Author Archives: Alan Brill

We lost power. phone, wifi, for a week after Sandy and work was closed. We consider ourselves fortunate compared to the destruction in other homes and other neighborhoods. More importantly, we are fortunate to have had supportive neighbors and friends to spend the time with and rely upon. Everyone we encountered was supportive the community was supportive, the police, the local government, and utilities were supportive, as well as the local merchants. After the power came back many volunteered to help other communities in time, money, and blankets. There are many neighborhoods that were hit much harder – cars and homes washed away, fires and tree-fallings, and people killed. Even now there are many still without basic needs. Buses will be leaving from all the local synagogues tomorrow to help in various neighborhoods. A rabbi from one of the wealthy communities on the ocean sent out a letter asking for desperately needed cash even though we view it as a wealthy community. I have little to add beyond thank you, but below are selections from two sermons.

Rabbi Mishael Zion offers some thoughtful words:

Like a child obsessively building sand castles and moats on the beach only to see them washed away by the ocean, we spend our lives striving to create a protected space in which the waters of the world will not be able to wash over us. We call that protected space “home,” as Maya Angelou put it, that “safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”

Sandy’s waters seem to have a sobering effect on our individualistic tendencies. For a moment, we are willing to be more generous with our boundaries. As the waters which made our homes permeable have washed through boundaries and undermined structure, so too people take less heed of impermeable boundaries. It is an opportunity for us to re-jigger our place on the spectrum between Lot and Avraham, to go beyond our average toward the heroic.

Read the Rest Here

Selections from a sermon from Rabbi Ariel Rackovsky at the Irving Place Minyan

Usually, when I begin a speech, I start with something interesting, lighthearted or funny- to get your attention and lead into the speech itself. Permit me to deviate from that this week, because there is nothing funny, lighthearted or interesting about what so many of us are experiencing, and if not us, than our friends, loved ones and neighbors, and if not that, than people a few miles away from us in Long Beach or Far Rockaway who have lost everything to 14 foot waves, or a little farther away where helpless Senior Citizens are living without water or power in high rises on the Lower East Side. The scope of the utter devastation, the loss of so much- property, money and memories- is too much to comprehend. So what is there to say when perhaps it is more appropriate to say nothing? I’ve been struggling with this for the past few days, so permit me to share some of what I’ve been thinking that may give us a framework- I hope my words will be accepted, and apologize in advance if they are somehow simplistic, insensitive or inappropriate.

Another lesson we can learn from the Shunamite woman is that of perspective. When asked what he could do for her, the Shunamite woman refused to focus on what was glaringly missing from her life. She instead was thankful for the simple life she led and the gift of community and support she received. In reaching out to check in on you this week, many of you expressed similar sentiments. In the midst of depressing and crippling power outages, many of you wrote to me that you were enjoying the family togetherness this experience afforded. Now, I realize that family togetherness can be too much of a good thing, so if that applies to you, I hope you get back your power speedily, and especially your cable… One of you even focused on the character building aspect of the whole experience, writing how interesting it was to see his children redefine what are the “necessities” of life.

Rabbi Billet, in a heart rending letter, described the imcredible loss he personally suffered as “just money.” Of course, it is not our place to pass these judgments for others. Chazal tell us that Iyov’s friends were especially faulted for making these kinds of calculations on behalf of their friend who was going though epic tragedies. We can’t tell other people that “it’s just stuff,” because it’s not just stuff; it’s a lifetime of memories. Chazal also tell us that we are not supposed to offer words of comfort at the time that מתו מוטל לפניו, when a person is not yet buried and the loss of a loved one is still fresh. B”H, we have not suffered that kind of loss, but the loss of a home, or even significant damage to it, no doubt engenders feelings of grief and heartache. But it is humbling and heartening to see others who have suffered loss, or even great inconvenience, say the same thing.

Perhaps there is another lesson, though- one that may, indeed, provide a some comfort. When we leave a narrative incomplete, we realize that we still have a hand in writing the conclusion. Because as much as our community has suffered, we have also shown- and been shown- unprecedented levels of chessed, in the spirit of Avraham Avinu, whose hospitality and kindness were a by word and for him, even superseded the value of a conversation with God. In our community here at the IPM, throughout the past few days, we have been inundated with emails from people who are blessed to have power, heat, electricity and internet service, offering the use of their homes to anyone who wants, and people with fridge and freezer space and a dry home offering that, as well as Shabbos hospitality for sleeping and meals, or a place to drop the kids off to watch TV for a little bit. It’s amazing how much chessed can be done with a simple electrical outlet!

I want to share with you a question- a shaileh- that a member of our community asked me on Thursday morning. He has several families staying with him, but one of those families has relatives in a location that was unharmed by Sandy. For whatever reason, they were not comfortable staying with those relatives, and were staying with him. He wanted to know whether it was permissible to ask those people to stay with their family so he could open up the space they occupied in case an organization like Achiezer needed to place families from Far Rockaway or Long Beach. מי כעמך ישראל- this kind of selfless unity is what a community should be like, and not only at times of tragedy. Events like this remind us how powerless we are in the face of God’s awesome might, as expressed through natural disasters, and how pointless and insignificant our egos and so many of our personal issues may be in the face of this kind of destruction, when we need to respond affirmatively and positively. The only way to counter wrathful devastation is through constructive love- as Dovid Hamelech wrote כי אמרתי, עולם חסד יבנה, the world is built through acts of kindness and charity, and it must be rebuilt in the same way. There is still a lot more to be done as people begin sorting through the wreckage and debris- our friends and family will need help financially, physically and emotionally, and that is when we will put our best face forward.

Read the Rest Here

Ever wonder how people who were hippie liberal in the early 1970s became conservative in the 1990s? How do some Shlomo Carlebach followers become Tea Party members or supporting right wing politics? Or how the liberal innovations of the 1960s in religious life become Evangelical? Or even how did the religious right win out over the religious left in the 1990s?

The standard answer to the second question is that people recoiled and retreated from the 1960’s liberalism to the safety of conservatism of Evangelicalism. A recent book by Axel Schäfer titled Countercultural Conservatives: American Evangelicalism from the Postwar Revival to the New Christian Right (Dec. 2011), offers new insights into these questions. He answers both questions with the same answer. The counter culture values became transformed into evangelical religion and therefore it was the same people in both groups and the turn was not recoil from the 1960’s as much as an adaptation. Much of his analysis applies to Centrist Orthodoxy.

Schäfer starts with the conventional approach that the Christian right was a backlash as change of the sixties and seventies, but then argues that if we look at the believers of the 1980s we see continuity. His book makes three points:

First, in the 1980s, conservative Protestants were less about teaching traditional religious concepts and had more conflicting impulses, in fact, they are remarkably modern and worldly in their social world. The world they created mediated between growing worldliness and Biblical piety; conservative Protestants combine moral traditionalism with consumer society, and orthodoxy with therapeutic personal conversions. They were educated Evangelical professionals. They were outwardly worldly yet sought separatist institutions. (Sounds a lot like the Jewish case.)

Second, the Evangelicals were not monolithic—every decision was tentative and ever negotiated. There were liberal and conservative forces within this religious turn and people made allegiances to bolster their positions.

Third, Evangelicals today are not a backlash against 1960s change, rather they have learned to base their own organizational strength, cultural attractiveness, and political efficacy on the style of the 1960s

Among the many important insights in this book, is the discussion how the concept of conversion – including finding God, being born again, or becoming a baal teshuvah- was therapeutic, about personal liberation, and spoke the language of popular psychology, that is—of notions like individualism, choosing one’s own path, but also of materialism and consumerism.
The left and progressives lost because they had too many internal divisions – they spent too much time on defining spiritual mission and the narcissism of small difference. The left was too earnest and against the consumerism. It also was still in favor of intellectual elitism, like the 1960’s liberals, preaching the need for academic and profession training in order to have an opinion.

In contrast, the Religious Right shared with hippies an aversion to liberalism, bureaucracies, and the confines of rationality. The antiestablishment attitude toward the liberal society and Church (or synagogue) created a conflation of libertarian thinking and individual self-expression. The hippie ethic and quest for authenticity became the libertarian ethic of entrepreneurial self-actualization. In Judaism, the shift was delayed for a decade until the shift from producing doctors to creating business people. Both the countercultural and Evangelical revivalism shared emphasis on ecstasy and non-rational systems.

(Think of the defunct organization Edah; it was very rational and not kabbalistic or therapeutic. In contrast kiruv provided ecstasy and self-fulfillment. Edah also still valued the 1950s ideal of Rabbi Dr, which does not speak to a hippie ethos.)

Why did Right Wing religion succeed? (1) it was more accomidationist than traditional religion—it was protean and adapted; (2) It spoke a language of spiritual pluralism and market orientation; (3) It worked on coalition building; (4) It actually hides greater secularization behind its new religiosity; it emphasized certain elements to display its religiosity but secularized many others; and (5) It fit the suburbanization of the era and offered the needed social support. It spoke a world of private schools and careerism.

The new Religious Right ethos was as atomistic individual and volenteeristic in association, we personally choose to return to God’s true path. Everything else in our lives is only contractual since our real covenant is with God.

The counterculture values of love, awareness, and good vibes, inner feelings, divine inspiration, and human relationship were similar enough to Evangelical values of spontaneity, emotionalism, public confession, revival, and conversion. Confession of one’s life story and conversion to a religious life is closer to hippy values than a return to 1950s religion. Both hippies and Evangelicals disliked the older liberalism of institution, rationality, intellect, and hierarchy. Of course, there is the overlap of Christian rock with hippie culture.(See my prior posts on the topic) They also have similar rhetorical styles, organization patterns, and expressive modes.

Both groups believe that one does not need to follow the values of WASP America and therefore, getting into Harvard, the country club, and the white shoe firm are not defined as “making it”. Both the counter culture and the new right denounced the older liberalism of the 1950s and 1960s as less religious and requiring assimilation into a WASP culture. On one hand, the new religion of the right became less religiously sophisticated , but many of the Religious right became lawyers and doctors upwardly mobile and educated in their professions.

Evangelicals were good at infiltrating hippies, so too Kiruv organization were equally as good at infiltrating counter cultural social groups. And for many parents whose children flirted with cults, and Asian religions, the American religious right seemed a better fate.

Schafer shows how Evangelicals who claimed to be entirely traditional and Christain Orthodox in dogma., nevertheless presented themselves in situations of outreach or in public, as a looser, more liberal and fluid approach. One bought into the counter cultural approach shown during outreach and then settled down to gradual adhere to the more conservative versions.

According to Schäfer, in the late 1970s, one would have thought a liberal version of this new ethos would have triumphed—the swing to political right was not forgone conclusion. However, the left was fractured over ideology. The left considered anyone even slightly dissimilar as an outside. if someone on the left strayed one inch to the left of the accepted version of orthodoxy they were considered outsider and equally one step to right placed one as an outside. It did not embrace broad contradictory tent. In contrast the right as typified by Reagan combined biblical religion with new age astrology- conservative values with 12 step thinking. The Right was also much better networking. The right even created a cultural war alliance with allies among Protestants, Catholics and Jews.

The Right was against questioning of theological absolutes and rejected the 1960’s liberalizing tendencies, they sought to create a new neo-fundamentalism but it was in the hands of the ordinary believer who really did not speak theology.

