Rabbah Kletenick?

This is interesting.

Rabbi Moshe Kletenick is the president of the RCA. Last week, the Agudah gleefully quoted him as saying "it is unacceptable for an Orthodox Synagogue to have a woman on its Rabbinical Staff".

When the Jewish Week questioned him about this he said "A woman can play a lot of roles, but she cannot be a Rabbi", which isn't quite the same thing.

Even more interesting, is that Kletenick's daughter Gilah was a speaker at the recent JOFA conference and is a congregational intern at the Hebrew Institute of White Plains. Apparently, a congregational intern is entirely different from a member of the rabbinic staff, although the good Rabbi declined to explain exactly what the difference is.

The difference is obvious though - a woman cannot be a member of the Rabbinical Staff, no matter what her title. However a woman can be a congregational intern. As to whether a woman can be a congregational intern, and also be called RABBAH, now that's a shailoh!

Bottom line: None of this makes the RCA or the Agudah look very credible. Or sensible.

UPDATE: She's also a founder of TEIQU. Course you can't blame a Rabbi for his daughter, or his brother.

When Fundies Turn into Skeptics, A Play in 2 Acts

Act 1

Fundie: My religion is true!

Skeptic: How can you say that? There are so many different contradictory religions, none of them have any solid evidence, the whole thing is entirely subjective and unproven. Your religion is an extraordinary claim which can only be accepted with solid evidence.

Act 2

Skeptic: The Documentary Hypothesis is true!

Fundie: How can you say that? There are so many different contradictory theories, none of them have any solid evidence, the whole thing is entirely subjective and unproven. Your hypothesis is an extraordinary claim which can only be accepted with solid evidence.

An entirely random collection of obscure you tube videos

Is Chardal a Kofer?

ej posted a very interesting comment from Chardal:

I think that many of these dilemmas [i.e. DH vs. TMS] are more central to galus Judaism than EY Judaism. Over here, we Religious Zionists see Judaism as being based on certain concrete ethical/political goals more so than on a set of dogmas. I think that this was true for chazal as well (and pretty much true until the middle ages). If we accept that chazal had a "functional theology" then any "dogmas with consequences" which exist in the gemara were the result of ethical/political goals and not the source of an ethical edifice (as they were for thinkers such as the Rambam). I believe that such an approach is only possible as an autonomous community (whether in EY or Bavel). Today, of course, it is only possible in EY.

In other words, the ikkar of Judaism for Chazal was Nationhood (in Zion or in Bavel). All that Torah Min Hashamayim stuff was just a sideline and not really the ikkar. But now that we are in Golus, we have lost that Nationhood aspect, hence we all obsess over TMS. If were good Zionists living in Israel, we wouldn't care so much.

From a sociological point of view, I think there's some truth to this. It doesn't help me much, unless you could really show that for Chazal, TMS was very peripheral, not the ikkar.

The Five Major Fallacies of the Fundies about the DH

1. Textual Interpretation is all subjective, its not a science

Well of course its not physics. Duh. But just because something is not physics doesn't mean you can just do whatever you want. There are reasonable interpretations and there are unreasonable interpretations. Fundies who argue like this are disingenuously adopting (and intentionally warping) an extreme post modernist stance. Sure, maybe from a sociological point of view authorial intent doesn't matter, and whatever interpretation actually sticks to a text is what does matter in the here and now, but that has absolutely nothing to do with Biblical textual analysis. Using clues from the text, plus extensive knowledge of linguistics, history, Ancient Near East religion and texts, the entire world (apart from the fundies) all agree that the text is late and composite. And you don't need to be a Biblical Scholar to see that - just read the text! It's obvious.

2. We all have biases, academics too

This one is downright chutzpadick. The global community of academics have all converged on one position (i.e. composite text), even though they could have easily continued arguing about that, just like they do about every other detail. And they could have easily said one author but not Divine, so this has nothing to do with God. Yet there is not a single serious (i.e. non fundie) academic school of thought which holds anything like single authorship. On the other hand, fundies are emotionally brainwashed from birth (or through being born again) to hold of TMS. Not only that, but halachically they (believe they) are required to hold of TMS. Do you know how painful it is for a committed fundie to give up the belief in TMS? Well I do. I know it first hand. It is literally emotionally and mentally painful. I'm not kidding your heart and your brain actually HURT.

3. There is no DH, just lots of contradictory theories

The hypocrisy is interesting here. When you point out to fundies that all religions contradict each other, they respond well at least they all believe in the supernatural, so that's an argument for God. Yet when it comes to the DH theories, the lack of consensus in the details has them arguing that the whole thing has no credibility! I agree that when it comes to specific details of who said what and when and why, mostly we have a lot of theories. The matter is far from solved on a posuk by posuk basis, and probably never will be, the text is just too much of a mess to adequately deconstruct where exactly it came from. And actually, I think the problem is inherently unsolvable, because its not like a single editor took 4 sources and edited them. It was a long process from oral to textual, over hundreds of years. There's just no way you could ever map that out for every word, at least not with current technology. But again, that's not the issue. The issue is that the text is clearly a composite.

