Democracy and the Beit Din

As the Gemara says in Sanhedrin daf zayin, a false dayan is like an asherah, an idolatrous totem.

A beit din has power only to rule according to the Torah, but not against the Torah. No matter who you are, the Torah is our constitution, and no one, no matter how powerful or influential, has power to contradict it. Ein shaliah b'davar `averah ("There is no proxy in the case of sin", i.e. one cannot just act as another's unquestioning proxy or messenger when one is ordered to violate the Torah), one must obey one's lord's Lord and not one's lord alone.

Harut on the luhot, "engraved on the Tablets", can be read as herut, "freedom", for only one who keeps the Torah is truly free, and true liberty is found in obeying the law and not obeying one's superiors when they command one to disobey the law. When a slave wishes to stay with his master, we bore his ear, for the man whose ear heard "I am the Lord your God" but chose a new master deserves to be bored. When the people asked Samuel for a king, God said this was tantamount to rejecting Him.

(By the way, regarding true liberty being found only in observing the Torah, the Calvinists and Swiss-type Reformed Christians said the time, and this was a common theme of Massachusetts's Protestant preachers, that true liberty is found only in obedience to G-d. As the cartoon "An Attempt to Land a Bishop in America" proclaims, "No Lords Spiritual or Temporal in New England" and "Liberty and Freedom of Conscience", and the comic depicts colonists hurling a copy of John Calvin while holding copies of John Locke and Algeron Sidney. By the way, John Adams said that the Reformed Christian John Ponet already said everything important about liberty, which Locke and Sidney merely elaborated on, according to Adams. The Swiss Reformed Christians created federal democracy and social-contract when Scottish Protestants asked whether a good Bible-observant Christian must obey an evil idolatrous Catholic monarch; the answer was no, that obedience to G-d takes precedence over obedience to mere men, and thus democracy was born.)

"An Attempt to Land a Bishop in America": http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/5600/5684/bishop_america_1.htm ---> http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/5600/5684/bishop_america_1.tif

(Speaking of the Calvinists, they are very useful for another reason. As I once said while tipping my hat to Rabbi Saul Lieberman, regarding my disgust for the Israeli government, "Incitement to rebellion is sedition, but quotation of historical incitement to rebellion, that is scholarship!" Can the Israeli government charge me with anything for quoting the Calvinists and merely adding my own running commentary (explicating only the peshat, to explain the 400-year-old language) and expecting that ha-meivinim yavinu?)

A taqana or gezera is valid only if the people accept it, and so no dayan or beit din has the power to foist unpopular laws on the people. Also, any individual can promulgate a new minhag or taqana or gezera, and if the people accept it, it is minhag ha-maqom, and binding as law, even though the promulgator was only a layman.

If the law is a Torah law, however, then of course anyone, dayan or not, may foist it onto the people, and the people cannot complain.

A beit din is a community institution, and presumably, just as the parnasim are appointed by the people, so too the dayanim. Rambam, in Hilkhot Sanhedrin 1:1, implies that the mitzvah to appoint dayanim devolves onto each individual, and the language in the Torah implies the same; it says you will appoint shoftim and shotrim, but it doesn't say any one special person will appoint judges. Presumably, this means that if the community didn't appoint someone as a dayan, then he has no power; one cannot install himself tyrannically as a self-appointed dayan.

If this is not Locke-ian federal ( = Latin for "covenant" or "contract") democracy, then there is no such thing as democracy on earth.

"But where says some is the king of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is." - Thomas Paine, "Common Sense".

But thank God that the rabbis in the Israeli Rabbinate who oversaw my conversion, aren't reading my blog or on Facebook.

Unfortunately, I haven't read Rabbi Haim Hirschensohn's writings yet, but something tells me that I'll like him very much.

I was talking to someone from Hungary, and she told me that as a Hungarian Orthodox Jew, that she was anti-Zionist. The following is my entire, unabridged reply to er:

Personally, I don't interpret Zionism as necessarily including any sympathy or love for the secular Zionists. Now, don't get me wrong; I fully hold by the Arukh la-Ner [ = Rabbi Yaakov Ettlinger] and Rav Kook and such regarding tinoq she-nishba. I also agree with Rav Hirsch and Rav Kook that many of the Reformers and Halutzim [ = Zionist pioneers] left Orthodoxy because Orthodoxy was overly concerned with legal minutiae and not with hashqafa [ = weltanschauung] and ideals and changing the world, tiqun olam. These seculars and Reformers were idealists and truly did want to improve the world, and they did have good intentions. So as far as that goes, I do have great affection for the non-Orthodox.

But unlike many religious Zionists, I see no need to go out of my way to have reverence for any particular political figure or organization. Yitzhak Rabin boasted of being personally responsible for the incident of the Altalena, and as such, I see Rabin as nothing more than a cold-blooded murderer, and that's without even considering the treacherous Oslo Accords.

Politically, I'm a libertarian (classical Locke-ian liberalism), so I see governments as artificial entities with no particular metaphysical standing. When Devarim and Samuel criticize kingship, I cannot but nod approvingly with all my heart and soul. I see my foremost obligation to do only what is right, and not what the government's laws say. For me, there is nothing more sacrosanct than ein shaliah b'davar `averah [ = the obligation for one to obey the Torah and not one's human commander if the latter's commands contradict the former's]. If the Israeli government tells me to expel settlers from the West Bank, nothing could convince me to do anything but rebel against such a tyrannical anti-democratic regime.

So for me, Zionism means that Jews can establish a state in Israel, but that if this state does anything contrary to the Torah, that I will disobey its orders and possibly even attempt to overthrow the regime, if things come to such a head. For me, Israel is to be both Jewish and a democracy, but today, it is neither. I don't have time to explain now, but to stand on one foot, I believe that both theocracy and democracy are compatible under the head of Judaism.

In brief, what this all means is that I don't believe the Three Oaths are binding, but all the same, I don't worship the state of Israel. The "moderate" religious Zionists in Israel, those equivalent to the Modern Orthodox, are also called the mamlakhtim [lit. "kingdom-ians" or "regime-ians"], and they practically worship the state. (This is bewildering, because such statism is exactly opposite of true democratic liberalism, and it's rather odd that the Modern Orthodox of all people reject democracy and liberalism.) By contrast, the Hardalim [lit. "Haredi-nationalists"], in Merkaz ha-Rav, tend to worship the state far less, and they'll advocate civil disobedience as per ein shaliah b'davar `averah. On most issues (such as egalitarianism) I stand with the mamlakhtim and MO, but on politics, I'm closer to the Hardalim. Ironically, the Hardalim, who are nearly Haredi, are more liberal and pro-democracy in their politics than the mamlakhtim and leftists, both of whom are quite statist and anti-democratic.

Actually, Western democracy today has nothing to do with Athenian majoritarianism, despite the literal meaning of the word "democracy". True liberalism and democracy (which was created by Scottish and Swiss Calvinists in the Renaissance period) means that everyone has certain rights and obligations, and that the government exists solely to uphold those rights and obligations, and that the government has no power but that which justice and the consent of the governed grant it. Thus, the Hardalism are actually pro-democracy, even if they don't know it. By contrast, the leftists and mamlakhtim, in worshiping the state no matter how unjust its policies, are actually anti-democracy and illiberal. The mamlakhtim and leftists uphold an elected oligarchy, not different in kind from a monarchy, exactly what true democracy opposes.

Somehow, I feel like the "moderate" religious Zionists worship the seculars more than they worship the Torah. I remember a Neturei Karta friend of mine showed me a quotation of a certain gentile, and I replied to him that I rejected that gentile's opinion. He was bewildered and flabbergasted. He yelled, "But...but..but...aren't you Modern Orthodox??!!". I replied that as a Modern Orthodox Jew, I accepted the Gemara's command to be modeh al ha-emet (lit. "to admit to the truth") and to be m'qabel et ha-emet mi-mi she-amrah (lit. "to accept the truth from whomsoever speaks it). Therefore, I said, I will accept a gentile's truth as surely as I will accept a Jew's truth. All the same, however, I will reject a gentile's falsehood as surely as I'll reject a Jew's. So too, just because I don't hate the seculars for being secular, doesn't mean I cannot hate them for the actual wrongs they do. I don't love evil religious Jews, and I don't like it when religious Jew have idiotic or evil political views, so why must I love evil secular Jews, or why must I worship the political views of the seculars when they are evil or idiotic? Does tinoq she-nishba mean I must unconditionally love every deed and belief of the seculars? Surely not!!! But the "moderate" religious Zionists seem to disagree; they'll rail against the Haredi politics even as they worship secular politics. This is almost surely idolatry, for a rejection of G-d's kingship is idolatry, and as Rav Hirsch teaches in his commentary on the Tower of Babel, to subjugate G-d's children[1] and turn them into cogs in the statist regime's machine[2] , is itself to wage war on G-d[3].

