It seems that we’ve been going over and over the same debate about the streams of Judaism. It is not only tiresome, but it is demoralizing to watch the unfortunate but undeniably negative perceptions of other streams that we’ve been reading on Jewlicious. As Rabbi Aviner of Ateret Cohanim Yeshiva has pointed out, we are brothers and one nation, and that should be one of the values that drives our discussions. While debates such as these have a long and prominent history (Saducees and Pharisees, anyone?), I couldn’t help but feel that perhaps it might improve matters if people actually had some information at their fingertips.
So I’m going to do some cutting and pasting and borrowing of content from sources that I believe will provide a short overview of Conservative Judaism. This is a long post, but I believe it’s worth the read, and encourage those who are interested to go directly to the sources by clicking on the provided links.
1. I located this easy-to-understand “FAQ” by Rabbi Chaim Weiner about the Masorti (masorti means “traditional” in Hebrew) movement, as the Conservative movement is known outside the U.S.:
The basic beliefs of a Masorti Jew are no different than those of traditional Judaism. We believe in a God who created the world. We believe in a covenant between God and the people of Israel. We believe that we are comrnanded, as a part of that covenant, to live a special lifestyle, spelled out in the Torah and articulated in “halacha – Jewish law”. We accept that this law is defined by the classical books of the rabbis: the Mishnah, the Talmud, and thereafter refined through the codes and responsa.
The main principle that defines conservative Judaism is our relationship to modern science and scholarship.
What role do the results of modern studies, particularly in the fields of history, archaeology, bible scholarship and literature play in the understanding of our tradition?
The Masorti/Conservative approach to this question is unequivocal: The results of these sciences cannot be ignored. They must be used to inform our religious beliefs, to help us understand our tradition better. They cannot be rejected outright, without careful consideration of their claims.
There are many areas where the results of scholarship and tradition seem to contradict. In these instances it is our position that we must interpret the tradition in a way that it doesn’t contradict our knowledge from other sources. This is not a matter of convenience. The only reason to follow a tradition is because it is true. If we accept our tradition as truth, then it must agree with the facts as we know them. This means that, although we believe in the same things as traditional Judaism, how we understand those things is influenced by the findings of modern science and modern thought.
Do Masorti Jews believe that the Torah comes from heaven?
Bible scholarship has shown that the Torah has a history. It is difficult to accept the claim that the Torah was handed down from heaven at a certain point in history in the literal sense. We therefore understand this term as a metaphor to mean that the Torah is divine and that it reflects God’s will. Research can help us understand the process of how the Torah came about, but will probably never give us a full picture. From our point of view, the idea that a concept as complex as “how God communicates to people” could be reduced to a literal description is unacceptable.
How can you consider the findings of scholarship to be true? There are always different schools of thought, and the positions of the scholars constantly change as new information becomes available.
True. Science is not infallible and the more we know, the better we understand things. We do not accept modern notions as “Torah from Sinai” as truths to be defended no matter what. Every finding must be accepted for what it is: a guess, a fact, an interpretation or a most probable explanation. We must always be open to learning more. However, the more information we have, the more that evidence from different fields of study agrees, the closer we get to the truth. The fact that one is not absolutely sure doesn’t mean that we should just deny facts or accept things which are simply impossible. Our beliefs must always be reviewed by our critical understanding. Not because we are perfect, but because our faculty of reason is what God has given us, and we have no better tool to use to search for the truth. Our reason is not perfect, but it’s the best we have.
If you do not believe that the Torah was given by God literally, does this not undermine your commitment to observe the tradition?
No. If one believes that the commandments are God’s will, it does not matter how you understand how they were given. You would still feel bound to observe them.
The role that halacha plays: When we looked at ideology, we saw that there were many similarities between the ideology of Masorti and that of traditional Judaism. This similarity cuts through to halacha.
What is halacha? The Torah tells us of a special covenant between the Jewish people and God. As part of this covenant Jews have been given many commandments. The commandments of the Torah are of a general nature. We do not observe the commandments as they are in the Torah. There is a whole literature – the Mishnah, the Talmuds, the Midrash, the responsa literature and the codes -which explains and develops the commandments and translates them into rules for everyday living.
These rules, the way of life of the observant Jew, are the halacha. The halacha is far from being a closed book; everything being clear-cut and sealed in stone. There is not a page in the Talmud which is free from debate, not an issue over which there is not some difference of opinion. The halacha is dynamic. It has within it the ability to grow and to respond to changes. However, despite differences of opinion and the freedom that exist within the halacha, there have emerged guidelines which help define the system. Over time the Babylonian Talmud has become the final authority in Jewish law. Precedents have been set and practice has been established. Even when confronting new realities, the precedents of the past and the underlying principles which have been established are to be taken into consideration when deciding how the halacha applies today.
All that has been said so far is true for both Masorti and Orthodox Judaism. Where does Masorti differ?
The differences are not in how halacha is understood, but in how it is applied. Whenever a rabbi is called upon to give a ruling, in addition to determining the halacha, he must also judge the situation he is ruling upon. As Masorti rabbis understand the world differently than Orthodox rabbis, the way they apply the halacha differs.
This difference in the way we look at the world manifests itself in many ways. Masorti Jews respect academic research as a means to understand the world better and therefore the results of this research are brought to bear in our halachic decisions. Masorti Jews accept many of the values of modern society. We are integrated in the modern world and our halachic decisions reflect this integration. Rather than trying to set Jews apart from general society, we seek ways to make it possible to be an observant Jew within it. Our constituency includes many Jews who have not made a full commitment to observance. As a result of this, the importance of enabling “somewhat” observant Jews to play a fuller role in the community is an important consideration in our decisions.
The biggest difference in our approach centres on our attitude to change. Our society is characterized by rapid social change. Is this change good? Should we welcome it? Do you resist it? It is in those areas of our lives where the greatest social changes have occurred where the differences between the movements in Judaism are most apparent.
The most prominent example of the need to take a position regarding change is when we come to define the role of women in the synagogue. In our secular society the role of women has radically been changed. Women today are fully integrated in society, are educated, hold positions of power and share equal rights. The halacha grew in an age where none of this was true. The main challenge facing all traditional groups today is how to respond to this change. It is the Masorti position that it is the ability to address itself to change that has kept the halacha alive through the centuries. We maintain that failure to apply the tools of change that exist within the halacha to the changes in our world today will leave the halacha as irrelevant to most Jews.
Although these attitudes are wide reaching, it should be stressed that in most cases, there is no difference between the interpretations of Masorti and of Orthodox rabbis.
2. Ismar Schorsch, widely considered as one of the leading thinkers of the Conservative movement wrote The Sacred Cluster which defines the seven core beliefs and values that define the movement. Here are some selected (that is, selected by yours truly, so please forgive any hiccups and errors, I am doing my best) excerpts:
The Sacred Cluster
There are seven such core values, to my mind, that imprint Conservative Judaism with a principled receptivity to modernity balanced by a deep reverence for tradition. Whereas other movements in modern Judaism rest on a single tenet, such as the autonomy of the individual or the inclusiveness of God’s revelation at Sinai (Torah mi-Sinai), Conservative Judaism manifests a kaleidoscopic cluster of discrete and unprioritized core values. Conceptually they fall into two sets – three national and three religious – which are grounded and joined to each other by the overarching presence of God,who represents the seventh and ultimate core value. The dual nature of Judaism as polity and piety, a world religion that never transcended its national origins, is unified by God. In sum, a total of seven core values corresponding to the most basic number in Judaism’s construction of reality.
The Centrality of Modern Israel
Hebrew: The Irreplaceable Language of Jewish Expression
Devotion to the Ideal of Klal Yisrael
The Defining Role of Torah in the Reshaping of Judaism
The Study of Torah
The Governance of Jewish Life by Halakha
Belief in God
The Centrality of Modern Israel
For Conservative Jews, as for their ancestors, Israel is not only the birthplace of the Jewish people, but also its final destiny. Sacred texts, historical experience and liturgical memory have conspired to make it for them, in the words of Ezekiel, “the most desirable of all lands (20:6).” Its welfare is never out of mind. Conservative Jews are the backbone of Federation leadership in North America and the major source of its annual campaign. They visit Israel, send their children over a summer or for a year and support financially every one of its worthy institutions.(1) Israeli accomplishments on the battlefield and in the laboratory, in literature and politics, fill them with pride. Their life is a dialectic between homeland and exile. No matter how prosperous or assimilated, they betray an existential angst about anti-Semitism that denies them a complete sense of at-homeness anywhere in the diaspora.
Hebrew: The Irreplaceable Language of Jewish Expression
Hebrew as the irreplaceable language of Jewish expression is the second core value of Conservative Judaism. Its existence is coterminous with that of the Jewish people and the many layers of the language mirror the cultures in which Jews perpetuated Judaism. It was never merely a vehicle of communication, but part of the fabric and texture of Judaism. Words vibrate with religious meaning, moral values and literary associations. Torah and Hebrew are inseparable and Jewish education was always predicated on mastering Hebrew. Hebrew literacy is the key to Judaism, to joining the unending dialectic between sacred texts, between Jews of different ages, between God and Israel. To know Judaism only in translation is, to quote Bialik, akin to kissing the bride through the veil.
Devotion to the Ideal of Klal Yisrael
The third core value is an undiminished devotion to the ideal of klal yisrael, the unfractured totality of Jewish existence and the ultimate significance of every single Jew. In the consciousness of Conservative Jews, there yet resonates the affirmation of haverim kol yisrael (all Israel is still joined in fellowship) – despite all the dispersion, dichotomies and politicization that history has visited upon us, Jews remainunited in a tenacious pilgrimage of universal import.(3) It is that residue of Jewish solidarity that makes Conservative Jews the least sectarian or parochial members of the community, that renders them the ideal donor of Federation campaigns and brings them to support unstintingly every worthy cause in Jewish life. Often communal needs will prompt them to compromise the needs of the movement.
Such admirable commitment to the welfare of the whole does not spring from any special measure of ethnicity, as is so often ascribed to Conservative Jews. Rather, I would argue that it is nurtured by the acute historical sense cultivated by their leadership. In opposition to exclusively rational, moral or halahkic criteria for change, Conservative Judaism embraced a historical romanticism that rooted tradition in the normative power of a heroic past. To be sure, history infused an awareness of the richness and diversity of the Jewish experience. But it also presumed to identify a normative Judaism and invest it with the sanctity of antiquity.
The Defining Role of Torah in the Reshaping of Judaism
The fourth core value is the defining role of Torah in the reshaping of Judaism after the loss of political sovereignty in 63 B.C.E. and the Second Temple in 70 C.E. to the Romans. In their stead, the Rabbis fashioned the Torah into a portable homeland, the synagogue into a national theater for religious drama and study into a form of worship. Conservative Judaism never repudiated any of these remarkable transformations. Chanting the Torah each Shabbat is still the centerpiece of the Conservative service…
…For Conservative Jews, the Torah is no less sacred, if less central, than it was for their pre-modern ancestors. I use the word “sacred” advisedly. The Torah is the foundation text of Judaism, the apex of an inverted pyramid of infinite commentary, not because it is divine, but because it is sacred, that is, adopted by the Jewish people as its spiritual font. The term skirts the divisive and futile question of origins, the fetid swamp of heresy. The sense of individual obligation, of being commanded, does not derive from divine authorship, but communal consent. The Written Torah, no less than the Oral Torah, reverberates with the divine-human encounter, with “a minimum of revelation and a maximum of interpretation.” It is no longer possible to separate the tinder from the spark. What history can attest is that the community of Israel has always huddled in the warmth of the flame.
The Study of Torah
Accordingly, the study of Torah, in both the narrow and extended sense, is the fifth core value of Conservative Judaism. As a canon without closure, the Hebrew Bible became the unfailing stimulus for midrash, the medium of an I-Thou relationship with the text and with God. Each generation and every community appropriated the Torah afresh through their own interpretive activity, creating a vast exegetical dialogue in which differences of opinion were valid and preserved. The undogmatic preeminence of Torah spawned a textually-based culture that prized individual creativity and legitimate conflict.
What Conservative Judaism brings to this ancient and unfinished dialectic are the tools and perspectives of modern scholarship blended with traditional learning and empathy. The full meaningof sacred texts will always elude those who restrict the range of acceptable questions, fear to read contextually and who engage in willful ignorance. It is precisely the sacredness of these texts that requires of serious students to employ every piece of scholarly equipment to unpack their contents. Their power is crippled by inflicting upon them readings that no longer carry any intellectual cogency. Modern Jews deserve the right to study Torah in consonance with their mental world and not solely through the eyes of their ancestors. Judaism does not seek to limit our thinking, only our actions.
This is not to say that earlier generations got it all wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. To witness their deep engagement with Torah and Talmud is to tap into inexhaustible wellsprings of mental acuity and spiritual power. It is to discover the multiple and ingenious ways – critical, midrashic, kabbalistic and philosophical – in which they explicated these texts. Like them, Conservative scholars take their placein an unbroken chain of exegetes, but with their own arsenal of questions, resources, and methodologies. No matter how differently done, the study of Torah remains at the heart of the Conservative spiritual enterprise.
Moreover, it is pursued with the conviction that critical scholarship will yield new religious meaning for the inner life of contemporary Jews…
The Governance of Jewish Life by Halakha
The sixth core value is the governance of Jewish life by halakha, which expresses the fundamental thrust of Judaism to concretize ethics and theology into daily practice. The native language of Judaism has always been the medium of deeds. Conservative Jews are rabbinic and not biblical Jews. They avow the sanctity of the Oral Torah erected by Rabbinic Judaism alongside the Written Torah as complementary and vital to deepen, enrich and transform it. Even if in their individual lives they may often fall short on observance, they generally do not ask of their rabbinic leadership to dismantle wholesale the entire halakhic system in order to translate personal behavior into public policy. Imbued with devotion to klal yisrael and a pervasive respect for tradition, they are more inclined to sacrifice personal autonomy for a reasonable degree of consensus and uniformity in communal life.
Collectively, the injunctions of Jewish law articulate Judaism’s deep-seated sense of covenant, a partnership with the divine to finish the task of creation. Individually, the mitzvot accomplish different ends. Some serve to harness and focus human energy by forging a regimen made up of boundaries, standards and rituals. To indulge in everything we are able to do, does not necessarily enhance human happiness or well-being. Some mitzvot provide the definitions and norms for the formation of community, while others still generate respites of holiness in which the feeling of God’s nearness pervades and overwhelms.
