Jewish Education Comes From Home

I just started a new teaching gig: learning Megillat Ruth with a small class of high school girls every Sunday. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that my new students were extremely bright, had acute literary skills, and excellent Hebrew. They translated, they read, they discussed, all with speed, quality, and incisiveness...it was the kind of experience learning text with students that Jewish educators rarely get the chance to have.

Afterward, I was musing to myself about the class, wondering why this was so different. It’s not, of course, like I’ve never taught very bright, talented kids before. You can’t teach in Jewish day schools and Hebrew schools and not run into a lot of bright and talented kids. But these girls were remarkable, in my experience: I have seldom taught such a responsive and engaged class.

In the end, it was the engagement that struck me as being most different. They did so well not only because they were bright and talented, but because they were engaged, they were motivated. They wanted to be there, learning what they were learning. And to some degree, that might just be because all or some of them have a natural inclination for text study.

But to a very great degree, it became apparent to me, having met their parents, having seen those parents interacting with their children, that the girls were engaged and motivated because their parents were engaged, and were teaching by example that, in their homes, Jewish learning was important, and to be valued for its own sake; and that such learning was connected to life in that home, by virtue of observance. In whatever shape or form it might take, it was clear to me that these were homes that observed Shabbat and chagim (festivals) and perhaps had some kind of experience of kashrut. I’m not implying Orthodoxy or any kind of strict traditionalism; just that these were homes in which Judaism was readily participatory in some fashion. And I believe that has made all the difference.

I am a Jewish educator. My rabbinate is teaching. I’ve taught in day school, in Hebrew school, at informal learning gatherings, and one-on-one for tutoring of various kinds. I spend a lot of my time thinking about how to teach more effectively, what we as a community or as a people could be doing to improve Jewish educational facilities or train better Jewish educators. But things like teaching this wonderful class remind me that ultimately, even if we had the kind of funding that we need (and always lack) to make quality Jewish education readily available and affordable, even if we had consistently deeply informed and traditionally knowledgeable teachers, the better part of the onus for successful Jewish education rests upon the home.

I have taught classes, in the past, that were the reverse of this one that I recently began. Where the kids absolutely didn’t want to be there, they steadfastly refused to participate, their knowledge of both text and Hebrew was abysmal, and those that lacked utter apathy for the Jewish tradition only replaced apathy with vague contempt. And perhaps in part, we can write some of that off to modern teenagerhood: rebellious, apathetic, disconnected. But having met the parents of those students also, I know that they had homes in which Jewish observance played no real part: Shabbat was not kept, and such chagim as were kept were observed in the most casual and half-hearted manner; text was not discussed or learned in the home, and no form of kashrut was kept. In short, there was nothing in the home life of these students that might reinforce or support the notions that the study of Jewish text and tradition related in any way to real life, or was of any practical importance to their parents.

I once had such a student tell me with complete seriousness, when I asked her why she was in Hebrew school, that her mother had been quite clear that when she (her mother) had been a girl, she’d had to “waste her afternoons sitting through Hebrew school,” and if she’d had to do it, then her daughter would have to do it, too. It’s true that we talk a lot about passing things on l’dor va-dor (from generation to generation), but I’m pretty sure this is not what that’s supposed to be.

There seems to be a pretty clear understanding in secular American culture that if we want our kids to succeed in regular school, not only does the school need adequate funding, trained teachers, and decent materials, but parents have to be involved. They need to ensure that kids do homework, get tutoring if needed, and they need to be given encouragement, shown that education is valuable, and, ideally, come from a home where books and newspapers are read, current events are discussed, literature or history or science or mathematics are used and discussed and valued. In homes where none of these things are true, it is rare that the child will truly embrace learning and critical thinking.

It should be obvious that the same basic ideas are true for Jewish education.

It’s not enough that we send our kids to Hebrew school (which is seldom an adequate educational experience even in ideal circumstances), or even to day school. Judaism is passed on by Judaism being practiced. When kids see mitzvot being done by their parents, when they see Jewish ritual as a part of their daily (or at least weekly) lives, when they hear Torah being talked about-- even if it’s just a quick read of the weekly parashah-- that makes all the difference. When they get support and encouragement for their Jewish educational achievements equal or greater to that which they get for their secular educational achievement, that makes all the difference. In such situations, regardless of the level of home observance according to the stricture of the tradition, Judaism is a reality, a living thing, and it causes the student to engage in their Jewish studies. It makes Jewish education merely a Herculean effort, rather than a Sisyphean effort-- and sometimes, as with my newly begun class, it even makes it into a pleasure and an instant success.

We Jewish educators need to make a bargain with the rest of Am Yisrael: we will give 110%-- really bust our butts-- coming up with quality Jewish educational experiences for your kids. We will bring to bear all our excitement and passion for our texts and traditions, all our dedication to youth and education. We will try to make do on the shoestring budgets and limited resources that education in an economic crisis and an atmosphere of assimilation permit us. We will continue to teach for shockingly low pay, just like other teachers, all across America. But in return, zay dem yidn: live Jewish lives. Bring Jewish observance into your homes. Go to shul on Shabbat. Learn a little Torah. Maybe keep a little kosher. Say a brachah now and then. These things have limitless effect on your children. And they will give life to our tradition as nothing else will do so, strengthening the next generation and elevating us all just a little in holiness.

-Ami

Revelation-Ritual-Rules-Remembering

When I would teach high school Jewish Studies classes, I would usually give them an assignment around Pesach time: rent Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments and Dreamworks’ Prince of Egypt, and after watching them, tell me what they got wrong vis-à-vis the text of the Exodus narrative in the Torah.