4. You don't know how God writes

This one is extremely hypocritical, because the whole enterprise of learning Torah and darshening the posuk is based on the fundamental assumption that God writes like a normal human being, and we can decipher the texts using normal rational thought. Once you say "you don't know how God writes", you've just destroyed any rational chance of understanding the Biblical text at any level. Also, any God who writes deliberately like multiple people and a redactor is clearly a trickster God, and not One I would worship.

5. Chazal/Meforshim/Cassutto have already answered all the questions

Not even remotely true. If it was, you can be sure that the MO fundies would have that material, but they don't. They try to score a few pot shots here and there, but thats about it. Theres a ton of reasonable arguments showing composite text, and mostly lame answers in response. The MO fundies KNOW the DH is a problem.

Of course there are other bogus arguments, but they're even stupider. For example, one argument that Gil has used on occasion is that the academics don't believe in God, hence according to them the text must be composite. But if you were to allow God in, you could agree with single authorship, because the drashos are so complex and amazing, only a God could have written the Torah like that. This is such a twisted argument I don't even know where to start.

Another oft repeated argument is that the DH backstory (political fighting, merging of texts to keep people happy etc) is not very likely. Oh, and a God writing a book is??? This argument only even gets off the ground (in fundies minds) because they have been so culturally conditioned to believe that God wrote the bible. Otherwise you would never pick that hypothesis. Not even if the text was completely cohesive.

And ultimately, this is what it all boils down to. A God writing a book is an amazing claim. You don't get to make that claim without really solid proof. Otherwise, any religion could just claim that God wrote their holy book. Oh wait, they do! Never mind.

This is why I like ej

From the comments on my DH post:

Your post, both clever and witty, made me laugh. Like other simple truths that we prefer not to face, your post also made me want to cry … woe unto us that we don’t really know what to say. And woe onto our generation when the laymen have a clearer moral and epistemic common sense than the rabbanim, a generation that needs bloggers to show what is happening. Children teaching parents, young preaching to old is both comical and a source of pain.

It is the job of a blog that questions, a blog that turns the charedi world upside down, to create these carnival effects. As Bakhtin taught us, the greatest weapon against tyranny and unjustified privilege is laughter. Well done. The possibility of a cheeky blog like yours being part of the dialogue can occur only when we are confused, when there is no story that is emotionally satisfactory. For me this shows we are close to the end, a bikvasa demeshicha, where chutzpa grows exponentially and in a strange way rightly so.

As I argued a few days ago, emunah in this context means the hope that in the future there will be a relief and deliverance from our theological dilemmas from some source or other; maybe not in every last detail but at least in broad outlines. We hope for a change in perspectives no different in magnitude than the Enlightenment and Modernity that will help us see clearly why our history is so uncanny, why we survived these many years, and what was the point of accepting torah and mitzvot.

Maybe a new Hegelianism, like the chasidisher vort, acharei mos, kedoshim emor…after the death of simple faith via the skepticism of Hume and Kant speak of holiness, that which belongs to the Spirit, i.e. Hegel. Hopefully we will be zocheh to have a Rav Kook, for our generation. It is not totally mad to believe there are alternatives to the Enlightenment and Modernity. Perhaps some new version of post modernism, perhaps some deeper understanding of virtual realities and the role of avatars.

We need not end up in a religious dystopia, ruled by power hungry ayatollahs where like the Stepford Wives we become brainwashed robots. Nor must we end up in a world of anarchy where Jewish life is destroyed. Relief and deliverance will come to the Jews both materially and spiritually. This is part of emuna.

But you will say all this is just talk, nice talk but it doesn’t really answer the question…where is the answer today? [XGH: Actually I was going to say you're dreaming, but never mind]

I would like to point to a new, just published, very difficult, obscure book that tries to show how a new revelation is possible. In our jargon, the validity of torah doesn’t depend on the historical validity as a description of the past, but on its role in a messianic future, which in a strange mystical way might also be now. The hope is that torah will bring a new vision when the immanent light hidden in torah is revealed.

The book is called “The Open Secret” by Eliott Wolfson. The secret referred to is the secret of Chabad and the role of messianic thinking as understood through their distinctive chassidic vision. Not for everybody and maybe not for anybody. But it did receive a favorable review both on a Lubavitcher web site [XGH: wow] and in secular academic circles where Wolfson is a major voice. For those who know some of the literature and are willing to work, it is fascinating and strange and relevant.

Explaining the previous post

A joke isn't so funny anymore once you have to explain it, but it seems from many of the comments on the previous post that I actually do have to explain it. The point of the previous post was this: the fact that Biblical Studies (DH etc) was able to ask all sorts of questions that hadn't been asked before in the Jewish world, and the fact that it is able to point out new intepretations and theories (even some non kefiradick ones), to the point that even fundies like Gil sit up and take notice and need to respond (albeit very lamely), yet these are just 'academics' whereas we've been learning the Torah in depth for three thousand years, yet we don't really have good alternative answers to any of this (except to say they're all just biased), tells you something. What does it tell you? Some people commented it tells you that the frum world doesn't really care about the DH, or is just ignorant. While of course that's true, that wasn't my point at all. What it tells you is that 3,000 years of learning Torah in depth will only produce bogus 'peshatim' if your fundamentally assumptions (e.g. Kugels 4 assumptions) are entirely flawed. And that Gil's beliefs that the traditional meforshim (and Chazal etc) got it all (or mostly)right (and were Gedolei Mesorah and Torah) is clearly bunk - and we have clear proof of that - 3,000 years of study produces incorrect results because the fundamental assumptions were entirely wrong, and some outsiders can come in armed with nothing much more than some different assumptions, and turn everything on its head. That process alone speaks volumes. And I was going to make that point explicitly, but then I thought it would be funnier to do it in a kind of chareidi style satire. And my line about MO dealing with evolution was of course satire. Duh.