The institution of Shabbat, perhaps the greatest legacy of the Jewish religious imagination, realizes all three. The weekly rest it imposes both humbles and elevates. By desisting from all productive work for an entire day, Jews acknowledge God’s sovereignty over the world and the status of human beings as mere tenants and stewards…
…[Does not lead] Conservative Judaism to assert blithely that the halakha is immutable. Its historical sense is simply too keen. The halakhic system, historically considered, evinces a constant pattern of responsiveness, change and variety. Conservative Judaism did not read that record as carte blanche for a radical revision or even rejection of the system, but rather as warrant for valid adjustment where absolutely necessary. The result is a body of Conservative law sensitive to human need, halakhic integrity and the worldwide character of the Jewish community…
Belief in God
I come, at last, to the seventh and most basic core value of Conservative Judaism: its belief in God. It is this value which plants the religious nationalism and national religion that are inseparable from Judaism in the universal soil of monotheism. Remove God, the object of Israel’s millennial quest, and the rest will soon unravel. But this is precisely what Conservative Judaism refused to do, even after the Holocaust. Abraham Joshua Heschel, who came to the United States in March, 1940, to emerge after the war as the most significant Jewish theologian of the modern period, placed God squarely at the center of his rich exposition of the totality of the Jewish religious experience.
To speak of God is akin to speaking about the undetected matter of the universe. Beyond the reach of our instruments, it constitutes at least 90 per cent of the mass in the universe. Its existence is inferred solely from its effects: the gravitational force, otherwise unaccounted for, that it exerts on specific galactic shapes and rotational patterns and that it contributes in general to holding the universe together.
Similarly, Heschel was wont to stress the partial and restricted nature of biblical revelation.
“With amazing consistency the Bible records that the theophanies witnessed by Moses occurred in a cloud. Again and again we hear that the Lord ‘called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud’ (Exodus 24:16)…
We must neither willfully ignore nor abuse by allegorization these important terms. Whatever specific fact it may denote, it unequivocally conveys to the mind the fundamental truth that God was concealed even when He revealed, that even while His voice became manifest, His essence remained hidden.”(6)
For Judaism, then, God is a felt presence rather than a visible form, a voice rather than a vision. Revelation tends to be an auditory and not a visual experience. The grandeur of God is rarely compromised by the hunger to see or by the need to capture God in human language. And yet, God’s nearness and compassion are sensually asserted. The austerity of the one and the intimacy of the other are the difference between what we know and what we feel. God is both remote and nearby, transcendent and immanent. To do justice to our head and heart, that is, to the whole person, Judaism has never vitiated the polarity that lies in the midst of its monotheistic faith…
josh
6/16/2005
Are you proseltysing?
Anyways,
I’ll give you that in these days of short tempers, intolerance, and increasing assimilation, there should definitely be a renewal of Jewish unity. Instead of emphasizing the differences, we should start from what we have in common and go from there.
Unfortunately, I think that this starts and ends with deciding who has a Jewish mother.
Sorry, I’m praying that mashiach comes very soon to settle this argument once and for all!
esther
6/16/2005
Chancellor Schorsch announced his retirement yesterday, actually. Since we’re talking Conservative Judaism and all. Don’t get excited about who’s gonna replace him…he’s stepping down June 30 of next year.
laya
6/16/2005
On paper it all sounds so good, doesn’t it?
I grew up bewteen my local Reform and Conservative shuls. I went to Sunday school at the Conservative one. No one in my class returned to that place after our bar or bat mitzvah’s if we were given the choice. They completely failed to instill in us any sense of passion or joy about being Jewish. They failed to instill a sense of community between the members, or relevance to the real world in the stuff we were learning. In fact, I barely remember what they taught us. All I know is that you can ask any secular Israeli kid on the street who Rambam is and they can tell you. After years of conservative hebrew school I don’t remember ever hearing the name.
If Conservative Judaism “worked” I really might not have much of a problem with it. But I know my experience isn’t unique, and the conservative movement keeps losing numbers for a reason.
ck
6/16/2005
Thank you so much TM for that lovely and informative essay on Conservative Judaism. I definitely learnt a thing or two. I was particularly interested in your quoting from Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. In that respect, just as a minor adendum, I recall reading an article in Forward where the good Rabbi, head of Conservative Judaism’s flagship institution stated, unequivocally, that
The same article noted that according “to the … National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01, Conservative Judaism has lost its primacy as the nation’s largest synagogue movement. The survey found that only 33% of households belonging to a synagogue affiliated with a Conservative temple — a 10-percentage-point drop from the 43% reported in the 1990 survey.”
You write in your post that:
Stats and personal experience clearly demonstrate that Conservative Judaism has not adapted too well to change. Which is kinda odd. I mean with all the lofty values meant to appeal to the modern thinking Jew, you would think Conservative synagogues would be booming, that kids brought up within the Conservative movement would be leading a veritable rennaissance in Jewish communal life. Instead we are faced with the spectacle of young Jews abandoning Judaism in droves (except within Orthodox circles) we see rampant intermarriage (except within Orthodox circles) we see declining birth rates (except within… you get the point). Its gotten to the point where we now have to look to non-Jews to save Judaism! What’s up with that?
I dunno. But I do know that Conservative Judaism isn’t for me and that consequently, all of the problems mentioned above will not directly affect me. Of course anything that detrimentally affects klal yisrael affects me, and I am sad for those folks who do not see the same beauty in Judaism that I do. Oh well. Think about it.
David M. Frost
6/16/2005
Speaking as a former conservative Jew, I find this article silly. “The main principle that defines conservative Judaism is our relationship to modern science and scholarship.” No, it isn’t. The main principle that defines conservative Judaism is compromise. They claim to observe halakhah– yet: something like 25% or fewer of self-identified conservative Jews bother to keep kosher; conservative “rabbis” permit driving on Shabbos; the Conservative movement denies the authenticity of Torah (having been persuaded by gentile “Bible scholarship” that the Torah was written by people); and the list goes on. Indeed, one need only look at the intermarriage rate among conservative Jews to see where the movement is headed. Conservative Jews should either return to Torah observance, or start shopping for Christmas presents for their grandchildren. People won’t stay with a religion that is based on evolving scientific notions rather than revealed truth, since it’s always subject to revision.
Judi
6/16/2005
Don’t blame the Conservative movement for these problems. I’m afraid it’s actually the fault of our parents and grandparents who ran away from observant Judaism as soon as they perceived that no one was looking.
Let’s be honest and recognize that the people who populate many Reform and Conservative congregations started out in families that didn’t strongly emphasize Jewish practice. Speaking from my own experience, my parents weren’t at all interested in whether or not I knew who Rambam was. They were only concerned with making sure I had a Bat Mitzvah, and the fact that I was interested in learning beyond that was chalked up to weirdness on my part.
Oddly enough, my grandparents were largely non-observant (no one kept Shabbos or kashrut), although both sets were very culturally connected. If there had been no “Conservative Movement”, we’d probably have been non-observant members of an Orthodox congregation. I’m not sure how that alternative would have been better.
Jewish Mother
6/16/2005
(You mention the Saducees. But they clearly lost the debate! The Pharisees clearly won! Yet you mention these two groups as if their debate had ended in a tie. People who, today, decide to give the Saducee method another try, to see if it works this time, are not being reasonable. They are betting on something that already has been plainly seen not to work.)
themiddle
6/16/2005
ck and Laya, I’m disappointed in both of your posts.
Laya, I also grew up within the Conservative system and I was offered gemara classes, not to mention discussions about the Rambam. I purposely posted the materials up there to show that Conservative Judaism is inclusive of Jewish thinking, halacha and the ongoing development of Jewish thinking…which would mean the Rambam is right up there.
As for you ck, why the triumphant tone? In the other discussion I ask where Orthodox Judaism would be without the support of the remainder of the Jewish community.
Nobody has responded. We all know why.
If you check out the Schorsch link I provided, you will learn that Conservative Jews contribute the lion’s share of the funds that are contributed to the Jewish community. In other words, they are partially subsidizing this great renaissance of Orthodox Judaism.
Perhaps what is most disappointing, ck, is that you focus and seem to take some high-minded pleasure in the failures of the Conservative movement. Yes, they are having problems, but not for the reasons you state. Judi is actually very much on target, in my opinion: the problem is faith.
You either have blind faith or you don’t. If you don’t, then you have to approach things differently. In this case, the Conservatives differentiate, for example, between a literal reading of Torah M’Sinai (Moses coming down with the tablets and the Torah after visiting with God) and reading it as a metaphor while agreeing that the Torah is divinely inspired.
Schorsch even attempts to avoid this discussion altogether and states:
What more do you want? I mean, do you expect everybody to believe unequivocally in Torah M’Sinai? Were you satisfied with the answers given in the dinosaur discussion?
Show some respect, dude, and if you can’t, at least come up with some cogent debating points as opposed to some pie in the sky stories about why the movement is losing people. I wonder how quickly these 10-baby Orthodox families would shrink if resources from the rest of us weren’t forthcoming.
themiddle
6/16/2005
David, there are plenty of Jews who also research and publish “bible scholarship.” Quite a few of the leading scholars are in Israeli universities like Hebrew U., by the way. And in the dinosaur debate, nobody gave a satisfactory response as to why the Creation Story and the Garden of Eden stories don’t tell a consistent tale.
By the way, the Conservatives practice “Torah observance” as I’ve outlined above. That some of their members don’t is true, but then again we have Chief Orthodox Rabbis with families that kidnap and beat young kids who talk on the Internet and want to meet. Should I assume that this is representative of Orthodox Judaism?
ck
6/16/2005
Come on themiddle! You know I love all my Jews! What difference does it make who funds Orthodox Jewish institutions? They are, regardless of their personal level of observance, people who see value in Orthodox Judaism. Did I say that Conservative Jews are, what? Useless turds? No. I just don’t think Conservative Judaism is, you know, working. In the last 2 years I’ve taken close to 120 young people to Israel – I would say about 40 of them grew up within a Conservative system and their ties to Judaism were, uh, weak. I know that when our self appointed leaders bellyache about the impending decline in Judaism, they are not talking about Orthodox Judaism. So please, with all due respect, I am going to ask a question and I’d like an answer:
Conservative Judaism, what have you done for me lately?
And please, try to distinguish between individual Jews who happen to be members of a Conservative congregation, and the Conservative movement itself. Also don’t tell me what I already know, that there are great and wonderful individual Conservative Jews, Rabbis and Congregations. I wanna know what Conservative Judaism has done for its decliuning congregants and the corpus of Jews.
wine guy
6/16/2005
So here is the Torah Israel it is the blueprint for how to live your life.
What does it say?
God took the Jewish people out of Egypt and gave them the Torah at mount Sinia…. haha just kidding that really didn’t happen… its a great story though… any takers?
hmm let me think
laya
6/16/2005
TM said In the other discussion I ask where Orthodox Judaism would be without the support of the remainder of the Jewish community.
Nobody has responded. We all know why.
Ummm, what?
Helluva lot of good funds will do as Conservative numbers continue to diminish, and Jews become less interested in giving to Jewish causes, eh?
You might also ask, where would any jews be without Orthodoxy? Non-existent.
Jewish Mother
6/16/2005
The Orthodox communities take nothing from the prison budget (OK, almost nothing). They take nothing from the public school budget, although they pay taxes for both. I don’t know how the non-orthodox fund the orthodox?? I am not aware of the UJC and those guys etc doing much for them. Maybe I just don’t know?
Even if they do, do you think they do nothing for you in return?
If the Torah was “adopted by the Jewish people as its spiritual font” can’t they just decide to un-adopt it?
Are you seriously doubting that there is a problem in Conservative continuity? You know the people and their family stories. We always assume problems are just among our unfortunate friends. Right around the corner there are wonderful families who do NOT have these problems. Right.
Jewish Mother
6/16/2005
The two stories of creation differ because the first one is general and the second one more in-depth and detailed. What is strange about that? I talk that way, too. The first version prepares you. It might have been too much all at once. As it underlies all other stories we have to be let into it slowly.
I was never much of a student and I am grateful G-d did NOT give us a factually correct scientific geology / biology lecture on Friday night. That would be so prosaic! I love that science but on Friday night I want something transcendental.
Don’t tell me the rate of acceleration of a falling body when I want to know what it all means.
As for the Israeli secular bible scholars, what does that prove? You know there have always been unbelieving Jews.
Ben-David
6/16/2005
It’s not true that Conservative Judaism has failed!
Conservative Judaism set out to rationalize Judaism in the light of modern American living. And they’ve succeeded:
– their children are SO well-adjusted to modern life that they no longer need any Jewish particularity at all…
- and they’re so well adjusted to American society that they eat, drink, party, rest, and marry just like other Americans…
Success!
Ben-David
6/16/2005
So middeleh: this time you got taken down by not-necessarily-Orthodox people, people with direct personal experience of Conservative Judaism (which is probably why they couldn’t get through the Profound Exposition of Great Ideas without gagging – because they know how unrelated all this gasbagging is to C Judaism as it is lived).
So now what? Can’t blame this critique on Orthodox intolerance, can we?
jsirpicco
6/16/2005
YAAAAAAAHHHHHHH- WWWWWWWWWW- NNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!
Wake me when there’s something to talk about!!!
sarah
6/16/2005
look, i don’t officially identify as Conservative, but i can tell you that there are many vibrant, powerful, spanktastic Conservative shuls out there that are inspiring kids and adults alike to become more observant Jews. please don’t everyone always insist on basing their comments on their own sorry childhood shul.
Shuls are started by congregations who share an ideology. At a certain point, many congregations choose to affiliate with a movement, because movements bring nice bennies, like subventions for programming, summer camp funding, a national peer group, lobbying, yadda yadda. Some shuls stay indie. Like mine, for instance. I see this as the wave of the future. My ortho/conservative.conservadox peers in San Francisco don’t seem very compelled by the idea of affiliation at all. We know we want to davven traditionally, we know we are stringently kosher, and we know we want mixed seating. So we’ve made our own little niche. I see more of this on the horizon, not less.
Some congregations that are amazingly good at being Conservative choose not to affiliate for political reasons. Take NYC’s B’nai Jeshurun which has stayed unaffiliated altogether, for instance, or look at Sha’ar Zahav in SF for an example of a shul that affiliated Reform instead.
judi
6/16/2005
I’d be willing to bet that more non-Orthodox Jews fund Orthodox causes than vice versa. Here’s a quick list of a few ways that the general Jewish population contributes:
the purchase of hechshered products
memberships in multiple shuls in their communities, even ones they don’t regularly attend
donations to Yeshivas, Federations, etc.
All parts of the Jewish community are valuable beyond measure. You do serious destruction to Klal Yisroel when you speak of writing off a segment of the diminishing Jewish population just because they don’t think like you do.
Also, don’t close your eyes to parts of the Orthdox community that are drifting away. Everything’s not hunky-dory everywhere. The ultra-Orthodox have the greatest rates of retention, but “general” Orthodoxy has lost numbers to other movements (and religions!). How do you think all those Conservatives and Reformers got that way?? You know, there are plenty of Conservative and Reform Rabbis that grew up in Orthodox families.
