Category Archives: Jewish

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“The edition of these rabbinic texts is a truly titanic task for scholars who intend to establish the pure, original text”

A first conclusion is that the principle of the oral Torah let the rabbis have full control over the transmission and actualization of texts considered important for the community. If the rabbis were not afraid to change the text of the written Torah, if possible, that did not deter them either from expurgating every other text not in agreement with their teaching. Yet, rabbinic Judaism lacked a central authority and an orthodoxy capable of suppressing other opinions. We are facing a most diverse approach by the rabbis to the written and oral Torah, which also explains the ocean of variant readings in the manuscripts and of tractates being interlaced with the most divergent literary forms of transmission down to the period of authored literature in the Middle Ages. The edition of these texts is therefore a truly titanic task for scholars who intend to establish the pure, original text. For the word “origin” is not identical with the idea of a tradition born in the world of authority, and authority can also be a plural attribute of a tradition over the course of the time. And that is, likewise, the premise to understand the contemporary discussion on text redaction.

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), 71.

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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.

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.

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.

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“People who try to come up with grand theories of Judaism: the theories tend to be based on one or two sources to the exclusion of everything that contradicts it”

A lot of people selectively cite sources. People who try to come up with grand theories of Judaism: the theories tend to be based on one or two sources to the exclusion of everything that contradicts it. We saw some examples of Rabbi Avi Weiss doing that, too. In particular, saying “We follow the tradition of Rav Kook” except for the parts you don’t like. Here [with Rabbi David Hartman], his primary foundation paradigm is Abraham’s argument with God. But ignoring everything else. It’s a blind spot that people have. And I think everyone has that blind spot. The question is “What do you do with it when confronted with things that conflict?” Hartman already admitted that when you come across a text that conflicts with your moral sensibility, you reinterpret that text to fit your moral sensibility, as opposed to using conflicting texts to, maybe, refine a better, more nuanced halakhic sensitivity. Grand theories are where, I think, people get in trouble. When you say “This is the core thing of Judaism”, but what about all these other things in the Torah that don’t fit? “Ah, we’ll reinterpret it to make it fit”, but then you’re not really following God as much as following either yourself or what you think God really meant. Both of which are incredibly presumptuous.

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