strengthen the forces of secularism even if they also benefited was wrong.

Hatred towards the outside demonized group... Under hatred I include any combo of the following attitudes: abhorrence, abomination, acrimony, alienation, antagonism, antipathy, aversion, coldness, contempt, detestation, disapproval, hostility, loathing, militancy, prejudice, rancor, revulsion, scorn. (Sort of reminds one of multiples of the 10 plagues.) Generally these attitudes are projected onto the outsider, and it is therefore assumed that these feelings are reciprocated. Sometimes they are, sometimes the projection is imaginary. For example, all these attitudes in different degrees, depending on the person, characterize charedi attitudes to Reform and secular Jews. Many, many Israeli secular Jews unfortunately have similar attitudes going the other way.

Negative attitudes to more moderate factions… Within the religious camp those who don’t share the radical view are subject to particular negative attitudes; thus, the antagonism of anti-Zionist charedim to those who compromise with the despised Zionists. The old Agudah’s attitude to the Religious Zionists and the current Edah Hacharedis attitude to the Agudah both fall under this heading. The main reason for the negative attitudes is that they cause a blurring and merging between the Zionist and anti-Zionist camps which, if all was proper, would be kept totally separate. The general idea is that the biggest danger comes from the group you interface and with whom you share some common assumptions. If the compromising groups wouldn’t exist, the difference between the right and wrong way, between good and evil and light and darkness would be transparent. Grey is the enemy of salvation. Similarly and to a much lesser extent MO let it rip when they think of groups that are to the left but nominally inside the Orthodox camp. Some/many YU people are upset with the new seminary YCT because the graduates are to the left of them and still insist on calling themselves Orthodox. Special scorn is reserved for those who say the times have changed and new more accommodating attitudes are necessary. The charedim have no hesitation in saying nature has changed radically since Creation. They can’t tolerate the idea that times have changed since Sinai. Examples of rabbis who were especially vilified as wolves in sheep’s clothing are: Rabbi Goren, Rabbi Hildesheimer, Rav Kook, Rabbi Lieberman and Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik.

Demonic explanations for minority status…Part of the austritt psychology is to be unimpressed with its own relative minority status. The fact that eleven out of thirteen million Jews are not Orthodox counts for less than nothing. “They are children who have been kidnapped in an early age and are ignorant,” is one typical explanation. (See my posts of 10/3 and 10/4). I remember hearing as a child someone say, “If every Jew in the world became a Zionist and there were only ten Jews left who recognized ‘the truth,’ it would be more than enough.”

Intense messianic expectations… Some secessionist groups exhibit an intense longing for the Messiah and a conviction that one is either IN messianic times or PRE-messianic times. They’re also convinced that the demonized doctrines and group is responsible for prolonging the exile and preventing the arrival of the true Messiah. Scaling down a bit, there is the view that Jewish people would be much better off if everyone signed on for the view in question. By way of contrast, most liberal Jews today do not feel that there is any special significance if everyone became liberal. In fact, they are happy that at least some Jews are religious. They don’t believe that Orthodox Jewry must be brought around to the correct doctrine only known to them.

So what should one say about this type of secessionist person? I think it depends largely on how one was raised. I myself feel perfectly comfortable being with those who express these attitudes, having heard one or another of these doctrines pretty much my whole life. Someone who was raised on a steady diet of tolerance and pluralism would find such views immediately abhorrent. My only problem is that I’m also deeply committed to trying to understand the world around me, and if I go pooh-pooh-pooh too early, I’ll understand nothing. For me, the task is to combine empathy for all Jews with the more gung-ho feelings of “it’s us against them forever.” The latter besides being important in maintaining group cohesion is frequently lots of fun. Sometimes too much fun. I also feel that what is good for a stripe is frequently bad for the Jewish people as a whole; and I am sort of sweet on Jews, all Jews...what I call the Jewish people.

Postscript: The core idea how to characterize the extreme end of the Edah Hacaredis is due to Yehuda Liebes. (See Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 1982.) I remembered the article after I wrote my post on Frankfurt. I have tried to generalize the core ideas, and added new examples, additional jargon, etc. All the mistakes are mine. In the article Liebes undertakes a detailed discussion of the doctrines of Rav Asher Zelig Margolioth, a major thinker of the anti- Zionist Edah Hacharedis. It was Rabbi Margolioth, a Munkaczer chasid, who arranged for the visit of the Munkaczer Rebbe, the Minchas Elazar, with the Jerusalem mkubal and tzadik, R. Shlomo Alfandrai. It is well known, that the purpose of the meeting was for the two to force the coming of the messiah. Their efforts failed. The rest is, as they say, history. World War II followed soon thereafter.

Orthodox Schisms

2006-12-03T08:59:00.000-06:00

In my last post I said that the complex of attitudes involved in a secessionist philosophy have been reinforced in so many different ways within the charedi community, it has become an almost natural reflex, and even extends to Religious Zionism and Modern Orthodoxy. I’ll rephrase this by saying Austritt eats its own. I want to spell this out in greater detail.

In Israel, the Agudah couldn’t hold itself together and has split into a Lithuanian (Degel Hatorah) and Chassidic(Agudah) factions, that then formed an alliance that now goes under the official moniker UTJ (United Torah Judaism). The great lasting coalition that Frankfurt tried to accomplish worked well until there were real spoils to divide. Then, the infighting began and, over time, the two groups could not live in peace with each other in the same political party. You might say they each seceded from each other. Each side felt that it was better to have less than half a political party that is ‘ours’ and follows the true holy and pure ideological doctrines of ‘our’ gedolim than to compromise with those ‘others’ who are not ‘us.’ It is a story worthy of Dr. Seuss.

In Israel, the Agudah, who claimed to be the legitimate representative of all Ultra-Orthodox religious Jews, could not find it in their hearts to accommodate Sefardim. They were insensitive both to their idiosyncratic cultural variations as well as their legitimate aspirations for representatives in the Knesset. The Agudah refused to divide the spoils of the elections in anything approaching a fair division. Along came Rabbi Yosef and the party that he founded, Shas, and walked away from the Agudah. It was, in my opinion, a major political blunder on the part of the Agudah. It did a disservice to charedi Jewry that will continue to be felt for many years to come. It is now possible for the secular government in power to split religious Jewry with ease, by dangling a few extra shekels or appointments to one party or the other.

In America, as many bloggers have noted and bemoaned, the Agudah/charedim have conducted a sort of ideological warfare against Modern Orthodox for many years. One year they complain about YU, the next year about some laxness in halacha; the third year, they just wink as if every right thinking charedi person understands that Modern Orthodoxy is way too modern. Lately, they have been on better behavior but the impulse to pull away from Modern Orthodoxy is as strong as ever. In Israel, the charedim have even less to do with the religious Zionists and truly form a world onto their own. In Jerusalem charedim on the north side, MO on the south side. On the other side of the divide, the MO blogging community has shown that MO Jews are not weaklings when it comes to ideological infighting. Each side seems intent on sharpening the differences. To an outsider it is sometimes difficult to discern who is pulling away from whom, though on balance I would say MO are the more collegial and the less austritt-oriented ideologically. OTOH, on the internet at least, the MO look like they are on the offensive. Maybe they are playing catch up.

Within the chasidic world itself, there have been many, many fights over the years. For one thing Chasidim started out in a spectacular austritt from the pre-chasidic unified religious world to form separatist congregations. The history of chasidus is replete with disagreements, fights and splits to a point when it became almost comical. Even in modern times, where there is some pressure to hold things together there has been a fair share of fights. One would think that Belz would have gotten along with Munkacz or Satmar. But no, there was no peace on that front. Even before Lubavitch went the way it went, it was fighting with Satmar, sometimes violently. Today, there’s nothing to talk about. Nobody deals with Lubavitch. Lubavitch itself is already divided into factions. Even in a place like Ger, which is run by a very strong rabbinical dynasty, peace and harmony is a bit iffy, and there are speculations concerning who will be the next rebbe. Most recently there are concerns that a major schism is about to occur in Bobov. And of course, there’s the spectacular Satmar crack-up that has provided its share of gossip to the press and the blogger community. The splintering of the Toldos Aharon and Spinka dynasties are two more examples worthy of independent posts. In this context it is also relevant to note that there are at least half a dozen of totally new chasidic rebbes on the scene, creation ex-nihilo, all with appropriate Polish and Hungarian appellations. Why are there new chasidic dynasties forming today unless there were breakaway chasidim from the old established dynasties?

The Frankfurt community has not exactly been great at cloning itself in more modern times. I am not up on the minutiae of yekke politics, but from Evanston it appears one segment of the community became straight out charedi- yeshivish under the leadership of Rabbi Schwab z”l. The old style Frankfurt type, to the extent that it exists, is now buried somewhere inside the more dominant ideology of Torah U’Madah. I do think it’s fair to say even Frankfurt did not emerge whole as the years progressed. (Some of the comments on my last post spell this out in somewhat greater detail, though there is much more that could be said).

Many an older yeshiva graduate will remember vividly the petty and not so petty fights (machlokes), both real and imagined, between various factions surrounding the different and sometimes mutually hostile, rosh yeshivas. If such stories are less frequent today, and I suspect they are, it is because the newer yeshivas tend to be privately owned. The fighting about issues such as the role of musar, the style of learning and other such highbrow topics was frequently constructive in that it led to a split and the creation of two new very good yeshivot.

I think it is not an exaggeration to say that traditional Jewry has been engaged in a more or less continuous three hundred and fifty years war. Sometimes the enemy was outside, sometimes within. Some battles ended peacefully, others continue to this day. It is to Orthodoxy’s credit that these ‘wars’ were conducted without weapons or violence. I shall name some of the main battles in the 350 Year War: The one hundred year battle against the neo-Sabbatians, exemplified in the monumental, ever so exciting fight between Rav Yonasan Eybeschutz and Rav Yaakov Emden and continuing from the aftermath of Sabbati Zevi and lasting until the destruction of the Frankists. There were many other skirmishes, including the fight against Rav Nossan Adler and the RaMCHal. At the height of the Emden- Eybeschutz battle, the European rabbinate was so divided that each half excommunicated (put into cherem) the other half, leaving everyone in a state of excommunication. (B’’h Daas Torah wasn’t launched in the mid-eighteenth century.) The anti- Sabbatian establishment won, but they paid heavily and their strength was diminished.

Chasidim and Mithnagdim (anti/non-chasidim)…The chasidim were excommunicated, the two groups fought and fought. Eventually they got over it, though the two groups remain more or less separate until today. How and why they got over it, how chasidim began to study Talmud in a more Lithuanian style and how mithnagdim began to treat their heads of yeshivot like chasidic rebbes are topics worthy of further discussion.

The fight against the Berlin Haskalah (Enlightenment)…interesting fight but ended in victory for traditional Jewry when the children of the Berlin circle self destructed, many becoming Christian converts.

The fight against Reform… The Reformers initially won. Today we are in the middle of the CounterReformation. The jury is still out, but the tide of battle has turned decisively in favor of the Orthodox.

The fight against foreign ideologies… maskilim modernizers,Bundism, communism, socialism, secularism, Yiddishists, and Hebraists and more…Here the record is mixed. There are by my count around 200 living American Bundists and not many more communists. OTOH, the maskilim’s program has been adopted even if they never lived to see it. Even the Neturei Karta speak English and understand television all too well.

The fight against Zionism….ongoing for the anti-Zionist charedi groups like Satmar, etc. The MO always was Zionist, so they are not engaged. Many/most MO are supporters of the West Bank settlers. In virtue of this identification, they have issues with those Israelis who are in favor of territorial compromise. The Agudah has a left and right faction. Skirmishes on the role and extent of Zionism continue all over the Orthodox world. The topic is a favorite of mine and I will examine it in more detail at some other occasion.

The fight against Conservative Jewry and Reconstructionists and all other religious splinter groups outside of Orthodoxy is going strong.

And finally, there is the ongoing ideological jousting between MO and charedim.

So, let us count the ways of Austritt from the charedi point of view… First, we eliminate 6 billion people who are not Jewish. Then we eliminate 11 million non-Orthodox Jews, then we scratch a million Modern Orthodox and Religious Zionists, leaving…maybe…a million charedi Jews worldwide. Before life gets too boring there’s always some internal charedi fight every now and then. Nevertheless, there’s a problem. Years can go by before a new interesting fight develops. What is an austritt person to do? One answer is: “Go after the women.” You can’t secede from all women, but you can make sure there’s very little contact between men and women. So, we’re down to…five hundred thousand, divided between Israel, America, and the rest of the world. Life has become more manageable and much safer. The charedi camp is now secure.

The Historical Consequences of Austritt

2006-11-30T08:01:00.000-06:00

In Germany, in Frankfurt, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch made a momentous decision in 1876 to secede from a Reform-dominated “Main Community” (Grossgemeinde). It was a culmination of his 25 year rabbinical career in Frankfurt, where he had created a separatist Orthodox congregation. Myth has it that when he came to Frankfurt, there were only ten Orthodox Jews left and, under his leadership, the congregation grew to five hundred families. I believe, in fact, the number of Orthodox Jews in Frankfort at the time was far greater than ten, but that’s neither here nor there. The secession (Austritt) he advocated involved creating a parallel community to the Grossgemeinde. Wikipedia correctly says, “His contemporary Joseph Dov Bamberger, Rabbi of Würzburg, argued that as long as the Grossgemeinde made appropriate arrangements for the Orthodox element, secession was unnecessary. The schism caused a terrible rift and many hurt feelings, and its aftershocks could be felt until the ultimate destruction of the Frankfurt community by the Nazis.”

I’m not a particular fan of Austritt. I think it was a mistake then and, had I been alive, I would have sided with either the southern charedi Orthodox or the more academic Hildesheimer Berliners. I think the Agudists who have copied the idea and spirit of secession gained short-term benefits for Orthodoxy at the expense of long-term losses for the Jewish people as a whole. I have already argued (7/31, 8/01) that when Orthodoxy develops in isolation, everybody loses. Conservatives begin to float towards Reform. Orthodoxy itself becomes excessively “black” (charedi).

Since this whole topic is becoming complex very quickly, I’ll start again. Austritt for the Yekkeshily-Challenged…In the Middle Ages, and up to the late 19th century in Germany and elsewhere, everyone had to belong to some particular religious congregation or other. Everyone was either Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish. There was a communal organization, a gemeinde that represented the entire Jewish community. Along came reform and, in a short period of time, dominated these communal organizations all over Germany. They were generous, however, and were fully prepared to create a separate Orthodox section within the gemeinde. Rabbi Hirsch said, “No way. We need a totally separate official communal organization.” Hence, Austritt. It’s a bit like the AFL-CIO splitting into two separate labor organizations because the head of the CIO decides to walk. A Reform Jew might see analogies to the Civil War.

Here are my reasons why I think Austritt was a failure then…

Frankfurt, itself, would have been a lot better off had it remained in continuous contact with both 18th century charedi Judaism to the south and academic Orthodoxy in Berlin. The sixty year polemical disagreements did no one any good. It drove Berlin closer to Conservatives. The southern Germans, admirable as they were, remained attached to a simple faith that did not benefit from the modernization of Frankfurt. Frankfurt style synthesis of Orthodoxy and modernism (Torah im Derech Eretz) developed, in my opinion, in an eccentric way leaving a legacy of major disagreements as to what it was all about.

Secession was never a hundred percent. Ost-Juden (East-European Jews living in Germany) were not members of the Samson Raphael Hirsch/Breuer gemeinde. When they died, they were buried in the Orthodox section of the main Reform community. Being chassidish, they weren’t exactly chalishing to wear top hats and spats. They preferred davening in their own shteiblech. They had their own rabbis, the last being the Hundtsdorfer (sp?) Rav, and Rabbi Noble, I believe, before him. But they did not like the idea of being buried in the communal cemetery, and they didn’t much care for the yekkes’ snobbism and condescension either. Why the chassidic Jews were not invited to join the Orthodox yekkes is anyone’s guess. In this regard, it is interesting to note that because of the way Orthodoxy was reestablished there was a serious disconnect with the glorious history of the Frankfort rabbinate. I am being a bit mean here, but I believe it is fair to say that a typical Orthodox German yekke had a far greater knowledge and appreciation of Goethe and Heine than he had of the Hafla’ah or the Pene Yehoshua and Rav Nasan Adler. Torah im Derech Eretz produced few, if any, great lomdim, mekubalim or poskim. I believe Austritt was responsible.

Austritt, itself, would not have been idealized to the extent that it was if the only people who copied it were the Hungarians like Satmar. It became a model for American Orthodoxy because a member of the Austritt congregation, Morenu Reb Yaakov Rosenheim, was the major player in founding the Agudah. He was the organizational genius who figured out how to form an alliance between Polish chassidus, Lithuanian yeshivas, and Frankfurt yekkes. All of a sudden, Frankfurt is in, Berlin is out, and southern German Orthodoxy languish in limbo.

Austritt was born and maintained out of a sense of desperation on the part of the Orthodox that unless they separated and developed their own community, without any contact with the Reformers, they would over time be overwhelmed and disappear. The attitudes of suspicion, depreciation, and withdrawal from the rest of American Jewish life are admittedly first rate tools to strengthen a community when it is small and lacking in confidence. Today, the situation is very different. Orthodoxy is not about to be overwhelmed by anybody. It is sufficiently strong and interesting to be of great benefit to all of Jewish life. A confident Orthodoxy would see itself, as do most observers, as the most cohesive and together of all the denominations.

The problem is that the complex of attitudes involved in a secessionist philosophy have been reinforced in so many different ways within the charedi community it has become an almost natural reflex, not just with respect to secular and Reform, but also Conservatives and ultimately, difficult as it is to believe toward Religious Zionists and Modern Orthodoxy. More on this last point in future posts.

The Slippery Slope of Tznius

2006-11-29T08:48:00.000-06:00

My post (10/16) "Sexy Sheitls" with all the comments was reprinted on a charedi women’s site, Iammother.com. The only difference that I can tell is that instead of my ‘sexy’ they wrote 's-xy', and they refused to use an upper case S even when appropriate. There were many comments on that site by serious and intelligent women that I found fascinating and very worthwhile. (Who knew the acronym DH is used for DARLING HUSBAND?) There is also an interesting discussion of sheitels on the much needed right of center blog Mishmar The following discussion is partially my way of trying to understand the various comments.

There are three concepts under the general heading of tznius or modesty that are different and as a result causing some confusion. The common rubric is the maxim ‘if you got it, don’t flaunt it’. The first involves the topic of the sexual relationship between a husband and wife. A tzniusdig (modest) woman never ever discusses what goes on sexually between her and her husband, not even to her best friends. It’s out and out untzniusdig to talk about marital sexual relations and by extension about sex in general. Some people obviously feel that even writing /saying the word ‘sex’ and its cognates ‘sexy’, ‘sexual’ is immodest because it refers ultimately to having sex, and that is verboten as a topic of discussion. It is important to understand that this voluntary inhibition does not show or indicate anything one way or the other about the nature of actual sexual relations, or the degree of intimacy and free discussions between husband and wife. It is a restraint on public discourse.

The second concept involves dressing provocatively. It is spelled out in detail and widely recognized. Long sleeves, skirt over the knees, hair covered etc. The point is that a woman should not act in such a way that is provocative to men. It doesn’t depend on a women’s demeanor or actual men’s reactions. It is defined by external standards, not by the subjective reactions of men. Even if 95% of men would not be aroused by a blouse that is only a centimeter over the elbow it is still not tzniusdig.

Having satisfied the first two constraints it is still possible for a woman to dress provocatively. Here are some examples: 1) belted skirts and tight fitting clothes that accentuate the female shape.2) Sheitlech that are very difficult to differentiate from normal hair and are done up so they look sexy. 3) Stylish clothes, very high heels, overly made up faces, and obviously- seductive looks and flirty demeanors. 4) ‘Carrying oneself’ in an undignified and unrefined way and ‘giving out un-tznius’ vibes. I assume this last concept is defined ostensively by pointing to relevant examples, since I know of no rabbinic pronouncements or videos on how a woman is to carry herself. There are more than enough Orthodox women who wear skirts over the knees, long sleeves and yet dress provocatively in one or other of the ways outlined in this paragraph. The issue whether this is permitted is an important part of the debate.

Assuming for a moment that a woman does not dress provocatively in any of the ways outlined above, there is still a third sense of tznius that is operative that must be satisfied according to some people. Tznius is now understood as not calling attention to oneself. Green sheitels not tznius, very trendy clothing not tzniusdig, black lipstick, multicolored fingernails, red dresses, pierced, punk and goth clothes all no good because all draw attention to the woman. Dresses that drag along the floor, dresses from a different century, grungey clothes, frumpy, dirty or unkempt are unacceptable. Modesty requires not drawing attention to oneself.

I assume that a woman is permitted to draw attention to her mind. A female consultant, doctor or lawyer is permitted to say something intelligent or even brilliant. It is the attention that is directed to a woman’s body and by association with her dress and makeup that is frowned upon, not the attention directed to her person. Similarly it is the marginal attention that comes from doing something that causes one to stand out that is prohibited. A woman who’s beauty is so ‘outstanding’ she can do virtually nothing to ‘mask’ it is not required to stay at home, or at least I hope not. I also think that if a ‘woman does not stand out’ she need not consider the attention of very sensitive or easily aroused men or else burkas are next.

I think the big problem for this view of tznius is how to go about not calling attention to oneself. One issue is that if one prohibits attractive or all sheitels you can end up drawing even more attention. Here are examples. Older women tend to have sagging jowls. Short hair compensates for this effect of aging in a way that is impossible for a kerchief or snood. Women whose eyes are located higher on the forehead, women with larger noses, women with no chin can all use specific hair styles to create a more appealing look. By ruling out these ‘tricks’ one causes these women to draw even more attention in a particularly painful way. Their physical faults are accentuated. The chumrah (more strict ruling) has the opposite effect. There is a reason why women with long sheitels don’t wear their hair in a pony tail or bun.

The way a woman doesn’t stand out is not easy to predict, and is something of a tricky business. Consider the typical chasidish outfit. Hat on some shetelette, dark, heavy nylons, sensible lace up klutzy shoes, heavy fabrics year around are a guarantee to draw attention anywhere other than in a chasidic community. Not drawing attention, blending into the background requires the outfit not be much brighter or darker than the day; darker grey outfits on rainy days, lighter pastels and white on sunny days. Not too modern, not too old fashioned, not too out of the ordinary, not too elegant …just the right sort of Goldilocks plain. When everyone wears a string of pearls, not to wear one means standing out; when no one wears a string of pearls and you do wear pearls you stand out like a sore thumb.

I’ll close with general concern. The ideal of tznius has correlates all over Jewish life. Vulgar bimbos are frowned upon everywhere. What makes tznius special is the energy and concern that is spent in refining and maintaining the ideal. Over time concerns about tznius tend to the obsessive. The problem, as with all obsessive behavior is that it doesn’t stop. Obsessions keep on spreading. The rules become stricter and more confining. A man who washes his hands ten times a day will over time keep on increasing the number. The recent developments in Israel are an indication the quest for tznius is about to go to a new never heard of level of stringency.

The CEO's of American Judaism

2006-11-27T08:56:00.000-06:00

Haaretz (6/23) had a report of a conference between the heads of large Jewish organizations and various intellectuals and heavy thinkers on the topic of the future of the Jewish world, or as the hysterics like to frame it THE SURVIVAL OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE !

We know for certain that as individuals our days are finite; nevertheless, except for a few we manage to buy green bananas. Even if the threat of Islam is serious and the situation in Israel is dire this is not exactly earth shattering news. Muslims have been on the march since their origins in Arabia, and the situation in Israel has been alarming, pretty much since Herzl had his light bulb moment over a century ago. We recognize that Yogi was right as always, and it ain’t over until it’s over.

Haaretz reports one of the main conclusions of this major conference was that the future is unclear and some but not others believe there are many risks ahead. Results such as these are reassuring and should help the rest of us go about our ordinary activities. The basic premise of the ’’executive branch’’, the 15 heads of the large Jewish organizations seems to be that if there is no future their organizations would not have a point. Since they are convinced their organizations have a point, the Jews must have a glowing future. This reasoning alone explains why one might be a bit more pessimistic. Not every people on the planet are privileged to be led by leaders so astute. The intellectuals and thinkers however saw risks, pitfalls and obstacles in years ahead.

Some felt it was not strategically clever to get all the Jews of the world moved to Israel. One never knows, accidents happen, etc. Others, following the inverted logic that permeated the conference, argued that giving official legitimacy to the Diaspora would be the end of Zionism as we know it. Since it would be out of the question to modify any of the basic tenets of classical Zionism, the Diaspora must move to Israel, and we must conclude such a move would be the best strategy for the survival of the Jewish people. In Chelm, the reader might remember, they discovered the important scientific law that when a piece of bread falls on the ground it always lands on the buttered side. One day a piece of bread fell and landed on the unbuttered side. There was a conference held, very similar to this one, attended by all the heads of the town’s major Jewish organizations and many of its leading intellectuals. After a 3 day all expense paid conference and the appropriate rounds of golf, the leaders concluded the bread was buttered on the wrong side.

For the most part there was agreement among the participants, and they did manage to define aims and goals for the future. These goals included:

Investing in education for the young generation
Lowering the price of access to Jewish life, e.g. the cost of synagogue membership, Jewish schools.
The importance of drawing those on the fringes of Jewish civilization inward. (I love the word ‘civilization’ in this context. Are Jews who intermarried steppe people, nomadic warriors, Germanic barbarians?)

As usual there was a shortage of concrete proposals, an agreement that further study was needed, and a decision to meet again next year. Everyone seemed to feel the very gathering itself was an achievement. “It is the first time the heads of Jewish organizations have sat down round the same table and sought ways to cooperate, pushing aside the competition, suspicions and sometimes even latent hostility.” I am confident I can speak for everyone in saying we are very proud of our leaders for being so broad minded and inclusive.