It’s a fun little assignment, and the responses it generates are interesting, as a teacher. Prince of Egypt is the harder one for most students, because it’s a better movie, and incorporates much more directly from Torah and from traditional midrashim and commentaries. But what always surprised me is the thing that most students missed, which to me was the most egregious failing of the film. Maybe you’ll recall: the final plague, the “destroyer” moving through Egypt, striking down firstborn, the Israelites, protected, trembling in their dark houses.... Yeah, there’s the problem: where’s the matzah? During the tenth plague, we weren’t trembling in the dark in our protected houses: we were having the first Pesach seder.

Part of what I cherish about this section of the Exodus narrative-- which we see in this week’s parashah, Bo-- is that it does something quintessentially, paradigmatically Jewish. Right as the tenth plague is about to occur, at the dramatic climax of the first act of the Exodus story (the second act being the part about kri’at yam suf, the splitting of the Sea of Reeds, and the third act being the part about getting the Torah at Sinai), the narrative pauses so that God can have Moshe Rabbeinu (our teacher Moses) instruct the people in the basic laws of the Jewish calendar and proper Seder observance.

I love that. I love it because there is something so Jewish, so hamische (homey), about this attitude. That God would say to Moshe, “Listen, dude, I’m gonna send in the destroyer, this plague is gonna be a mind-blower, one for the ages. It’s gonna be so heavy duty.... BTW, make sure you know how to calculate the months, so that you know when all the chagim (holidays) are going to be. The first one’s going to be Pesach: let me give you the details of how to observe it.”

It’s that attitude that really exemplifies our tradition: Something cosmically momentous has occurred, something that should inspire us forever-- but since inspiration can’t be codified and demanded, here’s the tachlis (pragmatic forms) for creating a situation that, if done right, may cause inspiration by reminding you of what occurred and how to connect to it.

That presumption, that the minutiae of ritual and ethical observance are not distinct from revelation and miracle, they proceed directly from revelation and miracle-- and do so not after long separation from the fact, but davka right smack in the middle of the fact...that, my friends, is the heart of the Jewish tradition.

I like to imagine the first Seder, happening while the tenth plague was going on, as a bunch of us gathered around the fireplace, eating roast lamb, matzah, and maror, simultaneously stunned at the advent of our freedom after so long, and bemused at the detailed commandments we now have to keep. I presume that the original Seder involved just as many questions as modern Sedarim do-- maybe that was also the night that originated “Two Jews, three opinions.”

But all jokes aside, what I love about this instance is that it demonstrates the nature of our tradition as one really made to be used by people in their everyday lives. Yes, there are a lot of details in the mitzvot, but they’re there for good reason. And that reason is not, as some have said, “Because God said so,” (which, when I hear it, always sounds like “Because God said so, so shut up.”) but rather because the tradition-- and because God (with whom we author the tradition)-- understands that a person cannot live their life in a perpetual state of revelation, or high spiritual elevation. That’s just not how we function. Nobody exists in a perpetual I-Thou moment. So we need a framework of mitzvot to give us a system of spiritual discipline, to be a daily mnemonic aid, so that we are constantly reminding ourselves of who we are, who we were, and Who made us what we are; so that we can constantly renew, as Heschel put it, our “radical amazement” at life in the universe, at life with one another; so that we create situations, using ritual, that help us re-enact the revelations and miracles that shaped us, so that they continue to shape us.

The Haggadah reminds us of this very thing, midrashically riffing off verses from Parashat Bo:

בכל דור ודור חיב אדם לראות את עצמו, כאלו הוא יצא ממצרים, שנאמר: והגדת לבנך ביום ההוא לאמר: בעבור זה עשה ה' לי, בצאתי ממצרים. לא את אבותינו בלבד, גאל הקדוש ברוך הוא, אלא אף אותנו גאל עמהם, שנאמר: ואותנו הוציא משם, למען הביא אתנו, לתת לנו את הארץ אשר נשבע לאבתינו

In every generation, a person must view themselves as if they themselves came forth out of Egypt.   As it is said, “And you shall tell your child at that time, saying, ‘It is because of what Hashem did for me when I was brought forth out of Egypt.’” Not were our ancestors alone redeemed by the Holy One Blessed Be He, but we ourselves were redeemed along with them, as it is said, “And He brought us forth from there, so that he could bring us here, to give to us the land which He had sworn to our ancestors.”

Such an expectation could not reasonably be supported in a vacuum. Time creates distance. Stories evolve if left unfixed. Revelation cannot be passed on verbally. But with ritual-- both of action and of language-- we create guides to aid us in fixing stories and erasing the distance of passing time, and circumstances to pass on the experience of revelation as much as such a thing can be passed on. The mitzvot of our tradition are potent with understanding of how humanity really functions.

And I love them for it. I value it every day, and every time I read this parashah, and even every time I get annoyed with movie versions of the Exodus for their not getting it right. This understanding in our mitzvot is what gives our people vitality, the life of the millennia, and is a great part of what makes Torah so precious as a way of life: it knows us, sometimes even more than we know it.

-Ami

Parashat Bo

Barbara McClintock was a Nobel Prize winning genetic scientist who spent her life studying ears of corn. She was one of the most precise empirical observers and rigorously logical thinkers in American science. But, towards the end of her life, when she was asked “how do you do great science?” she answered, "about the only thing I can tell you about the doing of science is that you somehow have to have a feeling for the organism". In thinking about the ears of corn that she worked with all of her life, she added, "Really, all I can tell you about doing great science is that you somehow have to lean into the kernel."

