How Should We Relate to Unorthodox Shabbat Practices – Comments on “Wendy’s Shababt” Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhgAperTOCw

February 20, 2018

The trailer for the short film “Wendy’s Shabbat” (above, film home page at http://wendysshabbat.com/wendys-shabbat) has been making the rounds on the internet.  In this post, Rabbi Alan Yuter discusses how halakhically observant Jews should relate to the film and those who celebrate Shabbat in nonhalakhic ways.

HOW SHOULD WE RELATE TO UNORTHODOX SHABBAT PRACTICES?

Non-Orthodox do what seems to Rabbis as strange, illogical, non-Halakhic, and decidedly un-Orthodox  behavior on Shabbat.  A traditional Jewish Theological Seminary graduate [there were such Rabbis at that place fifty years ago], told me that his frum thinking mom lit Shabbos candles when she came home Friday night after dark. She was convinced it was the right thing to do. On one hand, “liberal” rabbinical students call themselves a “holy community” celebrating the “Holy Shabbat” the way they wish.

I do not feel angry regarding this behavior. Rather this saddens me. Orthodox commitment is foreign to that community, and given the way we often speak about non-observant Jews and the clergy that non-observant Jewry pay to validate their Jewish identity, it is little wonder that we do not and cannot impact that community; at best we are hopelessly arcane, at worst, we are perceived as narrow minded bigots.  Because Orthodoxy has refused to address the non-Orthodox streams without the strain of disdain, put downs, and triumphalism, our protocol, which we mistake as mitsva, is a ritual and value laden complex, is foreign to most non-Orthodox Jews. We are not seen favorably, we are not a model for these non-Orthodox Jews. Shabbat dinner has rites like saying words before drinking wine from a silver goblet, eating a sweet, egg Hallah loaf, and a festive meal. These acts are mimicked as they are seen; sin is not part of their consciousness, kashrut is a virtual, and inconvenient, option.  The seven day mourning, when observed at all, is three days alone. I have discovered to my horror, dismay, and naiveté, institutional Conservative kashrut does not require the constant presence of a knowledgeable kashrut supervisor. Growing up Conservative, I only saw netilat Yadayim amongst the Orthodox.  Camp Ramah did not forbid the rite, but did not teach, or encourage it, either.

At one Camp Ramah in 1962, the “Scholar” in Residence, found it appropriate to de-sanctify the Torah by preaching to teenagers that the Torah is a “mosaic” of J,E, D, and P “documents,” and modern Jews do not believe in Torah “mythology.”  I’m not railing against academic Bible study; that enterprise does not, as an academic enterprise, make value judgments. There are today Orthodox Academic Bible studies. One such person is my very talented and accomplished niece, Dr. Deena Grant. Her dad happens to be an Orthodox rabbi. My problem with the Camp Ramah “scholar” was that he desacralized the Jewish canon; he preached unbelief to incredulous children.

I first went to Camp Ramah in 1958. I was told “you have to wear a kippa when you are in the dining room.” In my culture horizon, kippa was for prayer in synagogue.  We wore kippot for the seder at my paternal grandmother’s house, but that was like going to the synagogue. What got my temper raised was that  the same counselors who told me that I have to wear a kippa in the dining room would eat bare headed at a Howard Johnson’s chain restaurant. I later realized that this restaurant lacked Orthodox or, for that matter, Conservative kosher supervision.

What we call mitsva and sin is for most of us matters of protocol, not mitsva as divine mandate.  My totally non-observant parents were non-observant because there was no one to show them, no school to teach them, no community to support them.  The Rosh Yeshiva of the Philadelphia Yeshiva at Drexel was a Haredi rabbi. He was “the fanatic.” My parents wanted me to “marry Jewish,” [I did] but not get too Jewish. Her few Orthodox friends observed protocols, not mitsvot.  They practiced a Judaism based upon texts they could neither read nor understand, their traditions mimicked what they saw their parents did, and these practices have their origins, we are told, which originated at Sinai.  Their children grew up Conservative by affiliation and became nostalgic, non-observant adults whose children were willing to intermarry.

