{"id":2349,"date":"2020-03-31T11:12:08","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T15:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/?p=2349"},"modified":"2020-05-27T10:15:36","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T14:15:36","slug":"reactions-to-rabbi-gradofskys-response-regarding-telephonic-megillah-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/2020\/03\/reactions-to-rabbi-gradofskys-response-regarding-telephonic-megillah-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"Reactions To Rabbi Gradofsky\u2019s Response Regarding Telephonic Megillah Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

Please note: This is the third in a series of three articles on this subject.\u00a0 Please also see the original responsum by Rabbi Alan J. Yuter<\/a> as <\/em>well as this response by Rabbi Noah Gradofsky<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The greatest honor that a student can give his or her mentor is to become a colleague, sharing a passion for truth as an equal, and possessing the learning, courage, and integrity to seek the absolute \u201ctruth\u201d as a finite, mortal human being in search of the Numinous Ding en sich<\/em>, the \u201cthing-in-itself,\u201d to approximate as much as humanly possible God\u2019s infinite perspective. In our UTJ community, the teacher invites the student to join the fraternity of seekers in a shared quest of learning Torah, to discover the revealed, revered, yet readable \u201cword of the Lord.\u201d
    \nThis sensibility contrasts sharply with some other Orthodox voices that maintain that the Torah may be read and understood only by an elite that is endowed with the capacity to intuit divine intent. One is only entitled to learn Torah through the filter of an undefined protean \u201ctradition,\u201d which is only known to and may be transmitted by rabbis who are known to be \u201cgreat.\u201d\u00a0 For this well-intentioned but in our view errant iteration of Orthodoxy, Torah learning strives to recover the theological and atextual narrative, the hashqafah<\/em>, of the \u201cGreat Rabbi\u201d who knowingly filters the sacred text for and to his compliant, client community. Our alternative approach takes God at God\u2019s word, that the divine law is written in a readable and comprehensible human language, decodable with accessible and learnable philological and hermeneutic rules [Deut. 30:12], and that the socio-religious construction of reality that we find encoded in God\u2019s Book is the \u201corthodoxy\u201d prescribed in God\u2019s Torah from Heaven.\u00a0 This Torah, understood as \u201coracle\u201d as well as \u201cteaching,\u201d reveals God\u2019s law with its red lines in the sand. This Torah is a readable human language document that was given to us, all of us, the entire house of Israel [Deut. 33:4], with what R. David Halivni calls Judaism\u2019s \u201c    predilection for a justified law<\/a>.\u201d Although we may be nearsighted, we are not color blind; we are both able and responsible to read, restore, and respect those religiously significant red lines.R. Gradofsky was <\/em>once my student; he is now a learned colleague, with the integrity, empathy, and the wisdom to strike his own balance between the flexibility afforded by legal realism and the anchor offered by legal positivism. In our UTJ community, religious and moral values are not owned by any institutional franchise; they are memorialized in the Book of Books. I gratefully welcome R. Gradofsky\u2019s thoughtful contribution, keen eye, probing curiosity, and unique, individual perspective. Following mAvot <\/em>4:1 and bMakkot<\/em> 10a, it is now the teacher\u2019s turn to be taught by the talmid\/<\/em>student who has taken his rightful place as a haver\/<\/em>colleague and partner in the shared search for the truths encoded in God\u2019s readable Torah.<\/li>\n
  2. R. Gradofsky\u2019s most important contribution to the telephonic Megillah<\/em> reading conversation emerges from his own synthesis of legal positivism and legal realism. Read realistically, the written legal norm requires interpretation, which consists of a subjective attempt to isolate the relevant facts and identify the legal order\u2019s relevant norms. One Yeshiva University Rosh Yeshiva argued that it is a heretical act of disrespect for a non-Great Rabbi to attribute motives or ideological motivations to a Great Rabbinic authority. We are told to assume that the rabbi divines, with divine help, divine intention. These rabbis claim sovereign immunity, possessing Da\u2019asTorah<\/em>, the ability to intuit God\u2019s will.
