The three of us have been co-blogging at Sefer-HaBloggadah on Sundays. We're working our way through the interesting midrashim and aggadot in Sefer Ha-Bloggadah in a 2-year program. So far, we have the following posts:
Bruce on Plants and Trees With Attitude! Both trees and the earth disobey God during creation, and God is happy with one, unhappy with the other, and how this all pertains to theories of halachic interpretation.
Diane on To what lengths we will go to confirm what we already think? The midrash tries to slam Eve, and Diane turns the tables and slams the midrash.
Steve on Moderation in All Things, Including Moderation. In the midrash, Satan helps Noah plant his vineyard, and implicitly argues for moderation in drinking. Steve argues for moderation in this moderation.
Bruce on As Numerous as the Stars: Quantity, Quality, and the Quality of Quantity. God tells Abraham to look at the stars and promises Abraham that his descendants will be as numerous as these stars. The midrash elaborates on this story and messes it up. To untangle the midrash, Bruce takes a tour of the stars. Literally.
Speaking of Sefer Ha-Bloggadah, BZ, the resident blogmeister there, has two interesting posts on his own blog Mah Rabu. The first is on orthodox vs. Orthodox, or how the word "orthodox" is confusingly misused. The second dissects the Reform position on one-day yom tovs. (With a second post promised, as well as one on the Conservative position.)
All are worth reading.
Monday, September 22, 2008
A Few Interesting Posts Elsewhere
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Moderate, Liberal, and Secular Jews Should Celebrate Sukkot
Sukkot is a holiday that should appeal to moderate, liberal, and secular Jews. But for some reason, very few non-Orthodox Jews celebrate this holiday. I am not sure why. My argument here --- addressed specifically to Jews who do not celebrate sukkot --- is that you should celebrate Sukkot as well.
The "religious" content is Sukkot is certainly appealing. It is known as Z'man Simchateinu, the time of our joy, and it is actually a Torah-mitzvah to "rejoice" during sukkot. (Deut. 16:14.) It is a reminder of the Exodus from Egypt (like Passover and Shabbat) (Exod. 23:42-43.) And it is one of the the three major "pilgrimage" holidays in the Torah.
Parapets on the Roof
In last week's parsha Ki Teitze, the Torah set forth a simply safety law. "When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, so that you will not bring bloodguilt on your house if anyone falls from it." (Deut 22:8.) The general principal is obvious to everyone, and certainly to any lawyer: take reasonable precautions to prevent foreseeable harm.
Why don't people literally do this? That is, why don't Jews put a small parapet around their roof to fulfill the literal wording of this mitvah? I've never seen one, at least for these purposes.
Under the literal wording of the rule, the obligation applies only to a person building a new house, not occupying an existing house. But certainly the general principal applies.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Preparing for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur - Practical Issues
How do you prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? Obviously, the holidays are what we make of them. And they are a great opportunity for self improvement and to right some lingering wrongs. But all this takes some preparation.
At one extreme, people can simply do nothing to prepare for the holidays. They get to synagogue, find themselves a little bored, and get very little out of the holidays.
At the other extreme, people can approach the holidays at a very high level of generality: repenting for mistakes, seeking forgiveness, starting a new year. The obvious problem is that these lofty ideals are too lofty to do much practical good. One needs to be specific: repent for specific mistakes and seek forgiveness from specific people. Start a new year by doing specific things in a different way.
Here are a few things that I have done and that others have suggested to me. Feel free to offer additional ideas in the comments.
Friday, September 5, 2008
The Limits of Reform Judaism and Non-Halachic Halacha
The Union for Reform Judaism has an interesting ongoing essay series called "Eilu V'eilu." Two knowledgeable people (generally rabbis, sometimes others) post on a particular issue, respond to each other's points, and respond to reader's e-mails. The archives are here.
In the most recent series (Volume 30 - with 4 weekly posts and 1 supplemental post), Cantor Dana Anesi and Rabbi Samuel M. Stahl address the the limits of Reform Judaism in general, and more specifically the following question:
Some people say that Reform Jews can believe just about anything and do just about anything, as long as they still call themselves Jews. Others disagree. They insist that there are indeed identifiable boundaries in Reform Judaism. Is there anything I have to believe or do in order to call myself a Reform Jew?