Haaretz offered a very concrete example of such cooperation. Tzvi Weinreb, an Orthodox Rabbi and head of the Orthodox Union, had no problem calling the head of the Reform movement, David Ellenson, up to the Torah, even though the week before President Moshe Katsav, the President of the State of Israel upon meeting Ellenson refused to attach the title “Rabbi” to his (Ellenson’s) name. President Katsav, the very same man who has been accused of molesting if not raping multiple women plus various other unsavory activities could not allow the word ''Rabbi'' to escape from his lips when addressing the head of the Reform movement.

Words are inadequate at moments like this. If you are in any doubt I made all this up read the article.

At the rate our leaders are moving there will be no real need for any serious planning. By the time they decide to move, a large percentage of World Jewry with the exception of Israel will have left the fold.

A Tale of Two Cities

2006-11-26T09:29:00.000-06:00

American Jewish life is a tale of two cities. The Orthodox city is akin to one huge kindergarten, the liberal Jewish city to a moshav zekanim (an old age home). Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but it’s getting close. I’ll give a few examples.

In an Orthodox Jewish world, especially in an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish world, the birthrate is very high. It is not a rare occurrence for a pregnant mother, or a mother of an infant, to marry off her child. When a young Orthodox couple marries, it is very likely that one or both have unmarried siblings. After a few years of marriage and a few children, it is not unnatural for parents to begin thinking of their own children’s marriage. As they age, their own children and the children of all their siblings are marrying, only to be followed by another generation that before you turn around, is beginning to think of marriage. The upshot of all these babies and marriages is that the thought of shiduchim is never absent in traditional Jewish life. Someone or other just got married, is about to get married, looking to get married, hoping to get married, or divorced/widowed and dating again. Jane Austen, the great chronicler of the world of shiduchim would be in complete ecstasy had she grown up Orthodox. It’s Pride and Prejudice day in and day out. Because young children are so lovable, and because marriages are simchas (joyous occasions) their abundance gives Orthodox Jewish life the feel of a comedy in the classic sense that everything is going to end well.

When you look at the Orthodox Jewish community and you see the day schools and yeshivas opening up by the handful each year, it becomes apparent that there are many new young children each year that require education. Because of the growing demographics, the kolel and other rabbinical types have found it relatively easy to find employment. There’s almost an elastic demand for teachers at these schools. Since it is becoming increasingly difficult to find excellent yeshiva teachers, salaries are bid up accordingly. Once the birthrate levels off, and level off it will, and considering that yeshivas are like graduate schools that when going full blast tend to outstrip the demand for their services, Torah people over time are going to find it harder to land jobs in Jewish education. Meanwhile the Jewish education business is booming.

The second city is predominantly non-Orthodox, and almost 75% are living without children at home. According to the 2001 NJPS Survey and I quote” Among all Jewish households, 30% are comprised of a single adult living alone, 37% consist of two adults living with no children, and 7% are comprised of more than two adults with no children. Children (defined as age 17 or younger) reside in 26% of all Jewish households, in most cases with two adults. Approximately 3% of all Jewish households are composed of a single adult with one or more children.’’

The North Shore of Chicago, from Evanston all the way up to Lake Forest, is a Jewish place, so to speak. There are 125,000 Jews on the North Shore and many of them are congregated near the lake. If you drive up at night along Sheridan Road and look at the homes a significant percentage are dark. The reason they are dark is that there are either one or two people living in the homes, empty nesters and widows, not a child in sight. The entire area is what HEW calls “a naturally aging community.” People bought the houses when they were young and are waiting to be carried out. The homes are empty because the birthrates of the children are below replacement level. The kids marry in their thirties, have one or two kids, and intermarry at an astonishing rate, only to be followed by the next generation that repeats the process one more time. Despite the absolutely gorgeous homes, many of these communities have a gothic feel. Here we have left Jane Austin behind and entered the Bronte sisters world of ‘’Wuthering Heights’’ and the ‘madwoman in the attic‘. For example, I have never ever seen a couple with children walk in the streets of Kenilworth, the ritziest of the ritziest of these towns. Similar stories can be told about Jewish communities in Scottsdale, Palm Springs and many towns along the Florida coast, both on the Atlantic side and on the Gulf .

The differential birthrates of the two communities have other interesting effects on Jewish life. If you read the Jewish magazines aimed at the general Jewish population, there’s more than a fair amount of ads for assisted living communities, old-age homes, private nurses, and undertakers. Doctors love to advertise. There is a small army of people servicing older Jews. It’s just a fact of life. Liberal Jewish life has ultimately a more tragic feeling tone.

With a little optimism and hard work the trend in liberal Judaism can be reversed. I sincerely believe young liberal American Jews want larger families. For all sorts of reasons we need not discuss today they need to be told what to do. Here is a simple idea: Every year for the next ten years on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur liberal rabbis should stand in front of their congregations and say the following in no uncertain terms: Every Jewish man and woman of childbearing age has a solemn religious duty to have at least three children or Judaism as we know it will disappear. The only exceptions are the health of the mother or child, infertility, dire poverty or mental illness. Anyone who puts personal careers or interests ahead of their duty is a shirker.

What are the chances of this ever happening?

The Prism of the Holocaust

2006-11-23T09:09:00.000-06:00

In an earlier post, in the context of how Orthodox Judaism started in America (10/29), I differentiated between refugees and Holocaust survivors. My confidence in this distinction was recently shaken by an experience I had at a shabbus meal at my friend’s house. The guest of honor was a charismatic and well-known left-wing Israeli artist. Her lifelong fight for civil liberties and decency made everyone sympathetic to her talk. She spoke passionately throughout the evening and kept the other ten participants spellbound. Her thesis was as follows:

“My parents are Holocaust survivors and I am a second generation Holocaust survivor. I feel the trauma of the Holocaust in my very being. I have never been as pessimistic about Israel as I am today. Here I am, growing up in a home which never stopped talking about the Holocaust and how our relatives and friends were murdered. And now, when I look forward to the future, I see an Iran that is threatening to destroy me with a nuclear bomb. I believe those Shiites are actually crazy enough to do it. For the first time since I’ve been born, there’s a threat of a Holocaust in front of me. Where am I to go? Which country will take me and my fellow countrymen? And who wants to leave? I have lived in Israel my whole life. I don’t want to become a refugee. So my life comes down to this…a Holocaust in back of me and a prospect of a Holocaust in front of me.”

Everyone was somewhat taken aback, and people began chipping away at this dark vision. The first point that was established was that her mother was already in Israel by 1939 and her father escaped from a work camp in the middle of the war, but never was in an actual concentration camp. When the suggestion was made that perhaps she is not a second generation Holocaust survivor, she became so overwrought that no one had the courage to pursue the suggestion. Someone then asked how a country that didn’t have an optimistic future could survive. Someone suggested looking at religious people who are generally optimistic. The word religious triggered a diatribe about her fellow citizens. Charedim are impossible because they are all shirkers. Who can talk to a charedi if he doesn’t go to the army? The right wing is impossible because they are all flirting with fascism and ethnic cleansing. Anyway, they have accepted the idea of fighting forever. The religious Zionists also won’t do since they are religious and, as a left-wing Israeli, she is deeply committed to secularism. In fact, she emphasizes this was the first Shabbat meal she had ever attended that was conducted in the traditional Orthodox manner. After hearing this last tidbit, everyone realized perhaps the comparison to the Orthodox was not the way to go.

People tried one last gambit. It was suggested that Jewish life needs some other basis than survival and the Holocaust. There has to be something positive about Jewish life; something to celebrate and enjoy, which provides meaning and purpose. Some Jewish traditions and culture have to be celebrated or else all one has is a sort of dog eat dog world. She was not appeased. After a while, it began to dawn on me that the woman actually enjoyed the pessimism and hopelessness. It was precisely this darkness that gave her courage to go on. The Holocaust was, for her, a sort of beacon of meaning through which she could interpret the world. Take away the Holocaust and you just have capitalism, selfishness and a normal boring life. This Israeli version of anti- religious secularism, held together by a defeated labor Zionism, holocaust consciousness and the constant fight for survival has become unyieldingly pessimistic.

It is frequently said that any Israeli government must prevent the emergence of an Iranian atomic bomb because of the memory of the Holocaust. It is also frequently said that anything less than the most vigorous aggressive response to the “axis of evil” will yield the same result as appeasement of the Nazis did in the thirties. In fact, the Muslim religious fanaticis engaged in terrorist activities are labeled Islamo-fascists in order to bring out the similarities to Nazis.

Neither I, nor anyone else, have any clue how the future is going to play itself out. No one can say, with any certainty that bad things will not happen. What is fairly certain is that it won’t happen the exact same way it happened in the Holocaust. Even if history repeats itself, as it sometimes does, it is never as a clone of the previous period. There is something wrong, mistaken, foolish to analyze the future in terms of a rearview mirror of the past. If everything is going to be fit into the prism of the Holocaust, details are going to be missed, possibilities are going to be overlooked, and in a strange way, because of a repetition compulsion, the events that are most dreaded are more likely to occur. Sometimes traumatized people act in such a way so as to bring about the events they most fear.

Why is a politician like Netanyahu saying “It's 1938, and Iran is Germany. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state." What does he expect people to do? If it is the holocaust why isn’t he encouraging people to leave? I can only conclude that he, and Lieberman and Efie Etam don’t exactly mean what they say, and are frightening people in the hope that they will turn to the hard right for a solution. It is even scarier to watch Olmert cover his right flank by essentially repeating the same thing. The rhetoric itself will force Israel to bomb Iran. I don’t want to enter into the very serious question what is the correct policy towards Iran. What I am saying is that the government should retain maximal flexibility and not allow an analogy to Hitler to force it to adopt a policy that might be unwise.

In my opinion, the strongest antidote to using the Holocaust as a basis of foreign policy is to create a Jewish cultural and religious life in Israel that is life-enhancing and gratifying. The best reason for defending Israel and fighting for its survival IMHO is to protect a way of life that has independent value and meaning. Using the holocaust for political or foreign policy goals is not a good way to proceed.

Spiritual but Not Religious

2006-11-21T07:53:00.000-06:00

On the internet dating sites there is this interesting category for religious preference called ‘’spiritual but not religious’. There is no category called ‘’religious but not spiritual’’, nor have I ever seen anyone ever describe themselves this way. An Orthodox Jew not into musar, kabbalah, or chasidus might very well describe herself as religious but not spiritual. In the liberal/secular Jewish world such a category does not exist.

Some Jews who write spiritual but not religious are simply responding to the way the question is framed. They are no choices labeled secular. They don’t want to write atheist, or agnostic, when all they really want to say is that they have no business with organized Judaism. So they check as a default mode the only remaining alternative ‘’spiritual but not religious.’’ Others however mean something very definite. Most members of the ‘’spiritual but not religious’’ category are women. Men on the internet mostly say straight up they are not observant. They don’t suddenly become spiritual. Why is it that when a woman is a non-observing Jew, she feels the need to graduate to a new religion called Spiritual but not Religious? I don’t know the answer

Here are some examples of what it means for a Jew to define him/herself as ‘spiritual but not religious’.
I was born into a Jewish family but am not religious. I am culturally and racially Jewish. I have the foundational values that many Jews have; exercising the intellectual muscles, interest in ethics and justice, and good old dark and ironic humor.

Here we have a sophisticated attempt to deal with being Jewish but not religious. In fact, I am sympathetic to the secularized version of Reform Judaism that is being presented: intellectualism, an intense moral consciousness with a universalist flavor, and what he calls “good old dark and ironic humor.” There are two ways of understanding this humor. The first is that it’s a leftover from the shtetl. Jews were ironists and humorists because it was a natural way of coping with their political condition. The second is that there’s a special dark and ironic humor attached to being conscious of being Jewish but not religious. Woody Allen is an example. (I actually believe that Jews with no background in historical yiddishkeit who are spiritual but otherwise not self identified as Jews, lack humor to the same degree as more traditional Jews.) A sad fact about the American Jewish culture is that the personality type this person represents has not survived into this century with any great numbers. In the forties and fifties, people used to say of themselves they were cultural Jews. You hear the phrase less and less. Now it’s spiritual all the way. I wonder if this is because of the New-Age spiritualism that has overtaken California and the spa world. Or is it because American-Jewish culture is in the dumps? The non-stop assimilation of American Jewry has brought about a dumbing down of American Jewish life.

I am Jewish but not religious. I have an interest in Quantum physics from a spiritual perspective. My other interests are eclectic... Buddhism, therapy, integrating the psychological and spiritual for the present moment.

Here we have a classic example of a spiritual but not religious smorgasbord and it illustrates both its strengths and its weaknesses. We’ll take them one at a time. I know what the woman is talking about when she mentions Quantum mechanics from a spiritual point of view. There is this very weird, but real, phenomenon called quantum entanglement which we now know to be true because of Bell’s Theorem. Some people, even physicists, have suggested it has some implications for spirituality. The Chafetz Chaim used to say, “If they sneeze in Paris, they feel it in Radin.” Maybe so, but as of now no one has shown any interesting application of quantum weirdness to spiritual life. As it stands, this woman can have an interest in quantum mechanics for the rest of her life, nothing will happen spiritually.

On the other hand, the combination of Buddhism, therapy, and the various techniques for integrating the psychological and spiritual in some practical way can’t be dismissed as nonsense. The program is roughly this…you do an hour or two of yoga a day, workout in the gym, run two- three miles, eat organic foods, stay thin, meditate for an hour, see a therapist three times a week, and repeat for the next ten years. It does make a difference. When you compare such people with those who work sixty hours a week, are overweight and bent out of shape, sedentary, consume copious amounts of junk food, and live such a frenetic life that there is no time for introspection and contemplation, it is hard to say there is no difference. It’s not a particularly Jewish way of achieving spirituality, but even here there have been various attempts to combine this sort of rigorous discipline with Jewish symbols and culture. These attempts are varied and sometimes go under the general names of Jew-Bhu and Jewish Renewal. (An easy way of getting started as a Jew-Bhu is to begin with Rodger Kamenetz’s sweet little book The Jew in the Lotus). I plan on taking a closer look at Jewish Renewal.

I feel a connection to my Jewish heritage. Spiritually, I am always aware of the miracle and absolute sacredness of life and I take seriously our role as brother's keeper and earth's caretaker.

The last quote is an example of the ecology branch of Jewish spirituality. Here the quest for purity and wholeness is projected out onto the environment. Almost every spiritual person is anti-Bush on environmental issues. The concept of a market in pollution rights is foreign to their way of thinking. Almost like eating chazir. We might call this stripe Green Jew- Bhus.

I have two complaints against “spiritual but not religious” Jews. The first is that frequently they are devoid of any nationalist feelings or appreciation of our history. So even if they can fill the void that comes with secularism, they still lack a strong sense of being part of a continuous historical community. It is difficult to raise children on a steady diet of yoga and gym. My second complaint is that many people who call themselves “spiritual but not religious” refuse to discriminate between various occult sciences and disciplines. Monday’s the therapist, Tuesday’s the astrologer, Wednesday’s the gypsy palm-reader, Thursday is homeopathy, rolfing and alternative medicine, while Friday is the day to experiment with the new products and services that constantly come to market. In my mind, it frequently degenerates into a counter culture mush that doesn’t make much sense.

We are talking about a large group of Jews who are looking for something and have given up on Judaism. When a Jew is spiritual but not religious they are announcing they do not have a serious Jewish religious identification. They are dead to Jewish life even if they still frequent the local deli. They are a classic example of what the Protestants call “un-churched.” A special place in heaven is reserved for somebody who can figure out a way to reach these people.

Reform Liturgy

2006-11-19T08:48:00.000-06:00

Orthodox Jews living in Orthodox areas tend to like the shul they daven in. If they don’t like the place, they move on to the next shul. As we move left towards Reform, the generalization no longer holds. Many people are dissatisfied with their congregations and temples, but for one reason or another don’t do very much other than not attend. I am convinced that the problem, to a large extent, is caused by the decisions the Reform movement made close to two centuries ago when the first temple was opened up in Hamburg, Germany. At the time, one of the complaints of the Reformers was that there was no decorum in Orthodox synagogues. There was too much talking and too many children running about. It lacked the seriousness that is appropriate for a place of worship. They proceeded to install an organ, a choir, a formal cantor, a liturgy in German and an atmosphere of reverential decorum.

I would conjecture that the decorum in liberal synagogues is a function of the decorum in the concert and opera halls. During the eighteenth century, when Mozart was creating his great operas, the operas and symphonies were not treated with the respect and attention they subsequently received in the next century. People talked with each other; flirted, moved about, breastfed their infants all the while the opera singers were performing. In the early nineteenth century, the attitudes changed. Some genius got the idea to call the music “classical,” even when it was written three weeks ago and had nothing to do with classical antiquity. All of a sudden, the concert hall became a serious place where you weren’t allowed to speak or, God-forbid, eat or cough. Only the most reverential silence and attention was accepted. It then became model for what a synagogue ought to be.

The Reformers, also internalized the Lutheran model of church service. It was as if Johann Sebastian Bach was the shining light of our exile. They were convinced that when they got to heaven there would be organ music, angels with wings just like in the paintings, and a heavenly choir singing perfect baroque cantatas. Many believe this until today. The bulk of the Reform musical liturgy has this angelic feel to it. Somehow they believe that Jewish choral “masterpieces”, boring and derivative as they are, are absolutely necessary to sit through if we are to make our way to heaven. For many years I heard Canadians go on about the spirituality of the Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. When I finally visited Holy Blossom for some public event, I found a high Reform liturgy, formal, boring, and mired in a musical style that flourished somewhere around the time of Elgar and the late British romantics.

The main problem with this whole approach is that it requires the congregation to do absolutely nothing. You sit back and you listen to the performance, just like in the concert hall. If you don’t want to read responsively, no big deal, the chazan and choir will move the service forward. Because there’s no serious participation by the congregation, and because the music is so “tasteful,” the mind wanders, people begin to yawn, which is contagious, and the whole thing feels like cod liver oil.

Some Reform rabbis have recognized this problem. They have tried, to the best of their ability, to create a more low-church atmosphere. There are guitars, folk singing, in the style of Joan Baez and Pete Seeger circa 1960’s, and a generally more relaxed ambience. The movement has not spread to all Reform temples. Some remain wedded to chazanim belting, choirs chirping, and organs bellowing, but many have changed. But once you’re into boring, it’s hard to change. Many of the Reform synagogues that have gone over to the kum-sitz model are still boring. The era of guitars, Birkenstock, “let’s sing ‘Kumbaya’” is over. As usual, Reformers are the last to find out.

It is ironic to see the Reform movement turn into something of an orthodoxy. They frequently believe together with their Ultra Orthodox brethren that "everything new is forbidden."Given the anemic attendance at so many reform congregations, it might be time to reform Reform Judaism. I believe the way dying Reform and Conservative congregations ought to go is the Carlebach model…continuous singing, lively fairly simple Jewish tunes (nigunim), no operatic chazan, no choir, no guitar, just the congregation carrying the service on their shoulders by singing with feeling. When a congregation is responsible for the service, such that if they don’t sing nothing happens, everyone, all of a sudden, perks up and, if possible, participates. The active singing itself, full-throat, creates a special spiritual feeling. It is true that the transition from a chazan oriented model to a Carlebach service is difficult. The Hebrew liturgy must be transliterated into English, and the congregation must be taught the tunes. It has to be done gradually over time. But once accomplished, the congregation is energized and the service is enjoyable. The only downside is that it might require rounding up all the chazanim and shooting them, since they will fight tooth and nail never to give up their entrenched positions. A less radical alternative is to either get the chazan aboard or force early retirements. I see many chazanim are beginning to find work on Caribbean cruises.

Carlebach style davening is flexible. It can be adapted to Modern Orthodoxy, very Modern Orthodoxy, Conservative, Reform, and all the rest. It can be combined with a string quartet and dancing as in Bnei Jeshurin on the Upper West Side. Each congregation can decide for itself the exact mix. They can also bring in new tunes from the ever lively Jewish music scene. What’s important is that the congregation is involved in the style of davening and not musical committees run by the chazan and the organist. As in so many areas in life, participatory democracy works best.

Humanitarian Jews

2006-11-17T08:36:00.000-06:00

A college activist Mark Hanis was interviewed by Haaretz not so long ago (8/25/06.) He is a founder of the Genocide Intervention Network, a voluntary organization that has quickly become a major player in the struggle to prevent genocide in Darfur. Hanis says he is determined to enable other nations to avoid the tragedy that his own people experienced. All his grandparents died in the Holocaust. He wants to prevent similar situations occurring elsewhere. He regards his actions as a way of expressing his Jewish identity.

Hanis does not attend synagogue regularly nor does he identify with any of the religious streams in Judaism. Like most young American Jews, he defines himself as "just Jewish." In 2001, he visited Israel. Unlike his first encounter with Africa, the visit made no particular impression. Israeli society's burning issues do not worry Hanis. Although he vaguely cares about the Jewish state, he has other idealistic causes on his mind.

The Haaretz article goes on to say Hanis' story demonstrates that the Holocaust can drive the Jewish identity of many young American Jews. The author concludes in this way, “It also shows that Israel and its problems are irrelevant to their liberal agenda. Programs that bring young non-committed Jews to Israel have yet to prove that they can arouse in them any feeling of commitment toward the Jewish people.’’

I am not as pessimistic as the interviewer. There is an implicit assumption here that requires some discussion. The assumption is that either a Jew is religious, or is committed to Israel in the way Diaspora Jews express such commitments, or is committed to the Jewish people whatever that might mean in a practical way. When a Jew finds some non-Jewish cause and in his mind feels it expresses his Jewish identity and his feeling of being Jewish, even if the cause is noble, he is somehow not quite up to par as a Jew .A Jew, however idealistic, who devotes his life to some non-Jewish humanitarian cause is on his way to being lost to the Jewish people, even if he feels the cause gives expression to his Jewishness.

I disagree with the evaluation. Here is a young person trying to prevent genocide in Africa and in his mind finds a connection between his work and his family’s history during the Holocaust. He sounds like a wonderful humanitarian. Why is it appropriate to ask what is he doing for the Jewish people? If a Jew goes to Israel and oohs and aahs and coos how wonderful everything is, goes home writes a check for a few dollars, no one complains. A Jew who comes to Israel says ‘’very nice but I have other things on my mind,’’ goes home and saves 25,000 Africans from a horrible death, it triggers a complaint of being lost to the Jewish people. Something isn’t quite right.

How is one to give an account of such a situation? In deciding whether what a person is doing is good or worthwhile. I would suggest it is a category mistake of sorts to think strategically. In evaluating whether a Jew is a good person we need not just focus on what the person is doing for the Jewish people or Israel. If what he is doing is good in general, and there are no countervailing bad activities then everything else equal the person is a good person. Second, although he can still be a bad Jew the fact that he is a good person counts to his credit in deciding if he is a good Jew, while still allowing for the possibility that a good man can be a bad Jew. Even though we might all be soldiers in God’s army, even if apostasy is a form of desertion, we need not always evaluate everyone in terms of what they are doing for the success of the army.

Two doctors, one doctor cures a disease Jews suffer from; the other cures a disease that only affects other peoples. The doctor who helped the Jews gets a bigger yasher- koach, an appreciation of gratitude from his fellow Jews. Both were not equally good for the Jews. I still say ceteris paribus both are equally good people, though not necessarily equally good Jews. Nevertheless the doctor who benefited mankind in general but not the Jews gets credit towards being evaluated as a good Jew.

If you consider ‘what has he done for us lately?’ as part of the answer to whether someone is a good person, you end up in a morass. A self interested used car shyster salesman and Mark Hanis are both not immediately useful to the Jewish people…so are they equal? Hanis is doing good deeds and is clearly the better person. So I propose the kiddush Hashem test. If what a person does is a sanctification of God’s name, if we the Jewish people are proud of his activities, then everything else equal he is a good person even if he is not doing anything on behalf of the Jewish people.

Following Rawls I define a good man as someone who has qualities above average that are rational to desire in a man. A good Jew is someone who has qualities above average that are rational to desire in a Jew from a Jewish perspective. From a moral/human perspective it is rational to desire a quality such as humanitarian compassion. Mark Hanis has this quality to an exemplary degree. Since he is a good person engaged in good deeds I would say that in and of itself gives him an initial exemption of sorts from working on behalf of Jewish causes. I am suggesting a secular version of the Talmudic dictum that someone who is engaged in one mitzvah is free from performing another competing mitzvah.

One final point. Going in the other direction the situation might not be symmetric. A bad man can’t in general be a good Jew. A guy who steals a million dollars from the US government and gives it to the poor of Judea and Samaria or to the Mirer yeshiva is not a a good Jew ….it’s a mitzvah habaah baevirah type deal. He committed an act of intended benevolence to Jews through doing something morally wrong. He gets no Jewish credit, at least not in my book. It’s Goldstein redux. I would think Reform Jews believe part of what we mean when we say someone is a good Jew is that he is a good person. I myself don’t rule out a priori the possibility that a bad man might be a good Jew because there might be cases where he is below average in the virtues we desire in a human being, but above average in the virtues we desire in a Jew. I am reminded of the Samuelson quip that if someone goes from MIT to Harvard the average IQ goes up in both places (i.e. below average at MIT is above average at Harvard.) My post is beginning to resemble a philosophy lecture, and I’ll stop.

Moral philosophy from a Jewish perspective is a neglected area in Jewish thought. No one has tried to work out denomination by denomination what a good Jew is and what are the virtues that make someone a good Jew. I realize the ideas in these last three posts need more work, but this is the best I can do right now. I just couldn’t resist the temptation to at least make a start.

Reform Charity 2

2006-11-16T08:09:00.000-06:00

In my last post I brought up the topic of Millennium Park, and how Reform Jews made a major contribution to the project. A Jew with a Torah, Torah and more Torah ideology cannot accept big time Jewish money being spent on (gevald) a park. The money could have been spent on Jewish education and the Jewish future, and was spent on flowers. My view is this: Charitable impulses are not easily divisible. The feelings of benevolence, responsibility, and a desire to leave a permanent legacy are virtues that find different outlets, depending on the person’s culture and history

The Pritzker family was one of the more prominent donors. Let’s just say hypothetically a significant percentage of the money the family donates to charity each year goes to non Jewish causes. The existence of a counterfactual….they could have, might have, should have given the money to Jewish causes does not diminish what they do. The money is not any Yeshiva’s money, and they have taken nothing away from any Jewish institution. Their donations are good and charitable deeds, even if ‘we’ know they might have done something better with their money. The money was used for charities that are noble and good, be they culture, medicine, the environment. And for doing a good deed they deserve our praise and admiration. If all or almost all of a donor’s money goes to non-Jewish causes, then I would say what the donor did is a good act, though he did not do anything special for the Jewish people and is lacking in his commitment to the Jewish people with respect to his charitable donations.