[1] Cf. the midrash about all crying when a brick fell but not when a man fell.
[2] Cf. ibn Ezra, that the Tower was built as a vainglorious rallying flag, for the self-aggrandizement of the state and its people.
[3] Cf. the midrash about the Tower being a stage from which to wage war on G-d Himself.

The Hypocrisy of the Haredim

Not long ago, my friend Tali said that she had been criticized by her friends at Stern College for wearing pants. Today, Bracha told Tali that something similar happened to her.

Alex said (jokingly),

Yeah, but on the other hand, you're out of the house and not making hameen, which is two strikes.

I made a joking reference to Rambam's statement that a woman may leave her house once or twice a month, and I jokingly advocated that we ought to enforce this law today. Sruly responded that the principal of Mir Brooklyn once half-jokingly advocated the same.

I responded:

Which means he was half-serious...!!!!

Actually, however, that might be a good thing. Most Haredim, they preach "hadash assur min ha-torah" and "nothing but the four cubits", and yet they innovate violations of the halakhah, such as by letting women learn Torah in Beit Ya'akov, not to mention leave the house in the first place!!!

Now, I myself am not opposed to innovation - I myself reject "hadash assur min ha-torah" - so I have no problem with women learning Torah or seeing sunlight. But when the Haredim say one thing and do another, they are hypocrites, and that offends me.

Furthermore, if they'd practice what they preach, they'd either have to explicitly reject "hadash assur min ha-torah" in theory even as they already have in practice, or they'd have to cease all innovations in practice just as they reject them all in theory. I.e., if today they hypocritically practice innovations which they reject in their rhetoric, they'd have to stop practicing the innovations or they'd have to stop their rejection of innovation in their rhetoric, so that preaching and practice are in accord.

Either route would bring us benefit: if they reject the rhetoric of "hadash assur min ha-torah", and explicitly admit the propriety and permissibility of innovation, then the heart will follow the deeds, and pretty soon, they'd become more and more open to innovation, and they'd modernized.

Or, if they continue to reject innovation in their rhetoric, but follow this rejection in practice as well, then they'll have to insist women stay home all day, shut down all the Beit Ya'akov schools, etc. etc., and their entire system will collapse, and in any case, the world (especially the Modern Orthodox one) would finally lose its blindness, see the Haredim for who they truly are, and finally declare definitively that the Haredim are beyond the pale of Judaism and have written themselves out of Judaism just like the Tzaduqim or the Qara'im. Either way, we win.

By contrast, however, most Haredim preach rejection of innovation but allow innovation in practice, and this insidiously masks their true nature. People don't realize how horrid their rhetoric is, because it doesn't appear quite so evil in practice (since the Haredim aren't practicing it in the first place!), and their alarms don't go off; the Haredim surreptitiously smuggle their concepts past the Modern Orthodox by this sleight of hand.

But if this principal, half-jokingly - i.e. half-seriously - said women should stay home, then I admire him because he's not a hypocrite, and I approve because his frank admission of the nature of Haredism will benefit the non-Haredi factions of Judaism.

*** Update: In response to this, the following exchange occurred on Facebook:

Daniel Freitag: Unfortunately many of Michael's thoughts equate to "two wrongs make a right". He constantly brings up things which are not acceptable halachically (Rabbah, pants, etc...) and then "defends" it by bashing Haredi. This "two wrongs make a right' approach is very silly.

Eli Neuberger: Daniel: Agree 100%.

In response, I said,

My intention isn't to say that "two wrongs make a right". My point is rather that the Haredim cannot criticize the MO until they clean themselves up. Practice what you preach and make sure you're just before you criticize the wrongs of others. The Haredim cannot criticize MO practices regarding women and egalitarianism until they (the Haredim) first themselves adopt some consistent stance on women, i.e. by either consistently rejecting all innovation (including Beit Ya'akov) or instead by ceasing their rejection of innovation. Once they've cleaned up their own property, they can start checking out others'.

Baruch Pelta, on Facebook, was completely correct when he said there

The arguments of both posts [viz. Tzeniut in Greece and Daat Torah and Women's Semikhah (update)] don't simply amount to "your stuff's narishkeit [lit. "foolishness"], so what we do is automatically okay" but have arguments *for* both, whatever one may think of those arguments. He also may bash the opposition for perceived hypocrisy, but that's part and parcel of the debate, not the entire thing.

Agudath Israel Commends RCA Leaders

At Cross-Currents: "Agudath Israel Commends RCA Leaders", the Agudat Yisrael commends the RCA for rejecting Rabbi Avi Weiss's ordination of women as rabbis. They say, "Agudath Israel warmly welcomes the clarification and commends the RCA leaders for their forthright and principled words. May we all continue to stand guard to protect the integrity of our Mesorah."

The Agudat Yisrael is commending others for keeping the mesorah? Professor Michael Silber wrote an essay titled, "The Emergence of Ultra-Orthodoxy: the Invention of a Tradition", and so I’m not sure how the RCA ought to take such a compliment (regarding the mesorah, i.e. tradition) from the Agudat Yisrael.

There's the story of the Haredi rav in the Polish parliament who'd vote the opposite of whatever the Reform rabbi did. I'm tempted to do the same here. If the Haredim say the RCA is keeping the mesorah, then this is our proof that Rabbi Weiss is correct and the RCA is wrong.

Some Neglected Aspects of the New Conversion Bill

According to Haaretz: "New bill would make conversion insufficient for Israeli citizenship", a bill in the Knesset would allow local city rabbis in Israel to perform state-recognized conversions (thus expanding the options available to those whom the Haredim reject), but at the same time, this bill would change the Law of Return so that converts are not eligible to make aliyah the same way as born-Jews do.

(Note: I certainly am disgusted by some aspects of this bill, and delighted by others. However, I am not concerned with commenting on these aspects. I wish only to explicate some of the aspects which others have neglected. To stand on one foot, I am disgusted by the proposal to disenfranchise converts from eligibility under the Law of Return, while I am delighted by the proposal to empower local city rabbis to perform conversions. That is all I will say; the rest of this post is explication of minutiae.)

It makes capitalistic sense, actually; if you make a conversion easier, then it becomes less valuable, worth less. The more the conversion is worth, the harder it must be to obtain. So if conversions are made easier, they must be made less valuable. Apparently, the two provisions of this bill are an example of barter (quid pro quo) in the Israeli coalition system. The Haredim object to easier conversions, but they'll consent if in return for easier conversions, these conversions are made less valuable, and converts (whom the Haredim consider invalid) won't be able to make aliyah. According to Jerusalem Post: "Why nobody's happy with conversion bill", Yisrael Beitenu MK Rotem

made it clear that without it [viz. the stipulation regarding the Law of Return], Shas would not support the legislation and that without Shas’s votes, he would not be able to pass the part of the bill that he cared about – that is, allowing local authority rabbis to convert.

My friend Rama Musa pointed out that this law is apparently written for the sake of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. These individuals are already citizens in Israel and already have Jewish ancestry, so the change to the Law of Return doesn't hurt them. All they want is conversions so that they can marry without flying to Cyprus. As per Ottoman law, marriage in Israel must be religious, either Jewish, Muslim, or Christian; "secular" is not an option. So these secular Russians cannot get married until they become "religious", and so they want easier conversions. If the price to be paid, in order to gain the support of the Haredim, is to remove converts from eligibility under the Law of Return, then so be it.

However, a different explanation arises from Jerusalem Post: "Why nobody's happy with conversion bill". The provision regarding the Law of Return specifies only that "the right to citizenship according to the Law of Return will not apply to anyone who, before entering Israel, was not eligible to receive an immigrant’s permit or an immigrant’s document". In other words: conversions granted outside Israel will still be valid for the purposes of eligibility under the Law of Return; only conversions in Israel will be devalued. At the same time, however, this law is too vague, and could have unintended consequences. What if, for example, a non-Jew visited Israel, went back to his or her home country, got a conversion there, and then made aliyah - what then? Does the visit to Israel as a non-Jew before the Diasporic conversion count? According to that same article,

Representatives of the Reform and Conservative movements and Hiddush, an organization campaigning for freedom of religion and equality, charged that this paragraph was aimed at them and was meant, among other things, to prevent foreign workers or refugees who obtained formal status, from becoming citizens even if they were to convert.

"It is clear that the Ministry of Interior wants to forestall any possibility of foreign workers or asylum-seekers from settling in Israel," said Shahar Ilan, director-general of Hiddush. "They are just using the amendment to the Chief Rabbinate Law to achieve their aim through the back door."