Where is the Orthodox response to the Documentary Hypothesis???

Raboysai (and Rabbahsai), I mamaash don't understand.

The Torah has been the crown jewel of the yidden for 3,200 years. Moshe Rabbeinu studied with Hakodosh Boruch Hu Himself for 40 days and 40 nights! Then Moshe transmitted all that knowledge to the heilegeh Zkeinim, who transmitted it to the moiradicke Nevviim. For over a thousand years Klal Yisroel memorized the entire Torah shebaal peh off by heart, there was no need to even write it down!

And even after it started to be forgotten, klal yisroel did not stop being ameilim batorah. On the contrary, Chazal, who virtually had a direct line to Hakodosh Boruch Hu, toiled day and night learning Torah. And after the Amoroim, and then the Tanoim, we had the Geonim, all of whom learned Torah with Mesiras Nefesh and tremendous hasmadah for a Thousand years. A thousand years Raboysai!

And then after that we have the Rishonim; the incredible genius of the Rambam, the Ramban, all the Baalei Tosfos, all of whom knew Kol Hatorah Kulah, and virtually define Orthodoxy today. But there's more.

After all the tremendous Rishonim we have myriads of acharonim, all of them toiling day and night on every single word of Torah, plumbing its secrets to the greatest depths ever seen, since Chazal. And of course this gevaldik ameilus beTorah continues ad hayom hazeh, with tens or even hundreds of thousands of yeshivah bochrim and kollel yungerleit learning Torah in numbers never before seen in the history of the veldt.

Thousands and thousands of the greatest tzaddikim and gedolim learning Torah for thousands and thousands of years. Analyzing every parshah, every perek, every posuk, every letter, even every tag!!! Over and over and over for more than three thousand years! Asking every single possible question, noticing every possible (apparent) contradiction, questioning every lacuna, analyzing every concept.

And then along come some low life goyim, menuvalim, anti-semitim, who have never learned the Rishonim or Acharonim, never even studied a Rashi, who know nothing of Torah Shebaal Peh, who never studied behasmodoh, who are full of the biggest shtusim vehavolim, who can't even read Hebrew, and they study the "Bible" for a pitiful 200 years, and they have the incredible chutzpah to claim tht they have a whole new "hypothesis" for the structure of the Torah, based on a whole new set of "questions" and (apparent) "contradictions", and the ganz veldt believes it! It's mamash incredible.

Surely even the lowliest of yeshivah bochrim could dispatch this so called "Hypothesis" in a minute! A tinok shel bays rabbon knows more than these "academics". Even a Bays Yaakov girl knows more Torah than an entire so called "Bible Studies" department.

So where is the Artscroll, the Feldheim, even the Yashar Book, which comprehensively and convincingly dispatches this diabolical anti-Torah narishkeit once and for all? Why are we even losing one holy yiddishe neshamah to this stupdity?

Some people will say that R Dovid Tzi Hoffman wrote such a book, or Umberto Cassutto, or Jacob Benno. But these books are barely in print today! Surely such a book would have been so entirely convincing to the goyish veldt that it should have become an instant best-seller. But these people today have no followers, no talmidim, no nothing. I mamash can't understand it!

I do understand that the Chareidi world prefers to ignore such kefirah, but surely the Modern Orthodox world could engage? After all, the "Intellectuals" of the Modern Orthodox world have convincingly dealt with evolution, the ancient universe, archeology, ancient near eastern history, and all the other so called "academic fields". So why not this apikorsishe "hypothesis"??

Three thousand two hundred years of ameilus betorah and some goyim who can't even read hebrew think they have a better peshat? How can a know-nothing goy ask a question on the Torah which wasn't already asked and answered a thousand times over by every Rishon and acharon? How is this possible????

Can anyone explain this????

Hirhurim on Kolbrenner on Kugel

Hirhurim writes:

"There are certain meta-assumptions that modern scholars bring to the text and there are also many specific assumptions brought to specific passages that have only tenuous connections to other fields. There is little historical evidence that, to use one of Kolbrener's examples, "the story of Cain is an etiological tale about the rejection of the ancient Kenites." That is entirely interpretation. Simlarly, that "the sacrifice of Isaac an etiological marker of Israel’s repudiation of child sacrifice." Kugel would like to claim that these interpretations are solidly based on historical information. In reality, though, they are connected to history but not based on them. The interpretative assumptions underlying these explanations are entirely subjective."

I think Gil is correct, there is no historical or archeological evidence that the story of Cain is etiological, in that case it's more common sense, and an appreciation of the genre.