Incidentally, Jewish Mother writes that Orthodox communities take little financial support from their greater secular communities. However, in places like NYC, the Orthodox population constitutes the most impoverished Jewish segment. Don’t think those communities aren’t subsidized. And the justice system is no stranger to some groups of Orthdox Jews.
themiddle
6/16/2005
What do you mean I got “taken down?” You mean there are former Conservatives who are now Orthodox and bad-mouth Conservative Judaism? Big deal, let them deal with their own issues, positive and negative. Don’t you live in Israel? How do you square with taking funds from a secular state?
Ck, of course there is a problem in the Conservative movement and nobody said otherwise. But take a look at what Schorch has written and you don’t have to tell us, just tell yourself whether you agree with most of the philosphy he puts forward or not. Conservative Judaism is a very thorough and a very enlightened philosophy if you have to find a nexus between faith and science, respect for our traditions and incorporation of our different value systems into those traditions (take a look at what Rabbi Weiner says about the inclusion of women these days).
The discussions around here have been about exclusion. For some reason, our Orthodox visitors, and some of our “observant” posters and visitors keep dealing with other streams quite negatively. Here you have a thoughtful philosophical approach to Judaism, which incorporates God, torah, halacha, Israel and Hebrew, and yet the same negative attacks continue. Perhaps the self-righteous should look deep in their heart and ask themselves whether extreme views are healthy.
And yes, JM, there is a practical angle here. It is hypocritical to take funds from a secular state and then complain about the secular Jews. It is hypocritical to take funds from the UJF or other bodies, which gets a majority of its funds from Conservative Jews, and then spew the garbage we have read in our discussions about Conservative Jews.
In fact, I would add that every time somebody comes to us with the refrain about how Conservative conversions are unkosher, and Conservative rabbis are epikursim etc., we probably drive away a couple of prospective Jews. “I don’t want to be Orthodox, but if I join the Conservatives, I’ll be treated like dogshit, so why bother?”
themiddle
6/16/2005
Oh, ps, didn’t ck tell us about yeshiva bochers surfing porn in Internet cafes (a detail the recent article in the Jerusalem Report about this phenomenon forgot to mention)?
At least they believe in Torah Misinai…
Jewish Mother
6/16/2005
But I don’t think much non-Orthodox money flows to the Orthodox.I have never heard of any grants like this.
The plain fact is that the Orthodox are the ones keeping in-depth Torah scholarship going, by doing it. If other people want to help fund this, that is a mitzvah and very nice of them.
Israel is not a secular state.
Conservative Judaism is indeed a very thorough and well reasoned philosophy. But people want religion not philosophy.
GM is a philosophy scholar. But he doesn’t quote Plato before eating lunch, he just eats lunch.
He doesn’t “believe in” Plato, he just likes what he had to say. Maybe reading Plate has helped his character. That’s nice, but it is optional. Where are the rules?
How will we have a good life without rules?
If you eat a cheeseburger, a puppy will die.
How? Because dog-fighting to the death is only illegal because of Judeo-Christian values in our legal system. People do it anyway. But at least they can be prosecuted.
No Oral Law, eventually, no law at all. Just philosophy. PHILOSOPHY HAS NO TEETH>
Jewish Mother
6/16/2005
About your discovery that the Orthodox do things they should not: you know very well that the existence of a rule is far more important than whether it is always obeyed. At least they would be ashamed if caught, in that internet cafe. There are others who would say, “what’s your problem….. “
laya
6/16/2005
TM writes For some reason, our Orthodox visitors, and some of our “observant” posters and visitors keep dealing with other streams quite negatively.
As opposed to our non-orthodox or non-observant postors and vistors who address traditional Judaism with nothing but constructive criticism and respect, huh?
There was also something about “triumphant tones” and taking “high-minded pleasure in the failures” of other movements.
what is it they say about glass houses again?
Jewish Mother
6/16/2005
We should not be mean to TM. He is MARRIED and has CHILDREN. Am Yisrael Chai.
judi
6/16/2005
“The plain fact is that the Orthodox are the ones keeping in-depth Torah scholarship going, by doing it. If other people want to help fund this, that is a mitzvah and very nice of them.”
If that’s so, why are the classes in the Orthodox dayschools around here hovering at 5 to 12 students per grade while the Shechter school has 30 in next year’s 8th grade class? Why is there only one non-Haredi Jewish high school in all of CT and why does it only have a handful of students?
Memo to Orthodox: you’re slacking.
Jewish Mother
6/16/2005
Maybe they just don’t live in Connecticut in large numbers?
equipoise
6/16/2005
Know ye that Rabbi Natan Slifkin will attempt to satisfy you, and anyone else bothered by this poingant question, in a speech on this very topic entitled “Confronting the Challenges of Creation, Dinosaurs and the Age of the Universe”, at a Young Israel in Brooklyn on June 29. Rabbi Slifkin, who has written several books on the confluence of Torah and science, is famous–albeit with such fame limited to the ambit of certain circles deeming such things sufficiently juicy to generate fame–for having several of his works banned by certain leading charedi rabbis. see host of intriguing posts regarding the ban and related controversy at hirhurim.blogs...)
Link to a flyer promoting R. Slifkin’s upcoming speech:
yasharbooks.co...
themiddle
6/16/2005
JM, no need to worry, I can stand up for myself.
themiddle
6/16/2005
JM, the reality is that the general funds of the Jewish community subsidize segments of the Orthodox community. There is nothing wrong with that and it’s something I support. It’s when those who receive this largess turn around and attack the benefactors as not being Jewish or good Jews that we encounter a problem.
And Israel is a secular state.
judi
6/16/2005
“Maybe they just don’t live in Connecticut in large numbers?”
That’s not it at all. There are plenty of Orthodox Jews around here. They just can’t justify spending vast sums of money on a school with fewer resources than many public schools. That, and CT has many fine private schools. So it falls into the lap of the greater Jewish community to support the dayschools. (See TM’s post on Jewish education for a great discussion of these issues).
Jewish Mother
6/16/2005
I have seen a bit of the grant lists and I have never seen any money flowing from places like UJC or UJA to anything Orthodox, never, ever. Can you be more precise? Is this an urban legend or do you have hard information? Have you looked at annual reports?
I know TM thinks the greater US Jewish Community SHOULD help out with the high cost of Day Schools but I am not sure this is going on already. And certainly nothing Orthodox.
Jewishness is so strong people think they can not worry about it too much, that it will take care of itself, it has a life of its own. But a car can only run on momentum and fumes for three, or perhaps four, generations.
Every Jew is perfect, says Chabad, and I agree.
themiddle
6/16/2005
Thanks Equipoise. I can’t make it to that talk, it’s a bit far for me.
I’m a little disturbed by this ban on his books. Ban? Cherem? That’s insane. Are they afraid of him? If so, why, considering that any library already has a multitude of books about science that any Haredi child could easy borrow and read.
themiddle
6/16/2005
JM, look at the UJF. They do not differentiate between day schools and yeshivas.
Jewish Mother
6/16/2005
You don’t even get the initials right. It’s UJA-Fed. Do you really know whom they fund and how?
I think I know who you mean, the guy who attacks the Torah’s “science”. But why should he care if he is banned? He doesn’t believe, so he doesn’t need the love and approval of all those fools who do belive. He will be happy in his new life. Nobody is putting him in jail. What’s it to him if other people are wrong? Where is his TOLERANCE?
judi
6/16/2005
TM- failedmessiah.com had an extensive discussion of Rabbi Slifkin’s controversy.
esther
6/16/2005
JM, just for peacemaking sake, I wanted to point out that the federation goes by different initials in different regions. In NYC, it’s UJA-Federation. In Chicago, it’s JUF. And the overarching umbrella organization is UJC (United Jewish Communities). So let’s not quibble over regional semantics, ok? Clearly there’s enough else here to “altercate” about.
Jewish Mother
6/16/2005
Not altercating, just wondering what the annual reports say about real money flowing from non-Orthodox to Orthodox, which I have tremendous trouble believing really happens. Assertion is not enough for me. People here seem very sure it flows. The annual reports are public. It has to be on paper to be real. From what I see and hear ….. no way.
Jewish Mother
6/16/2005
A serious look at these public reports might help TM in his efforts to address the high cost of Day Schools. All non-profits must publish them.
judi
6/16/2005
Having worked the phone bank on Super Sunday in support of my kids’ (Orthodox) dayschool, I had a “factsheet” that gave the division of allocations. There certainly was an educational budget that helped to support the schools. In addition, most of the people I called (and all of those who pledged for me) were definitely not Orthodox.
themiddle
6/16/2005
*sigh* JM, I don’t have time to do extensive research, so I’ll just provide one of the first links I googled:
Click Here
You can see a table that breaks down the community contribution to each school in Denver including the Orthodox schools, as well as the subsidy per child.
I’m confident that if I did deeper into different communities, I will be able to show you how other funds are allocated. Don’t become so upset, it’s perfectly fine that Orthodox institutions are receiving funding. It’s just that it would be nice if we could stop hearing about how Conservative Jews and other non-Orthodox Jews are somehow lacking in Jewishness.
Note from ck: long links make baby jesus cry. And Rami Watid.
Jewish Mother
6/16/2005
Great! I did not know that. I stand corrected.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/16/2005
Judi sounds right. I don’t know east coast reality. I know here on the west Coast most “orthodox” heavily rely on “NON-orthodox” sources of money. By heavily, I mean most sources go that way I bet.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/16/2005
Hey, no bussiness like Shnorr bussiness I know…Every Rabbi doing Hollywood knows that.
Jewish Mother
6/16/2005
OK. A Jew is a Jew.
But philosophy still has no teeth. It can’t prosecute those who fail its ideals.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/16/2005
Speaking about the west coast shtick….there just was an earthquake. It didn’t seem like a big one, but things swayed
equipoise
6/16/2005
Thanks, right Judi. In connection with that, I for one refuse to reference any “Bnei Brak Flat Earth Society” t-shirt, such as one bearing the slogan “The World Is Flatter Than A Potato Latke On Your Bubbie’s Griddle. You don’t believe us, chas vesholom?!?” Um, “Just say nayn to science”?
and I will certainly not provide a handy link, such as this
Elon
6/16/2005
Brian: Excuse me. Are you the Judean People’s Front?
Reg: Fuck off! We’re the People’s Front of Judea
Not even really that relevant to the conversation, but it’s a funny film and i’m growing weary of both sides banging their collective heads against the wall on these issues.
esther
6/16/2005
Elon, welcome to the Jewish people. Aren’t you glad you joined us?
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/16/2005
5.3 100 mi northeast of LA. Not enough to mangle buildings, Thank G-d
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/16/2005
The earthquake got major breaking news on local fox TV. I wasn’t watching tv when the earthquake hit. But I turned on the TV and saw the news exhaustively replayed….
Elon
6/16/2005
Esther – Yes of course
Where else would i get to participate in such rousing and intellectually stimulating debate? And at that a debate about whether or not i’m actually one of the Jewish people! I got nothing but love though.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/16/2005
I think I am going back to Israel where its safe!
And don’t tell me there are earthquakes there…I know there are… but don’t tell me anyway.
grandmuffti
6/16/2005
“The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.”
Time for some lunch!
Just kidding. This wrangling is awfully funny. Laya, you’re pulling Shtremiel’s old trick and gneralizing off a personal experience. Muffti went to a zionist/reform hebrew day school when young (he was actually, ironically, the most religious amongst his peers back then!) He then went to a basically conservative jewish high school (where, admittedly, he was far from the most religious.) And he knows who the Rambam is. Rashi too. Conservative education can suck, or it can be great. Local variation doesn’t seem to show anything all that interesting.
Jewish Mother
6/16/2005
I know less than anybody here about Judaism.
I think the purpose of Jewish studying has changed. You guys are very well informed but you have been studying for different reasons than in times past.
themiddle
6/16/2005
JM, we study for the same reason: enjoyment. Some enjoy it because they fear God and some do it because they love God and some do it because they love the tradition. The hope is that nobody gets excluded, but I realize that’s a bit of a vain hope.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/16/2005
It seems that that more then anybody else, the
Conservative seem amongst the most difficult to
define. In my experience, there is tremendous
regional variaince that I am begining to find
interesting. I am begining to pick up West Coast
UJ conservative has its divergence with JTS and
Israeli Masorati. I have heard from Israeli Masorti that they distinguish their policies and
philosophies from the American Conservative in
major areas. One area is the cooperation with the
Israeli Rabinate. Another world of bewildering
divergence is the concept of “Progressive
Judiasim” practiced as named so in Australia,New
Zealand and Europe. I have no idea as to where
conservative and reform blend into the definition
of “progressive judiasm.” I am not sure that the
real advocates of any of the above mentioned
exhaustiveness even know themselves.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/16/2005
I have always known of the large regional difference in West and East coast jewish cultural view. Its a no brainer that the East coast practice a more “conservative conservative…..” Even the Reform in the East Coast is often more conservative then West Coast Conservative. That is old news to me. What I am trying to learn is how that is from the top down, because I think a lot of that is due to the leadership.
Me
6/16/2005
Themiddle: thanks so much for your article. It summarised my own belief system better than I could have done…
My dad has considered me an “apikores” (or the feminine equivalent) since I started university and had all these free-thinking ideas about the role of the torah in science and archaeology (as you can probably gather from my Flood posts). Difficulty is, there’s no conservative movement in Australia. There is a conservative rabbi or two brought out from the States, but they head congregations which are “Reform” or “Progressive”. Here, you are either Orthodox, or you are Reform. That’s it.
sarah m
6/16/2005
i grew up orthodox, and am now gabbai of a conservative minyan. I wonder why so many newly-orhtodox are taking such a triumphalist tone. DO you know how many day school kids never set foot in anywhere religious as soon as they get to college? How many orthodox Jews eat non-kosher out when no one’s looking? How it is not the newly orhtodox but restrictions on birth control adn pressure to marry early that is keeping the numbers up? How NCSY (ortho youth group)got the shabbat thing going strong, but often lets chesed (acts of loving kindness/service) fall through the cracks?
Orhtodox rabbi Yitz Greenberg once said “I don’t care what denomination you belong to, as long as your ashamed of it.”
conservative Judaism has a long way to go, but so does orthodoxy, adn I for one am glad to live in a community where people who call themselves religious dont go around saying that women belong in the kitchen, or that its ok to steal from non-Jews, and where no one acts as if the kitzur shulchan aruch (string hungarian summary of Jewish law) was given at sinai.
themiddle
6/16/2005
Me, check out any Sephardic synagogue. They are observant, but in a nice way. Kinda like ck.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/16/2005
dear themiddle,
Do you find all this Progressive, reform, reconstuction, conservative, conservadox, masoriti labels confussing and amorphous? Where does one begin and another end?
Joe Schmo
6/16/2005
Me, you have never answered my questions in that flood post.
You better prove your father wrong by backing yourself up or risk him being right.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
Yo bro Joe Schmo,
How was Shavuot by you?
Nathan
6/17/2005
Well, I slack reading for a day or two and now I see the wife has gone off on a wild crusade in support of the Conservative Movement. Egads, I wonder if this will get out kids thrown out of their Orthodox/Community day school?
