Modern Orthodoxy – Excerpted

“…as creators of Halakhah, we must work to make sure that every halakhically committed voice is genuinely heard”

11 October 2019 Drew KaplanModern Orthodoxy

…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[…]

“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”

23 September 2019 Drew KaplanModern Orthodoxy

…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[…]

“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”

18 April 201918 April 2019 Drew KaplanModern Orthodoxy

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[…]

“…in recent years, two issues have risen to the forefront of our communal consciousness that have proven to be stressors of” Modern Orthodoxy

22 March 2019 Drew KaplanModern 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,[…]

“…a schism in American Modern Orthodoxy will have grave consequences both practically AND ideologically for both conservative and liberal sides of the community”

10 February 20198 February 2019 Drew KaplanModern Orthodoxy

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[…]

“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”

26 November 2018 Drew KaplanModern Orthodoxy

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[…]

Modern Orthodoxy’s “future will likely be as ambiguous and complicated as its complex, tension-filled philosophy”

11 October 2018 Drew KaplanModern Orthodoxy

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[…]

“The overpriced balloon of the Modern Orthodox experience rests on three core flaws”

26 February 201825 February 2018 Drew KaplanModern Orthodoxy

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[…]

“…denominations are more than just ideas and orientations…”

29 May 201726 May 2017 Drew KaplanConservative Judaism

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[…]

“…everything there is to know about the halakhic process and its development can be understood from within it is a claim that is untenable in light of the last thirty or forty years’ of knowledge production in the academy”

13 March 20176 March 2017 Drew KaplanModern Orthodoxy

The Rav’s words have been traditionally understood as an affirmation of the world-view of Brisk in which he was educated. But they are also of a piece with Sarton’s early-twentieth-century approach to studying great men[…]

Excerpted

Excerpts of Interest

Category: Modern Orthodoxy

“…as creators of Halakhah, we must work to make sure that every halakhically committed voice is genuinely heard”

“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”

“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”

“…in recent years, two issues have risen to the forefront of our communal consciousness that have proven to be stressors of” Modern Orthodoxy

“…a schism in American Modern Orthodoxy will have grave consequences both practically AND ideologically for both conservative and liberal sides of the community”

“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”

Modern Orthodoxy’s “future will likely be as ambiguous and complicated as its complex, tension-filled philosophy”

“The overpriced balloon of the Modern Orthodox experience rests on three core flaws”

“…denominations are more than just ideas and orientations…”

“…everything there is to know about the halakhic process and its development can be understood from within it is a claim that is untenable in light of the last thirty or forty years’ of knowledge production in the academy”