The article goes on to relate that the story’s hero got his pilot’s license at 14 and was named best aviator in his class at the Air Force Academy. He then embarked on a 29-year airline piloting career, mastering glider flying along the way, and had studied air disasters, even starting a firm that taught companies to apply to other fields the latest safety advances in commercial aviation.

But “Sully” hadn’t just gained, through decades of experience and study, the technical expertise that he needed, when the unthinkable happened, to skirt numerous potential calamities and land that plane safely in the Hudson. With a degree in psychology from the Air Force Academy, he had actually studied how airline crews react in crises precisely like the one in which he found himself on the afternoon of January 15, 2009.

Only that kind of serious premeditation could have led to the astonishing calm the ... Read More >>]]> Anyone looking for a takeaway lesson from the amazing tale of US Airways Flight 1549 would do well to ponder the striking opening line of an Associated Press piece on the episode: “Chesley Sullenberger spent practically his whole life preparing for the five-minute crucible that was US Airways Flight 1549.”

The article goes on to relate that the story’s hero got his pilot’s license at 14 and was named best aviator in his class at the Air Force Academy. He then embarked on a 29-year airline piloting career, mastering glider flying along the way, and had studied air disasters, even starting a firm that taught companies to apply to other fields the latest safety advances in commercial aviation.

But “Sully” hadn’t just gained, through decades of experience and study, the technical expertise that he needed, when the unthinkable happened, to skirt numerous potential calamities and land that plane safely in the Hudson. With a degree in psychology from the Air Force Academy, he had actually studied how airline crews react in crises precisely like the one in which he found himself on the afternoon of January 15, 2009.

Only that kind of serious premeditation could have led to the astonishing calm the pilot displayed at the moment of truth, when, seconds before the plane hit the water, he came on the intercom and said three of the most frightful words one could ever hear: “Brace for impact.” Mark Hood, a passenger on the fateful flight, said that Sullenberger intoned those words “in a calm, cool, controlled voice. It was a testament to leadership. Had he let any tension leak into his voice, it would have been magnified in the passengers.”

But there’s more. The fact that the pilot had spent time studying his own behavior, as it were, in this very situation, was crucial to the safe landing itself. As William Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, put it, the “raw piloting is commendable, but what’s truly extraordinary is the rapid and professional way the crew went about making these decisions. You’ve only got seconds to sort these things out…” But, of course, Captain Sullenberger had much more than seconds to decide how and when to act — he’d had years of study, forethought and reflection.

And that’s why his story, with its magically happy ending, is no mere one-in-a-million fairytale with no practical relevance for us. Although it’s extremely unlikely Mr. Sullenberger, a good Texan man, has heard of the Mesillas Yesharim or names like Kelm and Novarodok, the story of Flight 1549 is a textbook metaphor for a seminal teaching of Mussar: that the goal of character improvement is not only to enable us to be the best human beings we can be in our everyday lives, but also — or, perhaps, especially — so that when hard times, even catastrophes, strike, we retain that humanity, even as, about us, others forfeit theirs.

Living within a society of such low ethical expectations that “live and let live” is the byword and “not hurting anyone” is the standard to strive for, it’s easy to absorb the subtle notion that possessing refined middos is equated with being a nice guy with lots of friends. But anyone who has ever imbibed the written or verbal teachings of the masters of Mussar knows how woefully superficial an equation that is.

The work of becoming truly human, of refining our character and deepening our sensitivity to others, to ourselves, to life itself, is incremental, painstaking and a project requiring an unshakable lifelong commitment. Someone who has done little to uproot from the soil of his personality the negative traits that, from childhood on, grow wild like so many weeds, can get by quite well for a long time as a “nice guy with lots of friends” — although, more likely than not, his spouse and children are rather underwhelmed. By the same token, someone who has been engaged in the hard work of step-by-tiny-step improvement of his middos might not always palpably sense his progress in his quotidian dealings with others, although again, there’s at least one person in his life who probably does.

But then there are the times in life, and they are inevitable, when the going gets rough. It might be something as commonplace as financial hard times or illness, or as unexpected as, say, the aircraft you’re piloting running “afowl” midair of a flock of geese, resulting in an unscheduled and much-too-close-for-comfort tour of New York City’s attractions. Those are the proverbial “times that try men’s souls,” and those who will issue the verdict on just how successful that program
of character development has been will be the jury of one’s peers, with the role of foreman filled by one’s spouse and family. And since, as Rav Chaim Vital writes, a person’s ultimate fate in the World to Come depends greatly on how he treated his spouse, one ought not pin his hopes on having that jury verdict overturned on appeal to a Higher Court.

And then there are the times of true catastrophe. Living in the comfort of this country and our times, it’s hard for many of us,
who have been fortunate, bli ayin hara, to be spared serious illness and other calamity in our own lives, to imagine what it means to live in desperate circumstances not merely for 20 frightful minutes over the New York skyline, but day after day in places like the Nazi lager or the frigid wastelands of Siberia. Those places were laboratories of the human soul, and it is there that decades of toil on becoming the best human one could be came to fruition.

The test results? A well-known secular writer who went through the camps wrote thus: “In the camps, there were kapos of German, Hungarian, Czech, Slovakian, Georgian, Ukrainian, French, and Lithuanian extraction.They were Christians, Jews and atheists. Former professors, industrialists, artists, merchants, workers, militants from the right and the left, philosophers and explorers of the soul, Marxists and staunch humanists. And, of course, a few common criminals. But not one kapo had been a rabbi.”

Yet, there were also countless others, “simple” Jews, whose deep humanity shone forth there with a gleam that probably amazed everyone around them. Everyone but their families.

It is Sunday, but not just any Sunday morn – it is the dawn of the Hallowed Day. America a secular land? Hah! Silly Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, et al – sacred devotion is so very much alive in America.

There are, of course, those who are deeply faithful throughout the year, who perform the Ritual of the Watching and all the ancient rites attendant thereto each Sunday, in Temples throught the land. The most pious of these even make the Pilgrimage to the Sanctum Sanctorum itself and partake of the sacred parking-lot Feast that precedes it. But on this Hallowed Day, we are all, men, women and children, part of — to coin a phrase — a “kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”

Rise, then, with alacrity, tend to what chores need be done, for the afternoon cometh speedily, when all thine work need have already been done. And there is much to be done in anticipation of the Watching.

Much of the beloved work has been done in advance, of course, and pity those foolish souls who’ve waited until the Hallowed Day to prepare; do they not know for what it is we are on this ... Read More >>]]> Morning dawns.

It is Sunday, but not just any Sunday morn – it is the dawn of the Hallowed Day. America a secular land? Hah! Silly Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, et al – sacred devotion is so very much alive in America.

There are, of course, those who are deeply faithful throughout the year, who perform the Ritual of the Watching and all the ancient rites attendant thereto each Sunday, in Temples throught the land. The most pious of these even make the Pilgrimage to the Sanctum Sanctorum itself and partake of the sacred parking-lot Feast that precedes it. But on this Hallowed Day, we are all, men, women and children, part of — to coin a phrase — a “kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”

Rise, then, with alacrity, tend to what chores need be done, for the afternoon cometh speedily, when all thine work need have already been done. And there is much to be done in anticipation of the Watching.

Much of the beloved work has been done in advance, of course, and pity those foolish souls who’ve waited until the Hallowed Day to prepare; do they not know for what it is we are on this earth, that in important matters we dare not tarry, but plan well ahead of time?

There is, first, the Convening of the Faithful, in which one summons by personal invitation one’s kith and kin, to gather as a group, at the appointed time, in the designated Temple and, to perform, as one, the Watching. Most often, each group consists of those who belong to the same Sect, who venerate the same Saints and who have studied in depth the most intimate details of these men, their great acts and truly wondrous deeds, for the Faithful do not well suffer infidels in their midst.

Next, there is the Preparation of the Sacraments, those sacrosanct foods and beverages that will be ritually consumed prior to and during the Watching. Most often, these portions of meat and fowl and strong drink are prepared by others in bulk for the Faithful of each Temple as a whole, and delivered thereto, with great attention paid to ensure each worshipper receives a ritually sufficient portion of the holies to consume and imbibe.

And of course, the host (whose patron god is, presumably, the Lord of Hosts) must see to it that the Temple is in proper condition for the Watching, with ample seating, rubberized walls and, of course, an appropriate Shrine, before which to kneel, perform the Watching and, if things go not well, supplicate and remonstrate.

Then, and depending on one’s level of religiosity, there are additional rituals in which to engage, each man according to his faith and temperament. Some don the hallowed Vestments of their particular Sect, so as to announce without fear, indeed, with pride, to all the world: ‘Behold, I am faithful to my chosen Saints and will remain thusly loyal to them come what may.’ Others adorn the Temple, the walls and doorposts thereof, with a variety of cherished symbols and depictions of their heroic leaders.

In truth, religious observances are best performed in the family abode, so that thine children might learn from thee what is truly important and to what might they devote their hearts, minds and resources all the days of their lives. And thankfully, most of the Faithful indeed perform the Watching at a Shrine in the very center of their homes.

A lesser number, however, who are perhaps mimicking the unfortunate modern tendency to relegate one’s faithful acts to a house of worship outside the home, flock to special Temples wherein Congregations of the Faithful gather to worship at a common, huge Shrine. Here large amounts of intoxicating drink flow , the better to rejoice in the good fortunes of their sect’s Annointed Ones or, Heaven forfend, to drown one’s sorrow at the descent of one’s Saints to ignominy. Woe, woe to those who care not enough to raise their offspring to appreciate the meaning of life itself.

Finally, the hour of the Watching draweth near.

First, however, the faithful gather to feast, watch and listen as Elders of the Faith speak to them from the site of the Sanctum Sanctorum itself about the upcoming Confrontation of Faith to take place therein and give their views based on their many years of study and contemplation of prior Confrontations. Every last minute detail of the Confrontation and the saints of the respective sects who will vie for greatness therein is dissected and studied closely, pondered and argued over by the assembled, as it is stated: For it is our lives and the length of our days.

And then, suddenly, as wintery afternoon sunlight turns to dusk, the Ritual of the Watching is upon us.

It will last for several hours, holding tens of millions of the Faithful in its mesmerizing thrall. As one traverses the length and breadth of this great land, two types of fearsome sounds are to be heard rising up from countless Temples dotting the landscape.

Some are great and ferocious cries of exultation and oaths of undying allegiance to and profound pride in one’s chosen Sect and its towering Saints. Others are the gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and wailing and bemoaning of one’s fate and that of one’s beloved Sect, whose Saints have suffered so in expiation of their sins.

Salvation for some, suffering for others, a deeply meaningful time for all.

Life itself.

For many decades now, the secular Jewish establishment and non-Orthodox religious movements have invoked the Constitution’s Establishment Clause to fight tooth-and-nail against government aid to yeshivos. Yet, along came a candidate named Barack Obama and the tantalizing possibility of a liberal Democratic rise to power, and, suddenly, this hallowed concept disappeared from the collective American Jewish consciousness.

This year’s Democratic convention was so suffused with religious content that it could have been mistaken for a camp revival meeting, except that this one featured even more rabbis than pastors. Then again, it was that convention’s nominee, Barack Obama, who told a Greenville, South Carolina church last year that he is “confident that we can create a kingdom right here on earth,’ and asked the congregation to “pray that I can be an instrument of G-d.” Hillary Clinton, for her part, told a campaign forum that “you can sense ... Read More >>]]> As the dust settles on this year’s election season, it’s worth reflecting on one aspect of the campaign that holds particular relevance for the Jewish community: the way in which the principle of separation of church and state, a longtime sacred cow of Jewish communal life, was unceremoniously put out to pasture.

For many decades now, the secular Jewish establishment and non-Orthodox religious movements have invoked the Constitution’s Establishment Clause to fight tooth-and-nail against government aid to yeshivos. Yet, along came a candidate named Barack Obama and the tantalizing possibility of a liberal Democratic rise to power, and, suddenly, this hallowed concept disappeared from the collective American Jewish consciousness.

This year’s Democratic convention was so suffused with religious content that it could have been mistaken for a camp revival meeting, except that this one featured even more rabbis than pastors. Then again, it was that convention’s nominee, Barack Obama, who told a Greenville, South Carolina church last year that he is “confident that we can create a kingdom right here on earth,’ and asked the congregation to “pray that I can be an instrument of G-d.” Hillary Clinton, for her part, told a campaign forum that “you can sense how we are attempting to inject faith into policy.” Nary a peep was to be heard from Jewish proponents of strict church-state separation in response to either statement.

A prominent Reform clergyman, David Saperstein is tapped to give the invocation before Obama’s acceptance speech to 80,000 at Invesco Field? No problem, since, as Saperstein explained, it is “so ingrained in American life that it cannot be perceived as a political endorsement.” Nine separate faith-related events during the convention? That’s OK too, according to Saperstein, since “people can choose whether or not to go” and there “are forums being held on other topics.” That sure is a new tune – or should we say “hymn”? – the Reform movement is singing.

Then, after the speech, evangelical Christian pastor Joel Hunter led a “participatory prayer” which he concluded with the words “in Jesus’ name.” But that too was just fine with Saperstein, because, as he put it, we need to accept the fact that if evangelicals are invited to deliver public prayers, “[t]hey’re going to pray in the name of Jesus.” And, after all, he noted, Jews can also treat Jesus as a teacher. Such admirable, and newfound, tolerance.

When John DiLulio, first head of President Bush’s office for faith-based initiatives, spoke at the convention, he pronounced himself “exceedingly encouraged” by Obama’s “extraordinary” vision of government assistance for faith-based programs. Saperstein’s reaction? “I have three responses: amen, amen and amen.” Anyone remotely familiar with Saperstein’s decades-long views on religion and state can only shake his head incredulously.

The ADL’s Abe Foxman did, to his credit, criticize the extreme religious makeover as “excessive . . . aggressive . . . and not where religion belongs,” and declared himself “very much disturbed that the Jewish community isn’t disturbed.” Yet even Foxman said he had “no problem” with the emergence late in the campaign of Rabbis for Obama, a group comprising over 600 non-Orthodox clergyfolk, which, according to Brandeis historian Jonathan Sarna, was unprecedented in American Jewish politics. Indeed, Noam Neusner, who served as George W. Bush’s liaison to the Jewish community, has said that the Bush campaign never encouraged any such effort by rabbis specifically “because of the sensitivity of the church-state issue.”

No such concern apparently perturbed Rabbis for Obama, because as founder Sam Gordon put it, “we’re not doing this as rabbis of synagogues . . . [but] as private citizens,” and that he “would never presume to tell congregants how to vote.” Yup — and if you buy that, can I interest you next in purchasing a certain bridge spanning the East River?

(A sermon Gordon delivered just after the Democratic convention makes for a fascinating study in cognitive dissonance. Gordon waxes lyrical about Robert Kennedy’s death 40 years ago. He then vows never to endorse a candidate from the pulpit, and tells the assembled that “having said that, [Obama’s nomination] was, for some people, the end of the 40 years in the desert. . . . Bobby Kennedy’s death put an end to many of our dreams, but [Obama’s nomination] was thrilling for many of us because we saw some of those dreams come to fruition. . . . He dreamed of things that never were, and said why not? Why not indeed.”)

In a 1996 Commentary symposium, renowned constitutional attorney Nathan Lewin wrote:

I consider the greatest obstacle to the continuity of Judaism in America to be the slavish, mindless and reflexive devotion of American Jewish leadership to the “Wall of Separation” between church and state, [which] is more revered by American Jewish organizations than is the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the authentic and lasting symbol of Judaism. Crushed under the Wall of Separation, which, to my mind, is built on a misunderstanding of the values protected by the First Amendment, are many yeshivas and other Jewish religious institutions. that cannot survive in today’s world without the support that government should provide nondiscriminatorily for religious and conscientious convictions and practices.

As a parent of yeshivah students who, along with virtually every other middle-class yeshivah parent I know, strains under the almost unbearable burden of tuition, even as our children’s teachers go unpaid their meager salaries for months at a time because the schools are themselves heavily in the red, I wholeheartedly agree with Lewin.

