“The public intellectual face of Modern Orthodoxy comes to look too much like the Haredi world, with whom we disagree profoundly on issues of gender and women’s place”
The public intellectual face of Modern Orthodoxy comes to look too much like the Haredi world, with whom we disagree profoundly on issues of gender and women’s place. More importantly, it widens the every growing chasm between women’s two lives: their experiences in the larger society as competent professionals who are respected as equals, and […] continued…
“…as creators of Halakhah, we must work to make sure that every halakhically committed voice is genuinely heard”
…communities need joy to survive, and Modern Orthodoxy cannot be built on constant moral self-denial. It is true that as subjects of Halakhah, our foremost duty is to find ways to obey even when our opinions are not followed. But as creators of Halakhah, we must work to make sure that every halakhically committed voice […] continued…
“the Artscroll Siddur is the product of a worldview which does not reflect the values of the Modern Orthodox community and therefore cannot truly meet the needs of our community”
…the Artscroll Siddur is the product of a worldview which does not reflect the values of the Modern Orthodox community and therefore cannot truly meet the needs of our community. There is no indication that congregations like ours observe Yom Ha-Atzma’ut, for example, as a day of religious significance when Tahanun is omitted and Hallel might be recited. The […] continued…
“as the culture of the mid-twentieth century was replaced…, the notion of students grappling with their yeshiva and college educations…, producing a grand synthesis called ‘Modern Orthodoxy’, seemed increasingly quaint”
Yeshiva College has also changed along with the broader landscape of higher education. We still have impressively bright, industrious, passionate students. But as the culture of the mid-twentieth century was replaced by that of the ‘90s and then the next century, the notion of students grappling with their yeshiva and college educations, in which Jewish […] continued…
“…in recent years, two issues have risen to the forefront of our communal consciousness that have proven to be stressors of” Modern Orthodoxy
Modern Orthodoxy is hard to understand and harder to live. Orthodoxy is a set of views and behaviors that is governed by precedent and authority. It is most comfortable with stasis. Change irritates the system, and especially change that is based on what best can be described as modern sensibilities. In contradistinction, the fuel for […] continued…
“…a schism in American Modern Orthodoxy will have grave consequences both practically AND ideologically for both conservative and liberal sides of the community”
I think a schism in American Modern Orthodoxy will have grave consequences both practically AND ideologically for both conservative and liberal sides of the community. Not only because we’re already enmeshed in the same schools and shuls, not only because some people find themselves smack dab in the center, not only because MO itself is […] continued…
“Material affluence, and the anxiety (and feelings of precarity) that surround that affluence, in the modern Orthodox world are not specific phenomena of a particular religious subgroup”
To understand modern Orthodoxy, we must view “Orthodoxy” within its larger social, economic, and cultural contexts. For example, if you read modern Orthodox Jews’ disinvestment from American citizenship as being, at best, a manifestation of a centuries-old relationship of Jewish ambivalence toward the society around it, and, at worst, hostility toward that society, we miss […] continued…
Modern Orthodoxy’s “future will likely be as ambiguous and complicated as its complex, tension-filled philosophy”
Despite Rabbi Lamm’s eloquent and intellectually sophisticated elucidations of the Modern Orthodox world view, Modern Orthodoxy has failed to attract as many adherents as ultra-Orthodoxy—the American ultra-Orthodox population is currently twice as large as (and growing faster than) the Modern Orthodox population—a challenge to the movement that Eleff does not ignore. The ideology of Modern […] continued…
“The overpriced balloon of the Modern Orthodox experience rests on three core flaws”
The overpriced balloon of the Modern Orthodox experience rests on three core flaws: Jewish organizations are too top heavy, with too many positions filled by wives and cronies, and with amply-paid rabbis who are out of touch with the financial woes of their congregants. There are too many very wealthy board members controlling too much […] continued…
“…denominations are more than just ideas and orientations…”
It seems kind of obvious that, if there is a denominational shakeup and a reclassification of the religious-behavioral map, there is an emerging denomination that constitutes a hybrid of conservative Conservatives, the Open Orthodox, and the miscellaneous traditional-egalitarian types who tend to resist classification, but usually originate from one of those two heritages. It is […] continued…
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