But what about Kolbrenner? (who incidentally is Chareidi and clearly biased out of his brains). Kolbrenner writes:

"Kugel’s hypothetical “unInterpreted Bible” is also a fantasy – the fantasy of modern biblical scholars. Not just from a post-modernist sensibility (which Kugel rightfully dismisses), but, from a perspective which ranges from Aristotle to Kuhn, from Milton to Wittgenstein, that understands that perceptions are never innocent of assumptions, and traditions of interpretation are always the vehicles for encountering texts. The mostly etiological (that is causal) interpretations of Kugel’s modern scholars may be elegant, clever and ordered, but such interpretations leave the Bible as simplistic, even simpleminded. Kugel claims that the ancient interpreters ignore the “plain sense” of Scripture and supply the “final and definitive interpretation,” but it’s really the explanations he advocates that provide final and definitive interpretations of the biblical text. In Kugel’s reading, it is predictably the heroic modern biblical scholar, from his (ostensibly) Archimedean vantage point, who provides the causal link that renders everything coherent and final."

Blah blah. Everyone has biases, everyone has assumptions etc etc. And what about 200 years of academic Bible scholarship, combined with all the other disciplines of archeology, history etc etc? All just biased. Anyone non biased (or slightly less biased) can clearly see that the Bible is a unified work written by a Divine being in 1200 BCE. Its poshut! (Or maybe its a complex philosophical problem riding on a boat). But make sure you quote Kuhn, then you can sound like a real Intellifundie. What a joke.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. You don't need to be a Biblical Scholar or a professor at Bar Ilan to realize that the claim that God wrote the Torah is highly dubious. Just read the damn text! It's a mess.

Some people were itching for a fight here, but really, what's the point? You have two unbelievably biased fundies, using bogus arguments (but chas vesholom it's not really post-modernism) to discount a global enterprise of scholarship. Only a fool would think these clowns have any credibility when it comes to TMS.

A Prime Example of a Modern Orthodox Muppet

Daniel Jackson is a Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is the principal designer of the Alloy modelling language, and author of the book Software Abstractions: Logic, Language, and Analysis. He's also a founder of Yedid Nefesh, a minyan in Newton, Massachusetts, and the author is this article: "Torah min haShamayim: Conflicts Between Religious Belief and Scientific Thinking"

So maybe I shouldn't be calling a distinguished MIT professor a muppet, but as the good professor himself quotes Richard Feynman: ""A scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy." (And anyways, I studied JSP and formal specification languages such as Z with the best of 'em (OK, not MIT but close enough) and I could have gone for my phd, and I now regret that I didn't, but that's a whole different story.)

So why am I calling Dr J a muppet? Let's see. The article starts off with a well written summary of the current state of play (including a mention of he who must not be mentioned), and then gets into a fairly pedestrian summary of the major unorthodox viewpoints of TMS - Kugel, Schimmel (who presumably Jackson knows), Tamar Ross, Louis Jacobs, Heschel etc. The only person he doesn't mention is me.

So far so good. However where it falls apart is in the "conclusion". I put the word conclusion in scare quotes because if you actually read the article, it's not a conclusion at all, it's an entirely new thought, completely separate from his little summary. Now I'm going to fisk the conclusion, to show you how truly pathetic it is.

Conclusion

Perhaps one day the challenge of biblical criticism will seem as unremarkable to contemporary Jews as the historical controversy over anthropomorphism seems to us today.

Hmm, unlikely, but OK.

In the meantime, in our struggle to find a notion of Torah min haShamayim consistent with both our commitment to rationality and to our deeply held religious convictions, we might do well to bear in mind that problems of this complexity rarely have neat solutions.

What. A. Load. Of. Bollocks.

(I'm using cockney rhyming slang here so that the good proff will understand me).

Problems of this complexity? PROBLEMS OF THIS COMPLEXITY? (to be said in the shrieking tone of the man in the parrot shop). This is a not a problem of complexity! For goodness sake. This is a very simple problem. All rational and objective analysis point to the fact that the Bible was written by men over hundreds of years. You dear sir, happen to have been indoctrinated from birth (or possibly you did a stint at Aish), and have a "deeply held religious conviction" (otherwise known as BIAS) to want to believe otherwise.

So, you have three basic choices:

1. Admit you're a biased fundie and live with it.

2. Admit you're a biased fundie and go OTD.

3. Pretend that this is some incredibly complex theological philosophical problem, and spend the rest of your life "struggling with it".

(I guess you are choosing option 3).

But wait! There's more muppet show madness:

A pristine philosophical theory that resolves all contradictions is unlikely to be convincing; rather, we must learn to live with doubt-not merely to tolerate it, but to embrace it as an expression of our seriousness in our quest for truth.

Pristine philosophical theory?! PRISTINE PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY???!!!!

Wot on earth on you gabbing on about??? See above. We MUST learn to live with doubt? Why? WHY? Quest for truth?? What a load of bollocks. A quest for "truth" doesn't lead you to Modern Orthodox apologetics.

It's really very simple - either you can follow the science and research, or you can follow your emotions (or you can cobble together some bs and pretend that you are on a "serious quest for truth".)