AB- I remember a point in the late 1990s where the complexity of the beit medrash and expert authority gave way to people with just a gap year background arguing from English Torah books they read, public discussions of Jewish thought that formerly used Maimonides and Lonely Man of Faith were replaced by Lawrence Kellerman and vortlach. To apply Schäfer’s approach to the Jewish case, the reason for the success of the right was not a backlash against feminism and Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, rather the right were trans denominational reaching out to other groups on the right, they had a new social agenda, they made cultural accommodation. Most importantly, they had the social concerns of suburbia; the concerns of the right transcended the Edah world limited to the concerns of the Upper West Side.

Old time racism and sexism was phased out, which was good however, there was a transition to new forms of blaming welfare moms and those were are deviant from the social world of suburbia

Evangelicals accepted literal Christian doctrine but have no study of doctrine, they accept a literal understanding of topics like virgin birth, resurrection, second coming and inerrancy but treat them as emotional assents, rather than intellectual. One accepts literal forms of dogma when one has one’s emotional conversion without any cognitive content. Theology is acquired in a revivalist conversion not a classroom (think of a kumzitz or ebbing- see my prior post). In the communities, they talk about business ethics or social ethics or sexual ethics reflecting issues of suburbia. Evangelical lack of theology thereby causes adherents to have a greater secularization that can accept respectable hedonism. Family values made more sense to people who did not really understand the concepts of advent and rapture. Rhetorically, they were a return to old-time religion but now the conversation is entirely about self-fulfillment through conversion and to be rightly ordered through family values

AB- I can see that all around me. Try teaching Eliyahu DiVidas Rehsit Hokhmah or Gra on Mishlei to Centrist Jews, the entire other-worldly and metaphysical traditional language is gone. Now, people are self made believer without saints, without kabbalistic musar, and without any of the traditional Jewish puritanism.

What of the conservative economic doctrine? Schäfer shows how they spoke of capitalism as self-reliance (or even as Torah uMAdda)- it hides the careerism, instant gratification, and creation of artificial needs involved. The authenticity and personal liberation derived from the hippie counterculture became cloaks for consumerism. Hippies and evangelicals could both be rebellious against the 1960s Great Society programs as against the true religious tradition of self-reliance, Yet blind to how their own consumerism is against the tradition. They both spoke the language of counter-culture, apocalypse, home-schooling, and crunchy gardening. Both sought to create alternatives to the institutions of the 1960s.

In April of this year, Axel Schäfer put out a sequel to Countercultural Conservatives: American Evangelicalism from the Postwar Revival to the New Christian Right, called Piety and Public Funding: Evangelicals and the State in Modern America which was limited to the economic thought of the aforementioned groups. He answers the question: How is it that some conservative groups are viscerally anti-government even while enjoying the benefits of government funding? How can they support libertarian economic policies, yet taking aggressive advantage of expanded public funding opportunities for religious foreign aid, health care, education, and social welfare. I look forward to reading that one.

Any thoughts? Does it ring true?
How does it apply to Centrism? to Engaged Yeshivish?

A new book came out on Mendelssohn stressing not his general Enlightenment rationalism, and downplaying his Jewish thought and metaphysics. I took it out as soon as it came into the library. It is quite good. Here is a review of the book from NDPR. As both the book and the review conclude- since religion is about symbols that are not immediately reducible to reason, then there can never be a religion without idolatry. We need the symbols but many will always take them literally.

Gideon Freudenthal, No Religion Without Idolatry: Mendelssohn’s Jewish Enlightenment, University of Notre Dame Press, 2012,
Reviewed by Benjamin Pollock, Michigan State University

In sum, Mendelssohn is not the admittedly important Enlightenment public figure but soft Enlightenment thinker we’ve come to know, who was somehow granted honorary “philosopher” status over the centuries, perhaps as acknowledgement for the fact that he was such a nice Enlightenment guy.

In Freudenthal’s reconstruction, Mendelssohn the philosopher has three basic commitments. He is committed to common sense, or “sound reason,” as the human being’s primary access to necessary truths; he is committed to a notably limited and cautious employment of speculative metaphysics; and he is committed to semiotics as a means of uncovering the ways — and the limitations and dangers inherent to the ways — we articulate and communicate our beliefs and judgments.

The reader who buys into Freudenthal’s new depiction of Mendelssohn reaps considerable philosophical payoff by book’s end. On its basis Freudenthal is able to explain numerous aspects of Mendelssohn’s thought — many of which have remained at best curiosities until now — as part and parcel of a coherent philosophical outlook.

According to Freudenthal, Mendelssohn’s first philosophical loyalty is to sound reason or common sense, through which human beings have access to basic truths necessary for human life. Mendelssohn’s trust in sound reason is the basis for what Freudenthal deems an “optimistic view of human knowledge and reason” (25), according to which rational, empirical, and commonsensical avenues to truth stand in a “wonderful harmony” with one another, and even with the moral and aesthetic goods of human life.

Freudenthal’s second chapter offers a brief sketch of the philosophy of Salomon Maimon, and from this point forward, Maimon serves as Mendelssohn’s foil in the book… By juxtaposing Mendelssohn’s moderate philosophical standpoint, grounded in common sense, to Maimon’s extreme rationalist and skeptical leanings, Freudenthal is able to make a strong case for Mendelssohn’s independence and uniqueness as an Enlightenment thinker.

Mendelssohn finds the essential pillars of natural religion — “the belief in God, providence and the afterlife” — to be accessible to learned and unlearned alike through sound reason or common sense. Moreover, Freudenthal shows, Mendelssohn argues that a religious insider’s assent to the historical truths of a revelatory tradition is based on a “trust” in the authority of the witnesses of that tradition which parallels, on the scale of the particular religious community, the trust in common sense shared by human beings universally. Since it is always reasonable for us to trust our own traditions more than those of others, Freudenthal has Mendelssohn explain, we can equally grant that members of other religious traditions act reasonably in preferring their own historical truths and beliefs. Mendelssohn’s own profession of allegiance to Judaism and yet of tolerance for religious others — for which he has often been maligned as inconsistent or opportunistic — is rooted, Freudenthal elegantly explains, in this “epistemic pluralism” that grasps how trust works in the communal context.

The heart of Freudenthal’s book, chapters four through six, addresses Mendelssohn’s preoccupation with symbolic representation
On Freudenthal’s reading, Mendelssohn understands religious communities as forming around different symbolic systems that represent, firstly, the truths of natural religion, and secondly, the respective defining characteristics of the communities themselves.

Freudenthal explains, a symbol allows us to look through it and to see the transcendent object the symbol stands for. But in the context of religious life, symbols cannot be transparent: the very concreteness of their objectification of divinity is what gives them the power to awaken religious feeling among community members. As Freudenthal adeptly shows, this central problem that Mendelssohn highlights within religious life parallels the problem of linguistic representation that he identified in metaphysics. Just as metaphysicians tend to reify the metaphors through which they direct their sights towards speculative truth, so religious practitioners tend to forget the way religious symbols are meant to point to the divinity that transcends them, and wind up worshiping the symbols themselves instead of the divine. The result? Idolatry.

Idolatry, on Mendelssohn’s view, is an ever-present fixture of religious life. More than any other religious community, however, Judaism, Mendelssohn believes, is equipped to combat idolatry

The first is Mendelssohn’s rather infamous claim that Judaism is not a revealed religion that commands particular beliefs other than in the rational truths of natural religion, but rather is a revealed legislation, whose “ceremonial law” is designed to organize communal practice in such a way as promotes the celebration of and inquiry into the truths of reason. Freudenthal here shows how Mendelssohn’s understanding of Judaism follows directly from his concern with religious symbols. Unlike concrete objects, ceremonial practices “are transient and leave no permanent objects behind that are conducive to idolatry” (138).

He even shows the sin of the golden calf to exemplify, on Mendelssohn’s interpretation, the human tendency to forget the transcendent objects to which linguistic symbols refer, and to treat the symbols themselves as objects of adoration.

The seventh chapter of Freudenthal’s book examines Mendelssohn’s attitude towards idolatrous trends in the Judaism of his own time (see: Kabbalah), and it also brings Mendelssohn’s semiotics to bear on his political philosophy

Mendelssohn is consistent throughout his career in suggesting that a Mosaic constitution in which God alone rules — and in which, therefore, church and state are one and the same — represents the ideal Jewish polity. It is just that since contemporary Judaism no longer lives according to the Mosaic ideal, it must conduct itself differently. The fall from this ideal occurred, Freudenthal shows Mendelssohn held, when the Jewish people called for the establishment of a worldly kingship, preferring a concrete manifestation of political power to divine rule (leading to the anointing of Saul as king). As Freudenthal shows, Mendelssohn thus views the separation of church and state within Judaism as the result of the very same propensity to idolatry that Judaism was intended to combat!

Perhaps most suggestive is the claim that the individual person’s potential for enlightenment in fact depends on the presence of idolatry within her community, without which she would lack the resistance required to spur her to that inquiry which alone would lead her to make knowledge of necessary truths her own. Hence the title of Freudenthal’s book, No Religion without Idolatry, designates, according to Freudenthal, “not only a curse but also a blessing: it is a necessary condition for the ever active quest for truth and enlightenment” (200-1).

Read the Rest Here

There is a new interfaith organization out there called “Orthodox Rabbis for Interfaith” with a surprising story, the group is made up entirely of young leadership affiliated with Shas. It seems that for the last three years the United Nations has given money from the Ford Foundation to a group of forty young leaders and rabbis- average age 35- associated with Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef for the purpose of educating them into the basics of Islam, the Middle East peace process, and the Palestinian perspective. They have received lectures, tours, and seminars from academics, Arabs, and the military to broaden their perspectives.

Now that their training has ended, they are fulfilling their promise and bringing what they learned out to the broader Shas community and they are engaging in active interfaith dialogue. They have even started a new organization to get the word of the need for interfaith out to the public. According to the articles they visited the Sheikh Abu Khader Jabari, the Palestinian clan leader of Hebron and discussed topics with the Imams. When asked “How can Jews thank God every morning for not making them a gentile goy?” They answered: “it only applies to the ancient pagan gentiles who worshiped the stars,not to Muslims.” They further relied with a pun “Maariv Aravim ba Hokhmah,” therefore God approves of Islam.
They seem to have a solid Romantic view of the peaceful co-existence of Jews and Muslims through the ages, which they will once again foster as Arab Jews who speak Arabic and share the same values and culture.

They were featured in the recent feature in the holiday magazine of Kav Itonut (parent of religious paper HaShavua) describing their history and activities.- Kav Laitonot.pdf Here is a description of their activities from a Shas publication-Shasnet from 2009 describing the training- here.

Here is a nice documentary on the program and their training.

They recently visited the Trappist monastery in Latrun desecrated with graffiti. And a representative was interviewed on the Israeli talk show “Kirschbaum and London,” where the secular hosts were particularly condescending to religion and toward the Arabs. The secular hosts even called the monastery the “therapeutic” instead of Trappist.

The same organization Interpeace is funding a Master’s degree in conflict resolution for ultra-orthodox women to serve as community organizers. About 40 prominent ultra-orthodox women are now participating in a similar educational programme. Many of the women are leaders within their communities, for example the wife of the chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel, the daughter of the chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel and the wives of two SHAS ministers etc. The Master’s programme is jointly implemented by Interpeace, the Haredi College of Jerusalem and Ben-Gurion University. Apart from organizing inter-religious encounters, the two year programme teaches English, mediation skills and about the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

This past August the OU sponsored a Youth Conference that included Conservative Rabbis, sponsorship by non-orthodox institutions including JTS, and participation by leading liberal advocates of social action such as Ruth Messinger. This seemed an under-reported story; the reversal of a thirty year trend of insularity. In order to verify that this perception was correct, I emailed three participants for confirmation. They responded over the holidays. Hence, I am only getting to it now.