The question is a great one. Reform Judaism claims to be a non-halachic movement, and its primary and perhaps overriding value is individual autonomy. There is much to commend as to this approach, but one drawback is that it lacks a structured and deterministic ideology that can supply definitive answers. It cannot say that people who believe or do X are not Reform Jews. One the other hand, such limits are necessary. Certainly a Jew, or Jewish congregation, that believed and practiced the negation of all the mitzvot would fall outside the scope of Reform Judaism. But how does one determine these limits?
Cantor Anesi and Rabbi Stahl offer some insights, and both draw on an interesting Reform Responsum dealing with whether a humanistic Jewish congregation that omits all references to God should be admitted to the UAHC. I'll discuss the Responsum first, the arguments of Cantor Anesi and Rabbi Stahl's arguments, and then a few thoughts or why Reform Judaism is not really a non-halachic movement.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Will Your Grandchildren Be Reform?
Some Orthodox advocates view Reform and Conservative Judaism as dying denominations. In a article with the provocative title "Will Your Grandchildren Be Jews?" the two authors contrast Orthodox Judaism's relatively high birthrates and relatively low intermarriage rates with lower Reform and Conservative birthrates and higher intermarriage rates. Their conclusion: after a few generations, Reform and Conservative Jews will practically disappear, and everyone will be Orthodox. Their recommendation to Reform and Conservative Jews: become Orthodox, or at least sent your children to Orthodox Jewish day schools.
An intriguing idea. However, the "WYGBJ" model is inconsistent with the actual observed data over the past 38 years. The reason for this inconsistency is that the model ignores the high Orthodox inter-denominational switching rate, despite this data being published in the same studies that it cites. Nonetheless, the two factors this model is based on (intermarriage and birthrates) are obviously important but require more complex analysis than WYGBJ provides.
| Denomination Raised | ||||
| Orthodox | Conservative | Reform | Just Jewish | |
| % | % | % | % | |
| Current Denomination | ||||
| Orthodox | 42 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| Conservative | 29 | 56 | 7 | 11 |
| Reform | 17 | 28 | 78 | 17 |
| Just Jewish | 12 | 13 | 14 | 70 |
| Total | 100 | 100 | 101 | 101 |
Of all children raised Orthodox, only 42% have remained Orthodox as adults. 29% become Conservative adults, 17% become Reform adults, and 12% become "Just Jewish". In contrast, 56% of children raised Conservative become Conservative adults, and 78% of children raised Reform become Reform adults. Thus, Reform Judaism is more successful than Conservative Judaism in keeping children within the denomination, and Conservative Judaism is more successful at this than Orthodoxy.
Of the children who switch denominations when they become an adult, most become more liberal. Only 2% or 3% of non-Orthodox children become Orthodox as adults, while 17% of Orthodox children and 28% of Conservative children become Reform adults.
A short paper reviewed the 2000-2001 data and concluded there has been a shift away from Orthodoxy. "Viewing Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism and a fourth “non-specific” group as categories that range from the most traditional to the least traditional respectively, . . . [¶] We found that 62% stay within the same group, 29% move away from tradition, and 9% move to a more traditional denomination."
This is not new information. A similar table (Table 24) appeared in the 1990 NJPS. The authors note,
"Table 24 shows that nearly 90 percent of those now Orthodox were raised as such, thus indicating any movement toward Orthodoxy is relatively small. In contrast to the Orthodox, the Conservative and Reform drew heavily from one or both of the major denominations; one-third of the Conservatives were raised as Orthodox and one-quarter of the Reform as Conseratives with an additional 12 percent having been raised Orthodox."
However, the WYGBJ model simply ignores this critical demographic statistic.
Thus, the basic demographic facts are clear. Orthodox Jews have a lower intermarriage rate and a higher birthrate than more liberal or moderate Jews, but a much higher denominational-switching rate. Of all Jewish adults who were raised Orthodox, fewer than half are now Orthodox. No other Jewish denomination has such a high switching rate.
