There is obviously a difference between the story within a text and the story of the creation of the text. The story within Romeo and Juliet involves two teenage star-crossed lovers. The story of the creation of Romeo and Juliet involves Shakespeare writing a play in the 1590s. Let's call the story within the text a Level 1 story, and the story about the writing of the text a Level 2 story. The Level 1 story does not have to be true, but one can intelligently discuss it as if it were true. For example, one could ask why Romeo fell in love with Juliet, even though they did not actually exist.
But we generally think of a Level 2 story as historical. If we asked why Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, we would presumably be having a factual and historical discussion.
But not necessarily. The movie Shakespeare in Love cleverly presents a fictional Level 2 story about Shakespeare writing the play, with bits of that Level 2 story showing up at the Level 1 story in the play itself.
This is a useful way of thinking about the Torah. Pretty much everyone -- regardless religious belief -- agrees on the Level 1 story in the Torah: the creation of the world, the flood, the covenant with Abraham, the exodus from Egypt, Mount Sinai, commandments, wandering in the wilderness, and Moses's Deuteronomy speeches.
But people disagree about the Level 2 story. The traditional Level 2 story is that God gave the entire Torah to Moses. This gives the Torah its authority; it is literally the word of God. The modern scholarly theory is that the Torah was written later by multiple authors. And under this account, there are multiple understandings of its authority or lack of authority. It could be inspired by God, or contain deep wisdom, or being the beginning of a continuing divine revelation, or contain historical truths and folktales, or just be primitive folktales with little relevance today, or some combination of all of the above. Most Reform and Conservative Jews believe some form of this latter account, but still believe that the Torah is authoritative for various reasons.
In traditional services, when the Torah is taken from the ark, the congregation points to it and says, "V’zot haTorah asher sam Moshe, lifnei b’nei Yisrael al pi Adonai b’yad Moshe," which means "This is the Torah that Moses placed
before the people of Israel, God’s word through the hand of Moses." This is the traditional Level 2 story. I understand why Orthodox synagogues say this, but why do Conservative and even some Reform synagogues say this?
The answer might be the collapsing of the Level 2 story into the Level 1 story. And the Ellery Queen and Sherlock Holmes provide an interesting contemporary (more or less) example.
Suppose we think of the full Level 1 story of the Torah as not just the text itself, but also the account of the writing of the Torah. Thus, one could speak meaningfully about Adam and Eve, or the Tower of Babel, or Bilaam's donkey even if one did believe that these were actual historical events (the same way one could speak about Romeo). Similarly, one could speak of the writing of the Torah itself the same way. We could say God and Moses wrote the Torah as part of the Level 1 story, without making a claim about its historical accuracy.
Ellery Queen did exactly this. The Level 1 character Ellery Queen was a mystery writer who lived with his father, Inspector Richard Queen of the NYPD. Inspector Queen found himself investigating cases, and Ellery tagged along and solved them. The fictional Level 2 story is that Ellery wrote about these accounts and published them as books. But this Level 2 story gets collapsed into the Level 1 story; the writing of the books is implicitly part of the story. The actual historical Level 2 story is that two cousins (Frederick Dannay and Manfred B. Lee) co-wrote the stories using the pseudonym Ellery Queen.
Sherlock Holmes stories follow the same pattern. Watson is a character in the story and the chronicler of Holmes's adventures. But Arthur Conan Doyle actually wrote the stories.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Collapsing Second-Level Stories, the Torah, Sheakepeare in Love, Ellery Queen, and Sherlock Holmes
Friday, April 11, 2014
Innovative Seder Ideas - updated
In 2010, I wrote what ended up to be our most popular post, especially around this time of the year. Innovative Passover Seer Ideas.
Over the years, people have left comments with other good seder ideas, and I just added one more. Check it out.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Fleetwood Mac and the Seder
The rock/folk band Fleetwood Mac has an interesting elaboration on the exodus from Egypt.
Rabbi Adlerstein at Cross-Currents has posted his annual shiur (or talk) about Passover. These are always interesting. He comes up with Passover insights from a variety of sources that are not just smart and clever and insightful, but also that are not well known.
In one drash, he discussed the idea of the exodus from Egypt being solely the result of divine love. (I won't elaborate; listen to the lecture). This reminded my of Fleetwood Mac's absolutely beautiful and haunting song "Gypsy" which is partially about the death of Stevie Nick's close friend. One verse is
And the gypsy that remains
Faces freedom, with a little fear
I have no fear; I have only love.
Several years ago, I heard that song on the radio just before Passover, and ever since, I have thought of those lines in the context of the Exodus. (You have to get a little postmodern here; Stevie Nicks certainly was not thinking of the Exodus.)
Fear and love are not typically contrasted with each other. Fear and courage, perhaps. Or love and hate, or love and indifference. But fear and love do contrast with each other nicely.
People faced with an expansion of freedom often react with "a little fear." Perhaps not a lot; freedom is a good thing and cause for celebration. But the freedom also raises the troubling question of what to do with one's life. That requires choices, priorities, and wisdom. Before that, the slavery and narrow places had at least provided structure, albeit at a great personal cost.
The children of Israel seem to react to their freedom with fear. At the Sea of Reeds, they ask, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?" (Exod. 14:11.) They complaint about the food and water, and then build the golden calf. They incessantly whine and complain. And that attitude might have been caused, at least in part, by the fear resulting from not really knowing how to lead a free life.
Both God's response and the freed slaves' response could be the last line of that verse. "I have no fear; I have only love." God freeing the slaves was a manifestation of his love, as was the later giving of the 10 Commandments and other rules. And one principle the freed slaves could use to structure their lives was to emulate this love: try to take the morally correct action and help others, and in doing so, lead a meaningful and thoughtful life. I imagine both God and the slaves singing the last line in harmony.
Pharaoh also has a Fleetwood Mac song. : )
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Women and Tefillin - Two Views of Halacha
R. Mayer Twersky has written a very clear and informative critique (reposted at Cross-Currents) of the decision to permit two Orthodox girls to wear tefillin. (See my previous post and links there for a discussion of the underlying events.) R. Twersky's essay nicely reflects the traditional Orthodox approach to halacha. R. Adlerstein at Cross-Currents called it "magisterial" and correctly noted, "Ultimately, it is not about women or tefillin - it is about the very nature of halachic process."
R. Adlerstein is exactly right. There are two basic approaches to halacha, and the choice of approach largely dictates the result in this case. (There is a similar dichotomy in American law.)
R. Twersky makes three main arguments: (1) almost 500 years ago, a key rabbinic figure (the Ramo - R. Moses Isserles) held that women could not wear tefillin, many great thinkers have agreed since then, and only a really great rabbi could change that now, (2) halacha should not give way to contemporary mores and social beliefs, and in any case (3) women who want to wear tefillin may be sincerely but are ultimately misguided by the false philosophy of egalitarianism adopted by Western culture and liberal branches of Judaism. The underlying premise of these claims is that the earlier rabbinic decisors have pretty much figured out God's will in making these rulings, and it is the height of arrogance for the rest of us to think we know better. The result of this approach -- for better or worse -- is a very static and unchanging set of rules and practices.
The alternative view of halacha is more dynamic. It gives weight to past decisions, but allows contemporary rabbis to change the rules where it is appropriate. Of course, figuring out "where it is appropriate" is often difficult. The process is interesting. These decisions often get made at the local level first. Great rabbinic thinkers, ordinary people, and everyone in between debate the wisdom of these practices, and through this dynamic process, some practices change, others remain constant, and others still remain normative practices that are sometimes not followed by some people. The process is messier, but -- again, for better or worse -- is more dynamic and flexible.
The challenge faced by Orthodoxy is that many Orthodox Jews accept, at least to some degree, some contemporary ideas that are in conflict with (or at least in tension with) traditional Judaism. These include ideas regarding egalitarianism (as to non-Jews, women, and perhaps gays and lesbians) and the benefits and reliability of science. This sometimes makes it difficult to follow decisions made or practices established hundreds or thousands of years ago by people who did not share these beliefs, or even consider them. Resolving that tension is often difficult, especially within a traditional Orthodox framework.
The challenge faced by liberal Judaism is how to convinces its members to follow (or even care about) a liberal approach to halacha. After all, if Jewish law represents antiquated practices based on erroneous understandings of history and science as well as social beliefs that offend our deeply held modern sensibilities, why should anyone care at all about what traditional Judaism claims? (I think there are good answers to this question, as I am discussing on this blog.)
But it is largely this prior choice of which approach to halacha to follow that determines how one comes out on the issues like whether women are permitted to wear tefillin.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
More Archaeological Evidence Regarding The Date The Torah Was Written
A recent article provides a list of 50 people mentioned in the Bible who are actual historical figures and whose existence is supported by independent archaeological evidence. (The article is from Bible History Daily, linked to by Mosaic Magazine, based on an article in Biblical Archeology Review.) These people include rulers or officials from Egypt, Moab, Aram-Damascus, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, and of course rulers and other officials from both the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. What is striking about this table is the date range that these people lived.
