Monthly Archives: December 2013

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“Promptly following the first arrival of Jews in colonial America, the synagogue became the most significant institution of Jewish life”

Promptly following the first arrival of Jews in colonial America, the synagogue became the most significant institution of Jewish life. Unlike in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, when other institutions, such as Jewish community centers and Jewish philanthropic organizations, often claimed to be the “central address” of the Jewish community, no other organization challenged the dominance of the early synagogues. In part, this was the case for two reasons: because, well into the nineteenth century, synagogues incorporated activities that later, as the Jewish population grew, could not all be contained within the synagogue or whose leaders did not want them to be part of the synagogue, and also because the Jewish community was so small…. The synagogue…was the Jewish community in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries . As American Jews slowly created philanthropic organizations, the synagogue enveloped them.

Marc Lee Raphael, The Synagogue in America: A Short History (New York & London: New York University Press, 2011), 2.

“There has been a change in the history of scholarship on text editing and textual commentary”

…there has been a change in the history of scholarship on text editing and textual commentary. The principle of searching for, creating or re-creating the best possible text, re-covering it, has been supplanted by the quest for the original text by criticizing, analyzing, and commenting on the manuscript tradition. The “original text”, reconstructed by intuition, reflection, and supposition, became the hypothetical beginning of the tradition andlor of the author’s intention. The search for the original text was also the prime question in the final decades of the 20th century and will doubtless also concern us in the future.

Giuseppe Veltri, “From The Best Text To The Pragmatic Edition: On Editing Rabbinic Texts”, in The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature, eds. Reimund Bieringer, Florentino García Martínez, Didier Pollefeyt, Peter Tomson (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2010), 64.

It’s surprising that anybody’s surprised with the Pew Forum Report results….

Since the release of the Pew Research Center survey on American Jews, the question I’ve been asked most often is what surprises me about it.

What surprises me most is that anybody is surprised.

The Pew report points to a series of phenomena that are well known in the world today: identity fragmentation, radical free choice, embracement of diversity, and the breakdown of organizational and ideological loyalties. For many of these phenomena we are the canary in the coal mine, the early adopters and the over-adapters.

The report is not good news or bad news. It shows us a reality we can’t ignore anymore. It is up to us to see the opportunities hidden in this new reality.

Andres Spokoiny, “Study Points The Way Toward More Avenues to Jewish Life”, The Jewish Week (8 November 2013), 42.

“…given the breadth of Jewish history we must acknowledge that changes occur periodically without us really knowing exactly when and how”

This evolution of customs may seem surprising to a society which is not at all accustomed to changes and evolution. In our everyday life, we have the impression that Jewish traditions are immutable. Even in issues where an adaptation is desired by a significant part of the community, change seems impossible and scholarly rabbinical initiatives remain theoretical, without practical consequence.

Nevertheless given the breadth of Jewish history we must acknowledge that changes occur periodically without us really knowing exactly when and how.

J. Jean Ajdler, “The Order of Lighting the Hanukkah Candles: The Evolution of a Custom and the Influence of the Publication of the Shulhan Arukh”, Hakirah 7 (Winter 2009), 225.

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Rap’s “lyrics present themselves as a problem to be solved”

As lyrically dense as rap can be, it’s no wonder that the lyrics present themselves as a problem to be solved, something to be organized either in wiki fashion or to be parsed like raw data. In wiki arrangement, the lyrics are treated as having no intrinsic value beyond the references they make; as raw data, they are done away with almost entirely. Both approaches belie an attitude that ultimately creates distance between the listener and the music: rap lyrics are data; rap lyrics are graphs. Rap lyrics are poetry to be read in your smoking jacket with a glass of Cognac…. Perhaps this is reflective of a certain discomfort that rap music’s ever-broadening fan base has with the genre (or a discomfort with its own outsider’s unfamiliarity with the genre). It at least suggests a nascent anxiety: that to appreciate the music in a direct and visceral or even emotional way would be untoward for the effete, urbane listener. It is hard to imagine this brand of wink-wink analysis happening to any other form of music….