By way of contrast with the Millennium Park case was the announcement by Moshe Hier of the Wiesenthal Center in L.A. that he was going to raise $700 million dollars to build a Center for Tolerance in Jerusalem. Most of the money was to be spent on a magnificent building, created by the world famous architect Frank Gehrie. I say even if the $700 million would have been otherwise spent on private trinkets, once the money has been donated it is now tzedakah (charity) money, and Rabbi Hier is the trustee. Does any rational person believe we should first spend $700 million of tzedakah money on a building as a hakdamah, a prolegomena to bringing together 20 Arab and Israeli kids in a room to talk about tolerance and peace? Even if he raised some of the money by promoting the building, it is his responsibility to use the money to benefit the Jewish people by actually promoting peace and tolerance between Arabs and Jews. The Arabs will undoubtedly find the ultra- opulent hyper- modernist building inappropriate, and one more example of Western cultural imperialism and the megalomaniac grandiosity of American Jews. They would have a point.

The situation with Jewish humanitarian charity would be different if the following were true: It is morally wrong for a Jew to give a substantial amount of money to non- Jewish humanitarian or cultural causes. Even if halacha would say it is wrong, it is irrelevant to Reform Jews who do not accept halacha as sovereign. A case must be made that it is morally wrong. I am not certain, but I don’t believe it is morally wrong. On three of the leading secular moral theories, utilitarianism, Kantian forms of social contractualism and virtue theories using money for universal type charities is permitted and maybe even required.

The Hebrew University philosopher Avishai Margalit has tried to sketch a set of universal moral principles that might entail it is morally preferable for a Jew not to spend his charitable contributions on the art museum or world hunger, while recognizing the duties we all have to our neighbors, countrymen and fellow human beings. His philosophy is a working out in a more abstract and universal way of the Talmudic dictum that the Jewish poor of your city take precedence over the poor of some more distant city. His idea is to single out the kinds of "thick" relations we can call truly ethical from thin relations that we call moral. Thick relations, he argues, are those that we have with family, friends and neighbors, our tribe and our nation--and they are all dependent on shared memories. But we also have "thin" relations with total strangers, people with whom we have nothing in common except our common humanity. Even if such a view is accepted, the most that could be said is that Jewish charities can have a certain precedence. It is permissible to give greater weight to the needs of one’s own tribe over those of more distant tribes. It would take a special kind of Puritanism to condemn a man for doing a good deed, because he might have done an even better deed.

A N.Y. Times reviewer of the coffee table souvenir book Millennium Park did voice an implicit and cutting aesthetic criticism of the sort of public charity involved in building the park. He said ‘’…a park financed by donors given the power to select objects and artists will look very different from one in which aesthetic or social concerns predominate from the first. It will tend to be less a unified landscape than a series of detached vignettes - in effect, naming opportunities.’’ He is right on. At the same time it is unrealistic to expect a small group of donors to give so much money without asking for some recognition. I believe most Chicagoans are delighted with the new space, even if it means having to say ‘’Meet you at the Pritzker Pavilion. We’ll walk through the Lurie Garden, over the BP Bridge and on to our destination The Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance.’’

Here is one last example: Margo Pritzker has sponsored and funded a new scholarly multi - volume edition of the Zohar. I am impressed with Mrs. Pritzker’s dedication to Torah and kabbalah. In comparison to the totality of the Pritzker family charity I would conjecture the sums involved are small. Yet the benefit to the world of Torah and scholarship is immense. I can’t exactly say why, but I find this particular project an especially happy development. Perhaps it is related to the historical connection between the spread of esoteric ideas and the arrival of the Messiah (kehshahyafutzu mayonosechaw chutzah). The Assyrian Dictionary Project at the U. of Chicago took close to a hundred years before it was completed. I hope the Zohar project under the able direction of the co-chairs Rabbis Arthur Green and Yechiel Pupko and the heroic diligence of the translator Daniel Matt will be completed quickly and in our time. Here we have an example of Reform charity that does not directly benefit the material needs of the Jewish people, but furthers the more abstract ideal of knowledge of Torah.

I say JUF, Millennium Park, the Zohar Project are all praiseworthy, all acts of charity and beneficence. I will try to offer a more philosophical argument for my view that charity to non-Jewish causes is praiseworthy even from a Jewish point of view in tomorrow’s post.

Reform Charity 1

2006-11-14T08:21:00.000-06:00

I want to spend some time discussing Reform Judaism. I begin, since we are talking reform, with praise, and I’ll end with some critical thoughts.

Rabbi Selig Starr, a gadol from the early days of American Orthodoxy, used to say: Remember to embrace equally all the three fundamentally Jewish loves: Ahavas(love of) Hashem, Ahavas Torah and Avahas Yisroel (greater Israel). Remember not to minimize any one of them in anyway whatsoever. I would describe American Judaism as made up of three kinds of participants: daveners (love of Hashem,God), learners (love of Torah ) and machers (love of fellow Jews). These participants are found in all the denominations. I have already had occasion to talk about those whose primary relation to Jewish life is learning in my posts on Geeks and on kolel people (6/28, 6/30,7/05.) Today I want to concentrate on a subset of machers, Jews who work on behalf of the Jewish community, the upper tier of the Reform movement.

Some of the most important work of the Reform movement continues with or without temple attendance. Reform Jews are very active in the Jewish United Fund campaigns. The JUF raises close to $800 million annually. The JUF campaigns are frequently just the tip of the iceberg of the charitable and communal activities of Reform Jews. Reform Jews have a special sense of public responsibility for the entire Jewish community. They receive very little in return. Their children don’t attend day school, they don’t live in Israel or Russia and in general they have little need for Jewish social services. They give because they are concerned with klal yisrael, the Jewish people as a whole. The Orthodox, by contrast receive far more from the JUF as a community than they contribute. The bulk of Orthodox charity is to their own community. I say this as a fact, and not as a criticism. Reform Jews receive religious sustenance from these caring and giving impulses. Today, not necessarily 100 years ago, the Reformers are one of the least narcissistic groups in American Jewish life. (see my posts of 10/22, 10/23) The pintele yid, the core spark of spirituality in the soul of the Reform Jew draws on the attribute of chesed or loving kindness and motivates him to give back. As they modestly put it, they have this need to give back to the community.

Have you ever seen a society matron, a woman who does lunch, three weeks before “her” charity ball? These women are driven, motivated, and maniacal that the affair should be a huge success. No detail is too small to be left unattended. Where do they derive this energy, interest and drive? What is it to them if the floral centerpiece is a bit clichéd? After the first two martinis who will notice or care? They are driven because the ball is their ball, they are on the board or committee, they take their responsibility seriously .The voluntary nature of their work creates for them an even greater sense of concern than if they were giving the party as part of their job or because they wanted to entertain their friends. You need a tradition to act this way. You have to see this in your family or in your peer group. This tradition is nourished and developed by the many high bourgeois families that are part of the reform movement.

I think it is correct to say that in many respects reform and secular Jews are not very different. In general people drift from one group to the other. A family joins a temple when the children are young, thinking it would be a good idea for the children .As the children grow up they become less active, and drop their temple membership. At that point the statistical measures count such a family as secular. They are the exact same people. All that has occurred is that they have tired of paying a few thousand a year for a membership in a temple whose services they don’t attend. The major difference between secular and reform Jews is not in frequency of synagogue attendance, or in the level of Jewish scholarship or culture or even in the rate of intermarriage. The main difference, in my opinion is the sense of responsibility they feel for the Jewish people, and their willingness to contribute time and money on their behalf.

I want to give one small example of the current work of Reform Jews. The city of Chicago undertook the development of this magnificent space downtown called Millennium Park. There was Federal funding, but there were cost overruns and there was a need for private funding. Rich individuals and some corporations stepped up to the plate, and their names are displayed at the entrance of the park. I once made a quick calculation, and according to my estimates 40% of the hundreds of millions of dollars came from Jewish sources, and most if not all of those donors were Reform Jews. There is this powerful tradition of responsibility to their community that has been the trademark of the Reform movement for 200 years. These people are not particularly daveners and shul goers. They are not scholars. They are powerhouses of charity and public service. A big tent theology of the Jewish people ought to recognize and value this sort of chesed (beneficence), whether or not the donors keep mitzvoth.

(to be continued)

McMansions and McJews

2006-11-12T08:05:00.000-06:00

There is a phenomenon that is happening all over Chicago, and in many other places as well, where people build elaborate homes on small lots, thus leaving little room for landscaping. These homes are ubiquitous in Lincolnwood and Skokie, and are being bought almost exclusively by Orthodox Jews. A critical definition of a McMansion is the following: “McMansion (n.)-A pejorative term for a particular style of housing that, as its name suggest, is both large like a mansion, and relatively (compared to real mansions) cheap and widespread like McDonald’s fast-food restaurants. McMansions are characterized by traditional features without an understanding of those styles’ underlying logic and purpose.”

Are McFrums a little McCrazy for buying McMansions? Are McMansion communities becoming the trailer parks of the wealthy? I think not. Over time, I believe these homes will go up in value and will be recognized for the unique turn-of-the-century genre that they are. I personally find McMansions a bit much, and would rather live in some other type of home, but I recognize how subjective preferences and tastes can differ. My own preferences have been influenced by an interview a relative of mine gave to a design magazine a few years ago.

He said, “A McMansion is like street theater. It ignores its immediate environment, abandons any idea of decorum or appropriateness and, in taking its message to the street, interrupts your day and aggressively asserts its own agenda, right in your face. For example, ‘‘don’t be fooled by these other houses in this neighborhood; you really are in France, stupid, and this is, indeed, Versailles.’” A McMansion says that Versailles can be next to a Tudor mansion, which can be next to a Windsor castle. “It’s like Halloween-everyone in costume, in their own reality, but at the same party.” It says, “In a more perfect world, I would truly be king and live in this Tudor castle, so why wait?”

He emphasized in the interview that the front door of a McMansion is your welcome mat. It’s your old-time Loretta Young entrance. It screams, “You have arrived!’’ The raison detre of any McMansion is to elicit the biggest ‘oooooh!’ from your guests the second they arrive on your doorstep, before they even come inside. Desired response? "Oh, honey, I’m sure we’ve got the wrong house; this is obviously the French embassy." In response to the question, “What place does a McMansion have in the scheme of modern architecture?’’ He said, “It is form following function, the function being to accommodate one’s psychological needs within a physical structure. Since it is unabashedly artificial, it is one of the least pretentious genres of architecture.” How’s that for an elitist twist?

I believe the issue of McMansion is similar in structure to the question of fancy sheitels and designer clothes. I don’t think there is anything wrong with being farputzed, and somewhat in your face. Orthodox Jews are not Italians who build courtyards within courtyards, so as to hide the glitz from the public. In any event, whether or not one considers such homes tasteful and appropriate, I feel it’s a mistake to attribute any moral or spiritual fault to their owners. Jewish life is on a learning curve. Many families came from areas of Eastern Europe that were not known for their avant-garde sensibility in design and decoration. Everyone is rowing as fast as they can, and if Orthodoxy does not meet the standards of shabby chic WASP sensibilities, it’s no tragedy.

I believe the reason there are no original modernist McMansions is not due to any deep spiritual considerations. A modernist home involves a risk, would stick out even more in a neighborhood like Skokie, and requires a very strong sense of design. Jews who own McMansions generally have large families, are busy in their work, and have other things on their mind than to make original architectural statements. (For a contrary view, see the comments here 10/26/06.)

In secular Jewish society aesthetic disagreements or more correctly aesthetic preferences that are seen as unacceptable are treated much more harshly. People take aesthetic decisions much more seriously. Walk in to any high end design place and watch couples conferring over some object. You’d think they are deciding whether to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. Orthodox society is generally more forgiving when it comes to decoration and appearances. There is still a feeling that simplicity and modesty are virtues, and therefore it is improper to complain about the quality of the art or interior decoration. Compared to the hardscrabble aesthetics of secular Jewish life, I find the Orthodox approach refreshing.

Femme Fatale Bais Yaakov Girls

2006-11-09T07:55:00.000-06:00

In the comments on my post on Sexy Sheitels (10/16/06), a wide variety of new issues were raised concerning the topic of “Sexy Dress and the Yeshiva Girl,” including the perennial favorite Beauty Fades, Stupidity Lasts Forever. Some commentators even claimed that the raison d'etre for many graduates of Orthodox girls High Schools is to look sexy so as to catch a suitable mate. The core complaint is that looks have become over-emphasized to the detriment of other qualities. In my consultations with female members of the Vaad (Committee) for the Preservation of Tzinius (Modest Dress) in Downtown Evanston, a number of salient counter-points were brought up.

Some argued, "Looks will get you the first date, but no more—the rest is your personality, etc. Most young women have bigger goals in life than becoming a "Barbie doll"; if not, than they have much bigger problems to deal with.” Others said to my great surprise that “the top tier girls are smart enough and determined enough to buy clothes that can be found in Elle and Vogue, and will obviously end up looking great. Such girls are going to be intelligent in many other ways as well. It might not be apparent to the yeshiva bochur, but then that’s his problem. Some of these great looking women may be very competitive, ambitious and bright. It takes a considerable amount of effort, organization and taste to look that way. They usually do well in all other endeavors. "

The view of the Vaad was that the top tier girls that are the most attractive are either from rich families or from families that aspire to marry into rich families. The mothers of the boys that these types are looking for are themselves farputzed to the max, and are looking for girls that have the knack and taste to dress fashionably. The second tier of girls cannot reach these stylistic heights. They generally come from poorer, less upwardly mobile homes, or very,very frum homes and can’t or won’t compete. They have some taste; they are bright, obsessively neat and frequently have great midos (character). Their weak point is they tend to overmatch outfits. They coordinate, and then they coordinate some more. The third tier is everybody else.’’ It is difficult for me to tell if the Vaad are trained informants and astute anthropologists or totally biased and catty. My guess is they know what they are talking about, and have some understanding of the fast track shiduchim world. I would therefore conclude that the complaints about provocative dress are masking in some instances, deeper resentments about differentials in wealth and income.

It was also suggested in the comments that there’s a difference between a chassidish/heimish elegant look and a provocative litvish bais yaakov look. In chassidic families, no matter how much is spent on looking good, they insist on a draping effect so that the woman’s body is not displayed in an exhibitionistic or provocative way, whereas in the Americanized Strict Orthodox high schools, the parents allow the young women to cross the line from elegance to a high style/ designer/ fashion magazine look that may appear somewhat provocative to the untrained eye. The Vaad agreed and scored a point for the heimish chasidish crowd. The Vaad felt that the schools in general were not to blame. ‘’As far as chinuch (education) goes -- We don't think schools are giving off the wrong idea -- they have rules/guidelines uniforms, mussar. They try to show how important modest dress is. They are trying...the problem could be they are trying too hard and cause the girls to rebel in the future -- but does this cause a higher divorce rate? We think not."

Additional observations from informants in the field are required before any firm generalizations can be drawn. I am particularly interested in ascertaining if there is a stratified shiduchim market. Is it true that shadchanim (matchmakers) favor fashionable girls over equally pretty but plainer dressed girls? How many tiers are there? Many such questions come to mind, and enquiring minds want to know. My suspicion is that the 'shiduchim crisis' as it is called is partially caused by a sort of winner take all competition. Some girls/guys in the so called first tier get as many matches as they want. Others get few or none. Much of the anguish comes from families being unaware or unwilling to accept the somewhat arbitrary segmentation of the shiduchim world. I would think shadchanim benefit from acting dumb. ('' I am doing my very best, Mrs. X…You know, it’s not so easy…call me after the Yom Tovim…'')

Wherever the exact line of appropriate behavior will eventually be drawn, enormous credit has to be given to the Orthodox community for maintaining, not only the standard of tzinuis, but even more importantly, the standard of dressing up on a regular basis, what I called in a different context, “being farputzed.” I don’t know of any other community in America where people continue to dress formally for dinner on a regular basis. Orthodox and other traditional Jews, dress up for shabbus every week. There is a tradition in America of dressing to the nines, but frequently it is not a high bourgeois sort of dress. If you go to Vegas, you can see a lot of women wearing their finest, but it frequently has a trashed out quality. The men walk around in khakis and jeans. Similarly, you can go to a Latino nightclub where the women are over the top (stilettos, halter tops, low-cut or backless shirts in the winter, glitter), but the guys are wearing jeans and gel. The bourgeois tradition lives on at opening nights at the opera, fancy dress balls, weddings, funerals and the like. If the base line is late nineteenth century aristocratic English dress of tuxedoes and gowns, Orthodox Jewry is closer to that standard than any other group in America. One might think of the black, black, black/ white shirts of Ultra Orthodoxy as the heimish version of a tuxedo.

I, myself, find the tradition of dressing up very valuable. I think the closer one gets to high bourgeois life and the farther one gets from Birkenstock socialist aesthetics, the more attractive Jewish life becomes. As I understand the situation, some Modern Orthodox believe it’s the other way around. They believe if I understand it correctly, that the tradition of high European bourgeois culture has been corrupted, especially because of the Holocaust and the horrible years that led up to it. They feel it is far better, depending on the context, to dress up for shabus and yom tov by adopting a kibbutz, open-collar, sandal look, or a suburban casual look than to emulate the stiff formality of Budapest 1910 or London 1890. Interesting disagreement. We might even have an example of a contra- Heilman situation where the Holocaust had a greater effect on MO than the charedim.

The Upcoming Agudah Convention

2006-11-07T08:03:00.000-06:00

I want to talk about the symposium devoted to blogging at the upcoming Agudah convention. Many have expressed concern that they themselves or the Jewish blogosphere will be strongly criticized. (Rabbi Maryles and DovBear, 11/02/06 and comments) I myself look forward to the convention with equanimity. I usually agree with their pronouncements. I know two months later there will be a new issue of Der Yiddisher Vort with tons of photos, which enables me to see what the gedolim look like, how they are aging, as well as the most important question ‘’Who’s a gadol , who’s not.’’

I would not be upset if they singled out my blog for disapproval. I wouldn’t want them to get into a snit, but if perhaps they could say something like, “Evanston Jew, not-so aiy, yai, yai.” When an elephant swats a fly, the fly doesn’t say, “I’m so angry. She should have asked me out for a date.” The fly says, “It’s my lucky day, the elephant noticed me.” It would be a kavod (an honor) to be noticed even legnai (disfavorably). Charedim rarely acknowledge anyone outside their world. Condemnation by an organization like the Agudah would quadruple my charedi readership, which would improve the conversation. In this day and age, and with respect to the Internet, condemnation by political parties and rabbinical establishments would drive traffic to a site. The Agudah realizes that if they say ‘don’t read blog X…X is full of lashon harah ( gossip)’, many will rush to read X. It’s sad but true. Such is life.

I expect the Agudah to say, “Using the internet not for business is forbidden.” It is a waste of time, where one could have been studying Torah. They would be right. The production and consumption of blogs eats up an enormous amount of time.

They will say blogging leads to a depreciation of the gedolim and ultimately the Torah itself. They will disapprove of blogs that do not tow the Agudah line, as they should. The Agudah is a political party with a rabbinic leadership, and like all political parties they are not fond of the competition. Nor should they be. Macy’s doesn’t take out ads for Bloomingdales. Do we blame Republicans for not being crazy about Democrats? When the Agudah invokes Daas Torah, it is, amongst many other things, a way to support the rabbinical leadership’s aspiration for hegemony over the Jewish people. The hegemony can be earned by convincing everyone. In the present context, it would involve stepping into the ring of bloggers and presenting their view point in the intellectual marketplace. I am delighted to see Rabbi Avi Shafran of the Agudah is beginning to do just that. When the option of competing in an open-market is not available, there is the tried and true method of condemning those who are a threat to their hegemony by invoking the sanctity of the Torah. And from the Agudah’s point of view, they are right to do so. They feel the rabbinical leadership that is loyal to their party is worthy of leading the entire Jewish people. Anyone who stands in the way of this goal is a threat to the Torah-true way of life as they understand it.

If the Agudah began inviting critics of its viewpoints to address their convention they would no longer be the Agudah. They would have morphed into a tolerant, liberal organization. Next thing the Conservatives and Reformers will be clamoring to present their points of view, and then what will we have? The League of Women Voters. A pluralist Agudah will lead to their gedolim appearing at RCA conventions. Who knows what will come of that? Help for agunot, kashrut reform, women tefila (prayer) groups. The Agudah of Kattowitz, Marienbard, Wien and the other classic conventions was an organization of fierce ideological infighters. Who could possibly want them to go all soft and liberal? Does Jewish life lack in moderate, pluralist liberal Jews?

I expect special condemnation of those bloggers that are most threatening, even if they raised important and timely issues. UOJ is the leading candidate now that he is no longer posting. It would be a pleasant surprise if they coupled their condemnations with some action on rabbinical sexual predator issues and other areas of rabbinic corruption. The elephant in the room in all the scandals of the last few years is who will control the narratives that shape our evaluation of the rabbinical leadership. Would any political/rabbinical leadership give up control over the story line voluntarily? I think not.

Finally, the Agudah will express concern about young people. They are right. Young teenage yeshiva bocherim don’t belong on the internet blogging sites. They should learn, exercise and hang out. Unsupervised internet use for frum teenagers can lead to no good. My view is that a charedi Jew needs a college education to develop his critical powers so as to discern the quality of the arguments. If that is impossible, he needs some life experience.

As usual, Daas Torah knows what it’s talking about. It is especially astute at knowing what is good for Daas Torah. (Also see my posts of 9/20/06 and 8/13/06)

The Post-Yeshiva Yeshivaman

2006-11-05T08:23:00.000-06:00

Anybody who went to yeshiva and has internalized its ideals, feels it’s important to maintain those ideals throughout life. Many people have remarked that, in an important sense, no one ever leaves the yeshiva; a yeshiva education is permanently embedded in one’s consciousness. I want to address the question of how can a post- yeshiva yeshivaman (the ‘an’ is pronounced like the ‘on’ in Ludwig von Beethoven), away from the actual yeshiva and in the world, maintain yeshivish values? I want to concentrate on the value of life-long learning and education.

The problem is of interest only to a minority of Orthodox Jews. Many Orthodox Jews don’t have time to breathe, let alone to be confronted with questions about what to read and what to study. As a background condition, I’m assuming a person has the good fortune to be able to fulfill all of his duties and obligations and still have time left over to learn. My question is when a yeshivaman faces a long life ahead, post-yeshiva, how is he to organize his intellectual studies? Since we’re talking about yeshiva educated people, one fixed point will obviously be the study of Torah, and here, I think, there’s a general consensus that there are three main books in Jewish life, the Bible, the Talmud, and the Zohar. A person who doesn’t study any of these books, especially the Talmud, can not be described as yeshivish.

There are three other potential libraries that might have to be integrated into Torah study. The first is Jewish studies, which include both books about the history and culture of Jewish life and other books that may be relevant to the understanding of the three core texts. If you have a “Torah, Torah, Torah!” view, the question doesn’t come up because all the time will be spent in Talmudic study and the like. Nevertheless, it is true that many yeshiva people, as they get older, take an interest in Jewish Studies, and the question arises how they should go about their reading.

There’s also a library of secular knowledge that is interesting for its own sake, beginning with art history and ending with zoology. Each of these disciplines could take a lifetime to master. What is one to do? Next, there are areas of studies that are relevant to one’s special duties in life. Lawyers have to keep up with the law. Doctors have to study developments in medicine and so on. There are also bodies of knowledge that are associated with one’s particular existential situation. A family in which somebody is sick will eventually learn all there is to know about the illness.

So here is the grown-up yeshivaman potentially faced with four almost endless libraries: a Torah library, Jewish Studies, interesting secular knowledge, and practical secular knowledge. Can anything be said about how one is to go about integrating all of this? I want to offer two principles; not rules, principles. The first is that curiosity is the surest guide of what to read. There can be no better motivator than natural interest. Learning should not be like taking cod liver oil. It should be more like licking the honey off a page. A study program devoted to material that a reader finds uninteresting will not endure for any substantial period of time. Everything else equal, a yeshivahman should allow his natural curiosity and desire to know more to organize his studies.

The second principle is coherence that leads to depth. At the end of a life, all this study should amount to something. The person would have found a way to connect the various subjects and interests. The studies should reinforce each other and enable the person to get past the exterior level to something deeper. In yeshiva jargon, it is a bkeius that leads to an amkus, an encyclopedic knowledge of many different subjects that leads to a deeper knowledge that is so integrated that the whole is more than the parts. At the end of a life a person should be able to say, “I now understand, in a deep way, what I did not understand but very much wanted to know when I set out on my intellectual journey.”

The view I’m offering is in contrast to an idea popular in secular Jewish life. People frequently say a person ought to be a “Renaissance man.” They say it’s important to know a little bit about everything, so that at a cocktail or dinner party, one can always speak up and offer an intelligent opinion. Too detailed knowledge of any particular subject makes for a geek or a nerd, but not for an attractive dinner party companion. I don’t like this view because it frequently leads to a sort of “culture vulture” type of consumerism. Did you see? Did you read? Did you go to? I loved it, I hated it, so-so. At the end of life, all this vulturing doesn’t add up to an organic, unified whole, and frequently doesn’t push the person to greater depth and wisdom. I am not opposed to participating in a culture. I am opposed to a sampling ‘wine tasting’ approach to culture.