Frankly, this claim makes no sense to me. Foreign workers don't usually have Jewish conversions anyway, so they won't be affected. And Reform and Conservative converts will be hurt no more than Orthodox converts will be. So why are these groups claiming that foreign workers and non-Orthodox converts are being targeted, when the foreign workers won't be affected in any way, and when non-Orthodox converts will be affected just the same as Orthodox ones? The clarification seems to be found in Jerusalem Post: "Care on conversion":

However, the ambiguous wording of one of the clauses in the bill opens the way for discrimination against converts to Judaism. At present, all converts to Judaism, whether Orthodox, Conservative or Reform, are eligible for automatic Israeli citizenship like any other Jew born to a Jewish mother. An amendment to the Citizenship Law introduced in Israel Beiteinu’s new legislation states that anyone who "entered" Israel as a non-Jew (and did not have a father, grandparents or spouse who was Jewish and therefore was not eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return) and converted to Judaism at some later date, whether in Israel or abroad, would not be eligible for automatic citizenship. In theory this could be referring to any non-Jew who visited Israel at any time in his or her life, even for a day.

Israel Beiteinu’s Rotem rejects this interpretation and says that the amendment is aimed at preventing foreign workers from Third World countries from gaining citizenship by faking conversion. He insists that sincere converts of all streams of Judaism would be granted Israeli citizenship. But the law does not say that, nor does the official explanation accompanying the law.

Perhaps understandably, therefore, some in the non-Orthodox streams of Judaism are concerned that Rotem, an Orthodox Jew, is working in cahoots with the Orthodox establishment in an attempt to block Reform and Conservative converts from receiving automatic Israeli citizenship, even though the bill does not say that either.

So the confusion arises over the ambiguous wording and intention of this provision. Converts will be denied eligibility under the Law of Return, but which converts are intended - all, including Orthodox ones? Reform and Conservative? "Fake" conversions by foreign workers who have no intention or desire to be Jewish at all? The wording of the provision is so vague, that it is difficult to tell what it is supposed to do.

Update: In Jerusalem Post: "Chief Rabbi for changing Law of Return", we find a clarification: Rabbi Shlomo Amar has explicitly said that in order to prevent foreign workers from converting for the sake of citizenship, all converts are to be disenfranchised from eligibility under the Law of Return. Rabbi Amar has said this explicitly; all conversions are to be disqualified so that no one can abuse the Law of Return.

Update: See also Jerusalem Post: "US Jewish leaders concerned over conversion bill", that non-Orthodox Jewish religious authorities oppose the bill for the additional reason that it while it will grant authority to local city rabbis, it will also grant additional authority to the Chief Rabbi as such. They fear that this will make it still more difficult for non-Orthodox conversions to ever be recognized.

As an aside, the Haaretz article ("New bill would make conversion insufficient for Israeli citizenship") states,

The Movement for Progressive Judaism described the bill as a "coup meant to bypass the Supreme Court over the issue of who is a Jew," because it denies converts the right to become Israeli citizens.

This is difficult to understand: what can possibly be wrong with bypassing the Supreme Court? The Supreme Court's job is to interpret law and to nullify unconstitutional laws. But the task of actual lawmaking is given to the parliament and to none other. Who other than the parliament should decide who is a Jew? Why should the Supreme Court be the one to decide? Evidently, the Movement for Progressive Judaism is woefully uneducated on basic democracy and political theory.

Apparently, however (according to Arutz Sheva: "Rancorous Exchanges Mark Conversion Bill Debate"), Shas removed its previous support for the bill, and UTJ opposed the bill as well, leading to a coalition crisis, in which Yisrael Beitenu threatened to push the bill forward, even at the cost of destroying the coalition. As an aside, however, we see an interesting example of Da'at Torah thinking:

The MKs of UTJ and Shas say that conversion must only be done according to Jewish Law, and therefore object to the proposed bill. When asked to explain what about the current proposal does not jibe with Jewish Law, however, no answer was forthcoming. Yair, an aide to UTJ Law Committee MK Uri Maklev, told Israel National News that he could not answer this question because "I am in a meeting," and Yitzchak, an aide to Shas Law Committee MK Avraham Michaeli said that only Shas Party spokesman Ro’i Lachmanovitch could answer; when contacted for his response to the question, Lachmonovitch said similarly that he was busy and could not answer.

This article (Arutz Sheva: "Rancorous Exchanges Mark Conversion Bill Debate") seems to be no longer online, so I will post its contents here (if anyone finds a link, please inform me):

Rancorous Exchanges Mark Conversion Bill Debate
by Hillel Fendel
Adar 22, 5770, 08 March 10 01:49

(Israelnationalnews.com) A new law that would allow municipal Chief Rabbis to head rabbinical conversion courts was the subject of a stormy Knesset Law Committee session on Monday.
The law has been promoted by the Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) party, headed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, but the hareidi-religious United Torah Judaism (UTJ) and Shas parties object to it. All three are members of the government coalition - meaning that a coalition crisis is looming.

MK David Rotem of Israel Our Home, the chairman of the Law Committee, agreed to push off a committee vote on the bill until tomorrow. "If we can’t reach an agreement," Rotem warned, "I will bring this bill to a vote in the Knesset even if it leads to the breakup of the coalition." Cabinet Secretary Tzvi Hauser convened a meeting of party representatives last night to ward off just such an eventuality.

Rotem notes that in the past, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel enabled every duly-appointed municipal Chief Rabbi to convert non-Jews to Judaism and issue a certificate to that effect. The decision was later changed, but "because of the bottle-neck that has developed in the conversion process, we wish to restore the situation to its previous state."

Former MK Michael Melchior, a supporter of the bill, explained, "We are in the midst of a struggle over the Jewish character of the State of Israel. The hareidi position, though legitimate, stands in opposition to the way in which conversion was always performed in Israel, and against the rulings of the Chief Rabbis of Israel... This law is an attempt to find a solution that will enable conversion according to Jewish Law in a reasonable and gracious way – something that is critical for the future of Israeli society and Aliyah."

The MKs of UTJ and Shas say that conversion must only be done according to Jewish Law, and therefore object to the proposed bill. When asked to explain what about the current proposal does not jibe with Jewish Law, however, no answer was forthcoming. Yair, an aide to UTJ Law Committee MK Uri Maklev, told Israel National News that he could not answer this question because "I am in a meeting," and Yitzchak, an aide to Shas Law Committee MK Avraham Michaeli said that only Shas Party spokesman Ro’i Lachmanovitch could answer; when contacted for his response to the question, Lachmonovitch said similarly that he was busy and could not answer.

Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar previously agreed to the law, but Rotem announced at the start of the committee session that he had been informed that the rabbi had withdrawn his support.

Though the various religious sectors generally cooperate constructively, the session was marked by angry exchanges between UTJ MK Moshe Gafni and yarmulke-wearing Rotem. Gafni said, "I don’t know why we cooperate with the right-wing and the national-religious; you [plural] are the worst!" Rotem responded in kind, "I also don’t know why we cooperate with the beards and black hats."
© Copyright IsraelNationalNews.com

According to Jerusalem Post: "Shas: Conversion bill crisis solvable", the crisis is due to the fact that the original version submitted by Yisrael Beitenu MK Rotem, and which Shas agreed with, has been changed too much in committee, and Shas can no longer agree with it. It also appears that UTJ and Degel Hatorah (the Ashkenazi Haredi parties) have created problems for Shas (the Sephardi Haredi party), leading Shas to withdraw its support. Similarly, Jerusalem Post: "Tensions flare over conversion law" reports that the most severe criticism of the bill is from UTJ, and that "Under criticism from UTJ, Shas reportedly withdrew its support for the bill, according to at least one report on Channel 10 television." Similarly, Jerusalem Post: "Why nobody's happy with conversion bill" says, "But Shas has backed down from its approval, apparently because of the strong opposition of the United Torah Judaism (UTJ) Party.". But one of Yisrael Beiteinu's coalition agreements with Shas is that some conversion law be passed.

Rabbi Seth Farber illustrates why UTJ opposes the bill, in his article What’s Wrong With Israel’s Proposed Conversion Bill:

The ultra-Orthodox parties in Israel are generally xenophobic, and they see conversion as a stick with which they can impose their ideologies. Since almost all the rabbinical court judges are ultra-Orthodox and since some of the city rabbis are Modern Orthodox, the ultra-Orthodox parties opposed the bill vociferously, as it seeks to increase the power of the city rabbis and limit the power of rabbinical court judges. And in fact, a vote on the bill was delayed because of the clout and influence of the ultra-Orthodox in the Knesset.

As an aside, in "Tensions flare over conversion law" (op. cit.), we read another example of Da'at Torah:

Amid concerns raised by UTJ that the bill would strip rabbis of their religious authority...

But in fact, this bill primarily increases the authority of local city rabbis to perform conversion. So apparently, when the UTJ speaks of "strip[ping] rabbis of their authority", the only rabbis they have in mind are so-called "gedolim"; local city rabbis are not "rabbis", and so the change in the amount of their authority is irrelevant.