Willy Staley, “What Is the Real Meaning of ‘Fanute’?”, The New York Times Magazine (15 July 2012), 49.

Change leaders have to create engagement not natural to the way we look today, but for how we want to be in the future

Change leaders have to create engagement not natural to the way we look today, but for how we want to be in the future.
Therefore, we must step back and create new entry points – new farm teams – from investing in diverse leadership programs, establishing brand new endeavors, and perhaps the hardest of all, challenging our traditional organizations to completely re-imagine how meetings are run and decisions are made. The status quo is not working.

Marci Mayer Eisen, “Where Did Our Farm Teams Go? Rethinking Committee Process“, eJewish Philanthropy (17 July 2013).

“…you have to be somewhat careful when you have reliance on religious values on moral intuition of pretty much anyone”

There are rabbis – even Orthodox rabbis, on the left – who will tout and focus on this sense of individualism, as part of their halakhah. Or, to put it another way, they may apply Rabbi Avi Weiss’ method, but focus more on the individualism of themselves and put much of themselves into the halakhic process, by which they will impose on other people. It’s a reason why you have to be somewhat careful when you have reliance on religious values on moral intuition of pretty much anyone for this very reason, because אין לדבר סוף.

Rabbi Josh Yuter, “Halakhic Process 26 – R. David Hartman and Religious Individualism”, Yutopia Podcast #121 (3 November 2013).

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A Fundamental Difference Concerning Conversion Between the Liberal Denominations and Orthodox

Today’s liberal Jewish communities, in which rigorous observance of the ritual commandments is no longer part of the fabric of daily Jewish life, insist that a genuine desire to join the Jewish people and share in its fate ought to be a sufficient standard for conversion. Many Orthodox communities, alarmed by what they see as the dilution of Jewish content in liberal Judaism, in general, and liberal conversations, in particular, have responded by adhering ever more rigidly to classic conversion standards. Valid conversions must be accompanied by a genuine commitment to observe the commandments — “for the sake of heaven” (Geirim 1:3) — they insist, and conversions that lack that are simply null and void.

Daniel Gordis, “What, Not Who, Is a Jew?”, Sh’ma (March 2011), 12.

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“The divisions and politics of the Orthodox, the Modern Orthodox world are important – but only to a point”

As a rabbi, I spend most of my time reading writing, talking, discussing and arguing about Jewish things. There is a lot to argue about, a lot to talk about. From our perspective, these issues can seem not just important, but overwhelming, more important than anything else could possibly be. The divisions and politics of the Orthodox, the Modern Orthodox world are important – but only to a point. The question of the differences between Yeshiva University, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, between this group and that group, this rabbi’s statement and that rabbi’s counter statement – these are all important issues. But, for too many of us, for me, personally, they are given far more prominence than could possibly be justified.

Rabbi Shaul Robinson, “Priorities: Inside the Tent and Outside“, Lincoln Square Synagogue Blog (11 November 2013).

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A Talmudic Tension Concerning Converts Accepting Commandments

…the talmudic sources are divided. A well known baraita (Yevamot 47a) says that converts should at first be turned away: “Our rabbis taught: If at the present time a man desires to become a proselyte, he is to be addressed as follows: ‘What reason have you for desiring to become a proselyte? Do you not know that Israel at the present time is persecuted and oppressed, despised, harassed and overcome by afflictions?’ If he replies, ‘I know and yet I am unworthy,’ he is accepted immediately ….” After he is accepted, he is instructed in some of the commandments, but his acceptance comes first.

But another source (Bekhorot 30b) insists that a convert who rejects a single iota of Jewish law may not be accepted. These sources can be made to agree, but doing so clouds the question that their apparent contradiction raises. Is being a Jew fundamentally about the observance of every detail of Jewish law (as Bekhorot implies), or does converting mean joining a covenantal community that sees itself as marginal, a community in which commandments are central, but perhaps not the defining characteristic (as in Yevamot)?

Daniel Gordis, “What, Not Who, Is a Jew?”, Sh’ma (March 2011), 12.