The damage caused by the denial of government assistance to Jewish families and Jewish education has been real and lasting, while the doomsday scenarios of religious domination that animate the strict separationists are the stuff of fantasy. As the theologian Michael Novak has observed regarding school prayer: “For a state to ‘establish’ a religion . . . takes some heavy lifting. Permitting a moment of prayer in the public schools doesn’t do it, and didn’t do it for the more than 120 years between the founding of the public schools (in about 1840) and the concerted attempt to secularize them that began some 40 years ago.”

Similarly, the reading vans that, for decades, were parked outside yeshivos were a very costly and unwieldy result of then-prevailing Supreme Court doctrine prohibiting public school personnel from setting foot in parochial schools to render remedial services, lest the “pervasively religious character” of those institutions influence the hearts and minds of impressionable teachers. In the mid-90s, however, the Court reversed itself and permitted publicly funded remediation on religious school grounds and — wonder of wonders — the new policy didn’t result in a steady stream, or even a trickle, of public employees heading for the baptismal font — or the mikvah.

Through it all, however, many of us have given the secular and non-Orthodox Jewish establishment the benefit of the doubt that their die-hard opposition to any form of government aid to our schools was based on firmly-held, albeit misconceived, principle. Although we disagreed strenuously, we could understand where they were “coming from,” that their irrational fears of creating a slippery slope culminating in forcible conversions by Pat Robertson’s armed hordes was rooted subconsciously in the sum of Jewry’s darkest historical fears.

But now along comes election season 2008, featuring a candidate who was the liberal Jewish community’s great, longed-for hope. Suddenly — and inexplicably – in service of the overriding goal of ensuring his election, decades worth of hypersensitivity to the slightest perceived breach in The Wall vanished without a trace.

It’s enough to make a Jew skeptical.

This article appeared in the December 3 issue of Hamodia.

Given that a) the Court’s decisions, and those of other federal courts, play a significant role in setting the moral tone in this country, and b) Justice Stevens is 88 and by January 2009 five other justices will be from 69 to 75 years old, it’s hard to overstate the importance of this topic. There’s a great deal to say about this, but let’s begin with the following exchange:

Dear Eric,

Now that you’ve returned from covering the nominating conventions, I’m hoping you’ll be kind enough to respond to an e-mail letter I sent you a few weeks ago regarding a piece you wrote for JTA entitled “Obama, McCain Spar Over Supreme Court.”

You contrasted McCain’s statement at the Saddleback forum that he wouldn’t have nominated any of the current four liberal justices, thereby — ... Read More >>]]> Trying, as always, to do my small part to ensure media objectivity, I present below an e-mail exchange I recently had with a JTA reporter on a topic that ought to rank very high on the issues agenda of Orthodox Jewish voters when casting their ballots this November: the nominations that the respective candidates are likely to make for vacancies on the United States Supreme Court.

Given that a) the Court’s decisions, and those of other federal courts, play a significant role in setting the moral tone in this country, and b) Justice Stevens is 88 and by January 2009 five other justices will be from 69 to 75 years old, it’s hard to overstate the importance of this topic. There’s a great deal to say about this, but let’s begin with the following exchange:

Dear Eric,

Now that you’ve returned from covering the nominating conventions, I’m hoping you’ll be kind enough to respond to an e-mail letter I sent you a few weeks ago regarding a piece you wrote for JTA entitled “Obama, McCain Spar Over Supreme Court.”

You contrasted McCain’s statement at the Saddleback forum that he wouldn’t have nominated any of the current four liberal justices, thereby — in the view of some Jewish activists — eliminating “a whole worldview from the justices’ deliberations,” with Obama’s mention of only Thomas and Scalia as justices whom he wouldn’t have nominated.

But surely the reason Mr. Obama didn’t mention the other two solid conservatives, Roberts and Alito, is because he actually did vote against their confirmation – one of only 22 senators, along with Joe Biden, to do so. Obviously, then, his opposition to them is not mere speculation but actual fact. In sum, it seems that Obama would just as quickly eliminate “a whole worldview from the justices’ deliberations.”

In addition, are these Jewish activists asserting that a President Obama, or any other liberal president, for that matter, would, if given the opportunity for multiple appointments, make sure to nominate some conservative jurists for the Supreme Court along with liberal ones, so as to preserve more than one “worldview” in the justices’ deliberations? Do you believe that to be likely, and if not, did you challenge these activists to substantiate that assertion in some way? And, wouldn’t it have been relevant for you to note to these activists and in your article that Mr. McCain was part of the “Gang of 14” Republican and Democratic senators who sought bi-partisan compromise on judicial nominations, while Mr. Obama declined to join in that effort?

Two more questions: 1) You refer to the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC) as one that “generally stakes out liberal positions on domestic affairs.” I couldn’t come up with one instance in which the position they staked out on a domestic (or foreign) matter wasn’t a liberal position. Can you? 2) The RAC’s Mr. Pelavin told you that the liberal justices McCain mentioned “really represent centrist viewpoints, not classically liberal positions. . . ” Did he elaborate with examples, or can you?

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Best,

Eytan Kobre

Mr. Kobre,

Sorry I’m just responding to your e-mail now. It ended up in my spam
folder for some reason.

You make an interesting point about Obama’s voting against Roberts and
Alito, as well as McCain’s membership in the Gang of 14. They probably
should have been mentioned in the story.

Regarding the RAC, I have an example of a position they took (or actually
didn’t take) that wasn’t liberal. They did not oppose the Iraq war (they
didn’t favor it either, but staying neutral wasn’t the liberal position.)
They have since come out against it, but it took a few years.

As for your statement about Pelavin’s quote on “centrist viewpoints,”
here’s how he explained it. He compared someone like Breyer–who would be
classified as part the left wing of the court currently–to former judges
such as William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall. Legal scholars would agree
Brennan and Marshall were much more ideologicallly liberal than someone
like Breyer–who was considered more of a left-learning moderate when he
was nominated and hasn’t diverged greatly from that assessment. Ginsburg
and Stevens are on the left, but not in the same way that Brennan and
Marshall were. Meanwhile, one would certainly consider Scalia and Thomas
ideological conservatives in the same vein–but on the opposite end of the
spectrum–as Marshall and Brennan.

Thanks for your interest,
Eric Fingerhut

Eric,

Thanks for your reply.

I must say I was taken aback by your response. The facts I apprised you
of — that Obama had voted to reject Roberts and Alito, while McCain worked
for bi-partisan compromise — simply render the entire premise of the first
five paragraphs of your piece untrue. And all this elicits is that they
“probably should have been mentioned”? For the sake of elementary fairness,
a correction appended to the piece online is more in order.

On the liberalism of RAC, 3 points: 1) You referred to its “generally
liberal positions on domestic affairs;” their position on Iraq doesn’t
qualify; 2) considering that a majority of the Senate’s liberal members
voted to invade Iraq, I don’t believe that, at the time, remaining neutral
could be described as not being a liberal position; perhaps not the
ultra-liberal position of those who opposed the war, but certainly a liberal
one; 3) I think you reinforce my point about the RAC when you need to reach
back 5 years to one policy position, which it has since retracted.

On Pelavin’s explanation of his remarks, we can go back and forth with
semantic arguments all day about the relative centrism of Breyer, et al, vis
a vis Marshall and Brennan. The bottom line is that I think a great many
informed observers of the court would find it risible to refer to Ginsburg
and Stevens, and perhaps the others as well, as centrists. Ultimately, this
is all relative to the commentator’s own political orientation — which is
why you ought to have given your piece more balance by quoting someone
contra Pelavin as well.

I look forward to your thoughts.

Best,

Eytan

I haven’t yet heard back from Mr. Fingerhut. Stay tuned.

Over half a century ago, Rav Eliyohu Dessler noted the fascinating contradiction inherent in these efforts to diminish man’s stature. On the one hand, men of science are responsible for the technological advances that have given modern society its sense of hubris and invincibility, based on a belief that science can conquer all problems and solve all mysteries if given enough time. Scientists, who are accustomed to enjoying near-universal credibility and adulation, are also often not, on a personal level, the most obsequious of people. In particular, they have little patience and open-mindedness towards those who challenge scientific orthodoxy, as global warming “heretics” and alternative medicine practitioners will attest.

Yet, ... Read More >>]]> Nothing puts some scientists in a good mood like finding evidence that, at least to their minds, diminishes man’s unique qualities or standing in the universe. Discovering human-like tendencies in the great apes or dolphins, discerning a hint of some form of life on Mars – anything will do, so long as it has the desired effect of “proving” that we’re not that all that special. The always unspoken corollary is, of course, that, hence, the Creator couldn’t possibly be interested in what us li’l old, not-very-special beings do with our lives.

Over half a century ago, Rav Eliyohu Dessler noted the fascinating contradiction inherent in these efforts to diminish man’s stature. On the one hand, men of science are responsible for the technological advances that have given modern society its sense of hubris and invincibility, based on a belief that science can conquer all problems and solve all mysteries if given enough time. Scientists, who are accustomed to enjoying near-universal credibility and adulation, are also often not, on a personal level, the most obsequious of people. In particular, they have little patience and open-mindedness towards those who challenge scientific orthodoxy, as global warming “heretics” and alternative medicine practitioners will attest.

Yet, upon finding the slightest basis for challenging humanity’s uniqueness, these same self-possessed individuals are more than eager to yield their dignity and pride of place in the universe. Apparently, wrote Rav Dessler, when the drive for hefkeirus, the longing to free oneself from the constricting yoke of Divine oversight implicit in such uniqueness, comes in conflict with the opposing impulse towards arrogance, the former prevails.

Another area in which science is often invoked to downsize humans is that of free will, or the purported lack of it. A recent Wall Street Journal article reported on the work of neuroscientist John-Dylan Haynes, who found that the brain appears to “make up its mind” some time before one becomes conscious of the eventual decision.

Using an MRI machine, Dr. Haynes and his colleagues monitored the neural currents coursing through the brains of volunteers as they decided at random whether to push a button with their right or left hands. Studying the brain behavior prior to the moment of conscious decision, the researchers identified signals that indicated a volunteer would push a button 10 seconds before he did so.

“We think our decisions are conscious,” Haynes commented, but while this research “doesn’t rule out free will . . . it does make it implausible.” For joy! Free at last!

In truth, however, it would be premature for anyone to begin partying at the prospect of having demonstrated, once and for all, that we humans are bereft of free choice and, consequently, of responsibility for our actions. In fact, Haynes’ conclusions actually jibe rather neatly with what the Torah has been teaching for millennia: that it is the subconscious that drives our decision-making.

The role of the conscious mind is to attempt to influence the subconscious recesses of the brain through various means, including study, introspection and the stratagems employed by the Mussar masters such as hispa’alus (emotional rousing) and tziyur (mental imagery). This, of course, is the message conveyed by the posuk quoted thrice daily in the Aleinu prayer: ”‘v’yodata hayom v’hasheivosa el l’vovecha – and you shall know this day and return [it] to your heart.” Ours is not to directly determine what our hearts feel, but rather to work at imparting that which our brains know to the heart, providing the input that will indirectly influence the nature of our feelings and, ultimately, our actions.

Far from absolving man of responsibility for the desires of his heart and the resultant deeds of his hands, this conception of the interplay between heart and mind actually ups the ante of human obligation. It places an even greater onus on man to be creative, clever and far-sighted in finding ways to reach and impact the untamed subconscious and redirect in positive ways its innate predilections for what is often spiritually harmful or stunting. This task, always central to Jewish spiritual practice but given renewed emphasis by Rav Yisroel Salanter and his spiritual heirs, is the work of a lifetime.

Ironically, then, findings like those of Dr. Haynes, showing the inscrutable subconscious to be the seat of human choice, do not render us hapless automatons at the mercy of mindless forces beyond our control. Rather, they serve only to amplify the enormity and subtlety of the spiritual work that we were placed in this world to accomplish. Similarly, the farther outward space exploration pushes the frontier of the universe and the more it becomes apparent that our little world is a singular oasis of sentient life in an otherwise lifeless cosmos, the more this highlights humanity’s uniqueness and the implications that flow therefrom.

Truly, science in service of spirituality.

Published in the August 20, 2008 edition of Hamodia.

Can any reader recall another moment in the Nuclear Age as pregnant with threat as this one? Not even the Cuban missile crisis, when we were arrayed against a coldly pragmatic, albeit evil, Politburo, compares. What quality of character, then, ought Americans insist their leader possess, above all others, at such a defining juncture, at this moment of historical moments? My answer: the ability to recognize evil, and the resolve to act to vanquish it.

We can forgive Barack Obama his supercilious, humorless persona. We can even suffer his self-aggrandizing quest for the brass ring at the expense of the American commonweal. We cannot, ... Read More >>]]> Forget four-dollar-a-gallon gas, the sundry financial crises, and the various looming threats posed by Russia, China, et al. One issue alone – the prospect of a nuclear-armed, apocalyptic Iran – dwarfs all else at present as the singular issue of ultimate consequence for us as Americans and, more acutely, as Jews. The consensus across the Israeli political spectrum and among many thoughtful observers in this country is that an Israeli strike against Iranian facilities sometime this coming autumn is a fait accompli; speculation revolves primarily around how events will unfold in the aftermath of such attack.

Can any reader recall another moment in the Nuclear Age as pregnant with threat as this one? Not even the Cuban missile crisis, when we were arrayed against a coldly pragmatic, albeit evil, Politburo, compares. What quality of character, then, ought Americans insist their leader possess, above all others, at such a defining juncture, at this moment of historical moments? My answer: the ability to recognize evil, and the resolve to act to vanquish it.

We can forgive Barack Obama his supercilious, humorless persona. We can even suffer his self-aggrandizing quest for the brass ring at the expense of the American commonweal. We cannot, we dare not, however, vouchsafe our future – our present! – to a virtual babe in the woods who is, by all indications viscerally incapable of recognizing evil and summoning the fortitude to strike out at it.

In just the past several weeks, we been witness to the latest manifestations of unadulterated evil in the Middle East, and it is instructive to observe the reaction thereto of a prominent denizen of Obama’s thought-world, and a favored mouthpiece of his, the New York Times, the better to learn how the Annointed One himself approaches such matters. First there was the horror of a Palestinian run amok with a massive Caterpillar front-end loader, killing three, including a young mother crushed to death in her car as her infant sat unscathed in the back seat.

The Times’ report on the rampage proceeded in a largely objective manner, laying out the sequence of events and describing the carnage — until the very last paragraph, that is. There, in the article’s final two sentences, its Jewish author spoke volumes, mainly about her deep-seated biases and her shame over her religion.

She wrote: “Caterpillar equipment has a special resonance among Palestinians. Human rights activists have lobbied the company to stop selling its heavy vehicles to the Israeli military out of concern that they have been used to demolish Palestinian homes, uproot orchards and construct Jewish settlements in occupied land.” Of what possible relevance could those words have in this story, other than to serve, in some morally grotesque way, as a justification for, and thus, an effective denial of, an unspeakable evil?

Fast forward two weeks to July 16, one of the sadder days in Israel’s history, on which it offered up a monster, an unrepentant murderer of children, to be feted amidst pomp and fireworks by all of Lebanon as a national hero, embraced by Lebanon’s president and prime minister and the leader of its Druze, all ostensibly of the anti-Hezbollah camp. All this in exchange for the bodies of two Jewish soldiers, effectively removing, cholilah, the incentive for future captors to preserve their Jewish prisoners’ lives.

A New York Times piece on the following day was rather straightforward in its reporting, and is remarkable only for what it did not say. It blandly noted that “it took several hours for the military authorities to positively identify the soldiers’ remains,” but failed to explain that this was because, as Rabbi Yisrael Weiss put it, “if we thought the enemy was cruel to the living and the dead, we were surprised, when we opened the caskets, to discover just how cruel.”

Nowhere in the piece was there mention of the fact that UN peacekeepers, the force that is charged with implementing the 2006 war-ending Security Council Resolution 1701 but hasn’t, were filmed saluting the passing coffins of terrorists returning to Beirut as part of the swap. Missing as well was the fact that on the very day that the Lebanese government gave the murderers a hero’s welcome, the Bush administration announced an increase of over 32 million dollars in aid to the Lebanese army.