And now for the climax:

We tend to think of our religious commitments as built on a foundation of belief, as the rooms of a house are built on a concrete foundation beneath. Every perceived crack in the foundation raises a fear that the entire edifice might collapse. Perhaps it would be better to view our religious commitments as a boat, held aloft by the surging waters of a river that are continually rising and falling, made up of currents that are fluid and complex, sometimes flowing together, and sometimes against each other, but always, in aggregate, carrying the boat forward, downstream toward the sea.

Awesome!!!

All my problems are solved! My religious commitments are a boat! A boat I tell you. Now why didn't I think of that? It's all so obvious to me now. It's a boat! A boat, held aloft by the surging waters of a river. Yes, it all makes sense now! Currents that are fluid and complex, yes yes. Yes! Sometimes flowing together, and sometimes against each other. Of course! But always, ALWAYS! (in aggregate), carrying the boat forward, this boat of religious commitment, this great boat on the mighty river, flowing, flowing, onwards, UPWARDS!, downwards, downstream. Towards the sea (where it promptly gets capsized by a giant wave of evidence and reason).

What a load of bollocks. Muppet show anyone?

Rabbi Putzansky - We should daven less words, but with more kavanah

Although the vast majority of "Rabbi" Steven Putzansky's article was offensive and stupid, there was one paragraph he wrote which I completely agree with, and in fact contains an idea that I personally have been trying to promote for some time. He writes:

"We must refine our davening so that - as Chazal ruled - it is better to say less with kavanah (a concentrated focus) than more without kavanah, and lose the notion that our prayer obligation is satisfied through the daily recitation of a certain quota of words."

This is really quite a daring thought, and one that I have argued about with my own Rabbi. Most shul goers, even the daily committed types, rush their way through davening. In fact, I almost just wrote "daven their way through davening" until I realized the irony of that sentence. Is it any wonder that "to daven" has become a verb which means rush through something with no thought?

Over the last thousand years (and more), our tefilos have become increasingly longer. My shul now adds multiple meshuberachs, and the list keeps getting longer - Israeli Army, US Army, MIAs, Haitians, and of course the US, Israel and Cholim (a twenty minute recitation of every individual who is sick within a 400 mile radius, as if God doesn't know their names).

But these meshuberachs are actually where people have the most kavanah - because it's something we can all connect with. The real problems are way too many tehillim, piyutim, and korbonos. Korbonos especially should be banned from all MO shuls. Even Chareidi shuls in Eretz Yisrael don't say Korbonos.

And as for all the Tehilim, I know some Tehillim Zoger types get some satisfaction from that, but many of the tehillim just don't speak to our modern day notions - all that endless praise of God, just seems weird to us nowadays.

I think Davening Reform should be high on the Agenda for MO, and I salute Rabbi Putzansky for including it in his article. If only his article had consisted of that paragraph and nothing else.

Is Rabbi Steven Pruzansky an Idiot?

What an idiotic article by Rabbi Steven Pruzansky. He rants:

"The Orthoprax are an informal, incognito group of unknown size and scope who, for the most part, practice halachic norms but do not really believe in God (or that He chose us as the nation that would carry His moral message to mankind) or understand what they are doing. They might not even believe in the divine origin of the Torah, but identify themselves with the Orthodox community for social, ethnic, cultural or even aesthetic reasons. We usually do not know who they are - after all, it is a matter of the heart - but we do know how and where to find them. "

Err, so you do know who they are?

"They are the Jews who will come to shul - but barely daven. They will perfunctorily mouth a few words here and there while engaged in a persistent but likely not-very-stimulating conversation with their neighbors (people they would not talk to outside of shul for more than five minutes the rest of the week). "

What chutzpah? What does being Orthoprax have todo with paying attention in Shul? True, some Orthoprax people might not be so comfortable davening, but those types always sit with a sefer (or similar book) and spend their time studying. The shmoozers are the Orthodox types who are fakers.

But he goes further in his idiocy:

"No wonder the Zohar (Parshat Terumah) labels people who talk in shul as atheists; they sit in the House of God but are oblivious to His presence. The words of the davening are either unfamiliar to them or do not resonate with them. Their only contribution to decorum is the occasional shushing of their children, a vulgar act of hypocrisy that, as Faranak Margolese noted in her book Off the Derech, is a major factor in turning off children to the life of Torah."

Priceless. So not only are the Orthoprax the shmoozers, they are also turning their children off the derech by shushing them! (No doubt because they can't hear themselves shmooze). Is Pruzanksy an idiot? Who exactly is he talking about?

He seems confused. In the next paragraph, he seems to be talking about the MO lite:

"They are the Jews who are nominally shomrei Shabbat - they would never drive to shul, for example - but they will look for ways to swim or play tennis or baseball on Shabbat or encourage their children to do so, or leave the television on (or have the ubiquitous housekeeper turn it on) or read business newspapers on Shabbat, or perhaps even sneak in a business phone call or two when no one is looking. "

But then in the pragarph after that, he seems to be talking about the Chareidi tax dodgers:

"They are the Jews who will dress the part - as if, indeed, there is such a thing as "Jewish dress" beyond tzitzit and kippah for men and modest clothes for all. But they will conduct their business without integrity, stealing, conniving, cheating Jew and non-Jew alike, underreporting their taxes, hondling with contractors after the work is completed, stiffing their employees of their due wages - and often professing that they are acting perversely for the glory of Torah or to benefit a favored charity. "

Perhaps in Pruzank's bizzaro world, any Jew who doesn't live up to Pruzanky's idea of the one true derech is an Orthoprax atheist, whether LWMO, Chareidi or whatever.

