What is the role of our own history in deciding who we are and how we are going to live? In particular, does it make any difference how the Holocaust affected our families? Much of charedi life is connected to rebuilding/undoing the Holocaust. The same for Israel and its constant feelings of paranoia and isolation. Why is it that in MO circles we hear a lot more about RJBS derashot than what Stalin and Hitler did to the Jews ? Is the Holocaust a motive/reason for being traditional, so as not to give Hitler a posthumous victory? Does the Holocaust dictate a current MO politics, and if so what might such a politics look like?
When there is no fear of God, are the bonds of affection that tie a Jew to his religion ever sufficient to keep the Jewish people together? Do we really like each other as people or “we’ve more or less had it…THEY are all either crooks, kooks, paupers or nouveau riche .” Is the frum way of life attractive or is it all we know? Forget about guilt, should we be ashamed to be secular?
I hear JTS will be changed from an academic institution with rabbinics to a rabbinical seminary in competition with places like YCT and the non-denominational Rabbinical School of Hebrew College in Boston. This is a major change in Conservative thinking. Chancellor Eisen is trying to create a new generation of rabbis that will increase the traffic in Conservative synagogues, provide an impactful message to the congregants and become competitive in the religious market place between Centrist Orthodoxy and Reform. So here’s my question: What would it take to create something effective? Does success depend on the rabbi’s message, his charisma or maybe neither? How would an Orthodoxy that is not Orthodox work? What does it take to change a dying synagogue with an elderly membership into a vibrant religious community?
3 MORE QUESTIONS:
Does neo chasidus-Jewish renewal-spirituality (Green, Fishbain, Zalman Schecter, a straight Moti Elon, Shlomo Carlebach) in a halachic context hold any appeal? Can there be a MO chassidic community or a MO/Conservadox rebbe or is that an oxymoron?
Protestant thought has moved from subjective readings of the Bible to thinking that the subtleties of morality are to be found in literature and in particular in fiction. Should literature become an important element in Orthodox consciousness? What role if any should the arts and entertainment play in an ideal Orthodox world? Why are book and movie clubs a staple of secular Jewish life, but hardly figure in the religious world? Should we look to the arts for inspiration how to live, and if yes how do such new aesthetic and moral sensibilities reintegrate into Jewish life?
Should synagogues be politicized if they are to have any relevance? In what direction? The Reconstructionist synagogue in Evanston holds pro-Palestinian meetings. Is this disgusting? How can religious people be both morally relevant and supportive of Israel? Does a life of Torah and mitzvot need a politics?
So there it is…not a word about feminism or rationalism ? I tried to stretch the possibilities while not prejudging the degree of frumkeit necessary, hoping some of these topics might be of interest.
Back to you, XGH.
Posts
29 comments:
Can we get a book review?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/03/grayling-good-book-atheism-philosophy
"The Reconstructionist synagogue in Evanston holds pro-Palestinian meetings.... How can religious people be both morally relevant and supportive of Israel? "
Hear hear. A religious person must support those who slit the throats of Jewish babies while EJ drives to his Reconstructionist oneg shabbat on Friday night.
moshe, ALL palestinians slit throats? interesting......
Moshe...I am not connected to the Reconstructionist synagogue in any way, nor have I attended any of these meetings.The example was meant to establish something like a bound on the left, the other side being the American Kahana people. As you know over 70% of Orthodoxy is on the right side of politics. I included this question and others,in the hope that XGH would take up some of these issues, and champion the liberal humanist side. In back of my mind was the by now famous Peter Beinart article and a recent post by Bernard Avishai.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/10/failure-american-jewish-establishment/
http://bernardavishai.blogspot.com/2011/04/young-israelis-young-american-jews.html
ej, since you rarely if ever reveal anything about your personal life, I am surprised that you are explicitly distancing yourself from the Reconstructionist group.
Can we just focus on one question at a time?
EJ,
I would not have objected to your question had it been presented in the context of other, similarly incisive, questions, such as
"How can religious people be both morally relevant and ...
1) ...give aid to Japanese Tsunami victims;
2) ...support equality under the law for all American citizens;
3)...love their mothers.
Moshe...I think I understand what you're saying. My fault. In my mind I assumed everyone knows the discussions centering around the Beinart article and J street. The claim is that young non- orthodox Jews in America have distanced themselves from Israel and think the occupation is immoral. Come this September it seems likely the UN will vote for a Palestinian State, whereupon all hell will break loose. I should have written "be morally relevant to the majority of young American Jews who oppose the occupation and no longer identify with Israel."In other words how can a religious stripe speak to their concerns, and at the same time help increase their participation and identification with Israel?