On my view, what is true for a yeshiva bochur post-yeshiva also holds true for the general issue of Jewish literacy that affects all Jewish denominations and groups. I say the fixed point is Torah, followed by Jewish Studies and secular knowledge and special knowledge, in some combination, governed by curiosity and coherence. As to the exact way to travel down the road from curiosity to depth, the answer differs for each of us. We have different interests, life experiences and therefore different lessons to learn and roads to travel. There is no guarantee of success, and it is easy enough to go down a path that lead to nowhere. The possibility of failure and the promise of success are all part of the excitement and glamour of being a yeshivahman.

Heimish Chasidish

2006-11-02T07:32:00.000-06:00

Heimish Chasidish (HC) doesn’t get the credit that it deserves. If you’ve been asleep and haven’t noticed, the Jewish blogosphere is almost totally dominated by Litvisher guys, who self-identify as litvish because they either are the children of Lithuanian families or were students of yeshivas that teach in the Lithuanian style of studying Talmud. These self identifying litvish are everywhere. YU is Brisk incarnate. Hesder yeshivas are all litvish. Lakewood, Baltimore, Scranton, Philadelphia, Denver, RJJ, MTJ, Mir, Telshe, Skokie, Lakewood community kollels all over the country are all litvish, litvish, litvish. Many of the newer yeshivas in Stamford, New Haven, New Jersey, the Rockaways, the Catskills, Miami, L.A., more litvish, litvish, litvish. The situation gets worse as we move along. YCT… litvish. JTS…was litvish. Bais yaakovs…litvish. Israeli finishing schools for girls… litvish,litvish,and more litvish. It seems these litvisher have the heimish chassidish crowd surrounded. For such a small Baltic country they such know how to replicate.

For my readers who have no idea what I’m talking about, the place names I mentioned in the last paragraph are the handles, nicknames and acronyms of the various yeshivas. Heimish chassidish refers to the groups of Orthodox Jews whose primary self-identification are with the chassidic families from which they come, and with the chassidic subgroups that are part of their heritage. As part of this identification they have learnt how to internalize the feeling tone, graciousness and culture so as to be similar in important respects to other Jews who came from these chasidic areas ;hence the heimish part. When you are with them it feels like you are with someone from der alter heim, the old home where these chasidim lived. To bring everyone up to snuff I should add that within Ashkenazi Jewry, ever since the arrival of Chassidus as a movement in the late 18th century, Orthodox or rather very traditional Jewish life has been divided between chasiddim and misnagdim (the opponents [of chasidim]). One of the leading mithnagdim communities was centered in Lithuania and Belarus (Lita). These misnagdim were called litvaks and their style of learning and being is litvish.

I am using HC in a minimalist way to describe any Jew who achieves a way of being Jewish that does not self identify as litvish and a misnagid but rather as a chassidish person and carries on chasidic customs, culture and ways of being in the various areas of Jewish life other than Talmudic studies; and has also internalized these ways of being to a point so that being with him feels like being with someone who acts and is the way people were in Eastern Europe. A baal teshuvah can certainly be chassidish. It takes a while before he is heimish. A person can be heimish and not frum, maybe, but that is complicating my story. A non-frum person can’t be chassidish even if he wears a shtreimel and bekishe. Within Ultra-Orthodoxy these HC groups are very important and count for a substantial percentage of the population. On the internet, they are almost invisible.

It’s not very easy to do the phenomenology of Heimish Chasidish Man because the term is now being used in a big tent sort of way. First of all, there are HC people who trained in litvish yeshivas versus others who went only to a chassidisher yeshiva. The situation is more complicated because some chassidish places have adopted litvish ways of learning. Second, there is the question of degree. It’s difficult to compare a Satmar guy in Kiryas Yoel with a college educated yuppie who self identifies as HC, but is already clean shaven, etc. And finally, litvisher guys can be haymish, they just can’t be chassidish heimish . (For a different use of heimish in terms of being heimish with see my post of 6/21. Also relevant is my exchange with the reader ‘’anonymous’’ in yesterday’s post.)

Describing HC is a bit like describing the un-Cola. I’ll take a stab. I would say the core characteristic of HC Man is that he’s not pretending to be a litvak, even if he attended a litvisher yeshiva. The phonology of his Yiddish is not litvish Yiddish but Polish or Hungarian or Romanian Yiddish. He is especially fond of and attached to the rhythms and ways of expressing oneself that are found in these European Yiddish dialects. It’s a bit like a Southern drawl. Southerners like to talk southern. Chassidish heimish like to talk in a chassidish heimish way. The language, in turn, is intimately tied to a ways of thinking and feeling. Humor and wit are built into the phonology, syntax and semantics. If you don’t believe me, listen to the Dzigen and Schumacher and Dzigen comedy tapes. There is a whole world, 500 hundred years of history embedded in Dzigan’s lilt. I giggle every time I hear Dzigen ask a question with an upward lilt and stop, leaving the listener hanging. HCers are determined not to lose those worlds. HC types daven sefard, have chassidic customs like the prohibition of gebrochets on Passover, and as we move towards charedi life have an active and deep relationship with a chassidic rebbe.

Litvish people, especially those sweet on musar (traditional pietistic and ethical discourses), can be dour. It’s difficult for HC Man to be as coolly intellectual, analytical and emotionally pinched as some litvish people. I would say that although he is not as high-brow analytical as litvish intellectuals, HC Man is frequently more street smart and better in business, because his or her intelligence is infused with an emotional intelligence and with a laser beam focus on the goal, unencumbered by hyper-intellectual ideas and doubts. (I understand that others will undoubtedly differ on this last point. Where science fears to tread, bloggers trash out with ease. In fact it is a stereotype that would be impossible to prove, and which is only based on a hunch on my part on the relative distribution of wealth at the high end of Ultra Orthodoxy.) When an HCer is trained in a litvish yeshiva and there are secondary identifications, the ideal type I called HC Man begins to blend imperceptibly into some generic American yeshivish type.

HCers have inherited to a greater or lesser degree the popular and religious culture of chasidim in general and a relevant specific chassidic sect in particular. A complete phenomenology would require a working through of the idiosyncratic personality traits of each chassidic group, not the easiest of tasks. I’ll leave that task to Professor Heilman.

In the case of the less acculturated HC types there is a peculiar swagger, a mojo that is unique to chasidim. It’s not just that they wear black, any yolt can do that. They wear it with aplomb, an assurance that is truly cool. They walk, they slouch, they inhabit their space with an insouciance that is…what can I say, heimish chasidish. If you click here you’ll see a little heimish chasidish swagger from one of the two Satmar Rebbe weddings of last week , which b’’h were on two successive nights. Beautiful and inspiring.

If he were frum and if he were (more) chasidish and heimish, Kinky Friedman, hopefully the next governor of Texas, would be heimish chassidish. Eliott Spitzer whatever his origins is Litvish. If I were really mean I would say Ann Coulter is Litvish, Al Franken is HC. Since I try not to be too mean, scratch the last sentence. I mentioned these names jokingly to give readers who have never met either a litvish or HC person some small feel of what I am talking about.

The future of college educated HC people is not bright. It’s going to be hard for them to instill the values they learned from their European parents in their children, especially when the common language becomes English. I believe it will depend on second and third generation HCers achieving a deeper understanding of what is unique to their subculture and how to show these special traits to their children. Taking their American acculturated children on a trip to Jerusalem or Williamsburg, pointing at some chasidim and telling the children ‘we’re them’ might be inadequate.

I don’t feel I’ve gotten to the inner nitty- gritty of my topic, but sitting in Evanston, this hotbed of Torah and chassidus in the American heartland, it’s the best I can do right now. I know one thing, to be called heimish are words of high praise. It is an ideal worth striving for.

Sociology Without Leaving Home

2006-10-31T08:00:00.000-06:00

I find myself in disagreement with much that Samuel Heilmann has written over the years. I think his basic premise is faulty in that he starts with the assumption that Orthodoxy is essentially more or less like the version he is comfortable with, and all deviations from the way he grew up need an explanation. His base line Orthodoxy is what they used to call the Orthodoxy of the ‘big shuls’ as opposed to the shteiblech, yeshivish and chasidisher minyanim. In these big tent sorts of places everyone was Orthodox, but some were lax in their observance. If left-wing Modern Orthodox becomes the paradigm, charedi life is marginalized and, as a result, becomes a problem that requires a special explanation.

None of this corresponds to my own recollection. The Orthodox refugees who came to America immediately before the war largely came from traditional homes in Eastern Europe. None of these people had the slightest familiarity with American Conservative or Reform Judaism. After the war, the bulk of the people who came to Orthodoxy were Ultra and Strict Orthodox, and not Modern Orthodox. The famous yeshivas in New York and elsewhere were already seriously frum before the war. Although the world was frum, the current ideological divisions were much less severe. I’ll give a few examples.

In my youth, I remember reading that the Satmar Rav, Harav Yoel Teitelbaum z”l gave a talk in Mesivta Torah Vodaath. It wasn’t considered particularly odd for the leader of the anti-Zionist and the most extreme version of Hungarian Transylvanian chassidus to be invited to speak in an American yeshiva. While we’re on the topic of anti-Zionism, it’s useful to remember that the American Agudah in the 50’s was far from being a pro-Zionist movement. It is my understanding, and readers can send in their own impressions, that the ideology that was dominant in Agudah, especially in Camp Agudah in those years was very close to the Neturei Karta position that is today considered over the top, off the wall, and extremist. The charedim then were less Zionist than today where many have turned more right wing pro-settler. Nevertheless the contacts between Strict Orthodox Agudah and Mizrachi Jews was closer than today.

I remember in my teenage years Rabbi I. Domb’s The Transformation: The Case of Neturei Karta was being passed around, not exactly what you would call a left wing Modern Orthodox manual. Some friends read The Transformation, some played basketball, and some talked eventually about philosophy of science or mathematics. Some did all three. I did not feel growing up that my surroundings were particularly extreme or charedi. It didn’t feel charedi. It didn’t feel Modern Orthodox. It felt like growing up with everyone else, some bigger learners, some less into learning, more frum, less frum. It’s called growing up in a neighborhood. I should also add that at least during adolescence people didn’t sort themselves into cliques based on religiosity. You played ball, schmoozed, kibitzed with whoever was around. I am willing to bet many others had similar experiences.

The parents who sent their children to the famous American yeshivas and bais yaakovs were not Modern Orthodox Jews who became more religious. They were European Jews who originally came from families that today would be called Strict Orthodox, but who might have modernized somewhat before and after the war. Charedi life was not foreign to them. The same phenomenon exists today. There are thousands of Orthodox Jews who want to daven in a chassidish shteibel, perhaps headed by some miniscule rebbele. It’s not because they are so charedi themselves, but because that way of life is familiar and comfortable. Even if they go to the movies and send their son or daughter to YU, they might want their rav to wear an appropriate outfit. They want to daven nusach sfard. Heimish chassidish is a big tent, capacious space.

Many, many of the students at Yeshiva University and its associated schools were drawn from the ranks of families that were connected to a European orthodoxy. I would say that in those days the lines of separation between the various stripes were loosely drawn. One kid went to Chaim Berlin and Brooklyn College. His brother or cousin might have gone to YU. In the years immediately after the war the ideological separations we have today were much gentler. It wasn’t so uncommon for someone to be a Munkaczer chasid, with all that such an affiliation implies, and be clean shaven and sympathize with the Mizrachi.

Heilman’s attributing college and professional education to Modern Orthodox and learning, kolel and estrangement from the world to charedim is just not the way it happened. It was all mixed up…big learners went to college and became charedim big time. Plenty of guys who didn’t go to college or went to college and dropped out were Modern Orthodox . The attitude towards college as most everyone knows hardened as the years went by.

Heilman will have none of this. If children grew up in America yeshivish and frum, it’s because the charedi influence infiltrated American Orthodoxy and captured these children from their modern parents. He is describing, what I consider, a marginal phenomenon: a Modern Orthodox day school that can’t find Modern Orthodox teachers and must import extremist yeshiva trained teachers, who in turn, indoctrinate these modern kids. It is not the way I experienced the formative years of American Judaism. My experience was of somewhat modernized parents happily sending their children to the great American yeshivas.

There were plenty of crossover rabbis. Rabbi Maryles has just written (10/25) a detailed, vivid portrait of the Skokie Yeshiva as a premier Modern Orthodox institution that in more recent years has turned charedi. Yet at various points during its Modern Orthodox period two important charedi personalities taught there, and no one gave it a second thought, Rabbi Kreisworth z’’l who became the head of the distinguished charedi community of Antwerp, and yibadel lchaim Rabbi Perlow, the Novominsker Rebbe and current head of the Moetzet Gedolei Hatorah. In the years after the war many Strict Orthodox Jews were distinguished rosh yeshivas at YU, the intellectual, spiritual center of MO. Consider the case of Rabbi Bleich who teaches at YU, who was trained elsewhere in, I assume, more charedi institutions. His books on halachic problems are read and accepted by most everyone. Is he RWMO or LWUO? No…he is Rabbi Bleich whose books are read and accepted by most everyone. I can give many more examples where the attempt to impose sociological ideal types on a fluid reality leads to ludicrous results.

The entire schematic categories of MO and UO, and the neologisms RW (right wing) and LW (left wing) UO and MO were either nonexistent or didn’t carry the rigid associations they do today. A downside of the Jewish world of blogging is that everyone, me included, has become an amateur sociologist. It is important to remember that the typological categories being used do not and never did pick out unique non-overlapping classes of people. Many Jews were and are a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Heilman’s narrative is not only biased against charedim, it is far too neat and artificial and fails to capture the complex strands that were interwoven to create the colorful tapestry we have today. Heilman gets his story wrong because he has a story, and then makes a messy reality fit his tidy theories. His story consciously or not is permeated with the entire edifice of the sociological literature on acculturation and assimilation. His observations, to the extent that he does look outside, are totally theory laden. He sees what his theories tell him to see.

A better way would have been to have talked to people, hundreds, thousands, and listen empathically. Try to get a feel what it was to belong to Breuer’s kehila, Bais Medrash Elyon, YU, the Young Israel of Boro Park and on and on. Only then should he have put together a narrative. But with Heilman you get the feeling he can produce an answer without ever leaving his office.

Orthodoxy and the Holocaust

2006-10-29T07:51:00.000-06:00

In his book called Sliding to the Right, Samuel Heilman provides a summary of his insights from his previous publications and tries to provide a coherent sociological narrative of how American Orthodoxy became what it is today. One area, and there are many, where I disagree with Heilman’s account of the origins and development of Orthodoxy is the role he attributes to the Holocaust in shaping the attitudes of the community. He uses the Holocaust as a sort of deus- ex- machina to solve the problems that occur in his narrative. Why do charedim have so many children? Answer: the Holocaust. The charedi world was determined not to give Hitler a posthumous victory. Sounds right, except for one thing. Why didn’t all the other Jews that went through the Holocaust have a lot of kids? Even the Orthodox Frankfurt Jews in Washington Heights, who were certainly as familiar as the Hungarians and the American yeshiva people with the Holocaust, did not have large families. Second, each subsequent generation in Ultra-Orthodox Jewish life has more kids than the previous generation. If the grandparents, having lived through the terrible years of the Hitler period, didn’t think the Holocaust were grounds for having ten kids, why did the children need a victory over Nazism? No problem…the parents couldn’t, you see they were 'greener' (new immigrants) , but the children could. Maybe. And why do the grandchildren 60 years later have even more children? Aduh.

Similarly, Heilman uses the Holocaust as a way of giving an account of why charedim were secessionist from American culture and why they work so hard to form a counterculture. He gives scant attention to the fact that charedim were secessionist in Europe. Rabbi S.R. Hirsch used this technique with great success in Frankfurt, the Hungarians picked it up, and it became a dominant idea in Agudah circles. In Eastern Europe, where there wasn’t any reform and the kulturkampf was less severe, there was still a tradition of limited contact with secular Jews and the gentile environment. One doesn’t need a Holocaust to explain why Ultra-Orthodox life is inward looking and xenophobic. If the holocaust was crucial in the self definition of charedim, Reb Moshe Feinstein would never have said flat out, as he did, that a special Holocaust Remembrance Day is unnecessary.

My main objection to using the idea of the Holocaust as an explanation of any aspect of Orthodoxy is that it goes counter to my own experience. I remember, as if it was yesterday, Orthodox Jews after the war shpatzering (strolling) on Shabbus, speaking to each other in German and a mixture of Yiddish Deutsch as if the war had not occurred. Some Oberlander Jews continue to speak a dialect of Judeo- German even today. The Hungarians spoke Ungarish. All these people knew Yiddish. I assume they spoke German and Hungarian because they liked speaking the languages. They knew who the Germans were and what they did. They knew the Hungarian and Romanian fascists were not much better.

Let’s focus on shpatzering, Every attempt was made to carry on life just the way it was before the war. The women were farputzed, the men paid attention to how they looked. Nobody was rich, certainly not by today’s standards. But there was this European tradition of caring about and taking care of clothes. They pulled it off. A little fur trim here, a piece of jewelry there, the ensembles somehow came together. All this took effort and shopping and planning; and pretty much everyone did some of it. How many times did I hear that Budapest was the Paris of the East? (I remember thinking at one point why don’t they call Paris the Budapest of the West.) The idea was to be elegaant. And they were. Very much so. The acting out of this entire fantasy would have been impossible in a population that was traumatized by the Holocaust.

The primary way of dealing with the Holocaust was not denial, but an intense attempt to recreate what they had before the war. They wanted the same clothes, the same language, the same style shuls. They clustered according to regions, gubernias and towns. A favorite conversation piece began ‘’Where are you from? Oh, from Diniv , that’s near Bluzhov, west of Ropschitz ...Yes... I know, I know, I just said its close. Don’t tell me, I’ll remember. You go right just outside Diniv and then after maybe 10 kilometers you turn right again. Yes, yes I know where it is.’’ By the time I was ten I had heard the names of so many European towns and cities I used to play East European geography. Everyone knew what had happened to Diniv and Bluzhov. Everyone knew there was no going back. It was still reassuring to talk about it.

There was no serious talk about the Holocaust for the first fifteen or twenty years after the war. People were actually enjoying life during the Truman and Eisenhower years, not exactly what you expect from a community suffering traumas from the Holocaust. It is true people were hysterical about finding any relatives that might have survived. People searched the HIAS lists to see if anybody they might have known was still alive. They put ads in newspapers, here and in Israel. But the search for relatives was part of the attempt to get on with life. Not the sort of morbid preoccupation we have today with life in the concentration camps and the sadism of the Nazis. Books about the Holocaust didn’t appear in any number until the seventies and eighties. If everyone was so busy with the Holocaust, and if this was the dominating influence in their lives, why were there no publications? If you look at the many Yizkor (Holocaust Remeberance) books of the period, the treatment of the Holocaust is very superficial. Every attempt was to remember life before the Germans came. Everyone knew fully well what happened once they came.

When I was a young child, and the table conversation turned to relatives who perished during the Holocaust, I was told "The Nazis, yimach shemum, came and murdered everybody. Eat your peas."

I think there’s an important difference between Holocaust survivors and their families, and refugees or others who survived Nazism, but not in the camps (e.g. in the forests or behind Soviet lines.) In the case of Holocaust survivors, it is true that some of them, not all, were so traumatized they never fully recovered. Many managed to drive their children ‘crazy.’ There is merit to the idea of treating children of Holocaust survivors as a special psychiatric category when appropriate. The case is totally different with refugees, etc. Their traumas were in the context of the twentieth century not that abnormal, and being the resourceful Jews they were, they were determined to rebuild their lives as quickly as possible. I once heard a psychiatrist say that there’s a special category of children of refugees of the Holocaust. I think the psychiatrist was trying to make a living by inventing new traumas.

The public culture that Orthodox Jews created after the war was not the culture of Holocaust survivors. It was a culture of refugees and religious Jews who came to America before and after the war. Even when Holocaust survivors told their stories, and I remember a few from my youth, they did not linger and repeat the stories endlessly. Public discourse was always about the present and the future, as it should be.

WOW!!

2006-10-26T10:54:00.000-05:00

I just came back yesterday from a chasuna and was very exhausted from the trip. I had heard at the wedding, news travels very quickly, that Hirhurim, Rabbi Gil Student, one of the most respected bloggers in this Jewish space, said nice things about my blog. When I came home and got to see his post and the comments, I found it all somewhat overwhelming. It felt very much like I was sitting in a semi-dark room engrossed in thought and, all of a sudden, someone turned on all the lights. When a person is young, they drop in at each other’s homes without hesitation. At my age, I wouldn’t mind visiting my friends without calling, but I wouldn’t want anyone dropping in my house without a week’s notice. Here I come home, there are a thousand unexpected visitors and I forgot where I put the napkins.

So first things first. I’d like to thank Rabbi Student for being so kind and generous, and I should add courageous. I don’t believe Rabbi Student has read all my comments, but I’m sure he read enough to realize that I have and am going to say things, from time to time, that he most certainly would not agree with. It takes a certain true understanding of tolerance and pluralism on his part, to say what he said. Everyone must understand that I do not take what Rabbi Student said as a haskamah (certification of approval) on the contents of what I have written, and I am certain that it was not intended as such.

I would also like to thank all the kind people who went out of their way to say nice things about my blog in the comments section. Frequently I experiment with different voices, sometimes more funny, sometimes more moralistic, and I never quite know how it will work. So I am really pleased to see that I have not made a total fool out of myself.

In my comment on Hirhurim, I made a Freudian boo-boo. I wanted to say that my blog has twists and turns that might not be appropriate for everyone. I take my responsibility as a blogger seriously. I should have said caveat emptor, meaning buyer beware. Since my Latin is almost as good as my Greek, I made a Freudian slip and said carpe diem, which means seize the day. Here I was trying to protect people and I ended up saying don’t be so cowardly and go for it.

A number of people said that I’m writing too quickly by putting out a post every day. I know this, but my thought was to say what I had to say and stop. I wasn’t hoping to become a columnist. I’m trying to present a way of looking at Jewish life and that’s it. While I was away I realized that, although this is my intent, it’s not going to be so easy. I was working on notes for a piece on Yiddish, which I then saw could be split into two, which got me thinking about Bundists, which in turn raised issues of the thirties and forties, and all of a sudden there are eight possible posts. Writing a post everyday, indefinitely, is much too difficult for me. I’m going to cut back to three or four times a week and see what happens. It is still my goal to stop at some point.

I want to say something about the literary conceit involved in my blog. I am trying to write an allgemeiner blog, one that appeals to all segments of Jewish life. I’m especially concerned with not alienating secular liberal Jews. My goal and I know it’s a bit grandiose, is that I should be considered a definite but honest person by Jews of very different religious persuasions. In order for me to get anywhere with this conceit, I must maintain my anonymity. It is important for me to be able to write about secular Jewish life from a charedi point of view, charedi Jewish life from a secular point of view, shift tones and perspectives, and so on. Once I become the topic of conversation, it’s going to be very difficult. My feeling is that a person has to have a self that is together and coherent. It’s less necessary, in this post-modern age, to have one identity. Identities are much more fluid and there are fragments of different identities in many of us.

My intent is to write an interesting constructive blog. My goal is never to try to move furniture around. My goal is simply to put out an idea and ask people to think about it for themselves, and decide where they stand. I have a sharp tongue and, in real life, I have a colorful tongue. The way I frequently write is to work up a little passion about the topic. I said, in my first post, that a certain rabbi was either a fool or corrupt. I opted for fool. I’ll add that I remember a time, way before this rabbi became a gadol, when I and everyone else still saw him as an ordinary mortal, with an ordinary family. I do not believe there are many liberal bloggers out there today, who worked harder to provide a coherent appreciation of gadolim, Daas Torah, Kollelim and the life of Torah than myself. I stand by what I said until someone shows me how I made a mistake.

I ask everyone including those who really don’t like what I write not to out me. I am a private person with no aspirations other than trying to present a view I have about Jewish life. I should be entitled to do that without difficulties.

Obama and Me

2006-10-24T05:27:00.000-05:00

The conservative David Brooks and the liberal Maureen Dowd have both recently called upon Barack Obama to run for the Democratic nomination for president. I am beside myself with misery. It’s not that I disapprove of Obama. Quite the contrary, I like him very much and I will certainly vote for him ahead of Hilary. I am unhappy because of a story I am about to tell.

A true story that happened, happened this way. I live on a fairly busy street with a lawn in front of my house. Every time elections roll around, people come to me and ask if I would put up a sign for their favorite candidate. I generally refuse because I don’t want to get too involved. I used to put up signs for my Congressman, Sidney Yates. I was about Yates. He was in Congress for like forty years until he was, maybe, a hundred and twelve. Whenever they asked him anything he said “I’m in favor of funding for the arts.” Vietnam…arts. Budget deficit…arts. With Yates, I knew his position on everything and I agreed. I, too, like funding for the arts. When he wasn’t talking about the arts, he stayed home and rested.

He then retired and I was left with Jan Schakowsky, a Jewish woman who has an opinion on everything. I went to a little pot-luck dinner fund-raising deal, and they asked her for a brisket recipe. She had an opinion. They then asked her about NAFTA, she also had an opinion. The ACLU gives her, on a scale of 0 to 100, a 400 rating. I vote for her but I’m not about Schakowsky, and she gets no sign on my lawn.

Four years ago, people came and said there’s this guy Obama, he’s really cool and would I put up a sign for him in the upcoming primary. I asked my beloved late wife a‘’h, what to do and she said sensibly, “He ain’t no Yates.” So I said no. Then my friends came and said, “There’s this heimisher guy Klein, he’s running for traffic court judge…we know him…he has some opposition this time around. Help us out. We don’t know anyone else in Evanston.” I say okay. I put up a sign for Klein. On my street, we end up with 15 Obama posters, 5 Schakowsky, and 1 Klein, My neighbor comes and asks who and why Klein. I say, “Very liberal guy. Solid opinions. Gem of a fellow.” The neighbor says, “What are you talking about? He’s running for traffic court judge.” I sputter, “Very, very, fair man. Trust me.”

The primaries come around and Obama wins by an overwhelming landslide. In Evanston he got 102% of the vote (remember we’re talking Chicago, where we vote early and often). Schakowsky mobilizes her little machine and trounces Klein. People walk by my house saying, “Poor guy, he was in favor of Klein.” I hid my head in shame and tried to forget about the whole affair. But they don’t let me rest. As the Yiddish expression goes ‘’It would be possible to live, but they don’t let.’’