In the 1980’s, OU Orthodoxy stopped attending events where the other denominations had representatives. This change and the rhetoric created was collected by Jack Wertheimer in his A People Divided: Judaism in Contemporary America (1993). Wertheimer’s angle was the decline of the Conservative movement as the vital center . More recently, Adam Ferziger documented the breakdown of this divide in paternal situations of kiruv; Orthodoxy feels it can participate in their events and enter liberal institutions in order to teach them. Now we have a return to working together.

The program had a focus on the trendy topics of spirituality, social media, social justice and organizational management. They sought to bring together best practices and have mutual learning. They had Ruth Messinger on social action and equal time to an opponent of social action. They created a rouges gallery of Chabad and JTS, social action and Aish haTorah, 36 under 36 meets AJWS, Camp Ramah and Federation. Session speakers included Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt of the RJC and Rabbi Yael Buechler a graduate of Jewish Theological Seminary speaking on manicure midrash. Media included the formerly hip JEWCY, the hip G-dcast and general media consultants. Sexuality was discussed by a liberal participant as sexuality, not the Centrist euphemism of “intimacy.”

The program was disproportionally Orthodox but something had changed. Even on youthcon’s own blog we find:“I felt as if no ideas were off limits.”

An anonymous senior NCSY official who was there wrote the following in an email query:

I think Youthcon is an attempt not to solve – the denominational issue – but to ignore it – in light of accomplishing something more important. We are all facing similar challenges in engaging the next generation of youth. Those of us “on the ground” are beginning to see assimilation turn from statistics – to real time numbers issues – in running programming. The well of traditional – but not observant kids – is drying up – and it is becoming increasingly challenging to engage “unaffiliated” Jewish teens. I think youthcon is trying to put aside the denominational issues – and not talk about difference – and not debate and resolve differences – but simply ignore them so that we can share ideas and emerge with new models and approaches. I think the openness is refreshing – and I may not agree with the presence of every speaker – but I am comfortable attending a conference with them for this purpose.

Another person wrote me that he still cringed at some of the talks for their provincialism.

The language of Youth Con is similar to the language used about the Mormon YouthCon and the Baptist YouthCon. New models from the American religious landscape are being used.

In prior posts, we have seen that Rabbi Burg expressed interest in Mormon outreach models and that he reversed the ascetic Nahmanides to express an Eyn Od Milvado” embrace of the world. However, one of my inside sources wrote that Burg was “bringing greater creative vision to the different departments of the OU and pushing them beyond their comfort zones.” If he keeps up this work, Burg may find himself in the list of the Newsweek top 50 rabbis.

I saw an under-reported story but one of those who supplied information thought the most notable part was that “the salmon was great, as was the dessert table.”

There is a very crisp interview with Prof. Sarna in the current issue of Reform Judaism Magazine. He was asked about the change in the younger generation, to which he answered media, sustainability, and think with a start-up mentality. Don’t think central planning agency, rather seed lots of start-up projects. Sarna uses a great phrase “religious recession” for our current era of turning away from religion. The term is generally applied to the turn from religion that occurred in the great depression of the 1930’s, but during the last 2 months has been applied by many media sources to our current era. Sarna observes that the indie minyanim seek to recreate the Israel experience. This would explain some of the phenomena in the pop-culture synagogue programming. As a historian, he concludes with “embrace change.”

Forum for the Future: The Discontinuity of Continuity
an interview with Jonathan Sarna, historian and Brandeis University professor

There is a generational disconnect between elders who grew up before the Internet age and young people who grew up in a post-Internet age. They are in constant “virtual” touch with one another; they read on screen instead of in books; and they can meet their friends on Facebook, so they have no need to meet them at the synagogue or the JCC.

Our children, by contrast, watched that prosperity evaporate. Their question is not “What’s the next big thing?” but “What can we reasonably and responsibly sustain?”

Finally, the new generation approaches problem-solving differently. Since the Progressive era early in the 20th century, the American Jewish community has believed in central planning. We create a multi-year plan to actualize a vision and then follow a predetermined, step-by-step process to get there. Change in this model comes slowly and deliberately. By contrast, today’s young people look at who is at the forefront of change and see nimble start-ups and disruptive technologies. If you have an idea, they believe, you should carry it out—right now. They are not afraid of failure. They understand that in a start-up culture, 90% fail and 10% succeed. What they are not interested in is “continuity.” The people they respect are agents of change, people like Steve Jobs who are not afraid to break things.

I’d say that across the spectrum of North American faiths, we are currently experiencing what may someday become known as the Great Religious Recession. Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, mega-churches and tiny temples are all witnessing membership declines as young people shift away from religious institutions.

In contrast, in the 1970s, America’s religions, Judaism included, experienced an “awakening”—an unanticipated religious revival. Everybody at that time knew young people who had become much more religiously committed than their parents… Well, religion is a bit like gravity: what goes up must come down. Every revival is followed by a period of backsliding, and this one is no exception.

When else did we witness backsliding in religiosity in America? The late 1920s and early 1930s could also be considered a period of “Religious Depression.” Looking back, though, the religious recession of the 1920s and ’30s was also driven in part by automotive technology—having a car offered Americans many competing secular things to do on the weekends. My guess is that today, Internet/social media technology is partly driving the current religious recession. Nowadays nobody needs to go to temple to catch up with friends or learn about Judaism.

This generation of native-born American and Canadian Jews is better educated Jewishly than any of its predecessors as a result of day schools, camps, university-based Jewish Studies, and Israel programs. For example, the independent minyan movement has been heavily influenced by Jews who seek a Shabbat worship experience like the ones they enjoyed in Israel, and its standards of learning are higher than those of the 1970s chavurah movement because its leaders are much more Jewishly knowledgeable.

Ultimately, the key for success is to embrace change. The Reform Movement’s continued success is a testament to its ability to change, as seen in its evolving views on bar mitzvah, Israel, ritual, and much more. Now there are new things to be changed in the face of a young generation that challenges the assumptions and norms of its elders. Change will keep us going—if we do it right.

Read the Full interview here.

According to their own website, the Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah Movement is a 40-year-old, a-political religious Zionist movement that was founded by Yehezkel Cohen with Prof. Hanna Safrai, Prof. Ze’ev Safrai, Dr. Avraham Nuriel. It sought to return religious Zionism to its roots. Its orientation aims to promote the values of tolerance, equality and justice in religious society, and to have an impact on the Jewish and democratic character of Israeli society. Committed to Jewish law, the movement works to create a thinking, religious culture that is both open and self-critical, and to encourage a constructive Halachic discourse that deals with the challenges of contemporary times. Its focus is not limited to one area or issue but rather seeks to influence the religious culture of the country and to create a religious discourse that will cover all aspects of life.

Yehezkel Cohen Z”l (born 1938, Tel Aviv) passed away this past week. (h/t menachem mendel). In his eulogy Rabbi Benny Lau stated that Yehezkel Cohen recognized the danger of the changes and warned.

He was the pioneer before this camp. Back in the early seventies he recognized the trend. As an expert diagnosist, he warned of the risks of being dragged after the populaces do not identify with the principles of Zionism and modernity. He fought stubbornly for the burning issues: general education, recruitment of yeshiva students, integration of women in public life, attitudes towards to non-Jews. He recognized the danger and warned. As a soldier stood on guard and not let go… Many left him with a shrug. Others pointed to him as dinosaur.

In the 1970’s, the original 1920’s vision of the Mizrachi movement was fading as the younger generation moved beyond the farm and austerity. In addition, the Bnai Akiva world was turning to the separate of sexes and the reduction of secular studies. This organization wanted to return the ideal of Torah and avodah. They understood Rav Kook by the phrase “the old will be renewed and the new will be sanctified.” They understood the core of Rav Soloveitchik as “I believe in perfect faith that this Torah has been given to be fulfilled and realized in every place and every time, and in all social, economic and cultural frameworks; under all technological circumstances and in all political conditions”. They also viewed Haredim as sectarian and ideological not as pious. Yehezkel Cohen published an ideological tract that was translated into English.

Below are some selections from the little tract. They see themselves as restoring the original Religious Zionism. Torah today must engage the world, the traditional approach is about separation from the world. For the Relgious Zionist, worldly life is in itself a sacred mission, god’s will is ethical, we should engage all cultural creativity, and work for social justice. Cohen sees the left –wing (his term) of Religious Zionism as the true bearers of the message and embraces the rejection from the Haredim as “hating the Torah world.” He wanted the kulturekampf.

Cohen acknowledged that “Religious Zionism achieved physical maturity without commensurate maturity of its theoretical ideas.” And he acknowledged that “not all of the activities of Ne’emanei Torah va-Avodah are beyond reproach or criticism.”

Platform: (1) No full time Torah study (2) There is a need for science and culture, Rav Kook taught us that rejecting culture is only due to “smallness of faith.”(3) Women need to study Torah (4) Women need greater roles in public and religious life. Modesty is based on the needs of the time. Don’t claim it is not in the halakhah, because the pure halakhah bans women and single men from teaching, and women from going out in public. Yet, the haredim don’t follow the tradition. (5) Personal responsibility for and participation in the burden of national and state obligations. In other words, one lives according to the halakhah in a spirit of independent thought and personal responsibility.

He decries the erosion of the Religious Zionist world toward the direction of those of the Ultra- Orthodox community such as the rejection of co-ed activities or limited secular studies.
For him, Halakhic pluralism within Orthodox Jewry is a fact. (In the 1990’s they turned over the reigns of the organization to younger leadership with new ideas and their were many new authors for their journal Deot.)

TORAH AND AVODA- THE IDEA AND THE WAY
Authors: Rabbi Michael Nehorai , Dr. Yehezkel Cohen

There have recently been many inquiries, both oral and written, concerning the principles guiding the movement known as Ne’emanei Torah va-Avodah (“Loyalists of Torah and Labor”). In the following pages, I shall attempt to demonstrate that these principles are identical with those which were inherent in the earliest, founding stage of the historic Religious Zionist movement. This movement, which acted out of a combination of national mission and religious sensibility, never formulated its ideology in a conceptual, philosophical manner, so that its fundamental principles came to be forgotten over the course of time.

According to the underlying conception of Religious Zionism, Judaism is manifested in the fact that it presents the various elements – religion, nation and land – as interrelated. Indeed, the words of the Torah clearly assume the inter-relationship of all elements of existence- individual, people and land.
This argument is elaborated in the words of Rabbi Kook, uttered in another context: “If a person wishes to state novellae concerning matters of Repentance in this time, but does not look towards the revealed end and the emergence of the light of salvation, he will be unable to direct anything towards the truth of the Torah” (Iggerot ha-Re’eyah, Vol. II, p.37).

The traditional religious ideal was one of maximal separation from the life of this world, focused upon Torah study as the goal of life. How can such an ideal be squared with that of the wholeness of Judaism in a modern state, expressed through military service, the study of science, and the acceptance of the authority of a democratically-chosen government?

Rabbi Isaac Jacob Reines (1839-1915) the founder of Religious Zionism, was the first to offer a religious legitimization for change and variety in the Jewish way of life

Worldly life is in itself a sacred mission, not only a passage-way to the next world. The obligations towards the nation and the state incumbent upon a person as the result of human conscience are also commandments. God’s will is itself ethical, so that it is inconceivable that an act which appears good and necessary from a human viewpoint be proscribed for religious reasons. Such a spiritual climate expanded the framework of religious intent and legitimized the natural human desire to be involved in all realms of cultural expression. In particular, a religious dimension was given to the study of science and the concern for social justice as preconditions for full involvement in the life of the nation and the state.

