{"id":2704,"date":"2021-04-25T11:17:14","date_gmt":"2021-04-25T15:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/?p=2704"},"modified":"2021-12-26T14:47:18","modified_gmt":"2021-12-26T19:47:18","slug":"hakham-yosef-faur-a-model-for-orthodox-modernity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/2021\/04\/hakham-yosef-faur-a-model-for-orthodox-modernity\/","title":{"rendered":"Hakham Yosef Faur: A Model for Orthodox Modernity"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his article in Conversations, the journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals<\/a>, Rabbi Alan J. Yuter discusses the Torah outlook of his teacher, Hakham Professor Jose Faur\u00a0zt\u201dl\u00a0<\/i>(1935\u20132020).<\/p>\n

It was the Fall semester of the Academic year 1970\u20131971 that I entered the Talmud class of Hakham Professor Jose Faur\u00a0zt\u201dl\u00a0<\/i>(1935\u20132020) 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\u00a0rav muvhaq<\/i>, that special Torah personality who shaped my own Jewish identity, worldview, and approach to Torah. …<\/p>\n

His family tradition did not regard \u201cmodernity\u201d and \u201cTorah\u201d 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\u2019s \u201cmodernity\u201d is a neutral station in history, most institutional Orthodox thinkers regard \u201cmodernity\u201d as a threatening state of mind, whose seductive attraction should be resisted. …<\/p>\n

Hakham Faur\u2019s Torah was not based on charismatic intuition; it was based upon the most reasonable understanding of the Torah\u2019s actual words. …<\/p>\n

A society ruled by a readable \u201cBook\u201d 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\u2019s covenantal conversation with God is in Israel\u2019s possession, and might contradict the tyrant\u2019s claims. …<\/p>\n

For R. Lieberman, the Oral Torah Canon reflects God\u2019s divine will expressed in human language.\u00a0 Personally meticulously \u201cOrthodox,” R. Lieberman found in Hakham Faur a younger kindred spirit, a religiously motivated, superbly informed searcher and researcher for God\u2019s message that is encoded the Torah\u2019s human language divine words using the best philological tools available. Like the Orthodoxy of the Spanish Golden Age, JTS\u2019s 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. …<\/p>\n

In sum, anti-Maimonidean Orthodox Judaism is a religion of submission for which a charismatic elite presides over an undefined sacred \u201cTradition\u201d 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 \u201cwhat is right and the good.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more at https:\/\/www.jewishideas.org\/article\/hakham-yosef-faur-model-orthodox-modernity<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

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

It was the Fall semester of the Academic year 1970\u20131971 that I entered the Talmud class of Hakham Professor Jose Faur\u00a0zt\u201dl\u00a0(1935\u20132020) 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\u00a0rav muvhaq, that special Torah personality who shaped my own Jewish identity, worldview, and approach to Torah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":2705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,95,78,83,77],"tags":[],"coauthors":[86],"class_list":["post-2704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-halakhah","category-halakhah-modern-judaism","category-modern-judaism","category-philosophy","category-torah-talmud"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2704","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=2704"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2887,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2704\/revisions\/2887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2704"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}