Tessaya...As you know I posted these questions as a response to XGH's appeal in his post "Am I Orthodox" to frame the issues so that "R. Wilig looks less delusional." My response was if you sincerly want to stop make frum people look like idiots change the questions. Stop worrying how anyone can believe in TMS, let people be, and try to fill in the gaps in Orthopraxy or LWMO. I didn't ask that these questions become a post, and I certainly don't want the discussion to be about me. My goal was and is to get XGH and the many other participants in this blog including me to take up some of these questions and give them the attention I think they deserve.
"moshe, ALL palestinians slit throats? interesting......"
I would have to say yes.
Not all Arabs, and not all Muslims or Arab Christians slit throats.. but by identifying themselves as Palestinian they support either Fatah or Hamas, and both Fatah and Hamas celebrate and encourage the killing of Jews.
There are millions of Arabs living in Israel who are not "Palestinian" and don't associate that way. Or more accurately, wish they could not associate that way, but will be killed if they voice their opinion.
>moshe, ALL palestinians slit throats? interesting......
Since there is no "peace now" kum-ba-ya version of palestinian arab nationalism, then I would say yes. the expressions of this new palestinian nation have spanned the spectrum from ulta-violent to down right demonic. And those who support this sick perversion of a national movement implicitly support unending war against the Jewish people living in Israel.
EJ,
"the majority of young American Jews who oppose the occupation and no longer identify with Israel."
I don't know that it's a majority. Do you have any data to back up that assertion?
Whatever the percentage is, I acknowledge that the problem exists among a many young Jews. In that regard , I'd note:
1) Given the biased coverage in the left slanting mass media, it is hardly surprising. These young people have little Jewish education [Hebrew school is sometimes two hours a week now, even if they attend one]that might inform them as to the strength of our claim to EI, as opposed to the Arab one.
2) Many liberal Jews long ago abandoned belief in Judaism for belief in the liberal agenda. If forced to choose, they choose the former, even if such choice inflicts harm on the Jewish people. Witness the march on Washington of Orthodox rabbis during WWII to protest American inaction in addressing the destruction of European Jewry. The liberal Jewish leaders, such as Rabbi S J Wise, told Roosevelt to disregard the marching Rabbis as unrepresentative of American Jewry. These leaders were "embarrassed" [a word one frequently hears nowadays from liberal Jews in connection with Israel] by the spectacle of bearded Yiddish speaking rabbis marching in public. Meanwhile, as liberal American Jews worshiped Roosevelt, going so far as to name cities after him [e.g., Roosevelt, NJ], he was busy, recent disclosures show, in actually condoning official discrimination against Jews in Vichy North Africa. To say nothing of his administration's indifference to the European slaughter.
3)Historically, this phenomenon is not new. Other Jews have abandoned Jerusalem in the past, in favor of Berlin, Paris, Odessa, etc. They tend to assimilate over time out of the Jewish people. Those who remain generally realize the folly of their ways when the ideology or society they identify with turns on them. We already see the beginnings of this at present in the antisemitism prevalent on the far left.
4) It has been written that a Jew who abandons Israel will soon abandon God. I would suggest that the reverse is also true.
The Beinart and Avishai articles I mentioned earlier have both data and give a better sense of what’s going on. Also this piece from Arutz Sheva on the future demographic composition of Israel.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/141967
I agree with some of your points. The behavior of American Jewry during WW2 was just awful, for reasons that you discussed; though I’d be willing to argue that charedim have their own issues regarding their behavior during that period. None of your points, truiumphalist & gotcha as they are, solves anything. Israel cannot function without secular Jews. Israel was created by secular Jews as a democracy,while the God fearing were against the creation of a state. Similarly if Israel loses support of Diaspora Jewry, life will become much more difficult. Bekitzur, with only frum Jews, kiss Israel goodbye. Non- frum young people did not lose interest in Israel as such. Rather they tired of defending the Gush, the stealing of Arab land, the occupation. Up to around 1980-90, as long as the goals of the settlers was not blatantly obvious, support for Israel remained high for all age groups. It is irrelevant that if they were all Orthodox today they would be more supportive of Israel. They aren’t nor were their fathers and grandfathers. These intramural combats between stripes and denominations might be fun. But gloating does nothing to keep the Jewish people together.
As usual you can have the last word.
Moshe's Roosevelt bashing here is laughable. Jews abandoned Judaism by supporting FDR? I'm sure if they were good frum, erhliche Yiddn they would have supported the America First GOP and the Jew-loving Republicans like Lindbergh and McCormick.