Protocol refers to customs and ceremonies. They are not presented as mitsvot and mandate.  The great Philadelphia cathedral Conservative Har Zion Temple did not teach about washing before bread, the prohibition of carrying on Shabbat, its rabbis ate at non-kosher restaurants, some with kippot and, against Conservative as well as Jewish law, without kippot.

When Jews are not exposed to living models of commitment who are believable, smiling, and non-judgmental, one cannot expect more from them than a cafeteria selection of visible rituals.

Orthodoxy fared no better with this population. My parents’ “Orthodox” friends had their own “acceptable sins.”  Social dancing is not immodest, the Conservative Har Zion was Jewish “enough,” eating dairy “out” became socially “in.” The “real” Orthodox were particularly insular, keeping to themselves and affirming Mesora, which means [a] what we happen to do and [b] what the Torah in our place and time requires that we do.

I cannot and will not complain about uniformed Jews inventing their own Shabbat. They have no real models.  Orthodox Jews do what they are told but not everything that is done is Orthodox Halakhah. Consider:

1. When singing Shalom Aleichem on Friday night, many if not most Orthodox Jews say barechuni le-Shalom, we ask angels to bless us. One law I did learn at Har Zion Temple as an ignorant teenager was that we are not allowed to pray to anyone or anything but the Holy One. That idea grabbed me then and now. I have since found Deut. 4:35, a monotheistic teaching in the Torah. We are not permitted to pray to angels.
2. Now a retired Orthodox rabbi, I do not turn to the back of shul at the end of Lecha Dodi, to be dragged into the wrongful rite of bowing in deference to the Shabbat malketa, a putative angel called Shabbat Queen. First, Orthodox Jews do not turn their face from the “Box of Holiness,” the box that instead of the pagan icon we have, read, and learn the words of the Living God. Second, Abu Darham insightfully observes that we turn our back to the ark to greet the mourners, not to great the “being” called malchut, the lowest sphere of the Divine body according to the Jewish mystical “tradition.”
3. The recitation of ve-shameru Friday night is an improper insertion into the prayers, it is an unauthorized interruption into the prayers as defined by the *only* “Tradition” the Torah recognizes, the Oral Torah law of the Talmud.
4. When the congregation recites Magen Avot, it does so unnecessarily. The passage is the reader’s repetition.
5. Another rabbi who attends the shul holds a closed siddur when reciting the ‘amida.’ By law, the held book is a distraction and one should pray with hands clasped together.
6. Orthodox women regularly light their pre-Shabbat candles by lighting the wick, playing peek-a-boo, and then recite a beracha because Magen Avraham says so. According to Jewish law, the beracha should be recited before the act, including for the wife’s monthly miqvah dip. Once the first dip is done, there is no place for or reason, for the beracha.
7. Almost all Orthodox Jews light Yom Tov candles with an accompanying commandment blessing. There *no* extant source authorizing this blessing. Tosafot claims that the obligation is based upon a lost Yerushalmi, Maran in Shulhan Aruch takes him at his word because, as a Renaissance man like Erasmus, he was thrilled to discover new “old books,” like Tosafot’s “lost Yerushalmi” or for that matter, R. Shimon bar Yohai’s “newly discovered” Zohar. R. Avigdor Aptowitzer, the “rebbe” of many of UTJ’s older rabbis, R. Moshe Zucker, showed that there is confusion between the Sefer Yerushalmi and the Talmud Yerushalmi.  To this day, many Yemenites rabbis do not allow a Yom Tov candle blessing. The critical question is whether “Tradition” is the Oral Torah law critically understood or popular culture to be accepted as received without question.
