{"id":1304,"date":"2018-02-05T04:38:49","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T04:38:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/?p=1304"},"modified":"2018-02-05T04:41:53","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T04:41:53","slug":"the-battle-for-the-soul-of-orthodox-judaism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/2018\/02\/the-battle-for-the-soul-of-orthodox-judaism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Battle for the Soul of Orthodox Judaism"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Battle for the Soul of Orthodox Judaism<\/strong><\/p>\n

The popular perception is that Orthodox Judaism divides along the Haredi\/parochializing\/non Zionist “Traditional” wing and cosmopolitan\/Zionist\/ modernity accommodating “Modern” Orthodox. Haredim regard the modernists as “Orthodox lite”; modernists view Haredim as excessively obsessive in being “other” in the condition of modernity.<\/p>\n

The popular perception is that Jewish Orthodoxy’s fault line is the “strictness” and therefore the otherness, of one’s “life-style.” In order to be merely “Traditional,” one observes Jewish folkways and traditions nostalgically, but without Halakhic<\/em> rigor or consistency.\u00a0 These are the Orthodox affiliating non-Orthodox Jews. They affiliate “Orthodox” and pay their dues to what they believe to be Judaism’s only “authentic” address. By supporting the Torah true virtuosi elite, they are viewed patronizingly as poor, decent, benighted Jews upon whom “outreach” is appropriate.<\/p>\n

Modern Orthodoxy is seen to be the religion of what Prof. Samuel Heilman calls the “betwixt and between,” those who chose to maintain an Orthodox identity but have chosen to engage modernity not only as a station in time but also as a state of mind.\u00a0 For these Jews, secular learning has both existential as well as instrumental value; secular learning is not only a means for making a living, but a goal for an enriched living.\u00a0\u00a0 Modern Orthodox Jewry also embraces Zionism, even though Zionism is at it heart a secular, nationalist movement that imposed an alternative leadership model to Orthodoxy\u2019s rabbinic elite upon Jewry.<\/p>\n

Just as Reform Judaism jettisoned the commandments that impeded acculturation, Modern Orthodoxy also shed those aspects of Jewish culture that made integration into modernity difficult, but honored those practices that were mandated by Talmudic law.\u00a0 Men removed their beards, went bareheaded to their workday employment, and replaced their conspicuously Jewish attire with ethnically indeterminate professional garb. Modern Orthodox women also adopted modern dress by shedding the sheitel [wig] that was the badge of folk religion Orthodox identity [that seems to contradict a clear wig prohibition at bShabbat 64b]. Ironically, neither \u201cmodern\u201d and \u201ctraditional\u201d Orthodoxy take the Oral Torah texts <\/em>to be their normative benchmark; Orthodoxy\u2019s real benchmark is the social world that its adherents inhabit. Both \u201cmodern\u201d and \u201ctraditional\u201d Orthodox, rabbinate and laity alike, look over their shoulders for peer validation, and not into the canonical library.\u00a0 Inconsistencies between Talmudic law and popular praxis are never addressed, because [a] these inconsistencies are rarely noticed and [b] calling attention to the unorthodox behavior of the Orthodox is \u201cbashing\u201d at worse, and gauche social practice at best. After all, Orthodoxy\u2019s franchised narrative proclaims that it alone is the way, salvation, and life of Judaism, and no one outside of the Orthodox community is able, ordained, and authorized to intuit God\u2019s will but Orthodoxy\u2019s rabbinic elite.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From the time of Rabbi Moses Sofer, whose motto, “innovation is forbidden by Torah,” Haredi Judaism has resisted innovation in its culture with heroic resolve, as if and indeed because its life depended upon this resistance.<\/p>\n

In order to accomplish this end, of resisting change in its culture, and the replacement of its rabbinic elite, this Orthodoxy is constrained to change Jewish law.\u00a0 After all, very few rabbis who oppose innovative, Halakhah compliant Partnership prayer groups, will risk their social and professional status to oppose the woman\u2019s sheitel.<\/p>\n

The same Rabbi Sofer who outlawed innovation or deviation from the past also affirmed that a custom may override a law. Upon inspection and analysis, Haredi Judaism is the fabulously successful Reconstructionism of the Jewish religious right.\u00a0 Being counter–culturally dissident is identical to being religiously Orthodox.<\/p>\n