And while the article quotes an Israeli Army statement that speaks of how the exchange “demonstrates a compelling moral strength which stems from Judaism . . .” there is no mention that the monster was formally pardoned by Israel as part of the deal, nor that he was permitted, during his incarceration, to marry, receive conjugal visits and earn a college degree.

The real outrage, however, appears in another Times piece entitled “Hero’s Welcome Expected in Lebanon for Captive of Israel,” penned, it would seem, by a social worker masquerading as a journalist. It is a piece, which, for full effect, was apparently intended to be read as mournful strains of violin play softly in the background, and preferably with a box of Kleenex in easy reach.

The author tells us that “Mr. Kuntar” – as in, you know, Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones, or, perhaps, Mr. Hitler – was born to a Druse couple who divorced when he was young, after which his mother died and his father remarried and left to work in Saudi Arabia. “Neighbors remember him as a quiet child. But as the eldest son without a father at home, he was difficult to control,” the reporter-cum-CSW helpfully informs, and he “stopped attending school when he was 14,” just as Lebanon’s civil war erupted, and “many boys from troubled families were drawn into the conflict.” Later on, “Mr. Kuntar went to the Israeli-Lebanese border after Israel invaded southern Lebanon” and he “returned deeply affected by the deaths he had witnessed.”

The reporter has done us the service of providing a possible answer to the question posed by Smadar Haran Kaiser, whose husband and two young children were Kuntar’s victims: “I will never forget the joy and hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. . . . It is hard for anyone with normal sensibilities to comprehend how someone can feel joy and hatred while smashing in the head of a four-year-old child. What kind of pathology can cause a society to celebrate such evil?” Per the Times, the response to her question might well be that all of Lebanon experienced unhappy childhoods and deaths that “deeply affected” them.

The writer isn’t done just yet. He goes on to contrast Kuntar’s sanitized version of the attack – revealing him to be a coward in addition to a vicious murderer – with that of “unnamed” Israeli witnesses. “Whatever the truth,” the reporter intones, “the kidnapping of a child clouds Mr. Kuntar’s supposed heroism.” So, to summarize, whether this overgrown at-risk teen, so starved for love, actually murdered Jews is anyone’s guess, but there’s no question his heroism is, at best, “clouded.” How generous. How depraved.

But why, one might wonder, are we imputing the Times’ moral depravity to Barack Obama? Not merely because that newspaper is the unofficial print media organ of the latter’s campaign, but because he shares the morally relativistic lens through which it views the world. A mere eight days after September 11, 2001, Obama wrote these words:

We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.

The above paragraph, which, couched in psychobabble, is nothing less than a defense of those who perpetrated the single greatest terrorist horror in any of our lifetimes, penned as countless bodies still lay strewn among the smoldering remains of the towers, is the root of everything Obama says or believes about foreign policy (and many elements of his domestic one as well).

Insisting on negotiating the nuclear issue to death as Iranian scientists go to work each day to complete their project, giving full faith and credit to the misconstrued and discredited NIE report on Iran’s intentions, listening to advisors who insisted the Syrians weren’t building a bomb with North Korean help, until Israel destroyed the non-existent facility – all of this and more can be traced back to what Obama wrote in that paragraph.

There’s a reason Hamas wants Obama to win — and you can fume and rage all you want, but it’s true and I sense that many Jews, in the Nathan Diament kishkes test, know it’s true. Yes, I know, Hamas “retracted” their endorsement when Obama said all those wonderful things at AIPAC that he later said he never meant; boy, does this get dizzying ! The reason Obama is Hamas’ man is that they understand what Obama is about far better than any of us.

They know that, of course Obama isn’t pernicious and venal, and of course he isn’t anti-Semitic or Muslim or any of the other slanderous rumors that Obama tirelessly ascribes to those who oppose him; any reasonably well-informed and well-adjusted American knows that too. Desperate for us not to discern what Hamas already knows, Obama turns to his advantage these outlandish, viral e-mail campaigns against him as a very convenient smokescreen for the real problem.

All this is irrelevant to Hamas. All they need Obama to be is precisely what he is — incapable, due to ideology or naivete or both, of recognizing evil and confronting it. That’s all the carte blanche needed by Hamas and Iran and all the other evildoers — yes, there’s that word that liberals gag on and is an everlasting contribution of George W. Bush and Reagan before him to the American political vocabulary.

Mr. Obama may well have what it takes for a great career as dean of the Columbia University School of Social Work, and we in the American electorate ought to work hard to ensure that he realizes that potential for greatness. At this ominous moment in history, as our thoughts turn heavenward, we must hope that this man, so fundamentally incapable of calling evil by its name, is kept far from the Oval Office.

So as not to conclude on such a downbeat note, one thought occurs as to how Mr. Obama might yet prove himself ready to be our leader for these times, by displaying the merest modicum of moral courage. All he needs to do is, upon journeying to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, ask the latter this simple question before the world media: “Mr. President, last week you offered ‘congratulations to the family of Samir Kuntar, the chief of Arab prisoners,’ and your Fatah party sponsored celebrations of his release across the West Bank. Why?”

A slightly different version of this article appeared in the July 23 edition of Hamodia.

Something must be done about that man, if only by having him join the roster at Cross-Currents, so that his incisive pieces can be written off as just so much Orthodox triumphalist, exclusivist tripe, which can’t quite so easily be done now that he’s the JTS Provost publishing in Commentary.

Perhaps I’ll have other occasion to comment at greater length on the article, but for now I’ll suffice with one comment. He writes:

In a remarkable statement issued last summer, Rabbi Yoffie distinguished the Judaism practiced by Reform from other forms of Judaism in these words: “If you take it all upon yourself as an obligation rather than as a choice, you’ve reached the point at which you’re no longer a Reform Jew.”

Here, at last, is a candidly non-inclusive position. What it suggests is that in today’s Reform, red lines continue to exist to the Right: for a rabbi or a congregant to flirt with ... Read More >>]]> We didn’t stop him the last time around when his victim was Conservatism, as I had presciently recommended, and lo and behold, JTS’s Jack Wertheimer is back on the attack against the non-Orthodox, this time with What Does Reform Judaism Stand For? in this month’s Commentary.

Something must be done about that man, if only by having him join the roster at Cross-Currents, so that his incisive pieces can be written off as just so much Orthodox triumphalist, exclusivist tripe, which can’t quite so easily be done now that he’s the JTS Provost publishing in Commentary.

Perhaps I’ll have other occasion to comment at greater length on the article, but for now I’ll suffice with one comment. He writes:

In a remarkable statement issued last summer, Rabbi Yoffie distinguished the Judaism practiced by Reform from other forms of Judaism in these words: “If you take it all upon yourself as an obligation rather than as a choice, you’ve reached the point at which you’re no longer a Reform Jew.”

Here, at last, is a candidly non-inclusive position. What it suggests is that in today’s Reform, red lines continue to exist to the Right: for a rabbi or a congregant to flirt with the basic concept of religious obligation, or venture too close to traditional Jewish observances, is to rule oneself out.

What of red lines to the religious Left? Are there any limits there? True, the movement disapproves of such outlying phenomena as the Society for Humanistic Judaism with its denial of a personal God, or Jews for Jesus. But, as we have seen, it has accommodated all sorts of other innovation under the rubric of legitimate Jewish expression, and has been remarkably silent on what it would consider beyond the pale.

The reference to Humanistic Judaism jogged my memory, causing me to delve into my voluminous files under “R”, for Responsa, Heteredox (I’ve thought from time to time of drawing on my vast archives and expertise to pen a monthly column titled “A Review of Periodical Heterodox Responsa Literature,” to compete with Rabbi Bleich’s long-running Tradition feature, but the I realized: who would read it?) What I retrieved was a CCAR responsum from 5751 regarding a secular humanistic congregation seeking admission to the Reform congregational body, UAHC.

Briefly, the question before Responsa Committee was this:

Reform Judaism has been an open-ended and variegated movement. It is historically flexible, but how far does flexibility go? Can it accommodate the philosophy and liturgy of this particular Congregation?

The responsum sets outs to answer this difficult query and, along the way to its resolution, engages in a great deal of very subtle lomdus, which I found fascinating. To share the wealth, I’ll quote an illustrative snippet of this, (and will, of course, withhold [almost] all other comment, respectful as I am of other religious traditions):

The Congregation’s liturgy deletes any and all mention of G-d, either in Hebrew . . . or English. One of its publications . . . explains the congregation’s position in this regard as follows: “The concept of G-d has undergone constant modification in Judaism . . . There has always been and continues to be great diversity in the Jewish understanding of G-d.”

There can certainly be no disagreement with the statement that Reform Jews (like other Jews) have different conceptions of God. Our Gates of Prayer, in the sixth Shabbat eve service while leaving the traditional Hebrew God-language undisturbed, does not use the word “God” in the English text. Instead it speaks of “The Power that makes for freedom” and says: “We worship the power that unites all the universe into one great harmony” (p.210).

It is clear that the sixth service remains a prayer service, which leaves it to the worshippers to fill the word “Power” with their interpretation of the supernatural. The language is purposefully ambiguous only within these limits. That kind of ambiguity does not, however, exist in the Congregation’s liturgy.

To be sure, the above- mentioned statement says: “Many falsely assume that humanism is atheistic…The definition of Humanistic Judaism does not preclude one’s having a concept of God.”

This affirmation of people’s right to interpret the God-concept in their own way is, however, not borne out by the liturgy which precludes the exercise of this right by omitting any and all references to a supernatural power in whatever language. In fact, the statement goes on to say unequivocally: “The use of prayer in services would be incompatible with such a theological system.”

So, to review, the Humanistics are dissembling by granting the right to members to “have a conception of G-d” [although presumably they'd draw the line at an immaculate one - EK] but denying the right to “exercise that right” by having “services” complete with “liturgy” but sans “prayer,” whereas the Reform team is honest because its Prayer Service #6 [I can't tell you how much I want to say something here about wonton soup, but I gave my word - EK] remains a “prayer service” despite the fact that it “leaves it to the worshippers to fill the word “Power” with their interpretation of the supernatural.” Got that?

After some further discussion, the Committee concludes that “we find Congregation’s system of beliefs to be outside the realm of historical Reform Judaism.”

But the Committee’s not done just yet:

But should we not open the gates wide enough to admit even such concepts into our fold? Are not diversity and inclusiveness a hallmark of Reform? To this we would reply: yesh gevul., there are limits. Reform Judaism cannot be everything, or it will be nothing.

Then comes the “sensitivity” argument in classic (little “c”) Reform style:

The argument that we ourselves are excluded by the Orthodox and therefore should not keep others out who wish to join us, has an attractive sound to it.

But it doesn’t carry the day:

Taken to its inevitable conclusion, however, we would end up with a Reform Judaism in which “Reform” determines what “Judaism” is and not the other way around.

Not only is this responsum notable for its clear pronouncements — take note, Jack Wertheimer — of “yesh gevul” and ” ‘Judaism’ determines what ‘Reform’ is, not the other way around,” but also for the following three fascinating tidbits:

1) The Committee writes:

The argument has been made that our doors should always be open to ba’alei teshuvah, that is, those who repent and turn back. Our reading of the texts the congregation has published does not bear out the intent that, by joining the Union, it is prepared to turn back to the principles of historic Reform. Rather we find in its literature a declared purpose to redefine the essence of Reform Judaism. The Congregation is of course free to pursue this goal and may wish to attract other groups to its philosophy. It must do this, however, outside and not inside the Union.

If I understand this correctly, the Committe is arguing that a group is free to redefine Judaism, but not to call it Reform Judaism, since that refers to a fixed, historically known set of concepts and values.

Fascinating.

2) The Committee further writes:

Persons of various shadings of belief or unbelief, practice or non-practice, may belong to UAHC congregations as individuals, and we respect their rights. But it is different when they come as a congregation whose declared principles are at fundamental variance with the historic God-orientation of Reform Judaism.

If I understand this correctly, the Committee is arguing that there’s a difference between an individual belonging to a Reform congregation despite what he does or doesn’t believe or observe, and a congregation seeking to formalize and legitimize its disbelief or non-observance.

Beyond fascinating (how fast can you say CBST?)

I do wonder, however, whether the Movement has moved away from the views in this 1991 responsum that there’s no prayer without G-d and that the Movement has non-negotiable standards about things like G-d that individuals can choose to meet or not meet.

A 2007 New York Times piece on the new and improved and market-tested Reform prayerbook noted that it “was intended to offer something for everyone . . . even those who do not believe in G-d.” Clergyperson Elyse Frishman, the editor, said that it

reflects a recognition of diversity within our community. . . . There are even those in my community who come to Shabbat worship each week who don’t believe in G-d How do we help them resonate with the language of prayer, which is very G-d-centric and evokes a personal G-d . . .? There are many, many Jews who do not believe in G-d that way?

And, finally, 3) in addition to three dissents to the responsum, Professor Eugene Mihaly circulated a 14-page counter-responsum in which he argued, inter alia, that the UAHC’s “constitution gives full religious autonomy to its members.” In his point-by-point refutation of Mihaly, Professor Michael Meyer noted that

Article VI of the Union’s constitution affirms the religious autonomy of its constituent congregations, and not of those who apply for membership. Similarly, an American citizen is free to declare the Constitution a worthless document, while applicants for citizenship are in a different class regarding their affirmations. Their admissibility is judged on the basis of that very Constitution.

Scintillating.

Oh, and it should be noted that one of Mihaly’s other arguments for the Congregation’s admission was that it “includes men and women who have achieved prominent positions.” Give that man an award for the most honest statement in the whole shootin’ match.

And, interestingly, each is also an observant Jew.

Although it’s not the sort of proposition one can prove conclusively, it’s fair to speculate that their personal lives are not unrelated to their demonstrated willingness to stake out unpopular positions that they regard as morally correct and stand by them at significant personal cost.

The saga of Senator Lieberman’s transformation from Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2000 to his current status as pariah of his party is well-known. What is given less recognition is just how strikingly unusual it is for a career politician to have risked and endured what he has – humiliating electoral near-defeat and ostracism – and yet remain steadfast, indeed, defiant, in support of the national security policy of a deeply unpopular president with whom Lieberman disagrees on almost everything else. If an updated edition of John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage were to be issued, Joe Lieberman would surely merit inclusion.

Commenting on ... Read More >>]]> What do Senator Joseph Lieberman, Attorney General Michael Mukasey and attorney Jay Lefkowitz, President Bush’s special envoy for human rights in North Korea have in common? For one, they have each come under severe verbal abuse and public rebuke for the principled policy positions they have taken.

And, interestingly, each is also an observant Jew.

Although it’s not the sort of proposition one can prove conclusively, it’s fair to speculate that their personal lives are not unrelated to their demonstrated willingness to stake out unpopular positions that they regard as morally correct and stand by them at significant personal cost.

The saga of Senator Lieberman’s transformation from Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2000 to his current status as pariah of his party is well-known. What is given less recognition is just how strikingly unusual it is for a career politician to have risked and endured what he has – humiliating electoral near-defeat and ostracism – and yet remain steadfast, indeed, defiant, in support of the national security policy of a deeply unpopular president with whom Lieberman disagrees on almost everything else. If an updated edition of John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage were to be issued, Joe Lieberman would surely merit inclusion.

Commenting on the steady liberal refrain that Lieberman is a “hack,” incoming Commentary editor John Podhoretz writes:

To hold views so discordant with your long-time comrades and colleagues is the sort of thing that can cause even the strongest of men to lose faith in his own views. And most politicians, who must balance conviction with prudence, would go with prudence in Lieberman’s situation and work to stifle his difference with his party’s orthodoxy. . . .

By remaining steadfast on the war in Iraq when others in his party fled their vote and then blamed their inconstancy on the supposed “lies” of the administration, and by refusing to join the jackal-like feast on George W. Bush’s reputation, Lieberman earned the hatred of many fellow Democrats. That hatred caused a hugely rich man in his state to spend millions of his own money to oust Lieberman from his own party’s nomination after serving three full terms as senator.