Women's and Jewish Education in Germany

My response to the excellent article Tefillin Barbie's new career, about how profound and serious Jewish learning should not be confined to rabbis alone, and how women can be Jewishly involved and also involved in traditionally-male professional careers (such as computer science and engineering):

Damn straight!!! Rav S. R. Hirsch wanted to found a yeshiva for laymen in Frankfurt (which his son-in-law eventually succeeded in doing) precisely because he was afraid that as long as there was only the Berlin Hildesheimer rabbinical seminary, that even the Orthodox laymen would assume that only rabbis need post-high-school Jewish education. Even Rav Hirsch's son-in-law, however, found it difficult to found that lay yeshiva, because the congregants erroneously thought Rav Hirsch would have opposed its creation. For years, the yeshiva had to import students from Hungary, and only later did native Germans finally begin attending it.

As for women, I'd like to quote Rabbi Yehiel Weinberg (of Germany)'s teshuva on qol isha (translated here) [update: Rabbi Weinberg was born in Poland, learned in Mir and Slabodka, and became a renowned rosh yeshiva in the Hildesheimer seminary in Berlin - h/t "Skeptic"]:

I therefore instructed the leaders of [the NCSY-type youth group] Yeshurun that they may rely upon the great rabbis of Germany [viz. Rabbis Hirsch and Hildesheimer]. Those men, experts in education, were familiar with the spirit of the contemporary young woman, who, have been educated in the state schools and having learned languages and science, has a sense of self respect. Because they view the prohibition against their participation in religious singing as a form of ostracism, they have been permitted to participate in singing Shabbos melodies. We know the great rabbis of Germany were more successful in educating their young women that the rabbis of any other country. In Germany we have seen highly educated, scholarly women who are the same time G-d-fearing and enthusiastically observant. For this reason, I do not dare forbid what those rabbis permitted. In these countries, the women will feel they have been insulted and their rights have been denied them if we forbid them to participate in singing Shabbos melodies. Anyone familiar with the nature of the women in these countries will understand this. Prohibiting them may cause them to be estranged from religion, G-d forbid. Of such it is said, 'When it is time to act for the Lord, violate the Torah' (Psalms 119:126).

The women have "self respect"!!! They will "feel they have been insulted and their rights have been denied them" if they perceive themselves as being discriminated against in any way!!! And "[a]nyone familiar with the nature of the women in these countries will understand this"!!!! How many Orthodox rabbis have told these women even today that they aren't sufficiently religious, that their desire to be rabbis evinces lack of piety!!! But Rabbi Yehiel Weinberg, easily one of the greatest rabbis of recent days, held otherwise.

Does it strike anyone as odd that we can be lenient in pesaq for the sake of avoiding monetary loss, and yet so many refuse to be lenient to satisfy women? Are the emotions of women, of half the Jewish people, less important than our money? Rabbi Benzion Uziel said he'd always ruled leniently for the sake of hesed and ahavah whenever he could find a Talmudic basis to do so, and his student Rabbi Haim David Halevy said that Beit Hillel prevailed over Beit Shammai because the former knew the human condition and was lenient. Should we be surprised that it was Rabbi Uziel who said women could vote and hold political office and be a queen (malkah) and be a dayan? (The Ashkenazim of the time held that women may not hold office or even vote. The Ashkenazim today still hold by this in principle, but their selfishness and desire for political influence hypocritically outweigh their adherence to halakhah, and so they let their women vote. As for being a dayan, the rabbis today are still arguing about whether women may be rabbis, even though Rabbi Uziel settled the question some eight or nine decades ago.)

(And it was Rabbi Uziel and other Sephardim who were willing to add conditions to the qetuba, in order to make a qiddushin b'tenai, a conditional marriage, which would allow us to avoid situations of a woman being an agunah - if the conditions were not met, the marriage would be retroactively void. To my knowledge, the only other rabbis who held by qiddushin b'tenai as a practical solution for today were ... drumroll ... Rabbi Yehiel Weinberg and his student Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovits. Rabbi Emanuel Rackman asks in One Man's Judaism why agunot must follow Ashkenazi stricture instead of Sephardi leniency in this area.)

Elsewhere in the same teshuva on qol isha, Rabbi Weinberg said (as quoted here):

In any event, when I was asked ... I instructed them that they should continue their activity in accordance with the way that was delineated for them by the great [rabbis] of Germany, who were very righteous ... and the great [rabbis] of Germany were erudite and expert in the wisdom of education and therefore they succeeded by their deeds to raise whole generations of people who had both the fear of Heaven and secular learning, something that did not occur under the [most] brilliant of the great [rabbis] of Lithuania and Poland, because they did not know how to adjust the education [-al methods] according to the conditions of the time. It is known what the brilliant Rabbi Salanter told upon his return from Germany, where he met with Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer and saw him lecture classes in Bible and Shulhan Arukh in front of young single women. He [Rabbi Salanter] said thus [in reaction]: if any one of the rabbis from Lithuania would act in such a manner in his community, they would remove him from his post, and such is the law. In any event, it is my hope that my place in the afterworld will be with Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer . ... And now the rabbis of Poland and Hungary who have found their way to France see the modern practices ... and they vehemently protest them, because these practices are in opposition to explicit laws ... but these said rabbis are not erudite in the conditions of life ...

About women's semikhah, see what I've written here. About qol isha, see my article here. About women's education in Germany, see Dr. Laura Shaw-Frank's "But We Are Guilty for Our Daughters": Lessons Learned from the History of Jewish Girls' Education in Germany and Eastern Europe in the Ninteenth Century

I'll Fly Away with Rabbi Yisrael Moshe Hazan Playing a Banjo

What did people do back before there was bluegrass? It sure must have been a sorry and sad existence!

Submitted: "I'll Fly Away", by Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch.


Submitted: "I'll Fly Away", by the Kossoy Sisters.


I know the lyrics are Christological, but according to Rabbi Yisrael Moshe Hazan of Izmir, Turkey,, we have an obligation to use church tunes in the synagogue, because of the fear of G-d they inspire!!!! To quote Professor Marc Shapiro (here),

Hazan goes so far as to state that it is obligatory (!) for Jews to make use of church tunes in the synagogue service, since these are so effective in bringing one to love of God. He also testifies that in Smyrna the cantors would go to a church in order to learn the hymns, which would then be adapted to Hebrew prayers and used in the High Holidays service! See Kerakh shel Romi (Livorno, 1876), pp. 4a-b.

Aren't Sephardim awesome?

Daat Torah and Women's Semikhah (update)

Note: this post is an updated version of the post of the same title from a few days ago. It is 99% the same, but a few more articles have come out in the past few days. So I've updated the post, adding material and posting it here as a new separate post, but it is mostly the same, and I don't add any fundamentally new arguments that weren't already in my previous post.

I.

Recently, the Agudath Israel Council of Torah Sages (Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of America) has come out (according to JTA: "Rabbi condemned for ordaining woman") condemning Rabbi Avi Weiss's Yeshivat Maharat for ordaining Orthodox women rabbis, and his conferring the title "Maharat" and more recently "Rabba". According to the Agudath Israel,

these developments represent a radical and dangerous departure from Jewish tradition and the mesoras haTorah, and must be condemned in the strongest terms. ... Any congregation with a woman in a rabbinical position of any sort cannot be considered Orthodox.

One of the Agudath Israel's claims must be immediately debunked. According to the JTA article,

The council also objects, [Rabbi Avi] Shafran added, because any change in Orthodox norms must be backed by a "world-class Torah decisor," and no such authority has lent his name to Wiess’s actions.

Similarly, according to The Jewish Star: "RCA, Rabbi Weiss agree: Todah, no Rabba", Rabbi Avi Shafran said,

[If] Weiss had the backing of a world-class posek (halachic decisor) he would have a claim that he’s not departing [from the mesorah], but he does not have any such backings on the recognized Orthodox spectrum, chareidi or central. He’s changing the face of mesorah without anyone of stature behind him.

However, Rabbi Benzion Uziel permitted women to be dayanim in certain cases, and his teshuva has been translated into English here. (Rabbi Uziel's teshuva deals primarily with women holding public office and voting in a democracy, but he deals as well with women holding the offices of king (queen) and dayan.) Several other rabbis have recently offered the basis for permitting women to be rabbis, here. So much for the claim that Rabbi Weiss has no important figures behind him.

Furthermore, however, even if Rabbi Weiss had no authorities behind him, so what? If he has halakhic sources, legitimate sources and reasoning from the Talmud and Shulhan Arukh, what does he need another authority for? Do we follow rabbis, or do we follow G-d and His Torah? Obviously, authorities are important because usually, they accurately tell us what the Torah and Talmud say. I'm not saying that authorities are unimportant. But in the end of the day, our allegiance is to be to Torah and Judaism, and not to the rabbis. The nation of Israel sinned when they overemphasized the role of Moshe Rabenu and built the Golden Calf to replace him. We should have been able to operate with G-d as our leader alone, without an intermediary. Authorities are important, but only when they convey the Torah to us. When, however, they disrupt and interrupt our relationship with the Torah, then we must follow the Torah and not the rabbis. Ultimate sovereignty is G-d's. The Hebrew slave who refuses to leave his master, his ear is bored, and the Talmud explains that the man whose hear heard at Sinai, ‘I am the L-rd your G-d’, but who nevertheless chose a new master instead of G-d, his ear is to be bored. When the people ask Samuel for a king, G-d answers that the people, in requesting a king, have rejected not Samuel, but G-d. We see that becoming a slave with a master, and choosing a king, and renouncing one’s liberty and freedom (Samuel provides the people with a litany of the abuses of liberty which kingship will bring), are all forms of rejecting G-d, which is another way of saying "avodah zara".