The earliest is King David who reigned from 1010-970 BCE and the latest was Darius II who reigned from 425-404 BCE more or less. I charted the distribution of dates that these 50 people started their reign or other activity:
(I set "mid-century" years at year 50, "early" century years at year 75, and "late" century years at 25; the difference of a few years one way or another does not matter for these purpose.)
This distribution shows that almost all the people mentioned in the Bible for whom there is independent historical or archaeological data confirming their existence lived between 900 and 500 BCE, with only two people living slightly before this period. This is exactly the time modern scholars believe the almost all of the Bible was actually written, including the Torah. (Some parts were written later.)
Interestingly, the one person mentioned in the Torah for whom there is some independent historical or archaeological evidence is "Balaam son of Be'or." (See Numbers 22.) In the story, King Balak hires Balaam to curse the Israelites, but Balaam blesses them instead. This happened towards the end of their 40 year journey in the wilderness, or sometime between 1200 and 1500 BCE, depending on how one dates the Exodus.
But the archaeological reference to Balaam is much later. In the Deir Alla inscription (found in Jordan in 1967), "Balaam the son of Be'or" is mentioned in a story written on a wall in an ancient building. The story is dated to about 840-760 BCE, right in the middle of the same time period that all other historical Biblical people were mentioned. The story of Balaam is different than the one in the Book of Numbers, and of course this might be a reference to a different person. But the point remains that all the archaeological evidence, albeit imprecise and uncertain, keeps pointing toward this same time period.
What do we make of this? The statistical argument is pretty compelling. There are numerous historical figures mentioned in the Bible who lived between 1000 and 500 BCE, and no historical figures mentioned who lived before that. To be fair, we may find archaeological evidence one day that does verify the existence of some earlier people mentioned in the Bible. But the huge number of later historical figures, and the small number of earlier historical figures (currently 0) strongly support the claim that the Torah was written in the later date range.
This is not overwhelming by itself, but when coupled with all sorts of other internal and external evidence indicating a later authorship date, it all becomes very compelling.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
A Religious Understanding of Judaism - Introduction
Many Jews do not think of themselves as "religious." They consider a "religious" person to be supernatural, mystical, non-scientific, and perhaps a little nuts. If religious means that, then I agree with them. But I don't think it means that. Instead, a religious understanding of Judaism is one that focuses on the traditional religious elements of Judaism: God, the Torah, mitzvot, and holiness. These certainly can be seen in supernatural, mystical, non-scientific, nutty ways, and in fact often are. But I think they are better thought of in much more pragmatic, serious, rational, and empirically grounded ways.
In this and the next few posts, I would like to offer my own religious understanding of Judaism. I realize this is somewhat chutzpadik -- I am not a rabbi or academic or religious scholar. But I
have been seriously reading and thinking and arguing about this issue for more than
30 years. I have a religious
understanding of Judaism that works for me and I think might work for
others. So for what it's worth, here goes.
As noted above, a religious understanding of Judaism involves four related ideas: God, Torah, mitzvot, and holiness.
Since so many people tune out once these topics come up, I would like to be by exploring why that is.
I think the popular conception of these ideas is that they are just not worthy of serious thought. Many people don't believe in a supernatural God, don't know much about the Torah apart other than it contains primitive myths (creation, flood) and odd rules (no shrimp? no bacon?), and think of holiness as some sort of ancient spooky magic spell cast on people or objects. Not only that, but the people who do call themselves "religious" seem not just mistaken or misguided, but often ignorant, close-minded, and sort of silly. I would like to unpack that in some detail, and see if my religious theory of Judaism can avoid ignorances, closed-mindedness, and silliness.
There seems to be two general sets of problems with religion.
First, many religious theories rest on unknowable or unsupportable or unbelievable factual assertions or normative claims. If a typical religious Jew (of any denomination) starts explaining his religious understanding, he or she would probably offer a set of unknowable or metaphysical claims and a set of normative goals, and then reason from there: God is like this, and human nature is like that, and these ancient historical events occurred, and we need to try to have a meaningful life, and therefore we should all do or believe X and Y and Z.
When I hear that sort of argument made as an argument to be more religious, I am slightly amused but mostly annoyed. The general problem with this type of reasoning is that the fact and metaphysical claims are usually unknown or unknowable (or when they are known, they are false). The normative claims are often trivially true or very vague. So these types of theories tend to be persuasive to people who already believe them, and no one else. A religious understanding should not rest on a complex set of unbelievable or implausible claims; if it does, it seems silly.
There is a second type of silliness: incoherence. To be attractive and persuasive, a religious understanding must be coherent. It must be internally coherent in that the relationship between the four key religious components -- God, Torah, mitzvot, and holiness -- must make sense. And it must be externally coherent in that the
relationship between Judaism and the other
knowledge must make sense.
Let me offer two examples of these sorts of problem, one from Orthodoxy and one from liberal Judaism.
Orthodox Judaism is for the most part internally coherent. Its basic believe is that God (as traditionally understood) literally appeared at Mt. Sinai and gave the Torah and its mitzvot. We should follow them for that reason. The main problem seems to be that one has no way of verifying its factual claims, many of its normative claims seem problematic, and it is often externally incoherent with other things we believe to be true.
Liberal Judaism has the opposite problem. It tries to avoid the external coherence problem, but in doing so often creates internal coherence. Most liberal understandings of Judaism are unable to connect up the pieces in a persuasive or coherent way.
For example, take the relationship between God, Torah, and mitzvot. If the Torah is not literally from God, why should we obey its commands? This is a well-known and well-discussed issue, and I think there are good answers, but many Reform and Conservative theories of Judaism do not offer persuasive explanations.
For example, I once heard Rabbi Eric Yoffie. In trying to explain Reform practices, he said that he thought sometime
happened at Sinai, without explaining what exactly he thought happened. That seemed like an absurd way to duck the issue. What was that
something? If it was divine revelation, than Reform Jews should do their best to
follow halacha, even a liberal understanding of halacha, to follow this divine will. Given that premise, one should not, for example, lead a self-defined non-halachic movement of Judaism. On the other hand, if it
was something other than divine revelation -- a national experience, a
mythic memory, a volcano, a mass delusion, whatever -- than why
privilege any traditional belief or practice? They may be good reasons for (say) keeping kosher or building a sukkah, but these reasons probably have nothing to do with the unknown
"something" that happened at Sinai. And of course there are plenty of good idea and actions that are not part of Judaism. Claiming that "something" happened at Mt. Sinai does not create a coherent relationship between God, the Torah, and mitzvot.
A more recent example of this same well-worn debate comes from a blog exchange. In a blog post in the Time of Israel called "Why Reform Judaism doesn't work, won't work and how to fix it", the author -- a former Reform Jew who is now Orthodox -- attacked Reform Judaism for not believing in the
divinity of the Torah and the obligation to follow Jewish law. "When you take the heart and soul out of Judaism, all that’s left is an empty shell and that’s why Reform Judaism doesn’t work and won’t work. It’s not real and Jews sense it."
Another blogger "Religious and Reform" who posts on the Jewish Journal's blogs, took up the challenge. She responded with "Why Reform Judaism Does Work" (and a follow-up post). She believes in God, she explained, but does not think the Torah was literally dictated word-for-word by God. But where does that leave the Torah in her religious beliefs? Here's her explanation. "Personally, I believe the scholars who composed the Torah were trying to
record what they understood to be the word of God from Mount Sinai.
Unfortunately, these scholars had their own biases and agendas, so it’s
possible not everything is written down exactly the way God would have
written it, had God been the direct author." But despite these problems, "the Torah includes timeless wisdom, worthy of study, which is relevant to our modern day lives in countless ways."
I happen to agree with her, sort of. But her defense of her position fails pretty badly. If there really was a divine revelation at Mt. Sinai, it is not at all clear that these "scholars" -- the early Torah authors and redactors -- were in fact trying to record their understanding of the word of God from Mount Sinai. That might have been part of it, but their "biases and agendas" were most likely directed toward trying to understand the calamities that befell the people of Judea just before, during, and after the Babylonian exile, preserving founding myths and other stories, and consolidating political power. (One could take David Weiss Halivni's approach, decide that we have an imperfect Torah but one that is still pretty good, and then try to diligently follow halacha as traditionally understood. But that is not where she is going here.) Alternatively, if there was not really a revelation at Mt. Sinai, it is not clear why the Torah contains such great wisdom. If it did, it would simply be human wisdom, and it would probably just be one of many sources of such wisdom. There would be no need to venerate the Torah and its mitzvot the way we do.
I'm not critical of her beliefs or practices, and mine are probably similar to hers. But her explanation of these beliefs and practices -- her religious theory of Judaism -- does not coherently explain the connection between God, Torah, and mitzvot. As such, it is unlikely to convince anyone else that this it is a path worth following. (To be fair, she was not trying to convince anyone, but simply explain to the first blogger why his attack failed, at least in her case.)