What do we make of all this? I see several points that are worth noting.
1. The Orthodox Attrition Rate. I am not a demographer, but I would expect the Orthodox switching rate to increase. There are many reasons why people leave Orthodoxy, but one reason (as illustrated by many commentators on this blog) is skepticism about Orthodox factual claims. Many Orthodox communities limit access to critical or non-Orthodox information or argument, especially for young people. (This might be good or bad, but my point here is simply to note the fact, not debate its merits.) This lack of access to information prevents some young Orthodox Jews from learning about more critical and skeptical points of view, and this in turn makes it less likely that they will choose to leave Orthodoxy.
But the internet has changed that.
In the 1980s, when I first started investigating many of the Orthodox claims (as a non-Orthodox Jew), I had a very difficult time obtaining information. I was in college at the time and fortunately had access to UCLA's extensive libraries. But even that was less than ideal. Finding the information I was looking for was quite time consuming, and virtually no one else that I knew was interested in these somewhat obscure topics. However, this situation is quite different today. A quick google search on any of these controversial topics (the documentary hypothesis, the Kuzari argument, Bible codes, evolution and creationism, Biblical archeology) yields a wealth of information, arguments pro and con, and a large community of people who are interested in these topics.
My point here is not to debate the merits of these critical arguments, but simply to note that some people find them persuasive and switch from Orthodoxy to non-Orthodoxy. And with greater access to this information and these arguments, more Orthodox Jews are likely to find this information, and some of these are then likely to switch.
Of course, Orthodoxy may respond in several ways, and these responses may decrease the attrition rate. Determining the net effect may be much more complex.
2. Birthrates. Despite overlooking the inter-denominational switching rate, the basic point that the WYGBJ chart made is still largely (but not completely) valid. Jews having fewer children will certainly result in fewer Jews in the next generation. Jews who care about this should certainly take this fact into account, at least in some way, when considering how many children to have.
3. Intermarriage. Intermarriage is much more complicated. I am going to ignore the halachic issue of who is a Jew and focus solely on demographics. I know several intermarried couples, some of whom strongly identify as Jews, raise their children as Jews, and have solidly Jewish families. Others do not and are essentially secular. And the same is true for in-married Jewish couples as well.
The overriding factor in whether parents practice Judaism and raise their children as Jews is whether the parents find Judaism important and meaningful. Thus, intermarriage may frequently be the result of a lack of interest in Judaism, not an exogenously determined cause of assimilation. The "solution" to intermarriage may be to focus first on how to make Judaism important and meaningful to Jews. Jews who find Judaism important either do not intermarry or do so and raise their children Jewish.
There are numerous other issues here, and I will leave them for a future post.
4. The Math The WYGBJ math is simply wrong. Including inter-denominational switching shows that the process is a complicated web, not a simple linear progression. It cannot be modeled by a simple chart showing Orthodoxy increasing exponentially and Reform and Conservative Judaism falling into oblivion. Technically, it would have to be modeled with Markov chains. (The basic matrix is provided above, but it needs to be flipped.)
The problem with such a model here is the same as the problem with all models that try to predict well into the future. All these rates (birth rates, intermarriage rates, inter-denominational switching rates) are likely to change over time.
One can do the arithmetic without too much trouble. (For the interested reader, simply take the 4x4 matrix above, flip it along its diagonal, multiply it by 1x4 vectors representing the intermarriage rate and birth rate, and then raise that matrix to the nth power. This will give you the matrix predicting population distributions in generation n. When you multiply a 1x4 initial population vector by that matrix, it will give you the estimated population in generation n.)
However, the result is virtually meaningless. These rates are likely to increase or decrease, perhaps substantially, and such extrapolations multiple generations into the future are simply not reliable.
5. Recommendations: We're All Interconnected The data show that we are all much more interconnected than we might think. I think all branches of Judaism would benefit from strengthening all other branches of Judaism. I will have a separate post on the details and implications of this.
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