Obama is running for President, and I could have been in on the ground floor. If Obama wins the presidency, and had I been clever enough to take his stupid sign, there’s no telling what could have happened to me. I would have been invited to all these meetings, I would have made a strategic donation here, and there, and he would have owed me big time, this Obama, since I would have been one of his earliest supporters. Maybe an ambassadorship to Togo or the Fuji Islands, you never know. I then would have been Togo Jew instead of Evanston Jew. But all this will never happen. He won’t even invite me to a victory Kiddush downtown.

The moral lesson to this sad tale is: there’s more to life than being heimish.

Empathy in Jewish Life

2006-10-23T07:33:00.000-05:00

I want to talk about the role of empathy in Jewish life. First of all, what is empathy? It’s not the same as sympathy, though sometimes the two words are used as synonyms. Sympathy involves compassion for another human being. You might have rachumnis for somebody, without having much idea who the person is or what it is like to be such a person. For example, we might show sympathy and compassion for the sorrows and troubles of homeless refugees. Empathy most often refers to a vicarious participation in the emotions, ideas, or opinions of others, the ability to imagine oneself in the condition or predicament of another. Empathy is essentially a tool of observation, a way of collecting data about another human being. After the data is collected, there is still a need for interpretation, analysis, etc. It’s no different in principle from perception or hearing or smell. It’s a way of finding out about the world outside, but only with respect to fellow human beings. You have reason to be concerned if you begin to feel empathy for a rock.

Empathy is a skill that is acquired. How does empathy actually work? Unlike sight or hearing there is no particular apparatus involved. Some people are better at it than others. It takes practice. You have to be able to put yourself in another’s position and try to imagine or feel what it is to be that person in that position. It helps if you can find the other in yourself. It works, I believe, by being present to another, and not allowing your principles and ideals to interfere prematurely. The relevant question is always what does the other believe, how does he perceive the world. I admit our ability to be empathic is a bit of a mystery or maybe it should be called a miracle. If not for empathy we would never really connect with anyone outside ourselves.

If you’re not too secure about who you are, if you imagine the other as being very, very different, it’s going to be a lot harder to imagine yourself as the other person. All your energies are being spent holding yourself together and projecting onto others traits that are unacceptable to your conscious ideals. In terms of my discussion about narcissism in Jewish life, groups that are more narcissistic and insecure are less likely to be empathic to other groups. I’ve already worked the theme in my previous post and I don’t want to repeat myself.

I want to give a different example of empathy in Jewish life. I think the relationship between a Rebbe and a chasid is to be understood partially in terms of the empathy that the Rebbe can have for his disciple. After all, how does a Rebbe know what to tell a chasid when he comes in with a request (kvitel)? It’s not a trivial question because there’s a huge anecdotal body of evidence that Chassidic Rebbes are very helpful in talking with their Chasidim and helping them make important life decisions. I say that the great Rebbes have, first of all, an intuitive understanding of people, which comes from a vast experience of talking to and helping people. Intuition is not empathy. Intuition is the ability of some gifted practitioner, doctor, lawyer, or rebbe, to speedily and preconsciously collect a large number of details and evaluate the possible outcomes. Empathy, on the other hand, involves the ability of the Rebbe to put himself in the chasid’s place, to feel what the chasid is feeling and to look at the world from the chasid’s perspective. Once the data is gathered, the Rebbe goes back into himself, analyzes and interprets the information, and has enough distance from the material to sort out plausible ways to proceed.

Sometimes empathy alone, without any advice, is of great value. When you go on a shiva visit, all a person has to do is listen and, somehow, not necessarily verbally, communicate to the mourner that he knows what the other is going through. Similarly, when you’re talking to a depressed person, it is frequently a bad idea to say, “Why are you depressed? Snap out of it!” which only makes the person feel worse. Many times the best thing a person can do is to communicate “I know where you’re coming from; I understand why you feel this way.” The Bible describes God’s empathy as being-with- us in our woes (imoh anochi btzurah). Being- with another human being is the most basic way we can relate to others. I believe that the ability to be empathically with another is the essence of the virtue called ahavath yisroeol, love of one’s fellow Jew.

One last glaring example of the lack of empathy on both sides is the Israeli –Palestinian conflict. Here two insecure people, one might even say two traumatized people, find themselves more or less incapable of mutual empathy. Life is too short to spell this out in detail. Most Jews would think my analyzing the conflict in clinical psychological terms is one more example how muddled a liberal can become. In any event I have already said much of what I have to say on this topic in my earlier posts about the conflict.

Jewish Narcissism

2006-10-22T08:31:00.000-05:00

In my last post ‘Dvekus for Dummies’, I said (I’m beginning to quote myself; very sad.):

‘’The opposite of dvekus is self absorption. Religious narcissism frequently leads to a self absorbed type of Judaism that is most concerned about how the chosen subgroup is really better than all others. For narcissistic Jews, no one but members of their small group is quite good enough, and even within their group, they are not quite sure.’’ Such Jews have fallen pathologically in love with their own and their group’s religious perfection.

Now there is something of a difficulty here. Religion is a serious business. Every individual and group naturally feels their way is right and good. How do we differentiate between a natural commitment to some particular religious practices, e.g. Right Wing Conservadox with a dollop of Reconstructionist ideas, and a pathological self absorption in one’s own religious way?

It’s possible to have fanatic Reform Jews who are closed to any other way of being Jewish and, it’s possible to have flexible tolerant charedim. So, the right- wing left-wing indicators are of little value. Following Kohut, and generalizing his results to groups, I want to offer some signs, none of which are conclusive, but may very well be indicative of an infantile narcissistic attitude with respect to one’s religious position. Here are some signs:

Object love: The opposite of loving yourself is to love objects outside yourself. At the most basic human level it involves love of spouse, children, parents, friends, community, and to a lesser degree, all other Jews and, ultimately, mankind. At the higher, more sublimated level, it involves a dvekus to/or immersion in some transcendental object, God, Torah, metaphysical truths, and in a more secular context, art, music, the law, science, and so on. The more secure a group is regarding their own acceptability, the more a religious stripe has a sense of who they are, and the more safely internalized their system of values-the more self-confidently and effectively will they be able to offer love, care, and empathy for other stripes. I would attribute much of the backbiting and hostility between charedim and Modern Orthodox to the failure of the above conditions to be satisfied. Both groups are not secure in their acceptability to others. Both groups are defining who they are as they go along, and both groups have not yet fully internalized their own system of values. They are not secure enough, are too much on the defensive to be generous and appreciative of each other.

Humor: When a group’s values and ideals are secure in a non-defensive way, it becomes possible for religious ideals to coexist with a sense of proportion with respect to these ideals, which can then be expressed through humor. On the other hand, a fanatic group is, at best, capable of sarcasm, but are never really able to get any distance on their preoccupations. Making a joke about something held sacred is taboo. It is frequently said extremist Muslims don’t have a sense of humor, and there is no reason to doubt that such an observation is correct. Some Jewish religious stripes continue to have a sense of infantile grandiosity, which enables them to aspire to being sovereign over all of Jewish life and to imagine themselves as most perfect in the eyes of God. When these feelings are transformed so that they accord with more realistic perceptions, the feelings of triumphalism will give way to a greater sense of humor, and an ability to see these aspirations in a more realistic light. Until then, triumphalist groups are a humorless lot when it comes to questions of their special place in Gods eyes.

Wisdom: Wisdom can generally be considered one of the cognitive and emotional peaks of human development, and is associated, usually, with late-middle and old-age. When the ideals and the aspirations of a group are fully integrated, then the group begins to behave in a manner that exhibits wisdom. In the case of an individual, it is quite common that a modicum of wisdom appears at the end of a successful psychoanalysis. When such wisdom appears, the patient is able to maintain his self-esteem despite the recognition of his limitations, and to feel friendly, respect, and gratitude towards the analyst despite the recognition of the analyst’s conflicts and limitations. As they part, the analyst and the patient will admit that not all problems have been solved and that some of the frailties remain. These frailties, however, are now familiar and can be contemplated with tolerance and composure. (Kohut 328) The same with competing groups. Each group recognizes their own, and the other’s limitations and frailties, but they are now familiar and instead of the mutual accusations, groups that exhibit a modicum of wisdom can contemplate the other with tolerance and composure. They feel free to show mutual respect and gratitude without feeling threatened. Until a group achieves a degree of wisdom, its members can be condescending to the religious competition, but find it difficult to show respect, appreciation or empathy.

It is no accident that after God and the Israelites (and the reader) have been through so much, so many ups and downs together, beginning with Abraham and ending with the return from the Babylonian exile and the cessation of prophecy, a wisdom literature appears in the Bible in the form of Ecclesiastes Proverbs and Job. Everyone, so to speak, is older and wiser and has arrived at some understanding of the conflicts and limitations in the relationship.

Dvekus for Dummies

2006-10-20T06:58:00.000-05:00

I want to talk today about a topic I feel uncomfortable addressing …religious feeling, and in particular the virtue of dvekus or cleaving to something larger than oneself. Freud addresses this sentiment when he discusses the oceanic feeling involved in the religious and mystical experience. He traces it back to the separation- individuation phase of human development, when the child has not yet fully separated from the mother. My feeling of discomfort stems from my commitment to writing a naturalistic blog about Jewish life. I can’t really talk about dvekus to God with the implication that the intention to encounter God has any hope of success. To do so would violate my self imposed naturalistic constraint.

Yet dvekus is an important part of all lives, not just religious lives. We all have the experience of losing ourselves by becoming so immersed in something, a book, music, a movie that we forget for a moment where or who we are. The success of the movie- going experience rests on the darkness of the room, the large size of the screen and the power the movie has to force us to suspend our ordinary common sense beliefs and immerse ourselves in a fantasy. When we emerge from the movie we always are a bit dazed and frequently smiling, happy to see our partner. We lost ourselves for a moment and our mazal has helped us find the way back. It is exciting and enjoyable.

Religious Jewish life has three areas where dvekus figures in an important way.

In prayer. A Jew who knows how to pray, and it is not an easily acquired skill, loses herself in prayer.

In learning. A Jew, who learns Torah for its own sake, with the desire to read the text in accordance with its correct meaning, becomes immersed in the Torah and experiences over time a certain merger with Torah so that the learning becomes internalized. He becomes at the highest level a breathing walking Torah.

In thought. Rationalist Jews find elements of dvekus in philosophical contemplation of metaphysical ideas. I would think in our time all serious systemic thinking creates the possibility of dvekus. A thinker becomes so involved in thinking, the material world fades and the thinker enters the higher world of thought.

Mystical Jews conceptualize dvekus more as a hamshachath haoroth, a drawing down of the supernal lights, through study of Torah, now including mystical texts, tefila, (prayer), and maasei hamitzvoth, performance of mitzvot and good deeds. The intuitive idea is that we can influence the quality of our time by drawing down the heavenly sparks (light,warmth). An absence of such light leads to dark times, times of war and famine and disease. The literature on dvekus and the hamshachat haorot model is abundant and truly wonderful. The model is flexible and works as a framework for understanding much of religious Jewish life.

Dvekus is open to every Jew including secular Jews. Hypnotic deep nigunim/songs, texts, works of art are all vehicles. I have serious doubts about the neo-chasidus that is found in liberal Judaism, especially in Jewish Renewal. At the same time, I applaud their attempts to teach Jews how to daven, how to sing a nigun with feeling, how to aspire to a deeper religious life. It would be best, in my opinion, if these mystical aspects were also grounded with the sort of deep thought available in Talmud, metaphysics or some serious discipline of their choice. A concentration on joy and mystical unions leads quickly to New Age spirituality, which in my opinion is more often than not pablum warmed over.

Here is the punch line: The opposite of dvekus is self absorption. Religious narcissism frequently leads to a self absorbed type of Judaism that is most concerned about how the chosen subgroup is really better than all others. For narcissistic Jews, no one but members of their small group is quite good enough, and even within their group, they are not quite sure. Instead of embracing the diversity of Jewish life, such Jews are full of complaints. For them most Jews are either too religious or not religious enough, sometimes both. Kvetching, carping and in- fighting follow. Oceanic feelings, mergers with transcendental objects outside one’s self are inclusive. The narcissistic perfection of being part of a chosen group is not. Instead of yearning for something great outside, they fall in love with their own and their group’s religious perfection. Once narcissism dominates, the narcissism of small differences takes over, and people begin to fight about minutiae.

Rather than give examples I ask readers to decide for themselves if my characterization of religious perfectionism corresponds to their experiences.

I’ll close with a little fun story for shabbus. Reb Leib Malin z’’l, the legendary Mirer lamdan, once visited the Satmar Rav, Reb Yoel Teitelbaum z’’l. As was the style in those days, Mirer yeshiva bochurim were clean shaven while in Satmar, of course, they only allowed Chasidim who never cut their beards. The Satmar greeted Reb Leib very warmly and they spoke at length in learning, as is the custom when Torah scholars meet. When Reb Leib had taken his leave, the Chasidim were all beside themselves. How could the Rav be so warm and welcoming to a young bachur who was clean shaven? The Satmar Rav said to his Chasidim like this: ''When Reb Leib gets to heaven, they will ask him ''Reb Yid, where is the beard?'' When you simpletons get to heaven they will ask ''Reb Beard, where is the Yid?''

Even in Satmar, the greater the dvekus, the more inclusive the vision of Jewish life.

Holy Times, Social Times

2006-10-19T08:15:00.000-05:00

In my last post I claimed that Orthodox Jews spend more than half a year involved in mitzvoth and the associated lifestyle. It might not be obvious to non-Orthodox Jews, so I will spell it out. I’ll do it in terms of a running total, counting a day as 20 hours. Passover, Sukkoth, Shavuoth, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur (21days), plus 2 days erev all these holidays (23 days). Fifty-two shabbusim (75) plus 13 (52x.25) days of ErevSabbus (Friday afternoon) (88). Four fast days plus Purim, I’ll count as two (90 days). Daily prayers, assuming 45 minutes total with no travel time, comes to 10 days (100). I have not counted travel time to and from the synagogue plus the time between mincha and maariv (afternoon and evening prayers). Many Orthodox Jews attend, at least, one service daily in a synagogue, so I think it’s fair to add another 45 minutes (110). I have not counted the special shopping, cleaning, and cooking, the time for blessings and grace, the washing of hands, and most importantly, the time allocated to the study of Torah. I think 10 days (200 hours/year) is a fair number (120).

On to lifestyle. Let’s start with weddings. In a well-defined community, and assuming a reasonable social world and family, (siblings, mechutanim with children, cousins, fellow congregants, friends and acquaintances) it is impossible to go to less than twenty weddings and twenty bar mitzvahs a year. And then there are lechaims/ vorts/sheva beruchos, (engagement and wedding parties) and an occasional upsherin’. Oh, and I forgot about all the circumcisions. So, adding it all up, we’re talking about sixty social events a year minimum, where not to attend is totally out of the question. Assuming, with travel time, five hours per affair, we get 15 days (135). I say five hours an affair because people travel around the country for these events, which can take three days total. People also travel to Israel which is a five day turnaround. So assigning 15 days a year to simchas, is seriously underestimating the total. But I want to be conservative.

Speaking of traveling, I haven’t counted spending time with the many grandchildren, a natural result of large families. I also can’t forget the almost mandatory trip to Israel, Florida, or Switzerland, depending on one’s social group and income. Count it all as 5 days (140). Oops I forgot Chanukah and presents and dreideling and what not. Not to worry. Since its so much fun, it’s a freebie. Besides many assimilated Jews have Chanukah- bush parties. On the down side of life, there is sitting shiva and shiva visits and time spent helping the bereaved and other acts of personal benevolence, 2 days (142). Add in six more days for parlor meetings, fund raisers, banquets, memorials, special lectures, yarchei kalah, tischen, kvitlech, mikveh and everything I left out and we are up to 148 days.

So I exaggerated. I said a half a year, and I’m off by 34 days.

It’s not easy to live in a face to face community, and the world of Orthodoxy is no exception.

The large amount of time spent serving God might also be a factor in the relative difficulties of earning a living. I have not stressed this point because I believe most participants feel they are enriched by all this religious and social activity, and as a result are more efficient and successful in their work. I believe the claim is essentially correct, and that something magical occurs which enables many religious Jews to be financially successful in the capitalist world, even though they are devoting so much time to God and community. It is a mysterious phenomenon, and a topic worthy of further discussion. The puzzle is: How can one give a naturalistic, non theological account, how Orthodox Jews who devote 148 days a year to religion and a special life style earn incomes that are not below average? Working on Sunday is only part of the answer.

The most expensive aspect of the Orthodox life is not the schools or the kosher food or the synagogue dues. It is the opportunity cost of the time spent living la vida Orthodox.

Is Orthodox Culture Low- Brow?

2006-10-18T08:49:00.000-05:00

Once one gets past Orthodoxy and its environs, it is not always useful to think in terms of degrees of observance and commitment to Torah. Such a perception is essentially Orthocentric and is not the only informative tool for understanding American Jewish life. There are endless categories…some Jews are tall, some short, some thin, some fat, but these are not useful distinctions. One idea that carries some punch is to divide all Jews by degrees of culture. Following the old distinction of Dwight Macdonald that everyone is high-brow, low-brow, or middle-brow, we can use a binary cut. Let’s say every Jew has a commitment either to high culture (high brow) or popular culture (low brow). This distinction cuts across denominational lines since there are more than enough people on each side of the divide all across the Jewish spectrum.

We need three more premises and we might have a small result. The first is that high-brow culture is more valuable than popular culture. It is better to read Shakespeare than People magazine. It is better to listen to Mahler than Kanye West and so on.

The second is that one cannot be high-brow without a serious and life long commitment to high culture. A young person who goes to college and takes a survey course in the history of philosophy, where Monday it’s Aristotle, Tuesday it’s Aquinas, and by Friday we’re up to Descartes, is receiving a pop culture version of a high-brow subject. Reading “Wittgenstein for Dummies” is dumb and not a serious study of the philosopher. So, to be a maven in some area of high culture takes lots of time…years of reading, looking, thinking, and studying. If you take a child to a museum, even if it’s done once every year, it’s very nice but the kid is far from being knowledgeable in art. If you want to understand art, you have to start looking and reading when you’re young and never stop. Similar comments apply to music and all the rest.

My third premise is that Orthodox Jews spend half the year serving God and living the Orthodox life. I’ll count the exact number of days tomorrow. Assuming this is true and assuming people have to make a living, raise families, etc., etc., there isn’t a lot of time left over to cultivate high culture. Some Orthodox people do, most don’t. Liberal Jews have an extra half a year and have internalized, in a big way, the importance of culture and the arts in a good life. The expression is “culture vultures.” Liberal vultures have more time and more energy to run after culture than Orthodox vultures and would-be vultures. In addition, the Orthodox Rabbinate either condemns non-religious culture and the arts, is lukewarm, or ambivalent, each rabbi, according to his degree of alienation from secular life. I’ve already had the opportunity to discuss the Torah, Torah, Torah ideology of the Orthodox Rabbinate.

Adding it all up, I think it’s fair to say that apples for apples, liberal Jews, as a group, are much more involved in high culture than Orthodox Jews, both historically over the last two hundred years and even today. Certainly in the future this will be true because of the charedization of Orthodox life.

The flipside of this phenomenon is that Torah study itself is a high culture of the first order. In fact, there is no other literary tradition in the world quite like it in terms of antiquity, development, ingenuity, depth, and much else. We all know, however, that not every Orthodox Jew is seriously involved in the study of Torah. For each person who devotes his life to the holy books, there are many who pay lip service but do little. This latter group, I want to suggest, generally consume popular culture…movies, television, magazines, blogs and so forth, or nothing at all…work, money, and family. The Orthodox lifestyle prevents most from having the energy, time, or interest to pursue high cultural pursuits. There aren’t many artists, serious musicians, poets, and literati in Orthodoxy. Nor are there many chassidim of literature, philosophy, social science, humanities, and the arts.

Offsetting the generally low brow tastes of most of Orthodoxy, it must be said that Orthodoxy as a whole is a high culture, where culture is now being used in the very broad sense of total way of life. The way of eating, dressing, conducting oneself in private and public are all governed by traditions that have the net effect of elevating the entire community into a more formal,refined and noble life. All this can be true and consistent with an Orthodox public that is uninterested in the arts, humanities and even science.

Orthodox Jews are quick to say that liberal Jews miss out on the beauty of Jewish life, the community, the holidays, and the wonders of Torah. They are more reluctant to acknowledge that they are missing anything of value in the secular world, but they are.

Orthodox Poverty and Wealth

2006-10-17T08:44:00.000-05:00

I see great wealth in the Orthodox community. I see great poverty in the Orthodox community. In the liberal Jewish community I personally have not encountered poverty. My cohort both Orthodox and secular have had an economically relatively easy life. When I was young, kolel people used to say to me ‘Why go to college? America is so rich you can live off the crumbs.’ They were right. The post war period has been an incredible run. I am afraid our children, frum or not will not have it so easy. I see it everywhere. Young have to hustle and even then it’s iffy. In the case of Orthodox with large families the parents frequently are unable to help the next generation. Not so for liberal Jews where parents frequently subsidize their children’s perpetual identity crisis. The very rich have gotten filthy, astronomically rich. The middle class have fallen behind. Here are some more thoughts on the topic, some of which were inspired by the comments on the blog askshifra

Yeshivas and day schools are the primary cause of Orthodox poverty. The OU reports communal rabbis are faced with increasing shalom bayit issues, marital problems, because of the economic difficulties caused by the high costs of educating kids in day schools. Middle class people can’t get scholarships for their kids. By the time they finish paying tuition they are poor enough to be eligible for tuition reductions. Catch 22. There are formulas for dealing with this issue, since it is structurally similar to the problem the poor face when they try to get off welfare. I don’t know why they are not standard practice. It is outrageous that tuition committees require second mortgages and the like before giving any discounts.

The deeper problem is how to bring the school costs down. Every city should look into developing a tuition fund. Liberal Jews MUST be made to understand how important school vouchers are for the survival of the Orthodox Jewish community. The cynical part of me says they understand fully well how it would benefit the Orthodox world, and it is precisely for this reason they oppose vouchers. The attitudes of the major Jewish organizations like the AJC and ADL to vouchers is driven by many considerations. One of these is, in my opinion, anti -Orthodox sentiments.

Many Orthodox Jews have a lower standard of living than their parents even when they are professionals, and even after they have accumulated sizable debts. Most Orthodox women work, if at all possible. In order to make ends meet many resort to extreme measures, cutting back on expensive foods, no vacations, no eating out and much more. I see the effects of belt tightening here where I live. Evanston with its large college population has 70 restaurants. The community of people who eat kosher in Chicagoland should have on a proportional basis approximately 21 restaurants. There are around 7 including diners and very minimal places.

People who have difficulty making ends meet still give money to charity, at least a few percent. I find this trait so very impressive.

In the frum world people say, as an irony of contemporary life, poverty starts at $100,000. It is an exaggeration, but not by very much. I would think a family of six in the New York area that aspires to a low- end upper middle class life, i.e. some family vacations, some eating out, some entertainment, two cars, etc. must think in terms of $250,000 gross and maybe more. A more serious upper class life for a family with five kids buying more than a minimal home, not wealthy, just really comfortable, (e.g. a brownstone in a charedi equivalent of Park Slope say the five towns, a pied a terre in Jerusalem or a place in Florida, colleges and professional schoolsfor the kinderlach, trips to Israel and Machu Pichu, Pesach at a hotel for the extended family, mildly lavish life cycle celebrations, a position of significance in the community) is $400,000 plus. Low- end rich starts at a million dollars income annually. Very rich $50 million. I am curious to hear if readers agree with my estimates.

Neighborhoods that are walking distance from a desirable Orthodox shul are pricier than those that are not, apples for apples. Many families would be able to lower their cost of living and find better and cheaper housing if they moved to less Orthodox neighborhoods and cities around the country. The fear of the unknown, of finding a job, of being able to do a good shiduch with their children keep many close to home. Here is an area where a lot can be done. There are many small Orthodox communities around the country that would be excited if new frum couples moved in. It is a typical case of asymmetric information and the solutions are well known.

Money and the need for more of it is the driving dynamic force in the community. The old joke makes this point in a sly way. A car hit an elderly Jewish man. The paramedic says, "Are you comfortable?"- The man says, "I make a good living." Parenting, daily prayers and the quest for money keep most Orthodox Jews very busy campers. There isn’t a lot of empty time for fun and mischief, sports and culture or scholarship and self improvement. With the exception of the community of Talmudic scholars there isn’t very much time for extended Torah study.

In reading the blogs on the economics of Orthodox life, I felt that the situation was made much worse because Orthodoxy is a face-to-face community. It’s as if everybody was asked to go into a room, they locked the door and threw the key away. The need to keep up with one’s circle of friends and acquaintances, the need to impress others, accentuates the pressure to maintain a certain lifestyle. In life almost everyone has up years and down years. It becomes a lot easier if in a down year you can cut back. In a face-to-face community, tightening one’s belt is much more difficult. Orthodox life in smaller cities and towns is less of a pressure cooker. And it goes without saying, that in liberal Jewish communities, which are not face-to-face communities, the economic struggle is a lot easier, even if you factor out the cost of Yeshivas and day schools.

Sexy Sheitls

2006-10-16T08:49:00.000-05:00

Frum women frequently cover their hair by wearing a Sheitel (wig). Now days a sheitel, usually looks better than the women’s own hair. Not only do the sheitlach look great, some charedi women are stylish, attractive and sexy looking. I would think these facts are a cause for rejoicing. What can be better than walking down the street and seeing a great looking woman dressed in a modest way, (tzniusdig). Halacha has been satisfied, the woman feels good knowing she looks good and men get to look at a good looking woman. Not so. Puritanism is alive and well in the Orthodox community.