8. I sit for the Torah reading and do not stand for the Ten Commandments and the fifteenth chapter of Exodus 15 and Ten Commandments. At the end of each Penteteuchal Homesh, I only stand after the final verse is completed. Since no part of the Torah is more equal than any other, we are not permitted by Oral Law to treat any section of the Torah to be more important or holier than any other, and should therefore not be treated differently than any other section.  While aware Rabbis Soloveitchik and Feinstein disagree, I’ve discovered that Rabbis Ovadia Yosef and David Halevi confirm my personal conclusion.  Rabbi Soloveitchik explains that we re-enact the revelation of the Sinaitic revelation and therefore are required to stand. This interpretation seems forced, far-fetched and apologetic. [1] I found no source for R. Soloveitchik’s opinion, which seems to violate the very same legal system that he claims he upholds and which requires heroic surrender to God, as exemplified by the binding of Isaac. Rabbi Feinstein position seems to  [a] the custom of standing for the Ten Commandments is an expression of piety, [b] Orthodox Jews do stand for the Ten Commandments, and [c] no one really believes that the Ten Commandments are more important than any other Torah passage. He claimed, that Orthodox Jews today will not make that error. I asked my congregation why they believe we stand for the Ten Commandments and 30% said that it is the most important part of the Torah. The wise sages of Rabbinic antiquity knew what they were doing when they legislated their decrees. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef at Yehavveh Daat 1:29 makes powerful arguments which Orthodoxy happily ignores; Tradition de jure comes from Sinai and de facto from our ancestors and rabbis. Do not bother us with the contradictions, inconsistencies, and conflicts between the two kinds of Tradition. One was God given according to Orthodox belief, the other is a social reconstruction of reality.  Non-Orthodox Jews see this incongruity and do not take us seriously.
9. According to the “orthodoxy” taught to our children in Orthodox day schools, no touching between the genders is ever allowed. Maimonides, Issurei Bi’ah 21:1 forbids lustful contact, not incidental contact.  After all, R. Acha danced with a woman on his shoulders at bKetubbot 17a.  After teaching this halakhic fact at a Mizrahi group in Phiiladelphia, a local Haredi Rov objected on the grounds that the Gedolim disagree and I have no right to tell the masses of these non-normative sources because they might get the wrong idea. I responded that Maimonides is at least as great as your Gedolim and R. Acha is no less a part of our Mesorah than Qovets Shiurim.
10. We are told that we may make noise when we mention Haman’s name but “our Tradition” is not to allow women to read Megillah. The making of noise can keep us from fulfilling the command of reading Megillah. The notion that women may not read Megillah is based on the Tosefta; the Bavli overrules and trumps Tosefta every time. And those who want to “rely” on the Tosefta to outlaw what the Bavli requires, that men and women have by law equal obligation regarding Megilla reading also invent a non-Talmudic “blessing,” al mishm’a Megillah, “on hearing Megillah.”  If the Conservative Movement would invent a new “blessing” we would rightly object.  When Orthodoxy invents new blessings, should we be silent.
11. Orthodoxy has lost its moral compass. It speaks of Sinai’s Torah but lives the Tradition of the nostalgic street. We allow men to dance with the Torah on Simhat Torah, violating bBetsa 30a’s restriction on clapping and dancing on holy days, but forbid women from holding the Torah, and calling this restriction “Tradition.” bBetsa 30a is a much stronger Tradition than the Tosafist claim, *loc. cit*., that the Talmudic law does not apply in our time.
12. The believing, behaving and belonging Jew does not need to reconstruct Torah; God got it right on the first try. Let’s see the sources and the Judaism encoded therein. And if we have open hearts and minds, minds and hearts will be won.

This list is the tip of the Halakhic iceberg.  Modern Orthodox Jews rightly resent when we are dismissed by uninformed but nonetheless judgmental opponents.  Non-Orthodox Jews had difficulty getting information fifty years ago; today’s “information” reflects the protocol of fitting in, not the truth regarding what the Torah really teaches.  While I understand the displeasure with people who make up their own Shabbat, I hear them too.  I encourage them to do the best they can and learn with open eyes, minds, and books.

We do not always know what we are doing, and we should be as patient with others as we ask others to be patient with us. Rather than tolerate the Jewishly inconsistent, uninformed, and hesitant Jew, let’s try to be lovingly patient. After all, the only judge who is allowed to be judgmental is the Judge above.

Our job is to be credible models, rational alternatives, and non-judgmental resources to sinning Jews who do not know better. After all, some of us look at Halakhah as accepted protocol. Others as an exquisitely perfect divine code that sanctifies, makes holy, those who love, live and breathe Halakhah.