This Judaism believes and teaches that God\u2019s will is revealed in the divinely inspired intuition of its great rabbis, called gedolim<\/em>, the \u201cgreat ones.\u201d These uber<\/em> rabbis must be respected, which means obeyed.\u00a0 Torah study is not undertaken to be an act of searching the canon for divine truth; it is undertaken in order to discover the gedolim<\/em>\u2019s narrative in the canon. The gedolim<\/em> doctrine proclaims that:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Judaism is defined by Torah, which is the word and will of God.<\/li>\n
  2. This word and will is not, cannot, and may not be found in the Torah canonical library; it is found and located in the intuitive inspiration of the great rabbi, of godol <\/em><\/li>\n
  3. Torah study may be undertaken to acquire knowledge and facts, or one may learn in order to conceptualize the Torah. One may not <\/em>learn Torah in order to apply its norms. Critical studies of Torah undermine the Torah\u2019s sanctity because they empower the student to render his\/her own rendering and ruling.<\/li>\n
  4. By dint of divine inspiration, the godol<\/em> is authorized, because he is everybody\u2019s rabbi, to issue apodictic religious decrees that are binding on all Israel.<\/li>\n
  5. The Torah is essentially an unreadable book. One needs divine assistance to read, understand, and apply Torah appropriately. Only the godol<\/em> is able, authorized, and allowed to issue normative rulings.<\/li>\n
  6. Just because an act is not forbidden by Jewish law does not mean that act is permitted to be performed. The approval of the godol <\/em>is required.<\/li>\n
  7. Both Orthodox laity and rabbinate may not read with an eye to apply the Jewish canonical sources without the godol<\/em>\u2019s approval.<\/li>\n
  8. Challenging, questioning, or disobeying the ruling or declaration of the godol<\/em> is akin to denying God, Torah, and one\u2019s religious bona fides.<\/em><\/li>\n
  9. The godol<\/em> is the master of Masorah<\/em>, the \u201cTradition<\/em>\u201d that empowers him to issue apodictic Jewish religious rulings. Latter day saintly rabbis carry apostolic authority because Jewish law is not transmitted from Bet Din ha-Gadol<\/em> to Bet Din ha-Gadol,<\/em> as taught by Maimonides, and which became defunct with the demise of Rav Ashi [circa. 427 C.E.], but from the gedolim<\/em> of one generation to the gedolim.<\/u><\/em><\/li>\n
  10. Modern Orthodox rabbis who issue independent Halakhic rulings are heretics because they dare to treat the Torah as readable; they fail to defer to the to the greater wisdom of the great rabbi.<\/li>\n
  11. Yeshiva University Orthodoxy regards R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik as its godol<\/em>, and his apodictic decrees have the standing of Masorah<\/em>\/Tradition, and one is not permitted to question this Tradition. The Talmudic rule forbidding contradicting the sages [machishe maggideunu<\/em>], does not apply only to the rabbis of the Talmud, but to the great rabbis of our time, as well.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    On one hand, R. Soloveitchik affirms that \u201cMasorah<\/em>\u201d compliance is mandatory, Halakhah is not just law, and challenging the great rabbi, for him the Ish ha-Halakhah<\/em>, is a crime akin to questioning the Sages of the Oral Torah.<\/p>\n

    When R. Soloveitchik passed away, the Haredi and now defunct Jewish Observer <\/em>[(May 1993), p. 42], issued a negative obituary that denied R. Soloveitchik the status of godol<\/em>, and by implication, the legitimacy of modern Orthodoxy.\u00a0 R. Soloveitchik\u2019s \u201csins\u201d include learning secular subjects, earning a Ph.D. in Kantian philosophy, and having conversations, however limited, with the competitive non-Orthodox streams. None of these policies violate statutory Jewish\u00a0 law, but they do violence [a] to the parochialness that Haredi Judaism fosters and[b] is a frontal challenge to the authority of the gedolim<\/em> who claim that they are the way, salvation, and life of Judaism.<\/p>\n

    Since R. Soloveitchik\u2019s openness to Western high culture exposes Jews to critical thinking, R. Soloveitchik may not be considered a great sage. By permitting the permitted without the validating the consent of gedolim<\/em>, he forfeits his bona fides<\/em> for these Jews, because he\u00a0 denies their<\/em> authority, even though he maintains their system.<\/p>\n