And then this statement takes the cake:

"The Orthoprax will do good works, but those are socially useful and divorced from any sense of divine worship."

Good works are simply "socially useful"? What an idiot. At this point I'm waiting for him to include Women Rabbis in the dreaded group of "Orthopraxers". And sure enough, I'm not dissapointed:

"Most recently, Orthopraxy underlies such phenomena as the female clergy, the Partnership Minyanim (in which women chant portions of the davening, and a quorum of both ten men and ten women are needed to begin services), and the integration of Christians into special worship services."

Never mind that Saah Hurwitz seems to be as fundy as the next MO, we shouldn't let the facts get in the way of a good rant. If you don't follow Rabbi Steven Pruzanskys ONE TRUE DERECH then you must be Orthoprax! End of discussion.

Then it gets more confused:

"Note how the proliferation of Orthopraxy transcends all the traditional (and artificial) divisions in Orthodox life. It compasses right wing and left wing, modern, centrist and yeshivish, haredi and non-haredi alike."

Hmmm, so maybe in fact he's not talking about Orthopraxy at all, but rather any behavior which is non halachic or shows a lack of yiras shamayim, and his use of the term "Orthopraxy" is just a red herring.

OK, maybe now it all makes a little more sense (though it's just as offensive). But wait, there's more:

"And one might well contend that all the deviations listed above trample on the halacha and the sacred institutions of Jewish life, and therefore strip the "ortho" out of that "praxy" - they are not correct practices at all. But that contention is only partially true. There are those of us who have become quite proficient - crafty is a better word - in manipulating the sources, in finding obscure opinions that, interpreted innovatively, tend to justify precisely what we want to do. Such people no longer desire to ascertain the will of God, but rather to satisfy their own inclinations while remaining in "technical" compliance with halacha, very broadly construed. It is as if they have transformed the Almighty into a divine caddy who carries for us a bagful of clubs known as "halacha," and they reserve the right to remove any club when they so desire, and use them any way in which they desire. Most lacking is the concept of the Jew as the servant of God."

Oh boy, back to the confusion. So now he's ranting at people who manipulate the sources. Are those the same people who shmooze and shush in shul? The chareidi ganovim? Or are we talking about Female Rabbis again? Are they all Orthopraxers?

The next part is a bit better, but still obnoxious. He writes:

"The Orthoprax wish to remain part of the community, relying on general notions of tolerance and Western concepts of religion as a "private matter." And they do remain part of the community - often integral parts of the community - but a community no longer defined by commitment to the fundamental principles of Judaism, by subservience to God, or by eternal norms and values. "

I think he's completely wrong. What ties people together (more than beliefs) is VALUES and CULTURE (and to some extent practices, which you might define as a subset of culture). And mostly, the MO Orthopraxers have MO Values and Culture, and the Chareidi Orthopraxers have Chareidi Values and Culture. If you don't share (at least some of) the values and culture, then you're not part of your community.

"It is a social community, ethnically based and often geographically defined, but not a covenantal community. It is a community in which people perform actions that are roughly similar, but their hearts are not united. We certainly retain common enemies - Ahmadinejad is uninterested in these fine distinctions - but the nation of Israel should stand for something greater than that some evil people hate us."

Oh please. Values and Culture. But it raises an interesting question: Who has a more similar "heart" - A RWMO and a Chareidi, or a LWMO OP and a RWMO? I think it would depend on the topic. On notions of Chareidi Daas Torah, Science and secular education, I think the LWMO OP and RWMO have similar "hearts". On TMS, obviously the RWMO and Chareidi are more similar.

"Is there a value in Orthopraxy - in remaining part of a community of behavioral norms even if the philosophical commitment in lacking? Some point to a cryptic passage in the Yerushalmi, and in the Pesikta, citing, in Hashem's name: "Would that they abandon Me and still observe My Torah!" As some explain, it is therefore better to observe the mitzvot even with a lack of faith than to observe only if fully committed. Undoubtedly, there is some merit to this - at least the individual practitioner remains tethered to the Jewish community, however tenuously. But that understanding is grievously flawed.

Better understood, the passage (a rhetorical question) seems to be admonishing us that it is impossible to abandon God and still observe the Torah for long; we can indulge ourselves for a time, but eventually even the practice of mitzvot will wither without an internal commitment."

What a fake peshat! Better undertsood, it means what it says. Hashem would rather people keep Torah and Mitzvos and forget about God, than pay homage to God but don't do mitzvos and opress the poor etc (similar to the message in Amos and other Neviim).

"Or Chazal are teaching us stages of development: people may begin the observance of mitzvot without a full ideological commitment, or must continue even if such commitment occasionally wanes - but eventually commitment and practice must coalesce, and the observance of mitzvot must mature from mere deeds to the development of the complete Torah personality. If not, then our divine service remains stunted, and not a little phony. "

Depends what you mean by Mitzvos. Is an Orthopraxer doing good deeds "stunted and phony"?