    \nThe claim that there are no rabbinic agendas is itself an agenda.\u00a0 <\/em>And the Legal Positivist will ask if there is an explicit Halakhic <\/em>norm forbidding the making of this claim, especially if the claim is grounded in evidence. There is no Torah norm that frees authority figures from assessment and review. The UTJ, IRF, and the Israeli Beit Hillel and Tzohar modern Orthodox rabbinic organizations share a modern Orthodox agenda, to be as welcoming, accommodating, and including as possible given the Halakhic<\/em> red lines that define the borders and shape of the religion encoded in God\u2019s revealed, recorded words. This agenda is legitimate because it is \u201cOrthodox,\u201d in the sense of honoring and deferring to the Torah\u2019s red lines. It is legitimate to debate the scope of those red lines based on the semantic sense of the legal norm\u2019s formulation.Positivists will rightly argue among themselves about how the canon\u2019s diction may be understood, what exactly the canon actually prescribes, and how the legal norm ought to be applied.\u00a0 The Haredi<\/em> narrative policy strives to protect the holy community with high walls to keep the infidel and religious infidelity out; the more cosmopolitan \u201cmodern\u201d Orthodox narrative regards those excessively high social walls to be artificial barriers to Jewry\u2019s accessing God\u2019s word. The fence we erect around the Torah is designed to protect the Torah from contamination, not to make Judaism exclusive by keeping Jews outside of its embrace if they fail to observe non-mandatory popular religion rites like upsheren, kapporos,<\/em> tashlich<\/em>, sheitel<\/em>, not listening to music on sefira<\/em>, and the currently in-vogue male hat of pious choice, the shiny black Borsolino.R. Gradofsky rightly reminds us that legal positivism is not an exercise in juridic robotics; it is an appeal to the shared law that binds everyone, master and lay person alike, with a shared sense of what the rules of the Halakhic <\/em>\u201cgame\u201d actually are. For legal realists, the Torah covenant is filtered by the judge\u2019s agenda, which determines what ought to be done. Within the parameters of the statutory norm\u2019s semantic field, the learned Jew is<\/em> authorized to implement her or his judicial agenda. The doctrines now popular in Orthodox culture are [a]we do not determine the law from the Talmud or Maimonides, [b] the Oral Torah rules need not be taken literally, and [c] in practice only the Great Rabbis have the right, ability, and authority to define Judaism\u2019s rules and beliefs.<\/li>\n
  3. To the issue at hand, what is the legal status and propriety of a digital reading of the Esther Scroll on Purim, when there are legal and medical reasons to forbid leaving one\u2019s residence in order to hear the Esther Scroll being read in the synagogue? mRosh ha-Shanah<\/em> 3:7 rules that the shofar<\/em> sound must be made by an adult Jewish male[1]<\/a> who is obliged to hear<\/em> the sound<\/em> made by the shofar<\/em> that he blows. The divide between R. Gradofsky and me revolves around our understandings of the semantic field that defines this Mishnaic norm.\u00a0 My understanding of this Mishnah\u2019s syntax is that the sound of the actual blown shofar<\/em> must be heard in order to fulfill the sanctifying commandment. R. Gradofsky argues, if I understand his words correctly, [a] the word havara<\/em> is subject to debate, and is therefore in the category of safeq<\/em>, or doubt, and subject to a range of possible, even if less plausible, renderings, and [b] the world wide Coronavirus contagion is potentially lethal, placing the entire\u00a0\u00a0 human race under risk, often without jobs or \u00a0salaries, without basic social contact or mingling and often without food and pharmaceuticals.\u00a0 The health danger itself provides warrant to waive rabbinic decrees. Here in Israel, the country is now in lockdown, people may leave their homes for food and medical visits, people lose income with no end time yet in sight, and are rightly concerned about their medical and financial health. Just as with Tosafot\u2019s permitting the otherwise forbidden clapping and dancing on Jewish holidays during the Crusades, perhaps the emergency of the entire world being at war with a potentially lethal virus gave rise to an emergency that requires suspending the law.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    1. This anomalous Tosafist leniency permitting holiday clapping and dancing makes sense, as well argued by R. Gradofsky, by invoking Maimonides, Mamrim<\/em> 2:4, which authorizes the local, post-Rav Ashi community rabbi to uproot, in this context to suspend, i.e. not abolish, a Torah law in order to \u201creturn the masses to the [Torah] law.