And yet there he remained, and remains, unbending. This is the opposite of hackery. It is the antithesis of hackery. It is the quality everyone says he yearns for in Washington — principled consistency. . . .

A long –time, highly regarded federal judge, Michael Mukasey answered the call of public service to become the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and, with it, a lightning rod for attacks on a president who has been demonized to an extent that few of his predecessors have been. Despite impeccable professional credentials and a sterling reputation for fairness, moderation and independence, Mukasey was confirmed by the narrowest Senate vote margin of any attorney general in more than 50 years.

Mukasey’s testimony in January before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the interrogation technique known as waterboarding was a study in contrasts: the dignified, thoughtful Mukasey refusing to be baited by self-righteous, intellectually sloppy Democratic senators so patently angling for camera time and to out-do each other as water-carriers for their Angry Left base.

The Attorney General patiently explained that not only was waterboarding only used a handful of times on Al Qaeda operatives to avert post-9/11 attacks, and was currently officially disapproved by the C.I.A. – rendering the entire issue irrelevant – but the governing statute specifically authorized interrogators to balance the cruelty of their techniques against the life-saving value of information gained thereby.

And, for his adherence to moral principle and the rule of law in defense of our nation, Mr. Mukasey was not only dressed down by expedient politicos of half his stature, but he was also accused by the imposing-sounding National Religious Campaign Against Torture (read: a publicist with a website and fax machine) – of which the Union for Reform Judaism is a member – of having “shamed both himself and America.”

At the same time, Mukasey has been anything but a partisan appointee in thrall to the White House. Pledging at his confirmation hearing to quit should he find the president to act unconstitutionally, he has garnered praise even from past critics for distinguishing himself from his predecessor, Alberto Gonzalez, by working steadily to restore the Justice Department’s traditionally apolitical character.

Then there is the case of Mr. Lefkowitz, who was given the daunting portfolio of advancing human rights in North Korea, which is ruled by, perhaps, the world’s most inhumane regime. Frustrated by the almost total lack of progress on both nuclear disarmament and ending the mass starvation and torture of the North Korean populace, Mr. Lefkowitz made the mistake of giving a speech in January in which he noted these plainly obvious facts. (As an aside, Jews have a very specific stake in this issue, since North Korea is a major patron of our mortal enemies, having built the Syrian nuclear facility that Israel destroyed last September and arming and possibly training Hezbollah in Lebanon.)

Well, as a Wall Street Journal editorial put it, “[Heaven] help a diplomat who tells the truth.” As reward for his forthrightness, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice berated Lefkowitz at a press conference as someone who “doesn’t know what’s going on in the six-party [disarmament] talks, and . . . certainly has no say in what American policy will be in the six-party talks.” In fact, Rice said, she “would doubt very seriously that [the Chinese and Russians] would recognize” Lefkowitz’s name. Noting that Secretary Rice’s current policy course is setting President Bush up to spend his final months in office “begging Kim [Jong Il] to cooperate by offering an ever growing and more embarrassing list of carrots,” the Journal suggested that Mr. Bush “listen to Mr. Lefkowitz, while ordering Ms. Rice to introduce him to the Chinese and Russians.”

Three devoted public servants, three principled stands that have earned them opprobrium and disavowal — for Mr. Lieberman, by his own party, for Mr. Lefkowitz, by his superiors for doing the job they entrusted to him; and for Mr. Mukasey, by those for whom political point-scoring outweighs the law and our national security. And it seems reasonable to suggest that the lives these men lead have prepared them well for these sorts of ordeals.

Authentic Judaism is, after all, countercultural in its very essence. Ever since, millennia ago, our forefather Avraham made a radical departure from the prevailing systems of idolatry and human sacrifice and took up his position “across the river,” Jews have been, to borrow William F. Buckley’s phrase, “standing athwart history yelling “Stop!” It has always been so, and continues to be so for that segment of our people which, despite the slings and arrows of scoffers from within and without, continue to uphold and live the truths of Torah.

Only in the last two centuries have many Jews, tragically, given up their privileged G-d-given role of providing a moral counter-example to their host societies, and opted to forsake the perpetual “opposition” for the comfort and complacency of the “establishment.” Some did so through assimilation or conversion, while others chose to create artificial Jewish movements whose express purposes were to mimic either non-Jewish religions or national movements. Yet others discarded the teachings and practices of Judaism while holding onto a vestige of its revolutionary message, channeling it instead into utopian projects of the Communist or other variety; ironically, most of these revolutionary movements eventually morphed into “establishment” regimes that, in turn, suppressed those revolutionaries seeking to be free of their rule.

It is quite the irony that non-Orthodox American Jews are entirely orthodox – nay, ultra-orthodox! — in their unquestioning allegiance to the prevailing moral catechisms of both American high and low culture and liberal Democratic politics. It is their observant brethren in Orthodoxy who challenge these reflexive assumptions at every turn and unabashedly march to a different drumbeat, one that’s been playing since Sinai.

Orthodox Jews are, of course, acutely aware that we are part of a profoundly countercultural movement; it’s the reality of our daily lives. The sundry heterodoxies, however, have never truly faced up to this basic truth; indeed, as noted above, much of their very formation is attributable to the impulse to merge into, or seek detente with, the majority culture rather than exist as a perpetual challenger to it.

The failure of these movements to promote a Judaism that is oppositional (in a positive sense) rather than accommodationist is responsible in large measure for their moribund state. Even the ballyhooed mile-wide-inch-deep revival in Reform, such as it is, is based largely on a dalliance with ecstatic “spirituality,” which is itself a type of countercultural alternative to the crass materialism of American society.

One particular casualty of the heterodox failure to understand Judaism as counterculture manifests itself in regard to gender issues. Reb Avi Shafran recently noted on this site that a “soon-to-be-released report entitled “The Growing Gender Imbalance in American Jewish Life,” by Brandeis University sociologist Sylvia Barack Fishman, will present statistical evidence to confirm what has been widely suspected in recent years: males in non-Orthodox communities are opting out of religious activities.”

Prominent Reform clergyman Jeffrey Salkin, then of Port Washington and more recently of The Temple in Atlanta (which pulpit he recently quit, if memory serves, because he was unwilling to perform intermarriages) wrote about this in Reform Judaism in 1998:

Let’s face it. The great, unspoken crisis facing modern Judaism is the disengagement of men in large numbers. . . . On any given festival morning, 90 percent of the worshippers in my synagogue will be women over the age of 70. . . . In sixteen years in the rabbinate, I have converted hundreds of women but no more than five men.

Salkin goes on to discuss what he considers some of the causes of this crisis. The last one is that

[S]pirituality itself may have gotten a bad name. Men of all faiths often associate spirituality with so-called “feminine” characteristics: inwardness, openness, vulnerability, and nurturing. By contrast, American masculinity connotes independence, industriousness, and competition. Spirituality? Religion? No time, no need, no way.

Then, he delivers the kicker:

“Real” Jewish men need to recognize a powerful truth: Judaism is a counterculture. “Real” Jews have a different way of praying, learning, studying, and seeing the world. Being a Jewish man is — or should be — different from simply being a “generic” man. For generations, Jewish men have found their “macho” in mastery of Torah, in heartfelt worship, and in feats of loving-kindness and charity. Jewish men have typically rejected the culture of “sowing wild oats” and “boys will be boys.”

The man speaks the truth. I just don’t if he even he realized just how subversive a concept — in Reform terms — he was presenting and its possible ramifications for his movement if taken “too far.” Written ten years ago, his words don’t appear to have much slowed Reform’s headlong rush to into the embrace of the culture it’s supposed to be countering.

A condensed version of this piece appeared in the May 28 issue of Hamodia.

Please note that I am entirely unfamiliar with the facts and opposing positions in this case. But, then, my letter isn’t really about this case, but about how journalists striving for objectivity, balance and moderation ought to go about their tasks.

Dear Ms. Kraft,

I read with interest your 5/6/08 article on the JTA website regarding the controversy over a rabbinic court ruling revoking a convert’s 15 year old conversion, and I have several questions and comments to which I would appreciate your response:

1) You write that the ruling is “prompting thousands of converts in the country to worry if their conversions to Judaism are at risk of being revoked.” How do you know this?

And, since the ruling at issue was based, as you write, on the convert’s acknowledgement “that she is not religiously observant ... Read More >>]]> Below I share with you (with very minor changes) the e-mail letter I sent today to Dina Kraft, a JTA reporter, responding to her article on the JTA website regarding the controversy over the ruling of an Israeli beis din revoking a conversion performed many years ago. I hope to share with you any further correspondence between us in this matter as well.

Please note that I am entirely unfamiliar with the facts and opposing positions in this case. But, then, my letter isn’t really about this case, but about how journalists striving for objectivity, balance and moderation ought to go about their tasks.

Dear Ms. Kraft,

I read with interest your 5/6/08 article on the JTA website regarding the controversy over a rabbinic court ruling revoking a convert’s 15 year old conversion, and I have several questions and comments to which I would appreciate your response:

1) You write that the ruling is “prompting thousands of converts in the country to worry if their conversions to Judaism are at risk of being revoked.” How do you know this?

And, since the ruling at issue was based, as you write, on the convert’s acknowledgement “that she is not religiously observant today,” does your reference to “thousands of converts” being worried mean that you are aware of thousands of converts in Israel who made a religious commitment at their conversion but are no longer observant?

2) Could you elaborate on what you were referring to in writing that the ruling prompted, in addition to an emergency Knesset hearing, “public outrage and confusion both in Israel and the Diaspora”?

The only reactions you cite are a “stinging rebuke” by the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) and statements by Ms. Rouaux, a convert, Rabbi Seth Farber of ITIM and Rabbi Feuerstein of Tzohar. That doesn’t seem to add up to evidence of “public outrage and confusion both in Israel and the Diaspora.” Such may, of course, have taken place, but can you kindly provide more detail about such reactions?

3) You use the term “tolerant” several times to describe the views of those against the ruling. You refer to Rabbi Druckman as one who has “been charged with overseeing a more tolerant, open conversion process in Israel.” Similarly, you describe Tzohar as a group of Zionist rabbis that “seeks to present to Israelis a more tolerant face of Orthodox Judaism.”

As I understand it, the issue at hand is one of Jewish legal interpretation, with the court that issued the ruling presumably having found that the relevant texts, decisors and precedents of the Jewish legal system requiring them to find as they did. Thus, the word “tolerance” seems irrelevant. The notion of tolerance is one with emotional and psychological relevance, but seems quite out-of-place as applied to what I believe the court, and, I assume, its opponents as well, regard as a legal dispute.

As someone schooled in both American and Jewish law, I can tell you that a serious legal scholar would not invoke the notion of “tolerance” in a discussion of legal issues unless the relevant legal code specifically validated its relevance.

Indeed, to use a rather commonplace example, even a layperson would not refer to a traffic court judge who applied the law as written and refused to dismiss a speeding ticket as having acted with “intolerance.” I should note that the term “moderate” which you also use several times, is indeed appropriate for the context in a way that “tolerant” is not.

Perhaps even more importantly, due to its emotive connotation, your use of the term “tolerance” seems to imply a value judgement on your part as to which side you’d like the reader to take in this particular controversy, as well as regarding an overall approach to Orthodox Judaism. Whatever your personal views in these regards may be, I trust that, as an ethical journalist, you wish this article, which is news reportage rather than an editorial, to remain resolutely objective, presenting a full and fair account of the facts and views at hand to allow readers to reach their own conclusions. Is that, in fact, your aim?

4) A final observation: You quote the statement of the RCA which accuses the rabbinical court ruling of being “beyond the pale” of halacha, violating “numerous Torah laws,” creating a “massive desecration of G-d’s name,” insulting “outstanding rabbinic leaders,” and being a “reprehensible cause of widespread conflict and animosity with the Jewish people in Israel and beyond.” You quote Rabbi Farber as saying the that the “ultra-Orthodox . . . are willing to sacrifice on the altar of Jewish history” legitimate converts, and are engaging in an “anti-halachic battle.”

These speakers are, of course, fully entitled to their opinions, but their verbiage does come across as very angry and overheated, or as they put it nowadays, “over the top.” Intolerant, or at a minimum, immoderate, shall we say? Yet, ironically, according to your article those making these statements are the “more moderate” Orthodox opposing the “more zealous” Orthodox. Within the context of this article, at least, these terms begin to seem rather slippery.

I must add that you, as well, employ a bit of overheated language in describing the controversy as a “war” between the two sides. A war consisting of what, one press release? Besides, at least from what you’ve cited in your article, this would appear to be a “war” being waged by only one side. Shouldn’t we at least wait until the opposing army has issued a press release of its own beforing declaring war? Then again, that’s quite a strident press release, so perhaps . . .

Speaking as one writer to another, beware of verbal and written inflation; once one applies such literary hyperthermia to a disagreement like this one, what is left for circumstances truly deserving of such description?

I appreciate your efforts to cover events of import to our people, and I look forward to hearing back from you.

Sincerely,

Eytan Kobre

According to an article in the Boston Globe, the two were familiar with the many studies showing that, barring extreme poverty, having more money doesn’t translate into being much happier, if at all. A 2006 study in Science summed up decades of research on the matter:

“The belief that high income is associated with good mood is widespread but mostly illusory. People with above-average income . . . are barely happier than others in moment-to-moment experience, tend to be more tense, and do not spend more time in particularly enjoyable activities. . . . The effect of income on life satisfaction seems to be transient.”

In fact, the researchers contended, their data demonstrated that the more money people have, the less likely they ... Read More >>]]> The late William F. Buckley famously quipped that he’d rather be governed by the first one hundred people in the Boston phone book than by the first one hundred academics on the Harvard faculty roster. Confirmation for Buckley’s bon mot – if such was needed – now comes from a study just published in the journal Science featuring the research findings of two professors, one at Harvard Business School and the other at the University of British Columbia.

According to an article in the Boston Globe, the two were familiar with the many studies showing that, barring extreme poverty, having more money doesn’t translate into being much happier, if at all. A 2006 study in Science summed up decades of research on the matter:

“The belief that high income is associated with good mood is widespread but mostly illusory. People with above-average income . . . are barely happier than others in moment-to-moment experience, tend to be more tense, and do not spend more time in particularly enjoyable activities. . . . The effect
of income on life satisfaction seems to be transient.”

In fact, the researchers contended, their data demonstrated that the more money people have, the less likely they are to spend time doing certain things that are enjoyable.

Building on these long-standing findings, the authors of the new study set out to investigate further: is money inherently incapable of delivering happiness or, is it only money spent on oneself that doesn’t produce the good feelings, whereas money spent on others might well do so? They “suspected” that the latter proposition was correct and “tested their theory” by questioning employees who had just received large bonuses and college students to whom they gave small cash gifts of varying amounts as part of the study.

Their conclusion? That “the size of the bonus you get has no relation to how happy you are, but the amount you spend on other people does predict how happy you are.” They even coined a term for money spent to benefit another: “prosocial spending.” The Globe piece adds that the “study fits in neatly with a growing body of research that finds that helping others is the best way to help yourself, that people who give more and are more socially connected are happier.”

So, you ask, what’s the problem with all this? As Torah-true Jews we do, after all, wholeheartedly concur in these positions, do we not?

Sure we do. In fact, we don’t just concur; we see the notion of living with an other-directed focus, of developing and exalting our giving selves over our grasping selves as the purpose of life itself.

Granted that the Torah itself teaches us this theme in myriad ways. Granted as well that, as observant Jews, it makes eminent sense to believe that living as Hashem intended human beings to live and emulating, in our finite way, His attributes of infinite goodness is a surefire recipe for experiencing fulfillment and profound joy.

Yet, the notion that giving of ourselves and of what we possess to others produces deep satisfaction and happiness is not only a basic article of Torah faith. It is also – like so much else in our Toras Chaim, which we can translate as a compendium of teachings about life — a fundamental axiom of human living.