I discount Puritanism from the left. The strategy there is to claim that nothing less than a mop will do, and then turn around and say ‘Look at these women, they are wearing a mop. Is this reasonable?’ There is something particularly galling to the liberal mind that a frum charedi woman looks sexy. I don’t know why. Imagine you are invited to a home that keeps kosher and are served a stylish, trendy wonderful meal. Would any sane person complain that halacha has been circumvented by using culinary tricks, unless you are trying to prove kashruth is impossible to follow. Is there any reason on earth why a kosher home must serve kugel, kishka and gefilte fish 24x7. The laws of kashruth act as a constraint, a handicap as it were. A stylish baalabusta is challenged to present the finest meal she can, the more she can overcome the halachic limitations the better. Same for the requirement to cover the hair.

Puritainism from the right is a more difficult subject. There are many issues.

Charedi men who encounter glamorous women might be unhappy in that their own wives might be frumpier looking. I would imagine frumpy wives can be a problem in secular society as well. I see no reason why all charedi women must look equally frumpy so that some charedi guys not feel frustrated.

It is frequently said wives need to dress up for their husbands and not for the ‘prying eyes of the public’. I disagree. Body narcissism is a very basic, natural and universal feeling in both men and women. A man or woman who exhibits their attractiveness in public, subject to the constraint of tzinius, needs no justification, any more than an athlete or a charismatic, handsome rabbi. Remember the fuss is about a woman who is walking down the street, arms covered, skirt below the knee, and no décolletage. If seeing such a woman is prying, we are into burqa country. Men who are proud to wear their tzitzit outside their pants, and take joy in wearing a gartel are really not in a position to complain about exhibitionism. Modesty prevents me from elaborating on this point.

There is a set of rich to very rich Strict and Ultra-Orthodox Jews. The men are happy to see their wives dressed to kill. No charedi woman walks out of the house regularly looking stylish and uber-farputzed, let alone sexy unless the husband approves. The sheitlach are just a small part of the intense jockeying for relative status. Much of the resentment to these very expensive sheitls is really a jealousy and envy of having to coexist in one community with such a fast, wealthy crowd.

I am not in a position to discuss the halachic intricacies of tznius and chasidic dress. It is clear, whatever the details it does depend a least a little bit on the style of dress in the society at large. If after living in a country that regularly wears shorts and tank tops, charedi men are still aroused and bothered by a woman dressed tzniusdig/ modestly but wearing a sheitl, I say in general it is their problem and they ought to lie down until they calm down.

I don’t mean to minimize those select Jews, who want to live a life of kedushah veteharah, purity and holiness. Such men and women know how to act to maintain their special ascetic life of preishus, separation from society. It is mistake to impose those standards on an Orthodox public that is already acting in a chasidic way, at least relative to the rest of America. If you take every last drop of pleasure out of charedi life, the long term damage will be far greater than the benefits.

For some very different ideas on this topic see here (10/04/06, especially the fascinating comments) and here (8/30/06).

Talmudists from My Youth

2006-10-13T08:51:00.000-05:00

Since I have been told more than once I am bordering on senility, I thought it would be useful before all is gone to reminisce a bit about people I knew in my childhood. I’ll talk about four colorful Talmudists from my youth.

The first was a man who was reported to be a Talmudic genius. He was so great that he already had a formal name like the so-and-so ilui, (young genius) where so-and-so was the name of the town from where he came. I remember him already in his sixties. He sat in this iffy institution that said kadish for people who didn’t want to say kadish on their own. He was paid just to sit there and enhance the reputation of the establishment. All my friends were very anxious to talk to him since his reputation was so great; but it wasn’t easy. He would sit all the time and write chidushei Torah, Talmudic commentaries, notebook after notebook in an illegible handwriting. When approached, he would answer but in a barking tone, thus intimidating everyone. If you managed to get a question off, he would say something in Yiddish like “a Ritvaw , Bubba Metziah 74b. What else do you want to know?” Not very encouraging, especially if you didn’t know 74b. I have no idea what happened to the notebooks. I don’t believe they were ever published. For all I know, he was working on a solution in Hebrew to Fermat’s last theorem. I would say just watching this “genius,” even from afar, made a big difference to everyone.

I also remember a man they called him Reb Itche, who was a chicken flicker. He flicked chickens. In those days, they didn’t come pre-packaged. They still had their feathers, and if you had a butcher store, somebody had to take the feathers off the chickens. His brother sold the chickens, he flicked the chickens. When he wasn’t flicking, he was learning, so by the time I got to know him, he knew pretty much everything, at least from the perspective of a 14 year old. Nobody made a big deal out of him since in my neighborhood there were many people who knew a great deal. Ordinary people. He was one of the best. Whenever a question came up in shul, he would know the answer. His children all went on to get PhDs and are successful in various fields. For me, however, none of them surpassed their father. I believe, as Reb Itche did, an ideal life is to have an honest occupation, and the rest of the time learn, without making a big deal either about the occupation or the learning.

The third guy I want to talk about was a Holocaust survivor. He lived for three years in a tiny bunker with a woman and a daughter, underneath the house of a friendly neighbor. When the war was over, he proposed to the much younger daughter. She wouldn’t have him. So he proposed to the mother. She took him. He had a very fast mind and also knew how to learn Talmud very well. I remember how he used to ask me questions always more difficult than my level of competence, and would shake his head and say, “Well, some day.” In all respects he was a pious Jew, except one…he had an insatiable lust for poker. Every week, one or two nights, he would travel on the train for a mid-stakes poker game. His lust for danger satisfied, he would come back home and act like everyone else. The idea of a poker-playing Talmudist appeals to me until today.

My fourth Talmudist, Reb F., was a teacher in a middle school Yeshiva in my neighborhood. He wasn’t my teacher but he was a teacher to many of my friends and was well-known. He used to teach in some miraculous way ninth and tenth grade. He would begin the year by saying “Gut morgen kinderlach” and in Yiddish say “This year we are in ninth grade.” The next year he said, “Gut morgen kinderlach. We have graduated. This year we are in tenth grade.” That was the only frivolous remark he made for the year. The rest of the time, he taught Talmud, Rashi and Tosfoth plus some Rishonim (Medieval commentaries) and a few select eighteeenth and nineteenth century Achronim (later commentaries) up to and including the Ktzoth and the Nesivoth. They covered somewhere between forty and sixty blat (120 pages) a year. Whoever got through those two years had a well-deserved confidence in their Talmudic abilities. I would describe the style of learning as Polish-Galitzianer, which I conceive as a middle way between the Lithuanian analytical method and Hungarian pilpul. In my mind it’s an exceptionally powerful way of teaching young people. I happen to feel it’s important for families that have Chassidic backgrounds to resist in their children’s education, at least initially, the hegemony of the Lithuanian yeshivas. Many of the graduates of this middle school went on to become significant personalities in the Torah world.

The only other place I ever saw the same sort of educational philosophy applied was in Evanston high school. For a variety of reasons, the high school introduced a very advanced science program, two years of difficult physics, one year each of chemistry and biology plus the corresponding mathematics through multivariate calculus. Kids who survived that program were never fearful of another academic course. Having gone through chem.-phys. they were masters of the universe and could do anything.

If I were running a Jewish day school, I’d hire a Reb F. in the morning, and do chem.-phys. plus some writing in the afternoon, call it quits, and cut the tuition by half. For extra curricular activities I would teach the children poker.

Jewish Hipsters

2006-10-12T09:41:00.000-05:00

The young people involved as artists and audience in the world of avant- garde Jewish culture, the group I called in yesterday’s post ‘Generation Heeb’, fully embrace the influence of the outside world. They are as interested in how Jewish life changes and intermingles with other cultures as they are in Jewish culture itself. They are interested in Judaism strictly as a culture and remove all sense of religious obligation or affiliation. The latter is privatized; a person can have in his heart a total and pure faith, but publicly, religion does not figure as a feature of the scene. In principle avant- garde Jewish culture could be compatible with much of Orthodox life. ''Yeshivish at home, hipster in public.'' I am exaggerating, but there is really no reason why such combinations will not eventually occur.

The really creative feature of this new version of cultural Judaism, unlike so many earlier versions, is that they set out to deliberately make Jewish culture appear as something that is constantly changing, something that exists in the present and evolves with popular culture. At its very best it can make Jewish life appear even ahead of the curve, which is a feat that is quite difficult to pull off given the ferocious speed with which the contemporary musical and art worlds move. The now- ness of the scene, its homage to bohemia's and avant- gardes past, and its youthful devil may care in- your- face insouciance all make it attractive to young people. The young feel they are not being manipulated for the sake of some ulterior end, like becoming a Lubavitcher or going to Temple. Heeb culture aspires to be an autonomous scene that fits naturally into the stylish and youthful communities of young secular Jews. It can be found in neighborhoods like Alphabet City on the Lower East Side, Park Slope, Carol Gardens, Williamsburg and Red Hook in Brooklyn and Bucktown and Wicker Park in Chicago. The Heeb world view looks at Jewish life through the same prism as it’s demographic, so that the audience and artists are especially close in spirit, on the same page as they say.

It is interesting to compare Generation Heeb with two other groups of Jews devoted to culture. The first is the Modern Orthodox satirical, comedy web site bang it out. The latter is basically behind the curve, its strong point being parody. It treats politics, news, and culture as grist for joking around…a sort of elaborated Purim Torah, derivative and dependent on others to step out and say or do something. The site, though it has its share of college humor is frequently funny. The effect of reading the material however is that of a sideline spectator on a larger culture far away. The outside world changes, different players come and go, but Modern Orthodoxy and its anchor in the world of religion and Torah remains a constant. Even the more sophisticated secular Latke-Hamantash festival held each year at the U. of Chicago is essentially a spoof, a throw away item and not a cultural force. Heeb culture is frequently something new that is part of what is happening now, a creative take on the world we live in today.

A more interesting comparison is to the group known as the New York Jewish intellectuals centered on the Partisan Review of the late forties and fifties. There is a great deal to be said about this very important group of thinkers, and much has already appeared in various memoirs and studies. In terms of intellectual heft, seriousness of import, contributions to highbrow serious culture there is no comparison. In its day the Partisan Review crowd, almost all Jews, dominated much of the world of criticism and literature. There is a direct line of descent from Partisan Review to the New York Review of Books, Dissent and the Nation and on the right to Commentary, the Public Interest and the neo-conservatives. The Heeb group in comparison is a bunch of schleppers, nobodies. However in terms of influence on Jewish life the situation is more complex. Heeb is proud of its Jewish heritage and is intent on making a contribution to Jewish life. The New York Jewish intellectuals, even the formidable Irving Howe all graduated from Jewish life. Lionel Trilling may have gotten his start in Commentary, but he saw himself as an American Matthew Arnold, defending the genteel pieties of Protestant culture. Alfred Kazin, Philip Rahv, Lionel Abel and the youngest of the group, the recently departed Susan Sontag all saw themselves as playing on a larger world or American stage. Their long term influence on Jewish life has been minimal. If anything they signify the inability of American Jews to develop an indigenous American Jewish high culture. Heeb culture being less pretentious and much more accessible has a better chance of having some influence. It would be wonderful if the culture continued to develop and became more widely known.

One final thought. Jewish bohemians in the thirties and forties, as well as the Jewish beatniks of the fifties and hippies of the sixties were poor and operated outside of the capitalist core. The Jewish kids who think of themselves today as hipsters, a term whose meaning is very different from the original use of the word in the fifties, are far from poor. All one has to do is look at the prices of condos in one of the neighborhoods where these hipsters live. When the beatniks and hippies used to live in Alphabet City they occupied rat infested tenements with junkies as neighbors. Today the restaurants on Clinton Street and Rivington Steet are not ashamed to charge a $75 for dinner. And they are full. With hipsters. Life is too fast and expensive to afford any significant number of people, (with the exception of charedim,) the luxury of forming a genuine counterculture. Apparently Jewish hipsters somehow have found a way to support their style of looking like they lead a bohemian life. I give them credit for creating the illusion of being cool and fancy free.

Generation Heeb

2006-10-11T07:13:00.000-05:00

One approach to the problem of intermarriage and assimilation, which would have some of the features of an invisible hand process (see my blog on Starbucks) is to work on the common perception of Jewish life as being un-cool and uninteresting. How to do that is not an easy task. Kiruv (proselytizing) organizations try but they don’t have a clue because they are essentially un-hip themselves. The intuitive idea is to create some cultural world which young people can relate to and which is cooler than their own situation, and still has some tangential relationship with being a Jew. Such work is very different from the work of a Hillel. Hillel organizations after providing for religious services and kosher food essentially are a sort of Rah Rah Rah! for Judaism. They function, to some extent, like a fraternity or sorority on campus. I noticed a sign the other day at the Northwestern Hillel that read “Hookah in the Sukkah…Come join us.” Cute, but it only works for the sort of kid who thinks a sukkah at Hillel is the place to be. What about all the young people who wouldn’t be caught dead in a Hillel?

I want to talk about a movement of sorts that speaks to these issues. I’m not even sure movement is the right word. There is this developing scene in New York, Philly, L.A., Berkeley, and even in Chicago that is a combination of music, arts, satire, in-your-face-outrageous whatever, and all with a Jewish patina. I like this crowd and I think it could accomplish a great deal. Apparently, I’m not the only one. The UJA Federation has donated a million dollars to Jewish arts organizations. They have funded twelve fellowships of up to $45,000 for emerging Jewish artists. The Federation is beginning to recognize that avant –garde art and culture have a huge impact both on young people and people who are not so young. A recent study by the National Foundation for Jewish Culture found that young Jews, even those who avoid synagogues and JCC memberships, read Jewish books, listen to Jewish music and attend Jewish concerts. The report noted that “the events that form the core cultural experience for young Jews aren’t overtly Jewish.’’ Unaffiliated Jews were most comfortable in secular venues, watching bands that blend Jewish music with other genres, like hip-hop and jazz. Some who were interviewed for the study described Jewish organizations by comparison as “bland” and “conformist.” Young people most always find the society of their elders bland and conformist, and they are usually right.

I’d like to give two examples from this cultural scene. There’s an organization in Chicago called Kfar and their offering a concert series this year called Tzitzit: Voices from the Jewish Fringe. Here are some of the groups that will be performing:

Shtreiml- a band that combines klezmer, gypsy music and jazz and won an award for their debut album, Harmonica Galitzianer

Juez- jazz and progressive rock rhythms with hip-hop, garage rock and Yemenite influences.

Simply Tsfat- a group known in the Orthodox community consisting of three Breslov Chassidim, two Americans, and one Israeli, violin virtuosity, flamenco guitar, Breslover melodies, and their infectious sense of joy.

Y-Love (Yitz Jordan)- a hip-hop, black rapper, convert (Bostoner chasid- who woulda thunk?) who weaves polyglot rhythms in English, Arabic, Yiddish and Hebrew with Aramaic thrown in. (I assume because he’s into Zohar.)

RebbeSoul- rock, world-fusion, Mizrahi chants, played by a power percussion trio using balalaika, darbouka, djembe, and cajon.

I don’t know about others but it certainly looks interesting to me, and if I’m in town, I’m going.

My second example of the scene is the provocative magazine called Heeb. I don’t know what exactly to say about Heeb. OTOH…OTOH. Sometimes Heeb verges on smut. Most of the time, it’s just a very funny magazine. They will do almost anything to twist the dialectic one more time, but I believe their heart is in the right place. Recent issues included interviews with Jeremy Piven and the very funny, and admittedly very foul-mouthed, Sarah Silverman. In the current issue entitled “The Food Issue” they have a pig on the cover. In this issue they have a piece called People of the Bulk: History’s Hungriest Heebs” where they discuss two figures in the Talmud with very large stomachs together with Mae West, Ariel Sharon, Buddy Hackett, Adam Duritz of Counting Crows, Wendy Wasserstein, Elvis Presley, Herod, and Richard Simmons. It takes a peculiar outré and eccentric imagination to put all this together, precisely the sort of imagination that might appeal to high-spirited non-conformist young people.

Heeb also runs parties and events around the country celebrating nothing in particular and bringing together young people interested in fun and social networking.

(If I had the space I would describe New York’s Jewlapalooza festival, JDub RECORDS, and the more serious music of the artists associated with John Zorn. Maybe some other time.)

If the Federations would only recognize that many JCC’S are so nowhere, (New York and Washington being notable exceptions), and the continuity of the Jewish people does not require elderly women play mahjongg in absolute comfort, there would be lots of money to create a creative edgy Jewish culture that would enable young people to feel being a Jew is something very special.

To be continued…

The Starbucks I Don't Drink In

2006-10-10T08:33:00.000-05:00

Evanston is gebentsched, blessed in having, not one, not two but six Starbucks. I refuse to go to five of them. Here’s my reasoning. The one downtown has lots of students who make lots of noise. And they’re college kids… who can go there? The one near me is full of soccer moms with their little darling kids who make even more noise and are messy. The soccer moms talk as if God is about to turn them into a pillar of salt at any second. Can’t go there. Then there’s one in North Evanston near the Skokie-Wlmette border. It doubles as a, can you believe this, drive-thru Starbucks. So every second minute they’re yelling, “SOY, NO FOAM, VENTI CARAMEL MACCHIATO, DOUBLE CUP!” Three down…three to go.

There’s one in North Evanston that’s okay, I mean, it's quiet enough, but I would have to deal with North Evanston people, which I refuse to do. North Evanston people are “bessera mentschen”, a better class of people than us regular Evanstonians. They think of themselves as really living in Wilmette, but by accident their address happens to be in Evanston. But they think they are not Evanstonians…they are really Wilmette people caught in an Evanston address. How can you sit and drink coffee with people like that?

There’s a nice Starbucks on Main Street, but I can’t drink there either. There are too many schizophrenics in the place. Now, I’m a liberal guy. I’m happy to drink with any ethnicity or class, even with a rich person, but I refuse to drink with schizophrenics. They sit down at my table and they start talking. It’s never really clear if they’re talking at you, to you, or just talking. In Evanston there are two or maybe three insane asylums. Being a liberal town, the residents are free to roam the street during the day, and like everyone else these people would like a cup of coffee. In fact, in Evanston, we are so liberal we have a dedicated park, two square blocks, to schizophrenics. No one goes to the park except people who live in the insane asylum. Each schizophrenic sits on a separate bench jabbering away, surrounded by his inner friends, not talking to anyone else. Sounds a bit like jihadists.

I’m left with the Starbucks I do drink in which is terrific. It’s the Starbucks for middle-aged people who want to read without being interrupted. It’s the Starbucks where the Yiddish club of Evanston meets every other week. There are even frum women with long skirts and sneakers who show up after their power walk. It’s racially integrated, which is a big positive. It has a big Slavic section, which enables me to sharpen my nonexistent skills in Ukranian, Serbo-Croatian, and Russian. There even are Israeli yordim who show up with two phones, one in each hand, and a cigarette. Fortunately, they drink alfresco at the tables outside. This Starbucks is such a nice place they remember to put out water for the dogs.

Starbucks to me is an example of a self-organizing totality. Mr. Schultz did not send a directive from Seattle. There was no rabbi or apparatchik who said,” Soccer moms here, students there.” Over time, everyone found their place without anyone saying who should go where. (The same occurred with the parks.) I am a big fan of these kinds of solutions to allocation problems. Free markets are the best example of how this works. No one dictates the price, no one dictates whether to buy or sell. It all works itself out. Ideally, the solution to Jewish problems should occur in this “invisible hand” sort of way. The idea is to devise policies where everyone can do what they want and we still end up with a good solution.

Policies that require Jews to change their beliefs or their places of residence require endless ideological reinforcement. There’s been a hundred years of Zionist teaching and persuasion, yet it is a commonplace for people to say that Zionism is dead. In my view, one reason is that Zionism required constant top-down reinforcement. Same problem exists with Orthodoxy. In order to keep secularism at bay, there’s a constant need for teaching, preaching and censorship. An ideal form of Zionism would be one where people aren’t Zionist ideologues. They live in Israel because they believe it’s the best life they could possibly live. In this day and age, the best form of Orthodoxy should have a similar feature. People should feel that it’s hands down the best way to live. The same should apply to all the other denominations.

Ideally people should reject exogamous marriage because they feel their chances for happiness are best if they remain in the Jewish world. Chizuk, strengthening Jews in achieving their life plans has an invisible hand feature that causes Jews to want to remain inside Jewish life. Chizuk takes each individual’s conception of ‘the good’ as given, and tries to enable the person to achieve his goals. If done properly it should make no difference if the individual ends up charedi or secular, he should want autonomously to remain a Jew. Why? I believe because we tend to love those who have shown us love, whether it is a community or an individual. If young Jews are helped along their life path over an extended period of time by other Jews, there arises in a natural way a hakaras hatov, a recognition of gratitude for the attention and kindness shown along the way. In time people come to understand who are their brethren, who are their real friends. They become connected through bonds of affection and fellowship to their family and community.

Chizuk vs. Kiruv

2006-10-09T09:26:00.000-05:00

I recently read a piece by Jay Michelson that said explicitly what I have been struggling to put into words.

“If vibrant Jewish culture causes more people to value being Jewish, it will cause more to want to raise children as Jews. But for culture to work, the content of cultural institutions must remain absolutely independent from the ulterior motives of keeping more Jews within the fold. As soon as culture becomes another word for advertising, it’s over”

The quote expresses what I find wrong in the work on kiruv, the process of bringing Jews closer to religion. It is totally evangelical, and therefore manipulative. It is insincere, in that there is this overhanging ulterior motive that permeates the entire exchange…how to get the other to become religious. It’s condescending insofar as it not a real interaction where both parties learn from each other and move towards each other. The direction is predetermined. Kiruv is a one way ticket from ‘nowhere’ to religion. And it’s all advertising using the tricks of Madison Avenue: acting techniques that enable the religious person to come on as cool and hip, pseudo science and shallow philosophical arguments. They utilize every tear jerker from anti-Semitism to the Holocaust. Whatever it takes to get the job done. They are kiruv professionals.

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin was in Chicago many years ago, giving one of these $10,000 a- pop invited lectures. He was doing this ‘’we are modern, we are Orthodox, we are liberal, we are pluralist’’ lecture, in the style made popular by David Hartman and Yitchak Greenberg. (The late Arthur Hertzberg z’’l used to call this speaking circuit ‘’Orthodox for Reform’’.) He was going on about kiruv as a dialogue, and asked for questions. I got up and asked him if perhaps he would like to go out for a drink. Since kiruv is a dialogue I was thinking of being mekarev him, bringing him closer to my way of thinking. How did he, Rabbi Pluralist that he was, know which way kiruv was supposed to go? Being the smart man that he is, he realized bad news was staring him in the face, and responded with one word, ’Geonisdig’’, very clever, and proceeded to ask for the next question.

More would be accomplished on a macro basis if the emphasis was placed on creating vibrant religious and /or cultural Jewish communities all along the religious spectrum, and especially among secular Jews. All the liberal branches of Jewish life, from Conservatives to Jewish Renewal, don’t need kiruv they need chizuk….strengthening the already existent subculture. If Reform culture were vibrant, intermarriage would take care of itself. Ditto for all the other stripes. But everyone has learnt with their mother’s milk that to help a Jew less frum than you to be strong in his own space is an abomination. Can you imagine, I am advocating Orthodoxy should lend a hand to Conservatives and so on down the line? I must have forgotten to take my meds. Don’t I know that Conservatives and Reform are the enemy of Orthodoxy; the ersatz substitute for the real thing?

I once saw a documentary where this remarkable Skverer chasid was the basketball coach at Ramaz, the very Modern Orthodox ritzy day school in Manhattan. It was awesome. Even if he never taught a single teenager a word of Torah he was having an enormous influence on their subsequent development. His presence, the strength of his personality, his dedication and enthusiasm was all that was needed. The kids saw up front in a non- manipulative context what it is to be a chassidic Jew. The teenagers in time will find their own way to incorporate this powerful image into their own lives.

I think the most manipulative of the kiruv crowd is Lubavitch, followed by the Orthodox professional kiruv organizations. But every denomination is involved in this sort of come-on. They treat this whole process of a deeper, more serious, more religious life, as if it were a question of how to take vulnerable teenagers off the street.

Every kiruv organization is subject to the same statistical illusions. They overweigh their short term success with a few individuals, and minimize the overwhelming failure with most everyone else. The intermarriage rate remains at 50% with or without kiruv.

There was a retired couple in Evanston who had a long and active career as professional community organizers: labor unions, renters, Saul Alinsky type projects. They wanted to give back, and took upon themselves to go to the Ukraine and help Jews develop better communal organizations. They had no agenda other than helping the Jews of the various cities organize themselves to achieve whatever goals the community would develop. They used to say, whenever they came back to Evanston, that a big obstacle in their work was the local Lubavitcher and Zionist emissaries. The Lubavitcher had his agenda, the Zionist had his. Neither was particularly interested in strengthening the culture and life of the Ukranian Jews themselves.

There is so much that could be done if the goal was chizuk. Jews who were stronger in their outlook and practices would make themselves available to weaker Jews and help weaker congregations and groups. There is enormous amount of work that can be done on college campuses. A typical Hillel has 2 professionals, a rabbi and a director and a few thousand students. Think for a minute….here are a couple thousand kids away from home, free to date anyone, with all the issues of late adolescence, and there are 2 Hillel people to run the activities and services and provide the necessary pastoral care. The upshot is that no one looks at or befriends a majority of the Jewish students on campus.

There is so much that could be done to strengthen liberal Jewish life and so few are interested. And then everyone wonders why the intermarriage rate is so high.

Intermarriage Is Driven by the Guys

2006-10-06T08:13:00.000-05:00

I believe there’s another twist to the intermarriage story. I am thinking there may very well be two parallel stories, the friction story discussed yesterday, and for some a revealed preference story that is asymmetrical between men and women, as follows. My impression is that the dynamic of intermarriage is driven by the guys. For one thing Jewish men have a reputation of being good and loyal husbands. Many non-Jewish women think Jewish men make particularly desirable mates and go after them. Even more important are the Jewish men who, for one reason or another, find Jewish females less attractive than their shiksa counterparts. These men would marry a non-Jewish woman even if they were surrounded by Jewish women. These preferences are based on feelings and attitudes that are for the most part pre-conscious or unconscious, and many are not aware of any such feelings. Hence it is important to focus on revealed preferences, what the men do, and not on stated preferences, what they say they want to do.