Ne’ emanei Torah va-Avodah as Carriers of the Religious Zionist Idea
Torah and Avodah was always the slogan of B’nai Akiva and of the National Religious Party in general, and only recently has it been taken over by the left-wing of the national-religious camp, who claim exclusive right thereto. This slogan always aroused the criticism of Torah circles. The placing of another value (i.e. Avodah) on equal footing with Torah unseated the latter from its position of supremacy, Labor being treated as a parallel ideal. Those who negated this slogan argued that, if the Torah is the main thing, all of man’s other needs and the components of his life are determined by what follows from it.

The message implied by the expression Torah va-Avodah in our day, and the monopoly claimed over it by those within the NRP who hate the Torah world and have claimed this expression as their own, indicates that that which the great Torah scholars feared has come true, (ha-Modia. 1 Ellul 5747 [Sept 1987] ).
Historically, Religious Zionism achieved physical maturity without commensurate maturity of its theoretical ideas. It did not articulate the great goal intended for it by history – to unify in action, through its way of life, the full scope of the Jewish spirit.

Even if not all of the activities of Ne’emanei Torah va-Avodah are beyond reproach or criticism, one must credit it with the fact that it has brought about a revival of the original principles defining the identity of Religious Zionism.
The Fourteenth “Principle of Faith”- Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

A second fundamental truth upon which our movement is based may be expressed in a fourteenth “principle of faith”. What is this principle? It may be formulated in the simple declaration: “I believe in perfect faith that this Torah has been given to be fulfilled and realized in every place and every time, and in all social, economic and cultural frameworks; under all technological circumstances and in all political conditions”.

We reject the approach of separatism as dangerous to the survival of the (Jewish) nation. … As a result of this approach, there is a concrete danger that we will become reduced to a small sect, which cannot long survive. We solemnly declare that the principle of the eternity of the Torah assures us that it is possible to study the Torah and to fulfill it, not only in the House of Study and in the ghetto, but in every place in the world, be it in the modern home, laboratory, campus or factory; in private life or in sovereign existence. [Num. 13:30].– from “The Second Principle: ,’It is Not in Heaven'” (Hebrew), in his Hamesh Derashot,Jerusalem, 1974, pp. 111-113.

The New will be Sanctified and the Holy will Be Renewed

The term Haredi refers, not to punctiliousness in the observance of mitzvot – i.e., “one who fears the word of God”- but to a community which, from a religious-social-cultural perspective, identifies with Agudat Yisrael; which refers to itself by the term Haredi; and which claims for itself greater religiosity and a monopoly upon the path towards God

1. Torah study is an important value, and considerable time ought to be devoted to Torah study. However, the ultimate goal of the Jewish people is to live a natural, earthly life according to the Torah – whether within the private framework of the individual or as active participants in the life of the state and society. In the dispute between Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai, we are followers of Rabbi Ishmael:

2. Science and positive aspects of general culture ought to form a part of the spiritual world of the religious Jew. We cite the words of Rabbi Kook:
Because of their smallness of faith, it seems (to some people) that whatever human beings do in order to strengthen their position… to acquire knowledge, strength, beauty, order – that all these are outside of the Divine contents within the world. For this reason some people, who think of themselves as relying upon a Divine basis, look askance upon any worldly progress and hate culture and science…But all this is a great error and a lack of faith. (Arpelei Tohar, Sect. 47).

Ignorance of science and general culture not only deprives one of an important spiritual dimension of one’s humanity and harms one’s own Judaism, but also prevents the religious public from occupying positions of importance and influence in the state and in society, leaving the shaping of our society in the hands of the secularists alone.

3. Woman as a person of dignity in her own right. As such, she is entitled to and deserving of intellectual and cultural, as well as full religious development (i.e. Torah study)
Rabbi Hayyim David Halevi, who writes that: “In the earlier days, when a woman was exclusively a housewife and the girls did not study at all… but in our day, when they engage in general studies with great seriousness, why should Torah study be inferior?” (Aseh lekha Rav, Vol. II: p. 193).

4. The participation of women in public life and in the shaping of society, sharing both in the privileges and obligations implied in such. This implies the existence of a mixed society. Those who reject this tendency in the name of sexual modesty argue that the choice is between modesty, attained by woman staying at home, and licentiousness, resulting from woman’s involvement in society. The advocates of Torah and Avodah believe that the principles of modesty, as opposed to the specific details derived from the life situation of previous generations, both can and do exist in a mixed society.

One frequently hears the demand, aggressively directed towards our circles, that one follow the laws of modesty as formulated in the Mishneh Torah. the Shulhan Arukh. and similar halakhic codes. This is the reason offered by those who advocate the division of B’nai Akiva into two separate movements for boys and for girls. Yet those who make these demands, and the Ultra-Orthodox public generally, themselves fail to observe a number of regulations of the Shulhan Arukh concerning this subject.

Both the Shulhan Arukh (Even ha-Ezer 22:20) and Maimonides (Issurel Bi’ah 22:13) contain halakhic rulings, based upon the Mishnah and the Talmud, stating in a clear and unequivocal manner that a woman or an unmarried man are not allowed to engage in teaching, for reasons of modesty and mixing between men and women. Yet the entire Independent Educational system of Agudat Yisrael (Hinukh Atzma’i) is built upon female teachers, while unmarried men likewise serve there as teachers. What happened to the principle of modesty? This problem is articulated in the comments of several later halakhic authorities:

The Shulhan Arukh rules that “A man must separate himself from women very greatly” (Even ha-Ezer 21:1). How does this explicit halakhah square with the fact that, in offices, shops and the like, one finds Haredi women working alongside men, including non-religious men? Maimonides rules that:

It is shameful for a woman to go about constantly, sometimes out of doors and sometimes in the streets. A husband is to prevent his wife from doing this, and not allow her to go out except once a month or several times a month. (MT, Ishut 13:11).
How many Haredi families observe this law? One could cite many other examples, but these will suffice. How are we to understand all this? An answer may be found in the remarks of Rabbi Saul Yisraeli who, in his discussion of National Service for girls, observes that: “It seems that the limits of (the principle), ‘All the honor of the king’s daughter is within’ depends upon local custom” (Rabbi J. L. Maimon, ed., ha-Torah veha-Medinah, Vol. IV: p.226).

5. Personal responsibility for and participation in the burden of national and state obligations. The religious public is not a group enjoying special privileges. Therefore, all young men and women are obligated to serve in the various frameworks available to them. The mitzvah of Torah study does not exempt one from other mitzvot, including that of military service:

In other words, one lives according to the halakhah in a spirit of independent thought and personal responsibility, rejecting those approaches in which the individual abnegates his personal responsibility in favor of one or another halakhic authority. Judaism implies personal responsibility for the sanctification of life, accepting the tradition on the basis of independent and critical thought.

Joseph of 1902 (i.e., the Mizrachi) felt that it was forbidden to rely upon the status quo, that great changes were about to take place in the life of the Jewish people, and that we must be ready and prepared for these changes… In our day, the Creator of the Universe has ruled that the halakhah follows Joseph of1902 (against the entire yeshivah world of that time!). (״Joseph and His Brothers”, Hamesh Derashot,Jerusalem, 1974, p. 23).

In recent years, at the initiative of certain circles within the National-Religious public, a degree of erosion has taken place in the principles and way of life of Torah and Avodah, toward the direction of those of the Ultra- Orthodox community. Some examples of this erosion are: the circle associated with Yeshivat Merkaz Ha-Rav has estabished a religious high school for girls whose students are forbidden to belong to mixed youth movements (i.e., B’nai Akiva or Ezra), as well as a heder which limits secular studies to the absolute minimum. In the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, a new youth movement was established, in which there is absolute separation of boys and girls.

Had these things been done in order to meet the legitimate needs of those who do them and members of their circle, we could accept them. However, those who advocate these changes openly declare that it is their intention to make their way that of the entire national-religious public (see, for example, Moreshet, No. 3, p. 71).

These acts of omission and commission express the “Haredi” world-view. This view has halakhic sources, just as the path of Torah and Avodah is based upon the halakhah. Halakhic pluralism within Orthodox Jewry is a fact that cannot be

Read 20 more pages here.

One of my favorite Judaic references tools is ASPAKLARIA אספקלריא, a Hebrew encyclopedia of Jewish thought. Each entry give fulls texts of the sources in the Bible and  in Rabbinic texts, medieval Jewish philosophy and Nahmanides and Zohar followed by the topic in Maharal, Hasidut, Musar, and Rav Kook. The topic index goes way beyond the obvious entries.

The full title is  ASPAKLARIA Compendium of Jewish thought – editor Shmuel Avraham Adler.

It may still be in beta because it does not look finished and because I did not find any Hebrew announcements that it is online. 

Enjoy

 אספקלריא  קובץ אנציקלופדי למחשבת היהדות

Hebrew alphabetical index is in top right corner

Let’s look at some sermons for what they say about the community. I did this once before about the Upper West Side and we had some interesting results. Now, let us look at Boca Raton. These sermons were given by Rabbi Efrem Goldberg as an Elul – Rosh Hashanah musar, he collected them in a pamphlet. Let’s see what a historian would note about the community. Before I start, I take it as given that none of this is restricted to Boca Raton. I also take it as a given that this is not about the rabbi or his community, nor is it concerned with prescription. It is just a snapshot at the sins (and solutions) of the age. It is looking for the next links in the trajectory of the sins discussed by orthodox rabbis. In the 1950’s it was working on the Sabbath, and in the 1970’s it was using a razor to shave. What are the current sins?

The first issue is the dress of the teenage girls.

I am not God forbid suggesting anything about the young girls or women of our community. But it seems like we have lost our modesty compass and we have developed a blind spot for how we appear and the message we are sending. When I am talking to 8th grade girls on a Shabbos and I have to look up to see them because of the height of their stiletto heels, we have a blind spot. When a young man of marriageable age inquires from me for dating purposes about what turns out to be a 15 year old girl because based on her appearance he thinks she is 19 or 20, we have a blind spot.

A second issue is that the inhabitants of this place have a longing to eat in any restaurant, desire to go to the beach on Shabbos, and to be fully immersed in the hedonism around them. The Rabbi acknowledges that some do take off their kippot, but he leaves it as an implicit statement that without kippot some of his congregants engage in the desired activities. (We have no quantified data.)He does put his finger the fact that some of the congregants have a sense of diminished return for following the community. For those who identified as Orthodox because they liked the warmth of the lifestyle and Shabbat was seen attractive, many now feel that the warmth has faded and that they have other interests.

If our children see that in truth we would prefer to be exclusively toshavim, fully immersed in the country clubs, the pop culture, the secular lifestyle that surrounds us, if they sense that we long to eat in any restaurant we want, go to the beach club on Saturdays and be unencumbered in our lifestyle, we have little chance of making Judaism exciting for them. If they see that our yarmulkas literally and figuratively spend as much time in our pockets as they do on our heads, should we be surprised if Judaism doesn’t speak to them in meaningful ways?

A third issue is the problem of drugs among the teens. If the Rabbi mentions it, then it has clearly be there a while already.

His solution is for parents to impose drug tests. He does not offer a solution that reaches the kids themselves. Know that sadly it could have come from any one of many people whose children could go to any one of the many Jewish schools in South Florida… if you are the parent of a teenager who is friends with and exposed to a crowd that may have access to drugs or alcohol, you need to randomly test. Don’t test because you don’t trust your child. Test because you don’t trust his or her friend. Test because your neighbor can’t trust their kid, but doesn’t have the courage or fortitude to test unless you do as well. You can get excellent tests at AmericanScreeningCorp.com and be sure to get the test to see if you child took the pill to make sure nothing can be detected in a test.