By contrast, Rabbi Shafran has no halakhic support for his opposition to women's ordination. According to the Jewish Star (op. cit.), Rabbi Shafran has said,

Tznius isn’t a mode of dress. It includes the idea that women are demeaned and not honored when they’re put in the public eye and put on a pedestal. The position he [Weiss] has created violated the concept. Putting a woman in front of a group of men and women on a regular or ad-hoc basis is violative of tznius. Halacha accomplishes much more than the letter of the law. There is nothing in the Shulchan Aruch about keeping a cat in the aron kodesh. It’s technically permitted but it’s wrong to do.

Notice two things: first, Rabbi Shafran has no real halakhic arguments. His arguments all are based on Daat Torah, on unwritten rules of Judaism, which he cannot cite, and which therefore, no one can disprove. By arguing based on emotion and the unwritten rules, no one can argue against him.

Second, notice that his argument is entirely disingenuous and irrelevant. That: Rabbi Shafran has historically never (to my knowledge) objected to women giving sermons or speaking in public or holding public offices. He is objecting only to the title. But if his concerns are based on tzniut, then what does the title matter? A women giving sermons and halakhic rulings is a women giving sermons and halakhic rulings, regardless of whether she's "Rabbi" or "Dr." or "Queen" or "Mrs."!!! If Rabbi Shafran objects to Rabbi Weiss based on tzniut, then he should have spoken up a long time ago, back when Sara Hurwitz was working in the the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale without a title. If Rabbi Shafran is speaking up only now, then it is clear that he objects only to her title. But if so, then it means that tzniut has nothing to do with his concerns. On the other hand, if tzniut really truly is his concern, then he ought to have spoken out long ago. Furthermore, he should be speaking out against women being doctors and lawyers as well; after all, is it not terribly immodest for a woman to argue law before a judge, or for a woman doctor give a lecture at a medical conference or symposium? Indeed, as a blog by Debra Nussbaum Cohen on the Forward says (Rabbi Avi Weiss Backs Down From Ordaining Women),

It’s interesting that the reaction happened not because of the training that Sara Hurwitz and now other women are getting, and not when the title "Maharat" was created, but only when the title became too close to the term "rabbi" for their comfort. No one in the centrist Orthodox world is questioning the advanced, proto-rabbinic training itself, at Weiss’ Yeshivat Maharat, at Drisha and even at the bastion of mainstream Orthodoxy, Yeshiva University, which has a Graduate Program in Advanced Talmudic Studies. It’s all about the title and the term ordination being too close for the RCA’s comfort to the language used for male Orthodox clergy. So the question again seems to be how long it will take for the few women who are trained like men and doing all of the work of male rabbis that a mainstream Orthodox understanding of Jewish law allows, to become a rabbi — or, as it were, a rabba.

*** Update: At Cross-Currents: The RCA and Rabbi Avi Weiss, Rabbi Shafran says,

The leadership of the Rabbinical Council of America and Rabbi Avi Weiss have apparently reached agreement that Rabbi Weiss would no longer confer the title of "Rabba" upon graduates of his women’s seminary, but rather the title "Maharat." This superficial move does not in any way change the position of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah that placing women in traditional rabbinic positions departs from the Jewish mesorah, and that any congregation with a woman in such a position cannot call itself Orthodox.

So perhaps Rabbi Shafran is not being hypocritical and disingenuous after all. I accused him, based on the fact that he cited tzeniut as the only objection, and yet he also objected only to the title, even though the presence or absence of a title has no effect on tzeniut. But now, it would appear that Rabbi Shafran opposes women's pulpit positions, with or without a title, which is laudably more consistent and honest than what I thought his position was. But it's still rather hypocritical and disingenuous for him to fail to criticize women being doctors and lawyers, given that this violates tzeniut no less than their being rabbis.

Rabbi Marc D. Angel has recently written a wonderful post on women's ordination ("Women as Orthodox Religious Leaders?"). The amazing thing about this piece is that Rabbi Angel appears to take no position, nor offer any personal opinions. All he does is ask questions and point out difficulties in others' positions. His own opinion is not difficult to read between the lines, but the fact remains that he never once explicitly gives his own opinion. His piece also offers a criticism of the apodictic rulings of Daat Torah, in which dogmatic positions are stated without any textual or traditional support. In his words,

The modern Orthodox community might rightly reply [to the Agudat Israel]: this is our decision to make, not yours. You do not have the right or authority to declare who is Orthodox and who "cannot be considered Orthodox." The modern Orthodox community might also rightly reply: if you have a halakhic/hashkafic point of view, please express it fully and with proper citations to Torah, Talmud and sources in rabbinic literature. Don't make proclamations, but give us reasoned, well supported position papers. That way, we will be able to see if there is merit in your position. We will also be able to offer a reasoned and well-supported response, if we feel your judgment is not the only one possible within Orthodoxy.

I fully appreciate that this is a complicated issue, and that there are valid concerns on both sides of the question. Indeed, the issue is so serious that it must be confronted with all due thoughtfulness, and with the recognition that there will be various approaches and suggestions. What we need is candid, well-reasoned discussion--not unilateral proclamations that essentially say: do as we tell you, or you're not Orthodox.

One of my concerns is: does the modern Orthodox community have the inner strength to deal with the issue of women's religious leadership, or will we simply cave in to the pressure "from the right"? The "Council of Torah Sages" believes it can prevail in defining Orthodoxy, and in casting out those who disagree with them. Does the modern Orthodox community have the confidence and integrity to demur, and to insist on its own right to discuss and debate and make its own decisions?

Professor Marc Shapiro has written about this phenomenon of Daat Torah. In his words ("The Uses of Tradition: Jewish Continuity in the Modern Era," (book review), Tradition 28:2, 1994),

[Jacob] Katz also ilustrates the nineteenth century [emphasis added] creation of what he terms ex cathedra rulings. [Notice the terminology borrowed from Catholicism - Michael Makovi.] That is, the halakhist, acting through his charismatic personality, issues rulings on a wide range of communal issues basing himself primarily on biblical passages and religious feelings rather than halakhic sources. If a certain decision is perceived by the halakhist as necesssary to maintain the Torah community, he will reach it. The halakhist places these new rulings at the very center of the religion, and one who violates them is no longer to be regarded as a faithful Jew. It seems clear that the method of decision-making Katz is describing is fundamentally not really different than the contemporary notion of Daat Torah. I thus do not accept the popular view that Daat Torah is a twentieth century [emphasis added] concept. Even in pre-modern times one can point to rabbis deciding communal matters based on non-halakhic points. What this means is that the halakhist was intuitively convinced that his community needed to adopt a certain approach and, lacking the precise halakhic sources, supported his position by citing Bible, Midrash etc. By making a case without traditional halakhic sources it is impossible for an opponent to marshal contrary halakhic arguments. A ruling could be opposed, but not refuted. The only real difference between the modern exponents of Daat Torah and the earlier authorities seems to be that the earlier authorities felt the need to expound upon their opinions with numerous Scriptural and Aggadic proofs. The modern exponents of Daat Torah often feel no need to offer any justification of their views and it is here where one finds their originality.

Cf. an article by Katz, "DA'AT TORAH - The Unqualified Authority Claimed for Halachists". In this article, Katz argues that while the term "Daat Torah" is a creation of the twentieth-century, that nevertheless, the phenomenon of Daat Torah is a nineteenth-century phenomenon, witnessed in the battle of Hungarian Ultra-Orthodoxy against the Neologs (conservative right-wing Reformers).

Our focus is on the final observation of Shapiro just quoted, viz. that,

The only real difference between the modern exponents of Daat Torah and the earlier authorities seems to be that the earlier authorities felt the need to expound upon their opinions with numerous Scriptural and Aggadic proofs. The modern exponents of Daat Torah often feel no need to offer any justification of their views and it is here where one finds their originality.

Rabbi Angel's article on women's ordination criticizes precisely this phenomenon of apodictic rulings devoid of any citations or justifications or supports.

Rabbi Angel's article also offers some good arguments (presented in the form of questions) regarding women's ordination. His article can be read as Women as Orthodox Religious Leaders?. Rabbi Angel's piece really is extraordinary, and is a must-read.

II.

It would also be interesting to examine Rabbi Marc Angel's own views on women's ordination. In an interview with Gilah Kletenik of Yeshiva University's Kol HaMevaser (here), we read:

KHM [ = Kol HaMevaser]: It’s hard not to pick up on the male-dominated storyline; after all, it is about a Lithuanian yeshivah. Still, certain characters advocate for an expanded, even emancipated, role for women in Judaism. What do you think is the ideal place for women within all areas of the community and how might this be achieved?