\u201d According to Maimonides, this license is given to the individual, local rabbi, even if the rabbi in office at the moment is inferior to the former rabbis of yesteryear. No Beit Din<\/em> short of the Beit Din ha-Gadol<\/em> is either empowered or entitled to withdraw this license when it is invoked, including the Mo\u2019etses Gedolei ha-Torah<\/em>, the Agudas ha-Rabbonim<\/em>, or the current Chief Rabbinate of Israel. We may not judge the Tosafot\u2019s permitting clapping and dancing on holy days because we were not living in 12th<\/sup> Century CE France and Germany, when entire Jewish communities were martyred for refusing baptism. mAvot<\/em> 2:4 explicitly forbids by legal norm the judging of others until and unless one stands in their place, which of course cannot be done. Authentic Orthodox Judaism actually disapproves of being judgmental. That is why Jewish courts require six eyes, requiring a minimum of three different perspectives, a trinocularity unavailable to any one human being. Among his rules of judicial procedure, R. Ishmael first requires that one willingly forego the honor of sitting in judgment of others, which is not a good job for a Jewish young man.\u00a0 A high-handed judge intoxicated with power is a fool, wicked, and arrogant.\u00a0 One should avoid presiding as a single judge since there is only One judge Who sees all the infinite sides of the case, and that is God God-self [mAvot<\/em> 4:7-8].
      \nOrthodox Jews may<\/em> address questions to their leaders, like \u201cwhy did you<\/em> do that<\/em> [I Kings 1:6 and Maimonides, De\u2019ot<\/em> 6:5].\u00a0 On one hand, R. Feinstein is clearly not satisfied with the Tosafist overriding a clear and unambiguous rabbinic decree by permitting clapping and dancing on Jewish holy days; he \u00a0nevertheless does not sit in judgment of Tosafot because there is only One being Who alone is authorized to judge, as described at Deuteronomy 32:4-5.R. Gradofsky the legal realist advocates for the Jewish people by arguing that in the world war between Homo Sapiens and the Coronavirus, the international lockdown, financial hardship, and social dislocation can be both frustrating and maddening, generating a Halakhic <\/em>emergency. Haman wanted to destroy all of Persia\u2019s Jews; the Caronavirus happens to attack anyone and everyone whom it is able to infect. It is not pastorally helpful to upset the masses by telling them that, under current extreme circumstances, they have failed to fulfil their real religious obligations by hearing a digital reading of the Megillah<\/em>.While I do not agree with this rendering, I understand and appreciate R. Gradofsky\u2019s impulse for inclusive empathy, I am also required to read his position with empathy and good will.\u00a0 In the contemporary Orthodox world, we sometimes call people heretics if they reach and teach doctrines with which we disagree. In the Mishnah cited above [mAvot<\/em> 4:8], the judge is not entitled to insist that other rabbis must \u201caccept my opinion\u201d perhaps \u201cbecause I am more smart, pious, modest, or worthy than anyone else.\u201d Rabbis must be deliberate when judging [mAvot<\/em> 1:1].\u00a0 With the above citations we learn that modesty is not only about what women ought to cover; modesty is also about how powerful men ought not to be intoxicated by their power as they reveal their biases. On occasion, the judge\u2014or rabbi\u2014may need to be judged [Ruth Rabba 1:1]. This too is the Positive Jewish law.R. Gradofsky\u2019s suggested reading is<\/em> possible but to my finite eyes implausible. The judge can only see with the eyes that God has given [bBava Batra <\/em>131a and elsewhere]. In a shi\u2019ur <\/em>[Torah lesson] teaching rabbis and rabbis-in-training how to distinguish between menstrual blood, which is tinged red, and the blood of a wound, which is tinged brown, the polymath R. Moshe D. Tendler explained that the Torah is surrendered to the human eye, through which the world \u201cout there\u201d is filtered. One rabbi will may see a stain as brown and declare \u201cpermitted to her husband,\u201d and another rabbi, with different eyes, will see that very same stain as red and then declare \u201cforbidden to her husband.\u201dWhen teaching this principle at the Hillel Yeshiva High School in Deal, New Jersey, I used a more prosaic example. I asked the students to imagine they were standing in the electronics section of the area\u2019s Sears department store on a Sunday October afternoon. There are rows of shelves with TV screens showing the New York Jets, all dressed in green, being routed by their superior opponent. Not one TV telecasted the same hue of green as any other screen. Yet if we were in attendance at the stadium, we would see the green jerseys with our own eyes. Similarly, R. Tendler patiently yet precisely explained, whether a house is defiled or contaminated by tsara\u2019at<\/em> contagion depends upon the subjective<\/em> eyes of the inspecting Kohen<\/em>.<\/p>\n