A fourth issue is the internet. His solution is to filter and emulate the Evangelicals.

Would you ever go to sleep at night and let your child hang out in their room with an inappropriate adult, a Christian missionary, a drug dealer, a rabid dog or anything else that could threaten them? Of course not! And yet, make no mistake about it. If you call it a night, and leave your child with unfiltered, unlimited access to the Internet, they are surrounded by dangers that lurk and that loom.

I will tell you something I consider tragic. We are the so-called Modern Orthodox community. We are the ones who supposedly synthesize progress, technological advancement and change with Torah values and morals. And yet, if you want a filter for your Internet, you will more than likely be purchasing it from a Christian group. If you want to check about a particular movie before letting your children watch it, you will likely go on http://www.kidsinmind.com or another website that provides that kind of analysis and summary. They are all Christian websites.

A fifth issue- his congregants as cheap and rude.

Jews shouldn’t be known for being cheap; we should be known for being generous. We shouldn’t have a reputation for being rude; we should have a name for being respectful.

A sixth issue is that everyone is super busy and now wired with smart phones, txt messages, tweets. He wants his congregants to slow down because it provides serenity and Torah helps focus thoughts. On this one, the horse has already left the stable, busy dual career doctors who car pool their kids to activities everyday will not and cannot slowdown just from a homily. And they have already become observant, so you cant promise if they keep Shabbat they will be refreshed, focused, and have a slower life.

All of Torah is there so that we are transformed into misbonenim, from zombies mindlessly living life, into thoughtful, mindful, people living in the present. The answer is simple, slow down. The only way to achieve mindfulness and to find the serenity it provides, is by hitting the brakes a little bit. Slowing down is an art, and unfortunately it is ever increasingly becoming a lost one.

The answer is simple, slow down. The only way to achieve mindfulness and to find the serenity it provides, is by hitting the brakes a little bit. Slowing down is an art, and unfortunately it is ever increasingly becoming a lost one.

The message of these sermons for our era is to recoil from the over engagement in popular culture. But the rhetoric is one of sectarianism, recognize how Jews are unique and distinct from popular culture. The title of the series is “The Courage to Make Havdallah and Lead a Life of Distinction”
Here we have a focus on Judaism as somehow culturally saving one from the pop culture. We need to be exceptional and distinct from the general culture to reject the pop culture. The author does not see that his dichotomy is showing his non-exceptional assimilation into Evangelical ways of thinking. When they were both alive, Rav Hutner’s exceptionalism was seen as diametrically opposed to Rav Soloveitchik. The former emphasized the use of the word hinukh to distinguish it from general studies, while the latter having no such concerns as shown in his school. (AB- In my days teaching in Maimonides in Boston, the students could not have any rock culture in school, because they needed to focus on writing papers for general studies. Sports were not placed above general studies.) Also after several decades of day school students emphasis on pop culture, pop culture faith, and cruise ship Orthodoxy, the pop culture is now seen as a foreign influence. The students are only doing what you showed them.

For the next four weeks I would like to speak to you about how in my opinion, we are placing too much emphasis on our status of toshavim, full participants in society and we have neglected and overlooked our status as geirim, as different and distinct.

As western democratically minded people, we are naturally uncomfortable with the idea of Jewish chosen-ness or exceptionalism. After all, isn’t it racist, bigoted, discriminatory and doesn’t it engender a sense of superiority and conceit, attributes that are supposed to be anathemas to the Jewish people?

Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik explains that in this introduction, Avraham captured the tension that ever Jew is destined to live with forever. On the one hand, we are toshavim, residents and inhabitants of the great countries in which we have lived. We function as active citizens participating in the fullness of the society around us. And yet, at the same time we must remain geirim, strangers, different, apart, distinct and dissimilar.

Rav Yitzchak Hutner, the great Rosh Yeshiva of Chaim Berlin, once stood before a Torah U’Mesorah convention, a gathering of Jewish educators from across the country. He suggested to them that he could summarize their entire duty…The single most important value we can and must teach our children is that they are and can be exceptional.
Even though we are toshavim, participants in society, not every magazine, website, book, newspaper or TV show belongs in a Jewish home. We must be geireim, strangers, to many aspects and elements of pop culture and of secular society.

What is this preacher’s view of how people change? The real religion and cosmology of our age is 12-step of AA, the discipline of the gym, and Oprah’s power of changing one’s narrative. As in most forms of prosperity gospel, we have no limits to what od has promised us if we apply ourselves. Rav Soloveitchik’s inner existential resolution and moment of decision showing the courage of all existential decisions becomes the pop-psych belief in change and that one is not stuck in a rut a life. (A quick google search seems to indicate that Rav Abraham Twerski and Rav Soloveitchik got crossed online).

One of them, a man sitting in this room right now, described that before any of us knew him, almost 30 years ago he weighed over 300 pounds and was a complete alcoholic. The only thing holding him back from change was his own self imposed limitation of “it’s not me.” He went on to tell us about how he lost 200 pounds and conquered his alcohol addiction. When asked, how did you do it? How did you go from an obese alcoholic to thin sober person his answer was incredible. There are no limits to who we can become if we simply subscribe to hirhur teshuva and believe in our capacity to change.

Rabbi Soloveitchik offered a simple answer that contains a phenomenal insight into what today is all about and how we can break out of the “it’s not me” trap… The preliminary stage is called hirhur teshuva, the awakening of teshuva… Explained the Rav, before we can change, we must believe that we have the capacity to change. Before we can create a new me, we must let go of the natural tendency to feel, it’s not me.

My question is whether you think Rabbi Goldberg is differing with the pop culture rabbis or part of the same cloth, locating their issue in the realm of popular culture.

For other glimpses into the contemporary state of Orthodoxy, see the chat with Rabbi Shlomo Einhorn and Rabbi Daniel Cohen.

Did you ever want to create an elite group dedicated to perfecting spirituality? Did you think it was going to change the world? Did you ever wish that you were part of the elite circles around the Ramak in Safed, Ramhal in Padua, or the Magid of Mezeritch. Hillel Zeitlin’s writings offer an imaginative plan for creating such a community in 1920’s Poland. And the new translation by Arthur Green, Hasidic Spirituality for a New Era: The Religious Writings of Hillel Zeitlin (Classics of Western Spirituality, Paulist Press) allows one to dream with Zeitlin about such utopias. This is a great volume to bring to synagogue to be inspired for love of God, to argue with the places where you think Zeitlin is wrong, or to fantasize about one’s own ideal world.

Hillel Zeitlin (1871-1942), broke with the faith of his pious Belorussian Hasidic family in order to became a long haired journalist for the Yiddish papers writing about European philosophy and literature, Spinoza, Nietzsche and Lev Shestov. Later in his life, Zeitlin turned back to the Hasidism on which he had been raised; he again dressed as a hasid He still earned his livelihood as a journalist, writing about religious affairs and Hasidism for the secular Yiddish press. Zeitlin was killed by the Nazis wearing tallit and tefillin, holding his beloved Zohar.

The recently translated volume focuses on Zeitlin’s thoughts on the meaning of Hasidism for the modern age. Green comments “But every time he wrote about a Hasidic master, he would compare him to the 19th-century Hindu mystic Ramakrishna, a character in a Tolstoy novel, or a Christian saint. No one knew what to make of this unique and dramatic figure.”

Zeitlin considered his current Hasidism as in decline. They focus on the externals of dress and customs, they seek wealth and glory sometimes even more than non-hasidim, they castigate others and spend their lives in petty politics about the Hasidic courts, slaughterers and religious officials. They are fanatic, foolish and push Jews away. For those who want to know more about the intense decline of Hasidism 1880-1930, see Mendel Piekarz, Hasidut Polin, where give you details on many people rapidly fleeing and the ossification of most of the courts. Zeitlin also points out the corruption of political parties, the nationalists, the communists, and all others. Zeitlin complained how the nations yoke us and torment us, and wails about the slaughters, pograms, anti-Semitism and exile of the early twentieth century.

Zeitlin envisioned a renewal of Hasidism that takes the best of Western culture. Zeitlin called his envisioned movement Yavneh, and in other places they were the members of the elite, the bnai aliyah or the yehidim. This new Hasidim would be completely devoted to God, Torah, and Israel. Zeitlin’s role models are a bit surprising and probably not the list of your own fantasy team, his are Elazar Rokeach, Yehudah HaHasid, the Besht, and Hayyim ibn Attar. Zeitlin finds Bahye ibn Pakuda and Maimonides lacking in their intellectual focus, without enough burning passion and religious lust.

The Besht saw the Divine light in gentile folk tales and tunes, Zeitlin, in turn, exhorts his readers to expand on the Besht and find God in all arts and worldly wisdom, as well as considering the Divine light in social justice. The Hasid of the future senses the divine light when praying and studying, works by his own manual labor, and has love and compassion for Jew and non-Jew.

Zeitlin offers 15 principles or hanhagot for his new Hasidism. They include the need to keep away from all luxuries since luxuries combined with a true Jewish life are like immersing in a mikvah with sheretz in hand. Therefore avoid theater, parties, and expensive food & clothes. Unlike the contemporary Neo-Hasid, for Zeitlin the Hasid of the future needs to work on shimrat habrit and sexual holiness. He must be strict in kashrut.

Shabbat must be holy within, in contrast “sons are being prepared for empty careers where Shabbat is kept in an external way.” They pray, and when they have the opportunity, they fulfill commandments and customs, but everything mechanical.” He pleads “Don’t allow your house to become secular and commercial.” Speak Yiddish, live among Jews. Remove yourself from party politics. Any party, even Jewish ones limit the communion of Yisrael. When you work for a party (including Agudah) and it causes division between Jews then it is contrary to the Jewish spirit which is love justice and holiness. One should: Learn mussar works everyday, especially the classics such as Duties of the Heart, Way of the Righteous, Path of the Upright, Tanya, Likkute Etzot. If you follow these 15 rules, then he says to contact him.

The next part of the book are translated sections of Zeitlin’s Zohar visions written in Zohar Aramaic, which describe the activities of this envisioned elite group in the same way the Zohar protagonists are portrayed in the Zohar.

A highlight of the volume is Zeitlin’s The fundamentals of Hasidim, in which he explores Hasidic metaphysics in terms of German idealism. Schopenhauer, Nikolai Hartmann, and Nietzsche frame discussions of being and nothingness, tzimzum, creator in the created, raising sparks, raising up distracting thoughts and bad middot, sweetening judgments. I would definably assign this section to a class. It grapples with what it means to use Hasidic metaphysics in the modern world. Yet, modern for Zeitlin is for us in the 21st century a category of a prior century, it has little to do with the current remake of Hasidism as psychology, personal meaning, and private commitments.

The book has Zeitlin’s reflections on his recent reading of William James, Varieties of Religious Experience called in the original “be-Hevyon haNeshamah, the Hidden Places of the Soul.” Zeitlin still does not have a word for mysticism or religious experience. Green translates this section as “Judaism and Universal Religion.” Zeitlin states that we need a science of religion, but those who those who know social science are far from religion; and those who practice religion are far from the ability to create a science. Among the documents Zeitlin looks include Berdychevski’s musings, kabbalistic texts, and Dostoevsky. We live in a sorrowful world- Zeitlin blends Brothers Karamazov with descriptions of hell from Chaim Vital. Zeitlin discusses the need to reawaken wonder and astonishment, which Green credits as having an influence on Heschel. There is a need to reawaken love and knowledge of God. The highlightsof this section is Zeitlin’ discussion of the various types of revelation in Judaism, he cites texts for each: Voice of God in nature, Symbols, Dreams, pangs of Conscience, Longing of soul, Inner voice, Feeling of Divine Closeness, and Ascent of the Soul.