"Worse, our youth are very sensitive to this double game, and some become disenchanted. They internalize the corrupt idea that in Judaism externals count for everything and sincerity for nothing. Like Esav asking his father halachic questions in a fatuous attempt to demonstrate his piety, our children can learn to play the adult game just as well as we can: emptily mouth the words of tefilla, read parsha sheets at the Shabbat table while clueless to what they are reading, or internalize the idea that the most harmful aspect of sin is not the sin itself but getting caught. Once learned, that approach is not easily forgotten, until the child either finds better role models or discards his commitment entirely. "

Again, it totally depends on who exactly you are talking about Steven. Chareidi Tax Dodgers? 100% agreed. Rabbah Sara Hurwitz? Not so much.

"There is a bright side to all this, or at least elements of comfort. The rise of Orthopraxy is on some level just a reflection of the human condition. The criticism applies to everyone, bar none. We are all flawed and all sinners, and the revelation of the flaws of public figures - even religious figures - is usually just a matter of time.

"For there is no man so wholly righteous on earth that he [always] does good and never sins" (Kohelet 7:20) - and yet we are still stunned and shaken when it happens.

We must distinguish, though, between personal frailties and systemic breaches. The "righteous" sinner (an oxymoron, but bear with me) stumbles because of human nature - an inability to control his instinctual drives - but confesses his sins, admits his guilt and does not seek to rationalize his wrongdoing.

There is, however, a "wicked" sinner, as well, who protests his innocence, who claims he has been misunderstood, who defends his actions on grounds that others are doing it, or, worst of all, that what he did is not sinful at all because the halacha changed, or should change, or he found an arcane but lenient source allowing him to do what he wants to do. The former is the position in which most of us find ourselves, and which is addressed by the commandment of repentance; the latter is a systemic violation for which there is no simple rectification. It is an act of spiritual gerrymandering by the sinner who has carved out for himself exemptions from halacha."

Jeez. What a mess. WHO ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Chareidi Tax Dodgers? Shmoozers and Shushers? Rabbah Sarah Hurwitz? All of them????

"How do we triumph over Orthopraxy and reconnect our divine service to God? We can - must - infuse our mitzvot with a recognition of their divine imperative by returning to fundamentals. We should study ourselves, and teach our children, not only "how" we do things but also "why." We all must learn the details of the mitzvot - from Shabbat to Pesach, from kashrut to monetary integrity, from the laws of Chanukah to the laws of Tisha B'Av - but also the framework of those mitzvot, how they combine to create a faithful, moral, decent servant of Hashem. "

Actually, I can agree to that kind of language, as long as by "Hashem" you mean something a little more sophisticated than the "A Big Powerful Divine Body as Imagined by Ancient Canaanites in 3000BCE".

"We must refine our davening so that - as Chazal ruled - it is better to say less with kavanah (a concentrated focus) than more without kavanah, and lose the notion that our prayer obligation is satisfied through the daily recitation of a certain quota of words."

Holy Moly! Now Pruzy is sounding very LWMO ish, even Reform! Let's daven less, but with more Kavanah. Sign me up!

"We must restore a sense of reverence and sanctity to the shul, or stay outside until we are ready. And before performing any mitzvah, we must pronounce, figuratively if not literally, that we are "ready and prepared to fulfill the commandment of our Creator."

Yes, yes.

"Kabbalat HaTorah (the acceptance of the Torah) required naaseh v'nishma - the commitment "to do" preceded the commitment "to learn." It preceded it, but did not vitiate it. Naaseh cannot endure unless there is an ongoing nishma - and Talmud Torah must encompass not only what we should do but also what we should think and how we should feel. "

Yes Mr Chovos Halvovos.

"The greatest of all orthodoxies - those correct beliefs that govern our lives - is, then, humility - humility that will enable us to absorb the divine values of Torah and not those of modern man, and recreate a nation of thinking, rational, wise, intelligent, good and ethical servants of God, a light unto the nations."

I would say like this:

"The greatest of all orthodoxies - those correct beliefs that govern our lives - is, then, humility - humility that enables us to realize that we probably don't have the one true derech, and that we should be more respectful of the LWMO."

But Pruzy doesn't seem to understand that. Must be he's Orthoprax.

Modern Orthodox Theology: Being More Frum is NOT Better

Interesting ideas from ej about what Modern Orthodox Theology needs to be:

The first lesson is that no [MO] theology will ever be taken seriously if it is not convincing to Jews with a secular perspective. A corollary is that we don’t particularly need a MO [is best] theology (i.e. a story that shows MO to be the best way to be Jewish) any more than we need another Chareidi [is best] theology.

What we need is a Jewish theology that ties all Jews together and tells them why they are here and their purpose in history. And this theology must allow for different experiments in how best to achieve these purposes and goals. It has to allow the different factions in klal yisrael to find their place within a larger whole. [XGH: I think the Chief comes close to this in the first edition of his book 'The Dignity of Civilization'].

Most MO talk today imagines the [MO] movement in very narrow ways, e.g. the derech of YU and RJBS, and then happily throws all other variants of [Left Wing Modern] Orthodoxy overboard labeling them Post Orthodox or Orthodoxy Lite. [Take that Gil and Harry!] As for the rest of the Jewish spectrum outside of Orthodoxy, [MO] have nothing to say other [than] that they are schismatics and about to disappear.