Fidelity to Judaism does not require voting for either Democrats or Republicans. And if you are going to discuss history, have a clue what you are talking about.
EJ,
"Israel cannot function without secular Jews."
I don't see what this point has to do with my comment. We were discussing young American Jews.
"Israel was created by secular Jews"
Again this is not what we were discussing, but while we're there, the secular Jews who founded Israel were not ignorant of Jewish History and especially the tanach, unlike the young Jews you wrote about. These founders had also tasted anti-semitism personally, and in spades. They recognized who was the persecutor, and who was the persecuted.
"Similarly if Israel loses support of Diaspora Jewry, life will become much more difficult."
Agreed.
" Bekitzur, with only frum Jews, kiss Israel goodbye. "
Disagree, but both the Chareidim, as well as the messianic elements in the national camp, would, admittedly, need to come to their senses. And don't forget, as Ben Gurion said, that we do not rely on miracles--we depend upon them.
"Non- frum young people did not lose interest in Israel as such."
Sadly, they did. They know not the history, and believe what they see on TV.
"Rather they tired of defending the Gush, the stealing of Arab land, the occupation. Up to around 1980-90, as long as the goals of the settlers was not blatantly obvious, support for Israel remained high for all age groups."
No. Rather, as the level of Jewish education decreased, and rate assimilation increased, during the periods in question, the attachment of these young Jews to Israel withered. And to other things too, such as, say, the Conservative movement.
If you were correct, I would have expected the commitment level to increase substantially when left leaning/centrist Israeli governments were signing Oslo, leaving Lebanon, and abandoning Gaza, but obviously that did not happen.
"the stealing of Arab land"
I think you may mean "disputed" land. If not, please name the Arab state that owned the land in question before Israel. Please also tell us why Hebron,say, where Jews have lived for centuries, is "Arab land" , but Tel Aviv, founded in 1909, is not.
"gloating"
What "gloating"?
"As usual you can have the last word."
Actually, I would prefer a dialogue.
Anon,
"Jews abandoned Judaism by supporting FDR?"
I didn't say that.
"the America First GOP and the Jew-loving Republicans like Lindbergh and McCormick"
And there were no anti-semitic democrats? And even if you were correct, there is a difference between supporting a candidate as the best available choice, and fawning over someone who did very little to save your co-religionists while they were being slaughtered. BTW, W. Wilkie, the 1940 GOP candidate, was pro Zionist, and a member of the American Palestine committee, which supported a Jewish National Home in Mandate Palestine.
"Fidelity to Judaism does not require voting for either Democrats or Republicans."
Agreed.
"And if you are going to discuss history, have a clue what you are talking about."
I suggest you read, "The Abandonment of the Jews, by David Wyman and tell Prof. Wyman what you know that he didn't discover. Perhaps he will include same in the next edition.
Moshe,
"Many liberal Jews long ago abandoned belief in Judaism for belief in the liberal agenda"
"as liberal American Jews worshiped Roosevelt"
Ah, you're right. You did not claim that Jews abandoned Judaism by supporting FDR. Oh, wait, yes you did.
You know, Jews weren't the only ones "fawning" over Roosevelt. Most of America was, because he was actually trying to do things to help them as Americans. Many conservatives of all stripes have never forgiven him for this, because it cost them money and FDR called them out as the greedy, selfish bastards they were.
As for his record on saving the Jews, yeah, it sucked. Are you really saying that Wilkie and his ilk would have done more? Do you believe that antisemitism was as prevalent in the 1930's and 40's Democratic leadership as the Republican leadership? If so, you don't know your history. Wyman has plenty of critics among historians for good reasons. Just because he said it doesn't make it so.
Oh wait, not all of them slit throats of babies, therefore we should support our enemies? Wow some people are really warped.
I wonder if it would be more productive to think of tacit belief in TMS/chazal/halakhah as a kind of epistemic social contract that binds the community.
Sure, plenty of LW MO are skeptical, but they are not really interested in breaking the contract. They stay in the contract because it ultimately furthers their self interests. They are, however, interested in challenging the mores that make the contract quite hard to live with.
From the contractarian perspective, the the question is whether most or many are ultimately 'sensible knaves'(or skeptics). When it suits them, and doing so would not jeopardize the contract and "breach social union and confederacy" as Hume put it, do they say "screw this, I'm pushing the elevator button (or whatever).
Now, the problem, is that much like morality itself, religious belief in being commanded to follow some prescription demands that a person set aside self interest - this is the essence of religious virtue generally. So the issue we need to face is that sensible skeptic undermines religious virtue and that, especially as the number of sensible skeptics rises, ultimately weakens the contractual bonds that constitute the community.