Our home base is a shul affiliated with the Conservative Movement that encourages Shomer Shabbat/Kashrut and yes, even puts in the yearly plug for the community mikveh. However, I also twitch every time a gabbai calls a bat-cohen for the first aliah (please, I beg you, just call rishon), and I’m sad when there is no birkat cohanim for similarly ridiculous political reasons. The Conservative Movement appears to be a broad movement with many different flavors of rabbinic leadership that evolved over the past hundred years; the two Conservative shuls in our area couldn’t be more different if they tried. Many people walk to our shul on Shabbat, in part because it’s possible to do so given its location in a quiet part of a small city. The sidewalks make walking a safe possibility; the other Conservative shul is located in a country-suburban setting on a secondary highway which makes walking more difficult and dangerous, as if most of the Mercedes/Lexus crowd would walk anyway.
Is Torah true? As I’ve written before, I think there is a strong case to be made that this debate can never be settled due to the disaster of the first temple destruction. R. Ezra – or someone – left their redaction all over the text we have today. The text contains sections written in different language styles indicative of hundreds – perhaps, thousands – of years development over time. Believe what you want – no one can prove anyone else wrong without older sources. Now, how perfectly divine is that? Perhaps, the question is therefore not “do you belive that every crown on the letters was crafted by haShem”, but rather, “since it’s not in heaven (Torah), what good will you do with it on earth?”
It would be hard for any honest person to deny that there are learned legal scholars at JTS, an institution which I’m told has one of the premier Judaic libraries in the world. The question is, how is it that they seem to have come up with a way to allow anything at all that the pro-egalitarian crowd demanded? I think they might have more academic credibility if they had offered some “no” as well as “yes” answers to these tough questions. I’d rather they concentrated on blowing up obviously sexist legal barriers such as “kol isha” and racist barriers like “kosher wine” rather than looking to put female rabbis on every beit din possible just to make a point.
So, when I get driven crazy enough, we spend some time visiting friends at the various Orthodox shuls in town. Then I’m cheerfully reminded that we all have our share of wonderful as well as foolish ways. Ah, what a glorious and colorful mosaic of a people – when they’re not wasting time cutting each other down and declaring one another bad/fake/not Jews.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
Sometimes when I approach the “conservative,” I
get encouraged by what I see or hear. I have
been through the dorms at the UJ – Univesity of
Judiasm in LA, and see all the shomar shabat light
guards over the light switches, the stacks of neatly pre cut toilet paper in the public bathrooms, the cute little Hillel club room with all the judiaca and sedurim. That is impressive in some ways for me. In a lot of ways that looks better then what I remember my Yeshiva dorms looking like. Then there is a darker side of the story. The part that takes me a while to see. The one yearly time I remember going to the UJ over the years was a Kosher fair on the campus. That fair was a lot of fun, it had boothes from local kosher restaurants, lots of interesting fabric and judiaca displays etc…
In the last 3 or so years that has stopped. I heard the reason why was that student body leadership decided it was to religious and the council wanted to phase it out. I knew a student of UJ who tried to put together a daily minyan that counted men only. That minyan was banned on UJ campus and posters advertising the minyan was forbidden by authority of the student council and University policy that permits egalitarian only. I heard the guy who tried to make the minyan had enough men. I was willing to help. As I got know more and more students at UJ I heard more and more stories that got more and more outrageous.
A kind of “anti” attitude prevails. I don’t totally understand it. Then sometimes I will meet students who really want to learn or who are very fine and accomadating. So its a real up and down ride for me. The Rabbi I am most close to has discouraged me from spending as much time and
doing as much as I want there. So I most of what I
have felt at the UJ is disappointment.
The same is so for many of the “conservative”
synagagues I have dealt with over the years.
Often they look impressive. I have met good
people there. Then after awhile I see and hear
stuff they do that I can’t deal with.
Joe Schmo
6/17/2005
I had a nice shavuot Natsach.
Nathan stop blabbing like TM does and give specifics. What about ‘rav ezra’ what different languages. Say something someone can answer otherwise I consider it more BS propaganda the conservative puts out to make themselves able to deny what they want to deny.
esther
6/17/2005
Firstly, the library at JTS is simply astounding. Not just for the volumes of text that are there (amazing enough to draw shtreimel-wearing, non-woman-talking-to, chasidim) but for the rare book room, which always has some sort of overwhelmingly impressive exhibit on medieval lithographs, or the like. People arrange for tours. So clearly, the library itself is not “Conservative” and people get out of it what they seek from it.
One of the overarching themes that I’m hearing here is: “I like X movement, until they do something that drives me crazy or that I can’t stand anymore, and then I get fed up. When that happens, I go over to Y movement, which makes me less crazy.” And believe me, as someone who feels marginalized by (most) Orthodox synagogues (but sees the value of tradition and education) and too traditional for (most) Conservative synagogues (but appreciates the more relaxed, inviting and inclusive aspects of that approach), believe me when I say I understand this issue pretty darned well. And actually, it’s quite a struggle for me on a daily basis. The search for self, where do I belong: in a community where I might be more intensively educated in certain respects than the rabbi (this isn’t the rule, but it has happened) or in a community that doesn’t necessarily value the entirety of my mind because of my gender…
Even if you’re going to say that “Orthodoxy is authentic,” which kind? If you’re going to use the word, you need to consider what authentic really means. If it means becoming Karaites or Pharisees, are you proponents of authenticity willing to give up your Shabbes clocks and sit in the dark?
Every movement’s got its propaganda. Otherwise they wouldn’t have PR departments, which I’ve worked in at two major Jewish universities. If you’re looking for a perfect, authentic movement that doesn’t in any way incorporate modernity, then good luck to you. You might have to found your own. And if you have a good Shabbat morning kiddush, let me know. That is, if you can still talk to me, with me being a woman and all.
David M. Frost
6/17/2005
Regarding comments about non-Orthodox Jews funding Orthodox activities, good for them. Obviously, they can see who is preserving Judaism. This is hardly a justification for the existence of the liberal branches of Judaism. People need not belong to a synagogue that justifies and rationalizes their non-observance in order to donate money to Judaism. Were it not for those synagogues, the people in question could donate the same money– and, when they did attend a synagogue, at least they’d hear a message with some substance.
Jewish Mother
6/17/2005
My own private take is: every crown was crafted by Hashem. So, why different language styles? Same reason as different butterfly styles, and different bunny- rabbit styles, in nature. He likes variety! He knew the Torah would be speaking to many ears in the future, in many language styles, and put these notes in the music, so to speak.
Religion cannot be deduced into existence by reason and also cannot be deduced out of existence by reason.
If someone said to me, “I am so glad I have a personal tradition of loving you” I would wonder what was wrong. That sounds like “I used to love you”, not “I am presently madly in love with you”.
We are not in Eden and things can’t be perfect.
Judi
6/17/2005
That’s a mighty wide brush you’re painting with, DMF. Careful you don’t drip too much on the floor ’cause the paint you’re using is a b*tch to clean up later.
Are you basing your statements on personal experience?
Jewish Mother
6/17/2005
As far as I understand, Pharisees don’t make you sit in the dark. The rabbis say, we can make arrangements so we can have hot food and light on Shabbat, by using times and crock-pots etc. The Oral Law and rabbinic rulings are part of the Pharisaic legacy, I thought. But I have never attended a Jewish school, just taken some adult classes, so maybe I don’t know what the Pharisees were about?
esther
6/17/2005
My point was, if yanyone found truly authentic Judaism, it would probably not allow for crock-pots and Shabbes clocks. There are always “rabbis who say…” and because we are in a society with choices, we have to choose which rabbis are the ones who we listen to.
If you’re going to say that authentic Judaism allows for crock-pots and Shabbat clocks, then you’re dealing in the same kind of “working within halakhah” or “dealing with the truths and realities of contemporary religion” that CJ does. It’s all loopholes, and whether or not you accept those loopholes as being inside or outside the realm of the acceptable.
David M. Frost
6/17/2005
Judi:
Yes, I am.
Jewish Mother
6/17/2005
Sorry I don’t see why a fully, totally Orthodox Judaism can’t allow for timers and crock-pots when it’s right in the Tanach itself that G-d gave us two days’ manna on Friday. He invented the first crock-pot, so to speak. The people didn’t stuff themselves on Friday and starve on Shabbat. It stayed good overnight.
You are right about the need to simply trust the rabbis. While first having decided on which one is a good one. After that initial evaluation, you trust. That’s because we are a nation of free people and nation of priests who all were present at Sinai and heard the original giving of revelation personally. We have a caste system and at the exact same we do not have a caste system in another sense. This isn’t a contradiction, it is a dynamic. The world runs on dynamics. We can deal with that, with practice. We have free will. Take that, Spinoza. He should have stuck to lens grinding. (No free will, Spinny old boy? Can I steal your wallet and say my theft was pre-ordained? No?) But discussing free will itself demonstrates free will, ha ha.
Ben-David
6/17/2005
Bottom line: when middle and others start talking about “acceptance” and “plurality” and “tolerance” – they are setting a sweetly worded ideological mousetrap.
It then becomes impossible for an Orthodox Jew to disagree with the Conservative take on halacha without the label of “intolerance” crashing down on their heads.
In other words: the talk of “tolerance” is really an arm-twisting way of NOT TOLERATING other opinions.
But inconveniently, those other opinions:
- have more historical weight in Judaism
- have proven more successful in modern American society than all those attempts to “reconcile” Judaism with American society.
Sorry – you can whine all you want about “intolerance” and “exclusion”. But here, now in 2005/5765 it is perfectly valid to bring up the evidence of “progressive” Judaism’s failure – the evidence o statistical collapse, the evidence that most C Jews and congregations are not living anything near Schorsh’s vision, with nothing near the committment that it demands.
This is not 1950 when the Jews were first moving out to the suburbs, and Reform and Conservative Judaism could boast great promise. It is a half-century on – and the landscape through which Jews must travel in fellowship is marked by two major features: the smoking ruins of R and C Judaism, and the renaissance of the Judaism of the Ages, which we had been confidently told would go the way of the dinosaur.
To claim that pointing out this truth is “exclusion” is disingenuous. It’s typical victimology politics – to cover one’s inability to answer valid criticism, divert the conversation to how “nasty” the questioner is being.
Sorry – we have already hemorrhaged too many Jews for us to take this whining seriously. Pointed questions about what has worked, and what hasn’t are integral – and even central – to any modern discussion among Jews.
I wish that middle and others would stop trying to bluff their way out of the reality we all know and must live with.
Jewish Mother
6/17/2005
There is a real difference in sensibility between Orthodox and all other non-Orthodox Judaisms. It’s not just mere “my spaghetti sauce recipe is better than yours, nah nah”.
The difference is deep and serious. It can’t be “toleranced” away. It is worth pondering. It is not just about customs.
I liked the way somebody above said that when they get fatigued and confused they need an occasional dose of Orthodox religious atmosphere even though they are not Orthodox.
THAT MEANS SOMETHING. That contains the point.
esther
6/17/2005
JM, that contains A point. Not THE point. When I tired of being treated like a second-class citizen who had little to contribute to Judaism until she became a married babymaker (even if she was equally or more educated than the men in question), I went the other way. Perhaps if I’d been married at 22 like many of my HS classmates, I’d be ensconced in a religious community in Teaneck or somewhere, playing happily with my babies and preparing for Shabbat. Then, my husband would come home from work and sing Eshet Chayil to me, and I wouldn’t be offened. But clearly, that’s not where I am.
Not that CJ has held all the answers, and that’s part of my personal struggle. I think there are many people, not just Dr. Schorsch, who would say that the “driving to shul on Shabbat” rule was a major misstep. But I also understand that it was a bow to the realities of progressive Judaism in America.
Progress is a bitch–sometimes I think that no one who questions can ever be happy with his or her lot.
tzipi
6/17/2005
There really should just be one never-ending thread for this debate, and if anyone says anything new we can have a celebration.
Jewish Mother
6/17/2005
Is there a female analog to Joe Lieberman, the Orthodox senator? You be it.
Does being an Orthodox woman with children (ok, not twelve children, but a few, anyway) HAVE to preclude intellectual life and work? OK, it might make a dent, but must it totally eliminate intellectual life, writing, work?
There need to be helpers from the old, such as mothers in law and grannies, and nice neighbors.
Maybe with all the electric gadgets in the kitchen and the electronic communications in the office, it could be managed. There seem to be men, husband material, who will lend a hand. But there are still male and female roles.
Ashet Chayil can upset modern women, but I think it is basically the way life is. It plainly says she gets to make business decisions, and have money in her own name, at the end. The domestic angle is just true. If we really don’t want that kitchen thing, well, we can order out.
But then ….
Jewish Mother
6/17/2005
Orthodox families can come in different flavors as long as they are completely Torah-compliant IMHO. And the food can be simpler.
Home made food does not have to be complicated especially when there are small children.
Granny can bring the Shakshuka. She will love it.
A freezer and a microwave… and a crock pot and I am considering a pressure cooker.
And a good pediatrician close by. A maid. Your own washer-dryer even if it takes up a lot of space. A laptop, and wireless everything.
Jewish Mother
6/17/2005
Don’t forget the Cuisinart food processor.
Jewish Mother
6/17/2005
I realize there is still the problem of the (intellectual) separation of the sexes and not giving testimony.
I have no answer for that.
It looks to me as if these things are unfortunately necessary. When the restrictions are removed, the results are not lovely, in my opinion, so it seems like a lesser of evils.
Sigh.
I can only report that there is nothing dull about raising children. Maybe that helps.
Yisrael
6/17/2005
Esther, I like a lot of what you have to say. You explain the Conservative position well. I react negatively to certain proposals I hear at Conservative shuls. However, in a community where people are free to think freely, that will always be a problem. Orthodoxy requires submission to rules to which I cannot agree, and Conservatives sometimes want to reach out a little too much to the less observant (by condoning their actions). However, I have to be in a place where everyone can tolerate what is happening. I would discourage the less observant in their lack of observance, but ultimately, I can readily pray in their company. I cannot readily pray in a place where women are segregated. My community does not even have an Orthodox shul, and I mostly do not want to live in places where Orthodox shuls within walking distance. These issues are far more problematic than merely having to tolerate people who are talking about how Conservatives can be more progressive.
Jewish Mother
6/17/2005
People are very emotionally open when they are praying. Prayer is very personal. I think women need the privacy provided by the Mechitza (the barrier between the sexes). I think men need this too. Women and men are very interested in each other and the separation helps them think about difficult abstract concepts.
That goes for both men and women, and it doesn’t imply inferiority of anybody.
I hate standing up for the Amidah prayer and the mechitza (barrier) isn’t high enough, it’s only shoulder height, and there’s Joe in my face. Hi, Joe. I don’t know you, I don’t want to know you, but I am supposed to close my eyes, screw up my face, and pray in front of you. Right.
Go away, Joe.
