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Welcome to the Nishma Commentary Discussion Forum blog.
Commentary with Rabbi Benjamin Hecht is a regular column on the Nishma website in which Nishma's Founding Director analyzes contemporary issues, in the general as well as the Jewish world, from a Torah perspective.
If you have a comment on an article within this column, we invite you to place your comments here; then we invite everyone to join the discussion.
The SLIFKIN AFFAIR REVISITED – Part 2: The Challenge of Eilu v’Eilu
In the end, it's entirely possible that "eilu v'eilu" and "the pale of Orthodoxy" are all incidental to what it actually going on here. There is a trend by political parties (especially nowadays) to cast themselves as the voice of the people. The Liberal party in Canada was famous for defining Canadian values. That 60% of Canadians did not vote for them even in the elections they won was irrelevant. They were in power so they defined what being a Canadian was. And if you opposed those views, you were un-Canadian. Orthodoxy today has become political but only the chareidim realize this to the extent that we all need to. The bottom line is that being chareidi is no longer a form of religious observance but a political membership. Bring two guys before Rav Eliashiv, shlita. Make one a guy in typical chareidi gear who, by the way, doesn't really learn most of the time and beats his wife and kids. The the second a guy in a crocheted kippah who sits in kollel all day and has a loving family. Tell the rav that there's an opening for a rabbinical position but that he can only recommend one of these two men. Who do you think he will pick? And that's the true root of the fight in the Orthodox world today. The Charedi party has decided that it will unilaterally define Jewish values and will do it based on its ideology. It will do it through public statements, domination of public positions and the press (hello, Artscroll and Feldheim). In the absence of a viable opposition, these beliefs become accepted as standard. When you say "pious Jew" nowadays you never think of a guy with a serugah. The response of the non-Chareidi Orthodox has been to stamp their feet and say "You can't do that!" Well, that's not how political parties work. Again, to use Canada as an example, one reason the Liberals ruled for 12 years in recent times is because the two conservative parties were too busy fighting with each other to ever mount a credible challenge come election time. It was only when they united and provided a definite vision of how they would govern that they got into power. Therefore, the proponents of the Sliffkin ban are indeed placing his works outside the pale of Judaism which THEY THEMSELVES have defined. No coherent alternative view of Orthodox Judaism exists other than the wishy-washy declarations of the Modern Orthodox (the courage to be modern and Orthodox, hah!). If people wish to do something about the ban, political changes must be made and a coherent alternative must be organized.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, it's entirely possible that "eilu v'eilu" and "the pale of Orthodoxy" are all incidental to what it actually going on here. There is a trend by political parties (especially nowadays) to cast themselves as the voice of the people. The Liberal party in Canada was famous for defining Canadian values. That 60% of Canadians did not vote for them even in the elections they won was irrelevant. They were in power so they defined what being a Canadian was. And if you opposed those views, you were un-Canadian. Orthodoxy today has become political but only the chareidim realize this to the extent that we all need to. The bottom line is that being chareidi is no longer a form of religious observance but a political membership.
ReplyDeleteBring two guys before Rav Eliashiv, shlita. Make one a guy in typical chareidi gear who, by the way, doesn't really learn most of the time and beats his wife and kids. The the second a guy in a crocheted kippah who sits in kollel all day and has a loving family. Tell the rav that there's an opening for a rabbinical position but that he can only recommend one of these two men. Who do you think he will pick? And that's the true root of the fight in the Orthodox world today. The Charedi party has decided that it will unilaterally define Jewish values and will do it based on its ideology. It will do it through public statements, domination of public positions and the press (hello, Artscroll and Feldheim). In the absence of a viable opposition, these beliefs become accepted as standard. When you say "pious Jew" nowadays you never think of a guy with a serugah. The response of the non-Chareidi Orthodox has been to stamp their feet and say "You can't do that!" Well, that's not how political parties work. Again, to use Canada as an example, one reason the Liberals ruled for 12 years in recent times is because the two conservative parties were too busy fighting with each other to ever mount a credible challenge come election time. It was only when they united and provided a definite vision of how they would govern that they got into power. Therefore, the proponents of the Sliffkin ban are indeed placing his works outside the pale of Judaism which THEY THEMSELVES have defined. No coherent alternative view of Orthodox Judaism exists other than the wishy-washy declarations of the Modern Orthodox (the courage to be modern and Orthodox, hah!). If people wish to do something about the ban, political changes must be made and a coherent alternative must be organized.