RMA [ = Rabbi Marc Angel]: I don’t have the ideal place. The issue of Orthodoxy and women exists because the world has transformed. Today, women study Talmud; this used to not be the case. But you have a glass ceiling; you can only go so far. We’ve created a dynamic by educating our women, and we don’t know how to deal with it. We don’t have an answer yet. I’m in favor of opening options: women’s tefillah groups, women’s Megillah readings, and women as members on boards. In our synagogue (Congregation Shearith Israel), we have Lynne Kaye filling the position of Assistant Congregational Leader – she does everything a rabbi would do except for the ritual aspects. Sure, these developments may be a dead-end, but how do we know unless we experiment? These boundaries – how flexible are they? A pesak on these matters would freeze the process. We must see how things unfold.

I've spoken with Rabbi Angel on various issues, and I've found that he often prefers to avoid legislating or deciding for the future. He'll often tell me that based on the present situation we see today, the relevant halakhic principles are A and B and C, and that the resulting halakhic conclusions are X and Y and Z, but he refuses to express an opinion on possible future developments. He refuses not only to offer conclusions, but he even often refuses to speculate on whether other relevant principles (besides A, B, and C) will exist in the future. It is a common practice of his to avoid deciding for the future, because he is humble enough that he doubts the reliability of such predictions, and in any case, he doesn't wish to tie the hands of anyone in the future by setting a precedent that may later prove to be inconvenient and limiting.

It would be interesting to see how Rabbi Angel sees Rabbi Weiss's move to ordain women as "Rabba". We've seen that Rabbi Angel seems to neither support nor oppose women's ordination very vocally. At the same time, he is a vocal supporter of Rabbi Weiss. What does he say about Rabbi Weiss in our present case, then? According to The Jewish Star: "RCA, Rabbi Weiss agree: Todah, no Rabba", Rabbi Angel has said,

Rabbi Weiss is a visionary; an Orthodox rabbi who has the courage to grapple with many issues that other rabbis fear to confront. Whether or not people agree with him, they should respect the seriousness of his endeavor and his absolute commitment to make Orthodoxy grow and thrive in a meaningful, vibrant and ‘open’ manner. Whenever someone suggests a change in old patterns — even when the change is organic and halakhically proper — there will be those who reflexively oppose the innovator, and who prefer to keep Orthodoxy closed, hierarchical and authoritarian.

We see that Rabbi Angel is supporting Rabbi Weiss without either supporting or condemning his specific policies. And we see that in general, Rabbi Angel at least supports and respects innovation and advancement by others, even if he doesn't himself always advocate it himself.

III.

In any case, there were rumors that apparently even the RCA was set to discipline or even oust Rabbi Avi Weiss, according to Jewish Week: "Rabbis Set To Rumble Over Rabba?" and Forward: Woman ‘Rabba’ Roils Orthodox World. It was clear that at least, there would be a confrontation between the RCA and Rabbi Weiss, and that either one would cede to other, or that the two would form a rift and separate.

More recently, under pressure, Rabbi Weiss has decided to backtrack and disavow the title "Rabbah"; he is returning to the term "Maharat". See

• The Jewish Star: "RCA, Rabbi Weiss agree: Todah, no Rabba"
  
• The Yeshiva World: "RCA Statement In Regards To Rabbi Avi Weiss & His ‘Rabbah’ [& His Response To RCA]"
  
• JTA: "Avi Weiss: No more rabbas"
  
• The Riverdale Press: "HIR's Rabbi Weiss reaches accord with Jewish leaders over 'rabba' title"

This is really not so surprising in retrospect; according to the Jewish Star, an unnamed source said,

They’re [the RCA and Rabbi Weiss] negotiating. The RCA does not want to kick him out and he does not want to be kicked out, but this is an intolerable activity. ... He [Weiss] is an impetous fellow, which is okay. Everything is in how he words it. If I had to guess, when Rabbi Weiss retracts, he’s going to say this was the right thing at the wrong time and I regret doing it, and I commit to not doing it for a period of time.

Another unnamed source said,

It was made pretty clear that the alternative was death; even she [Hurwitz] is better off. They were going to expel him and expel the shul. If you look at the Agudah statement they declared him non-Orthodox, not wrong, not mistaken, but not Orthodox.

According to the Forward,

But Weiss also has his allies. [Rabbi Marc] Angel said he agrees with Weiss that women should be able to serve as Orthodox clergy since "90% of any rabbi’s job can be done by a woman as well as a man." In time, Angel said, "what Avi is doing will be widely accepted." But for now, it’s causing a great deal of pushback. The RCA, Angel said, is saying to Weiss "'listen, you’ve taken a stand which is causing a lot of flak in the right-wing Orthodox world, our members are upset, and you’ve gone too far.' His response is that he thought he was working on something he believes in that fits in with Orthodoxy." "The last thing Avi wants is a confrontation with the RCA or anyone else," Angel said. "If he pushed too far too fast, okay. He’s a smart fellow and realizes there’s pressure on him to concede something to stay within the overall consensus. He’s still on the far left but doesn’t want to be outside the overall consensus." Both parties, Angel said, "are trying to find a way to come out smelling good."

In short: Rabbi Weiss wants to push the envelop, but he doesn't want to be written totally out of Orthodoxy. He needs to stay within the consensus, even if only barely so, in order that he can still exert a salutary influence upon Orthodoxy. However, one claim by the Jewish Week, ("Rabbis Set To Rumble Over Rabba?", op. cit.) is erroneous; we read there,

In a twist, one Rabbi Weiss school, YCT, won’t recognize the rabbinic credentials of the other Rabbi Weiss school, Yeshivat Maharat, with Rabba Hurwitz being denied membership in the International Rabbinic Fellowship, also founded by Rabbi Weiss and primarily composed of YCT rabbis.

**Update: In the comments section, "Steg" said, "[T]here are at least about 150 rabbis in the IRF — and only around 50 YCT musmakhim in the world ... the idea that the IRF is composed primarily of YCT rabbis is therefore absurd."

On 4 December 2009, an email was sent to students who are University Network members of Rabbi Marc Angel's Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. Rabbi Angel wrote,

The International Rabbinic Fellowship, a new modern Orthodox rabbinic association founded by Rabbi Avi Weiss and me, had a conference last month. About 60 rabbis from throughout the US attended, as well as rabbis from Canada and Colombia. The group reached a consensus that it would be appropriate to include women members, even though they do not have, and don't have the opportunity to have, semikha. A committee was tasked with coming up with suitable criteria for membership. Some rabbis were concerned that admitting non-rabbi women into the IRF will undermine our credibility as an Orthodox rabbinic body, and will impede our efforts in such areas as conversion to Judaism, the agunah issue, Jewish education etc. What do you think? How do you envision religious leadership for modern Orthodoxy 10 years from now?

In short: the IRF "reached a consensus that it would be appropriate to include women members", and the only question was what criteria should be used to judge women applicants for membership, given that most suitably learned women do not have the ability to earn formal semikha, meaning that an alternate litmus test must be found. Some rabbis had the same concern as Rabbi Weiss is evincing now, viz. that even if a certain act is correct and justified, that nevertheless, we may need to refrain from acting if this will cause us to be ostracized, causing any salutary influence we have on Orthodoxy to cease. Similarly, according to an IRF Press Release (here),

Though Orthodox Judaism does not ordain women as rabbis, several Orthodox women who serve in a handful of Orthodox congregations in rabbinic capacities were present. A long discussion was held at the conference on the question of admitting women acting in a rabbinic capacity as full voting members among the Rabbis. The group voted to task the membership committee with creating criteria for the potential consideration of admission of women. If the IRF votes to admit women, criteria for membership will also be voted on in June. The IRF recognizes that there are highly capable women serving in rabbinic roles and as such the group might benefit from their presence, ideas and guidance.This heralds the first time that an Orthodox rabbinical group has entertained the possibility of admitting women as full members into its ranks.

Ephraim Khantsis: A Jewish Terrorist?

Incitement and advocacy to rebellion is sedition, but quotation of historical incitement and advocacy to rebellion, that is scholarship!

--- Me, paraphrasing Gershom Scholem. Thanks to the works of Puritan political revolutionaries, I can advocate rebellion against any government merely by cutting and pasting their works, without technically saying anything new myself.

There has been much talk recently of Ephraim Khantsis, a student of Machon Meir who was temporarily deported from Israel for his supposedly dangerous political talk. See

• American Immigrant 'Exiled' Back to US for 3 Months
  
• Betrayal of Mossad, Betrayal of Ephraim Khantsis: What does Ephraim Khantsis have to do with the betrayal of Mossad agents in Dubai?
  