      Maimonides reminds us that the judge is to rule according to the conclusion that \u201cthe reason tilts\u201d [Introduction to the Yad<\/em> compendium], i.e. the most compelling, convincing, and reasonable<\/em> view.\u00a0 Note well that certainty is not required; people who on principle will never change their minds may not have minds to change. From the above, the judge and\/or rabbi must realize that one might be wrong.\u00a0 A h<\/u>et<\/em>, usually translated \u201csin,\u201d really means to \u201cmiss the target.\u201d In Arabic, the word actually means \u201cmistake,\u201d and in American Hebrew speaking summer camps the Hebrew word for the baseball \u201cswing and a miss\u201d strike is hah<\/u>ta\u2019ah<\/em>, the bat having made the \u201cmistake\u201d of having missed hitting the pitched ball.\u00a0 The default position for a faulty rabbinic ruling is \u201cerror,\u201d not \u201capostasy\u201d [Shulhan \u2018Aruch Hoshen Mishpat <\/em>25 and 34].\u00a0 Calling the dissenter a heretic is highly improper.\u00a0 Views that are incorrect are mistaken, not evil. The positive Jewish norms are more than sufficient to address current realities and challenges.<\/p>\n

      We must analyze the words of the canonical Oral Torah norm in order to identify exactly what the norm requires.\u00a0 The idioms \u201cmiqra Megillah<\/em>\u201d and \u201cqol shofar<\/em>\u201d both refer to producing of specific, discrete sounds, that is the human reading of the written Esther Scroll and hearing of the sound produced by the shofar<\/em> being\u00a0 blown.\u00a0 These two idioms indicate that the respective reproducing of a shofar<\/em>-like sound or a digital facsimile do not satisfy the respective Halakhic <\/em>requirements. The actual sound must be made by the shofar<\/em> itself, and not a copy of that sound, and an oral<\/em>, calling out reading [miqra Megillah<\/em>] of the Esther Scroll must be done by a person <\/em>who is obliged to read the Scroll.\u00a0 Other reproductions of the sounds simply do not fulfill the norm\u2019s requirements; the human agency of the commanded Jew is a prerequisite for discharging the Halakhic<\/em> obligation. Therefore, in the twin cases of Shofar<\/em> and Megillah<\/em>, the statute\u2019s diction seems to require [a] the proper sounds be made [b] by a Jewish adult who is obliged to observe the commandment. Note well that legal positivism is not unaware of the ethical values encoded in the law; legal positivism realizes that one cannot parse the values the law prescribes unless the investigator avoids reading her or his biases and preferences into the law.<\/li>\n