It ought to be, and hopefully is, known and intuited by anyone who has lived a life and is reasonably attuned to the truths that emerge from everyday experiences. It is, in other words, something that the first one hundred people listed in the phone books of Boston and most anywhere else would, if queried, readily affirm, at least intellectually (whether they’re prepared to live their lives based on that knowledge is, of course, another matter entirely, and is, indeed, what the human dilemma is all about).

And that makes it all the stranger – and more than a tad comical – that the good professors from Harvard and UBC needed to undertake research projects, coin new terms and publish findings in scientific journals – just part of a “growing body of research” — to demonstrate a rather accessible truth, which doesn’t require specialized investigative techniques or gadgetry to measure, as, say, a research study on some abstruse medical topic would.

What all the time, energy and money devoted to these studies have yielded is something that, on any given day, countless good people, engaged in bestowing their goodness on others – which, one hopes, includes the authors themselves – would be happy to confirm. Can you see how this is material that an adept satirist could do wonders with (while I, given my limitations, have to suffice with pointing out that it’s “more than a tad comical”)?

Yes, yes, I know: a researcher can’t very well submit a paper to Science – or, more importantly, garner a grant or a promotion – with a thesis that merely states: ”People who give to others rather than hoarding for themselves lead happier lives. You know it and I know it. End of discussion.”

Ah, but that’s precisely the point of Bill Buckley’s pithy observation about (some) academics (in some fields; add whatever other disclaimers may be necessary to obviate tens of incensed comments) as people long on education and short on common sense toiling in the groves of academe at taxpayers’ or parents’ expense to prove things your auto mechanic would gladly edify you about for free.

Or so I thought, until I read further into the Globe story. There I came upon the observation of yet another academic, a University of California psychology professor whose credentials include authoring a book titled “The How of Happiness.” She opines that the point of the study is that what’s important is “not money per se; it’s what you do with it.”

The article makes her intent clear: merely possessing money doesn’t bring happiness, but the experiences that money facilitates do – and, apparently, whether those are other-directed or self-directed experiences is immaterial. This, despite the conclusion of this very study that how, and on whom, the subjects spent their money was precisely what determined their ensuing level of happiness.

Furthermore, she contends, other mechanisms could help explain why kindness leads to happiness; there are, for example, “social consequences: you might enhance your friendship . . . people might reciprocate.” Not a great recipe for an altruistically-minded society.

I confess: reading the observations of the author of “The How of Happiness” gave me a newfound insight into why research studies on happiness like this new one might actually be necessary – not to mention a renewed appreciation for why our civilization desperately needs what our Toras Chaim has to teach us about life.

Another version of this article first appeared in Hamodia.

No comment because even a thousand-word post couldn’t possibly make as clear as this item does just how profoundly out-of-touch JTA and other secular Jewish media outlets (who also get much of their material from JTA) are about the realities of Orthodox Jewish life. Unless, perhaps, using its telepathic powers or other forms of divination, it knows things about us that we don’t.

I only wish there was some way to convey to these media folks how embarrassing their publicly displayed ignorance of things Orthodox and, oftentimes of Jewish tradition, history and texts, is (assuming, that is, that they care.)

Rabbinic emissary to pray for rain

A thousand Orthodox rabbis are sending an emissary to Atlanta to pray for rain.

Rabbi [name omitted - EK] will perform an ancient prayer ritual Wednesday seeking divine help to end the drought in the South, the Christian Newswire reported. [The rabbi] reportedly performed the ritual in ... Read More >>]]> I’ve been thinking of posting a piece or two on Jewish media bias and I still hope to do so. In the interim (which, in my case can last months . . .), however, I can’t resist posting the below item from today’s JTA News Bulletin, without comment.

No comment because even a thousand-word post couldn’t possibly make as clear as this item does just how profoundly out-of-touch JTA and other secular Jewish media outlets (who also get much of their material from JTA) are about the realities of Orthodox Jewish life. Unless, perhaps, using its telepathic powers or other forms of divination, it knows things about us that we don’t.

I only wish there was some way to convey to these media folks how embarrassing their publicly displayed ignorance of things Orthodox and, oftentimes of Jewish tradition, history and texts, is (assuming, that is, that they care.)

Rabbinic emissary to pray for rain

A thousand Orthodox rabbis are sending an emissary to Atlanta to pray for rain.

Rabbi [name omitted - EK] will perform an ancient prayer ritual Wednesday seeking divine help to end the drought in the South, the Christian Newswire reported. [The rabbi] reportedly performed the ritual in 1986, after which there was four days of rain.

“Orthodox Jews wish to show solidarity with those suffering from the drought and other natural disasters,” said [the rabbi]. “We want to kick off a nationwide movement of prayer. Furthermore, we wish to announce a program which we believe could curtail much of the disaster our country has been experiencing.”

Aficionados of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone may recall the episode in which an inveterate gambler named Bob comes up to the pearly gates and is shown to his place of eternal repose. Opening the doors to a large hall, he beholds a scene that is clearly his idea of heaven. It’s a casino packed with patrons enjoying every manner of games of chance, and Bob, too, quickly joins in the fun.

Lo and behold, he wins at one game after another. Whether it’s roulette, blackjack or the slots, Bob simply never loses. This goes on for some time, until Bob begins to tire of his constant winning ways. Sitting down at the bar, he orders a beer – it’s on the house ... Read More >>]]> OK, I’ll admit it: I’ve been jealous for some time of co-contributors Yonason Rosenblum and Rabbi Avi Shafran for their ability to post pieces they’ve written and published in other venues. So I figured I’ll try my hand at this bit of literary economy as well by posting the piece below, although it’s not standard Cross-Currents fare. It appears, with small changes, in two parts in the October and November editions of Yashar, the monthly newsletter of the Mussar Institute.

Aficionados of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone may recall the episode in which an inveterate gambler named Bob comes up to the pearly gates and is shown to his place of eternal repose. Opening the doors to a large hall, he beholds a scene that is clearly his idea of heaven. It’s a casino packed with patrons enjoying every manner of games of chance, and Bob, too, quickly joins in the fun.

Lo and behold, he wins at one game after another. Whether it’s roulette, blackjack or the slots, Bob simply never loses. This goes on for some time, until Bob begins to tire of his constant winning ways. Sitting down at the bar, he orders a beer – it’s on the house – and remarks to the bartender: “I wonder what the ‘other place’ looks like,” to which the bartender responds: “Buddy, you don’t understand; this is the ‘other place.’” Serling’s eerie theme music comes on, as the camera pans Bob’s dumbstruck face and the scene fades.

Whether Serling knew it or not, this scene encapsulates one of Judaism’s deepest teachings about the nature and function of that which defines a person’s very humanity: his free will. To explain, let’s go for a whirlwind tour of Jewish Philosophy 101, and, in particular, what Judaism teaches about man’s purpose in this world.

In brief, G-d is good, and goodness necessarily implies bestowal of goodness upon another. Being perfect, G-d wishes to bestow the greatest good possible, which is connection to Him, Source of all goodness. He therefore creates all of existence, with man as its focal point.

Utilizing all of created existence to help him become G-dlike, man creates the connection to G-d which will eventually enable him to partake of the ultimate, Divine goodness. Where? In that realm where G-d’s goodness can be experienced fully, the World-to-Come.

There is a great deal to digest here and, indeed, one can, and ought to, spend time thinking through each of the above concepts. But for now, a basic question remains: Why must we pass through our present world, which is so often and for so many a vale of tears, on our way to the ultimate destination of the next world?

The answer to this is a window into our essential humanity: being created in the Divine image, as we are, means being free, really free, as G-d is, to create – and destroy – worlds. By contrast, if we were robotic beings devoid of free will, we’d be as diametrically opposite to the Divine as possible and, hence, no true likeness/connection to the Divine would be possible.

It is only by creating this G-d-likeness/connection, through our moral choices in this world, that we can experience it for all eternity in the next one. We cannot, by definition, receive such connection as a handout – a lesson that our protagonist Bob learned with the dawning realization that the eternal “reward” of never-ending winning through no effort of his own meant that he had been in the “other place” all along.

Interestingly, although Western, post-Enlightenment thought is often at stark odds with classical Judaic beliefs, these divergent worldviews both see free will as an essential component of the human personality.

The Talmud teaches that hakol be’ydei shamayim chutz me’yir’as shamayim, meaning that for all that G-d guides the affairs of individuals and nations alike, each person is granted complete autonomy in one area, and that is regarding his or her ethical choices. G-d is without doubt Master of the Universe, but without puny man’s independence to choose rightly or wrongly in the moral realm, that seemingly endless universe would lose its very raison d’etre.

For its part, contemporary Western thought also sees personal autonomy and self-determination as a defining feature of human living. Indeed, the ideal of inalienable personal freedom has given rise not only to innumerable political and social movements of liberation and human rights, but also to the shrinking of religious authority in the modern era.

Yet, beneath the surface similarity of these understandings lies a crucial difference between them.

In Western terms, the exercise of free will is itself the goal, since it is the highest expression of the human self, and nothing trumps actualizing the self. Commenting on the trend among some moderns to eschew traditional Jewish wedding rituals in favor of self-created ceremonies, David Gelernter writes trenchantly: “The whole point of a wedding ceremony is to offer the couple a chance to enter into something bigger than themselves. But in modern America, there is nothing bigger than yourself.”

And when there is “nothing bigger than yourself,” there is no good reason to cede any part of your autonomy. Indeed, it becomes actually threatening to one’s very sense of self to do so; a partial slaying of the self, as it were.

Yet, without self-limiting one’s choices and actions to some extent, how can one hope to change one’s behaviors and, ultimately, the character traits in which those behaviors are rooted? It is here that we see how the insistence on maintaining maximal free will and never acting to limit one’s options can become a detriment to the process of ethical growth and change that is the very essence of the Mussar life.

For Judaism, however, there most assuredly is Something “bigger than yourself,” and free will is a sine qua non of human living specifically because it is a means to enter into relationship with that Something, which we call G-d. But the knowledge that free will, crucial as it is, is only a means to a higher end, enables the individual to circumscribe it as a way of deepening his relationship with G-d, to “annul your will before His will,” as the Mishna in Avos puts it.

There’s a great paradox in all of this: when one, feeling his very selfhood at risk, refuses to part with absolute autonomy, selfhood is retained, but at the steep price of remaining as he began: an ephemeral, infinitesimal dot in a vast universe, far from the only One Who could give existence true meaning. One, however, who acts heroically (which Torah asks even of ostensible non-heroes) to limit his free will, to negate the ego, does not disappear as an individual. To the contrary, that person merges into the reality of a far greater Existence and thereby achieves real and lasting existence.

The Jewish Week reports on the Kollel’s closing:

Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, which has housed and helped support the Kollel since 1995, announced this spring that it would close the program, following a two and a half year “strategic planning process” that found the Kollel to be a financial drain.

“We seriously had to look at a number of wonderful programs that we would have been delighted to continue, but we frankly could not afford. The New York Kollel Program is one of them,” Rabbi David Ellenson, HUC president, wrote in a letter to Kollel participants who signed a petition and sent letters in recent months as part of a student-led campaign to save the Kollel.

But at least some associated with the program said shutting its doors was not only a shame, but a mistake for the Reform movement.

“Closing ... Read More >>]]> Aha! Now that I’ve got your attention, I can tell the truth: this post is about the closing of the New York Kollel, an adult education program housed in and partially supported by Reform’s Hebrew Union College branch in New York (and thus, my headline about “leaving Kollel” is further inaccurate; it’s the Kollel that’s leaving its students, not vice versa).

The Jewish Week reports on the Kollel’s closing:

Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, which has housed and helped support the Kollel since 1995, announced this spring that it would close the program, following a two and a half year “strategic planning process” that found the Kollel to be a financial drain.

“We seriously had to look at a number of wonderful programs that we would have been delighted to continue, but we frankly could not afford. The New York Kollel Program is one of them,” Rabbi David Ellenson, HUC president, wrote in a letter to Kollel participants who signed a petition and sent letters in recent months as part of a student-led campaign to save the Kollel.

But at least some associated with the program said shutting its doors was not only a shame, but a mistake for the Reform movement.

“Closing a Torah institution like the Kollel seems to be a misunderstanding of the priorities we should focus on,”said Rabbi Joshua Saltzman, the founding director of the Kollel. . . .

“We think that closing the program will harm not only the many students who take classes at Kollel each year, but will also impact our local synagogues and other sites of study,” Lauren Szapiro, the Kollel student who organized the petition campaign, wrote in a letter to the administration. . . .

Rabbi Aaron Panken, HUC dean and vice president for strategic initiatives, said
the Kollel, which was established with grant money from UJA-Federation’s Jewish
Continuity Commission, has cost the school millions of dollars, literally, over
the last dozen years. He declined to offer specific budget details. . . .

The Kollel, which attracted both students and teachers from all denominations of
Judaism, established a reputation for providing a high-level alternative to both the adult education courses run by various Reform congregations, and the Orthodox-sponsored programs that are unlikely to bring in students from non-Orthodox backgrounds.

This article, like many similar ones regularly sprinkled throughout the media, is just another piece of evidence that for all the broadcasted bluster of the Reform movement as “American Jewry’s largest, fastest-growing movement,” etc., etc., the reality is that beyond the membership rolls and press releases, when measured in substantive terms, it is anaemic and empty.

Here is an adult ed program in America’s premier Jewish metropolis that spent “millions of dollars, literally” over a dozen years (although it’s a bit difficult to fathom on what, precisely) for which it had to show what? 300, and later, 200 students per semester, and now, is closing entirely. The figures for other highly-touted, and highly-funded, non-Ortho Jewish adult ed programs aren’t much different; much fanfare, but numerically insignificant, both in actual and relative terms. But I digress.

My focus, instead, is on the single saddest sentence in this article, in my view — the one about the Kollel being an “alternative to . . . the Orthodox-sponsored programs that are unlikely to bring in students from non-Orthodox backgrounds.” It’s not just that it’s patently untrue, since all manner of Ortho-run outreach programming, e.g., Manhattan Jewish Experience, Jewish Enrichment Center,NJOP, Aish, Gateways, Hineni, Jewish Flame, JRC come to mind in Manhattan alone, are comprised of non-Orthodox individuals in the hundreds.

More important is the implication of that sentence, which, although here made by a reporter, is similar to statements one often sees being made by heterodox leaders. For example, in a 2006 exchange on Shmuel Rosner’s Ha’aretz blog, a reader posed the following to Reform movement head Eric Yoffie:

Reform Jews have virtually the lowest birthrate in the nation and even those few children they do have are most likely destined to marry out of the religion or otherwise leave via assimilation. It is very sad but true that within a generation the Reform Jews as a group will be a mere fraction of today’s number and within two generations will no longer exist. The claim of a current membership of a million and a half souls does not stand up when anyone visits the empty temples on any regular weekend (not including special events or holidays) or when the number of temples closing is compared with the number of new temples
inaugurated.

Yoffie acknowledges that intermarriage is a serious problem, but argues that the reader

incorrectly connects this problem with Reform Judaism. This is absurd. Intermarriage is a by-product of modern life, and no group – Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox – has found the answer. . . . And the suggestion that Reform is withering away is equally as absurd. Every study that we have indicates that Reform Judaism is a growing, thriving movement. Do we have empty synagogues? Of course. But we also have many, many dynamic, vibrant synagogues that are frequently filled with studying, praying Jews . . . .

Having thus established his credentials for credibility, he then burnishes them further, averring that

I have nothing but respect for Orthodox Judaism. If Orthodoxy had the solution, I would be the first to acknowledge it. But the reality is that in America, fewer than 15 percent of Jews identify themselves as Orthodox. For most North American Jews, Orthodoxy is simply not an approach to Jewish practice that they will accept. Most American Jews are searching for a particular blend of tradition and modernity that is to be found in the non-Orthodox streams.

So there it is again: “Orthodoxy is simply not an approach to Jewish practice that they will accept.” This from the avatar of absolute individual autonomy and an intellectually honest search for truth, wherever it may lead?