• Ephraim Khantsis: Portrait of a Kahanawannabe American-Jewish Settler Terrorist

To quote the last-named piece, "When are we going to wake up and realize this isn’t a Zionist dream, it is a nightmare." If you read carefully, however, you’ll see that Khantsis merely promised to defend himself. He did not say he’d go out of his way to kill anyone; he said he’d only defend himself. As Thomas Paine said in The American Crisis (which was deemed so excellent that General Washington had it read to all the American troops),

Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but ‘to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER’ and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God. … Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to ‘bind me in all cases whatsoever’ to his absolute will, am I to suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other. Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man.

The fact is that according to libertarian democratic principles (such as were expounded first by the Swiss and Scottish Calvinists and Puritans, and which were later picked up by British thinkers such as John Locke), the government has only those powers which the people grant it. According to the theory of the social-contract, the government is merely the proxy of the people, created by the people and for the people for their own good. The government is not of heaven (unless you're a Calvinist, but I don't want to get too off-topic), and it does not have any intrinsic or absolute authority. Rather, the government is a human creation, created by the governed for their own good. Therefore, the government can be freely dismantled by the governed when the government is not serving the good of the governed. Indeed, as it says in the Declaration of Independence,

... That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

So when the Israeli government comes to expel residents from their homes in the West Bank, the Israeli government quite simply has no authority to do so. It quite simply lacks the jurisdiction. Nowhere have the governed – i.e., those living in the West Bank – granted the Israeli government this power. Therefore, when people such as Khantsis defend themselves, they are merely defending themselves against a tyrannical government which is arrogating to itself powers which the governed never granted it. Or as Samuel Adams said in The Rights of the Colonists,

All men have a right to remain in a state of nature [= absence of any civil government] as long as they please; and in case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and enter into another. When men enter into society, it is by voluntary consent; and they have a right to demand and insist upon the performance of such conditions and previous limitations as form an equitable original compact.

In other words, according to Adams: every man naturally lives in a state of absence of government, and he enters into an association with government only by his own voluntary consent. And when the government becomes tyrannical, he may freely leave that social-contract with the government. Adams continues,

Every natural right not expressly given up, or, from the nature of a social compact, necessarily ceded, remains.

In other words: every natural and G-d-given right of man is retained by the governed unless they explicitly cede that right and grant the government the power to abridge that right. So unless residents of the West Bank have voluntarily ceded their rights to the government, the Israeli government has no authority in this area. 

Adams continues,

The natural liberty of man, by entering into society, is abridged or restrained, so far only as is necessary for the great end of society, the best good of the whole. In the state of nature every man is, under God, judge and sole judge of his own rights and of the injuries done him. By entering into society he agrees to an arbiter or indifferent judge between him and his neighbors; but he no more renounces his original right than by taking a cause out of the ordinary course of law, and leaving the decision to referees or indifferent arbitrators.

In other words, the rights of men are abridged only insofar as is necessary for the good of society. But if a man hires an impartial arbiter to judge his cases, this does not mean he is forgoing his rights, for if the judge miscarries justice and rules in a grossly unjust way, the man has no obligation to honor the judge’s rulings. In the end of the day, a man still has all his rights. In short: man has a contract with the government. He cedes his rights to the government for the sake of receiving security in return. But like all contracts, each party stipulates precise conditions, and anything not stipulating, is simply not part of the contract. And if one party breaks its side, the contract is entirely annulled. Therefore: the government has only those powers which the governed have granted it in the social-contract, and if the government violates the contract by exercising powers not given it by the governed, then the government’s authority is entirely dissolved, at least in those areas of its power relevant to the given breach of contract.

And furthermore, in the end of the day, ultimate authority belongs to G-d. Therefore, for example, no one can grant the government power to murder innocents, for this violates the commands of G-d, and no one can grant the government such a power which he (the governed) himself does not have. Indeed, democracy as we know it today began with the Puritan John Knox asking the Swiss Reformed Christian Heinrich Bullinger whether a man must obey an idolatrous Catholic monarch; Bullinger answered that no, ein shaliah b'davar `averah, and the government is to be obeyed only when its commands are just. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail puts the matter excellently:

One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all." Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

Or as Henry David Thoreau said in his On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.

Or as Thoreau's friend Ralph Waldo Emerson said in his Politics,

We are superstitious, and esteem the statute somewhat: so much life as it has in the character of living men, is its force. The statute stands there to say, yesterday we agreed so and so, but how feel ye this article today? Our statute is a currency, which we stamp with our own portrait: it soon becomes unrecognizable, and in process of time will return to the mint. ... But our institutions, though in coincidence with the spirit of the age, have not any exemption from the practical defects which have discredited other forms. Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well.

As Adams says,

In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

Ultimate sovereignty is G-d's. The Hebrew slave who refuses to leave his master, his ear is bored, and the Talmud explains that the man whose hear heard at Sinai, ‘I am the L-rd your G-d’, but who nevertheless chose a new master instead of G-d, his ear is to be bored. When the people ask Samuel for a king, G-d answers that the people, in requesting a king, have rejected not Samuel, but G-d. We see that becoming a slave with a master, and choosing a king, and renouncing one’s liberty and freedom (Samuel provides the people with a litany of the abuses of liberty which kingship will bring), are all forms of rejecting G-d, which is another way of saying avodah zara.

In theory, all men are equal. When Moshe objected to Korah's proclamation that "All the congregation is holy", Moshe agreed in theory with Korah, for indeed, Moshe elsewhere said, "Would that all the congregation would be prophets!". Korah was wrong only because in reality, some men are brighter or more skilled or more responsible than others. But in theory, all men are equal, and so we should have as little leadership and as little government as possible, and everything should be left as much as possible to individuality and free will. Government is a concession to reality, but it remains an unfortunate one. If all men would do their duties, we'd need no government at all, and so we should strive to have the smallest amount of government that will get the job done. As Henry David Thoreau says in his On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (which greatly inspired by Ghandi as well as Martin Luther King, Jr.),

I heartily accept the motto, - "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, - "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. ... The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to - for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well - is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which I have also imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.

Cf. the words of Thoreau's friend Ralph Waldo Emerson in his "Politics".

If Ephraim Khantsis is a terrorist, then so was Samuel Adams. In fact, the British government certainly did consider the American Revolutionaries to be terrorists!!! If Khantsis is a terrorist, then he is in very good company, for he has joined the company of such great men as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, John Locke, Heinrich Bullinger, and Samuel Rutherford. I’m not saying that I agree with Khantsis that full armed force should be used against the IDF soldiers, particularly because I’m not sure how guilty the IDF soldiers themselves are. I’m not sure the soldiers are fully aware of the evil they are committing, and so I do not believe they deserve to die. My point is not that Khantsis is justified and correct, but only that his views are perfectly consonant with those thinkers who rebelled against Britain. Khantsis is merely acting in accordance with normative democratic political thought.

And Khantsis would appear to have the support of Henry David Thoreau as well as his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, the former of which was the major and nearly sole inspiration of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther. In Gandhi's own words (as quoted by Wikipedia here),

[Thoreau's] ideas influenced me greatly. I adopted some of them and recommended the study of Thoreau to all of my friends who were helping me in the cause of Indian Independence. Why I actually took the name of my movement from Thoreau's essay 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,' written about 80 years ago.

According to Martin Luther King, Jr. (as quoted by Wikipedia, ibid.),

Here, in this courageous New Englander's refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery's territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times. I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia, a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice.

However, we should note that the great Henry David Thoreau was not committed to civil disobedience only when it was nonviolent. Thoreau supported civil disobedience whether it was peaceful or violent, as is evidenced by his support for John Brown, a man who quite violently opposed slavery, and who killed not a few slaveholders. See Thoreau's The Last Days of John Brown. And again, in his Slavery in Massachusetts, Thoreau supports violently resisting Federal marshals who are upholding the Fugitive Slave Act and attempting to return runaway slaves in Massachusetts to their slavemasters in the south. Of course, not all tyranny is equal, and some deeds permit violent opposition, while others permit only nonviolent. It is obvious that the permitted degree of violence is equal to the degree of tyranny; mild tyranny permits only nonviolent resistance, while egregious and severe tyranny permits violent resistance.

In practice, I very much disagree with Khantsis’s specific advocacies for which precise and specific action should be taken, but I must admit that in theory, his beliefs are perfectly democratic, and would seem to have the full agreement of those who created democracy in America. But while I denounce the specific deeds that Khantsis would have taken, I must admit that his advocacy is in keeping with the best and most authentic of democratic thought.

On Governments and Religious Movements

Over at Redefining Rebbetzin, I've been debating the heterodox non-Orthodox denominations in movement, and I repeated all of my arguments (nearly verbatim) in a series of comments to a fascinating article elsewhere, Debate in the Middle: The Future of Conservative Judaism.

Let me repeat my arguments here. Based on the principles of both Sephardic Judaism as well as Calvinistic Protestant Christianity, I object to schismatic denominationalism in Judaism:

As "Debate in the Middle" shows, a certain Dr. Laura Shaw-Frank, who was raised Conservative, still holds by many of the essential and quintessential Conservative beliefs, such as believing that women can be rabbis. So why is the author there troubled? So what if she doesn’t belong to a Conservative synagogue? Isn’t she serving G-d? Isn’t she keeping the Torah? She’s doing exactly what she was raised to do. What why should one care that she’s doing it under the auspices of Orthodoxy rather than Conservatism?