I read about McClintock in a book called, The Heart of Learning: Spirituality in Education, in an article by a great educator and writer, Parker J. Palmer.   In his article, Palmer relates, "Barbara McClintock practiced the highest form of love – which is intimacy which does not annihilate difference".  It’s awesome to think about this idea of intimacy which does not annihilate difference as it relates to the art of being an effective teacher.  When we teach, we must often attend to the diverse needs of many individual students with distinct learning styles and personalities. 

In McClintock’s work, her focus was on the individual ears, or sometimes even kernels of corn.  What makes us effective is our ability to “lean into the kernels” in our own lives – or to “somehow have a feeling for” the individual student, or person, or task, we face?  In McClintock’s words, we must seek intimacy which does not annihilate difference.

A few years ago I taught a Bat Mitzvah student how to chant from the Torah.  Teaching Torah chanting to 12 and 13 year old kids is something I’ve done since I was in high school.  But this time was different: my student was severely hearing impaired.  My inclination was to allow her to read from the Torah without learning how to chant.  But the rabbi of the synagogue urged me to teach her to chant Torah – just to teach her differently than I’d taught the other kids. 

Our Torah portion this week teaches a similar lesson.  In Exodus 10:2, we read about the obligation of teaching the generations that follow about the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. We must, “tell it in the ears of your children and grandchildren”. 

      This description is of a very intimate, very personalized telling!  It is individualized – it requires really knowing the person you’re talking to.  Saying something “in the ears” of someone else is not simply saying to, “teach it to them” – rather, it’s a quiet telling: deeply personal, meaningful, and sacred.     
                In the Book of Exodus, the end goal of “telling it into the ears” (of our students) is not just so that they might gain knowledge of the event of the Exodus.  It’s much more profound and much more powerful than that.  The verse continues, saying that we must tell it into their ears, “and you will (both) know that I am God”.

What is the goal of education?  According to Barbara McClintock and the Book of Exodus, Education requires: relationship, intimacy, and the recognition of divinity in all things – both the ears of corn and the ears of children. 

-Julie

The Genesis of Infertility

So clearly Ami and I won't always be blogging about precisely the same topics.  This is what I've been working on in my corner of our house this afternoon.  It's for an upcoming anthology on topics related to sexuality for the CCAR Journal (Central Conference of American Rabbis).  I'm really curious to hear your responses/reactions/thoughts!

The Genesis of Infertility: A Contemporary Reading of Biblical Responses

Rabbi Julie Pelc Adler

            After the first humans’ expulsion from Eden, the twin values of conception and reproduction ceased to be as simple as would the commandment, “be fruitful and multiply” might suggest.   Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel[1] (three of the four matriarchs in the Torah); as well as Hannah[2] in N’vi-im face serious challenges trying to conceive[3].  Each woman is vocal about her struggle in a way that befits her circumstance and personality, creating echoes that span the generations, resounding for modern women who share their struggle.

Rachel lashes out with words of anger, Hannah cries out to God in desperation, Isaac pleads with God alongside Rebecca[4], and Sarah takes matters into her own hands in order to ensure offspring for her husband.  Biblical women and their partners confront and respond to a myriad of interconnected factors related to infertility, struggling with the fact of their barrenness, its theological and sociological implications, and an attempt to make meaning in their suffering.

THEOLOGIAL

The text attributes the power of opening and closing wombs to God[5].  As God is therefore an active player in the struggle of each of these women for fertility, their quest becomes one of theological import.  Hannah’s prayers are perhaps the most oft mentioned, as her pleas to God are credited as the invention of silent prayer (“Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard”) [6]. 

Whereas Hannah’s physical response to her suffering is to weep, Sarah’s is to laugh.  The absurdity of the promise and the possibility of hope so long denied must have hurt as deeply as had her years of barrenness.  Yet, Sarah is chastised for her laughter, as if to deny its acceptability as a legitimate emotional release to the decades of dreams deferred. 

The most readily answered prayer is that of Isaac, uttered on behalf of his wife, Rebecca[7].  She becomes pregnant seemingly right away: “And Isaac entreated YHVH for his wife because she was barren and YHVH was entreated of him and Rebecca his wife conceived”.  The Hebrew is almost playful, using words with a lyrical lilt and symmetry between the one requesting and the One answering the prayer[8].  Also, Rebecca is referenced twice in the same sentence as אִשְׁתּֽוֹ׃, “his wife”, thereby emphasizing the strong connection between the two and illustrating his active participation in entreating God.  He never abandons hope that Rebecca, herself, might conceive (taking another wife in her stead or chastising her for her barrenness).  God here is immediately responsive, and the couple moves from infertile in Genesis 25:21 to expectant parents of twins in the very next verse.   For Isaac and Rebecca, there never seems to be a loss of hope or faith in God’s ability to alleviate Rebecca’s barrenness.

Rachel, on the other hand, seems to suffer a crisis of faith in the face of her barrenness.  Rather than to God, Rachel cries out to her husband, Jacob, saying, “Give me children, else I die!” Jacob seems to hear in her plea a misdirected (in his opinion) source of the infertility and replies in anger, “Am I in God's stead, Who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” [9]  Jacob chastises Rachel for lashing out in anger at him, making a demand that he sees to be completely inappropriate and outside the range of his power to fulfill.  Jacob, however, does not pray to God or make any pleas on Rachel’s behalf.  There seems to be antagonism and resentment between these two, perhaps rooted in their shared frustration at Rachel’s inability to conceive (especially in contrast with her extraordinarily fertile sister and co-wife).