So where does this leave most Jews? Orthodoxy seems odd and based on false empirical premises, and liberal Judaism seems internally incoherent. So a huge number of American Jews simply don't take Judaism seriously as a religious enterprise. Instead, they think of Judaism as cultural, a way of celebrating lifecycle events, a way to teach small children basic ethics, but nothing that a self-respecting intelligent adult would take seriously.
The Pew Report demonstrates that the number of Jews who adopt this position is large and growing, and those Jews disproportionately have children or grandchildren who do not identify as Jewish in any sense
I think there is no reason to avoid a religious understanding of Judaism. God exists, but not necessarily in the way most people think. In any case the precise details are both unknowable and irrelevant. The Torah contains divine wisdom, but again, not in the way most people think. The mitzvot should always be followed, unless they shouldn't. And we all seek, value, and experience holiness, or kedushah in our everyday lives, just not in the way that most people think. And these ideas do not clash with our understanding of the physical universe, science, common sense, or history, and they all hang together in a much more coherent way that most people believe. In the next several posts, I will explain these ideas in greater detail, starting with my religious understanding of God.
Monday, January 27, 2014
A Wise and Thoughtful Orthodox Response to Two Women Wearing Tefillin
Rabbi Harcsztark is the principal of SAR Academy in New York, a Modern Orthodox high school. He has permitted two young women whose own practice was to wear tefillin while davening to do so in the school minyan. This prompted the usual and predicable responses. Right-wing commentators explained that the sky is now falling. The next thing ya know, boys will be cross-dressing and eating treif, while guitar-strumming tambourine-clanging lesbians will be leading the davening. Left-wing commentators agree, argue that this is all good, but claim that we need more. All women should be permitted to wear tefillin to help break down the hegemony of a male-dominated hierarchy. Or something like that. I try not to read this stuff. But what few people have focused on is the subtlety and wisdom of Rabbi Harcsztark's actual decision. Rather than engaging in broader culture wars, he focused -- oddly enough -- on the welfare of these two young women and his school community.
Rabbi Harcsztark wrote a detailed letter explaining his decision. It is worth reading.
He begins by noting that these young women have a real and demonstrated commitment to wearing tefillin as part of their davening, and that his focus is on their welfare and the halacha, not the broader political issues:
Both students, in their respective ways, have shown real commitment to this mitzvah. Since their bat mitzvah, they have been taught, in accordance with their family practice, to daven each day with tefillin. For me, this was a question of whether I could allow a young woman to practice as she had been taught - to daven each and every day in a meaningful way wearing tefillin as an expression of her עבודת השם. I felt that my responsibility was to consider the person before me and the halakha, before considering the political fallout of the decision.
Shocking. He then explained that (1) halacha permitted but did not require women to wear tefillin, and (2) it was not the school's practice for women to wear tefillin. But he then permitted it for these women in this context.
As such, I granted the two girls permission in the context - in a tefilah setting - of a group of girls who were supportive of their practice. I felt it appropriate to create space at SAR for them to daven meaningfully. I explained this to our students in this way: it is a halakhically legitimate position despite it not being our common communal practice.
But this ruling is limited:
I did not, in so doing, create new policy nor invite any female student who wanted to don tefillin to do so. These are girls who, I believe, have been מוסר נפש (for a teen to get up at 6:20 each morning is meaningful commitment) for this מצוה.
He then spoke with each grade, emphasized that this was not a practice he was promoting or advocating, but was committed to not excluding people with different but halachically permitted practices.
I told my students (and I went to each of our four grades for a community meeting to explain the decision - as well as giving two faculty shiurim for staff) that I am not committed to the idea of SAR girls putting on tefillin. I am not encouraging our girls to do so. But I am committed to having our boys and girls be able to daven in the same shul where a woman might be doing so. That when they see something different, even controversial, before deciding in which denomination it belongs, they must first take a serious look at the halakha and ask their Rabbi whether there is basis for such practice. I suspect that I would not differ much regarding normative halakha with most people in our community. But I would differ strongly with someone who thought this was cause for that person to be removed from the community - or that such practice could not be supported within the community shul.
I'm a little puzzled by the controversy. Rabbi Harcsztark's decision was narrow and nuanced. His ruling fell within the four corners of traditional halacha, but he permitted these two young women to deviate from his community's traditional practice for the benefit of their spiritual development and the continuation of their family practice. He based his ruling on his own specific and detailed knowledge of them and of his community.
The narrowness of the ruling seems to me to be quite prudent and quite appropriate, and its hard to think of this as the camel's nose under the tent. I don't see how this controversy is any different than a rabbi making a lenient ruling for a particular family regarding (say) the kashrut of a chicken or family purity or sukkah walls when someone else might reasonably disagree and make a stricter ruling.
Interestingly, another Modern Orthodox high school, Shalhevet in Los Angeles, was confronted with a similar issue. A female prospective student asked Rabbi Segal, the head of school, if she would be permitted to continue her practice of wearing tefillin at school davening. He considered her request, and after reviewing the relevant halachic literature and consulting with his rabbis, he ultimately decided not to permit this, but would allow her to daven at a nearby synagogue or at home instead.
Rabbi Segal, like Rabbi Harcsztark, reached a different conclusion. But he did so with regard to his community, although it looks like he had much less knowledge about the particular young woman and her own practice. (She was a prospective student, and he presumably did not have a longstanding rabbi-pupil relationship with her.) At a different time and with a different student, perhaps he would reach a different conclusion, just as Rabbi Harcsztark would presumably reach a different conclusion with different students. Apart from the members of the particular school communities, I don't think the actual decisions require comments from outsiders, any more than than a decision about the kashrut of a particular chicken requires comments from outsiders.
The more important related issue for me -- and other non-Orthodox Jews -- is how can we encourage people to wear tefillin in the first place, not how to we discourage a subset of people who find it meaningful from doing so. Tefillin is a very strange mitzvah, and I find it both odd and brilliant that the Chabad Rebbe picked it as the mitzvah to focus on in Chabad's outreach programs.
This topic is timely. Yesterday, I taught my my 12 1/2 year old son how to put on his new tefillin. And this coming Sunday, February 2, 2014, is the Conservative Judaism's World Wide Wrap, a day where many Conservative synagogues have some sort of event teaching about tefillin. I'm going to mine. I would encourage anyone interested to attend and learn about tefillin.
I don't have any great insights into tefillin. For better info, google around or go to a World Wide Wrap event on Sunday. But I do have one less-than-great thought regarding the oddity of tefillin. When you put them on, you look like a deranged Martian, with boxes and straps and knots and all sorts of crazy things. There's no getting around that. But just go with it. Once you accept that fact, it makes it a lot easier to get past the oddness and focus on the mitzvah itself. It's even pretty cool
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Important Tu B'Shevat Update
My wife just made what is perhaps one of the most important halachic rulings ever. Since chocolate is made from cacao beans, which grow on cacao trees, one should have chocolate on Tu B'Shevat. This insight could singlehandedly revitalize Judaism.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
The Demise of Non-Religious Judaism, As Explained 60 Years Ago
In 2013, the Pew Report showed that Jews who identify as non-religious Jews tended to have children or grandchildren that did not identify as Jews as all. This was similar to the findings of the NJPS in 1990 and 2000-2001 about "cultural Jews."
About 60 years ago, Rabbi Jacob Agus argued against a similar cultural conception of Judaism. His observations were astute and prescient. Agus was looking forward, while the Pew Report and NJPSs were looking backward, but their conclusions are the same. And Agus's sharp writing is well worth reading today.
Here's the context. One hot topic then, as it is now, is why should a Jew follow halacha, or Jewish law. Orthodox Judaism has a simple answer: mitzvot are literally God's divine commands. Following halacha is literally following God's will. Reform Judaism (which defines itself as a non-halachic movement) also has a simple answer: one shouldn't. Or more precisely, one should follow general ethical rules because they are applicable to everyone, and Jewish ritual rules only if they are personally important or meaningful. In either case, halacha might be interesting or informative, but is not binding. Both movements easily answer the question.
But Conservative Judaism has no such simple answer. Unlike the Orthodox, most Conservative thinkers accept the conclusions of modern historical, textual, and archeological research and do not believe that the Torah and the oral law are literally words from God. And unlike the Reform, they do claim that halacha -- liberally interpreted -- is binding. These two claims present an interesting theoretical issue. If halacha is not a literal divine command, why should it be followed at all? In the words of the great thinker HaGaon HaRav HadGadol HaDor Ricky Ricardo, "Luuuuuucy, you got a lot of explainin' to do."
A lot of Conservative thinkers have written about this issue, with varying degrees of persuasiveness. Rabbi Elliot Dorff has compiled the writing of many of these thinkers from the past 100 years or so in a fascinating book called The Unfolding
Tradition: Jewish Law After Sinai. (Page citations here are to this book.) Most of the writers are Conservative, but he also included excerpts from writers who are Reform, Orthodox, and other. There
is a lot worth discussing in this book, and I will be blogging about it in upcoming posts. But let me start with Jacob Agus's insight.