The final essay in the volume is an interesting defense of spiritual beauty in Judaism. It includes a defense of Moshe Taku and others who wanted a corporeal God for Judaism. Zeitlin admires how – Aggadah can depict God, especially the shekhinah. Zeitlin finds a rare beauty of holy people, miracle workers, messiahs, and Hasidim. The book concludes with Zeitlin’s poetry of yearning for God, reworked Rav Noson of Breslov but also reworked St. Augustine confessions.

My main reaction to this book is that I want more. There are so many essays of Zeitlin that could use translating, more than enough to fill a second volume.

The romantic reclamation of the Zohar is mentioned in this volume but I would have wanted to see a translation of Zeitlin’s essay on translating the Zohar, and his essay on the history of the kabblah where he refutes the critics of the Zohar. Zeitlin never finished did translate the Zohar but his colleague Fischel Lachover did translate it.Lachover’s translation became known as Mishnat Hazohar and is usually called the name of the introduction editor Isaiah Tishby.

The book has a narrow focus on Zeitlin as proto Neo-Hasidiism and does not involve itself on his intense relationship to Zionists, Yiddish and Hebrew authors, Polish revisionists, Shomer Hatzair, and fellow new kabbalists such as Rav Kook and Ashlag. Zeitlin wrote the first reviews of Rav Kook, Rav Ashlag, and the Piesetzna Rebbe –not included in the volume. He also has an important essay mediating between the Socialism of the Mizrachi and Ashlag as opposed to the free enterprise of the Revisionists. The book also does not investigate his relationship with Russian nihilists, Spinoza, or Tolstoy. Zeitlin has almost half a volume of essays on Lev Shestov, who is important because Shestov’s meditation on doubt, atheism, and faith become the basis for Zeitlin’s and Green’s portrayal of Rav Nahman.

Zeitlin is hard to translate. His original mixes languages and Hebrew/Yiddish is rapidly changing. For example, Zeitlin’s education gives him the vocabulary of Early Rav Kook, so Zeitlein does not have a word for relgious experience since that word “havaya” was only coined by AD Gordon. He works with nevuah- prophecy, hevyon haneshama- hidden places of the heart, and kol dammah dakah– small inner voice. These were Hebrew phrases in the original Yiddish. Tovia Preschel translated the Yiddish into Hebrew and Green worked mainly with the Hebrew, glad to use our current available vocabulary. Green himself notes that he translated the medieval phrase “red bile” as “erotic energy.”

The book lacks any mentions of Zeitlin’s interest in para-psychology, supernatural, and powers of the mind similar to his contemporary Menachem Eckstein, and Zeitlin’s son Aharon Zeitlin wrote a tome on the subject ha-Mitziut ha-Aheret.

Green considers the citation of gentile authors by Zetilin not a continuation of the selective adaptation of secular literature as shown in the approaches of Hebrew authors, Rav Zadok or Rav Kook, but rather a form of commitment to multi-culturalism and universalism. So Green’s pluralism is greatly taken aback by Zeitlin’s eulogy for the 1921 murder of his friend YH Brenner in which Zeitlin calls the Ishmael murderers “forest beasts.” And elides Zeitlin’s particularism, especially his reworking Maharal exclusivism in a poem as “This people to whom was revealed eternal love, to whom were given laws and statutes no other people were given!” or Zeitlin’s poem for shofar blowing, which cries for revenge against the nations that slaughter us.

The book includes letters to Mizrachi leaders in the yishuv about his Yavneh project. Green acknowledges that Mizrachi workers party and the early Agudah workers party were the closest to the revival that Zeitlin envisioned. Yet, throughout the volume Zeitlin is not compared to Shmuel Hayim Landau of Mizrachi or to Isaac Breuer’s followers in Poalei Agudah but to the birth of Neo-Hasidism in the United States. The preface of the book is Zalman Schachter-Shalomi’s description of his creation of the neo-Hasidic Bnai Or (later changed to Pnai Or) based on the Essenes. Yet, the Mizrachi movement produced the festschrift for Zeitlin Oskar (Yesha‘yahu) Wolfsberg and Tsevi Harkavi, eds., Sefer Tsaitlin (Jerusalem, 1944/45) and they published his writing through Mosad Harav Kook.

When I open Zeitlin’s works, I am overwhelmed by the many directions to take the discussion, his relationship to the Homel school of Habad, his personal relationship with the Gerrer Rebbe, his relationship with Gershom Scholem, or his co-workers at the newspapers Haynt and Der Moment. Zeitlin was answering the question of Agnon: Where do we go now after the breakdown? Most chose secularism. Zeitlin says of Y. L. Peretz (1852-1915) that he had a heaven but that there was no God in his heaven. Peretz responds, however, by calling Zeitlin the Prophet of Yesterday. Zeitlin offered Hasidut as a solution for a modern age before it became the variety of counter cultural and new age.

We have to thank Art Green for sharing one of the books that inspired him and his Neo-Hasidism. Zeiltin’s journey holds many gems for the new readers that will now find them because of this translation. In the introduction, Green paraphrases Zeitlin about the persecution and exile restraints of Jewish life not allowing for renewal. The question for us now is whether our peace and prosperity is the era that can realize his vision of a renewed love of God, intentional community, and the creation of a Bnai Aliyah.

For more info:
Sheraga Bar-Sela‘, Ben sa‘ar li-demamah: Ḥayav u-mishnato shel Hilel Tsaitlin (Tel Aviv, 1999);
Jonatan Meir ‘Longing of Souls for the Shekina: Relations Between Rabbi Kook, Zeitlin and Brenner’, The Path of the Spirit; The Eliezer Schweid Jubilee .
Idem, ‘Hillel Zeitlin’s Zohar, The History of a Translation and Commentary Project’, Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 10 (2004)

Italian Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, died Friday. He was a contender to have become pope and he was a liberal who was still respected and worked together with Papal conservatives. For more on his positions see the obituaries of the AP and NCR. Martini retired to Jerusalem and was active in Jewish-Christian relations. In a nutshell, he advocated that Catholics should study Judaism and understand Judaism in its own context; he also was working toward a Catholic theology of the land of Israel that acknowledges Israeli sovereignty as well as a greater Catholic appreciation of the land.As rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, Cardinal Martini created a program under which Catholic students go to Israel to study Judaism, biblical archaeology and Hebrew language. The two most important documents are his November 2004 speech at Rome’s Gregorian University and his book Verso Gerusalemme (Towards Jerusalem).

Martini was known for having potentially liberal views, at least by Vatican standards, on birth control, brain death, same-sex marriage, and celibacy. We will never know what he would or would not have done if he had become Pope. But what we do know is that when you look in European book stores, both religious and secular, there are copies in the window Verso Gerusalemme (Towards Jerusalem); people are reading and enjoying his thought. The second thing we know is that the attraction is because of his open engagement with the thoughts of his readers. In his book “Towards Jerusalem”, he says he does not divide the world into believers and non-believers, but into those who think and those who don’t

In the 2004 speech at Gregorian University in Rome, Cardinal Martini said that Catholics could not fully understand their own faith without a meaningful understanding of Judaism. He recalls anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism with sorrow and a need to help eradicate it in the future. He sees a continuous link of the Jews with God and the need to entirely eradicate the Patristic supersesionalism. In one of his other books “Christianity and Judaism: A Historical and Theological Overview” he explicitly rejects Augustine’s thinking on the Jews- the ‘theory of substitution’ whereby the New Israel of the church became a substitute of ancient Israel.” He wants all aspects of Catholic liturgy, doctrine and spiritual life to reflect this new understanding of Judaism.

Here one recalls the painful history of the past, with centuries of closures, ostracisms, reciprocal misunderstandings and calumnies. It is a history that we cannot remember without a deep sense of sorrow and humiliation, all the more so as we gradually realize how, in this respect, many Christians have behaved in opposition to the Gospel, and thus have obscured the truth and the love that ought always to flow from the Church of Christ. Today things are changing, but we need time and energy, even because new events in the history of our times give the virus of antisemitism the opportunity to spread and to give rise to condemnatory theories and judgments.

We must make sure that the faithful gain a renewed awareness of their link with the children of Abraham, with all the resulting consequences for the doctrine, the discipline, the liturgy and the spiritual life of the Church, as well as her mission in the world of today.

It is necessary for the Church to elaborate a better self-understanding of her own nature and mission in relation with the Jewish people. Before anything else, this necessitates a heightened attention to what the Jewish people thinks and says about itself.

Martini thinks that it is not enough for the Church to be against Anti-Semitism but it needs to study post-Biblical Judaism and the entire history of the Jews. Priests need education in Judaism. Catholics have to see the State of Israel in modern political terms and keep out of the conflict. Leave the conflict to the experts and politicians. Catholics need to do daily teshuvah for the sorrows they caused. Christianity has to reground itself in Judaism and the Jewish tradition.

It is necessary to acquire an understanding of post-Biblical Judaism, which, until very recently, was almost totally lacking in the Catholic Church. For this reason it is necessary – and I have said it more than once – not only to know the books and the traditions that after the destruction of the Temple continued to maintain in life a [specifically] Jewish hope, but also to widen our horizons to the entire history, the customs, the artistic, scientific, literary and musical talents of the Jewish people. It is thus necessary to cultivate an attitude of esteem and of love towards this people. Simple anti-antisemitism is not enough. It is thus necessary to develop motivations for a friendship that in the heart of the other increasingly reads the thoughts that we share, and that finds a space for the differences, making sure however that these differences do not lead to conflict or dismissal.

First of all, in the formation of the future priests it shall be necessary to emphasize the knowledge of Biblical and post-Biblical Judaism. Over the last years, a certain progress has been made in this direction, but much remains to be done, especially because up to now only few have received this type of formation.

Where there are conflicts, as at present between Israelis and Palestinians, it is necessary to remain in the middle and to work so that all violence may cease and everyone may learn to understand the pain of the other. For this reason I have chosen to live in Jerusalem most of the time and I have set as my main priority the prayer of intercession, so that the people of the Middle East, and in particular Jews and Palestinians, might discover the ways of mutual trust and dialogue.

The second stage is the conversion of the heart, in Hebrew teshuva. For the Jew, every day is made for the teshuva of the individual and of the community. Indeed for us, therefore, every day is an opportunity to begin to ask God and our brothers and sisters to accept our sorrow for the evil that we have done and the good that we have forgotten to accomplish. Let us humbly approach our Jewish brothers and sisters, the history of their suffering, of their martyrdom, of the persecutions that they have undergone. Let us remove the tendentious interpretations of passages included in the New Testament and in other writings. Let us eliminate the misunderstandings that still make us suspicious of our reciprocal good will. Actually, we all ardently desire the same thing: to be authentic, to be faithful to the truth that we all know.

The third stage is that of study, and subsequently of dialogue. In its search for truth, humankind builds schools, research centers and universities.