Once a significant number of Jewish men are into dating and marrying non-Jewish women, there’s this imbalance in the demographics, leaving the corresponding number of women without mates. When these women find themselves in their late twenties and thirties and with no Jewish guy in sight, they draw the appropriate conclusions and begin dating non-Jewish men. These women would prefer a Jewish man but the prospects seem hopeless, and the biological clock keeps ticking. Now of course there are many exceptions and variations, since all I’m offering is a generalization. Nevertheless, I think if correct, it’s something important to take into account in shaping the Jewish response to intermarriage. I don’t know that I am correct, but such is my very distinct impression, and this impression is confirmed when I talk to Hillel people who have first hand experience in this area.

I have found quite by accident some empirical data that suggests there is something to my hypothesis. The blogger Marginal Revolution in summarizing an academic paper entitled Mate Preferences and Matching Outcomes in Online Dating offers the following interesting result: 38% of all women on line, but only 18% of men say that they prefer to meet someone of their own ethnic background. Generalizing this finding we could say there is a greater proclivity of men than women to marry outside their ethnicity. Maybe that is all there is to be said on this topic. But my intuition is that a significant number of Jewish men would generally like to marry someone of their own religion but frequently would prefer a different ethnicity or background. They yearn for the shikse; they could do without her religion.

So in the interest of self flagellation I ask the question “Why do Jewish men have a greater need to distance themselves from their surroundings?” One common answer is that the proverbial Jewish mother is more suffocating and domineering than the Jewish father. Jewish men then associate Jewish women with their mothers, and run away in search of more gentle and docile females. The second idea is a variant of the first and locates the difficulty in the young women themselves. Jewish young women have a reputation for being high-strung, nudges, and aggressive.

It is true there has been a shift because of women’s lib towards more independent and self-sufficient women. Jewish liberal women have participated in this movement; but who can say how much is Jewish and how much is the way women are today. I think it was true around the turn of the twentieth century there were a considerable number of Jewish women who suffered from hysteria; at least that’s the impression I get from reading Freud. But it was a long time ago and there’s no reason to believe that Jewish women today are more high-strung than anyone else. Every ethnicity can produce their share of high-strung, high maintenance women, but the stereotype is that everyone but Jewish women has undergone twenty years of geisha training. I propose that thinking about the comparative reality is a hopeless task. It is impossible to say anything conclusive about the reality. There maybe small differentials between one ethnic group and the other, but it is not these small differentials that drive the process of intermarriage. The same comment applies to the question of whether Jewish mothers correspond to their stereotypes. It might be true that Jews tend to be somewhat more voluble and effervescent than repressed Victorian WASPs. Here again there’s no reason to believe that the reality of the stereotypes are the important variable.

The key variable in my opinion is the perception Jewish men might have of such differences, which magnify and distort the possible element of truth underneath these perceptions.
What can be done to alleviate this problem? I think the first thing is to ascertain it is true that Jewish men have this distorting perception. If it isn’t true, why drive anyone crazy? If it is true, I think there would be some value if young women became aware of these attitudes. The awareness they are perceived this way by their male counterparts should have a positive effect on the relationships.

Second, we have to recognize that this male perception of Jewish females is, to a large extent, caused by the weak self-image of Jewish males. One central aspect of this weak self-image is the economic difficulties young people have today in establishing a family. Jewish life is very expensive, Jewish men and women are upwardly mobile, and it is easy for Jewish men to project their fragilities in their economic struggles onto Jewish women. I think it’s an illusion to believe Jewish women are more high maintenance, more competitive and more JAPy as it were, than their non-Jewish counterparts. It’s the other way around. Jewish women are competent, flexible, and intelligent. They will try to do whatever it takes to enhance the welfare of their families. Does it follow that the stronger the Jewish male is in terms of self cohesion, self confidence etc. the more likely he is to marry a Jewish women? I believe so, everything else equal.

How is it possible to strengthen the Jewish man without suppressing the Jewish woman? Perhaps this thought might help: There are ways of expressing the careerist and other aspirations a person might have that sound competitive and shrill. And then again there are styles of expression that emphasize the cooperative aspects of marriage…the voyage a man and woman undertake to raise a family if they are so blessed, and to be there for each other no matter what life may bring. An outlook on life that emphasized the cooperative and mutually supportive aspects of a relationship, and minimized the excessive, egocentric career aspirations would be very helpful. Some men and women have mastered the art of supporting their spouses in their endeavors even when they are themselves engaged in full time mega careers. Others have not. It is a question of hashkafa, outlook on life, in the deepest psychological sense of the term. As for who is to blame for the lack of an appropriate hashkafa and the sin of excessive careerism, there are more than enough candidates… overly ambitious parents, the highly competitive Jewish community, the young people themselves.

Vetzarich iyun, the entire subject requires further thought.

Chag Sameach

How to Help Jews Marry Jews

2006-10-05T08:02:00.000-05:00

I believe that it is possible to lower the intermarriage rate from 50% to 25% without requiring American Judaism to undergo a religious conversion. Membership in any of the liberal denominations frequently is not sufficient to prevent the children from intermarrying. The torture of bar and bat mitzvahs studies, coupled with the inevitable gala parties causes many young people to identify Jewish life with crass materialism. The girl whose parents last year gave her a one million dollar bat mitzvah and hired the rock stars of her dreams will not be spending a year in Israel at Bravender’s studying Torah any time soon.

I begin with the working premise that the vast majority of people who intermarry don’t start out life having made the decision they definitely want to intermarry. They don’t find themselves at some point in adolescence saying, “I’ve had it with being Jewish. I’m going to find myself some Asian or WASP to marry.” In the vast majority of instances, it just happens without too much forethought or planning. Assuming this premise is true, and it is only one of several possible hypotheses, we are forced to conclude that in most instances it happens because it’s natural and easy… and why not? It is this condition that has to be addressed.

I have a 4 point plan, by which I mean if contrary to fact anyone ever asked my opinion I would propose the following:

Social Set- A social set is a group of families and friends that hang out. They go out together, see each other with some frequency and regularity, visit each others homes, travel together and so on. They might meet in a shul or a country club or a basketball game. The venue is unimportant. Some people have one core set of friends. Others may have 2 or even 3. (If you have 25 sets they may not all be friends). A social set is multigenerational. Adults and children mix easily and frequently. What I am proposing is that every Jewish family makes it their business to belong to one core set that is clearly Jewish in ambiance and feeling.

I see the importance of social sets for intermarriage all the time. For example, I have these two friends. The first comes from a traditional Jewish home, and is married a woman who also comes from a very Jewish home. It appears their children will intermarry. My second friend comes from an assimilated home and is married to a woman one of whose parents is not Jewish. Their children will definitely not intermarry. What is the difference? The only thing I can see is that the second but not the first hangs out in a Jewish social set. The social set is not at all religious; it’s just comfortably and easily Jewish in a way that is understandable to anyone who has been around such groups. My first friend has graduated into a more stylish, faster much less Jewish social set. I believe it is this factor alone that accounts for the different trajectories of their children.

Children many times act out what the parents feel even when it is largely unconscious. Somehow kids can pick it up. A Jew who disparages being Jewish, even if it is only in a secret chamber in his heart is effectively signaling to his kids…don’t listen to what I say, listen to what I feel. And listen they do. A Jew who has little place in his life for other Jews will see the results in his kids.

Friday night- I think it’s important the there be a center to a home. Not necessarily a religious center, but rather a time where everyone sits down to a formal meal, each family according to its own style and capabilities. I’m not arguing there has to be a Sabbath, even though a Sabbath would be best. Even if no one goes to shul, and even if no one makes kiddush or lights candles, it is important that a family gets together and meet face-to-face without the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It provides an opportunity for parents to talk to children and for children to talk to parents. It provides a moment where there’s no television or video games. It enables a child to invite their friends for a Sabbath meal and, in turn, to be invited. A child who grows up without this center has no feeling for the cycle of Jewish life. A child who grows up with a special Friday night, even if it doesn’t have a religious character, has at least one differentiating characteristic, a remnant of a mitzvah if you want, that sets him/her apart from the rest of the world.

Summer camp- it would be nice if all children would have a Jewish elementary education. It’s not going to happen. At $15,000+ a year after tax, an average American Jewish family has to earn $45,000 to send two kids to day school. Strict Orthodox Jews with strong convictions about the importance of yeshivas are choking, unable to meet their financial obligations because of the high costs of tuition. It is unreasonable to expect Jews who don’t believe in a Jewish day school education to enroll their children because it will cut down on the rate of intermarriage twenty years down the road. Jewish summer camp is a different order of magnitude and is doable. A Jewish summer camp in the formative years when children go to camp has the ability to impress itself on a child in a lasting way. The camp doesn’t have to be particularly religious, although it must have Jewish elements to it. I believe that children who go to the Reform Movement summer camps, or even Labor Zionist summer camps, and certainly to Ramah, have a lower intermarriage rate than children who go to secular summer camps.

College- They once asked Willy Sutton, the famous bank robber, why he robbed banks. He said because that’s where the money was. Why do some young people meet and marry Jews and other don’t? One cause is some go to schools where there are Jews and others do not. A family that send their children to a college where the Jewish population is small is almost guaranteeing their child will date non-Jewish people and feel comfortable in secular and Christian environments. It’s a small step after college to continue dating outside the faith. There are more than enough great colleges where the Jewish population is considerable. (Many of the Ivy League and some of the seven sister schools, Stanford, U of Michigan, Tulane, etc.). A child has to be discouraged from going to places like Reed, Carlton, and other such very good but very goyish colleges. The data about colleges is readily available and should be publicized.

Summing up, my hypothesis is that if these four conditions are satisfied, the intermarriage rate would drop in half, even if no one is religious or Zionist. They are not terribly difficult and don’t require major changes in life style. Obviously I might be wrong. What I find disconcerting is that after so many years and so many discussions, a simple hypothesis like I just proposed has never been to the best of my knowledge tried or tested. (I don’t really know this. It might have been tested years ago and shown negative results. But I tend to doubt any large scale study was ever performed on a complex combination of conditions.) If I am wrong in my thinking, then indeed it is true that some form of religion and/or Zionist feeling is necessary to prevent intermarriage. I believe that these latter conditions are necessary if you want to get the intermarriage rate down to under 10%. The American Jewish leadership would be delighted with an intermarriage rate of 25%. Such a rate together with the high Orthodox fertility would prolong Jewish life in the Diaspora for a few more generations.

In a future blog I’ll take a look at an asymmetrical revealed preference theory of intermarriage. The friction hypothesis which I have assumed, to wit, Jews who hang with Jews marry Jews, is not the whole truth, but it certainly must be considered a big part of the story.

Intermarriage and Reform Judaism

2006-10-04T08:38:00.000-05:00

The application of the concept of “a child that was captured by goyim” in judging the status of Conservative and Reform Jewry is important to Orthodox Jews. (See yesterday’s blog) There is the halachic consideration that if they are so conceived there is no question of heresy or related categories, with all that such categories would imply in Jewish law. Even if it sounds condescending, its aim is constructive. I have no problem with using such a concept as a legal construct within the halachic system.

A second reason for its centrality in Orthodox thinking is primarily defensive. It enables Orthodox Jews to say that even though 12.5 million Jews are not accepting of their way of life, it is only because they don’t know any better; they were raised that way. Had they been raised Orthodox, they would have a different opinion. If Orthodox people would only explain how Hashem gave the Torah, etc. they could turn these uninformed, Jewishly unsophisticated Reform innocents. Nu …takeh, as we say in Yiddish… why don’t they? It reminds me of a Jerry Fodor joke. What is the difference between philosophy in Boston and philosophy in NY? Two philosophers meet on a street in Boston. They have a philosophical disagreement. They stand and fight until one of them dies. Two philosophers meet in New York. After an hour one says ‘’ I would love to talk some more and try to get clear on the problem, but I have opera tickets, and you know the price of opera tickets these days.’’ When it comes to explaining the truth of Torah to these ‘’captive Reform children’’ Orthodox Jews always have ‘’opera tickets’’. Somehow the hypothesis of tinok shenishbah never gets tested.

In the Middle Ages, when a person discovered that he had been kidnapped by gentiles, if he could and if he was interested, he would return to the Jewish community which was monolithic in its outlook. Most liberal and secular Jews will not become Orthodox, even if they understood the entire Torah with all its commentaries. In fact, most Jews understand perfectly well what is being claimed by Orthodoxy, and they reject the doctrine straight out. The Orthodox idea is that if only we could invite non-religious people for a shabbus meal and take the time to talk to them in a gentle way, over time they would all recognize their errors and come home. The idea is terribly naive. I don’t know a gentle way to break the news, but it just isn't true as the world stands right now.

It might be argued in the style of Rav Kook that as messianic times approach there will be this outpouring of supernal consciousness so that ordinary Jews will begin to see the divine light of Torah. Such ideas are inspiring and may become more obvious in time. As of now I would say that a reliance on such a vision is an example of counting on a miracle, a strategy the Talmud warns against, certainly when the stakes are the future well being of the Jewish people.

The implications of this doctrine for intermarriage is as follows: if one believes it is possible to bring people around to Orthodoxy, and Orthodoxy would cure the problem of intermarriage, it is natural to think of the problem of intermarriage as simply a corollary of the larger issue of how to get people to repent. Intermarriage on this view is simply a consequence of liberal and secular Judaism. Once intermarriage is seen as a corollary of being not religious, progress on the intermarriage front is dependent on progress on turning the 12 + million liberal Jews into repentant baal teshuvahs. Each year some Jews become repentant, some Orthodox lose their faith, netting out a small inflow in favor of Orthodoxy. Meanwhile intermarriage proceeds apace. Progress on the intermarriage front requires unhooking the intermarriage problem from the baal teshuvah problem.

When one turns to the Conservative and Reform rabbinate a similar mistake is prevalent. A pulpit rabbi tends to think of all problems in terms of his congregation. He’s inclined to believe that if only more people would come to services, if only more children were enrolled in Sunday or after hours Hebrew school all would be well. In fact, just the other week, the rabbi delivered such a wonderful sermon, such that if these people who are intermarrying would only have heard what he had to say, they would have seen the error in their ways. It’s the liberal version of a child that was captured by goyim.

It’s difficult to explain to liberal clergy how many times a temple has a negative effect, even if for some it is a path to a meaningful Jewish life. And even if it was true that following the practises of Conservative and Reform Judaism would prevent most intermarriage, so what? Being a Satmar chasid, wearing a beard and peyot, learning in kolel…there are no shortages of practices that prevent intermarriages. Active membership in a Reform community is only relevant if there is a feasible plan to get the the Reform constituency to become active in their Reform temples, the key word being active. Here is the rub. It is frequently as difficult to get Jews to engage in the appropriate Reform behavior as it is to turn them Orthodox. Reform Rabbis are not shy. Nobody listens to them, certainly not young people.

My conclusion is that if you want to deal with the problem of intermarriage, you can not appeal to any religious considerations. You can’t ask people to be more religious. The truth is this… if you go to someone and say either keep kosher and shabbus or your child will marry a goy, most everyone who is not religious would say ''If these are my only two choices, I’ll take my chances.'' And they would be willing to take this chance, even if the probability would be very high their children would leave the fold. As much as they would love their children married to Jews, they love their lifestyle even more. You can ask people to make some small sacrifice. You can’t ask people to change their way of life. There has to be a different approach that takes these considerations into account.

Stay tuned.

Intermarriage and Orthodoxy

2006-10-03T08:01:00.000-05:00

The topic of intermarriage might very well be the most important public policy question facing the Jewish people. At an intermarriage rate of almost fifty percent, in two-three generations, there will essentially be no one left but the Orthodox. The reason similar intermarriage rates are not occurring in Israel is, because they don’t have the opportunity. The descendants of Israelis who immigrate to America approach over time the same rates of intermarriage as everyone else. Even in Israel with the arrival of 400,000 non-Jewish Russians there is a fair amount of intermarriage. The problem is alleviated because conversions in the army are relatively quick and painless.

The topic has been openly discussed and analyzed for at least twenty years. There is not a national Federation meeting where there isn’t a talk or a seminar on this topic. Major initiatives have been launched more than once; most notably recent projects of Steinhardt and Bronfman. So far there has been no dent in the rate of intermarriage. The question is why? There are only two ways to go. The first is that there is a tidal wave of assimilation that will overwhelm all initiatives. The second possibility is that there have been conceptual and moral failures all along the way, and it is these errors that are preventing the problem from being solved. I want to approach this problem first by discussing some possible errors and then by presenting a straightforward and relatively easy solution.

I begin with the Orthodox. I believe they make three mistakes. First of all, they don’t believe in their hearts that there could possibly be a 50% intermarriage rate. After all, it is impossible to get an apartment in Borough Park or a house in Monsey. Everyone is having so many children. What can be the problem? They don’t feel the importance of the problem because they don’t see it with their own eyes. At most they read about it. I SEE INTERMARRIAGE EVERYWHERE. In my immediate neighborhood most every Jew is already intermarried. Most of their children will marry non-Jews. The Orthodox say “It’s not OUR fault that liberal Jews are leaving the fold. We have been saying for the last two hundred years that Reform Judaism will destroy the Jewish people, and we’ve proven right.” The problem with this comment is that “I told you so” is not a public policy, not even the beginning of such a policy. It is little solace if the Jewish people fade away to have had the satisfaction of having predicted the demise in advance.

The second error is that it is true but irrelevant that Orthodox Jews don’t intermarry. Orthodox Jews not intermarrying might be an argument for Orthodoxy, but it too is not even the beginning of a public policy. American Jews are not, I repeat NOT going to become Orthodox with or without proselytizing (kiruv). Currently, there might be a small net inflow into Orthodoxy. It is also true that the retention rates of Orthodoxy are somewhat higher than in the fifties and sixties. Even ten thousand net Jewish repentant annually, which is above what’s actually happening, is too small a number to prevent the decimation of American Jewish life. If Jews are not going to become religious then it is irrelevant that if they became religious the problem would be solved. If my grandmother had…she would be…but she doesn’t…so she isn’t.

The Orthodox don’t take a non-sectarian attitude towards the Jewish people. It is not their children so why should they worry. There are 2 responses. The correct way of creating a proper Jewish public policy is to look at all problems from the perspective of the Jewish people as a whole. For the Jewish Volk intermarriage is a great tragedy. Second, an American Jewry that is mostly Orthodox will be smaller in number, weaker in political and economic power and significantly poorer. Such a state would bring the anti-Semites out of the woodwork all over the world. Israel will no longer be able to count on the political and economic clout of the Jews of America. Everyone including the Orthodox would be worse off.

The third error is somewhat tangential, but forms an important part of the Orthodox Jewish worldview. In Hebrew the concept is called ''tinok shenishbah bein hagoyim'', a child that was kidnapped at a young age and raised by gentiles. Such events did occur in the middle ages, and halacha had to decide on their legal status. The general intuition was that such persons are innocents, and even if they were raised as Christians or Muslims are to be treated much more leniently than apostates or heretics. In modern times Orthodoxy has gotten into its head the peculiar idea that Jews raised as Conservative or Reform are ''tinok shenishbahs'', children that were captured by goyim, as it were, namely the liberal Jewish clergy The children, now grown up, are not at fault for being who they are. The false and pernicious doctrines of liberal Judaism as taught by the Reform and Conservative rabbis are to blame. My objections to this thesis, its implications for intermarriage plus the errors of Jewish liberals can be found in my next blog.

The Ten Worst Jews

2006-09-29T08:08:00.000-05:00

I thought it would be a useful idea before Yom Kippur to try to work out who were the worst Jews in recent times. The blogosphere is so busy, talking about rabbis, rabbis, rabbis, the tail-end of Jewish life is not being adequately covered. I think of it as a sort of anti-rebbe baseball cards. The exercise is not that easy, so I want to confine my first set of awful Jews to ten. I’m looking for ten people who were famous and acted in such a way that they were a shame to the Jewish people. I’m not interested in some isolated Son-of-Sam- like psychopath. There are 3 subcategories, the mass murderers, the apostates and the self haters.

Let’s start with Lev Davidovich Trotsky. I would start with Lenin, but it’s only a rumor that he’s Jewish. Trotsky is all ours. Even though in his last years he became an opponent of Stalin, he was the people’s commissar for war and the commander of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. In these positions, he managed to make his own unique contribution to the history of mass slaughter. He was a leading player in the dictatorship that led to Stalin. Stalin killed forty million people. A pox on all three of them..

Rosa Luxembourg, the fiery communist leader of the German communist Party is my next choice. She was a true believer in communism, which in my book is not a sin and doesn’t qualify one for a 10 worst list. She joins this elite group because of her Bolshevik politics of refusing to join with other democratic socialists. Her legacy together with Trotsky’s was felt in the 30’s when the German communists adopted the cynical slogan that the worse things get, the better it will be. Their refusal to join with the socialists led to the electoral victories of the Nazis and allowed Hitler to come to power. Communism deserves some of the responsibility for Hitler gaining control. 10 million dead here, 10 million there, after a while it adds up.

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Everyone of a certain age knows their story. At the time there were some questions concerning the case, but over the years the evidence has accumulated that they spied for the Soviet Union and were responsible for transferring hydrogen bomb secrets to Stalinist Russia, which in turned triggered the Cold War and a huge arms buildup. I can understand people being communist; I can not understand how people could have spied for Stalin.

I would say the most self hating Austrian Jew of the 20th century period was either Karl Kraus or Otto Weininger. Kraus wrote a satirical anti-Semitic magazine that was witty, sharp and appealing to German speakers. Today it is difficult to know what all the fuss was about, but everyone including Freud and Wittgenstein read him diligently. He converted to Catholicism and was not fond of Jews to say the least. Weininger wrote a major anti-Semitic and misogynist work, Sex and Character. Here once again, everyone from Freud to Wittgenstein read the book, and it was widely used by proto Nazi groups. He committed suicide, not a minute too soon.

The case of Freud is different. He certainly was no tchachke. He married his wife partially because he was attracted to her lineage as the granddaughter of Chacham Bernays, the Sefardi Chief Rabbi of Hamburg. Once married, he didn’t allow his wife to light candles on Friday night. His mother spoke only Galitzianer Yiddish, lived with him to a ripe old age, yet he always denied knowing how to read Hebrew letters. I think he was lying so as to make himself appear more assimilated. As he got older, he got a little better. He said a nice word or two about Zionism and he never denied being a Jew. There was a fair amount of Jewish self-hatred in Freud, but I would not consider him one of the ten worst Jews, if for no other reason, that his discoveries changed the world and Jewish life for the better. He analyzed the great Jewish feminist Bertha Pappenheim, and he helped the 5th Lubavitcher Rebbe, the RaSHa’’B, overcome his depression. His self-hatred was not much worse than the young Herzl or the novelist Arthur Schnitzler

My next choice is a triplet of important Jewish women philosophers, Simone Weill, Edith Stein and Gilian Rose, all of whom became apostates. There is a large literature on Weill. Alasdair MacIntyre has just written a philosophical appraisal of how Stein came to be a Carmelite nun. Stein was murdered in Auschwitz and was later canonized by Pope John Paul II. In a wonderfully erudite and learned review Rabbi Arnold Wolff wrote of Rose “In the last hours before her death, Rose was received into the Anglican church. Her admirers, particularly her Jewish admirers, were and remain dumbfounded, since she had professed a critical loyalty to Judaism for all of her adult life.” I learnt a lot from Gilian Rose, and continue to think about her. Shame on all of them.

Hannah Arendt is my next choice as a self hating Jew. She is only a temporary member, depending on how it all turns out when her correspondence is unsealed. I will write more about her in future blogs..

Dorothea Mendelsohn was the daughter of the famous philosopher and student of Reb Yonason Eybischutz, Moses Mendelssohn. After she married Simon Veit, she flipped her sheitel and ran off and married the romantic poet Friedrich Schlegel. She wasn’t the only Orthodox women in the Berlin of the 1790’s to leave their husbands, convert and marry a German Christian. Six of her Orthodox Jewish friends converted. What earns her a special place in Jewish history is that she convinced her siblings and nephews and nieces to do the same. The more I read about her and the other Berlin salonieren the more problematic they become. Something was very wrong in the Orthodox Jewish community of 1790’s Berlin. I have no clue what caused these rich, educated and cultured women to convert. I believe the Rav of the community at the time was the author of one the side commentaries in all the standard editions of the Yerushalmi, the Korban Haedah. He must have been clueless.

Margherita Sarfatti was an Italian Jewish woman who was Mussolini’s mistress from 1911 well into the 20’s. In turn, she became an important writer and cultural advisor for Italian fascism. Susan Sarendon portrayed her in the Tim Robin’s movie “The Cradle will Rock” (1999). She was colorful, very bright, but she was also an apologist for some very bad people. She managed to live through the Second World War by going into exile in Argentina and lived to a ripe old age.

The Jewish husbands of Alma Mahler namely Gustav Mahler and Franz Werfel. Mahler was a great composer who converted to Catholicism ostensibly because of his desire to advance his career. I’m not so sure. If one listens to the early symphonies, it is possible to detect fragments of nigunim. By the time you get to symphony 8,9, and 10, they sound, at least to my ear, very much the sort of music one would write if redemption in the Catholic sense was on one’s mind. Schoenberg, an equally impressive composer, after converting to Protestanism saw his mistake and returned to Jewish life. One has the feeling with Mahler that as the years went by he entered into the Catholic mind frame. Franz Werfel was a novelist and a screenwriter. He lived with Alma Mahler during World War II. Alma was a Nazi sympathizer. He also wrote the book and the screenplay for the Catholic propaganda movie “Song of Bernadette.” Not nice for a Jewish boy.

10 My last choice is Rabbi Kaufman Kohler and the other authors of the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform. I ask the interested reader to compare the 1885 platform with the new much more mentschlich Reform Pittsburgh Platform adopted in 1999. It took Reform Judaism fifty years and more to recover from the hatred of ritual and the anti Zionism of the 1885 platform. The goals of the Hamburg reformers in the 1810’s were truly modest in comparison to the radical revisionist ideas that culminated in the 1880’s. I would be interested in hearing from readers that have a different take on the consequences of the anti Zionism, pro-assimilation ideas of classical reform.