ReplyDeleteIn many ways, I agree with you that one of the problems in Modern Orthodoxy is that it does not have an overall integrate vision of what it represents. The gestalt is missing. A long time ago I once mentioned to some people involved in a MO school that when asked for the distinguishing mark of their school, the sole answer cannot be support of the medina -- i.e. that this is our unique Torah value. The alternative addendum also can not be that is we allow for people to have a parnasa. There has to be a gestalt, an overall vision of Torah and this is greatly lacking in the MO world. In many ways, it is tied with other points you have made. In the great yeshivot of America after the war and into the 50's and 60's it was the uniqueness of each Rosh Yeshiva that created the unique atmosphere of the yeshiva. The sad truth is that this uniqueness of yeshiva is also, somewhat, lost in the charedi world as well today. It is this uniqueness that made a yeshiva and created a true atmosphere of Torah. In the MO world, and this may also be a reason why MO yeshivot did not blossom, part of the problem is the autonomy of the Rosh Yeshiva. He must set the tone and if the RY is only an employee, it does not flow. Bluntly, we often deal too much with the "prat" and lose the overall vision.
ReplyDeleteI think it's more than just a lack of overall vision. The thing which would seem to define Modern Orthodoxy nowadays is the demand that there NOT be an overall vision. Visions demand that a person put aside his own personal view and work towards bettering the group based on the overall plan. The whole thing which defines Reformism and Conservatism is that each member of those groups defines for him/her/itself what a Jew is, a unique personal vision shared with no one, not even one's children who, if they're actually Jewish, are encouraged to develop their own unique style of Judaism, personal to them. Modern Orthodoxy, through its closeness to Western culture, has drifted dangerously into this area. Perhaps this is another reason why the Chareidim have made it a point to stand apart from the MO's and define Judaism for themselves.
ReplyDeleteCommunal responsbility, the transmitting of family and community traditions from generation to generation, the idea of a common goal of diseminating Torah to the maximum degree possible within the group, these are all overarching themes in the Chareidi world. One does not say "I'm not going to do what my father did, I'm going to find my own traditions and minhagim even though it means a loss of individuality on my part" in the Chareidi world whereas telling an MO he must daven or bentch a certain way simply because his father did and he must submit to that tradition would, quite often, be met with refusal. Therefore, getting back to the whole "Eilu v'eilu" concept, if we are indeed talking about different opinions within the pale, as it were, we must also submit that the basis for those opinions must be within the pale. If I say that a Jew must keep kosher and strictly so with all the chumros because I think that it's healthier and more cleansing for the body, then I have little in common with a chossid who also keeps strictly kosher with all the chumros, but because he knows it is the will of God that we do that and any other reasons are secondary. We may have identical kitchens but spiritually and intellectually they are worlds apart. If Modern Orthodoxy does indeed value individuality over communality and if Rav Sliffkin's book, while posing as a "frum" book, seems to endorse the worldview of the former over the latter, then the strong reaction from the Chareidi world becomes understandable. I recently mentioned to a guest at my table that I found it interesting that Rav Sliffkin would wind up in cherem for suggesting that the Six Day o' Creation weren't six 24 hour days but Gerald Schroeder, whose written a scientific book on the subject and says the same thing isn't getting his treatise burned. The guests response was telling: "Schroeder doesn't call himself an Orthodox rabbi." The Chareidim, as mentioned in previous postings, have coopted to themselves the privilege of defining what Judiams is, and that includes what a Rav is. Rav Sliffkin, by acting outside their definition, acted outside the pale, again according to their definition. But if the non-Chareidi world wants to contest things like that, it was somehow unite with a vision that's positive and demands something from its members.
ReplyDeleteCommunal responsbility, the transmitting of family and community traditions from generation to generation, the idea of a common goal of diseminating Torah to the maximum degree possible within the group, these are all overarching themes in the Chareidi world. One does not say "I'm not going to do what my father did, I'm going to find my own traditions and minhagim even though it means a loss of individuality on my part" in the Chareidi world whereas telling an MO he must daven or bentch a certain way simply because his father did and he must submit to that tradition would, quite often, be met with refusal.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, getting back to the whole "Eilu v'eilu" concept, if we are indeed talking about different opinions within the pale, as it were, we must also submit that the basis for those opinions must be within the pale. If I say that a Jew must keep kosher and strictly so with all the chumros because I think that it's healthier and more cleansing for the body, then I have little in common with a chossid who also keeps strictly kosher with all the chumros, but because he knows it is the will of God that we do that and any other reasons are secondary. We may have identical kitchens but spiritually and intellectually they are worlds apart. If Modern Orthodoxy does indeed value individuality over communality and if Rav Sliffkin's book, while posing as a "frum" book, seems to endorse the worldview of the former over the latter, then the strong reaction from the Chareidi world becomes understandable. I recently mentioned to a guest at my table that I found it interesting that Rav Sliffkin would wind up in cherem for suggesting that the Six Day o' Creation weren't six 24 hour days but Gerald Schroeder, whose written a scientific book on the subject and says the same thing isn't getting his treatise burned. The guests response was telling: "Schroeder doesn't call himself an Orthodox rabbi." The Chareidim, as mentioned in previous postings, have coopted to themselves the privilege of defining what Judiams is, and that includes what a Rav is. Rav Sliffkin, by acting outside their definition, acted outside the pale, again according to their definition. But if the non-Chareidi world wants to contest things like that, it was somehow unite with a vision that's positive and demands something from its members.
ReplyDelete