If indeed his respect for Orthodoxy is quite as boundless as he tells us, why does he support his flock in remaining ignorant of the menu of religious choices available to them — Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb and the secular writer Jeffrey Goldberg have both recalled their Reform Talmud Torahs taking them to visit the local churches but never the Orthodox, or even Conservative, synagogues. Why encourage his members’ rejection of that which they’ve never investigated — the very epitome of religious mindlessness that Reform supposedly came into being to oppose?

“Most American Jews are searching for a particular blend of tradition and modernity that is to be found in the non-Orthodox streams”?! First, “most American Jews” are not, tragically, searching for anything spiritual, and certainly not anything Jewish, at all. Millions of them either don’t identify as Jews at all anymore or identify with another religion.

Moreover, when have American Jews ever been presented with a choice of alternatives — Orthodox versus heterodox — presented by articulate and passionate advocates of those worldviews — and, according to Yoffie’s account, they opted in droves for heterodoxy? When has American Jewry had an “Eliyahu b’Har HaCarmel” moment that clarified for all to see that Orthodoxy is something “they will just not accept”? Instead, their knowledge of Orthodox Jews, let alone Orthodoxy’s beliefs and practices, is either entirely absent or so filtered through the antagonistic lens of secular Jewish media and heterodox leadership as to
render it meaningless.

Indeed, judging from the brief such moment that did occur several years ago with the Reinman/Hirsch collaboration, the Orthodox have a pretty popular product, as indicated by the many book reviews that gave Reinman high marks for persuasiveness and coherence and Ammi Hirsch’s own acknowledgment that on his book tour opposite Reinman’s empty chair, he had met “thousands of Jews . . . mostly non-Orthodox Jews eager to learn more about Torah and the Orthodox world.”

And, of course, the tens of thousands of baalei teshuva from all walks of life and Jewish backgrounds who have made their way to lives of full Jewish observance over the past decades provide no small evidence on whether ‘Orthodoxy is simply not an approach to Jewish practice that they will accept.” Is therecompeting evidence for the popularity of heterodoxy on the rare occasions when it and a forthright, unapologetic Orthodox viewpoint have been allowed to compete on a level playing field?

The fact is that Rabbi Reinman had it exactly right when, after withdrawing from his joint book tour with Ammi Hirsch, he wrote, in his powerful response in the Jewish Week to Hirsch’s lament over the former’s missed opportunity to meet those thousands of searching Jews:

So why did I withdraw? And even more important, why was this opportunity for an Orthodox rabbi to meet non-Orthodox people such a rare phenomenon? Ammi offers the answer: “The Jewish world needs you . . . . We should see ourselves as allies in our common struggle to sustain and ensure Jewish continuity.”

You see? There are strings attached to these wonderful opportunities. So Reform laypeople want to hear and learn from Orthodox rabbis? Fine, but only if those Orthodox rabbis acknowledge Reform rabbis as allies. It is like a parent using the children as pawns in a marital struggle. If the Orthodox rabbi stands on a stage side by side with a Reform rabbi, then he can speak to the people. Otherwise, no visitation.

Rabbi Reinman closes with an appeal “to all my Jewish brothers and sisters not to allow your rabbis to hold you hostage. If they do not allow you to meet Orthodox rabbis, read the books I mention in the Afterword [or] write to me at the e-mail address that appears there.”

Last year, I gave a class on the interplay between ethics and Halacha in Brooklyn’s largest Reform temple, arranged by an acquaintance who is an active member. Sure enough, there in the room with the attendees was one of the assistant rabbis. Why had he troubled himself to be there with this small group on a winter evening? The distinct feeling I had then was precisely what Rabbi Reinman describes so aptly: that of one speaking to hostages while their jailor stands by ready to jump in — as indeed he did — and ensure his charges’ intellectual purity at my mention of anything remotely “subversive.”

So, to all ex-Kollel members whose movement can’t find the money for the advancement your Jewish education, I invite you to write or call me and I’ll set you up with a knowledgable and caring Orthodox study partner with whom, I assure you, you’ll be able to raise any question and voice any opinion you’d like without having to look over your shoulder to see if the commissar is watching and listening.

At least that’s what they must be saying up in Morningside Heights in the inner sanctum of the Conservative movement, in the wake of his latest Commentary salvo, The Perplexities of Conservative Judaism. As in his whole series of articles in Commentary over the last several years, describing and diagnosing the progressive disintegration of secular American Jewry, Wertheimer pulls no punches.

Here are a few of the money quotes:

Of the theological brochure the movement got around to publishing in 1988, he writes: “Significantly, it was not until the late 20th century that the movement even tried to produce a statement of principles. Attempting to harmonize irreconcilable beliefs, the resulting document, Emet ve’Emunah, was virtually incomprehensible.”

He also bears out a point made not long ago on this site by Kobre (but which appeared towards the end of a characteristically long piece, which is why some may have missed it) regarding Conservatism’s selective abandonment of pluralism, at least the intra-movement kind, with this damning indictment:

When religious traditionalists dominated the movement’s key institutions, the tactic adopted by proponents of innovation was to argue for pluralism. Rather than accept a single understanding of ... Read More >>]]> Stop him before he writes again.

At least that’s what they must be saying up in Morningside Heights in the inner sanctum of the Conservative movement, in the wake of his latest Commentary salvo, The Perplexities of Conservative Judaism. As in his whole series of articles in Commentary over the last several years, describing and diagnosing the progressive disintegration of secular American Jewry, Wertheimer pulls no punches.

Here are a few of the money quotes:

Of the theological brochure the movement got around to publishing in 1988, he writes: “Significantly, it was not until the late 20th century that the movement even tried to produce a statement of principles. Attempting to harmonize irreconcilable beliefs, the resulting document, Emet ve’Emunah, was virtually incomprehensible.”

He also bears out a point made not long ago on this site by Kobre (but which appeared towards the end of a characteristically long piece, which is why some may have missed it) regarding Conservatism’s selective abandonment of pluralism, at least the intra-movement kind, with this damning indictment:

When religious traditionalists dominated the movement’s key institutions, the tactic adopted by proponents of innovation was to argue for pluralism. Rather than accept a single understanding of Jewish law, they pleaded, let multiple voices be heard. Let there be majority and minority rulings, with both treated as equally valid, and let each rabbi decide what is best for his or her congregation. During the past quarter-century, the pluralists triumphed, winning the battle over women’s religious status and most recently over homosexuality.

Now, suddenly, pluralism doesn’t look so attractive. How can it be, the innovators ask, that the Conservative movement, which trains women to become rabbis and cantors, still permits its congregations to refuse to hire women for those positions? How can a movement undertaking to ordain gay and lesbian Jews tolerate legal opinions that would bar homosexuals from positions of religious leadership?

He also dares to raise the question that has been debated by movement insiders for years, but almost always in the private sphere of the RA journal and the like: “Has the Conservative movement fulfilled its historical role, and should it call it quits?”

One must understand that this is no simple, innocuous question about a tired, has-been abstraction known as “the Conservative movement.” This concerns, and threatens, the livelihood, prestige and very self-image of thousands of movement functionaries and lay leaders. In other words, THIS IS MY PENSION YOU”RE TALKING ABOUT! And we don’t discuss these matters in public, particularly in front of those to our right and left who’d relish our demise.

But Wertheimer takes up the issue nonetheless, rejecting every current idea out there for reviving his movement and proposing his own, which we’ll discuss in Part II.

In the meantime, I conclude with the following. Writing about the significant defections from Conservatism in recent decades, Wertheimer notes the

smaller but noteworthy minority of Conservative Jews . . . gravitating to Orthodox synagogues. . . . These particular switchers tend to be among the best-educated products of day schools, summer camps, and youth programs . . . . Anecdotal evidence suggests that many of them are drawn to Orthodoxy less for its ideology than for its strong communal life. They are seeking a religious support system for themselves and their children . . . .

(emphasis mine)

Curiously, in this paragraph, Dr. Wertheimer, the eminent scholar, much-published historian and collaborator of the eminent sociologist Steven M. Cohen, turns into a teller of anecdotes. Suddenly, in an otherwise well-substantiated article, he is at a loss for hard scientific data and falls back on “anecdotal evidence” — gathered where and by whom? in the local mikve? — to support a claim that backhandedly seeks to convey that many –how many? — of the ba’alei t’shuva who fill our synagogues couldn’t possibly have been drawn there by our fundamentalist ideology — what well-adjusted person would fall for that? — but for the “religious support system” that enables them to go on living their Conservative ideology as Marranos in Flatbush and Monsey.

If he has the data to support the assertion, let him produce it. Until then, this seems like nothing but a retread of the deeply paternalistic canard that non-Orthodox leaders have voiced in the past about young secular Jews becoming Orthodox because they sought a refuge from their unstable, unemployed, drug-and-promiscuity- filled lives on the outside.

An open invitation (and a sincere one; if you know him, let him know about it): I’ll be happy to host Dr. Wertheimer in my black-hat, fundamentalist rabbi-led shul any Shabbos, and introduce him to our president, a charming young professional, well-adjusted fellow who not so many years ago was a leader (perhaps even president) of his Conservative synagogue and who certainly does subscribe to Orthodox ideology and loves the rabbi (and who, by the way, doesn’t wear a black hat, neither in shul nor while on his motorcycle).

Or to the numerous other well-adjusted, successful Reform and Conservative Jews I know who dragged themselves, “kicking and screaming” internally, out of their secular lifestyles to Orthodoxy because, well, you don’t ignore the truth when you find it (and find out how others have been keeping it from you, willfully or otherwise, for decades).

So much for anecdotes.

Elsewhere, the possuk defines a pesi as a “ma’amin l’chol davar,” one who’ll believe anything. Now, it was G.K. Chesterton who famously observed that when one stops believing in G-d, it’s not that henceforth he believes in nothing, but rather that he’ll now believe in anything.

This, then, is Dovid HaMelech’s paean to the Torah — it wises up the pesi. That is to say, Hashem’s testimony teaches the pesi, whose standards of truth are so low and whose inability to think subtly is so great that he’ll believe anything so long as it suits his physical and ego drives, to search for and believe in only that which proves itself to be the truth.

For a living, breathing example of how this works in practice, consider this gem from an interview last week in the Guardian of Dick Dawkins, who, for those thankfully unfamiliar with him, makes a living writing atheistic best-sellers and does a little teaching on the side:

When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, ... Read More >>]]> Dancing this past Simchas Torah to Toras Hashem Temimah, we arrived at the words “eidus Hashem ne’emanah, machkimas pesi” and the following occurred to me:

Elsewhere, the possuk defines a pesi as a “ma’amin l’chol davar,” one who’ll believe anything. Now, it was G.K. Chesterton who famously observed that when one stops believing in G-d, it’s not that henceforth he believes in nothing, but rather that he’ll now believe in anything.

This, then, is Dovid HaMelech’s paean to the Torah — it wises up the pesi. That is to say, Hashem’s testimony teaches the pesi, whose standards of truth are so low and whose inability to think subtly is so great that he’ll believe anything so long as it suits his physical and ego drives, to search for and believe in only that which proves itself to be the truth.

For a living, breathing example of how this works in practice, consider this gem from an interview last week in the Guardian of Dick Dawkins, who, for those thankfully unfamiliar with him, makes a living writing atheistic best-sellers and does a little teaching on the side:

When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told — religious Jews anyway — than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolize American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place.

So there you have it, folks. Meet Richard Dawkins, Oxford don, evolutionary biologist, militant atheist, raving conspiracy theorist. And now, confirmed pesi.

Donny arrived in Eretz Yisrael soon after that and together the brothers sought the counsel of HaGaon Rav Chaim Kanievsky, Shlit”a. I don’t have all the details of what he told them, other than a blessing for success in the matter.

One night several weeks ago, at 4 AM, Donny received a call from his brother: “Donny, I’ve recovered the money!” Earlier that day, Donny’s brother had received an urgent cellphone call to come home at once. Waiting for him there were the two young thieves. They had, in the interim, been chozeir b’tshuvah and had returned to the scene of their crime to return their ill-gotten gains, all 50K — plus an additional fifth of the original sum!

This all started me thinking, in the spirit of the season, about my own t’shuva prospects. Here was an episode in which two individuals’ repentance could actually be gauged in dollars and cents. ... Read More >>]]> I had just concluded the morning Daf Yomi shiur when Donny, our resident Teimani, spoke up with a fascinating tale. This past Purim, his brother suffered a robbery at his Hertzeliya home. Thieves had stolen the housekey and picked the combination of his safe, making off with $50,000.

Donny arrived in Eretz Yisrael soon after that and together the brothers sought the counsel of HaGaon Rav Chaim Kanievsky, Shlit”a. I don’t have all the details of what he told them, other than a blessing for success in the matter.

One night several weeks ago, at 4 AM, Donny received a call from his brother: “Donny, I’ve recovered the money!” Earlier that day, Donny’s brother had received an urgent cellphone call to come home at once. Waiting for him there were the two young thieves. They had, in the interim, been chozeir b’tshuvah and had returned to the scene of their crime to return their ill-gotten gains, all 50K — plus an additional fifth of the original sum!

This all started me thinking, in the spirit of the season, about my own t’shuva prospects. Here was an episode in which two individuals’ repentance could actually be gauged in dollars and cents. A teshuva purchased at this high a price is one that will not easily be squandered — especially so in light of the natural propensity of a Jew to get his money’s worth!

After marveling for some time at the kind of heroes contemporary Klal Yisrael is blessed with, I recalled something the Imrei Emes of Gur said in regard to the mitzvah of Tefillin, but which, I suppose could be applied to most any mitzvah.

Would a Jew give up the mitzvah of Tefillin, asked the Rebbe rhetorically, in return for a huge amount of money? Surely not. Well then, think of the joy you’d feel upon learning you’ve just been awarded precisely that princely sum — and strive to experience that very emotion, or something like it, the next time you put on Tefillin, which, after all, you wouldn’t part with for any price.

But, you wonder, isn’t this cheapening what should be a pristinely spiritual experience by assessing its value in such grossly materialistic terms? Actually, no. It’s being realistic enough to acknowledge a value system which, for better or worse, resonates with you and put it towards a higher purpose. “Monetizing” mitzvos in this way partakes of a hard-headed realism reminiscent of Rabbe Yochanan Ben Zakkai’s response of “u’lvai!” upon his disciples’ wonderment that he had blessed them with fear of H-shem equal to their fear of man.

In fact, giving one’s spiritual acquisitions a dollar value would seem to be squarely within the meaning of serving
H-shem b’shnei yitzarecha, with one’s evil inclination as well. Indeed, a seeming precedent for this is Dovid HaMelech’s exultant exclamation of “Sos anochi al imrasecha k’motzei sholol rov,” whereby he likened his joy in mitzvah fulfillment to that of someone (though, interestingly, not himself) dicsovering a vast, hidden booty.

Another benefit of mitzvah monetization is that the mesirus nefesh quotient is immediately discernable; our Hertzeliya thieves-cum-tzaddikim (or, perhaps, greater than tzaddikim. . .) know precisely what their rejection of sin cost them, and it wasn’t chump change.

Sacrificing — or perhaps better put, investing — in ways big and small has been one of the casualties of our progressively greater enmeshment in our materially wealthy, technologically advanced, frenetically-paced, and self-centered society. When even the venerable trip to select arbah minim in those precious days between Yom Kippur and Sukkos so pregnant with joy, is described as a “hassle” fraught with “agony,” as it has been this pre-Sukkos season by entrepeneurs looking to make a buck by bringing the arbah minim to you in the comfort of your home, we’ve lost something as precious as it is ineffable. Examples of this abound and new ones appear with each passing year.

Yet, at the very same time, Klal Yisroel is filled with those who display mesirus nefesh on a daily basis. Just a few days ago, hundreds of Jews, heads of entire families, embarked in Eretz Yisroel on a year-long demonstration of unimaginable loyalty to Ha-shem’s Torah under the most trying circumstances. But then again, is the quotidian commitment of the innumerable parents who strain mightily to give their children a Torah education and the accoutrements of Torah living, as their American neighbors earning half as much live lives of greater comfort, much less heroic?