    2. Jewish law\u2019s \u201cemergency clause,\u201d hora\u2019at sha\u2019ah<\/em>, memorialized by Maimonides at Mamrim <\/em>2:4, empowers the local rabbi to suspend\u2014not abolish<\/em>\u2014any or every law other than those concerning bloodshed, apostasy, and sexual immorality, in order to \u201creturn the masses to [the observance of] the law.\u201d If it is not possible to fulfill the law, no violation occurs in the event of unavoidable noncompliance [b\u2019Avodah Zarah <\/em>54a].\u00a0 By giving an errant impression that an internet Megillah<\/em> reading satisfies the legal requirement, rabbis may mislead and confuse their communities. Waiving the requisite unmediated and direct human agency authorizes a misleading as well as an improper commandment blessing, like the Tosafist innovative \u2018al mishm\u2019a Megillah <\/em>\u201cblessing,\u201d which is unattested in the Oral Law canon and overrides the Talmud\u2019s authoritative determination that women\u2019s \u00a0Megillah <\/em>obligation is reading, i.e. miqra<\/em>, and not merely hearing, i.e. mishm\u2019a<\/em> Megillah<\/em>. After all, the Talmud\u2019s rulings supersede all earlier Oral Torah documents and voices.\u00a0 Reciting a faulty blessing would not, to my mind, move people to observe any commandment, and the unauthorized blessing recitation is, to boot, a violation of improperly and incorrectly invoking God\u2019s holy Name. The Halakhic <\/em>rule of thumb is that questionable blessings are to be avoided.\u00a0 If we are uncertain that an act is a mitsva<\/em>, we may not claim that the act is<\/em> in fact a mitsva <\/em>[See Deut. 4:2].<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \n
      1. R. Gradofsky astutely raises an often cited, inadequately understood, and improperly applied principle of being someich<\/em>, i.e. relying upon a Great Rabbi\u2019s name and charismatic authority when one is unable to reach a satisfying or satisfactory conclusion with one\u2019s own best efforts. A rabbi who is unable to determine which opinion, canonical source, or public policy course of action is objectively correct or at least most compelling will follow the reasoning of a sage whom she or he knows, whose orientation he or she shares, and in whom the inquiring rabbi has the comfort of confidence. This approach is not pesaq, <\/em>rabbinic legal decision making. Authentic pesaq<\/em> first presents the [a] the case\u2019s given empirical facts, then [b] identifies \u00a0the relevant legal norms, [c] in order to insure\u00a0 legal validity, the poseq\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>\u00a0must ascertain that no violation of a higher grade norm occurs [unless there is a clear and present danger, hora\u2019at sha\u2019ah<\/em>] when implementing the decision, and last, [d] determining that the client community is \u00a0both willing and able to accept the ruling.
        \nGreat Rabbis may object to a ruling on policy grounds, including claiming that the ruling is unwise, but unless the Great Rabbis are able to demonstrate that the particular opinion violates devar Mishnah<\/em>, or statutory Torah or rabbinic norm, that opinion remains legally valid.\u00a0 For example, it is reported that Hillel accepted a convert who was at the moment of his conversion accepting the Written but not the Oral Law. The discretion to accept\u2014or reject\u2014a conversion candidate is given to the local rabbi by Jewish law.\u00a0 No post-Talmudic court is legally authorized to alter this positive legal fact, including the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, the Agudas ha-Rabbonim<\/em>, or Agudath Israel\u2019s Council of Great Sages.\u00a0 It is permitted to rely on the Talmud or, for that matter, on Maimonides\u2019s [Responsum Pe\u2019er ha-Dor<\/em> n. 132], who recommends a very<\/em> soft conversion to avoid an intermarriage. \u00a0One does not have to like, agree with, or implement Maimonides\u2019s ruling; however, it may not be ignored, demeaned, denied, or suppressed. It is a matter of public record that the modern Haredi<\/em> decisor, R. Hayyim Ozer Grodzinsky, also ruled leniently on this matter [Ahiezer <\/em>3:26:3].Now, relying on a Great Sage\u2019s charisma is not a decision, i.e. a pesaq<\/em>, and the rabbi who is someich<\/em>, by relying on a Great Sage, withdraws from the conversation.\u00a0 While the Great Sage is authorized to offer a learned opinion, he is not himself a source of norm creation. That prerogative belongs to the Beit Din ha-Gadol<\/em> when it sits in session. \u00a0No Beit Din ha-Gadol<\/em> has determined that R. Jacob Tam has an infallible knack of accurately intuiting God\u2019s mind or that Maimonides is or is not a Halakhic Man. <\/em>The fact that this or that post-Rav Ashi rabbinic opinion exists does not make that opinion valid [at bBava Metsi\u2019a <\/em>\u00a086a it is reported that hora\u2019ah,<\/em> apodictic rabbinic legislation, lapsed with Ravina I and Rav Ashi]; legal validity is grounded in the proposed ruling not conflicting with higher grade Oral Torah norms.\u00a0 For this reason, since a local custom is neither Torah nor Rabbinic law, it cannot be a commandment, even if it is an obligation.\u00a0 Only commandments generate commandment blessings.We should not rely [be someich<\/em>] on an opinion if we do not believe it to be correct, but it is permitted to defer to those whose learning and wisdom exceeds one\u2019s own capacity. \u00a0Now, Tosafot <\/em>to bMegillah <\/em>17b, s.v. kol ha-Torah<\/em>\u00a0 claims that there is a Torah obligation\u00a0 to read parshat \u2018Amaleq<\/em> from a kosher Torah scroll, without either confirming citation\u00a0 or convincing demonstration.\u00a0 Why <\/em>Ashkenazi Orthodoxy has adopted this odd, apodictic opinion over Nahmanides\u2019s plain and common sense opinion that one must tell the Amaleq narrative, is not discussed, explained, or justified. Similarly, Nahmanides\u2019s odd suggestion, also unattested in the Oral Torah canon, is the claim that the post-mortem remains of the righteous do not defile [see\u00a0 his comment to Numbers 19:2].According to Leviticus 21:1, the dead defile without the Nahmanidian exception even being mentioned, much less entertained as plausible. These two opinions are accepted because of the charisma of their authors, not because a proof text was cited or a logical demonstration was offered.In order to insure and preserve its immunity from assessment, review, or accountability, Great Rabbis have conditioned the Orthodox rank and file to accept their institutional <\/em>authority as if it is identical to Torah authority. The community is trained to view piety as the uncritical submission to its leadership\u2019s directives. Individuals are instructed not to act upon their own moral instincts. Judging the Great Rabbi elite\u2019s judges is for this iteration of Orthodoxy an injudicious if not disrespectful and therefore heretical act.\u00a0 Leviticus 4:13 and Deuteronomy 13:1-6 and the prophetic precedents of holding the monarchy to account indicate that for the Torah covenant, God does nor claim sovereign immunity, rendering human political claims to sovereign immunity dubious if not ridiculous.\u00a0 Every<\/em> Biblical hero acted upon his and her moral conscience [see for example Genesis 18:25].<\/p>\n