Jobber
6/17/2005
For intense concentration, you can close your eyes. Not always are you ‘into’ davening. Myself, I am bored in Shule most of the time. I recently prayed in a Conservative, mixed, minyan at a Shiva call. It didn’t feel strange at all, I wasn’t looking around. I was the same as always, minding my own business.JM, where do you daven in Orthodoxy that you feel such inspiration. I see no inspiration in the ordinary prayers cycle. Maybe a bit on the holidays that is all.
Jobber
6/17/2005
Most Orthodox people get very little from Prayer services, who are we fooling. They complain about how long it is, they start smaller minyans in side rooms that will finish ten minutes earlier, please I live there. I applaud the efforts of all movements to add some pizazz and inspiration to our prayer services.
themiddle
6/17/2005
JM, the inferiority of women is conferred by their learning limitations. How many Orthodox female rabbis are there? 3? 5? When you go to an Orthodox day school and you’re a girl, do they let you study talmud?
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
Esther,
Who isn’t talking to you because you are a women?
In reality, who really isn’t dealing with “modernity” what ever that means? Even those “going back to medievel” maeh sharim extremists seek to be modern in all kinds of hypocritical ways, if you really bothered to get to know them…
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
Apparently, some people here are reading what I
am saying. So what we can see, however the hell
“orthodox” is defined, because I dont’ really care, is that this
“orthodoxy” has no MONOPOLY on
INTOLERANCE or HYPOCROCY…..
The fact that “orthodox” as a label is equally or
more hard to define then “progressive” is no
surprise to anyone. All that kind of labeling is kind of crap to me. In the long run, nobody else gives a crud anyway.
judi
6/17/2005
Um, TM- my kids go to an Orthodox dayschool and the girls study Talmud. But of course, since we belong to a Conservative shul, we are directly contributing to the destruction of the Jewish people. And add to that the idea that my girls shouldn’t be studying Talmud anyway ’cause their little feminine brains’ll explode. It’s really hard being such an enigma. Thanks God it’s Shabbos (Shabbat/ Sabbath for all you non-Orthodox types
)
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
dear themiddle,
Who isn’t letting girls learn talmud…?
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
From my experience,
this “girls don’t learn talmud” is an urban legend….
judi
6/17/2005
At the haredi school they used to go to, Girls. Don’t. Learn. Talmud. Period. Not an urban legend.
judi
6/17/2005
Sorry to double-post, but I wnated to mention that at their current school, girls are given the option of taking a halacha class instead of gemarra.
Jobber
6/17/2005
The fact is that many women are dissatisfied in the Orthodox movement, no dancing around that issue. Some as Esther said are content on their role, but many are not. It would be better if this could be embraced by the Orthodox rather than ridicule those efforts that are being made in a couple of Egalitarian Ortho. minyans.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
Judi,
What do you mean by don’t. Like is it forbiden?…ok, no clasees… Where is the mind exploding BS from?
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
I don’t use my hostility with “orthodox” as a
passport to get access for “conservative”
approval. Because if I would, I would be treated
like royalty there. I am really tired of that. The vice versa doesn’t hold. I don’t get brownie points for talking shit about the latest outrageousness from such and such denomination abomination, such talk is too cheap and NO ONE HERE CARES
judi
6/17/2005
NSN, When I (naievely) asked, I was told that except for learning relevant passages, the study of gemara is not “necessary” for girls; it takes up valuable time when they could be learning things that are relevant to the lives of women. It was a “men’s thing” and women really weren’t supposed to be trespassing on that turf. And it was also told to me that a woman’s mind does not know how to properly process the information.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
Judi,
Do you feel less naive now?
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
I have heard that before…OTO SEPUR. Women still learn and always have and always will. Little rabbis have thier little priorities… what do you want? What do you expect?
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
Judi,
The problem is like this. Its not the women “who’s head will explode” when you talk about learning… its the boys and the men, they can’t handle it. When the issue of turf is spewed out, thats the bottomline. You can see that can’t you?
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
Do I need to more specific?
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
As I see this, the system isn’t built around Men’s supiority… its really the oposite. I think anyone who can see through the bullshit will realize that.
Wine guy
6/17/2005
There are Orthodox communities for everyone even those wo like to play around with gender roles a little bit
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
yeah, its amazing on what kind of funny things are out there. Its always way to kasher something because some “orthodox” did something. Another way to see labels like “orthodox” are empty of meaning.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
Its getting a little to close to Shabat even in the West Coast here to rant and rave. So have a good Shabat, however you all deal with it. Although Shabat is arriving at just about latest if not the latest. I have almost 5 hours to mess around here if I wanted.
esther
6/17/2005
I learned Talmud in high school. But most of the time, it wasn’t anything relevant. That pigeon racers not being allowed to give testimony thing is proof of that. Plus, most of us spent our classes listening, occasionally taking some notes, and always crocheting kippot in class. And no one cared.
Like it or not, there is an intellectual gender bias in effect, not just in religious areas. But in the domain of religion, it is definitely palpable, and sometimes even visible. As always, it’s a question of access and value. Yes, I have access to the same tefilot that men do–I learned the Hebrew, what they meant, how to sing them. But then I was taught that although I’m not required to be at mincha by Jewish law and even though my presence “doesn’t count,” I have to go anyway because the principal says so.
And, if in the rare circumstance I DO have a spiritual moment in shul, in the Orthodox world as a whole, I can’t even sing, because G-d forbid, I might accidentally seduce a guy with the mellifluous tones of my Aleinu, even though my karaoke exploits have never themselves seduced the male members of the audience. (Although maybe that’s the Guns and Roses talking.)
I mean, what kind of motivation does that provide? What kind of imperative should I feel to pray, or be part of the community that says I literally “don’t count”?
themiddle
6/17/2005
What Judi said. Around here, the girls are told they can’t study talmud. Un-fucking-believable, but true.
And let’s not forget this whole aliyah and torah reading issue, not to mention the difficulty in getting smicha to be a rabbi if a woman so chose.
Some women are very happy in their roles and some are not. I’m not trying to be critical of the movement, but I do wonder about the exclusion of women from such basic foundations of the society in which they live. At the school I attended, some of the finest students of talmud were the girls. Seems a bit of a waste…
themiddle
6/17/2005
Esther, I heard your mellifluous tones in prayer and was immediately distracted.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/17/2005
I just to had to chime in here…. I wanted some
time to get off this crud, but I dont feel right. I am seeing that you fools are not listening. How does it go in the IDF?. The IDF does not deploy the women for prolonged combat role. This is even in contrast to US policy. Yeah, women are effectively used for local security, and Women make excellent trainers in all matters of implementing war within the IDF..The reason is clear, when MEN hear womens voices scream THEY GO NUTS and Men lose unit cohesiveness….. That is a built in Male response. I find youre babyness and crying intolerable, thats why I am not a Rabbi, and maybe never will be one, because I can’t tolerate such whining, I hear youre screaming and I go NUTS….. The same priority type of thinking goes into why some little rabbis in little shuls or yeshivas don’t want to inspire women to come out with learning in such a way. The Rabbis are trying to teach the men under thier command to learn and live without the dangerous distraction. I find insensitivity to this annoying to say the least. One
of these days you all will learn, if not now, When?
esther
6/17/2005
Netsach, you sent me very thoughtful birthday wishes and I’m very appreciative. That said, your endless sensitivity to the rabbis and your clear annoyance for women or anyone who voices dissatisfaction is part of the problem. If you men can’t control your responses to women, that’s your problem, so hands off my spirituality, my education, my self-expression and my wardrobe. Or at least maybe you men with nice voices would agree to stifle your own mellifluous tones so that we women could concentrate on our kavanah, thank you very much.
To call this kind of discussion “whining” is to display a lack of respect for the way observant Judaism can make some women feel. And that disturbs me.
And with that, I begin another Shabbat in my home, wondering which shul will be disappointing me tomorrow.
Shabbat shalom.
laya
6/18/2005
just for some perspective lets remember that the idea of women having equal rights in ANY part of society is an extreamly new one. We’re talking about an ancient religion catching up to a movement that is barely 50 years old. Women’s roles in Judaism are evolving, just at a slower pace than the rest of society. It’s an easy place to get frustrated, but a little perspective is a good thing. And btw, women sing at every orthodox shul or shabbat table I go to.
grandmuffti
6/18/2005
Actually, the idea of women having equal rights in ANY part of society is a fairly old one. Even megillat Esther has a classic patriarchal statement of concern. Mary Wollstonecraft’s ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’ was published in 1792, a whopping 213 years ago. The movement is at least as old. Orthodox Judaism’s treatment of women is similar to its treatment of homosexuals: purely traditional and inflexible.
Dave
6/18/2005
Hi, folks, it seems like all we’ve been talking about on this thread is power- every faction of Judaism seems to want to influence or exert power on everyone else, through control of the religious agenda. Very unfortunate. Look, there are so many things that we do agree about. Can’t we just be happy, trust in Hashem and lead moral lives. That’s more than enough.
Joe Schmo
6/18/2005
There is nothing wrong with woman getting involved and studying or anything else.
The only difference is that men must study Torah, pray daily and do many of the Mitzvot. The reason is that the fact is (maybe unfortunately) that they are more in control in this world and therefore they have the responsibility to transmit and enforce Judaism.
Not that Woman can’t just that they don’t have to.
Unfortunately the conservative movement and others have used this issue and other issues (such as ‘rabbis’ and ‘oral law’) to deny the Torah itself and to deny what happened on Sinai.
Had they not done that they might have had some say – You have many religious who discuss different topics and there is variety – yes people do have opinions and do think.
– but because these are all excuses to attack Judaism itself there can be no compromise with these groups.
Elon
6/18/2005
Joe Schmo- And women in conservative shuls still don’t have to do any of the things you talked about, but if they want to they can. To say that because women aren’t obligated to study torah, pray daily, and do many of the mitzvot does not equate to a negative effect for them doing so. That’s not an attack on Judaism itself, that’s common bloody sense man. So if you are going to keep women from qeri’at ha-Torah then at least be willing to come out straight and say why: Women are not considered equal to men in your world.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/19/2005
Shavua Tov,
You know Joe Schmo is right. I have in the past underestimated the extent of damage done by those who perpetuate the “Anti” Sinai delusion. I say that at this point regardless of how you define that… conservative, reform, reconstructionist, progressive or any other USELESS label. Joe Schmo, refer to my Shavout learning time in last weeks themiddle’s Shavuot learning blog #70 I think.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/19/2005
I have read pieces of this “manifesto” that the middle conjured up here. I find it bewildering and dangerous as anything I have seen. I have to admit, I simply don’t have the tools at my disposal at the moment to take on this.
Nathan
6/19/2005
How does it go in the IDF?. The IDF does not deploy the women for prolonged combat role. This is even in contrast to US policy. Yeah, women are effectively used for local security, and Women make excellent trainers in all matters of implementing war within the IDF..The reason is clear, when MEN hear womens voices scream THEY GO NUTS and Men lose unit cohesiveness…..
Tell that to Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester of the Kentucky National Guard, who was just awarded the Silver Star for kicking some serious ass in Iraq. I’d take her as my gunner over most of the tough guys posting in this thread any day. She can even sing to me, if she wants; I like mountain and bluegrass music…
The award
The battle
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/19/2005
I really don’t have much more to say on military policy. I certainly wouldn’t stupid enough to suggest that US policy and the deployment of women there is wrong in a general sense or can be compared to the IDF… I don’t have expertise in thses matters. I do know that the IDF does deploy women differently them the US. That is a simple statement. The reason I bring this up is because it doesn’t take much time to bump into IDF women in Israel. Sometimes here in the US the situation is different. It is just different.
Nathan
6/19/2005
This is not 1950 when the Jews were first moving out to the suburbs, and Reform and Conservative Judaism could boast great promise. It is a half-century on – and the landscape through which Jews must travel in fellowship is marked by two major features: the smoking ruins of R and C Judaism, and the renaissance of the Judaism of the Ages, which we had been confidently told would go the way of the dinosaur.
Great prose, but it’s somewhat out of touch with the reality of American Judaism outside of larger cities. The Conservative movement is indeed shrinking, but in part that may be due to a renewed focus over the past 10(?) years on strongly encouraging its membership to observe Shabbat/Kashruth/Etc. As one high-ranking NYC Conservative big shot told me, we’re going to be a leaner, meaner movement in the future. That means they’ll likely bleed off some folks to the Reform movement.
Around here, the most thriving shul is the Conservative shul we attend; one MO shul is doing almost as well on its best days, and the two other Orthodox shuls are struggling to barely hang onto life. I’d like to see them all thrive on their own merits, but that’s not what has occurred over time, like it or not.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/19/2005
Nathan,
Impressive articles. I personnally admire the courage of that soldier. I don’t really understand the dynamics of the women deployment issue in the IDF or US. Certain aspects of the issue seem superficially obvious, But there is a lot to the story. I have seen many great contributions and stories of heroic Jewish Women have made in the US in the latest round of War in that region. I have seen a few of these Valiant Women Honored by the most Religious of the Religious and I even know a very Observant Women who is a highly decorated Inteligence Officer in the Navy.
laya
6/19/2005
muffti said: Orthodox Judaism’s treatment of women is similar to its treatment of homosexuals: purely traditional and inflexible.
I disagree on both counts, but then I have the advantage of seeing many changes from the inside that won’t make it to the mainstream for years. That’s one of the things I love about living in israel; being in the epicenter of Jewish thought.
See books like Wrestling with God and Men about homosexuality and Judaism or Expanding the Palace of the Torah very hot right now, about women in Judaism. The ideas and issues are being talked about and dealt with. Even though the solutions may take some time, it is certainly a process to be encouraged.
But yes, I stand corrected, the Idea of women’s rights is not new, but the implementation in western society is. During the time of Charcot (circa 1880) women with psychological problems were treated as science experiments. We’ve come a long way, quite quickly since then.
themiddle
6/19/2005
Why are we talking about women soldiers suddenly? The IDF and Israel were founded with plenty of brave female soldiers. If you’ll recall, the secular movement of Zionism was intent on creating a new “Jew” that was very different from the “Jew” of Europe prior to Zionism.
All of that is meaningless, since we’re talking about religions and different streams in Judaism. I can’t wait for Ben David to chime in and tell Joe Schmo that he’s playing the victimization card because he’s complaining that non-Orthodox bring up the inequality of women as a significant flaw in the Orthodox practice and life.
Joe, what is this bullshit about women not having to do it while men do? I have a feeling there are plenty of women, Orthodox women, who would love to read the Torah in your shul next shabbat. What is the likelihood of that happening?
I’m sure there are a bunch of women who would like to be counted in your next minyan. What is the likelihood of that happening?
I have a feeling there are a bunch of women who would like their husband to remain home and tend to the kids while they go to yeshiva to study. What is the likelihood of that happening?
I’m sure there are a bunch of Orthodox women who would like to give a dvar torah next shabbat at shul. Or better yet, to lead the congregation as rabbis. What is the likelihood of that happening?
