The comments on my previous posting taking Edah, Ukeles and Heilman to task have been mostly critical. While there is always the possibility that those who are in agreement with me are silent, in the main my critics have made some good points and I hope that it will be useful for me to respond, in the course of which I will say some personal things about my work.

In one way or another, much of what I do involves day schools, including those that are Modern Orthodox or non-Orthodox. I approach each school in an empathetic way. Without going into all of the details, what has emerged from my activity is a nearly lifelong record of assisting Jewish schools around the country.

Perhaps the major expression of my efforts in the day school field is my work as president of the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School, a voluntary responsibility that is now in its thirty-second year. RJJ now encompasses four schools, including the Jewish Foundation School of Staten Island, a Modern Orthodox co-educational day school. This relationship came about because some years ago JFS ran into severe financial difficulty, owing nearly $1.5 … Read More >>

One way in which authentic Judaism differs from societal norms currently in vogue in the Western world is that Judaism abhors the cult of hero-worship. Before you lift your strongest finger to punch out your indignant comment, well, let me try to explain. Also, be nice because this is my first post.

Judaism promotes hard work and substance over style. It is inconceivable that a Torah leader would have any bit of his personality invested in marketing his image and reputation. Torah leaders are almost literally designated by the people as a result of their piety and scholarship. Yes, sometimes we ‘worship’ our heroes – in some circles there even seems to be a trend in that direction. But, and here’s the key, our heroes do not worship themselves. Memo to Madonna, Arnold and the rest: at the end of the day it’s not how well you look or sell, it’s what you are.

Which brings me to the fine folks celebrating next week’s Siyum HaShas. Clearly only a small percentage of those in attendance are actually completing all of Shas. What are the rest of us (yes…sigh…us) doing there?

I can’t speak for others but I know why I … Read More >>

Edah, the ultra-Modern Orthodox fringe group whose coterie consists substantially of people who are conservadox or otherwise not Orthodox, is outstanding in both its capacity to attract publicity and its capacity to raise funds. Bashing the rest of Orthodoxy does sell in our media and with some of the super-rich. Still, this fringe organization reached a new low in probity with the issuance of fraudulent data attributed to Jack Ukeles that 75% of Orthodox households are “Modern” and that even in Brooklyn, this is true of a majority of Orthodox households. I guess that holding its latest conference in Temple Emanuel inspired Edah to be fair, tolerant and honest.

I will deal with Ukeles’ research in my next Jewish Week article and I also will deal with the collateral contribution by Sam Heilman. Ukeles and Heilman are bedecked with honor and credentials but their work is fraudulent in the extreme. If we accept Ukeles’ nonsense, Yeshiva University scarcely exists and certainly not Yitzchak Elchanon. Nor is there anything else that can be labeled as Centrist Orthodox, including dozens of day schools and perhaps the entire Jewish community in places like Teaneck. … Read More >>

Many thanks to Rabbi Matis Greenblatt, literary editor of Jewish Action, who not only saves me much embarrassment by picking up my errors before publication, but inevitably throws in numerous tidbits of Torah insight.

He has uncovered a fascinating document that will delight the hearts of many, both for what it says, and for who said it. The author is Rav Simcha Zisel of Kelm, one of the three great students of Rav Yisroel Salanter, the guiding light of the Mussar Movement in the 19th century.

Dear Friend:

We are writing to update you on the recent activities of the newly formed Society for Halakhic Creativity, Innovation, and Renewal. This umbrella organization – known by its acronym, SHICR – was created by the merger of the various Jewish groups devoted to creative and innovative halakha. Representing the broad Jewish spectrum – Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and beyond – the Society promises to introduce fresh and imaginative ideas into halakhic discourse.

In its brief existence, SHICR has already rendered trail-blazing decisions on several crucial issues in Jewish life. Below is an update on recent activities that offer an insight into the scope of our work.