        In recent times,\u00a0 this disposition of suppressing the individual\u2019s sense of moral agency has protected sexual abusers by allowing \u00a0institutional charisma to supersede common sense, looking good before people trumping being good before God, and the laity being ordered \u00a0\u201cdo not go the authorities, you will bring shame upon our holy community.\u201d But at Shulhan \u2018Aruch Hoshen Mishpat <\/em>425:1 we are taught when there is sexual predatory behavior, we must turn to the civil authorities for relief. We may not hide the \u201cshanda\u201d<\/em> [shameful scandal] from view. Just as God sees the sinning sexual predator, God also sees how the holy community deals with the predator as well as the victims.\u00a0 Do we send the predator in jail or is the exploitive offender quietly shuttled to another unsuspecting venue?<\/p>\n

        The difference between what the positive law demands and how the law is applied is the benchmark by which Jewish Orthodoxy will be judged, in this world and in the next. Is\u00a0 Orthodox society a holy community or a nostalgic taste culture? The answer is found in the communal compliance to the Positive law. An Orthodoxy worthy of the name will nurture lay people with the faith and courage to ask their rabbis, \u201cwhy do you not rule according to the Shulhan \u2018Aruch <\/em>statutory norm, why is common sense an uncommon occurrence, and why are we hiding the guilty and not protecting innocent victims?\u201d The Legal Positivist will not be awed by personal charisma, but will defer to the law, following Proverbs 21:30.<\/p>\n

        Being someich<\/em>, relying on a Great Sage, is the local rabbi\u2019s approach of last resort to difficult questions.\u00a0 A poseq<\/em> is one who demonstrates that the decision rendered is both valid, i.e. consistent with the hermeneutics of the Oral Torah, and wise, i.e. socially prudent and ethically appropriate to the immediate realities of the living community over which the rabbi presides.\u00a0 Therefore, elying on an opinion because it advances the local rabbi\u2019s ideology, agenda, or policy, is in my view improper. After all, it is the plain sense implication of the \u201cofficial religion\u201d legislated norm, not the human charismatic\u2019s intuition, that for the \u201corthodox\u201d religion encoded in the Oral Torah canon is the ultimate \u00a0source of Torah authority.<\/p>\n