In other words, in every facet upon which your tradition places great value and emphasis, women do not receive any opportunity. I don’t mean that there’s mild inequality, I mean they are shut out.
By the way, based on the capabilities of the Jewish women who studied gemara in school with me, you folks are losing some serious chochma and bina by excluding women.
Stop bitching about divisiveness. You and the other ba’alei teshuva keep bringing home the point that all these other streams aren’t genuine Jews, their rabbis aren’t genuine rabbis (or worse), their converts are not Jewish, etc., etc., etc. Then you whine about those streams causing divisiveness among Jews because they bring up the strident inequality that exists in your movement. Agunot anyone?
themiddle
6/19/2005
Laya, are there any mainstream thinkers who would espouse even a small portion of the views of this woman author and homosexual author?
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/19/2005
Dear themiddle,
The primary focus of what I am emphasizing isn’t
the lack of contribution to women to the IDF. I
can’t see anybody being such a DUMBASS to say
anything like that.
Dear themiddle,
You must think I am pretty stupid, like I got
manure for brains….. What I am emphasizing is
that Men under high stress from real have a
weakness towards Women. I have reason to
believe that the IDF understands has a certain
understanding of this, which I don’t know if you
do…. I have also reason to think the US Military has a different understanding of this issue, what that is, I don’t know, but I do RESPECT it.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/19/2005
G-d forbid to say that Jewish women lack bina in Gemorah study. I wouldn’t be stupid enough to say something like that. There may be folks out there who do, what can I say…. I have NO desire to protect the “orthodox, shmorfodox, or any dox…. Those labels are the true definition of MEANLESSNESS
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/19/2005
I should correct some spelling goof ups. That is meaninglessness….
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/19/2005
Can we at least aggree that labels are the in the category of useless and meaningless?
themiddle
6/19/2005
Can we agree to post once, maybe twice if we forget a thought, instead of 4 or 5 times in a row?
Thanks,
The DUMBASS
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/19/2005
dear themiddle,
I will try to trim my posts based youre respected opinion in this matter.
I don’t consider you a “DUMBASS.” The “dumbass” I was refering to was the idea of someoning not recognizing the contribution of Women in the IDF. That wasn’t you nor myself, thank you….
However,
You didn’t answer the question….
Do you find it in youreself to aggree that labels are useless and meaningless?
I am not just going to ask you, themiddle, this. It is a general point I have been after.
Ben-David
6/19/2005
Great prose, but it’s somewhat out of touch with the reality of American Judaism outside of larger cities. The Conservative movement is indeed shrinking, but in part that may be due to a renewed focus over the past 10(?) years on strongly encouraging its membership to observe Shabbat/Kashruth/Etc. As one high-ranking NYC Conservative big shot told me, we’re going to be a leaner, meaner movement in the future. That means they’ll likely bleed off some folks to the Reform movement.
- – - – - – - – - – -
In other words, they are returning to a more Orthodox vision after making the calculation that it’s the best way of retaining the flock that remains.
Oh, and by the way – how has the local Reform presence fared?
further:
Around here, the most thriving shul is the Conservative shul we attend; one MO shul is doing almost as well on its best days, and the two other Orthodox shuls are struggling to barely hang onto life. I’d like to see them all thrive on their own merits, but that’s not what has occurred over time, like it or not.
- – - – - – - – -
What was the situation 30-40 years ago? Were there so many Orthodox shuls back then? Were there additional Reform and Conservative shuls – or larger member bases?
What is the net change – the trend over time? Does it match the statistically confirmed trend towards concentration of affiliated Jews at the Orthodox/halachically serious Conservative end of the spectrum (which is what it sounds like)?
Ben-David
6/19/2005
muffti said: Orthodox Judaism’s treatment of women is similar to its treatment of homosexuals: purely traditional and inflexible.
- – - – - – - – - – - –
uhhhh, last time I checked being female was not an abomination.
And thanks-but-no-thanks for the suggestion that those poor backward Rabbis *couldn’t* have done any better – after all, women’s suffrage is so modern… talk about a backhanded compliment!
A few facts:
While the rest of the world – including Greece and Rome – were treating women as chattel, Jewish law recognized women as citizens capable of holding property (including land), inheriting it, bequeathing it, trading in it, and otherwise amassing and distributing wealth independentaly of any male kin.
Women were also considered independent citizens in all matters of tort law – damage against a woman’s person or property was as actionable as damage against a man.
The ONLY distinction between men and women was in several limited areas of “ritual” law (that’s in quotes because Judaism does not traditionally distinguish between religious and secular areas of law) and religious obligation.
In almost all these cases, the difference amounts to a man being commanded to do something, whereas it is only optional – NOT prohibited – for a woman.
Several centuries before old Mary W. Shelley issued her manifesto, we already had well-published cases of women taking on these optional mitzvot when they felt it furthered their spiritual growth and service of G-d. The most famous are the grandaughters of Rashi, who wore talit and tefilin and studies Talmud (France/Alsace in the 12-13th centuries).
Today many Orthodox seminaries teach Talmud to women (note to Esther: men also study the “irrelevant” parts about pigeon traders adn gamblers) and Orthodox synagogues support women’s prayer groups for women who wish to take a more active role in communal worship. All this “innovation” has required negligible “revision” of existing halacha – all the precedents are already in place.
laya
6/19/2005
Middle: re: mainstream, i think i already answered that in my comment where i said I have the advantage of seeing many changes from the inside that won’t make it to the mainstream for years. no?
esther
6/19/2005
No offense, Laya. But I don’t understand why you’re such an insider, just because you live in Israel. Is Israel such a paragon of religious tolerance and innovation? I mean, we know they can create a great, Chametz-free viagra substitute, but how is Israel paving the way as far as creating positive change? And if you have seen such changes that would create optimism, why not share?
As to pigeon racers, Ben-David, I didn’t mean to say that those were the only sections I learned. But my point was that if the purpose of education was to light a quest for Gemara knowledge like a torch to blaze our inquisitive future and to launch a thousand chevrusas, in most cases, it didn’t succeed–in most of my “non-legally-minded” female peers, it created a feeling that Talmud was mostly irrelevant. Considering this now I’m wondering if that was the purpose all along, to weed out those of us who weren’t serious with mostly-irrelevant decoy texts…
laya
6/19/2005
Esther, by living in Israel, especially Jerusalem, one does not even have to try to get involved in interactions with severly interesting people, authors, archeologists, explorers, teachers movers and shakers etc. and to hear about the ideas being worked on thought about and discussed. It is simply part of the culture and the pulse of life here.
Is Israel a paragon of religious tolerance? hells yah. Ask a Bahai, their world headquarters are here. or a Gypsy, or Armenian, or any other group that has sought refuge here.
How is Israel paving the way for positive change? Think about it darlin, if you are working with Jewish thought, philosophy, law, whatever, then this is quite simply the place to be. Just like if you want to be a Broadway star you go to Manhattan, right?
Any girl graduating from Midreshet Lindenbaum knows more torah than almost any reform rabbi. There are egalitarian minyans springing up in several places, and women are now studying to be a part of courts that decide Agunot cases. While certainly there is a long way to go, if positive change is going to happen in the torah keepin jewish world, its gonna happen from here. Feeling like I’m privy to, and in some ways a part of that change and evolution, is a large part of why I live here.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/19/2005
We all have had lousy teachers in the past. I think much of institutionalized education, with whatever silly label, in whatever form is a crappy surrogate for fatherhood, mentorship, motherhood or friendship and support. I did have a Rabbi who I thought knew how to teach properly. I remember showing up for my first day Gomorah class after a few days of chavruta learning. I had my nice, shiny new Gemorah sefer and was looking bright eyed and bushy tailed ready for class. The Rabbi looked at my Gemorah and said something like, “This sefer looks like you didn’t use it, it creaks open and has that new smell and I dont see any notes scribbled all over it. You look like you barely know youre chavruta and I don’t see you tired from really
working hard at learning. All the time you were
sitting in the Bait Midrash, I didn’t hear much noise from you guys learning.” This Rabbi would
sometimes enter the Bait Midrash and cackle,
“what’s its so quiet here? Its like a morgue; are
you guys learning or what? We would laugh at
this, but its so true. I have had precious few other Rabbis that can put spark under asses to learn like that. The proper way to learn Gemorah is with sharpness and fierceness and putting actual physical effort into the process. Chairs and tables should be rattling. The idea is to put blood, sweat, tears and guts into it. The gemorah sefer should be smeared with notes, drops of sweat and spit and even blood if necessary. I have seen fights, wrestling and mass hysteria when learning. That is when you know there is real learning going on.
Grab a chavruta, learn the crap out of a Gemorah.
Have catfights. Throw books at each other.
Scream bloody murder. If you be female you can
still learn with another guy. We are not little kids here. Who here is under somebody’s thumb for
chinuch purposes? Okay, many yeshivas don’t
encourage mixed learning. They have thier
reasons…. What does it matter? So what? Find
places that do . Find somebody who will be
chavruta be they male or female…
It could get ugly…
but thats beautifull….
No limit
no fear to do this and
no excuses.
Liora
6/19/2005
TM,
Thanks for writing such an excellent article and for saying what desperately needed to be said.
Jobber
6/19/2005
Laya, many people who left after making Aliyah, weren’t able to travel abroad, and this was a factor in their leaving. That is because most people who live in Israel, need and use a quick break to Chul, often in their year.
This is a preferable way to live their imo.
I am very happy with your posts and perspectives, and I only can encourage you to consider hiring an agent who would represent you to many types of publications, that would be interested and this includes places in Utah and other such states, where, on a typical evening, I heard several discources about the exacting Israeli Political analysis, on more than one AM statiion.
I do maintain a blogspot.
themiddle
6/19/2005
Any girl graduating from Midreshet Lindenbaum knows more torah than almost any reform rabbi.
What gall.
Next time you’re in my part of the country, give me a call and we’ll go have a chat with a reform rabbi or two. One of them might even be a…girl.
Liora: thank you for thanking me, but this time it was mostly cutting and pasting of others’ writings. I’m just a messenger.
themiddle
6/19/2005
Ben David,
When was the last time a woman led your prayer services, taught you some torah, was your study partner, was called a talmidah chachama by those who study around you, etc.?
Nobody is saying that Judaism is a lousy religion or that women are treated worse or better than other religions. What is being discussed is their inequality and limited range of options within the Orthodox fold.
laya
6/19/2005
TM, next time you’re in mine, we’ll organize a square off between any Hebrew Union College student and any M. Lindenbaum 1st year gal. Any one wanna place some bets?
We’ll let Rami Watid keep score …
themiddle
6/19/2005
Why change the parameters? You said “rabbi.”
laya
6/19/2005
we’ll now I’m talking student vs. student. the HUC dude can even have a year or two on the M. Lindenbaum chick. you got a problem with that? you wanna take this outside?
Ben-David
6/19/2005
middle:
When was the last time a woman led your prayer services, taught you some torah, was your study partner, was called a talmidah chachama by those who study around you, etc.?
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
Although my student days are long gone, I have taken courses given by women, and have met women who are commonly recognized as talmidot chachamot.
I don’t have a female study partner, nor would most “talmidot chachamot” seek a male study partner – assuming they have actually internalized the Torah’s moral and ethical teachings, rather than treating them as an intellectual exercise.
I don’t have to satisfy the expectations of an external standard of “equality” between the sexes. Judaism is its own system. Which brings us back to the main point of this thread: Jewish sects that felt the need to nosejob Judaism to accommodate external value systems are now failing to retain their membership – or their “halachic” standards.
You write:
Nobody is saying that Judaism is a lousy religion or that women are treated worse or better than other religions. What is being discussed is their inequality and limited range of options within the Orthodox fold.
- – - – - – - – - – - – - -
However “limited” Orthodoxy’s range, it is retaining more young, well-educated Jews than Conservative Judaism – and even drawing the best, most dedicated Conservative youth.
That is: undiluted Orthodox Judaism is the stream that has actually succeeded in the free market of ideas – and its “limitations” appeal to many well-educated Jews who know well the taste of secular liberty.
You are unable to admit this – and unable to answer the most obvious and pressing question facing us today: After a century of experimentation, what works and what doesn’t?
So you have spent the rest of the thread swinging almost blindly, hoping to strike any blow against Orthodoxy you can – from the Chief Rabbi’s hooligan son, to how chauvinistic those awful “Rabbis” are. This thread has most definitely turned to a whine about “what a lousy religion” Orthodox Judaism is.
Gone in a puff of smoke is the Deep Respect For Our Traditions with which you started this thread – have you stuffed Dr. Schorsh back into his box? By what Halachic or Talmudic precedent were women allowed into the Conservative rabbinate – or is that now revealed as a sham, the halacha twisted to make Judaism match an external culture’s norms?
Yes or No: Has Conservative Judaism succeeded in its mission?
Yes or No: Has CJ remained true to its starting values?
Yes or No: Has CJ served most of its adherents well – and preserved even baseline connection to the Jewish people?
Yes or No: Has CJs vision of the Torah’s authority remained intact, or drifted with the external currents of moral relativism?
After almost 100 years of experimental substitute Judaism, after a century of tinkering and Houdini-like struggles against the bonds of the covenant –
WHAT WORKS – AND WHAT DOESN’T?
grandmuffti
6/19/2005
Laya, what you say is interesting, though all Muffti sees are book names, not ‘solutions’ as one might have it.
In any case, the problem is more fundamental. If Muffti or Middle says ‘boy, the Orthodox have a stance on some phenomenon P and we think it would be better if they didn’t', we get Ephraim, CK etc., (with variying degress of humour and ascerbicness) saying ‘This is Orthodox Judaism and fuck you if you don’t like it. We ain’t gonna change to accomodate your [insert your favourite pejorative term here. If it's BenDavid, it's probably some knee jerk mention of 'victimization politics', If ck, it's probably some crap about shrimp encrusted fish sticks] views that conflict with ours.’
OK, now, let’s transport that on to issues invovling women and gays. We say ‘Boy, Orthodox judaism relegates women to a secondary position of sorts.’ What do we expect to hear back? ‘This is Orthodox Judaism and fuck you if you don’t like it…’
themiddle
6/19/2005
Laya, I was thinking of people I know. Since I don’t know any students over there, I have to pass.
Ben David, you are so swaggering in your confidence and yet have not answered some basic answers about the viability of the Orthodox community and its growth without the material support of the non-Orthodox. If you remove that support, are you still growing as quickly? I don’t think so.
As for the Conservative decline in numbers, I don’t disagree. However, Reform is growing, so that eliminates the theory that a non-Orthodox stream is unable to thrive.
Conservative is in decline, in part, because their standards have become more demanding. Many of their rabbis have rounded back and determined that they do not wish to have a movement with people who are not as committed to traditions. As a result, you have people moving to Reform, and you also tend to have a larger proportion of more devout congregants and the remove from Orthodox is not so great and some people will make the move for many reasons.