    There is an alternative Modern or Open Orthodoxy that looks like Yeshiva University Orthodoxy, but is a radically different religion; it is a religion of Law.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Like Haredi and Yeshiva University Orthodox Judaism, the Written and Oral Torah Judaism is the word of God, our alternative Modern Orthodoxy is bound by the Torah as filtered through its own eyes, and not the eyes of Orthodox Jews with alternative religious narratives.<\/li>\n
    2. The most critical difference between these two contending Orthodox Judaisms is the role of the individual, existential Jew. Following Deut. 33:4, \u201cTorah was commanded to us [=the collective of the Jewish people,] the heritage for the [entire] Congregation of Jacob.\u201d According to the plain sense of God\u2019s word, in order to be Torah, the idea\/doctrine\/behavior norm must be public [Deut. 30:12],\u00a0 it does not tolerate addition, subtraction, or emendation,\u00a0 even if the human speaker claims to speak in God\u2019s name as a prophet or a dreamer of dreams [Deut. 13:1-6]. Even the king is subject to the law; the king is an assessable constitutional\u00a0\u00a0 monarch [Deut. 17:13-20]. The Jew is commanded to affirm three times a day that God graced the human person with the powers to reason and discern; the Jew who is empowered by knowing the law is entitled to a defensible opinion, even if they are not part of the official, institutional franchise [Nu. 11:2-29]. Since Scripture is a readable book, the well\u2013read informed Jew is mentally free and the tyrant\u2019s worse nightmare. After the legal, apodictic, Amoraic part of the Babylonian Talmud came to closure [bBaba Mezi\u2019a 86a], rabbis are ordained to teach and persuade but not to legislate or command anyone or any community not under that person\u2019s jurisdiction, no matter their renown. Torah is a religion of law, not charisma.<\/li>\n
    3. One studies Torah in order to know what God asks of the Jew. A beginner should have one mentor, who should nourish and guide the student to confront Torah on his\/her own. Once an accomplished student, the student should hear multiple perspectives in order to formulate her\/his own, unique reading of Torah. Mishnah Avot 5:21 provides the Oral Torah\u2019s explicit, and hidden, curriculum. At the age of five, the child learns Scripture, the canonical Torah narrative that shapes Jewish identity that explains the sacred calendar, and reveals God as the Creator of the world, the Giver of the Torah, and the Judge of the world. Ideally, the student will also be exposed to Targum Onqolos, which is the first written document of Oral Torah.\u00a0 From ages ten to fifteen, the student learns Mishnah, the apodictic statement of the Oral Torah the authority of which starts at Sinai. The student now confronts how the community lives, how Scripture is translated into every day life, and is exposed to the rubric by which the student, at thirteen an adult member of the community, share and live their lives. And at fifteen, now a mature adult, the student learns Talmud<\/em>, which here means the Judaic hermeneutic system, or how Torah Judaism works. The ideal student loves his\/her teacher, but loves Torah even more. The student respects the teacher for giving Torah to the student, but God gets first claim on both the\u00a0 student\u2019s and teacher\u2019s loyalty [Proverbs 21:30]. \u00a0The fact that the teacher may learn from the student [bTa\u2019anit 7a] indicates that the Torah laws culture episteme<\/em> projects a readable Torah, an empowered learner, and the ideal individual Jew is a learned moral agent, not an obsequious robot who submits blindly to no person when Torah values are at stake.<\/li>\n
    4. Torah was understood by non-Jewish observers as nomoV, or Law. The Law is determined by honest readings of documents. Charismatic intuition is not a source of law; the legislation of the Torah\u2019s legally authorized law creating organ, the Bet Din ha<\/em>–Gadol<\/em>, is legitimate.<\/em> Legitimate Rabbinic opinions are not ideally determined by counting heads; only when the Bet Din ha<\/em>–Gadol<\/em> is sitting together in plenum are we comparing apples and apples. Different situations and conditions may generate different rulings; alternative cultural environments will necessarily frame questions, facts, and conclusions otherwise. The Bet Din ha<\/em>–Gadol<\/em> may legislate\u2014because it is authorized by the Torah [17:8-13].\u00a0 Rabbis designated by communities are authorized by, and for, those communities. Only when a communal rabbi steps outside of the Oral Torah\u2019s legal limits may a rabbi\u2019s ruling be rejected.\u00a0 When \u201cgreat rabbis\u201d issue apodictic decrees, some people submit, others rebel, and thinking Modern Orthodox rabbis will respectfully, learnedly, and forcefully ask, \u201cHow do you know that? If the Oral Torah does not say what you seem to say [i.e. women by Tradition may not say qiddush<\/em> [the wine prayer at Shabbat\u2019s beginning] or havdalah<\/em> [the wine prayer after Shabbat\u2019s end], on what basis do you rule as you do\u201d?\u00a0 One great rabbi refused to forbid smoking \u201cbecause great rabbis smoke.\u201d If taken at face value, one finds here the doctrine that great rabbis have sovereign immunity. According to Torah, not even God gets sovereign immunity<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n
      <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The Battle for the Soul of Orthodox Judaism The popular perception is that Orthodox Judaism divides along the Haredi\/parochializing\/non Zionist “Traditional” wing and cosmopolitan\/Zionist\/ modernity accommodating “Modern” Orthodox. Haredim regard the modernists as “Orthodox lite”; modernists view Haredim as excessively obsessive in being “other” in the condition of modernity. The popular perception is that Jewish Continue Reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,78],"tags":[],"coauthors":[86],"class_list":["post-1304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-denominations","category-modern-judaism"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1305,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304\/revisions\/1305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1304"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}