May all the deeds of greatness, known or concealed, with which our people is blessed, ensure a year of success in every area of our lives. G’mar chasima tova to all!

One elephant that hasn’t left the room, so to speak, a full month after the publication of that article, is the one relating to the non-Jewish question — that is, the issue of what conclusions are to be drawn from the halacha that requires suspension of melacha proscriptions on Shabbos to save the life of a Jew but not that of a non-Jew, except where failure to save the latter’s life would foster enmity towards Jews, with potential violent repercussions.

I’m fully mindful that, with the onset of Feldman Fatigue Syndrome, this post might go by entirely unnoticed. But I’ve decided to launch it into the blogosphere anyway if only as a way of ... Read More >>]]> A well-worn anecdote has it that a teacher assigned the writing of an essay with the requirement that it relate to elephants in some way. Looking through the submitted papers, the teacher came upon the one authored by the only Italian in the class entitled “Eating Habits of the Elephant.” Next was a piece by the lone Frenchman headlined “Romantic Interests of the Elephant.” Reaching the last essay in the pile, he found the essay of the token Jew. His topic? “The Elephant and the Jewish Problem.”

One elephant that hasn’t left the room, so to speak, a full month after the publication of that article, is the one relating to the non-Jewish question — that is, the issue of what conclusions are to be drawn from the halacha that requires suspension of melacha proscriptions on Shabbos to save the life of a Jew but not that of a non-Jew, except where failure to save the latter’s life would foster enmity towards Jews, with potential violent repercussions.

I’m fully mindful that, with the onset of Feldman Fatigue Syndrome, this post might go by entirely unnoticed. But I’ve decided to launch it into the blogosphere anyway if only as a way of registering my non-acquiesence in the two significant treatments of this topic that I’ve seen presented in response to the Feldman piece.

I take strong exception, based on my understanding of the Torah view, to elements of both essays. I’ve set forth below the passages I find unacceptable, with brief accompanying comment. In my intended Part II of this post, I hope to share a differing perspective on the subject.

First, there is Rabbi Norman Lamm’s response to Noah in the Forward. On the the topic at hand, Rabbi Lamm has this to say:

Why, then, can you not be as generous to Jewish law, and appreciate that certain biblical laws are unenforceable in practical terms, because all legal systems — including Jewish law — do not simply dump their axiomatic bases but develop them. Why not admire scholars of Jewish law who use various legal technicalities to preserve the text of the original law in its essence, and yet make sure that appropriate changes would be made in accordance with new moral sensitivities?

. . . . This is a legitimate way for the Talmudic and post-Talmudic rabbis to protect the sacred Shabbat laws, and by appropriate halachic legislation enable us to live without violating our moral conscience.

Let me clarify my stand, as an Orthodox rabbi, on the issue you raised: It is strictly forbidden by the Halacha to deny a non-Jew whatever is necessary to save his or her life. There must be no discrimination whatsoever. Every human being is created in the Image of God and has a right to life and health.

Briefly, I don’t believe that the notion that “scholars of Jewish law who use various legal technicalities to preserve the text of the original law in its essence, and yet make sure that appropriate changes would be made in accordance with new moral sensitivities” accords with normative Orthodox Jewish belief.

Moreover, the statement that “Every human being is created in the Image of God and has a right to life and health” is correct but inapposite to this topic and, in any event, is not the basis put forth for this halacha by the preponderance of, or perhaps any, halachic sources that I’m aware of.

For his part, author Shmuley Boteach, writing in the Jerusalem Post, criticizes Rabbi Lamm’s approach for its “obtuseness.” Instead, he writes

Is the Jewish religion really so heartless as to give a Jew pause before rescuing a non-Jewish life on the Sabbath? Could it be possible that a religion that so courageously declares, at the very beginning of its Bible, that all humans are equally created in the image of God suddenly reverses itself and declares a non-Jewish life to be not only inferior to that of a Jew, but scarcely worth saving? Of course not. . . .

The Talmud was written at the time of the vicious Roman occupation of the Holy Land. The unbearable cruelty of the Romans led to two Jewish rebellions that were quashed so mercilessly by Rome’s mighty legions that millions of Jews were slaughtered in cold blood. . . .

The Talmud’s discussion, therefore, centered on whether brutal, gentile oppressors like Roman centurions, who were the principal non-Jews with whom the Jews had contact at the time, ought to be saved on the Sabbath. . . .

But when it came to everyday non-Jews, the Talmud was emphatic about their equal place before God and the equality and sanctity of every human life. . . .

Witness the fact that Judaism is the only religion that does not actively proselytize people outside the faith, because we do not believe that a non-Jew upgrades his existence by becoming a Jew.

Where to begin?

First, in positing that Judaism “courageously declares, at the very beginning of its Bible, that all humans are equally created in the image of God,” I believe Boteach confuses a renowned statement of America’s Founding Fathers with another renowned statement in Genesis; the two are not identical. Boteach also needs to cite where specifically the Talmud posits “the equality . . . of every human life.” None of the citations in his essay stand for precisely what it is that he wants them to. [An aside: I'm not sure why it is "courageous" of G-d to declare in His Torah that humans are created in His image. If humans were doing the authoring, that might require courage in a world filled with bloodthirsty pagans, but not for G-d, at least not an omnipotent One.]

Second, Boteach identifies the issue at hand as not only one of Judaism’s supposed ” outrageous . . . particularism,” in Feldman’s phrase, but also its seeming “heartlessness”. But wouldn’t Judaism be seen as equally heartless were it to require that Jews, as well, not be treated in violation of Shabbos? The fact is that the Talmud in Yoma exerts itself greatly to find Scriptural justification for precisely that permit.

Moreover, the Torah indeed does adjure Jews to render their lives forfeit rather than transgress several enumerated sins. In Judaism, we don’t call that heartlessness; we call it, rather, recognition that there are ideals for which it’s worth forfeiting even precious, albeit temporal, earthly existence, a notion which, as it happens, any society that sends its men out to war apparently subscribes to as well.

Thirdly, Boteach writes as if the entire discussion of suspending Shabbos for the saving of life in Yoma and elsewhere in Shas and the commentaries thereon doesn’t exist, and so his writing, as a halachic discussion, can’t possibly be taken seriously. His conjecture that the “Talmud’s discussion, therefore, centered on whether brutal, gentile oppressors like Roman centurions . . . ought to be saved on the Sabbath” is an incredibly narrow reading of this halacha to make without supporting sources — and Meiri isn’t one of them.

Lastly, I would be keenly interested to learn the source for his statement that “Judaism is the only religion that does not actively proselytize people outside the faith because we do not believe that a non-Jew upgrades his existence by becoming a Jew.” I’ve never seen a rationale remotely resembling that one for our discouragement of conversion.

In this sense, this gathering of pretentious eggheads, enjoying an all-expenses-paid jaunt on the dime of a filthy-rich sponsor whose own pretensions are slaked by soaking in the intellectual aroma of the former — read: those who can pontificate; those who can’t, bankroll others who pontificate — is so entirely irrelevant that even the slight energy expended by tapping on a keypad grants it more than its due.

This latest shindig, last month’s grand summit of Jewish People Policy Planner People, some other such regular inanity called — so very understatedly — “The Conversation” — they’re all so fungible and so deeply meaningless.

But one incident at this latest outing, held in Park City, Utah, and put on by the Bronfmans, needs comment. The Forward’s reporter describes the scene when old man Bronfman arose to address the assemblage:

Looking out at the crowd, Edgar ... Read More >>]]> The Forward recently reported on another in a series of what it calls “cushy confabs” that bring together the really important Jews to deliberate and pontificate (although the pontiff himself was not invited — perhaps that big yarmulke did him in) and decide the future course of Jewry and Judaism for all us small folk.

In this sense, this gathering of pretentious eggheads, enjoying an all-expenses-paid jaunt on the dime of a filthy-rich sponsor whose own pretensions are slaked by soaking in the intellectual aroma of the former — read: those who can pontificate; those who can’t, bankroll others who pontificate — is so entirely irrelevant that even the slight energy expended by tapping on a keypad grants it more than its due.

This latest shindig, last month’s grand summit of Jewish People Policy Planner People, some other such regular inanity called — so very understatedly — “The Conversation” — they’re all so fungible and so deeply meaningless.

But one incident at this latest outing, held in Park City, Utah, and put on by the Bronfmans, needs comment. The Forward’s reporter describes the scene when old man Bronfman arose to address the assemblage:

Looking out at the crowd, Edgar bemoaned the “deep sexism” in the Orthodox communities and said he couldn’t “possibly believe God wrote the Bible.” These comments, as well as his uncontroversial plug for tikkun olam, were greeted with hearty applause by everyone, the most religious included.

Now, neither Bronfman’s musings nor the audience’s enthusiasm for them are surprising in the least . . . almost. How did that last line end? “[T]he most religious included”? That’s what I thought.

I haven’t put a call into the Sam Bronfman Foundation to request a full list of the 40-odd invited guests, but I do know from reading press reports in the Forward and JTA that the conference coordinator is an Orthodox rabbi. At least three of the participants are of that persuasion as well, including an individual who was spoken of as a candidate for Y.U. president and the fellow who would have been his competition had the former been selected.

[I omit all names here because I'm really not sure that it's permissible to mention them, and, in any event, this post's objective of drawing attention to their behavior is adequately achieved without such mention. But, dear reader, if you know any of these individuals, by all means feel free to direct them to this post; perhaps they'd like to explain themselves.]

So, if we are to believe the Forward ’s writer, we have prominent Orthodox Jews heartily applauding, along with everyone else, a condemnation of Orthodoxy for “deep sexism” (the article doesn’t say or even imply that any other segment of Jewry came in for Edgar’s wrath on any score, or, if they did, that hearty applause was forthcoming).

They further reddened their palms in appreciationof renowned theologian Bronfman’s considered view, arrived at after eighty-some years of sustained cogitation (for fellow former A. Konigsberg devotees: “with time out only to try to get the two little balls in the eyes of the bear”) that G-d hath not written the Bible (of course not, silly, which CEO doesn’t do dictation?)

But perhaps we rush to judgment, you say, and the mention of “the most religious” refers not to our Orthodox brethren, ro perhaps we ought not believe the reporter at all. It still seems a good bet that if they didn’t applaud, heartily or otherwise, they didn’t stand up and make a ruckus, or even politely demur, or even storm out dramatically, or even slither out quietly. Because had they done so, it’s quite likely that the press would have dutifully reported as much.

And so, the question now becomes: why? Why would Orthodox Jews, sophisticated and glib ones at that, at best sit docilely by, and at worst join in the gladiatorial frenzy, as their faith community, their families, their rebbes, their cherished beliefs, are singled out for public censure as immoral and as an octogenarian am ha’aretz feels entitled, having paid for the food, to boorishly rub his rejection of the essence of Judaism in his beneficiaries’ faces?

There are, it would seem, three possible answers. One is simple cowardice. Another is simple avarice, that is, fear of ruffling the feathers of the goose that lays the golden eggs they so hungrily consume. The Forward itself suggested as much, writing about the whole bunch of fearless intellectuals that “off the record, participants grumbled about the conference’s disorganization, lack of focus, academic arrogance and moments of sexism (the last being likely the fault of the conference’s Orthodox coordinator; you know how deeply sexist those kind are – EK). But no one wanted to step on another’s toes, and certainly nobody wanted to step on the Bronfman purse strings.”

In other words, the dynamic here may have been no different than that at play when, in the past, Orthodox Jews, to their great shame, sat by passively as Michael Steinhardt — another boor who confuses “philosophy” with “philanthropy” — appeared before a high society dinner — one marking Richard Joel’s retirement from the Hillel presidency to assume that of Y.U.! — in full Chasidic dress to nastily lampoon Orthodox Jews. Is there anyone who doubts that a comparable blackface performance would have gotten him thrown off every board he sits on?

So encouraged does Steinhardt seem to have been by the Orthodox non-response that earlier this year, at the posh dinner of another Jewish organization, Steinhardt took the podium to say of Orthodox Jews that “they come from a different planet,” while, according to the Jewish Week , the Orthodox guests in attendance “shook their heads” and “squirmed in their seats,” but apparently weren’t willing to walk out in protest and miss the delectable dessert yet to come. After that incident, too, Samuel Freedman noted that Steinhardt is “a great deal of money with an intemperate mouth, a combination that has let him . . . play on bigoted stereotypes and get away with it because nobody is about to turn down one of his checks.”

Lastly, there’s the possibility that the Orthodox Jews at the Park City event didn’t quite disagree, or at least not vehemently so, with Bronfman . . .

Whichever one or more of these answers is the reality, it doesn’t smell good.

To be sure, it’ll be a great day when omitting the title “rabbi” is the most egregious form of anti-Ortho bias in the secular Jewish media, and, in fact, as my correspondence below makes clear, I didn’t even see this as an instance of such bias.

Yet, I do find JTA to regularly exhibit what I term “passive-aggressive bias.” This means their slant is neither blatant nor particularly noxious (which is, sadly, not so of certain other media offenders);but over time, a perceptible pattern emerges in a variety of ways, of treating Ortho individuals and institutions more shabbily than others, dismissively or with bemusement. I therefore saw this “omission of rabbinic title” issue as a way to open a dialogue with JTA on the broader matter of their pervasive editorial attitude toward Orthos.

For years now, I’ve tried, as a private citizen, to engage various media players on their treatment of the Orthodox community, and I believe it would it would be great ... Read More >>]]> Since several commenters criticized my fellow contributor Yonason (pardon the Hebrew!) Rosenblum for omitting an individual’s rabbinic title, I thought I’d post a recent correspondence of mine with a JTA editor on the very same topic.

To be sure, it’ll be a great day when omitting the title “rabbi” is the most egregious form of anti-Ortho bias in the secular Jewish media, and, in fact, as my correspondence below makes clear, I didn’t even see this as an instance of such bias.

Yet, I do find JTA to regularly exhibit what I term “passive-aggressive bias.” This means their slant is neither blatant nor particularly noxious (which is, sadly, not so of certain other media offenders);but over time, a perceptible pattern emerges in a variety of ways, of treating Ortho individuals and institutions more shabbily than others, dismissively or with bemusement. I therefore saw this “omission of rabbinic title” issue as a way to open a dialogue with JTA on the broader matter of their pervasive editorial attitude toward Orthos.

For years now, I’ve tried, as a private citizen, to engage various media players on their treatment of the Orthodox community, and I believe it would it would be great if other Orthodox “private citizens” would, in large numbers and with great frequency, do the same. At a minimum, it would signal to the media that what they write is being carefully read and evaluated by many of their favorite punching bags, even on as seemingly trivial issue as the omission of “Rabbi,” and all the more so on some of the truly bigoted stuff that gets sent our way.

The June 6 news item in question covered the ransacking of the grave of the Chozeh of Lublin, who was initially identified as Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchok Horowitz, but thereafter referred to only by last name.

Dear Sir or Madam:

I just fail to understand.

You’re a Jewish organization, serving the world Jewish community, and you’re discussing a distressing event that occurred to the grave of a religious leader revered by hundreds of thousands of Jews worldwide. Surely you’re aware of the great reverence with which these Jews refer to such leaders, even going so far as to append phrases like “Zecher Tzadik L’vracha” (May the memory of the Tzadik be a blessing) after their names.

Wouldn’t common decency, then — not to mention sensitivity to fellow Jews’ sensitivities — dictate that you not refer to the rabbi in question as “Horowitz” as if he was just some cab driver?

I’d appreciate a response.

Eytan Kobre

Mr. Kobre,

Thank you for your note.

I’m sorry that you’re distressed by the neutral tone of our syntax regarding that news brief. Our style is, as much as we can accomplish it, the Joe Friday model — the facts and just the facts. And part of our style is that a second reference to a person in an article just includes that person’s last name rather than restating their full name.

JTA, as a news agency that is read by Jews of many levels and traditions of observance, is also careful to avoid phrasing that is not universally used. We also avoid terminology that implies that JTA has an opinion (positive or negative) about any person, even a person who is widely revered within some segment of the Jewish world.