Interestingly, Sarah is silent in response to her many years of barrenness, even in the face of the seemingly absurd promise (in the face of her infertility) made to her husband that he be the father of many descendents[10].  She, rather than pray to God, takes definitive action to make God’s promise true.  She seems to acknowledge and accept that the promise of procreativity is made to Abraham and not to her; she seems to see her role, instead, as the intermediary whose actions might make the promise fulfilled.  Without a word of complaint or resentment, she offers her husband an alternative route to fertility that includes another woman, her handmaid, in her stead as the bearer of offspring.

SOCIAL

For women in Biblical times, the social implications of infertility are great.  In two of the four cases, other women use their strong fertility as a tool to torment their infertile rivals.  Rachel is called, עֲקָרָֽה׃, or “barren”, in contrast with her sister, Leah, whose ease with fertility (and resulting fecundity) torments Rachel.  Likewise, Hannah’s infertility is mentioned specifically in counter-distinction with that of her co-wife, Peninah.  Hannah weeps in response to her suffering, so wholly at a loss and staggering with grief, she appears to the outside eye to be drunk.  This ancient form of bullying is suggested by the text to compensate for the fact that the infertile wives are more beloved by their husbands than their procreating counterparts.

 Sarah, too, is called barren by the text[11]; she opts to share her husband with another woman in an attempt to “give” him a son. Jealousy between women is an issue here, too, as Sarah ultimately expels the handmaid and her son because of an incident between her own child and the boy that she found too disturbing to tolerate[12].

MEANINGS: RABBINIC AND PERSONAL

Traditional readers of text imagine meaning in each and every corner; it is not surprising, then, that generations of rabbis noticed the abundance of infertility in the lives of the biblical matriarchs.  Some postulated that God intentionally created the situation of barrenness so as to make each of these women to despair her fertility, desiring the desperate pleas from these righteous servants.  In a midrash on Genesis, the rabbis imagine that “the efficacy of prayer and the value of suffering [is] that [it] leads to purification and brings people closer to God:” [13]

Why were the matriarchs barren? R. Levi said in R. Shila’s name and R. Helbo in R. Johanan’s names: Because the Holy One, blessed be He, yearns for their prayers and supplications. Thus it is written, “O my dove, in the cranny of the rocks,/Hidden by the cliff” (Song of Songs 2:14): Why did I make you barren? In order that, “Let Me see your face,/Let me hear your voice” (Song of Songs 2:14).[14]

Similarly, rabbis in the Talmud, suggest that the matriarchs and patriarchs were initially childless “because the Holy One, blessed be He, longs to hear the prayer of the righteous.”[15]

Perhaps the rabbinic mind was comforted by this explanation for infertility.  Perhaps an afflicted couple in the Rabbinic period would encounter this teaching, relax into their suffering, breathing a sigh of relief, “oh, so God just wants my prayers.  That explains it.”  But, somehow, I can’t imagine that this platitude worked for very long, especially if the pleas continued and prayers for children remained unanswered (or the divine answer was “no”).  In moments when hope wanes and doubt creeps in, I tend to prefer the company of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Hannah. 

We do not like unanswered prayers any more than did our predecessors.  We crave meaningful answers to our questions.  We want someone to listen when we ask, “Why?” and not offer lovingly unhelpful suggestions like, “it’ll happen when the time is right” or “maybe you need to relax and stop thinking about it so much”.  In quiet moments, we answer our own wordless “Why?” with equally (if not more) unhelpful answers, “God hates me” or “I’m not meant to be a mother”.

Again, our matriarchs precede us with their own answers to try to explain that which seems inexplicable. Genesis Rabbah 45:2 recounts,

“And Sarai said to Abram, ‘Look, the Lord has kept me from bearing” (Gen. 16:2) as follows: “Said she, I know the source of my affliction: It is not as people say [of a barren woman], ‘She needs an amulet, she needs a charm,’ but ‘Look, the Lord has kept me from bearing.’”

Sarai attributes her infertility to God’s will. I can imagine a seemingly endless stream of well-meaning friends and acquaintances periodically stopping by Sarai’s tent, accustomed to her husband’s hospitality and welcoming generosity, confounded by the couple’s lack of offspring.  Each takes Sarai’s hand, offers a long look of disbelief, and suggests, “it’ll happen when the time is right” or “maybe you need to relax and stop thinking about it so much”. 

We are the inheritors of a Jewish tradition steeped in the art of inquiry (and the pursuit of questions), familiar with righteous indignation (even arguing with divine decrees), and probing for answers wherever they might be found; we are also the inheritors of a tradition that includes the reality of infertility.  As such, we include in our search the possibility of skepticism about the role (or existence of) God, medical interventions heretofore impossible, and a multiplicity of media through which conception are normative.

---

[1] Genesis 11:30; Genesis 25:21, 24-26; Genesis 29:31; Genesis 30:1-2, 9, 17, 22

[2] I Samuel 1:2, 5-6, 2:21

[3] Though less is written about them, Michal in II Samuel 6:23 and the wife of Manoach in Judges 13:2-3, 24 also struggle with infertility.  Michal’s infertility is never alleviated and is unique in that there seems to be no hope and no possible intervention for her; there is a sense of the inevitability of her childlessness, “Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death”

[4] Genesis 25:21

[5] Genesis 16:1-2; Genesis 20:17-18; Genesis 29:31; Genesis 30:22; 1 Samuel 1:5;

[6] 1 Samuel 1:10-16

[7] Genesis 25:21

[8] The verse uses parallel words like “vay·ye‘·tar and vay·yê·‘ā·ṯer (same verb used for that which Isaac does and that which God does in response to the inquiry) and with the repetition of sounds in words like Yitz·ḥāk and lə·nō·ḵach.