As to your questions, yes, I think Conservatives have remained true to their mission. Their movement, by its nature, calls for reconsideration and evolution, so if that takes place as they assess their values, that is acceptable and fine.
CJ has served its adherents extremely well. I say this from personal knowledge. As for “baseline connection,” it has done far more than that.
CJ’s vision of the Torah’s authority has always been strong. If anything, they have become more stringent with respect to halacha.
As to what works and what doesn’t? Well, of course unquestioning blind faith will work better. Not all of us possess it, however.
laya
6/19/2005
muffti, nowhere do i say that solutions have been come to. All I am pointing out is that these are things that are being discussed in a serious manner within the orthodox world, which i think is pretty cool, and the forum from which solutions may come.
As far as your last paragraph, I’m not sure if your saying you expected to hear that and didn’t or did? Besides, if you expected to hear something and then didn’t you’d probably criticize me for being inconsistent anyway.
have it your way middle. Still, next time you’re in Israel, we can still give it a try, just for fun.
grandmuffti
6/19/2005
hehehe…fair enough, ck/laya(?). You did say:
So Muffti supposes he was asking about the ‘changes’ rather than the ‘solutions’, foolishly equating the two. Yeah, it’s great that things are getting talked about seriously. But the point remains: orthodox judaism is committed to not-changing in the face of external changes. Ben-david said it best above, Muffti thinks, with:
That’s the ‘fuck you if you don’t like it’ Muffti was mentioning. Muffti ironically ‘heard’ it before he asked for it! As for your second last paragraph, Muffti confesses to being at a total loss as to what you mean. Muffti did expect to hear something. and probably would have considered it inconsistent to give one type of response to calls for change in one area but then get all excited about changes in another. One ‘fuck you’ to rule them all seems consistent unless there is reason to do it in some area and not another.
themiddle
6/19/2005
Laya, can’t we find more enjoyable activities? For example, we could visit the Center for Conservative Judaism and if it still exists, hang out at the Alliance Francaise next door right afterwards (great place to meet women, guys).
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/19/2005
To complain about Women not getting aliyas, not
learning, not able to learn, not alowed to lead a
minyan is to show fear. This ranting is another
excuse to feel inadequate and offer up excuses to
fail and cry “It was thier fault, those, whatever
labels, be they orthodox, chasidic, whatever stupid labels….”
dear themiddle,
you are indeed a good man to pander to with
these phobias. I know if I had something to
complain about in some synagague, yeshiva or
Rabbi
you are the man…
I would expect a slap on the back in
encouragement and a sound amen ve amen and
hear about the superiority of the content of this
“conservative” manifesto.
Don’t expect this yenta treatment with me. Thank
G-d not everybody gave me slack to behave this
way.
Pray
Learn
lead….
Who is stopping you?
If some people don’t like how you do things…
find people who do, don’t be wimps and yentas.
Joe Schmo
6/19/2005
Laya thank you for your posts,
TM you see when Esther or Laya bring up a point that makes sense to me. She might be right in certain circumstances and wrong in others. There’s what to talk about.
But when you bring up any of these points I know that its all a mask for to attack Judaism and Sinai. I told you before I have a great Uncle who was the head of the ‘university of Judaism’ in California so I know how they operate. When I was in California he took me and my sister out to a Kosher restaurant – and he made a point of mentioning about women Rabbis and that some girl who was in the restaurant was studying to be a Rabbi. It was clear to me that he was saying it for the sake of my sister. I understand how both he and you operate. That is why I find it disingenuous when you speak and we the honest religious who care about G-d – we will discuss it and come to some conclusion.
Like our fathers said to the Samarians who offered “to help” – the same ones who also send warning letters to the King of Persia not to allow us to build the Temple.
mechon-mamre.o... [Ezra chapter 4:3] ‘Ye have nothing to do with us to build a house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the LORD, the God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us.’
-So I tell you we will discuss any feelings of unfairness amongst ourselves but not with the destroyers from the outside.
themiddle
6/19/2005
I agree Joe. Since you are actually accusing me of attacking Judaism and Sinai, and then proceed to mention that one should not speak to the “destroyers,” it’s best if you ignore us and seek places where your input has greater resonance.
You are welcome to leave Jewlicious if you feel that we are destroyers of Judaism. I’m sure there are hundreds of other sites where your input would be welcome.
laya
6/19/2005
muffti says “orthodox Judaism is committed to not-changing in the face of external changes” I disagree.
If we were an unchanging religion, then only torah law would do, which is oddly, what some here seem to prefer. The whole thing about the oral law is it it DESIGNED FOR CHANGE. Torah needs to change to meet the needs of every generation. That change may be happening slower than we’d like right now, but it’s what the system is designed for.
Besides, i think the orthodox Rabbi Yo, with his WiFi enabled house and fancy gadgets gets offended when people imply backwardness of the orthodox. We’re not Amish you know.
But no matter what other commentors of the torah keeping persuasion may say, please don’t paint us all with one giant ‘fuck you’ brush. Allow me to say that to you personally
esther
6/19/2005
Commentary like this makes me want to leave, not just Jewlicious, but Jewish discourse and observance in general. I have more anger, fear and sadness inside of me, but that way, the Dark Side lies. I’m tired of the lack of respectful discussion, the use of a “f**k you” brush of any size or diameter, the calling of names like “whiners,” “yentas” or “destroyers of Judaism,” and even the “come on, baby, I’m gonna change, just stay with me and everything will get better” approach to trying to satisfy those of us who aren’t having our needs met by our communities or by the current interpretation of halakhah…
But what am I supposed to do? Leave 14 years of yeshiva education behind? Move to another city? Stop posting here or on my blogs? Become a Catholic? An atheist? Maybe I’m already on my way. At this point, I’m not sure of anything and am unwilling to delve further in this venue. Because let’s face it, this has devolved into a respect-free zone, and that’s no place for a sensitive girl like me to announce a major lifestyle change.
So I’m just opting out of this discussion, and from there, will consider what else to do. Because right now, I’m kind of hating us all.
grandmuffti
6/19/2005
Laya, Muffti thinks you are misinterpreting him. Perhaps deliberately. Muffti didn’t means to suggest that the Orthodox were backwards or scared of technology. What he said was that on issues of halacha Orthodoxy (as represented by teh orthos of Jewlicious at least) are inflexible. And proud of it.
What is an example, by the way, of the oral law accomodating the needs of recent generations?
As for painting with ‘fuck you’ brushes…if the colour fits…
grandmuffti
6/19/2005
errr…sorry Esther
Muffti will behave.
(though, if you are doing lifestyle changes, the atheists will embrace you with open arms.)
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/19/2005
The Jewish character isn’t wimpy or Yenta. We
were often taught such weakness in the
myriads of apathetic schooling we were
brainwashed with, whatever dorky label given.
Some of us encountered an individual or a
certain crew of some kind that pushed us
beyond our own mushagass. I have seen
when a Jew gets proper leadership he/she
becomes a Lion/Lioness, unafraid of anything.
I myself endured extreme physical training in
extreme conditions. I am glad I did. I even
overcame injury that kept me from walking
several months well after I Chozer betchuva.
Thank G-d I did have a good Rabbi or two
later in life who knew what he was doing and
was tough. I have seen life and death in front
of me in amazing ways.
I don’t know anybody personally here.
Whatever contact I have had so far doesn’t
tell me much about anybody. After more then
40 years on this planet, How could I squeze all
that in a few posts?
esther
6/19/2005
The Muffti is not the problem here–the disrespect is. The Esther, she is reminded of that pesky old “sin’at chinam” thing. Now, what happened with that?…oh yeah, the Temple was friggin’ destroyed.
And I know atheism would embrace me. Don’t think I don’t know about your recruitment strategies: I know you get a free toaster for every one of us you sign up.
themiddle
6/19/2005
Uh, Esther, you have no reason to leave. Let them leave, those who are on the attack here.
You stay, you are very much wanted around here.
Oh, and one more thing, if you join a Conservative shul, it’s very unlikely you’ll hear anybody accuse somebody else of being a destroyer of Judaism.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/19/2005
A lot of what I read of this convaluted
manifesto of “Conservitive….” here is an attack
on many core aspects of the most Holy of
Holies of Israel. I Challenge those who take
this piece seriously. I am trained in this art of
taking these issues to a fight. I am not alone
here. I am considering bringing in back up. I
have been impressed by many of the arguments made. Many have said eloquent
aruguments much better then I could. I look
foward to fighting here, because this
manifesto is fighting words to me….
Dear themiddle,
You were the one how conjured this Manifesto
up to inspire debate? How come now you are
displaying pure fear by wimping out again in
the face of opposition? Are you just looking for
a choir to sing Amen ve amen to this. Are you
looking for the panderers to cry on youre
shoulder and look for approval. Are you
affraid of some of these Chozer betchuvas
who hurt your feelings? Why don’t you fight
like a man, like a Jewish man instead of a
wimp. I want to see youre teeth. You are Jew
right? Fight like one then.
themiddle
6/19/2005
Netsach, honestly, I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.
For those who keep complaining, I guess I should remind you that this post was meant to be informative. Here’s how it began:
Unfortunately, the very people who were supposed to perhaps learn from this post and consider a different approach are the ones who are on the attack. I suggest you think carefully about Rabbi Aviner, who is a very smart, very devout Orthodox Jew who is also an educator.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/19/2005
dear themiddle,
Now you are talking. We are getting to you….
You could have just ignored me like you used to doing.
Joe Schmo
6/19/2005
I apologize TM but the truth must be told.
themiddle
6/19/2005
Joe, why do you continue to interact with us? Go off and find a place where they don’t destroy Judaism. Please.
Joe Schmo
6/19/2005
By the way it doesn’t mean that I don’t like you personally – I do and I care about you
- its the conservative and reform movements that I refer to as the destroyers of Judaism and and I notice that their proponents, which you are one of, are very sneaky and couch their denial of Sinai with other political issues- exactly as politicians who want the masses to follow them do.
I am calling you on that – I won’t let you or anyone else get away with such deceit.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/19/2005
Dear themiddle,
Do you really want us to just stay out of this?
There you go again… Is the only thing you
value of this is to just convince us of the
worthiness of this manifesto…. Don’t you
realize a Jew who holds by the
Torah Tsivah lanu Moshe Morashat Kehilla
Yakov
Wouldn’t buy this Manifesto?
Nathan
6/20/2005
Several centuries before old Mary W. Shelley issued her manifesto, we already had well-published cases of women taking on these optional mitzvot when they felt it furthered their spiritual growth and service of G-d. The most famous are the grandaughters of Rashi, who wore talit and tefilin and studies Talmud (France/Alsace in the 12-13th centuries).
Today many Orthodox seminaries teach Talmud to women (note to Esther: men also study the “irrelevant” parts about pigeon traders adn gamblers) and Orthodox synagogues support women’s prayer groups for women who wish to take a more active role in communal worship. All this “innovation” has required negligible “revision” of existing halacha – all the precedents are already in place.
If only that were true in practice as well as theory among more Orthodox congregations, there might be a viable alternative to the Conservative movement. I would be at such a minion in a heartbeat. There are all too few “liberal Orthodox” groups that are willing to take a chance and struggle to work within halacha and give women a shot at leading psalms, receiving aliot or leining Torah while leaving men the obligation of forming the minion quorum and the privilege of acting as the Sh’liach Tsibur.
Look, even getting Orthodox friends in this part of the world to recognize the concept of a women’s mezuman (when 3+ women but less than 3 men, women lead and answer the invocation), heaven for fend participate in one, has at times been like pulling teeth. Why bother when we can instead sit at a table of men and women from our Conservative shul and sing zimroth and pray with gladness without caring who is leading? Besides, our more lame Orthodox friends mostly stop singing after hazon eth hakol. Totaling boring.
themiddle
6/20/2005
Joe, why are you still here? With the destroyers of Judaism?
You want truth and the truth is women are not equal to men in your world.
I guess the truth is that I don’t think you seek truth. I think, truthfully, that you are seeking to deflect any serious look at the paucity of your argument by going on the offensive (a personal offensive, I might add) and claiming some mythical high road as the “defender” of Judaism.
Spare us the violins. Or the deceit, if you prefer.
It’s a simple truth. You can call it politics. You can call it sneaky. You can call it whatever you like, but it’s the truth. Some women want to be part of it, and some do not but cannot do anything about changing or escaping their world. Your world. You can call this whatever you like, but it’s the truth you so fervently seek.
For some reason, when this is mentioned as a significant flaw in your system of belief – it does affect 51% of your population, after all – you consider this to be a destructive attack on Judaism.
And yet, when you exclude 5/6 of North American Jewry from what you consider Judaism, in your mind that’s not a destructive attack on Judaism. Who do you think you’re kidding?
As I said earlier on, it is people like you who are excluding yourselves from the rest of us. Just like a ba’al teshuvah who embraces rabbinic Judaism more than his parents by refusing to eat in their home, and thereby causing a greater sin (remember the relevant commandment?), I think sometimes fervent faith can cause people blindness that makes them miss opportunities to act as their faith demands of them.
In other words, you’re missing the forest for the trees. Fortunately, there are many Orthodox Jews with different views than yours.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/20/2005
Yo Bro Joe Schmo,
I bet you know a lot of good people who
affiliate with some synagague because they
like the Rabbi or the chevray in the
congregation. Most of those folks don’t care
much for whatever label shtick the
Synagague holds thier flag. Often these fine
jews in such a place would have dual
membership or cassually frequent whatever
label of other Bait Keneset…
We all know that.
The place is just thier way of hanging with
other jews and showing appropriate respect
for the tradition at whatever level they could
deal with at the time.
What we have here in the form the themiddle’s
attitude is a bonafide believer in this
“conservative” manifesto like it was “Torah M’
Sinai” like equal to or greater.
Any Jew who has even the most basic
understanding and apprectiation of
Torah Tsivah lanu Moshe Morashat Kehilla
Yakov
Will see the obvious and see the nudity of
such an attitude for what it is. I hold by Moshe
Rabbeynu obm, not the framers of that
manifesto.
themiddle
6/20/2005
Um, Netsach, I am not affiliated with any movement. Sorry.
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/20/2005
Then why did you conjur this manifesto up
and refer to it with such authority? Youre
language indicates a constant attempt at
persuation when you refer to Masorti people
in Israel and other contacts you know. You
constantly refer to this manifesto when you
think somebody somebody doesn’t
understand youre position. Do you expect me
to believe what you just said based on
everything that I was posted here?
I don’t really know you then….
For sure you have a lot of vested attitude and
something you must take very seriously
wrapped in this document you posted.
themiddle
6/20/2005
Uh Netsach, I brought it up for the reasons stated in the post. As for the seriousness with which I take the “manifesto,” consider the manifesto to be taken seriously by the Conservative movement. It isn’t some lighthearted paper Schorsch wrote one day.