Agus was responding to Mordecai Kaplan, who had argued that people of any society engage in the "folkways" of that society to remain as members of that society. And Jewish law is simply one of the folkways of the Jewish people. It is just what Jews do. They keep kosher, and go to synagogue on Yom Kippur, and put on tefillin, etc. And Jews, to remain Jews, should follow these folkways.
There is much to criticize in Kaplan's justification for obeying halacha and doing mitzvot, but Jacob Agus offered a particularly powerful, insightful, and dead-on accurate critique. Agus first noted that the term "folkways" seemed both romantic and scientific, but was actually a particularly bland and sterile way of thinking about Jewish law.
The term "folkway" evokes the romantic admiration for plain people . . . . It is idyllic, almost pastoral in its connotations, redolent of fields and forests, of pre-citified, even if not of pre-civilized existence. But, even while it thus echoes the cravings of romantic nationalist, it seems to speak in the scientific accents of the anthropologist . . . and the modern American sociologist . . . . (pp. 164-165).
[T]he term 'folkways' can hardly be regarded as offering an adequate concept of Jewish law in our life. . . . [A]s a contemporary philosophy, it is sadly inadequate. Primarily, it lacks the moral quality which alone evokes a sense of obligation and feeling of consecration." (p. 165.)
Agus then argues that Kaplan's claim reduces to simply following the past for its own sake, and this is simply misguided nostalgia.
Why should we strive with might and main to preserve folkways? Their importance is supposed to reside in their inherent appeal and charm, not in any axiomatic claim to loyalty. Is the nostalgic reverence for parental practice to be glorified as an absolute imperative? Such a consummation would indeed offer a strange climax to the great adventure of Judaism, which began with a revolt against established customs and parental mores, as expressed in the command given to Abraham, "Go, thou, from thy land, the place where thou wast born and from the house of thy fathers." (p. 165.)
This is just foolishness.
[This] would be interpreted as the senseless stubbornness of a clannish people, fanatically isolating itself from the ways of the world, forebearing all mundane goods and spiritual values for the sake of mere tribal customs. Is the ardor of tribalism so beautiful a phenomenon, when we observe it among backward people of the globe, that we should be tempted to reinterpret the Jewish past or reconstruct the Jewish present by means of it? If today, we should see a people tenaciously clinging to its folkways to the point of sacrificing fortune, well-being and even life itself, in an environment where larger horizons, broader loyalties, and a fuller life is possible, we should unhesitatingly condemn them as being both monstrously foolish and bitterly reactionary. (p. 165.)And the kicker, anticipating the Pew Report by more than 60 years.
The idea of clinging tenaciously to folkways, regardless of their intrinsic charm and worth, could only appeal to a transitional generation that lost the purpose but retained the sentiment of group survival, remaining, for no good reason that it could give, morbidly sensitive to the specter of the melting pot. . . . [W]hy should we expect our children, who are likely to outstrip us in worldly wisdom, to fall victims to these delusions. (pp. 165-166, emphasis added.)
Ouch. That's not just good writing; it's exactly what happened. The Jews who practiced non-religious Judaism in the 1940s and 1950s were indeed a "transitional generation that lost the purpose" of Judaism. They disproportionately had children who lacked their "sentiment of group survival," and they in turn had children who disproportionately did not identify as Jews at all. Agus's rebuttal to Kaplan described the next 60 years of the American Jewish experience.
As I have argued earlier and earlier than that and even earlier that that, I think the key insight of the Pew Report and earlier NJPSs is that cultural and non-religious Judaism are on their way out. Jewish culture, without its connection to Judaism as a religion, is disappearing. Jewish culture is certainly changing American culture; cute Yiddish expressions and delis and Seinfeld have all become mainstream staples of American culture, just as many other cultures have effected American culture. But only a religious Judaism (orthodox or heterodox) can survive as a separate institution in the long run.
I will be blogging about the ideas of some of the thinkers in Dorff's book in upcoming posts, as well as some of my ideas, regarding this religious understanding of Judaism. Stay tuned . . . .
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Blocked Comments - Disqus, Firefox, and Avast
I was unable to see comments on Firefox, but was able to see them on other browsers. After poking around the web, it looks like Avast Anti-Virus software blocks Disqus comments in Firefox.
You can tell if you have this problem if you don't see any comments and there is no number before "comments" after each post. If you have this problem, do the following.
Update to the latest version of Avast. (Right-click on the icon in the toolbar and go to 'update'.)
In Firefox, click on the Avast Online Security Icon (upper right corner).
Do one of the following:
- Slide the "Social Networks" switch to "allowed" (to the left to make it red)
- Slide the "Social Networks" switch to "blocked" (to the right to make it green) AND slide the Disqus switch to the left to make it red.
Comments should now be working, and you should now see a number before "comments" after each post.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
The Pew Report and Conservative Judaism
Two items about Conservative Judaism to note in the Pew Report.
First, the percentage of Jews identifying as Conservative has been falling over time. Conservative Jews were 37.8% of the adult Jewish population in the 1990 NJPS, 27% in the 2000-20001 NJPS, and 18% in the 2013 Pew Report. To a large degree, this reflects the odd demographics of the Conservative movement. In the 1940s - 1960s, the Conservative movement attracted many Jewish families. They liked the modernity and flexibility of the movement, but with a strong traditional component. But a large percentage of their children and grandchildren tended to become Reform, non-denominational, non-religious, or not Jewish. The Conservative movement rode the demographic wave up in the mid 20th century, and it is now riding the same demographic wave down.
Second, an interesting chart on p. 49 of the Pew Report showing Denominational Identification by Age. Of Jews of different ages, here are the numbers who identify as Conservative: 18-29 (11%), 30-49 (16%), 50-64 (20%), and 65+ (24%) It is hard to know what to make of these numbers, especially in light of the previous set of numbers showing an overall decline in Conservative membership. My guess is that there are three different effects occurring here.
- Many non-Orthodox Jews do not belong to a synagogue or identify with a denomination before they are married and have children. (They are not necessarily non-observant or non-participating. They might belong to independent minyanim, not attend services but still take Jewish classes or engage in other types of non-denominational Jewish activities.) But when they get married and have children, they may then join a synagogue primarily for the pre-school, day school, religious school, etc. Some of these people may self-identify as Reform or Conservative, but others may not. But this group of people may show a drop in denominational affiliation in their 20s.
- Many non-Orthodox Jews do not maintain a synagogue membership after their children have celebrated their bar- or bat-mitzvot. And some of these people may not consider themselves Reform or Conservative when they no longer belong to synagogue. This is especially true of Conservative Jews. I have met several Jews at Conservative synagogues who informally said that their practices or beliefs are "Reform." When questioned more deeply, they simply mean that they are not observant of many rituals like attending services or keeping kosher. (Similarly, many Jews label a higher level of observance as "Orthodox". I was once speaking with someone about restrictions on bar-mitzvah celebrations during the 3 weeks, and he asked me "How Orthodox are you?" I am not Orthodox -- this was at a Conservative synagogue! -- but what he meant was "How important are the halachic restrictions to you?") This effect should reflect a drop in Conservative self-identification of people in their 50s and later.
- As noted in the first point, there are a lot of older Conservative Jews. This simply means that that there should be a higher percentage of Conservative Jews who are older.
The bottom line is that I do not think the Conservative movement is on its way out. As noted in the last post, under current conditions, there might be a bi-modal distribution within self-identified Conservative Jews. One group engages in speciifcally Jewish practices and tends to pass along their religious Judaism to the next generation, and a second group that does not. If so, the movement may be asymptotically approaching a lower steady-state limit.
Importantly, nothing says that current conditions will remain. The good news for the Conservative movements is there is an easy population for outreach: less religious members of Conservative synagogues. The goal is simply to set forth a religious understanding of Judaism that is compelling, worthwhile, and coherent to contemporary American Jews.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Pew Report - The Sustainability of American Judaism and Why Bimodal Distributions Are Helpful and Harmful
The Pew Report raises a troubling question about the sustainability of non-Orthodox Judaism. (I will post separately on the Pew Report’s observations regarding Orthodox and Conservative Judaism.) The simple story – partially correct and partially incorrect – is that the Pew Report statistics shows that over time, there is a shift towards less observant forms of Judaism. Conservative and Reform Jews have children who are less observant, less Jewishly involved, and more likely to intermarry. Those children in turn have children who are even less Jewishly connected, and finally no longer identify as Jewish by religion, and after than no longer identify as Jewish at all.
I think that this story is based on a misunderstanding of the statistics. Those statistics more likely reflect what statisticians call a bi-modal distribution, and this distribution makes those statistics simultaneously more and less troubling. To see this, lets look at the Pew statistics themselves and then this bi-modal interpretation.