[9] Genesis 30:1-2

[10] Genesis 11:30,16:1-2, 21:1-3

[11] Genesis 11:30

[12] Generations of scholars have struggled to discern the precise nature of the boy’s misdeed, as the Hebrew verb, “metzahek” has multiple meanings

[13] “Infertile Wife in Rabbinic Judaism”.  Judith R. Baskin.  Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.  Jewish Women’s Archive, 2005.

[14] Genesis Rabbah 45:4

[15] BT Yevamot 64a

- Julie

Un-Halachic Halachah

I swear this blog is not going to be one long anti-Haredi screed. That’s really not what we started it for. And I promise I will sing a new tune in the next posts I make. But I had to say this. Look at this article I saw in the Forward today:

http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/146606/

For the tl:dr (too long: didn't read) crowd, the long and short of it is a Haredi rabbi who basically said that frum (Orthodox) guys-- he was talking to soldiers in Tzahal (the IDF), but the implication seems wider than that-- should leave anywhere a woman can be heard singing, even if they have to get shot and die for leaving. Better death than kol ishah (listening to a woman singing).

This is insane.

This is so crazy there are no good words for it. It’s nuttier than a Rosh Hashanah honeycake. It’s Chock Full o’ Nuts. You get my drift?

Halachah (Jewish Law) is quite clear on the subject of martyrdom. Basically, the rule of thumb in Jewish thought is “Choose life.” Living is good, and one should do whatever is necessary to stay alive, and keep others alive. That includes breaking any and all mitzvot (commandments) in order to do so. This principle is enumerated by the Rabbis of the Talmud as pikuach nefesh docheh et ha-kol (Saving a life trumps all other responsibilities). The only exceptions that they make to this principle are:

• that one is not permitted to murder an innocent person to save one’s own life, 
• or to publicly practice avodah zarah (idolatry) to save one’s own life, 
• or to commit incest to save one’s own life. 

And the Rishonim (the great halachic scholars of the middle ages and Renaissance) say that if a person in those three situations finds themselves unable to choose martyrdom at the critical moment, does what they have to do to survive, and then expresses remorse, and makes it clear that they did what they did only to save their life and not for any other reason...we accept their statements, and we do not consider them apostates, heretics, or sinners.

In other words, the tradition-- which originally made the most limited exceptions possible to the idea that one should save life at any cost, even breaking the mitzvot-- became even clearer with time that in fact, there is never a moment where martyrdom is truly preferable. Obviously, there have been some brave martyrs in our tradition who chose death over apostasy, or chose death in order to save many other lives, and we respect their courage and convictions. But for the most part, we are crystal clear that life is so valuable, there is nearly never anything extreme and unusual enough to justify throwing it away. That is the halachah of the matter. End of story. And I would have thought, until today, that every halachically educated Jew would have agreed on that matter.

But to find that not only is this not the case, but that some Mad Black Hatter rabbi has said that listening to a woman sing-- which is not halachically prohibited!-- is something a person should choose death to avoid...I am just sickened. The prohibition that the Haredim use concerning kol ishah is a chumra (legal stricture) based in aggadah (non-binding Rabbinic parable) and in mussar (ascetic homiletic philosophy). At best it can be taken on by individuals as a stricture over and above the law, but it cannot be applied as a halachah for all Jews. That's just not how halachah works.

What truly sickens me isn’t just the stupidity of the proximate issue (kol ishah, listening to a woman sing), it’s the gross and audacious abuse of the halachic process and paradigm that this pronouncement represents. And not just represents in and of itself, but as an exemplar of how Haredi Judaism is abusing, perverting, and twisting halachah while claiming their “observant” status as a mantle of authenticity.

I have said elsewhere, and will say it again, that much of the Haredi problem boils down to an increasing lack in Orthodoxy of the principle of machloket l’shem shamayim (“dispute for the sake of Heaven,” cf. BT Eruvin 13a and other places): we are supposed to tolerate viewpoints different from our own, so long as those views come from a place of legitimate struggle to embrace Judaism more effectively, to better develop our understanding of what God wishes from us. We don’t have to agree with the viewpoints of others; just tolerate them, even if we disagree with them. And this is simply not being done.

There have been several promising voices from the Orthodox world that have come out recently and noted that it is deeply un-Jewish to do some of these things-- to shame people publicly, for example, or to assault them or verbally abuse them, or to threaten their lives or health, based on a belief that their Jewish practice or their understanding of halachah or their theology is incorrect. But so far, no one that I have read has properly contextualized the issue as a lack of machloket l’shem shamayim-- although I have been pleased that some have raised the mitzvah v’ahavta l’rei’echa kamocha (“you must respect your fellow person as you do yourself”) which would certainly also preclude publicly shaming and abusing one’s fellow Jews.

But in any case, part of the issue here is that non-Haredim, and yes, non-Orthodox Jews also, have a right to their interpretations. Even if one believes those interpretations are incorrect. The tradition dictates that they have a place in the House of Jacob also. Instead of tolerance, the reaction of the Haredi world is to attack, and to delegitimize not only anything non-Haredi, but any shitah (Jewish practice) that doesn’t include the latest round of chumrot (legal strictures) to be followed. And that includes the increasing focus on halachic non-starters like kol ishah or much of the way that Orthodoxy currently interprets the idea of tzniut, as I mentioned last time.

These chumrot would be problematic in and of themselves for their divisiveness, and the way the Haredim are attempting to force their observance of said chumrot on everyone else; but most infuriating is that the chumrot in question are often beyond ridiculous.