I researched before posting, seeking sources that I believed best explained current official positions of the movement in both lay and spiritual terms. It was a learning process for me as well.
Having said that, I know many Conservative Jews, including some in my family.
My primary goal – the opposite of which was achieved, it seems – was to make some of these hard-core haters of the non-Orthodox consider an alternative position. I thought bringing up the movement closest to them would do the trick.
As we can see, this may have been naive because faith can sometimes be blinding to the point where it brings up all sorts of bile.
My secondary goal was simply to provide all of our readers with a deeper look at one of the key movements in Judaism today. I have a feeling most people don’t really know much about the movements, and I believed some might find a synopsis about this one useful. I certainly found it useful.
My third goal was to personally learn something. That was accomplished. I learned about Conservative Judaism, I learned about Orthodox views of Conservative Judaism, about the role the debate over women plays in the dialogue between movements, and about people and the way they behave in certain circumstances.
All in all, a worthwhile trip, if disappointing in some ways.
Yours truly,
The DUMBASS
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/20/2005
Dear themiddle,
You really don’t have to start in the dumbass
tittle. I didn’t give you that.
I was actually begining to hear youre out untill
then. I still hear you. I was begining to
suspect you were some kind of closet clergy
amongst some synagague or something.
Well, what can you know from a few postings.
One thing I hope you learn or have learned is
the extent of the intensity of Jewish faith in
general. I don’t know if you like the idea of
the concept of Jewish faith, but it is there. And
I hope you eventually see that Jewish faith is
not a naive expression of just blindness.
ck
6/20/2005
Themiddle wrote: Joe, why are you still here? With the destroyers of Judaism?
I dunno. Given the fact that this is really a public forum where we allow, nay encourage, pretty much anyone to post, is this a question that needs to be asked? I know that for my part I have taken offense to comments directed at me or at things precious to me and I have responded in kind, but never have I suggested that anyone fuck off. Having said that, for whatever its worth, my vote is that Joe Shmo stay and post to his hearts content – free marketplace of ideas and whatnot.
Themiddle added: You want truth and the truth is women are not equal to men in your world.
Uh, having had the benefit (some would say misfortune) of having dated a Harvard educated Women’s studies major for a number of years, I know that women are not equal to men in the secular world either. And ya know what? You don’t need any great expertise to realize that.
Y’all are slinging mud around and talking trash and getting esther all upset. In the meantime, we have serious problems to deal with… blah blah blah …
themiddle
6/20/2005
ck, of course Joe is welcome to stay, but why would he want to remain among the detroyers of Judaism? Surely we are all familiar with forms of
deceithypocrisy and would like to avoid them if possible. No?Your second point about the secular world is absolutely absurd. There’s an article in today’s Ha’aretz about Sherry Lansing (Jewlicious) who headed up Paramount Studios. Carly Fiorina headed up HP. Both Senators from California (Jewlicious) and one from New York are female – these being the two richest and most influential states. Two Supreme Court justices are women. A former PM of Canada is a woman. The list goes on, but I’m too lazy. Let’s be honest about the role of women in Orthodox Judaism. Some of them and maybe most, are perfectly content with their roles. To suggest, however, that they are like secular women in their opportunities (or lack thereof) or that somehow they are at the beginning of some long movement like the Suffragettes, or that they will have similar opportunities to participate in the full range of Jewish life as do non-Orthodox women, etc. is false. They don’t and they won’t.
Baruch she-lo asani isha. Right?
Netsach Shebe Netsach
6/20/2005
dear themiddle,
whats bothering you? I was begining to hear you out and finnally get a chance to a point of reasoning and get a picture of where you are coming from. I think I should take it easy with you. I think you have had enough…
ck
6/20/2005
Baruch Sheh-asani kirtsono
That’s what I say every morning. But really? Being a woman is not an easy thing. Your laundry list of powerful women makes me laugh – I mean uh… Indira Ghandi was PM of India. Benazir Bhutto was PM of Pakistan. Are you suggesting that by dint of that, the lot of women in India and Pakistan is peachy keen? Puhleeeze! Seriously now, WHO is being absurd? Our highly evolved secular world still has quite a way to go with respect to how women are treated and you do not have to be a radical feminist to realize that.
esther
6/20/2005
I still encourage everyone to post; the diversity of opinions is still something I find encouraging, if delivered sans vitriol and avec le respect. It’s all the holier-than-thou crap that amounts to “Jane, you ignorant slut,” but without Dan Aykroyd’s matter-of-fact comedic timing or intent.
Jewish Mother
6/20/2005
We like to say our piece in public but the other sphere, the private sphere, we are not investing enough of ourselves in. It may feel more dangerous to us, or the rewards may not justify the risks for us: you just don’t get a parade if your husband loves you. Nobody cares. It has to be enough in itself.
There are two mysteries: G-d, whom you can’t see, and the other gender, who you engage by marrying one, and whose wierdness is endlessly fascinating.
Greenbeans first, ice cream afterward. Duty first, fun afterward. Make a home and a kid, then write deathless prose.
Men have their burdens, too.
Do women still exist? Do men still exist? In the old sense?
Many things are interesting but nothing, no nothing, is as interesting as the arrival of a new person whom you get to assist as they unfold. That is child rearing. I used to PITY the men who oonly did stuff like run the “world” all day. There is another more fundamental world in the nursery, and I ran that one.
Back when I was on active service.
Steve
6/20/2005
Well I’ve actually enjoyed these recent debates.
On a previous topic someone mentioned in passing “The Documentary Hypothesis.” Well it was the first I’d heard of it so I did some googling and found these links:
1)religioustoler...
2)en.wikipedia.o...
There is much much more out there of course and obviously this is nothing new to the cognoscenti but it was interesting to me.
Now, I don’t expect this to change anyone’s faith and I haven’t read all the counter arguments but to me the evidence they have lined up based on linguistics, history and the repetitions in the text seems pretty convincing.
Still based on my (admittedly meagre knowledge) I don’t believe this poses a major problem in Jewish or Christian theology(unlike say the existence or non existence of G_d).
Jewish Mother
6/20/2005
Men have more religious duties because they need to refine themselves more, being closer to roughness, the animal. That is why Adam was named Made-of-Dirt. Chava was named Life, an intangible energetic quality, the most complex thing in the universe.
Men have to give thanks every day that they are not women, because it has to be drummed into them to be glad they are men, because very, very secretly, some of them (not all) think women have a better deal. Or, a misguided spiritual ambition makes them wish they had women’s higher nature. But no. They have to be what they are, and work very hard for refinement; what is instinctive for us is very hard for them.
Women don’t win wars (even if they contribute to the war effort.) Therefore, they can’t lose them. Military defeats are not blamed on women. Military defeats are a heavy burden for men and women can’t see this; it is like a dog-whistle, the frequency is not available.
It is not necessarily always wonderful to be a man, particularly if one is not tall, strong, brilliant and young. But men don’t tell women about their defeats, so women are fascinated by the nice parts of being a man. But wait til the copier breaks or someone wants to hurt us. We invoke our rights in a flash.
We women want a man who is not cranky. But they are all cranky, because nobody is taking care of them. They twitch, whimper and walk with a limp. But we want them to be fine before we are interested. But, if they were fine, they wouldn’t need us. It’s circular.
We all have to get back to duty. Men have a duty to marry and to be faithful to their wives so their wives can do their job. Women have a duty to marry and do the job. We have a duty to stop coveting each other’s privileges (10th commandment) while ignoring each other’s burdens.
Everybody has a job to do.
There ARE rewards and the alternative is worse.
themiddle
6/20/2005
JM, everything you’ve said is fine. But the women should also get to study and be like the men.
Ck, cut it out. Over 50% of graduate students in North America are women, including in medical, law and accounting programs. This is not Indira Ghandi being elected, not in small part, because of a famous last name. The glass ceilings in our society are breaking down very rapidly. In fact, in my experience, and you know I have a bit, it is the challenge of being a mother and a career woman that hinders a career the most in North America. That is unfair, but it is not the same as saying that talmud is off limits or you can’t have an aliyah or you can’t be counted as part of a minyan.
Jewish Mother
6/20/2005
The documentary hypotheseis is silly. Why shouldn’t the same story be told two or three times? The Tanach is not a pamphlet about how to use your Cuisinart, subject to clear editing and concision to avoid wasting paper. (The TIMES is endlessly carrying on about how the US is losing the war, which isn’t true, – THEY feel free to tell the same story over and over.) Why shouldn’t G-d be referred to more than one way? Gee Whiz. We can’t say, Mom, Mommy, Mama and Mother? Later you get yet another name, Grandma. Not allowed?
It’s not a term paper or a doctoral thesis, to be edited for consistency, with extra credit for nicely formatted footnotes.
The Tanach is a gift to people, so it speaks to the way they think and live, and therefore contains repetitive, and evocative, variations, just like life!
My mama sure had to tell ME the same thing twice, thrice and more. And not always in the same exact way.
As for the Edomite Kings, G-d knew all about them before they were born. He knows all things, remember? And He is entitled to vary his writing style, too. Or should we give him an F? Ha ha ha
Jewish Mother
6/20/2005
Women can too study anything they want. Until the copier breaks or somebody wants to hurt us.
A painful truth is still better than a sweet lie.
wine guy
6/20/2005
Under the Hupa the Bride walks around the Groom 7 times my friend was recently at a wedding where The Bride walked around the Groom 3 times the Groom walked around the Bride 3 times and then they walked around together the 7th time although I don’t support this practice I gotta admit it’s awfully cute
themiddle
6/20/2005
I reject that, Wine Guy. The woman should always walk around the guy the full seven times. After all, he is the center of attention.
esther
6/20/2005
JM, some of us have learned how to fix the copier on our own. The war stuff, I still leave up to the men. But if they need a brochure about the war to be edited, I would do that.
Thank G-d that the one area that I can see evolving somewhat is increasing roles for women at weddings. I even did a story on it for the JW.
An excerpt:
True or false:
The mesader kiddushin (one who officiates) must be a rabbi.
The ketubah (marriage contract), being a legal document, cannot be changed.
The bride must walk around the groom seven times or the wedding is not kosher.
The groom’s declaration to his bride under the chupah may not be personalized in any way.
The answers to all: false.
Surprised? So were attendees at “Toward a More Egalitarian Orthodox Wedding Ceremony,” a workshop at this year’s Edah conference last month.
As workshop participants learned, contemporary Orthodoxy actually presents many ways to involve women at weddings, from increased participation for the bride to honors for women friends and family.
For what it’s worth, this was a reported piece, not an opinion column, and still provoked a letter to the editor from a guy who said that “radical feminists like Esther Kustanowitz” were destroying Jewish life. Right.
themiddle
6/20/2005
Esther, you’re also destroying Jewish life?! Welcome to the frate, er, soror, um, er, group.
Elon
6/20/2005
I’m glad the “radical feminist” Esther Kustanowitz does what she does. Pen is mightier by the sword, or so they say. A lot of the gender role arguments i’ve heard i respectfully disagree with. ck your argument about women’s roles in secular society is true, women still earn less for the same job as men, etc, but is that any excuse for limiting their role in terms of the Orthodox Jewish community? Sadly, the secular society is still leaps and bounds ahead of most orthodox religious societies (Muslim, Christianity, Sikh….Jewish) in terms of womens equality. Clearly some women don’t wish for that equality (JM) and that is their choice, and that should be part of the discussion, my thought is just that those that wish to, and wish to still be in the orthodox community should be able to.
That being said, i was shocked by how nasty some of the arguing got….we really can get a long you know, I even went to an orthodox minyan friday night and had a great time!
In closing, I’m reminded of something i was saying earlier today:
oseh shalom bim’romav hu yaaseh shalom aleinu v’al kol yisrael, vim’ru amen
word.
themiddle
6/20/2005
Thank you, Elon.
grandmuffti
6/20/2005
A few comments:
a) NSB said:
hahahahahahah…Middle, you have to earn the title dumbass from NSB before you go about using it! And watch out or NSB is going to bring his backup and THEY will call you a dumbass. Sheesh.
b) CK, while there is no doubt that equality has not been achieved outside Judaism, that isn’t really to the point. The point is (as Muffti said a while ago) that orthodox Judaism not only holds women as unequal de facto, they are committed to it in principle. The godless, Judaism-destroying rest of us are committed to equality as an ideal to work towards.
Jewish Mother
6/20/2005
Show me your birthrate, Elon.
I am anybody’s equal.
The pen is only mightier than the sword sometimes. My esteemed, admired colleague and editor, Esther, leaves warfare to men, even though she can fix the copier.
There is no more pressing task for an advocate of full social participation for women than proving that it is not an evolutionary dead-end. Which alas it is becoming. Get to work!
There are a lot of nice young people here. Are any of you going to follow each other around under any chuppas?
To me the seven-times circling is a powerful, possessive female statement that says “This man is MINE,” but then I am a tough chick from way, way, way back.
grandmuffti
6/20/2005
By the way, the atheists no longer give out the toasters Esther was talking about. Of any group that has a dogma, we are the fastest growing and can no longer afford presents for embracing the truth.
Jewish Mother
6/20/2005
Women and men are equally valuable and cosmically significant but not identical or interchangeable. What is so hard about that? If they really were interchangeable, we would not be spilling all this ink insisting they were. We do not affirm in ringing tones that the sun comes up in the morning. What is true does not have to be defended endlessly.
Why not work with what we are handed.
How about some results?
When is Marry Your Girlfriend day again?
Shalom to all. You are all sweet.
wine guy
6/20/2005
NOOOOOOOO!!!!! WALK AROUND MEEE ME ME ME ME!!!!
themiddle
6/20/2005
Muffti,
Netsach did call me a dumbass. I was flattered.
I don’t know that I accept your version of “truth” either. Just like Schmo et al cannot prove the existence of God, you cannot prove his/her/its inexistence.
I kinda like being…you know, somewhere in the middle.
Jewish Mother
6/20/2005
Our community needs Suitor-Screening process. You know, that he is not already married, means well, regular chap, that stuff. How could that be managed? Not his politics, just his honor.
Jewish Mother
6/20/2005
Netsy did not mean any harm. He just gets excited.
esther
6/20/2005
And I just realized that with that last post, “Wine Guy” became “Whine Guy.” Although one good thing about walking around Wine Guy would be that after your last lap, you’d probably be able to sip some really good vino under the chuppah.
ck
6/20/2005
Muffti wrote: orthodox Judaism not only holds women as unequal de facto, they are committed to it in principle.
Shocker! Dude. Men and women are not equal!
Open your eyes – men and women are different. There are things women can do that men can’t and vice versa. Orthodox Judaism isn’t about promoting a pro-male agenda as it is about, you know, reflecting reality. See post 134.
Having said that, yes there seem to be some eggregious and anachronistic elements that cling to traditional Judaism despite having nothing to do with or being in contradiction to the stated and underlying values. I’m not saying Orthodoxy is perfect, but your statement is a tad, errr irrelevant. In my humble opinion.