The Pew Report divides the Jewish population into two groups: Jews by Religion (JBR) and Jews of No Religion (JNR). The latter category consists people who (1) do not consider themselves to be “Jewish by Religion”, (2) were raised Jewish or have a Jewish parent (3) have no other religion, and (4) consider themselves Jewish or partially Jewish. In other words, JNRs are ethnically or culturally Jewish but are not religious.
Not surprisingly, the statistics show that JBR have higher levels of Jewish observance, identity, and connection than JNR.
For example, when asked how important is being Jewish in your life, JBR said very (56%), somewhat (34%) and not too important or not at all (10%). The numbers were reversed for JNR: very (12%), somewhat (34%), and not too important or not at all (54%). (P. 51.) Overall levels of Jew practice were higher for JBR than JNR. (P. 77.) None of this is surprising.
But what is troubling is that a huge percentage of JNR are raising their children without any Jewish connections.
For example, 59% of Jews by Religion are raising their children as Jews by Religion. 14% are raising their children partly Jewish by religion, 8% Jewish not by religion, and 18% not Jewish. So almost 60% of religious Jews are raising their children religiously Jewish. (P. 8.)
However, for Jews of no Religion, only 8% are raising their children Jewish by Religion. (That’s not surprising, since these are not religious Jews.) Only 11% are raising their children Partly Jewish by Religion and another 11% are raising their children Jewish not by religion. But the surprising statistic is that 67% are raising their children “Not Jewish.” In other words, cultural Jews are unable or unwilling to raise children who see themselves as cultural Jews. Instead, the children are raised as not Jews.
This is related to the increasing intermarriage rate. (p. 9.) Before 1970, Jews intermarried at 17%. This rose to 35% - 36% in the 1970s, 41% - 42% in the 1980s, 46% to 55% in the 1990s, and 58% since 2000.
Overall, 56% of married Jews have a Jewish spouse. This number is 64% for JBR, and 21% for JNR. (P. 36.) And this number is correlated with the level of Jewish observance. The in-marriage rate is 98% for Orthodox Jews, 73% for Conservative Jews, 50% for Reform Jews, and 31% for religious Jews of no denomination (P. 37.) And intermarried Jews are much more likely to be Jews of No Religion and raise their children as not Jewish.
(I actually think intermarriage is often the result of people not finding meaning in Judaism, rather than a free-standing problem. But that’s another discussion.)
So the simple read of all these numbers is that there is a path to non-Jewishness that is difficult to leave. Over a few generations, a huge percentage of religious Jews become less observant, a huge percentage of their children or grandchildren become non-religious Jews, and a huge percentage of their children or grandchildren become not Jewish at all. Almost no one goes the other way.
I think this understanding of the Pew Report numbers is partially incorrect in a way that is both hopeful and depressing.T he self-identified Jews by Religion category includes a substantial number of Jews that are at best marginally religious and in many respects are statistically identical to Jews of No Religion. If so, the JBR category is a bi-modal distribution. It really consists of two separate unimodal distributions: one distribution of Jews who are actually religious in some deeper or more objective way, and one distribution of Jews who are not religious in a deeper or more objective way but who self-identify as religious. Lets call them Jew by Religion - Objective (JBR-O) and Jews by Religion - Subjective (JBR-S).
Just to be clear: this is simply a descriptive analysis. I do not mean to denigrate anyone’s religious beliefs or practices. My point is simply that a Jew who feels religious in some spiritual way, but does not menifest these feelings in any outward and objective ways – does not belong to a synagogue or any Jewish organization, attend services, observe holidays, study Jewish texts, or engage in Jewish rituals – acts differently than Jew with similar feelings who does take more concrete actions.
Several unusual pieces of data in the Pew Report support the idea that there are two groups in this category.
For example, only 39% of JBR are members of a synagogue, 22% are members of other Jewish organizations, and 56% made donations to a Jewish organization. Assuming that these three are correlated, that means that maybe 40% (or more) of all Jews by Religion have no membership or affiliation or financial connection with any Jewish organization. Since participation in Jewish organizations are one primary way of Jews acting on their religious beliefs, the fact that 40% of JBR do not avail themselves of this opportunity suggests that there is a substantial group of JBR-S in the JBR category.
Another important way that Jews practice Judaism is through home rituals. The Pew Report shows that 78% of JBR participated in a seder last year. (P. 77.) This means that 22% of people who identified as Jewish by religion did not. Similarly, only 28% of Jews always or usually light Shabbat candles. (P. 77.) That means 68% did not.
Of course, one key way of acting Jewish is not engaging in religious practices of other religions. But 27% of Jews by Religion had a Christmas tree last year (including 4% of Orthodox Jews!) and 16% attended non-Jewish religious services at least a few times a year (including 16% of Orthodox Jews!). (P. 80.)
The only way to make sense of these numbers is to conclude that perhaps 20% - 40% of self-identified Jews by Religion simply feel Jewish in some religious sense but are doing little if anything in an objective way to act Jewish.
This conclusion is strengthened by my experience in Conservative synagogues. A fairly high percentage of members seem to be at the synagogue simply to have a bar- or bat-mitzvah. The parents engage in little or no specifically Jewish practices, apart from a Passover seder and lighting Chanukah candles. They have little or no Jewish background and education. And they have little or no desire to learn about these things or to try them. (A personal example. I ran an adult education class for several years. The class met when the kids were in Sunday morning religious school. We had a rotating group of some really spectacular rabbis teaching the classes. The parents were already coming to the synagogue to drop their kids off, and coming back two hours later to pick them up. They simply had to stay. We had good publicity for the class, and sometimes even served food. We occasionally got a decent turnout, but we often had only a few people show up.)
Again, I am not criticizing these practices. My point is simply that when people with that level of learning, belief, and practice self-identify as Jews by Religion, and Jews who regularly attend religious services, celebrate Jewish holidays, and study Jewish texts also self-identify as Jews by Religion, the average statistics of Jews by Religion will in fact represent a weighted average of these two very different groups.
If this analysis is right, it is both good news and bad news. The good news is that non-Orthodox Judaism is not on a one-way track to oblivion. There is a sub-group of non-Orthodox Jews by Religion for whom Judaism is important and meaningful as a religion. This group acts in Jewish ways, intermarries in lower numbers, and raises children that grow up to also find meaning in Judaism. But the bad news is that there is a different sub-group of Jews by Religion for whom Judaism may invoke religions or spiritual feelings, but they have not been able to find much, if anything, in Judaism to warrant more concrete action. This group does not do objectively Jewish things, intermarries in much higher numbers, and raises children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren who ultimately no longer identify as Jews.
If so, Reform and Conservative Judaism may simply asymptotically approach a lower population.
In short, the bad news for the group as a whole is really OK news for some and really terrible news for others. It just averages out to be bad news.
* * *
I see two take away lessons here.
First, as I have long argued, efforts to ground Judaism in anything other than religion will not work in the long run. The Pew Report confirms that only the religious aspect of Judaism can survive multiple generations in America. Yes, it is important to study the Holocaust and Israel, but these are not the core of Judaism. It is important to engage in social action, but one cannot ground Judaism in canned food drives and helping Darfur refugees. Jewish culture like Jewish literature, Israeli dancing, and klezmer music are the icing on the cake, but not the cake itself, and certainly not the meal. Even ethics, broadly speaking, are only a part of Judaism. Judaism must be understood in terms of God, Torah, and Jewish beliefs and practices. It is these core ideas that result in the importance of other Jewish ideas.
Second, this understanding of the problem sets up the solution. Jewish organizations, and especially synagogues, must find and implement ways of making the religious aspects of Judaism relevant and important. The Orthodox have done this, although with some huge problems, as I have argued elsewhere. Conservative and Reform Synagogues as a whole have not done this at a broad level. They need to offer a religious vision that makes sense to contemporary American Jews.
In upcoming posts, I will be blogging with some ideas as to how to make this work. But first I will have a few other posts on the Pew Report.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Still here
It has been a while since I blogged. I am still here, but got busy and blogging just fell to the bottom of the to-do list (but not completely off the list). I thought the recent Pew Report “A Portrait of Jewish Americans” would provide a good opportunity to jump back in. In short, this report shows the importance of something that I and my co-bloggers (whom I am hoping will spare a bit of time from their busy lives to resume blogging as well) have emphasized: the importance of a religious understanding of Judaism as opposed to a cultural or ethnic understanding.
The problem for many of us is that a traditional religious understanding, as embodied most strongly by Orthodox Judaism (and some flavors Conservative Judaism), does not square with our modern understanding of the world. The hard sciences, Bible scholarship, history, archeology, and philosophy undermine many traditional factual and normative claims. And attempts to recast Judaism in terms of ethics and do-goodism, as embodied most strongly by Reform Judaism (and some different flavors of Conservative Judaism) are fine as good deeds, but they come up short as a religious approach to Judaism. Social action and tikkun olam and canned food drives are fine, but the trappings of Judaism—Torah readings and God and prayer and holidays—seem like a lot of unnecessary superstructure if all you are doing helping people in need.