Far too much is made in Orthodox halachah today of the principles minhag k’halachah he (“A custom can become like law”) and hilcheta k’vatrai (“one should reinterpret the law according to the latest interpretation”). These principles, if one studies the halachah, if one looks at its development from the time of the Gemara (first five centuries CE or so) through the time of the Rishonim (medieval period) to the early Acharonic times (post-Renaissance period, more or less), were always guidelines. They were never intended to be either universally applied or inflexibly applied. And they both come from times when it was infinitely more difficult to gather Jewish text and learn enough of it to make every halachist fully qualified. We tend to forget that for every Rabbenu Gershom (R. Gershom b. Yehudah, 11th c.) or Rambam (R. Moshe Maimonides, 12th c.), every Rosh (R. Asher b. Yechiel, 13th c.) or Meiri (R. Menachem Meiri, 13th c.), there were hundreds of guys running around the Jewish world being called rabbis who had very slim educations indeed, and hundreds more acting as dayanim (halachic judges) with even less knowledge than that. They needed interpretive guidelines that heavily influenced their decisions, because not only did they lack training, they had few facilities for research to make up for their lack of knowledge.

But today, even if some of our rabbis could stand extra training in halachah and its nature, uses, and history (and I count myself on that list, don’t worry), we at least have the benefits of having instantaneous communication with other, more erudite rabbis; of having searchable, electronic collections of texts like the amazing Bar Ilan Database; of having, for God’s sakes, printed books of Jewish text that are both readily available anywhere and (despite what Julie might say about our library) readily affordable to even working-class Jews interested in scholarship. It’s not only a different game, the playing field barely even looks the same. We don’t need the same interpretive guidelines anymore-- or at the very least, we don’t need them to be so strong.

And in the Haredi community, instead of loosening such guidelines, to allow their highly halachically educated scholars freer rein to use their training and talents, they are instead tightening them, setting them in stone. And what results is not only excessive stricture without any balance of leniency, it is bad halachah. A chumra imposed on a chumra is self-invalidating by halachic rules; one does not impose chumrot on the people that do not have their core bases in halachah, but instead in aggadah (parable) or kabbalah (mysticism) or mussar (ascetic homiletics), or anything else: these are basic precepts of halachic interpretation. And yet the vast majority of cases, including both issues surrounding relating to the non-Haredi world, and surrounding tzniut, kol ishah, the treatment of women in general-- these precepts are ignored, if not entirely flouted.

Halachah is an amazing system. It was designed to be innovative, evolutionary, flexible, realistic, fostering of justice and fairness, and creative of spiritual development. Haredi halachah is none of these things: it is rigid, completely unrealistic, creative of gross injustice and misery, and profoundly unspiritual, innovating and evolving only ever-increasing stricture and zealotry.

This is not what halachah is supposed to be. It is becoming closer and closer to the antithesis of what halachah is supposed to be.

And, to my mind, what is worst is that not only does Haredi halachah create insane chumrot like this “death before kol ishah” nonsense, and not only does it pervert the halachah in Orthodox communities, but it blackens the name of halachah in the non-Orthodox world. Liberal Jews, especially those with limited or nonexistent halachic education see these actions, these pronouncements, and they hear them called “halachah,” and they believe them to be authentic examples of halachic jurisprudence! And, we can hardly be shocked to see, they then come to believe that halachah is crazy, full of reprehensible injustices, utterly unsuited to either life in the modern world or to Liberal Jewish observance. And I cannot blame them for thinking so, because Haredim claim the mantle of halachic authenticity, and we do nothing to dispute it.

But it must be disputed. People must be told, this is not what kosher halachah is-- it's not even worthy of being called halachah. Whether in matters of life and death, or whether in matters of who sits where on public transportation, this is not Jewish Law. This is Haredi insanity. And the two are not the same.

-Ami

False Modesty

As Israel and Jews all over the world have finally begun to acknowledge the depth of the problem in the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) communities concerning the treatment of women and non-Haredi Jews, which include a lot of aspects of tzniut (the “rules” of “modesty”), I have been watching the various arguments and statements with considerable interest.

My discomfort with the treatment of women in Orthodoxy is one of the reasons I haven’t been Orthodox in twenty-five years. And my discomfort with the treatment of non-Haredim by Haredim is one reason I have never felt any attraction to that lifestyle.

These two things are actually connected in some ways, not just independent if equally problematic phenomena.

I have written elsewhere about some of the halachic issues, and will do so again, so for the moment, I’m going to let that side be.

Tzniut and its use as a tool to create misogyny and oppression in the Orthodox world bother me a lot. A whole lot. And while some might write that reaction off to my upbringing-- my mother, Rachel Adler, is also one of the mothers of modern Jewish feminist thought-- this is not just about feminism and civil rights and other applications of modern social and critical theory, although those schools of thoughts make excellent points in their critiques of tzniut and the treatment of women in Orthodoxy.

This goes back to the very principle proposed in the tradition for the founding concepts associated with tzniut. The idea that by women exposing too much of themselves, or doing things that could be perceived as sensual, they will cause men to become distracted by their yitzrei ha-ra (the urge “to do evil,” or probably more accurately, “for chaos”). Men, then thinking of sex, will stop studying Torah and praying and other holy stuff, and instead will do unthinkable and perverse things in the quest to slake their unquenchable concupiscent lusts, which apparently guys are universally prone to do....

The basic premise is flawed. Deeply flawed. Leaving aside, for the moment, the questionable premise that all men barely restrain vast arrays of unquenchable concupiscent lusts which can be set loose at any moment by the sight of a passing uncovered ankle, the fundamental idea put forth by these rabbis in our tradition is that because every man struggles with his yetzer (his drives), women need to cover themselves from head to toe, cover their hair, shut up, and, at some key moments, hide behind walls. (I could, of course, also mention that this whole scenario is a fairly ridiculous principle to the 10% or so of the Jewish People who are gay. But that’s another conversation, I think.)