Two visits by pairs of wonderful young rabbis highlight an issue in Torah education that I believe requires attention. Both meetings were set up by senior rabbis whom I respect greatly and both were efforts to secure support for their projects. One project is a creative and I think fruitful effort in special education, while the other is a more tangential approach to assist people with severe disabilities who wish to study Torah. The first project is extremely expensive at $20,000 per year per student; the other is far less costly.

I was greatly impressed by the earnestness of those responsible for these projects and by what they have accomplished. As things turned out and as I had anticipated, there is no ready way for me to help them, although I will continue to try.

But here is the problem: Special ed is terribly expensive. Even if we assume, as I am willing to do, that the investment pays off, in view of the obvious fact that communal resources are limited, is it right to spend substantial charitable funds on these children, while so many dayschoolers are shortchanged? The fact is that … Read More >>

“He had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong.”

That is how Bif Loman, son of the protagonist of Death of a Salesman, summed up his father’s life. Any attempt to measure the life of Arthur Miller, who died last week, will inevitably recall those words, and challenge the person who penned them.

Miller was a colorful character, becoming one of America’s most successful playwrights, despite a particularly unstellar academic performance in high school. He translated his fame into a marriage to Marilyn Monroe, which meant the realization of the American dream, and then some. Honesty was a recurring theme of his oeuvre. This, added to the House Un-American Activities Committee’s distaste for him, gave him a reputation as a moralist, as one who had abandoned the Orthodox practice of his family, but not its core value system.

Fifty years from now, however, it is likely that all of this will be forgotten. If anything endures at all, it will be Willy Loman. Miller’s salesman, seen in the twilight of his years, evoked a pathos that resonated too well with readers. Loman had his commendable side – he was a loyal family man, and in his … Read More >>

Two weeks ago, one of those periodic media items painting the Torah Jews in a faintly ridiculous light flashed across the Israeli media for 24-hours before flaming out. Most chareidi Jews never hear of these items, or, if they do, they have learned to ignore them. Not so our fellow writer Mrs. Shira Leibowitz Schmidt, who has become something of a one-woman chareidi truth squad.

The story of what she did in this case should serve as a reminder to all of us (or, at least, those of us who are in fact chareidim) that our ability to respond to attacks on our community and to improve the image of our community is not always as slight as we might think. Indeed the list of Mrs. Schmidt’s efforts that I mention in the attached article from Mishpacha Magazine is only partial. In addition to those mentioned, she kept up a full discussion with Kolech, which describes itself as an Orthodox feminist group and which joined in demonstrations against Rabbi Abergil, who allegedly said that husbands should rip red garments off their wives if they insist on wearing them.

There are some groups whose search engines are going 24/7 seeking out foibles among the Orthodox and seemingly absurd or inciting comments of Rabbis.

I describe such a “red herring” case in the Jerusalem Post Opinion Page (Friday Feb.4 Magazine). A fortnight ago there was a false Maariv newspaper report about a “new” ruling by Rabbi Abergil that supposedly “outlawed” the wearing of red by women, and the green light he supposedly gave to husbands to tear off red clothes from their wives. Nuts?

“Limdu hora techilah,” advises Rabbenu Bachya ibn Paquda in Chovos Halevavos. “Study evil first.” There is much to learn by first considering the alternatives to truth.

Around tens of thousands of our Shabbos tables last Friday night, we traded thoughts about the defining moment of Jewish and human history – Revelation at Sinai. Heeding the exhortation of Deuteronomy to keep the events of Revelation fresh in our minds, we consumed luscious morsels of insight with the same gusto as the carefully prepared Shabbos delicacies that graced our plates.

Ashreichem Yisrael! We are more fortunate than we can realize.

For too many of our brothers and sisters, the issue of Sinai is not what happened there, or even whether something happened there. For all too many Jews, carefully weaned away from their precious legacy, the issue of Sinai is the assumed impossibility (rachmana litzlan) of any real communication with G-d taking place at all. Those of us fortunate enough to understand the opposite have even more to be thankful for than we knew.

My own awakening to this realization took place at Harvard Law School a few years ago, at an event that ordinarily should not have taken … Read More >>