Movements and denominations ought to be merely expedients; what is truly essential is that one keeps the Torah, period, and your denominational affiliation ought to be relatively meaningless and irrelevant in comparison.

My mother belongs to a Reconstructionist synagogue, and she’s complained often to me that her fellow congregants, and even the rabbi will say things like, "We’re Reconstructionist, and therefore, we ...". She replies indignantly that we’re Jews who are supposed to be obeying G-d, and not our own religio-sociopolitical parties.

Actually, my stance on religious movements and denominations is very similar to the Protestant Christian one, I believe. For the Protestants, one’s loyalty is ultimately to G-d and not to any man or institution. Thus, Protestant churches tended to have very weak if not absent hierarchies. The churches were federally ( = covenantally, constitutionally, contractually) organized, with each member and preacher belonging to his church, and the church to its denomination, as a contractually-consenting members and bodies with terms stipulated by some oath or contract and by the words of the Bible. Thus, hierarchy and leadership were weak, and ultimate allegiance was owed to one’s church and denomination only insofar as it agreed with what one believed the Bible said. By contrast, the Catholics of course granted authority to the church itself, having more in common with absolute monarchy that with constitutional democracy. In fact, democracy as we know it today in America was created by the Calvinists as a response to absolutist Catholic monarchies, so my comparing Protestantism to democracy and Catholicism to monarchy is not accidental. Democracy in Europe and Lutheran Protestantism are wholly else, and I’m not concerned with them. I’m concerned rather with Calvinism and democracy in America.

As an aside, the fact that democracy was created by theocratically-inclined Calvinists and was put into practice by theocratic Puritans, indicates to me that there ought to be no contradiction between democracy and a theocracy in Israel. But that's another subject.

To be honest, I’ve been recently feeling rather proud of the fact that my grandmother (my mother's mother) was a staunch and committed member of the Plymouth Brethren, which is an entirely lay-led form of Evangelical Christianity. Unfortunately, I cannot ask her anymore, but I suspect her motivation was that we should be very wary of any hierarchies, whether of individual men or of organizations.

For in theory, all men are equal. When Moshe objected to Korah's proclamation that "All the congregation is holy", Moshe agreed in theory, for indeed, Moshe elsewhere said, "Would that all the congregation would be prophets!". Korah was wrong only because in reality, some men are brighter or more skilled or more responsible than others. But in theory, all men are equal, and so we should have as little leadership and as little government as possible, and everything should be left as much as possible to individuality and free will. Government is a concession to reality, but it remains an unfortunate one. If all men would do their duties, we'd need no government at all, and so we should strive to have the smallest amount of government that will get the job done.

It is a remarkable statement that Samuel Adams makes in his "The Rights of the Colonists", that,

The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

The Hebrew slave who refuses to leave his master, his ear is bored, and the Talmud explains that the man whose hear heard at Sinai, ‘I am the L-rd your G-d’, but who nevertheless chose a new master instead of G-d, his ear is to be bored. When the people ask Samuel for a king, G-d answers that the people, in requesting a king, have rejected not Samuel, but G-d. We see that becoming a slave with a master, and choosing a king, and renouncing one’s liberty and freedom (Samuel provides the people with a litany of the abuses of liberty which kingship will bring), are all forms of rejecting G-d, which is another way of saying avodah zara. I believe that I am a staunch political libertarian for the same reason that I am a left-wing Modern Orthodox.

One special quality of the Sephardim is that the community and halakhah as such remained strictly observant, even as individual deviants were tolerated. Individuals broke halakhah, but they never tried to change Judaism itself or institute their own new movement. Professor Daniel J. Elazar makes this argument briefly in his essay Can Sephardic Judaism be Reconstructed?, and he makes it again at greater length in his essay Religion in Israel: A Consensus for Jewish Tradition. My rabbi, Rabbi Marc Angel, makes the same argument: see his essay Religious Zionism and the Non-Orthodox and his essay "Other Thoughts about Jewish Pluralism" (printed in Seeking Good, Speaking Peace). Long story short: I abhor schismatic denominationalism, and I don’t want to strengthen this very Ashkenazi phenomenon by myself joining one of the denominations (viz. Reform or Conservative).

I am thus extremely disturbed when people display a loyalty to their denominations as such rather than to Judaism as such. It’s a form of "my nation, right or wrong", and I’m not exaggerating when I consider it a form of idolatry not different in kind from gross nationalism (which I also consider to be a form of idolatry). Idolatry is a merely a mindset, a type of cargo-cultism, in which the object of true enduring value is replaced with an expedient. Sometimes this expedient is quite proper and useful, and sometimes it is quite sinful, but in any case, the expedient is eventually mistaken for the end goal. At best, this is merely mistaken and useless (as in cargo-cultism), and at work, it is an affront to G-d and His majesty, but in any case, the basic intellectual error is the same. Cf. the beginning of Rambam’s Hilkhot Avodah Zara, where he explains idolatry as originating with people who wished to worship G-d’s "ministers" as a form of honoring G-d Himself; these worshipers, says Rambam, eventually forgot about G-d and focused solely on what had once been seen as His ministers, but who now became gods in their own rights. Astrology would be similar, except there, instead of using the stars as a way to G-d, one uses them as a way around G-d, believing that even G-d is subject to some cosmic reality greater than Himself, one which can be utilized for one’s benefit. The basic intellectual error remains the same throughout, confusing expedients and aims.

In the end, your allegiance ought not to be to the organization itself, but rather, you ought to always see the organization as merely an expedient for reaching the ultimate aim to which the organization is devoted. To be devoted to your denomination as such is at best a form of cargo-cultism, and at worst, it is idolatry.

As for Conservative Judaism being able to adapt to the times:

Academic historians may define "Orthodoxy" as being the movement of Hungarian and Eastern-European reactionism to Reform and Haskalah, thereby excluding both Sephardism and German Neo-Orthodoxy from "Orthodoxy". As Professors Jacob Katz, Menahem Friedman, Haym Soloveitchik, Michael Silber, etc. have shown, Central- and Eastern-European Orthodoxy is as much a new movement as Conservatism and Reform, and the Central- and Eastern-European Orthodox are as guilty as anyone of violating hadash assur min ha-torah.

But most people are not academic historians, and they’ll use the term "Orthodox" simply to indicate general Torah observance, punctilious obedience to the halakhah. If this means that many right-wing Conservatives are actually Orthodox, then so be it. I’ll define "Orthodox" as meaning observance of the Torah and Talmud, and if this broad definition includes many people who don’t consider themselves Orthodox, or whom the Haredim consider to be heretical, well, that’s not my concern. Haredism is a political party with precious little if anything about it having to do with G-d, but I refuse to turn "Orthodoxy" into a political party. I have a Catholic cousin who argues that since Jews and Christians believe in the same G-d, that therefore, Jews believe in Jesus whether they know it or not. Hey, if it means I’m going to heaven according to her, then fine. I won’t refuse her ecumenicism, although I’ll make sure she knows that I personally disagree with her claim that I believe in Jesus.

If Orthodoxy is defined in this manner, then Rabbi Benzion Uziel (who said he'd always rule in favor of hesed whenever possible) and Rabbi Haim David Halevi (who said that Beit Hillel succeeded over Beit Shammai because of their leniency, and who said that the Torah will survive as long as we continue to innovate new innovations and allow halakhah to evolve over time) are both "Orthodox". Similarly, Rabbis A. I. Kook, Moshe Shmuel Glasner, Tzadoq ha-Kohen of Lublin, Eliezer Berkovits, Isidore Epstein, J. H. Hertz, and others with evolutionary views of the halakhah would all still be Orthodox, because they were observant of halakhah.

Similarly, all the myriads of Sephardi rabbis who permitted evolution of and leniency in halakhah would be "Orthodox". Rabbi Yosef Messas of Morocco, for example, was so enthused by electricity that he was willing to discard all that the Torah and Talmud say, and proclaim that the Third Temple would have an electric menorah in lieu of an oil one. The Hidah proclaimed that whereas the Ashkenazim pasqen by gevurah, by contrast, the Sephardim pasqen by hesed and the Italians by tiferet.

When the Haskalah hit the Ashkenazim, the Sephardim of Western Europe (Britain, Holland, Italy, Bordeaux and Bayonne, Trieste) were not affected, because they were already entrenched in Renaissance culture anyway.

Given that all these Sephardim were not Conservative but got along just fine, what do we need Conservative Judaism for? As I asked, if Dr. Frank is keeping the Torah, what does it matter whose movement she belongs to? Are not movements, like governments, merely expedients? Henry David Thoreau (in his On the Duty of Civil Disobedience) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (in his Politics) looked forward to a day of no government anymore, and I look forward to a day of no religious movements either.