But the thing is, that’s not how to master your yetzer. Self-control, self-discipline (both mental and emotional) and spiritual focus are not created by trying to control the world around you. They are created by exerting some measure of control on the world within. As any recovering alcoholic will tell you, you don’t stop drinking by trying to ensure that no one around you drinks and you never encounter alcohol. You stop drinking by deciding that alcohol will not control your life, and you will not drink it: regardless of what others may do; regardless of the situation you are in. This, my friends, is what it looks like to master your yetzer for something.

And since most people are not actually sex addicts, the principle should be all the better in its application to their lives, where it should be easier for them to come to control themselves and their sexual desires.

Not only is what the Haredim are doing in their communities in Israel and in America wrong for all the usual feminist/civil rights reasons, it’s wrong because it is, spiritually, an utter failure.

Instead of mastering their yitzarim, Haredim are obsessed with sex: not necessarily in the ways that we non-Haredim might recognize, but in their own ways. Non-Orthodox people often find it literally unbelievable how much time in the Haredi world is spent dealing with workarounds to prevent men and women spending too much time together, or time alone together, or touching each other in utterly benign and innocent ways, or generally keeping women silenced, covered, and locked into kitchen-and-cradle social roles, away from where men spend most of their time. I could write pages describing the insane chumrot (legal strictures) created over the past forty-odd years that have collectively moved Haredi Judaism from merely conservative (small “c”) to absolutely clinical when it comes to women and sexuality, and it would still be hard to believe if one hasn’t seen it all in action.

But, because of the ever-increasing rigidity and inflexibility of Orthodox halachic understanding, and the lack in that world of any real application of machloket l’shem shamayim (“dispute for the sake of Heaven,” cf. BT Eruvin 13a and elsewhere), this utter failure of an attempt to create spiritual discipline within individuals by social engineering has now become enshrined as halachah l’Moshe mi-Sinai (“laws given to Moses at Sinai”). But it is not so: it is a perversion of halachah and tradition. It has to go.

To master your yetzer, you must direct focus inward, not outward. You must be confronted, regularly, with the thing to which your yetzer drives you, so that you become accustomed to its presence, and are able to control your reactions.

This is one thing in which the Jews of the non-Orthodox world excel their Haredi fellows at doing. To put it another way, non-Orthodox shuls (synagogues) have no mechitzas (walls or other barriers separating the women and the men): on the contrary, men and women sit together. And both sexes wear less clothing than their Haredi counterparts-- even in very straitlaced non-Orthodox congregations. And I am sure that all my non-Orthodox readers will concur with me when I say that in twenty-plus years of davening (praying) at non-Orthodox shuls, I have never once seen a man break off in the middle of his prayers, grab a passing woman, and shout, “I can’t take it anymore, I gotta have you now!”

Have I seen a fair amount of idle chat instead of prayer? Yes: and I’ve seen the same thing amongst men in Orthodox shuls. Have I seen people praying together in amicable community, focused on tefillah (prayer) and Torah? Yes. In both Orthodox and non-Orthodox shuls. But never have I seen someone surrender to his yetzer because he happened to be near women-- even very attractive women. And while this may have something to do with the virtues of the people I have seen, it probably has mostly to do with the fact that in the non-Orthodox world, men and women are often together: often work together, do recreational activities together, often have casual contact with one another, and are accustomed to interacting with those of the opposite sex and even to seeing them in attractive and sometimes revealing clothing. And even those of us who are not able to consistently ignore the existence of attractive individuals of the opposite sex are at least able to put such thoughts aside long enough to sit through a service without being distracted into hypersexualized apoplexy. That may not be “mastering” your yetzer, but it’s a step on the road. And it’s certainly a better step than saying “I am tempted! The solution is for you to be less tempting!”

Tzniut as it is currently understood has got to go, not merely for reasons of rights and freedoms, but for spiritual ones as well. That’s what it comes down to.

-Ami

The "Freedom" of the Exodus

It seems appropriate to me that Julie and I are starting this blog while the annual Torah reading cycle is more or less at the beginning of the book of Shmot (Exodus), with the narrative of Yetziat Mitzrayim (the Exodus from Egypt).

Yetziat Mitzrayim, aside from the national genesis of the Jewish People, is the true beginning of the Covenant between God and Israel. There would be no Sinai without the Exodus, and there could be no Torah without our freedom. That’s not just two ways of saying the same thing.

In the twenty-sixth verse of the seventh chapter of Shmot (Parashat Va’era), Moshe Rabbeinu (our teacher Moses) instructs Pharaoh ko amar Hashem: shlach et ‘ami vaya’avduni. “Thus says Hashem: send forth my people, so that they may serve me.”

It’s worth noting that this verse is often only partially quoted: “Let my people go!” says Charleton Heston to Yul Brynner, or sings Paul Robeson with basso mournfulness. But the problem with ending the sentence there is that that wasn’t the deal. The freedom that we were given was not the freedom of anarchic self-determination without bound or limit. It was the freedom to leave a situation wherein we had no right or power but to do as we were told suited the whims of Pharaoh, with no other ends for us to serve but his pleasure; and instead, to willingly take upon ourselves, as an entire and united people, a covenant between ourselves and God, wherein the ends desired are the establishment and furtherance of a just society for the People Israel, the modeling of the same for the aid of other societies to become more just, and the dedication of ourselves and our descendants forever to an attempt to elevate all of us in holiness, and develop spiritual awareness and enrichment in every individual among us.

