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.

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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.

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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. 

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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

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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.

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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 . . . .

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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.

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Christmastime for the Jews - SNL

One of the funniest "Jewish" Christmas songs / videos around.

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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.

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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.

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