        How do we know that we may \u201crely\u201d on Tosafot when Tosafot knows, with neo-gnostic certainty, that the Biblical \u2018Amaleq pericope must, by Torah law, be read from a kosher Torah scroll, or relying on Nahmanides, that the remains of the righteous do not defile?\u00a0 Once we rely on rabbinic charisma, [a] the textual Torah becomes unreadable and therefore irrelevant, [b] the locus of Torah authority is moved from the now no longer readable Torah words to the Great Rabbis\u2019 intuitive charisma, which de-authorizes the plain sense of the canon and empowers the Great Rabbi to proclaim Torah truth in a prophetic, charismatic voice, a point of view that is not attested in the Torah canon.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          \n
        1. In sum,<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          a. The words of the Oral Torah canon lead me to conclude that the commandments to perform a reading of the Esther Scroll and hear the sound<\/em> of the shofar<\/em> is the norm that the Tanna\u2019im <\/em>and Amora\u2019im<\/em> who formulated rabbinic law had legislated; they<\/em> might testify that a minority view may be relied upon in exigent circumstances.\u00a0 The legal fact is that the Megillah <\/em>reading requires the immediate agency of someone commanded to make those sounds and this agency is essential to fulfilling the command. Once a minority view is formally rejected by the Beit Din ha-Gadol, <\/em>its normativity lapses.<\/p>\n

          b. The Coronavirus emergency provides the context to justify suspending public, communal Jewish life and perhaps providing a Megillah <\/em>reading over the radio, television, or the internet. But this alternative reading fails to fulfill the statutory requirements of a Halakhic reading<\/em>.\u00a0 I fail to see how claiming that this ersatz substitute for an undoable mitsvah<\/em>, which by dint of its undoability is no longer a mitsvah<\/em>,\u201d brings people closer to the law. The law exempts people for not\u00a0 doing\u00a0 what it is not possible for\u00a0 them to do; the deletion of the commandment blessing recognizes\u00a0 the facts [a] that at this moment the Megillah mitsva <\/em>is indeed undoable, [b] we are yearning for the time when the Megillah mitsva<\/em> will again be\u00a0 doable, and [c] by applying the rules regarding not\u00a0 saying commandment blessing when the act\u00a0\u00a0 one is performing is not certainly a commandment [safeq berachot le-ha-qeil<\/em>], we express our fidelity to\u00a0 a Torah\u00a0 that sanctifies, and empowers, like God at the moment of creation, with the Word, which sets one\u00a0 free by keeping one honest to God, and to oneself.<\/p>\n

          [1]<\/a> For Megillah, the Talmud clarifies at Arakhin 2b-3a that a woman is qualified to read Megillah.\u00a0 C.f. Rashi ad. loc., Maimonides Megillah 1:2 and Maggid Mishneh thereon. Note R. Karo cites Maggid Mishneh at Beth Yoseph Orah Hayyim.<\/p>\n

           <\/p>\n

          Please note: This is the third in a series of three articles on this subject.\u00a0 Please also see the original responsum by Rabbi Alan J. Yuter<\/a> as <\/em>well as this response by Rabbi Noah Gradofsky<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

          <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          The greatest honor that a student can give his or her mentor is to become a colleague, sharing a passion for truth as an equal, and possessing the learning, courage, and integrity to seek the absolute \u201ctruth\u201d as a finite, mortal human being in search of the Numinous Ding en sich, the \u201cthing-in-itself,\u201d to approximate as much as humanly possible God\u2019s infinite perspective. In our UTJ community, the teacher invites the student to join the fraternity of seekers in a shared quest of learning Torah, to discover the revealed, revered, yet readable \u201cword of the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":2348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,82,95,134,78,139],"tags":[],"coauthors":[86],"class_list":["post-2349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus","category-halakhah","category-halakhah-modern-judaism","category-holidays-2","category-modern-judaism","category-purim"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2349","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=2349"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2447,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2349\/revisions\/2447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2349"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}