The best example of a Jewish self-hater was John, the author of the fourth Gospel, the Logos guy, but that’s going quite a ways back. It is true to say, however, that if it weren’t for John, there would have been far fewer inquisitions and pogroms over the years. In general, Jewish self-hatred is more of a European phenomenon, and is not so obvious in America or Israel these days. Why this is so is a longish story, but essentially it has to do with the conditions that the Germans set for entry into the body politic. It bent many Jews out of shape.

Finally I offer an alternate candidate a man who in the mind of far too many is a good man, a hero…Dr. Baruch Goldstein. I figure the crowd that rejects Kohler and Co. will have no problem with Goldstein and vice versa.

The new field of ‘debit Jews’ is wide open (ARE THEY the Ketanim? Sounds odd. Maybe the PC word ‘challenged’ would work. Also dopey. Let’s say the optimal name is one more unsolved problem in this burgeoning science). I welcome all suggestions. It is still possible to get in on the ground floor.

A gemar chasima tova to all.

Lubavitch and Heresy

2006-09-28T07:01:00.000-05:00

There is a serious issue I want to raise about Lubavitch other than heresy and mass psychosis. (They are heimisher guys, so what’s a psychosis here or a heresy there.) In traveling around the world I have found, more than once, there are perfectly fine congregations in a town, many of which are struggling to find members. Along comes this Lubavitcher kid, somewhere in his twenties with his bashert at his side, and sets up shop right next door.

Lubavitch functions somewhat like a McDonald’s franchise. All the good locations are already taken. When a Lubavitcher emissary retires, he tries to recruit his son or some other family member, and with some justification. The retiree built up the Chabad house from scratch. When a young person shows an interest in going out into the field, (becoming a meshulach), the Upper East Side of New York is already taken. He can go to Papua, New Guinea or Nowheresville, Arkansas. The young man grabs onto Arkansas even if it already has a minyan. The upshot is that many a minyan with 15 people morphs into two minyanim of 7.5 each. The Lubavitchers undoubtedly will argue that it is not a zero sum game. When they come into a town, they expand the market. They feel they will create a much more dynamic place than the weak synagogue that is already there. They may be right in this contention, but such has not been my experience.

One final problem…what are we to make of the failure to excommunicate the Lubavitchers? I know there are a lot of reasons why there has been no serious attempt at excommunication. For one thing, people traveling around the world eat in Lubavitcher kitchens and if they were excommunicated, their food would not be considered kosher. Another story that one hears is that Orthodoxy has turned into Orthopraxis. If your behavior is Orthoprax (you behaviorally perform all the mitzvoth), you can believe in the tooth fairy; no one is going to give you a hard time. There is something to this idea, though not at the level of the individual. No one is hesitant to denounce an individual as a heretic (apikorus). The reluctance is to take on seventy thousand people.

Whatever the exact explanation, and there may be many, it is part of a growing trend in American Jewish life in all denominations. Heresy and breaking of denominational ties is breaking out all over. Some good examples are:

The University of Judaism in Los Angeles is much more “progressive” than the Jewish Theological Seminary and appears to be going its own independent way.

There are all these uppity women who are challenging Modern Orthodox practices with tefila groups and greater participation of women in the services. They dream of equality with men.

The phenomenon called Jewish Renewal, which is growing very quickly and is independent of all denominations and, I would add, of all rabbinical discipline, presents a challenge to the very idea of a rabbi.

The emergence of a non-denominational rabbinical school in Newton, Massachusetts headed by the distinguished theologian and kabbalah scholar Rabbi Arthur Green, raises the very interesting question of whether a rabbi is inextricably tied to a denomination. Why can’t there be an Allgemeiner Rabbi? Why can’t there be a rabbi who is not Orthodox or Conservative or Reform…she is just a rabbi? Woooo…heresy.

Radical Carlebach minyanim, Berkley style chavurot, gay and lesbian congregations, and many more local weird groupings.

(In Boulder, Colorado I encountered a minyan that went mountain climbing every Shabus morning. When they got to the top they had a short service, some meditation and climbed down. I forgot to ask if the kidush was on top or bottom of the mountain. In Rome I came across a congregation of Libyan Jews that made hakafoth twice, one after the other; once for members who closed their stores before sundown and the second for those who felt the need to keep their shops open until after dark. No one went home until the very end. )

What some see as heresy, others see as the creativity and vitality of American Jewish life. I, myself, don’t have the stomach for Jewish Renewal or for some of the more progressive chavurahs springing up around the country. Neverthess I believe it is important to overcome one’s natural conservative instincts for the sake of religious creativity and free competition. I see Lubavitch as the most distinguished and serious of such groups. They are the best example of a dynamic group of Jews who cannot be contained or easily classified under the traditional denominational structure of Orthodox, Conservative and Reform. Heretical or not I say more power to them.

Lubavitch and the Moshiachisten

2006-09-27T08:44:00.000-05:00

The case against Lubavitch is straightforward enough. There are sizable groups inside Lubavitch that believe the last and seventh rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson is Moshiach (the Messiah). The Rebbe, as they like to call him, died in 1995. At this point the believers, known in Yiddish as the Moshiachisten, split into a bunch of factions….He’s here but invisible, He is roaming the earth and there have been sightings, He’s coming back, He’s somehow connected to the Godhead… I have lost track of the variants. Somehow He died and the chassidim constantly visit the gravesite, BUT He is also alive and still here.

All these views have two fatal flaws…the idea that the Rebbe is Moshiach is cracked, bordering on psychosis, and also deeply heretical. It is not very different from parts of Christian theology. Lubavitch is retracing in a slightly different terminology much of the patristic history of the early church. The church fathers spent half a millennium and two dozen schisms trying to work through the metaphysics of a God who became man. Their collected writings on this topic are close to 500 volumes. It is unsettling almost unbelievable to see Lubavitch go down this same road.

There is also the problem that like the Shia and the neo-Sabbateans of the 18th century Lubavitchers have a tendency to dissimulate their true beliefs. I have had the experience of a Lubavitcher look me straight in the eye and deny he had anything to do with the Moshiachisten, only to discover years later that he is one of the most extreme believers. At this point I just don’t care what any particular Lubavitcher believes. I would conjecture that a consequence of Lubavitch concealing its true beliefs is that these beliefs eventually become permanently obscure. Many Lubavitchers may no longer be certain what they believe. They recite the yechi adonainu catechism and whatever else is required and they get on with their lives. If I were caught up in such a maelstrom I would do the same.

In reading the comments on Lubavitcher blogs I was struck by two things: the high spiritual level (madrega) of the participants, their faith (emunah), their deep knowledge of and interest in chasidus. These guys really care what happened in the chasidic world in the last 250 years, and not just in Lubavitch. They are obsessed with the Vilna Gaon and his decree of excommunication against chasidim. They rattle off deep chasidic ideas at ease. At the same time the pain the Moshiachisten schism is bringing on the entire community is palpable. In many cities they have already split into two with competing schools and shuls. It is so sad to watch such a wonderful community bring itself down. My limited experience with Lubavitcher people is that they are warm, friendly, good people. These are people who ARE the way one would want a chasidish person to BE, warm, serious, committed, intelligent, energetic. Watching a not insubstantial part of the Lubavitch community go off the deep end is painful, even to a total outsider like me.

The Orthodox community has not excommunicated the Lubavitchers, though there were certainly murmurings to that effect , the most notable being the remark of Reb Eliezer Shach , the famed head of Ponovizh Yeshivah. He said if he were younger, he was then in his nineties, he would take it upon himself to drive them out of the Orthodox world. What has happened is that the Orthodox has generally kept their criticism to a minimum, but has allowed Lubavitch to drift out to sea, cut off and isolated. Nothing good comes from the isolation of Lubavitch. There is a tearing of bonds to all other chasidic groups and to the general charedi community. Lubavitch ends up talking to less religious Jews or to the most alienated secular Jews. It is true they were always isolated, even in Russia, but never like this. All other chasidic groups intermarry, thus forming a rich tapestry of family ties across communities. Lubavitch at this point in time can only marry off their children to other Lubavitchers. I feel particularly sorry for the widowed and divorced Lubavitcher baal-teshvas. Charedi and Strict Orthodox Jews in general will not be meshadech (intermarry) with Lubavitch.

I think Lubavitchers delude themselves partially because they are taken in by their own propaganda. I’ve seen Lubavitch literature saying there are a million/two million strong. Well, if you have two million people that also think the Rebbe is Moshiach, it is not so lonely. This misperception is reinforced because wherever a Lubavitcher goes out, to a synagogue, his kid’s schools, a wedding, he only sees other Lubavitchers. I think it’s useful to actually guess the total number of Lubavitchers. In Crown Heights, the 2000 U.S. census says there are 21,600 people in Jewish households. Let’s count them all Lubavitch. People know how many missions Lubavitch has sent all over the world, though I don’t. Let’s say a thousand chabad houses with five Lubavitchers per house for a total of five thousand. Kfar Chabad in Israel, let’s be generous, 20,000 people and rounding off to the nearest ten thousand, there are a total of 50,000 Lubavitchers. Let’s say each Chabad house has 20 congregants who not only daven there but truly ARE Lubavitch. We get a total of 70,000.

How do they come up with a number like a million? I think it’s like this… a Lubavitcher mitzvah- tank sets up shop on some main street, manages to put tefelin on twenty five people a week, and informs 770, the headquarters of Lubavitch, he is attracting 1,400 people to Lubavitch per annum. If a Lubavitcher somewhere in Kratzmichstan rounds up twenty sefardi Jews to come to shul on Shabbus, all twenty count as Lubavitch. If they have a fundraiser, and a thousand people send in checks, a thousand more Lubavitch. If a hundred of these people show up in a Lubavitch shul, another hundred Lubavitch.

I remember when I was young, Lubavitch, in Crown Heights, was almost as large as Satmar. I don’t consider it a great success story if so many years later they have twenty-one thousand. I am guessing many of the baal-teshuvas they are so proud of having evangelized come in the front door and, after a few years, leave. There is no question Lubavitch does good work in many parts of the world, but they are nowhere nearly as influential as they try to project.

To Be Continued…

The Blogger Unorthodoxjew

2006-09-26T08:33:00.000-05:00

The blogger Unorthodoxjew (UOJ) has decided to call it quits and taken down his blog from the internet. He will be missed by his hundreds if not thousands of readers. The man exposed child molestation in the Orthodox community and much else. He served, despite his many faults as an ombudsman to the charedi community. After a while the Kolko case turned absolutely bizarre. The affair morphed into something much darker and seedier, if that is possible. In fact, I find some of the latest revelations including the material about Rabbi Belsky and his beth din impossible to believe. There were days the charges and countercharges came at such a fast and furious pace it was impossible to sort it all out. I have spent more hours than I care to admit reading all this gossip, only to end up confused and bewildered. I have this recurring wish/fantasy that the documents are forged, there are no scandals, the rabbis are as perfect as can be.

My basic feeling about the blog is this: If what UOJ said is basically true, even if he made a mistake about some detail or other, he was right to publicize the material no matter what the consequences, even on the internet. People are entitled to know any and all obvious wrongdoings of their leaders. Liberal Jews should know that Orthodoxy is not always pure and holy. If they are not true then what the blogger UOJ did was totally, totally unconscionable. Although I find myself believing much of what UOJ initially said, mostly because I have not seen anyone stand up and show how and where he is mistaken or lying, he has done the entire cause a disservice in going about it in such a half crazed way.

UOJ’s blog did have its share of problems. There were times when he tried to destroy totally the idealization Ultra Orthodox Jews have for the rabbinate. As I have argued more than once, Idealization of the historical rabbinate is the libidinal juice that lubricates the delicate mechanism called Ultra Orthodoxy. Destroy the idealization and everything will change. Every cheeky blogger, including me, is to some extent committed to truth and realism, even when it is unfavorable. Nevertheless, there are responsible limits. I think it is bad public policy to keep on making the rabbinate look bad, unless the story has a specific practical current purpose, such as exposing perverts and their enablers. I would like to give a concrete example of inappropriate badmouthing of a rabbinical figure.

UOJ attacked out of the blue the late Rosh Yeshivah of Baranowicze Reb Elchanan Wasserman z’’l. It had absolutely no relevance to his subject of sexual predators in the Orthodox community. In this game of Monday- morning- quarterbacking UOJ pointed out, I assume for the moment correctly, that Reb Elchanan made a horrible ex-post error in judgment in refusing the American visas that were being offered to his students immediately before the war. There goes Reb Elchanan over a cliff. Tear up his baseball card. I, for one, would want details. Did he tell Mike Tress or whoever offered the visas to tear them up, give them to some other yeshivah or what? Did he say I know I am going to die, but I miss downtown Baranowicze? The actual decision to murder all the Jews was made in 1941. This story must have happened around 1939. Turn it a little one way or the other and it takes on a different flavor.

I think I remember reading somewhere the great leader of Progressive Judaism, Rabbi Dr. Leo Baeck had the opportunity to leave Berlin, and chose to stay with his community. He was deported to Theresienstadt in 1943, survived and went on to lead a productive life. The sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe was in America in the 30’s, returned home, only to return at a later period. Here is Rose Friedman, the wife of Milton, at age 94, in an interview in the WSJ (7/22?). Rose: ''…that is one of the problems. When immigrants come across and want to remain Mexican.''Milton:'Oh, but they came in the past and wanted to be Italian, and be Jewish…''
Rose: “No they didn’t. The ones that did went back.”

There are terrible stories in obscure historical works, sometimes buried in a footnote or appendix, including serious charges against the previous Belzer and Satmar Rebbes. It was a dark time. Some Rabbinical ‘saints’ (tzadikim) acted badly, for which they will be brought to account by history and in heaven. All one needs is to read Gerald Zuriff’s courageous, balanced and well documented book Response of Orthodox Jewry in the United States: The Activities of the Vaad Ha-Hatzala Rescue Committee, 1939-1945. The chapter on how the visas to Shanghai were allocated is just horrible and heart breaking. (Also relevant is Mendel Piekarz’s (Heb.) Ideological Trends of Hassidim in Poland during the Interwar Period and the Holocaust.) History is not a secret, and when it comes to scholarship and wissenschaft there can be no a priori restrictions. A scholar must always be free to tell what he believes to be the truth, irrespective of consequences.

The material about Reb Elchanan, assuming it is true, would be appropriate in my opinion in any comprehensive rabbinical history of the period. It should be situated against the context of the times, his worldview and the worldview of his peers and teachers, his total achievements over a lifetime and the legacy he left behind. Was Reb Elchanan unique in this respect? Did every UO rabbi think the same way? Was there a difference between pulpit rabbis and heads of yeshivot? Did the German rabbinate have the same attitudes as the Lithuanian? Did he have the moral right to decide for others without ascertaining their preferences?

My feeling is that to use just this Reb Elchanan story from 65+ years ago in the context of a blog about a child molesters and their enablers is an exercise in malevolence against the leadership as a whole. They don’t deserve it; even if the collective leadership in Brooklyn or Baltimore has been lax in uprooting child molesters in the schools. I am not arguing the story should be repressed. I am saying it should not have been revealed on the UOJ blog.

Reb Yaakov Kaminetsky z”l had an aphorism that went like this “Not everything that you think, do you say. Not everything that you say, do you write down on paper. Not everything you write, do you publish.” I daresay if he were alive today, he would add “Not everything that you publish in historical journals do you put on an internet site dealing with sexual predator rabbis and read by an anxious, vulnerable and somewhat unsophisticated readership.”

There is a need going forward to keep up the work begun by UOJ. Rabbi Yosef Blau has acted courageously and with intelligence in dealing with sexual predators in the Modern Orthodox community. The charedi world needs someone of his stature and gravitas. If the rabbinical leadership forgets about this issue and returns to business as usual, the next time such cases arise they will no longer be the tinok shenishbaw defense ‘’who knew such things happen in our community.’’ Now they know; the ball is in their court.

The Pope Screws Up

2006-09-25T09:43:00.000-05:00

The Pope got himself into a whole lot of trouble the other day when he said “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." Apparently, the Pope believes that Islam is a violent religion spread by force. As if we didn’t know this already.. Anyway, he got as good as he gave, and I don’t feel particularly sorry for him or the Catholic Church. Jews remember very well that when the Church was in power, they didn’t hesitate for a minute, to try to convert Jews forcibly and against their will, the best example being the history of the inquisition in Spain. Nor should we forget that it was the Christian soldiers who tried their luck in four separate Crusades= jihads to regain the Holy Land for their religion. In the process, they managed to massacre many a Jew and Muslim simply for refusing to convert. Although both Islam and Christianity have nothing to be proud of, Islam until the birth of the State of Israel was slightly better to the Jews than Christianity. The story is comical any way you look at it. These Muslims are thin-skinned and are prepared to riot at the slightest insult. They don’t look like a confident evolved religion. They panic whenever there is the slightest debate or criticism. One would think the Pope had published a cartoon in Denmark.

In his speech the Pope also repeated his basic trashing of secularism and modernity. Why is it that the religious always think of secular people as the enemy? I mean, it’s not as if scientists in basements of labs are cursing out the pope while they pursue their thankless task of acquiring knowledge. If one of these secular, godless, scientists came up with a cure for a disease the pope might someday acquire, I’m sure he would line up with everyone else and not be too concerned about its origins. It appears that Christians are afraid of Muslims and the secular, Muslims are afraid of Christians and the secular, while the secular are just secular. The anxiety concerning secular people is odd given that God is on the side of the religious.

I also find totally absurd the attempt by Catholic and other conservatives to take the Pope’s very superficial rant as THE major philosophical statement about jihad and what we are against. Here is my one of my least favorite public intellectuals, Father Richard John Neuhaus making the argument, but the same dribble is everywhere including Brett Stephens in the WSJ and others: ‘’The kernel of the axiom asserted by the Pope is this: To act against reason is to act against the nature of God. Christianity presents itself on the basis of reasonable truth claims that are to be engaged and to be presented as persuasively as possible in a reasonable manner. Along the way he asked the question whether or not there is not a fundamental difference between Christianity and Islam. Whether Islam understands God as a god who is disengaged from what we mean by reason. A god who is radically sovereign, radically transcendent and whose will is exactly what he declares his will to be no matter how arbitrary or capricious. That Allah could even command that you worship idols and you would be obliged to worship idols. In the Christian understanding there could be no place in religion, Christian, Islamic or other for the use of violence. This statement will in retrospect be looked back upon as the most important statement by a world figure since 9/11 with regard to what may be the biggest single question facing Western civilization in the next century. And it turns out finally to be a theological and philosophical question about the nature of God.’’

Let me understand….transubstantiation, papal infallibility, the incarnation the resurrection, the trinity…should I go on…are all the marriage of reason and faith, reasonable truth claims, unlike those Muslims who are believers in mere faith and God’s will. Is the cause of jihad the pure monotheism of Islam and rejection of the intellectualism of Aquinas and Averroes for the voluntarism of Ockham and Duns Scotus. Is the rejection of the perennial Catholic philosophy the cause of all the recent troubles? Somehow I doubt it. In the Torah God commanded the genocide of Amalek and the native Canaanite inhabitants of Israel. The Torah is full of God’s arbitrary commandments and His rage at being disobeyed. Somehow over the years Jews have managed to avoid jihad.

I think the Jews acted nicely in this whole affair. The Sephardic chief rabbi Shlomo Amar sent a letter in Arabic criticizing the pope to a leading Sunni scholar in Qatar. "Our way is to honor every religion and every nation according to their paths. Even when there is a struggle between nations" Amar added, "it cannot be turned into a war of religions.” Rabbi Menahem Froman added, “Every Jew who learns the writings of the great sages knows that our great thinkers wrote in the Arabic language, lived in Islamic states and participated with the great Muslim thinkers in the effort to explain the words of God.”

The religious Jewish leadership is groping to find some way to make contact with the Muslims. The other day there was this crackpot scheme approved by Rabbis Yosef and Steinman of reaching a hudna (Arabic for cease-fire) with Hamas. The proposed hudna would be between Hamas and the Jewish people - not with the state of Israel - to circumvent Hamas's refusal to recognize the Zionist entity. The Lebanese war brought the proposal to a premature close.
However, the underlying sentiment is of interest. Rabbi Jakobovits explained it this way, "The Islamic world has deep concerns about the penetration of liberal, secular values and lifestyles into the Middle East. The charedi community understands their sensitivities and mentality and feels threatened by the same phenomena. The charedi community could play a key role in dialogue between the West and Islam because we live in two worlds, one deeply religious and the other liberal and pluralistic. Today in the West the assumption in dealing with Muslim extremism is that moderation and tolerance are the keys. But what the West does not understand is that there is something threatening in that approach, both to the charedi mind and to a deeply Islamic mind. Both charedim and Muslims see multicultural society as an anathema. The West, which has the power, needs to assure Islam that no one is going to try to force a multicultural worldview on them. Otherwise the clash with Islam will only get sharper and sharper.”

Actually, there are two approaches to this situation. The more popular approach is that it is ridiculous to expect the world to go back to medieval times. The Arab-fundamentalists simply have to get with the program. The fundamentalists seem to feel, to quote one commentator, “that if post-medieval progress in the world made their values unworkable, then it was the world’s fault, and the world should be stopped in its tracks. This is a bit like the Flat Earth society resolving to retro-authenticate its views by nuking the earth flat” (Melik Kaylan, WSJ 9/18/06). As with all such 'there is nothing to talk about, no one to talk to' approaches, it sounds great but leads nowhere.

I am not a fan of this tough love approach to Muslims. I think the charedi community is on to something in thinking that there might be some middle way between Western secularism and Islamic fundamentalism. I admit I have no clue how to start a dialogue or use the insights of Orthodox Jewish life in modulating the rawness in Islamic fundamentalism.

I wonder what would happen if President Bush got up one day and said that we as Americans have a lot to learn from Islam about modesty and the proper way to dress. As much as we value freedom, Bush would say, we also value the family and God. Harmless but the sort of thing Muslims might eat up. We teach them, they teach us, etc., etc. He’ll never say it.

A Rosh Hashana Sermon

2006-09-21T07:52:00.000-05:00

There are hundreds of Jewish bloggers. Few if any, me included, talk about deep issues in Jewish thought, ethical or metaphysical or even psychological. Why is that? Why are so many of the blogs either fundamentally unserious or when serious frequently stale and clichéd? At the level of middlebrow culture bloggers are a welcome addition to the Jewish scene. They make every attempt to tell it how it is, and the anonymity of the internet enables them to be spunky and frequently audacious. It is at the level of high culture that bloggers fail to make any headway.

There are tens of thousands of advanced students of Talmud, maybe more than a 100,000 world wide. In Europe there were never more than 12000 – 14000 yeshiva students. There never has been such a quantitative explosion of Torah studies in the history of Judaism, Why are the chidushei Torah, the essays and comments on Talmudic issues, so second rate, so uninteresting. Almost every new sefer (book) of import in Torah studies has been written by someone trained in Europe. The American successors are a lame bunch. Most recent seforim are likutim, anthologies, repackaging older material every which way. Why is that?

Why are there no serious Jewish philosophers inside the Jewish world? There have been some major philosophers in the last century who were Jewish. A few had thoughts on Judaism, but they were essentially outside Jewish life and have virtually no religious Jewish readership. Three examples are Benjamin, Derrida and Levinas, each a major figure that continue to be studied at universities. In the Jewish world most have never heard their names. Few have read their books. And to tell the truth few would have any interest or even be capable of understanding what they were saying. I am not puzzled why these philosophers are unread. I want to know why are there so few home grown major thinkers?

I seem to remember Dr. Chaim Soleveitchik used the word ‘anachronism’ in describing the rebirth of Jewish life in one of the versions of his much discussed essay Rupture and Reconstruction. An anachronism is something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, especially a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time: The sword is an anachronism in modern warfare. The intuitive idea was that Jewish life was not allowed to develop naturally because of the Holocaust. When it came back after the war, religious Jews attempted to recreate a version of Orthodoxy that was supposed to have existed at an earlier more idyllic time. A composer who would write today in the identical style of Mozart is not a mini Mozart…he’s nothing. So too a culture of Yiddishkeit that makes every effort to be derivative lacks freedom and courage to be itself. The imagined past is always watching. I would go one step further. I am not sure traditional Jewish life in the Diaspora ever developed naturally. Much of traditional life in Europe, though not anachronistic, existed in a ghetto isolated in many areas from events and trends in the larger society outside the ghetto. It never developed in a natural way, i.e. in an environment that was free and open to the new ideas that were circulating in the larger European society.

I do know this….most serious native born American religious Jews are afraid of their own shadow. They are terrified of stepping out, getting ahead of anyone else. The burden of the past weighs so heavily on their shoulders; it crushes much of the generation’s natural creativity. The current generation of Talmudists sees no way other than slavish emulation of their predecessors as a way forward. Their attempt to become like scholars who flourished in earlier centuries and in different milieus means they can’t say anything new, anything interesting. In Harold Bloom’s jargon, the anxiety of influence is so great, we, our generation, cannot produce strong, new thinkers, not in Talmud, not in haskafah and not in philosophy, chasidus or kabbalah. We are a generation of pygmies.

The Torah has seventy faces, facets. Only a few have been developed. So many more remain to be created/revealed/developed. Maybe it’s our fear of the past, of our societies, of being isolated and alone that is holding us back from becoming what we should become. We walk around covering out tracks, afraid we will become the object of derision and gossip. Is it absolutely necessary that for every intellectual baby step, we must find some proof text in a medieval rabbinical source so as to cover our backside? We live in apocalyptic times, (beikvata dimeshicha), in a time when we can already see signs of redemption Maybe it’s our conservative clinging to what we have and know that is holding up the spiritual redemption. It is high time we stopped being so afraid and develop some intellectual courage. The alternative, I am afraid is complacency and mediocrity.

L’shana tova. Wishing everyone a happy and healthy New Year.