Is there some genuine religious understanding of Judaism that works here? I think there is. I have sketched some of this out in previous postings, but have though about it a lot more in the past few years. I will be blogging about that, but will start with a few thoughts on the Pew Report. Stay tuned . . . .
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Source of Values and Virtues
A common critique of more liberal ideas of Judaism is that people make up their own definitions of goodness and other values, "pick and choose" freely, and essentially do what they want without any constraint or boundaries. If values are not directly derived from God, this argument goes, then maybe Nazis or racists or murderers are right. The only proper source of values, this argument continues, is God's commands.
In the previous thread, Moshe asked in a comment: More fundamentally, I would ask you and Jason how do you know, and from where do you derive, your ideas as to what is "good or sensible"? Why, for example, should I be in favor of, say, equal rights for woman, if I am male. I assume he was starting down this path.
There is much to be said in response, and my co-bloggers Steve and Diane have written about this topic more extensively in earlier posts, but I want to focus on one problem with this claim: its incompatibility with the Torah itself.
When Cain and Abel came along, God has issued only one command: don't eat from the Tree of Life. And presumably, this command was rendered moot by the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. After Cain kills Abel, God asks him where Abel is. Cain then disingenuously asks, "Am I my brother's keeper?" God responds, "What have you done? Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground."
God's response presupposes that Cain has some knowledge of right and wrong. God did not say, "I commanded you not to murder." Instead, God vividly appeals to Cains sense of empathy, shame, and horror. And this response presupposes that Cain has -- or should have -- a sense of empathy, shame, and horror, and that this sense is part of the foundation for his belief in right and wrong.
Similarly, Noah is described as "righteous in his generation". But what on earth could "righteousness" mean here, in the absence of any detailed instructions from God as to how to behave (other than the now moot instruction regarding the Tree of Life)? The answer is that righteousness means righteousness, and it exists independently of any divine command.
But perhaps the clearest example comes from the story of Abraham arguing with God over Sodom and Gemorrah. After God announces that he will destroy the city, Abraham asks if he will really destroy the city if there are 50 righteous people in the city. Abraham then says to God "חָלִלָה לְּךָ" / "chalilah l'cha" / "shame on you" to do this thing. Abraham then asks "Shall not the judge of all the earth do justly?"
Now if justice or righteousness were derived solely from divine commands, then Abraham's question would be completely foolish. God would of course be acting justly because anything that God does is definitionally just. Abraham's impudence -- saying "shame on you" to God -- would not only be foolish and disrespectful, but completely incoherent. But it is not. Justice exists independently of divine commands or actions, and Abraham holds God responsible for apparently acting unjustly.
The Torah (as well as common sense) presupposes that we all have an idea of goodness, regardless of whether God has issues specific commands.
So the answer to Moshe's question is that I get my ideas of what is good and sensible from the same place that he and everyone else does. I have certain ideas of what is good, including ideas regarding human dignity, happiness, empathy, concern for others, and avoidance of harm, pain, and misery. Of course, we can argue about where the edges are, which concern takes precedence in difficult cases, and what the ultimate source of these values are. But there should be no dispute that goodness exists and is a coherent concept, even in the absence of a direct divine command.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Combing Through Medieval Syllogisms To Find Gems That can be Laboriously Related to the Present Human Condition
Jason GL left a really thoughtful comment on the previous post about meaning and counting the omer. It nicely captured the problem that we modern Jews face. It also prompted an extensive conversation with Mrs. Bruce on how Judaism is and is not meaningful. I thought Jason's comment deserved its own post. First his comment, then my response.Hello! I enjoyed your post. I am a consumer protection lawyer living in San Francisco, and I am a Jew. At various times I have been strongly involved with the Conservative movement, the Renewal movement, and a nondenominational community synagogue. I am currently experiencing what is usually called a "crisis of faith," but I prefer to call it a crisis of doubt, as it's not the faith that's bothering me.
I like your explanation of tradition, and I agree with you that traditions are created by the people who participate in them. No doubt the technique of counting from 1 to 49 was as unneeded to the rabbis of the Roman Empire, with its geometers and its mathematical calendars, as Pirke Avot's injunction to "ration your drinking water" is to people who live on America's eastern seaboard, with its ecologically sustainable, essentially cost-free tap water. The ancient rabbis clearly added new layers to prehistoric Judaism; there is no reason why it would be *wrong* for us to add our own layers to the late-medieval Judaism that we have inherited.
My concern is that such a project might not be worthwhile. You've put the essence of the problem far better than I could: An impoverished religious core is often surrounded by religiously peripheral - albeit important - issues like cultural Judaism, support for Israel, the Holocaust, anti-semitism, and social action.
These religiously peripheral issues, however important, have not in any way forced the Jewish tradition to engage with either the scientific or the social-scientific revolutions. Our tradition is badly, badly out of date. For all that we (or some of us) have learned to welcome people of all genders and sexual orientations into God's sanctuary, I am not aware that we have any modern traditions worth mentioning.
By "modern traditions," I mean traditions that depend on and reflect the state of the world as it has changed during and after the Enlightenment. I studied with a great rebbe who is a living testament to the power of prayer to transform and improve one's psyche. Power, though, is not the same thing as efficiency. Why take twenty years, an unrelentingly intense effort, and hours of daily devotion to do what can be done in a hundred hours of cognitive-behavioral therapy? Why comb through medieval syllogisms in the hopes of finding gems that can be laboriously 'related' to the present human condition when every day a new issue from a journal on neuroeconomics or neuropsychology is published that reveals empirical *evidence* about the human condition?
If, for whatever reason, you see such projects as inherently valuable, I wish you well. It's not my intent to dissuade others from updating old traditions. But (and it breaks my heart to say this) I can't see wanting to teach these traditions to my children in any great depth, or even wanting to renew my efforts to live by them. The traditions have plenty of use -- but what is their advantage? In a world where we all may choose our affiliations and our commitments, why re-commit to Judaism?
Again, this comment really hit the nail on the head. Any modern and thinking Jew must face this "crisis of doubt" head-on. (Non-modern Jews can be oblivious to the modern world, and non-thinking people can avoid facing pretty much any problem, at least until it clobbers them.) I cannot offer a comprehensive response, but I can offer quite a number of things that have worked for me. (In fact, this blog is an elaborate attempt to deal with exactly this problem.)
1. Some preliminary thoughts. I would take science off the table completely. I accept the idea of non-overlapping magisteria, and if one wants answers to empirical questions, turn to science. And do so without even attempting to correlate it with religious thought. I am always amused, for example, by people who attempt to show that the creation stories in Genesis line up somehow with a modern account of cosmology. It was interesting to me when I was 20, but now these attempts are just amusing and perhaps a little sad.
The same goes for history, archeology, and social science, with the caveat that parts of the Bible are historical documents.
2. For me, religious thought is about values. Traditional Jewish law, stories, and rituals are the first word in Judaism, but are certainly not the last word. Instead, they are the beginning of a long "great conversation" that has come down through the ages. Some parts of this conversation are quite deep and meaningful today and are worth studying. I think the traditions involved in counting the omer are a good example of that.
Other parts of this conversation -- and Jason put it well -- require "comb[ing] through medieval syllogisms in the hopes of finding gems that can be laboriously 'related' to the present human condition." Exactly. Cut those combing sessions short.
Others just seem completely irrelevant today. For example, the precise details of the laws of sacrifice just seem tedious, boring, and a little gross. At a higher level, several things are interesting about the sacrifices. There are different sacrifices for different purposes (sin, thanksgiving, etc.). These are communal affairs. (As my rabbi put it, you cannot sacrifice an ox and have 1200 pounds of roast beef that need to be eaten by tomorrow without inviting a few of your friends -- or perhaps the whole town -- over to share.) But some of the details of how to do these sacrifices are quite far from the present human condition.
But as I have previously argued, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit here. If a Jew just did the easy and meaningful stuff (at least easy and meaningful after a little learning), I think he would have a moderately observant lifestyle. Certainly more observant than most contemporary Reform and Conservative Jews, although less observant than most contemporary Orthodox Jews. The existence of the obscure, difficult, and seemingly meaningless -- and I agree there is a lot of that -- is no reason to avoid the rest.
3. Judaism is a communal affair. (Although this is perhaps belied by the fact that I am now writing about Judaism late at night, by myself. Mrs. Bruce and the kids are asleep.) The enterprise Jason described -- reading a text, relating it to the modern condition, reading scientific literature, engaging in therapy -- is a rationalistic, scientific, intellectual, and usually solitary activity. But joining a community is a very different type of thing.
Interestingly, the book of Ecclesiastes is quite cynical about most human activities. But one of the key activities omitted in the book is being part of a community, having friends, and helping others.