Again, I regret that this is problematic, but that’s our editorial style and has been for 90 years. We mean absolutely no disrespect by it.

Best,

Andy N.

Dear Andy,

Thank you for the prompt response.

I’d like to share a few further thoughts prompted by your response:

1) You write that “as a news agency that is read by Jews of many levels and traditions of observance,” JTA is “careful to avoid phrasing that is not universally used.” Had I been advocating for the use of “may his memory be a blessing” or similar denomination-specific honorifics, my request would be inane and your demurral appropriate.

My point, however, was that there’s a modicum of respect for rabbinical status which, I believe, the vast majority of, if not all, Jews agree upon; even Secular Humanists refer to Sherwin Wine as “Rabbi,” not “Wine”! Indeed, I wasn’t making a case for JTA to use “rabbi” throughout its news items only for Orthodox rabbis, but for all Jewish clergy, whose respective communities hold them in particular esteem.

This, despite the fact that my religious convictions lead me not to refer to heterodox clergy as rabbis, nor would I take any offense if, for similar reasons, a heterodox Jew was to reciprocate in kind. But JTA, as you noted, is not partisan, and thus ought to adhere to a universally-accepted standard of honorific reference.

My point, essentially, was that what you refer to as a “neutral tone” is not that at all. Where a tone of honor is called for, by tradition, social convention and, yes, religious dictate, and yet, such tone is not forthcoming, the resultant effect is dishonor.

2) In justifying the JTA’s style, you write that it “follows the Joe Friday model–the facts and just the facts.” But is that so? I’m a rather avid reader of the Daily Bulletin and have come across a number of items therein in which the writer included material that was extraneous, by any editorial standard, and thus effectively prejudicial.

For example, an item that appeared last July on the succession dispute within Satmar Chasidism provided the basic facts of that story, but then concluded with this paragraph out of left field: “The Satmars oppose the State of Israel because they believe Jews should not have political sovereignty until the Messiah comes.”

Relevance to anything in that story? Zero. Is the reader to reasonably conclude that this is anything other than a grauitous swipe at a group treated by many as anathema?

One more example from my — your — files: Also last July, a JTA news item reported that “a leading Israeli rabbi blamed local outbreaks of avian flu on sexual permissiveness.” Fair enough (although, at the time, I corresponded with someone at JTA — was it you, Andy? — about the prejudicial use of scare quotes in the item’s title “Kabbalist ‘explains’ bird flu”, which said person agreed was improper and would not occur again).

But the piece then concludes: “Basri is no stranger to controversy, and faces a criminal investigation for denigrating Arabs in a recent speech.” Relevance? Is it the notion of “no stranger to controversy” link, and, if so, do JTA items on public figures regularly provide a laundry list of every controversial matter they’re involved in, however unrelated to the story at hand? Methinks not.

I can only conclude that the JTA’s resolve to abide by the “Joe Friday model” is selective, and the criteria for its selectivity, well, I’ll leave that to you to discern . . .

3) Lastly, you write that “we avoid terminology that implies that JTA has an opinion (positive or negative) about any person, even a person who is widely revered within some segment of the Jewish world.” Two points on this: a) Again, I wasn’t asking for some special consideration for a particular figure or any indication of your positive opinion of Rabbi Horowitz, only for a baseline of respect to be accorded to Jewish spiritual leaders, to which I’d think all Jews would assent; and b) I’ve read many profiles, obituaries, etc. of various Jewish figures on your site, and I recall a fair number of them in which the writer’s affection and esteem, if not downright reverence, for the figure was as apparent as could be, from a simple perusal of the piece. I’d be happy to share examples of this at your request.

To conclude, we live in a time when there’s so much sensitivity — much of commendable — to the way others perceive what we say even when we didn’t intend it to be heard that way. This is true in matters of race, sexual orientation, religion, culture and many others. Granted that sometimes, one might say, this tendency veers into an excessive obssession with political correctness (see today’s WSJ editorial on judicial nominations for an example). But should a mechanistic “that’s the way we’ve always done it” really trump the sensitivities of a segment of the community you serve?

I thank you in advance for taking the time to read this lengthy response. I trust you recognize that my taking the time to write it reflects both the seriousness with which I approach these issues and my trust that the JTA is committed to high standards of journalistic ethics and open-minded responsiveness to its readers.

Best,

Eytan Kobre

Eytan,

I do apologize for not having the time at present to engage in this kind of discussion, since I’m currently wrapping up my tenure at JTA and have a ton of issues to get resolved before the end of this week. I have always enjoyed a lively give and take with our dedicated readership.

I’m not sure who’ll be replacing me, but feel free to convey your concerns to them once my seat is filled.

Best,

Andy N.

Andy,

I wish you best success where you’re heading. Where is that, if I may ask?

Can you share with me the name of your replacement at JTA, and, would you pass my comments along to him or her? If you agree I’ve raised issues worth discussing, I’d hope you’d agree to do so.

Hatzlacha to you in your new position,

Eytan

Yerushalayim, whose streets and alleyways — including Rechov HaMelech Dovid – have known the footsteps of prophets, kings, high priests, countless millions of spiritual heroes, known and unknown.

Yerushalayim, within whose embrace sits ge’on uzeinu, Rav Yosef Sholom Elyashiv, shlit”a, who, at this moment, is undoubtedly sitting and singing a melody over a sefer as he has for the last eighty uninterrupted years of toil in Torah, and who tends a flock of thousands and thousands of toilers in Torah and their families.

Could it really be that within those same boundaries unfolds a spectacle in which others — Jews! — exalt into a parade, a philosophy, a movement . . . what? What is it they pay homage to thus? What great truth, what powerful ideal must lie thereunder? At root, under the layers of repackaging and posturing, only the pettiest and basest of fleeting, animalistic urges.

But then, seeking some slight comfort from the pain, I recall a wonderful article by a rebbe of mine, Rav Yechiel Perr, entitled Experiences in ... Read More >>]]> How does one cope with the pain, sitting here in New York, while at this moment, thousands of miles away, our beautifully pure, and purely beautiful, Yerushalayim is being traumatized?

Yerushalayim, whose streets and alleyways — including Rechov HaMelech Dovid – have known the footsteps of prophets, kings, high priests, countless millions of spiritual heroes, known and unknown.

Yerushalayim, within whose embrace sits ge’on uzeinu, Rav Yosef Sholom Elyashiv, shlit”a, who, at this moment, is undoubtedly sitting and singing a melody over a sefer as he has for the last eighty uninterrupted years of toil in Torah, and who tends a flock of thousands and thousands of toilers in Torah and their families.

Could it really be that within those same boundaries unfolds a spectacle in which others — Jews! — exalt into a parade, a philosophy, a movement . . . what? What is it they pay homage to thus? What great truth, what powerful ideal must lie thereunder? At root, under the layers of repackaging and posturing, only the pettiest and basest of fleeting, animalistic urges.

But then, seeking some slight comfort from the pain, I recall a wonderful article by a rebbe of mine, Rav Yechiel Perr, entitled Experiences in Emunah (Jewish Action, Fall ‘92) in which he writes, inter alia:

I remember a certain young man who called from Manhattan to make an appointment to speak with both my parents, as he insisted. This young man had been only marginally interested in Yiddishkeit when he lived in our community and my parents hoped that his call signaled a new interest in Torah. But it turned out that all he wanted was to debate my parents on matters of emunah. In those days, the theory of evolution still had a dominant hold over the popular mind. Science presented itself and was indeed perceived as the infallible truth, while religion was belittled and considered the province of the superstitious and dimwitted.

As soon as it became evident that the young man had no interest in hearing anything contrary to his opinion, my father retired from the field of battle and engrossed himself in a sefer, only looking up once in awhile to see how things were faring with my mother who continued the
argument. I sat by and observed in amazement. Here was a young man utterly convinced of his apikorsus (heresy), who had taken a trip out to Queens only for the purpose of validating his apikorsus by smashing it down on the heads of an old rabbi and his wife. How powerful was the emunah deep within his own heart that required this of him. But moreover, when had my father ever lectured on the topic of science and religion, that he should be made the object of this nasty assault? My father never discussed emunah topics unless he was forced to.

The answer is that my father had an uncompromising commitment to meticulous observance of Torah and this itself spoke resoundingly of the existence of the Creator. It spoke so loudly and clearly that it was still heard years later in a distant place by a young man who had once seen it.

Why do these marchers force themselves on an unwilling Yerushalayim Ir Hakodesh, prepared even, amidst a firefighters strike that threatened to cancel the parade, to pay privately for firefighters to be present just so the spectacle could proceed? Why do they insist, year after year, on flaunting their “pride” here, only here?

This is my hergesh, and only that:

I believe that these people testify more eloquently than I ever could to Yerushalayim’s beauty, a beauty so deep that an estranged Yiddishe neshoma will — must — travel from afar to tarnish it.

It’s not despite, but rather, because this city’s streets have known the footsteps of prophets, kings, high priests, countless millions of spiritual heroes, known and unknown, that the marchers are compelled to march. These marchers, they’re as Jewish as you and I, and their neshamos , too, sense and know what they might not. And under layer upon layer of alienation from kedushah, they hear Yerushalayim’s massive Torah, Avodah and Chesed call out to them in a voice that can be neither silenced nor muffled no matter how much they strain to shout above it to assert their “pride” in that in which they are entrapped.

And I fall in love with powerful, beautiful, wise, holy Yerushalayim all over again.

Just as Dick Dawkins and his fellow best-selling nihilists were riding high, selling books like hotcakes the better to worship their highest being, Mammon, with, along comes Newton’s Secrets, a new exhibit at Hebrew U. revealing Isaac Newton, whom many regard as the father of modern science, to be a wild-eyed fundamentalist not altogether different from your average Brisker, right down to studying Rambam’s Hilchos Avodas HaKorbanos.

No small exhibit, this; Newton’s theological writings, here on public display for the first time, number close to three million words. Here’s how the Associated Press describes their contents:

Three-century-old manuscripts by Isaac Newton calculating the exact date of the apocalypse, detailing the precise dimensions of the ancient temple in Jerusalem and interpreting passages of the Bible — exhibited this week for the first time — lay bare the little-known religious intensity of a man many consider history’s greatest scientist.

Newton, who died 280 years ago, is known for laying much of the groundwork for modern physics, astronomy, math and optics. But in a new Jerusalem exhibit, he appears as a scholar of deep faith who also found time to write ... Read More >>]]> It sure seems like the Borei Olam has a wonderful sense of humor.

Just as Dick Dawkins and his fellow best-selling nihilists were riding high, selling books like hotcakes the better to worship their highest being, Mammon, with, along comes Newton’s Secrets, a new exhibit at Hebrew U. revealing Isaac Newton, whom many regard as the father of modern science, to be a wild-eyed fundamentalist not altogether different from your average Brisker, right down to studying Rambam’s Hilchos Avodas HaKorbanos.

No small exhibit, this; Newton’s theological writings, here on public display for the first time, number close to three million words. Here’s how the Associated Press describes their contents:

Three-century-old manuscripts by Isaac Newton calculating the exact date of the apocalypse, detailing the precise dimensions of the ancient temple in Jerusalem and interpreting passages of the Bible — exhibited this week for the first time — lay bare the little-known religious intensity of a man many consider history’s greatest scientist.

Newton, who died 280 years ago, is known for laying much of the groundwork for modern physics, astronomy, math and optics. But in a new Jerusalem exhibit, he appears as a scholar of deep faith who also found time to write on Jewish law — even penning a few phrases in careful Hebrew letters — and combing the Old Testament’s Book of Daniel for clues about the world’s end.

The documents, purchased by a Jewish scholar at a Sotheby’s auction in London in 1936, have been kept in safes at Israel’s national library in Jerusalem since 1969. Available for decades only to a small number of scholars, they have never before been shown to the public.

In one manuscript from the early 1700s, Newton used the cryptic Book of Daniel to calculate the date for the Apocalypse, reaching the conclusion that the world would end no earlier than 2060.

“It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner,” Newton wrote. However, he added, “This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail.”

In another document, Newton interpreted biblical prophecies to mean that the Jews would return to the Holy Land before the world ends. The end of days will see “the ruin of the wicked nations, the end of weeping and of all troubles, the return of the Jews captivity and their setting up a flourishing and everlasting Kingdom,” he posited.

The exhibit also includes treatises on daily practice in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. In one document, Newton discussed the exact dimensions of the temple — its plans mirrored the arrangement of the cosmos, he believed — and sketched it. Another paper contains words in Hebrew, including a sentence taken from the Jewish prayerbook.

Yemima Ben-Menahem, one of the exhibit’s curators, said the papers show Newton’s conviction that important knowledge was hiding in ancient texts.

“He believed there was wisdom in the world that got lost. He thought it was coded, and that by studying things like the dimensions of the temple, he could decode it,” she said.

The exhibit’s host, the Jewish National and University Library (JNUL), has this to say about the collection:

Newton’s scientific achievement remains unchanged as a result of the uncovering of this vast archive of unpublished papers. White light is still composed of all the colours of the rainbow and Newtonian physics still launches satellites into orbit with exacting precision. But our understanding of the man who made the new physics has been permanently altered. Newton now appears to us a more complex person with an even more widely-ranging intellect than had previously been realised.

Newton was one of the last great Renaissance men, a thinker who worked in mathematics, physics, optics, alchemy, history, theology and the interpretation of prophecy and saw connections between them all. We also see in Newton a Janus-faced figure who looked to the past for inspiration even as his innovations pointed toward the future. Finally, when added to his published writings on physics, mathematics and optics, the manuscripts displayed in this exhibition reveal a man in pursuit of all the multifarious the secrets of God and Nature.

“More complex person with an even more widely-ranging intellect than had previously been realised” ? “One of the last great Renaissance men, a thinker who worked in mathematics, physics, optics, alchemy, history, theology and the interpretation of prophecy and saw connections between them all” ? “A man in pursuit of all the multifarious the secrets of God and Nature” ? Vey iz meer . . . Mr. Dawkins — whose professorial chair is named, if I recall correctly, something like the Oscar Meyer Weiner Chair in the Public Understanding of Science, but is a legume in the presence of Sir Isaac — must be getting indigestion just about now.

Dr. Mordechai Feingold, a CalTech history of science professor and world-class Newton scholar, notes that the Newtonian search for rational, universal principles impacted the development of virtually every intellectual field, even literature, history and psychology. Says Feingold: “Everyone wanted to be the Newton of their field. Adam Smith wanted to be the Newton of economics; David Hume wanted to be the Newton of moral philosophy.” So perhaps there’s a role for Dick the Prof to play, after all; if he tries really hard and sells enough books, maybe he can be the Newton of atheism, although since Newton was about bringing rational analysis to subjects previously governed by emotion, that might be a self-defeating exercise on Dawkins’ part.

A further fascinating nugget about this collection is the following note that Albert Einstein, apparently after having had a look at these writings, penned to Abraham Shalom Yahuda, the Orientalist who first purchased the papers now on display:

My Dear Yahuda,

Newton’s writings on biblical matters seem to me particularly interesting because they afford deep insight into the unique mind and thought process of this great man. The divine origin of the Bible is, for Newton, absolutely certain, a certitude that stands in peculiar contrast to the critical skepticism that characterizes his stand vis-à-vis the Churches. This confidence led him to the firm conviction that the seemingly opaque parts of the Bible must contain important revelations, the clarification of which can only be achieved by deciphering the Bible’s symbolic language. Newton pursued this decipherment, i.e., this interpretation, by means of incisive, systematic thinking and meticulous utilization of every possible source.

While the process by which Newton’s writings about the physical world evolved must remain hidden, as Newton apparently destroyed the preliminary versions, in the realm of his biblical work, which is still mostly unpublished, we have a variety of sketches and ongoing changes that give us a most interesting look into the mental laboratory of this unique thinker.

A. Einstein, September 1940

P.S. I consider it very wonderful that Newton’s aforementioned writings are to be brought together in one place and made available there to researchers.

The JNUL observes that the “treasures of this exhibition invite us to rethink traditional dichotomies: ancients and moderns, science and religion, the rational and the irrational.” Indeed.