The basic idea that must be given up [by MO] is this: If being frum is good, then being even more frum is better. Otherwise, Charediism wins every time. An MO theology has to show the possibility that being somewhat less frum is ok, permissible, and sometimes [XGH: always] the best way to live.

MO can’t breathe if most if its members feel they are second rate compared to Charedim. An MO theology has to show how a non rabbinical life has value for its own sake, and not simply as a conduit of funds [XGH and power] to a rabbinical aristocracy.

Whatever happened to .... Esther Kustanowitz?

I see our old friend Esther has now been replaced by the very appropriately named Abigail Picky. Did Esther finally get married?! Probably not. Oh well. Here's a book recommendation for Abigail.

The Fallacy of the Physical

I find it funny when Skeptics and Fundies argue about the physical plane vs. the spiritual plane. Skeptics say that the physical plane is all there is (or at least all that we know about), whereas the Fundies insist that there is another plane, the Spiritual, separate and apart (but able to interact with the physical in some mysterious way). The argument plays out with respect to the origin of the universe - Fundies insisting that since the Physical can't create itself out of nothing, there must be a Spiritual Plane (i.e. God) which created it.

So why is this funny? Because nobody knows what they are talking about. We have no idea what the physical plane is. What is a table? Oh, it's made from atoms. And what are atoms made of? particles. And what are particles made of? Strings (maybe kinda). And what are Strings made of? God?

The reality is that we have absolutely no idea what the physical plane actually is. A hundred years ago we thought it was atoms and Newtonian Physics. Then an entire revolution occurred and we realized there was a whole 'nother plane, the Quantum plane, with a different (and extremely strange) set of behaviors. Presumably, there is another plane underneath that, with even more "bizzarre" behaviors, and so on. It's planes all the way down. Or maybe not. But we have no idea. Strings could the lowest level, or maybe the tip of the iceberg.

We don't need to think back to the beginning of time to wonder how it all came to be, just look around you and you have the exact same incomprehensible reality -how everything is. The famous question "Why is there something rather than nothing" (And if there was nothing? You'd still complain), isn't just a question about the past - why did something come to be - but is in fact a question about the here and now - "How is there existence? What is existence?" We just don't know, and possibly never will.

So next time you see a Skeptic and a Fundie arguing about the Physical vs. the Spiritual, knock their heads together and explain that neither of them know what on earth (or any other plane) they are talking about.

Gerald Schroeder actually says something interesting

I recently picked up Gerald Schroeder's new book, God according to God, expecting the usual Science and Torah nonsense. But in fact the book contains some interesting ideas. In an analysis of God's purported behavior through Breishis, Schroeder makes the point that God clearly has regrets, makes mistakes, changes his mind, even grows (evolves) along with his creation. Okay, not such a chiddush, since the posuk says mefurash that "Vayinochem Hashem" (Hashem regretted). And of course this topic has been studied extensively, including in the popular book: God a biography. But still, to see this coming from an MO, even semi-Chareidi source, was interesting. Shades of Process Theology. Course all talk about God is pure fantasy (or a religious language game reflecting our deepest wants and fears), but still.

Modern Orthodoxy is for Muppets

Time for another rant against Modern Orthodoxy. There's no interesting theology, philosophy or even thinking coming out in the Modern Orthodox world as far as I can tell. In today's MO world. if you just quote the Rambam you are deemed as courageous. It's pathetic. MO has completely failed to engage modernity (i.e. the enlightenment) in any meaningful way whatsoever. Oooooh, we accept Scientifically proven facts. Whoopde-freaking-do.

Today's Modern Orthodoxy is simply a less crazy extreme version of Chareidism, but in it's basic modes of thought, it is fundamentalist all the way. And I do actually know some Modern Orthodox types who do have some interesting, even novel (chas vesholom) thoughts, but they're too scared to say them in public. In fact, some of our (potentially) best and brightest spend all their time arguing with he crazies, too scared to be truly honest. What a waste.

Now, everytime I rant against the MO, my friend H (H for Heterodox) tells me I'm being too critical and that at least the MO are much better than the Chareidim. But that's my point. Is that all that MO aspires to be? At least not as bad as crazy extreme fundies? Can't we do better?

MO Rabbis talk about how Modern Orthodoxy is about religious Zionism and our concern for wider society. Another whoop-de-do. Most Chareidim these days (except for the Neturei Kartah psychoes) are very pro Israel. YWN is 80% Israel news. And as for concern for wider society - wow, so we don't live in a completely isolationist bubble? Amazing! How Modern of us! We actually acknowledge our fellow humans as human beings.

So maybe it's all about values? After all, I do believe that MO has a reasonably good set of values. And isn't religion mostly about values anyway? Yes, but even here MO falls short, because there isn't a true engagement with values. Ultimately the MO are as constrained by halachah as the Chareidim. Never mind homosexuals, we can't even have women Rabbis. It's pathetic.

I agree with H that MO is better than Chareidim. But as an intellectually stimulating modern religion? It's about as intellectually stimulating as the Muppet Show.