by Rabbi Alan J Yuter
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are that of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the Union for Traditional Judaism, unless otherwise indicated.
In his article in Conversations, the journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, Rabbi Alan J. Yuter discusses the Torah outlook of his teacher, Hakham Professor Jose Faur zt”l (1935–2020).
It was the Fall semester of the Academic year 1970–1971 that I entered the Talmud class of Hakham Professor Jose Faur zt”l (1935–2020) at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS). And now, with his passing 50 years later, it still seems as if I have never left the shadow, direction, and guidance of the sage who was to become my rav muvhaq, that special Torah personality who shaped my own Jewish identity, worldview, and approach to Torah. …
His family tradition did not regard “modernity” and “Torah” to be conflicting impulses. For his Judaism, modernity presents a challenge, not a threat, to Jewish life. A Judaism that recoils in the face of modernity lacks confidence and credibility. While Hakham Faur’s “modernity” is a neutral station in history, most institutional Orthodox thinkers regard “modernity” as a threatening state of mind, whose seductive attraction should be resisted. …
Hakham Faur’s Torah was not based on charismatic intuition; it was based upon the most reasonable understanding of the Torah’s actual words. …
A society ruled by a readable “Book” binds its rulers to the rules of its Constitution. Authoritarian cultures forbid reading because reading is ultimately subversive. A tyrant cannot claim to have spoken to God when the Torah, the transcript of Israel’s covenantal conversation with God is in Israel’s possession, and might contradict the tyrant’s claims. …
For R. Lieberman, the Oral Torah Canon reflects God’s divine will expressed in human language. Personally meticulously “Orthodox,” R. Lieberman found in Hakham Faur a younger kindred spirit, a religiously motivated, superbly informed searcher and researcher for God’s message that is encoded the Torah’s human language divine words using the best philological tools available. Like the Orthodoxy of the Spanish Golden Age, JTS’s Orthodox faculty members celebrated participation in the larger culture; secular learning was respected; and this faculty appropriated academic tools to decode the divine message they discovered in the canonical Jewish library. …
In sum, anti-Maimonidean Orthodox Judaism is a religion of submission for which a charismatic elite presides over an undefined sacred “Tradition” and a sacred past. For the Maimonidean Hakham Faur, Torah Law is a command in the immediate present that empowers the individual, where reason rather than intimidation determines what is right. God has not made Jewry slaves to mortals, but free to become moral agents who possess the learning, conscience, and capacity to do “what is right and the good.”
Read more at https://www.jewishideas.org/article/hakham-yosef-faur-model-orthodox-modernity.
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Educated and first ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Rabbi Alan J. Yuter earned additional ordinations from Yeshiva University, supervised by Rav Moshe D. Tendler, and the Israeli Chief Rav Mordecai Eliahu. He further received Yadin Yadin from Rav David Weiss Halivni and earned a PhD in modern Hebrew Literature from New York University.
A founding member of the UTJ, Rabbi Yuter served as a faculty member at the UTJ’s rabbinical school and has held multiple pulpits, including extended stints in Springfield, NJ, and Baltimore, MD.
Rabbi Yuter is a prolific writer on ritual and philosophical issues, underpinnings of halakha, Biblical criticism, and much more. His essays can be found on UTJ’s Viewpoints . He is also a frequent contributor for The Institute of Jewish Ideas and Ideals.
In addition to his activities with the UTJ, Rabbi Yuter teaches at Torat Reva in Jerusalem and is associated with the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding, affiliated with Ohr Torah Stone in Efrat.
Rabbi Yuter and his wife Linda reside in Israel.