4. Judaism is often counter-cultural. For example, American culture highly values freedom of speech. It is a protected constitutional right (and one that I have defended on appeal several times), and "expressing oneself" is widely viewed as a valuable activity. But Judaism disagrees. A Jew is often obligated not to say certain things, and the extreme individualism of expressing oneself is tempered to a large degree by things like modesty, humility, and consideration of others.
I think this clash of ideas and ideals is a good thing. American freedoms force American Jews to examine Jewish ideas from a different perspective, and Jewish values force American Jews to critically examine American freedoms. We gain a deeper understanding of both by critically examining each in light of the other.
5. Judaism is often fun. Best example: sukkot.
* * *
Jason's other point is also a good one. There have been surprising few interesting and valuable post-enlightenment traditions that we have developed. Perhaps the bat-mitzvah is one (and egalitarianism in general). A participatory and engaged seder might be another. I think this is largely due to the inherent conservatism of Judaism as it is currently practiced. This might change as time goes on.
* * *
In short, I cannot point to a single thing that makes Judaism meaningful to me. But I find that there many smaller things collectively that add up to a pretty meaningful Judaism.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Counting the Omer - The Creation of Meaning (Part 6)
In previous posts, I discussed the murky historical origins of counting the omer and Shavuot. I also discussed how this is reflected in textual ambiguities and confusion. In this post, I would like to examine how people have come to create meaning for this ritual. This historical gloss---wholly apart from any underlying original meaning of the ritual---is in fact what most of us who count the omer experience when we count the omer.
Various midrashim (and later the Zohar) state that the Jews had descended to the 49th level of impurity in Egypt. Another midrash (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 3:11 and Song of Songs Rabbah 2:5, included in Bialek's Sefer HaAggadah, p. 78, no. 25) states that the Jews could have received the Torah on the day they left Egypt, but they were physically weak and needed a few months to recover. In both cases, they needed spiritual or physical healing, and this took place during the time between Passover and Shavuot, or during the omer-counting season.
This idea gave rise to the kabalistic tradition of assigning the seven lower sefirot (or emanations of God) to each of the seven weeks and days, giving 49 combinations. The details of this idea are pretty well known and covered in many places on the web. Aish HaTorah has a good explanation. The basic idea is that just as the ancient Jews spiritually improved themselves from the degradations of slavery to the holiness of a people ready to receive a direct revelation from God, we too can improve ourselves during the omer-counting period.
This is actually quite a useful activity. I have had some great conversations with my kids about real examples of the omer count of the day (one of which---pertaining to a baseball game---I recounted here). And I have had some more serious adult discussions and introspections about the different sefirot.
But there is an important aspect of all this that should not be overlooked: it has nothing to do with the original understanding of counting of the omer. No early text mentions the sefirot or anything similar. These are all later creations that were linked to the counting of the omer, and because of their cleverness, wisdom, and utility have become widely accepted.
There are many other examples of this. For example, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has a thoughtful discussion of how the omer counting reflects two different ideas of time: cyclical time and linear time. (Joni Mitchell picked up on the same theme, more or less, as I discussed here.) Like most of Rabbi Sacks' commentary, this one is really insightful. But it is an analysis that is prompted by the omer counting rather than solidly contained within the omer counting.
One final example. Pirke Avot is a volume of the mishnah with collection of wisdom sayings. Pirke Avot 6:6 states that "Torah is acquired through 48 things" and then lists 48 character traits, such as "study, attentiveness, orderly speech, an understanding heart" etc. Rabbi Noach Weinberg, the Rosh Yeshiva of Aish HaTorah, picked up on this idea and linked it to the counting of the omer. He called it the "48 Ways to Wisdom" and this set of teachings is one of the central study units of Aish HaTorah. Each of R. Weinberg's "ways to wisdom" is a contemporary version of the methods of acquiring Torah from Pirke Avot 6:6. These can be studied, one at a time, during the omer counting period. The webpage with all the information is here.
R. Weinberg developed a smart and useful set of wisdom ideas, and this is and well worth studying. But a few aspects of this stand out for our purposes here.
The first one is the discrepancy in the numbers. There are 49 days of omer counting but only 48 methods of acquiring Torah. R. Weinberg neatly solves this problem with "Organization" as the 49th way: review what you have learned, memorize it, keep it in a logical order, etc. And there is a 50th one of the 48 ways as well: "gratitude" on Shavuot itself.
But a more interesting issue is the differences between Pirke Avot's 48 ways and R. Weinberg's 48 ways. Many of these are the the same, and R. Weinberg simply elaborates on Pirke Avot. For example, the first method of acquiring Torah is "study" (or "talmud"), and R. Weinberg's first way to wisdom is "being aware every minute," which is a form of studying life itself.
But in several instances, R. Weinberg reverses the plain meaning of Pirke Avot. For example, the 14th way of acquiring Torah in Pirke Avot 6:6 is "a minimum of business activity." This method of acquiring Torah is followed by five other "minimizations": a minimum of preoccupation with worldly matters, a minimum of indulgence in worldly pleasure, a minimum of sleep, a minimum of conversation, and a minimum of laughter. These six collectively paint a stark image of a Torah scholar: minimal involvement in worldly affairs and pleasures, and instead long hours studying Torah. This is how great Torah scholars become great Torah scholars, but this is not a message that will sit well with Aish HaTorah's key target audience: non-Orthodox Jews who are thinking of becoming Orthodox. Americans are not into austerity.
Rabbi Weinberg deftly handles this problem. For example, he recasts the first method "minimizing business activity" as "Apply Business Accumen To Living." He starts off by noting briefly that we need to work to earn a living, but we should not overdo it and should also work to acquire wisdom. After this initial nod to the original text, he then notes that we can use some of the tools of business to do so. The rest of the article is a elaboration of these tools: operate efficiently, commit to goals, etc.
He does the same with the other minimizations. Instead of minimizing pleasure, we have Harnessing the Power of Sex (in the context of marriage) and The Use of Physical Pleasure. A "minimum of conversation" becomes The Art of Conversation. And a "minimum of laughter" becomes Laugh at Your Troubles.
I certainly do not have a problem with any of R. Weinberg's teachings here. They seem wise to me, and in many ways fit more comfortably with my worldview than the original Pirke Avot teachings. I am not a hedonist, but I am not ascetic either. I simply note here that several of R. Weinberg's ideas are not quite the same as the original teachings in Pirke Avot, and do not have any inherent connection with counting the omer.
This is not a criticism. R. Weinberg and R. Sacks and the kabbalists did what Jews have always done, and in fact have done it better than most Jews. They created new ideas full of wisdom and insight and linked them to existing ideas or ritual---here, the counting of the omer.
The meaning or importance of counting the omer does not lie in its original context. Best that I can figure, that original context was a way of setting a late-spring wheat offering relative to the date of an earlier early-spring barley offering. That does not carry much significance for me, a lawyer living in Los Angeles in the 21st Century. The importance lies in the layers of meaning that subsequent generations have added to this earlier ritual: the bridge between freedom from slavery celebrated at Passover and the holiness required for the giving of the Torah celebrated at Shavuot, personal growth and spiritual improvement and wisdom, and God and godliness refracted through 49 separate paired combinations of seven aspects of God and godliness, and themes of historical and cyclical time.
At the beginning of this series, I noted that many Jews have problems with relevance and authenticity. I think counting the omer shows a way around this problem.
Counting the omer seems to be inherently irrelevant: counting to 49 one day at a time. The best argument for its inherent irrelevance is that no one other than Jews does this. But the relevance of a mitzvah like this comes from the inherent importance of the ideas and themes created over time and associated with this mitzvah.
The authenticity of the ritual comes both from its relevance and its long historical tradition. People do not passively receive and understand a tradition; they also help create it. The great thinkers that have come before us have developed some pretty great ideas, and those ideas have become part of Judaism, regardless of whether they were there initially. (We also have had some terrible ideas that have been discarded along the way in the gale of creative destruction.) These all are an authentic part of Judaism.
Here is my humble addition to counting the omer. I told my kids that if we counted all 49 days without missing one, we could go out for ice cream after Shavuot. My older son stopped counting somewhere in the 30s, but I finished last night and my younger son (whose bedtime is before it is completely dark) finished this morning. We did it.
So in addition to relevance and authenticity, counting the omer---properly construed---also involves ice cream.
Chag sameach.
Monday, June 6, 2011
The Historical Confusion - Counting the Omer and Shavuot (Part 5)
In the previous post, I discussed the textual confusion about the date of the omer-counting and Shavuot. The historical record is similarly muddled. Let's start with what the Torah says about the date of the giving of the Ten Commandments and then see how early Jewish communities understood this
The Torah never states the date of the giving of the revelation at Mount Sinai. The Torah explains that the Exodus from Egypt took place on the 14th day of the first month. (Exod. 12:17-18.) After crossing the Reed Sea, the Israelites went to Elim (Exod. 15:27), then to the "wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month." (Exod. 16:1.) ("Sin" is a Hebrew word, not the English word.) After an indeterminate stay, they then went to Rephadim. (Exod 17:1.)