MJ...I am excited by your idea, being an old Rawlsian darshan.I want to know what you mean by "EPISTEMIC social contract?"Do you mean we agree not to question the dogmas, limit inquiry, silence dissent, in the same way as we would agree to certain definite political and moral principles, if we viewed the decision being under a veil of ignorance,etc.? Could you spell this out.
The Peace Now nuts and the J-street clowns insist ad nauseum that the majority of American Jews think like them. It's simply delusion (not sure they believe it though). - Peace now in Israel also makes similar ludicrous claims about Israeli Jews which anyone with half functioning brain knows is not true -
And they think that by saying this enough times, they will convince other Jews that it's true that everyone thinks like peace now, and not only that, but they will then jump on board and say, if everyone else thinks this way, they must be right, and I'll have to think this way too.
Meanwhile Jstreet is already exposed as fraudulent. Those types of groups are for a small minority of uppity douchebags who think they are better than everyone and who have delusions of grandeur that anyone who doesn't think like them doesn't count as a person.
Anon,
"Oh, wait, yes you did."
Nope. You added the word "by". Just because one says certain Jews abandoned Judaism in favor of liberalism, and further says that they fawned over FDR, does not mean that one holds that the act of abandonment consisted of such fawning. Rather, such fawning, in the face FDR's lack of action on the rescue front, was a symptom of the abandonment. The abandonment preceded the fawning. Fawning over a politician, per se, is not an abandonment of Judaism, and I did not say otherwise.
"As for his record on saving the Jews, yeah, it sucked"
Just like Wyman says. Glad you agree :)
EJ,
I wrote a long response last night that seems to have vanished. The basic gist was 1) Look at religious communal belief and practice akin to Rawls's metaethical constructivism, 2) Argue for a form of compatibalism between metatheoretical skepticism (I dislike this term and prefer the positive notion of historical critical naturalism) and normative acceptance of the community's epistemology 3) Note that for a 'skeptic' to retain the character of religious virtue you need to shift the sense of being obligated from a top down deistic notion to a horizontal web of mutual communal obligation by consciously opting in to the community. 4) Noting that this last move provides a functional equivalent but is a phenomenologically distinct experience of religion.
"ej, since you rarely if ever reveal anything about your personal life, I am surprised that you are explicitly distancing yourself from the Reconstructionist group."
Well, he can't let idiots like Moshe succeed in paseling his opinion by associating him with the Reconstructionist movement.
"I would have to say yes.
Not all Arabs, and not all Muslims or Arab Christians slit throats.. but by identifying themselves as Palestinian they support either Fatah or Hamas, and both Fatah and Hamas celebrate and encourage the killing of Jews.
There are millions of Arabs living in Israel who are not "Palestinian" and don't associate that way. Or more accurately, wish they could not associate that way, but will be killed if they voice their opinion."
So there are millions of Palestinians who aren't Palestinian. You're a freaking genius.
"Since there is no "peace now" kum-ba-ya version of palestinian arab nationalism, then I would say yes. the expressions of this new palestinian nation have spanned the spectrum from ulta-violent to down right demonic. And those who support this sick perversion of a national movement implicitly support unending war against the Jewish people living in Israel."
Actually, there's a very strong peaceful protest movement among the Palestinians, only we arrest them and tear gas them for peacefully protesting.
"So there are millions of Palestinians who aren't Palestinian. You're a freaking genius."
No, they aren't Palestinians... Are Arabs who live in Morocco also Palestinians?
"Actually, there's a very strong peaceful protest movement among the Palestinians, only we arrest them and tear gas them for peacefully protesting."
I just learned about this new group recently. However they were attacked by the PA not Israel.
"I just learned about this new group recently. However they were attacked by the PA not Israel."
Israel has been suppressing protest for years whether or not you are informed of this. And whether the PA has ever done that as well is irrelevant.
Xgh, i have to know, do you just chuckle when you see seemingly smart, rational people get into heated argumenta over whether someone dead or alive can be moshiach? Is it kefira. Can u daben in his minyan, can you eat at his house.....ABSURD!
I mean, they really believe some man (can a woman be moshiach?) will bring us all to israel build the beis hamikdash and start sacrificing animals and witness miracles,
Back and forth, back and forth - can this person be it, or not. Well, a rabbi from 2,000 yrs ago said yes.....
Its truly remarkable to watch it
"Israel has been suppressing protest for years whether or not you are informed of this. And whether the PA has ever done that as well is irrelevant.
April 7, 2011 5:26 PM"
Peaceful protests? evidence please. It almost seems physically impossible for them to protest without throwing rocks or being violent, except for this new group you mentioned.
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