I am convinced that a deeper understanding of Judaism and its currents is vital for the Church, not only so as to overcome a centuries-old ignorance and to begin a fruitful dialogue, but also to deepen the understanding that the Church has of itself. In other words, I would like to emphasize the importance, for the theology of Christian praxis, of the study of the problems derived from the interruption of the contribution that the theology and the praxis of Jewish-Christians was giving to the early Christian community. It is a fact that the first great schism, that between Jews and Christians, has deprived the Church of the help it would have received from the Jewish tradition.
Read the Rest Here

Even though Martini’s book on Jerusalem is in every Italian bookstore, it has not been translated into English. It has however been translated into Hebrew “Likrat yerushalayim: Masa el shoresheha hayehudi’im shel hanatzrut” (“Verso Gerusalemme”) by Carlo Maria Martini, translated from the Italian by Dov Ancona, Carmel, 189 pages

The traditional Catholic approach to the Holy Land (which is not the same as the diverse Protestant approaches) is to limit the discussion to the land where Jesus walked, similar to the holiness of the other Biblical lands of Asia Minor and Rome (see Robert Wilken’s superb book The Land Called Holy) Martini was attempted to return Catholic thought to the land, its actual earth and flora, its geography, its Jewishness, as well as celebrating figures such as Jerome who attempted to understand the Bible though Hebrew and Judaism. (On Jerome and the bible see the YU PHD, Jay Braverman, Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel. Washington: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1978– a summary is available here in this article.)

Although in Jerusalem Christmas day is, in the civic calendar, a day like any other (this year it falls on shabbat, that is, on the Jewish day of weekly rest, but without reference to our feast), many people notice that this is a day of great rejoicing for Christians and are quick to offer their good wishes when they meet me. They say: «Hag sameah», which is the usual expression of good will on Jewish feasts and can be translated: May your feast be glad, may it bring you joy

I prefer to celebrate on the morning of Christmas, with some young students from the Pontifical Biblical Institute of Rome who are frequenting the Jewish University of Jerusalem. We say the mass in what is known as the cave of Saint Jerome… I am attracted and moved by the figure of Saint Jerome. This intelligent and tenacious scholar, tired of the ambitions and gossip of Rome, decided to withdraw to Bethlehem to pray and study intensely the Jewish and Christian scriptures, devoting himself above all to the work of translation into Latin from the original tongues… Like Saint Jerome, even if very far from his holiness, and from his ascetic and scholarly rigor, I also feel myself here in Jerusalem to adore the Lord born for us and to study the Scriptures of the Jewish people and those of the early Christian community. I would like thus to get to know more deeply something of the mystery of God and man, that I have met so often in my office as bishop.
Read the rest of this short excerpt Here

For the positive review of his book on Jerusalem in Haaretz- read here

Martini was awarded an honorary doctorate from Hebrew University- here is an excerpt from his acceptance speech.

Very soon I realized that the language of the Bible was somewhat different from languages used in the modern world. And I started to ask myself how biblical language related to these other ways of speaking: to the language of daily life, the language spoken in the market place, on the bus and on the train, the language of human love, the language of human work, especially of the agricultural world, the language which transmitted to new generations the simple rules through which we are able to relate to our neighbour and to survive in the daily competition of life. With these contemporary languages the way of speaking used by the biblical books has of course many similarities, with maybe the exception of the ethical and moral language, which in the Scripture is much more absolute and exacting.
The Bible, in effect, expresses itself usually in ordinary language, full of symbols, proverbs, parables, examples and stories, sometimes bringing paradoxes and provocative expressions. In this way, it tries to express things and values as they are felt by our sensitivity and emotions. On the other hand, scientific language, tries to describe things in their reciprocal and objective relationships, apart (as far as this is possible) from the personality of the observer. But once we have understood this difference, there is no more reason to be scandalized by the simple language of Scripture, the aim and purpose of which is different from that of a scientific affirmation, but has its truth, dignity and purpose.
Read the Rest Here

A new book came out this summer The Juvenilization of American Christianity by Thomas Bergler that discusses the rise of Evangelical Christian youth groups and how over time they developed a religion based on youth culture. The book is receiving great reviews and it is filled with examples that parallel Jewish experience.

The idea of religious youth groups was created at the turn of the 20th century based on the research of E.D. Starbuck (William James’ research assistant). He showed that adolescents choose religion based on socialization, so liberal Protestants created groups that had outings, study, and social action. This new book shows the importance of Christian youth groups from the 1940’s until today noting how they changed over the decades. But the focus of the book is on the Evangelical groups that replaced the study and social action with emotionalism, popular culture, and anything goes. In a similar manner, Orthodox Jewish youth movements were just synagogue based youth groups in the 1950’s, then they became an outreach, then they became an entire emotional youth culture. Now they are shifting to media, spirituality, and beyond. Not everything in his book has a Jewish parallel, but much does. Many trends have matured and others ran amuck.

I will point out a few choice ideas and paragraphs. Let me know where it rings true for Orthodox youth movements. As you read it, think about those who spend their entire lives looking to reproduce their adolescent emotions that made them religious, think about the desire for pulpit rabbis who training is in youth work and not learning, think about the many who graduated youth movements and then had a lack of adult aspirations, and finally think of those whose Orthodoxy is a form of consumerism. Also think about those who would say or do anything for kiruv. Did youth kiruv dilute Judaism? Read the excerpts below.

For Bergler, the youth culture “set the stage” for the widespread juvenilization of American Christianity. They had, in fact, created a “full-fledged juvenilized version of evangelical Christianity” (174). The youth culture was beneficial in that it helped to create “an enduring and adaptive way to sustain a conservative Christian identity in American society.” These youth grew up with a sense for engaging cultural forms and have since carried that into the music and movie industry. Further, it provided an alternative version of conservative Christianity for those disillusioned with American fundamentalism.

Juvenilization happened when no one was looking. In the first stage, Christian youth leaders created youth-friendly versions of the faith in a desperate attempt to save the world. Some hoped to reform their churches by influencing the next generation. Others expected any questionable innovations to stay comfortably quarantined in youth rallies and church basements. Both groups were less concerned about long-term consequences than about immediate appeals to youth.

In the second stage, a new American adulthood emerged that looked a lot like the old adolescence. Fewer and fewer people outgrew the adolescent Christian spiritualities they had learned in youth groups; instead, churches began to cater to them.

Since the fate of the world depended upon winning as many youthful converts as quickly as possible, preachers at YFC rallies didn’t worry about ways they might be subtly altering the gospel message… Jim Rayburn, founder of Young Life, agreed: Accepting Christ as Savior did not mean giving up pleasure and wearing a long face. As he put it, “It’s a sin to bore a kid.”

At the same time, the new breed of evangelical youth leaders stressed that following Christ included absolute obedience to his commandments and separation from “the world.” This seemingly contradictory combination of fun and moral strictness actually worked quite well at capturing teenage loyalty in a competitive religious and entertainment marketplace. Mainline Protestant youth leaders often complained that YFC rallies were stealing young people away from more worthy, social gospel-oriented youth programs.

Bergler describes the simultaneous promise of fun combined with a renunciation. Religion became a product to consume. Bergler points out how the alloy of these two ingredients produced a product to be consumed- ice skating and giving one’s heart, guitars and submission- similar to the emotional attachment to a rock band. He also points out how it creates a serious divide of us and them for those who do not share in the purity.

Youth for Christ leaders promised teenagers that they could have fun, be popular, and save the world at the same time. But in order to do so, they had to give their lives to Jesus and maintain a pure “witness.” Many teenagers internalized that call to separation from “worldly” corruptions, but in return, they demanded that Youth for Christ leaders provide them a Christian youth culture complete with fun, popularity, movies, music, and celebrities. This combination of spiritually intense experiences, bodily purity, and youth-culture fun transformed thousands of young lives and guaranteed the long-term vitality of white evangelicalism.

But adapting Christianity so well to white, middle-class youth culture brought its share of compromises to the Christian message. The faith could become just another product to consume; a relationship with Jesus might become just another source of emotional fulfillment. And the obsession with teenage bodily purity made it difficult for white evangelicals to respond in love to those perceived to be impure outsiders, such as juvenile delinquents and African Americans (148).

Bergler shows that the values that attend the cultural forms that were used to reach youth seeped into the Christian youth culture. The values of pop-music, TV, and celebrates became the values of the religion. In Bergler’s own words, the process of youth group religion creates a religion that resonates with adolescent emotions, confused, inarticulate, self-obsessed and concerned with their own personal problems. It is an approach to religion formulated without theology. Compare the following passages to the emotional manipulation of an ebbing or kiruv kumsitz. The devotional moment of committing to God in the dark serves as a lifelong paradigm. Think of the recent literature of Tatz and other Yeshivish works that shift Torah study, theology, or ethics to finding people in one’s personal life

Juvenilization tends to create a self-centered, emotionally driven, and intellectually empty faith.In their landmark National Study of Youth and Religion, Christian Smith and his team of researchers found that the majority of American teenagers, even those who are highly involved in church activities, are inarticulate about religious matters. They seldom used words like faith, salvation, sin, or even Jesus to describe their beliefs. Instead, they return again and again to the language of personal fulfillment to describe why God and Christianity are important to them.

Smith and his research team labeled this pattern of religious beliefs Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. Teenagers learn these beliefs from the adults in their lives. It is the American cultural religion. Teenagers are “moralistic” in that they believe that God wants us to be good, and that the main purpose of religion is to help people be good.

The house lights go down. Spinning, multicolored lights sweep the auditorium. A rock band launches into a rousing opening song. “Ignore everyone else, this time is just about you and Jesus,” proclaims the lead singer. The music changes to a slow dance tune, and the people sing about falling in love with Jesus. A guitarist sporting skinny jeans and a soul patch closes the worship set with a prayer, beginning, “Hey God …” The spotlight then falls on the speaker, who tells entertaining stories, cracks a few jokes, and assures everyone that “God is not mad at you. He loves you unconditionally.”

If you ask the people here why they go to church or what they value about their faith, they’ll say something like, “Having faith helps me deal with my problems.”

The newly labeled ‘teenagers’ would from now on be increasingly seduced by the siren song of high school social life dominated by fun, sports, dating, movies, music, and fashion. While adult values and youthful tastes have often clashed over the centuries, what was changing was the relative balance of power between the two and the length of time between puberty and full adult status….

Finally, the book has some discussions of the phenomena of adolescent renunciation. Starting to keep the prohibition of negiah is a renunciation that allows one to feel a relief from adolescent struggles and in youth culture it is given a redemptive meaning making it worth it. Or the renunciation of no longer do prohibited work on the Sabbath such as gymnastics, TV, or part-time job now has a redemptive meaning of showing the Torah is true. If renunciation is the model for religion, then it is pretty hard to show renunciation after a certain age when one has already built a religious life.

The ultimate way for a teenage girl to prove her bodily purity and confirm her powerful Christian witness seemed to be to get elected prom queen and then refuse to dance… Such stories confirmed that Christians could be popular, have fun, and save the world at the same time, but only if they preserved their pure “witness.” This youthful spirituality held a powerful appeal because it reassured teenagers that their renunciation of youth-culture pleasures was contributing directly to the all-important Christian mission of saving souls. In contrast, Roman Catholic teenagers heard just as many urgent messages about sexual purity, but did not catch a vision for how their personal abstinence could save the world. As a result, the enforced sexual morality of the Catholic ghetto did not fare as well in post-1960s America as did the voluntary, mission-inspired evangelical version.

Quotes were taken from
Bergler’s article in Christianity Today
A blog review part 2
The same blog review- part 3

OK- We are not out of the woods yet. The discussion is not over. Rabbi Riskin has just written a 14 page broad response to his Rabbinic critics, which was just posted today. He also has an op-ed in the newspaper.