Freedom, in other words, is not entirely free. It includes the obligations of a framework of social responsibilities, and the commitment to goals of a very long-term and deep nature. Freedom which lacks those things, which is free of all responsibilities, of all obligations between people or between ourselves and God, is not actually such a wonderful thing: as Kris Kristofferson sang, some years ago, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose. Nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’, but it’s free.” And while there may be a certain exhilaration that can come with having no ties to anyone or anything, and living purely in and for the moment, it is not particularly sustaining of either human relationships or social justice. Which is why the freedom that Kris Kristofferson sang about (and, yes, Janis Joplin sang about too, since her cover is probably better known than the original) is not what we mean by freedom in the narrative of Yetziat Mitzrayim.

Our freedom is not just a freedom from something, but freedom to something.

When we left Egypt it was to go to Sinai. When we came to Sinai, it was to enter into the covenant of Torah with God. When we left Sinai, it was to take our place as a covenanted nation and begin our share of the work in the covenant. God did his part by giving prophets prophecy and setting us on the path that would become the Judaism we all recognize today, and that will become whatever the Judaism of tomorrow’s tomorrow will look like. Our part was to accept the covenant, and then, when prophecy came to an end, to take up the reins of Torah and begin to make more of it-- a right and duty that we have embodied in the process of halachic interpretation, as we learn in the Talmud, Bava Metzia 59a (the Tanur shel Achnai incident).

We sometimes forget that our primary duty is the creation of Torah. And since Torah, in its widest sense, is not only Torah she’bich’tav (Written Torah), but Torah she’b’al peh (Oral Torah), which can include halachah (Jewish Law, although the term is broader than the usual translation implies: “The Way of the Jews” might be a better translation), aggadah and midrash (exegetical and homiletical parables), kabbalah (mysticism), minhag (customs), tefillah (liturgy), parshanut (commentary), and all the other aspects, details, nuances, embellishments, and creations of our sacred tradition, that gives us a palette of epic proportions to use, and a canvas incapable of completion upon which to work.

When we use our freedom to observe the mitzvot (commandments), to expand and interpret Jewish Law, to try and improve Jewish society and the societies around us with justice, compassion, lovingkindness, and respectful tolerance in disagreement and dispute, we make Torah, and we carry out our role in the covenant. In this way, we live our lives in fulfillment of the entirety of the verse ko amar Hashem: shlach et ‘ami vaya’avduni. “Thus says Hashem: send forth my people, so that they may serve me.”

-Ami

"LET MY PEOPLE GO"

“LET MY PEOPLE GO!”
It may be the single most effective political campaign in history.
“LET MY PEOPLE GO!”

From Moshe Rabeinu to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the mid-twentieth century and beyond, the words, “LET MY PEOPLE GO!” are synonymous with a public outcry on behalf of an enslaved people. “LET MY PEOPLE GO!” is a motivator, a call to action, a call to conscience!

 But then what? We rarely hear what comes immediately afterwards. The rest of the verse from Exodus ch.10, v.3, is שלח עמי ויעבדני– “shalach ami v’ya-ahv-dooni” The Hebrew word, Ya-ahv-dooni, comes from the same root as the word for slave, eved: עָבַד. This “extra” word, v’ya-ahv-dooni, adds a completely different sentiment to the oft repeated, “LET MY PEOPLE GO!” It adds an explanation for what might come after the liberation.

Mostly, v’ya-ahv-dooni is translated, “THAT THEY MIGHT WORSHIP ME” But throughout the TaNaKh, this root word עָבַד. is used to describe various forms of labor: English translations range from “cultivate”, “till”, “make servant” and “impose”. The people doing this work are referred to as in “bondage”, “laborers”, and “workers”. Somehow, “LET MY PEOPLE GO SO THAT THEY MIGHT BE WORKERS” doesn’t have the same effect as simply the outcry, “LET MY PEOPLE GO!” without a caveat of any obligation that the newly freed individuals will be expected to do in exchange for their liberation.

It seems paradoxical that the freed slaves (avadim) must be set free so that they might work (ya-ahv-dooni). But there is something unique and important that is lost when we truncate Moshe’s message to Pharoah in Exodus 10:3. “LET MY PEOPLE GO!” may well be a motivational message advocating for drastic change from the status quo, it may be an outcry by the people to an oppressor and a slogan to unite a group as they prepare to rise up against abuses of power, but it does not inspire the people or give them any guidelines on how to choose a better life for themselves once they’ve been freed.

The brilliance of שלח עמי ויעבדני– “shalach ami v’ya-ahv-dooni is that it takes the people from where they are – slaves – avadim and it subtly and gently suggests how they might transform themselves into free people, who might learn to use the same root letters for that which subjugated them to an oppressive power, Pharoah, to become people who might work for a higher good as free people who may worship God. “Ya-ahv-dooni” is an offering by God to the people of a passageway to true freedom. Only free people can choose to worship God, to be laborers for truth and justice, or follow a path of good deeds and loving-kindness. “Ya-ahv-dooni” is a suggestion, not a command.

“THAT THEY MIGHT WORSHIP ME” is a hope, a dream uttered by a Divine voice thinking wistfully of a future time wherein the freed Israelites will no longer be avadim to Pharoah in Egypt, but instead will choose to take the raw materials of their subjugation and transform themselves into human beings with free will – choosing to worship the One True God – and to follow ways of righteousness. Again and again throughout the Torah (and beginning almost immediately after the Exodus), we are instructed to remember: Avadim hayyinu – we were slaves in Egypt.

And now, it is up to us to choose: for Whom will we labor?

-Julie