Exodus 19:1 then states, "In the third month after the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai." It is not clear what "the same day" of a month means, although it arguably means the first day of the third month (later called Sivan). They then camped before Mount Sinai for some indeterminate amount of time (Exod. 19:2). Moses speaks with God (Exod. 19:3), then speaks with the people (Exod. 19:7-8), and then speaks with God again (Exod. 19:9-11). God tells Moses to tell the people to ready and on the third day, he will come down. (Exod. 19:11.) It is not clear from the text how much time this camping, and speaking took, but in any case the people do what they are told, and God appears on the third day. (Exod. 19:16.)
The rabbinic tradition is that the revelation on Mount Sinai occurred on Shavuot, which was 50 days after the second day of Passover, or (after some arithmetic, left as an exercise for the interested reader) on the 6th of Sivan. But as noted in earlier posts, this does not directly follow from the text. Shavuot in the Torah is an agricultural holiday and (unlike Passover) is not linked at all to the revelation on Mount Sinai (0r anything else, for that matter), and in fact its date---seven weeks and one day after "the shabbat"---is also not clearly specified.
Given this, it is not surprising that there were early alternative traditions as to this date and the dating of Shavuot. The book of Jubilees was probably written in the second century BCE. It begins, "And it came to pass in the first year of the exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt, in the third month, on the sixteenth day of the month" that God tells Moses to come up to Mount Sinai. The book later put Shavuot in the middle of the third month (and states that Isaac was born on this day): "And she [Sarah] bare a son in the third month, and in the middle of the month, at the time of which the Lord had spoken to Abraham, on the festival of the first fruits of the harvest, Isaac was born." This puts Shavuot 10 days later than the traditional rabbinic account, and thus the counting of the omer began 10 days after the traditional day, or on the 25th of the first month. Apparently, the author of Jubilees used a solar calendar where days fell on the same day of the week, and the 25th of the first month was the Sunday after the last day of Passover.
The later Christians adopted a similar understanding, putting the holiday of Pentecost at 50 days after Easter. Counting Easter Sunday as the first day, that put Pentecost on a Sunday, seven weeks later. But in the conventional account, the first Easter was the Sunday after the first day of Passover which was on Thursday night / Friday day, not the Sunday after the last day of the 7-day Passover week, as suggested by Jubilees.
The Talmud contains a debate regarding this issue. In Menachot 65a-66a, the Mishnah describes an elaborate procedure for the barley offering, and then asks why this procedure was necessary. "Because of the Boethusians who maintained that the reaping of the omer was not to take place at the conclusion of the [first day of the] festival." (The Boethusians were a sect that was related in some way to the Sadducees.) Thus, the Boethusians, like the Christians, placed the beginning of the omer counting on the Sunday after the first day of Passover, not the day after the second day of Passover.
The Gemara then picks up on this debate. One foolish old Boethusian (described that way in the Talmud) offers a silly argument for Shavuot being on a Sunday (and thus "the shabbat" being on Saturday), and R. Yochanan ben Zakkai responds by calling him a "fool" and offering a weak but possibly sarcastically made argument. The Gemara then offers four other arguments for "the shabbat" being the second day of Passover, none of which are very persuasive.
The obvious dispositive counter-argument is that if Shavuot had in fact commemorated the revelation at Mount Sinai, then it would be on whatever day the revelation at Mount Sinai occurred. If that was on the sixth of Sivan, then that's when it was. But no one in the Gemara makes this argument, presumably because the Boethusians either (1) did not believe that Shavuot commemorated the giving of the Ten Commandments, or (2) did not believe that the date was the sixth of Sivan.
In Louis Finkelstein's book "The Pharisees", he picks up on this debate. (Chapter VII.B, pp. 115-118.) He notes that "nothing could be more trivial than such a debate" and correctly explains that "[t]he Biblical verses in Leviticus which give the provisions of the law are concededly ambiguous." He then notes that the Pharisees linked Shavuot to the revelation at Sinai. They were more separated from agriculture than the Sadducees and more interested in history and the Law. The Sadducees, on the other hand, did not believe the holiday had any historical significance, and they were more attuned to the agricultural aspect of the holiday.
The historical upshot is this. Neither the fixing of the beginning of the omer counting (and equivalently, the date of Shavuot) or the link between Shavuot and the revelation at Sinai are based on the text of the Torah. Both were the subject of considerable debate in the period before the Talmud was written.
One can certainly believe that there was a reliable unbroken oral traditional going back to Sinai that established both the relevant dating and the link between Shavuot and the revelation at Sinai. But if one does not believe this, then it the holiday must have evolved in the thousand years before the Talmud was written. The holiday initially began as an agricultural festival, vaguely set at 50 days after an initial barley offering. The omer counting was either just a way of establishing this date or perhaps required actual counting. But over time, the date became fixed, the actual counting of days became required, and this agricultural holiday was linked to the revelation at Sinai.
In future posts, I will look at how Jews have created more layers of meaning attached to the counting of the omer, including most importantly the mystical sefirot.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
The Textual Confusion - Counting the Omer and Shavuot (Part 4)
As noted in earlier posts, the Torah itself indicates that Shavuot is an agricultural holiday commemorating the wheat harvest and involving a grain offering. However, the later rabbinic literature links the holiday to the giving of the Ten Commandments (or perhaps the whole Torah) on Mount Sinai. This claim is found nowhere in the Torah or any early literature, and the precise date of this event was disputed from an early period. Let's review the facts and then figure out what to make of them.
As noted in the second post in this series, Shavuot is 50 days after the day after "the shabbat" after the barley offering. One key question is what does "the shabbat" mean here. The answer gives us the date of Shavuot, or if we know the date of Shavuot, reasoning backwards will give us the date of "the shabbat."
"Shabbat" usually means the seventh day, sundown Friday night through sundown Saturday night. But in some contexts, it means a generic day of rest. For example, later in Leviticus 23 (the chapter mentioning the counting of the omer and Shavuot), the Torah calls Yom Kippur a "shabbat shabbaton" or a "sabbath of complete rest." (Lev. 23:32.) Similarly, Leviticus 25 discusses the sabbatical year, where no planting or sowing is permitted and the land is to rest. God commands that the land will keep a "sabbath" (Lev. 25:2) and calls it a "shabbat shabbaton".
Back in Leviticus 23, there are three holidays mentioned before the omer-counting passages. The first holiday listed is shabbat, and it is decreed to be a "shabbat shabbaton." (Lev. 23:3). The second holiday is Passover, and it is decreed to be a "mikrah kodesh" (or holy convocation) and no work is permitted. (Lev 23:7.) Importantly, even though no work is permitted, the day is note called a "shabbat." The third holiday is the seventh day after Passover, and this too is called a "mikrah kodesh," no work is permitted, and is not specifically called a "shabbat." (Lev 23:8.) Then the counting of the omer and Shavuot passages noted earlier occur (Lev 23:9 ff), and this counting is to start the day after "the shabbat". Which one?
There are three possibilities: (1) the normal Friday/Saturday shabbat, (2) Passover, and (3) the seventh day of Passover.
As a simple matter of textual interpretation, the first argument seems the strongest. After all, shabbat is the only day that is specifically called "shabbat." The second best argument is the third one. The holiday where no work is permitted that immediately precedes the omer counting command is the seventh day of Passover. The one the rabbis went with, Passover itself, is the weakest argument, at least as a purely textual matter. But of course there is a lot more to understanding the meaning of this passage than simply interpreting an ambiguous passage, and the historical tradition is quite important. I will look at that next.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Creating Authentic and Relevant Meaning
In re-reading the last two posts, I realized that I never explained my basic point. Here it is.
The (simplistic) Orthodox world view is that God wrote the Torah and commanded the commandments. Our job is simply to decode the text, follow the oral law, and do the mitzvot. We might have some discretion in borderline or ambiguous cases, and there may be some complexity in the particulars of tough cases. But for the most part, the general approach is all very straightforward.
But that is not the way it actually works in practice, or the way is has worked in history. The act of not only figuring out exactly what a mitzvah entails but figuring out how it is meaningful and important involves a lot of judgment and discretion, and often a lot of creativity. We have several thousand years of people creating these idea, acts, interpretations, and discussions, and then reacting to others. It is a rich tradition.
Authenticity involves learning about this tradition, then doing mitzvot (or even sometimes changing mitzvot) in light of this tradition. That type of authenticity is equally available to Orthodox Jews and non-Orthodox Jews.
Relevancy involves an evaluation of mitzvot or texts in light of that tradition. This requires some flexibility and even playfulness with the texts, the mitzvot themselves, and even the ideas behind the texts. This is not some wacky left-wing New Age idea --- it is exactly the approach taken by the Talmud, the midrash, the kabbalists, and even contemporary Orthodox rabbis.
So far, I have claimed a lot more than I have proven. But rather than discussing all this in very general terms, I thought I would discuss it in light of a particular mitzvah, counting the omer. So stay tuned ....
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