Riskin completely revises Rav Soloveitchik by saying that he did not oppose dialogue. The essay refers to and relies heavily on much of Eugene Korn’s writings and takes them further, almost Korn vs Rav Schechter. Riskin gives an opening narrative of how he encountered Christians learning about Judaism. He argues that he is not soft on missionaries as shown by his reaction to missionaries in Efrat in the 1980’s. He turns his story to his realization in the second intifada that the only tourists to Israel were Christians with a deep connection to Israel. Riskin argues that in a hostile world of Arabs and the hostile EU, we should pragmatically embrace the Christian Zionists.

Riskin asked Pastor Hagee: Do you want to convert us? Hagee said no! So Riskin takes that as good enough to develop a relation.

Are We Permitted to Teach Torah to Christians? He answers that we can teach then the Noahide laws and that knowledge and love of God, must naturally include theology.

He offers an unsupported novel reading of Rav Soloveitchik, in which he argues that Rav Soloveitchik only banned theological debates but not friendly discussion. If the Rav wanted to give a pesak then he would have written a halakhic pesak instead of a theological essay.

Riskin really slips on the idea of the double confrontation. Rav Soloveitchik did indeed argue for a double confrontation, a universal social confrontation and a particular Jewish confrontation from the Patriarchs. But Riskin defines the particular covenant of Abraham as universalism and reaching out to all people. If some err in one direction by treating Rav Solovietchik as only one confrontation of particularism without the universal confrontation, Riskin in contrast errs in the other direction by treating the particular covenant of the patriarchs (brit avot) as Hagee’s universalism of Abraham. Our particularism is really a universalism. There are many valid universalists in the Jewish tradition such as Shadal, Mendel Hirsch (son of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch), and Seforno, who is cited in numerous places in the essay. But Seforno and Rav Soloveitchik are not in agreement. Rabbi Reines, the founder of Religious Zionism, was a proponent of Seforno’s universalism but that is another path.

Riskin reads the word “confrontation” as if it meant engagement. However, the original 1950’s dichotomy was between dialogue, integration, and embracing as terms of closeness, while confrontation means one is confronting a challenge. For Riskin, Rav Soloveitchik would have allowed dialogue is there is no mission, no debate of articles of faith, and theological compromise. He feels that in his dialogue with Evangelicals fulfills all three criteria.

Riskin concludes with a novel twist of Rabbi S R Hirsch interpretation of “consider the years of many generations” as a need to be sensitive to the changes in history and the Torah should respond to the changes. (Somewhat the opposite of the original.)

The essay concludes “Rav Soloveitchik wants us to communicate what we believe in the secret chambers of our hearts, the differences in our religious commitments. However, as shown in my transcriptions of Rav Soloveitchik lectures, he thought the self could not communicate the depths of the heart, not to parents-children, not to husband-wife, not to friends or students, and certainly not to a different faith commitment.

Is Christian-Jewish Theological Dialogue Permitted? A Postscript to Rav Joseph B. Solovetichik’s article, “Confrontation”

My contention is that Rav Soloveitchik fundamentally permits theological dialogue with Christians, albeit under certain carefully-crafted guidelines, and that, under those guidelines, such dialogue is essential and critical to defending the interests of the Jewish people today.

Missionaries in Efrat: Strong Measures must be taken to Prevent Fraudulent Attempts to Convert Jews to Christianity

In the late 1980’s, the Jewish Agency arranged for 72 families from the Former Soviet Union to come and make their homes in Efrat. Some Messianic Christians missionaries heard about our new arrivals and thought that these people would be easy prey. The missionaries placed copies of the Tanach – the 24 books of the Bible – together with the New Testament in Hebrew and Russian in every mailbox in Efrat; the “Jewish” and Christian Testaments were bound together in one bind, so that the unsuspecting Russian Jews would think they were a single sacred text, with the Gospel as part of the Jewish Bible. The text was published in Hebrew on one side, Russian on the other.

As soon as I heard what had happened, I sent a letter to all the residents of Efrat, instructing them to publicly burn the entire Bible together with the Gospels. This was because the Talmud teaches that a Sefer Torah, (Bible Scroll) which was written by a Jewish heretic or someone who is attempting to cause a Jew to renounce his religion (and anyone who accepts Jesus as a Divinity and/or the Messiah has ipso facto renounced his privileges as a Jew) has to be burned (See Rambam Hilchot Yesodei Hatorah 6:8).

Israel Faces Fanatic Moslem Foes and Christian Religious Friends
More and more Christians kept coming to Efrat, expressing love and support for the Jewish State of Israel emphasizing our common heritage of the 24 Books of the Bible and seeking ways to help us socially and politically. I began to understand how crucial their newfound friendship was, given an international climate in which not only the Arab bloc, but also the European Union, the former CIS, more and more South American countries and indeed the United Nations as the “peacekeeping” force in the world, were questioning our legitimacy as a nation.

(For much of what is to follow in this regard, I am deeply indebted to my colleague and partner Rabbi Dr. Eugene Korn, and his essay “The Man of Faith and Religious Dialogue: Reviewing ‘Confrontation’ After Forty Years,” Modern Judaism, Volume 25, Issue 3).

In Dr. Korn’s words, [Pope Benedict] is an “eschatological supersessionalist.” (I cannot find fault with this position, since I believe that Maimonides teaches in his Laws of Kings 12,1 that in the eschaton, “all of humanity will return to the true religion” – that is, to Judaism, in accordance with the statement of R. Shimon ben Elazar in the Babylonian Talmud (Berachot 57b) and the words of the prophet Zephaniah (3:9). As long as we can respect each other in the fullness of our respective faith commitments without feeling beholden to convert the other, I can well appreciate the faith of each that he has the more perfect revelation, as will be proven by who converts to whom in the eschaton. This is also the position of R. Soloveitchik, as I later explain in this paper.

Nevertheless, since I was just at the cusp of announcing the opening of our Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation, I had to ask my question: “Tell me the truth, Pastor Hagee, do you love us because you want to convert us? Do you love us to death?” He flashed one of his signature smiles, amused by the hutzpah, or naivete of my question. “No, Rabbi, I don’t love you because I want to convert you; but neither do I love you purely out of altruistic consideration. I love you because of Genesis 12:3, where the Bible records that ‘God said to Abraham, ‘I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I shall curse.’ Rabbi, I want to be blessed, not cursed!”
Pastor Hagee has a ministry which is measured in millions; he is undoubtedly the most successful pastor in our generation. Rabbi Scheinberg reported to me that during the 49 years he has lived in San Antonio, Pastor Hagee had not tried to convert even one Jew to Christianity. Given the overwhelming charisma of Pastor Hagee, this can only be because he truly does not believe that Jews must be converted to Christianity.

Are We Permitted – or Perhaps Even Mandated – to Teach Torah to Christians?
Large numbers of Christians continued to come to our Center; they were, however, less interested in discussing politics or even in Israel’s right to a Jewish State (which they took as an axiom, since the Land of Israel was promised – even guaranteed – to the Jewish people by the Creator of the heavens and earth Himself), and more interested in learning Torah: the Written Law, chiefly the Pentateuch (five books of Moses) in accordance with traditional Jewish commentaries, and the Oral Law, the Talmudic Pharisaic Tradition which had been studied by Jesus. Hence, I had to face a fundamental question: Are Jews permitted to teach Torah to Christians?

From these sources it should be indubitably clear that if we are to teach the Christians the commandments (at least the commandments of Noahide morality, perhaps all the commandments of compassionate righteousness and moral justice) as well as a deeper understanding of God (remember, the Noahide laws do not include faith in God, and Maimonides derives outreach to the Gentiles from the command to “know and love God”), how can we not be speaking to the Christians in theological terms? After all, when one teaches, one must always listen to one’s students, and learn from their responses. Theology means the study of God. Making God known and beloved to the Gentile world is all about theological dialogue!

Rav Soloveitchik’s “Confrontation”
Contrary to what many Orthodox rabbis have maintained, “Confrontation” is not to be seen as a cut and dried halakhic responsum permitting Jewish-Christian dialogue on “universal problems,” which are “economic, social, scientific and ethical,” but categorically forbidding dialogue in areas of “faith, religious law, doctrine and ritual” (Rabbinical Council of America, Mid-Winter Conference, February, 1966). Were that the case, Rabbi Soloveitchik would have written just such a precise halakhic responsum setting down these guidelines replete with Talmudic citations and halakhic precedents, rather than the highly nuanced, theologically rich, and dialectically infused “Confrontation.” Moreover, the very RCA statement of 1966 forbidding discussions of “faith and religious law” concludes (italics are mine – SR), “To repeat, we are ready to discuss universal religious problems. We will resist any attempt to debate our private, individual faith commitment.”

Apparently, how to define “religious” issues is neither simple nor clear-cut. In fact, Rav Soloveitchik defined his philosophical school of thought as that of an “Halakhic Existentialist” – committed to the proposition that halakha deals with the most fundamental existential problems of humanity! Rav Soloveitchik himself often cited in his writings Christian theologians such as Soren Kierkegaard, Karl Barth and Rudolf Otto (See, for example, the beginnings of “Halakhic Man”) and the first reading that he gave of his “Lonely Man of Faith” essay prior to its publication took place at an Inter-faith Seminar (sic) at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, Mass. (See Korn, “The Man of Faith and Religious Dialogue,” Note 8).

Perhaps, what the RCA was really saying in its 1966 statement was that “we resist any attempt to debate our private faith commitment,” whereas “discussion (or dialogue) of universal religious problems” is perfectly permissible. Perhaps, much more in line with the Rav’s thought is the statement adopted by the RCA [and probably written by R. Soloveitchik himself] at its Mid-Winter Conference in Feb ’64, which is appended to the “Confrontation” article in Tradition ’64 and calls for a “harmonious relationship among all faiths” in order to combat the “threat of secularism and materialism and the modern atheistic negation of religion and religious values.” Combating the negation of religion requires, at the very least, basic theological discourse defining “religious” values.

Indeed, it is the covenantal confrontation which defines and directs our national kerygma (mission) towards the universal and the universe: “Through you shall be blessed all the families of the earth,” was God’s charge to Abraham. “But only in this (not in wisdom or strength or wealth) shall be praised the one who is to be praised: be intelligent, and come to know (understand) Me, that I am the Lord who does (acts) of lovingkindness, moral justice and compassionate righteousness on earth (the whole of the earth), for in these do I delight, says God,” was Jeremiah’s message to the Israelites, as well as the citation with which Maimonides concludes his final magnum opus, “The Guide to the Perplexed.”

In other words, Rav Soloveitchik is not against religious dialogue with Christians; that is why this essay is entitled “Confrontation,” and not “Non-Confrontation.” The only thing he insists upon, however, is that the confrontation be in the spirit of religious equality, of mutual respect for the individual faith commitments of each which are not subject to logical debate, or traded compromises in matters of our unique covenantal faith values and rituals.

These are the three things that Rav Soloveitchik was against and these are, likewise, my red lines in dialogue with Christians:

We will never dialogue with Christians if they represent missionary movements, if their avowed or surreptitious purpose is to convert Jews.

We will never debate unique Jewish ritual or faith issues with Christians. We will attempt to share with them unique Jewish points of theology and ritual practice if they wish to better understand them, but we and they must realize that each faith community has religious expressions which transcend rational logical discourse and which are not subject to debate.

We will never enter into dialogue with Christians in which we are expected to compromise our religious values or doctrines in order to be more in consonance with Christianity.

In addition to universal social human concerns, Rav Soloveitchik wants us to communicate what we believe in the secret chambers of our hearts, the differences in our religious commitments. He opposes a debate on these unique issues with the other faith community, but not our teaching of these issues to the other faith community.

This excerpt was less than two pages. Read the rest of the fourteen pages –here.