In my previous post, I dealt with the value of being aware of a mission to Orthodoxy, and explained why I did not believe the clear requirement to observe all of Torah and mitzvot precluded that kind of thinking.

Today, we will take up some other objections that might be raised. In broad terms, there are many Jews who believe they already know a different set of central aspects of Judaism and others who deny there is any identifiable mission to the religion. What they have in common is that they, intellectual or communal leaders and laypeople alike, likely approach posts such as these convinced they know better. Such closure of mind predicts they would reject my claims or brush them off as one view among many.

I take them up before offering my own ideas precisely because I want to clear our minds, so we can be open to the possibility that the texts we will study make points that should be obvious and unarguable to anyone who reads them. Since my fondest wish is that readers come away from these posts feeling enlightened as to what (Orthodox) Judaism must mean, not that they have read one person’s interpretations of the religion (however creative or interesting), I need to do my best to sweep away any barriers that might get in the way of that experience.

Making It Real: Practical Ramifications to an Economics of Religious Energy

One relatively simple doubt about my project is the suspicion that any statement that is truly unequivocal would have to be so general as to lack any teeth. Just to argue that Orthodoxy’s mission is to instill belief in God, for example, says too little to be meaningful, since ‘belief’ does not say anything about ramifications, or the behavior such belief would require or promote.

In fairness to those who might make that claim, my insistent search for unequivocality does mean that we should not fool ourselves into thinking we can lay out any complete or comprehensive description of Judaism, since much about the religion—and not just minor aspects– is the subject of legitimate debate. When major authorities disagree over how to understand central principles or practices of the Torah, as they do, that whole topic, crucial as it may be to one’s picture of Judaism, is immediately off my list of unequivocal elements of the religion, since both are legitimate options within the tradition. This is a function of a Jewish pluralism that is too little-recognized, and that I hope to discuss further when we get to the practical ramifications of the Orthodox mission.

I also note that Judaism has always deeply valued personal input into one’s religiosity, and my choice here to refrain from sharing my own ideas is in fact a sacrifice. The truly observant Jew studies the tradition, tries to understand how it works and what it demands of him or her, and builds a framework that is both personally resonant and systemically faithful. I certainly have my own views and opinions on many Jewish issues, but I will here strive mightily to include only those that all Orthodox Jews would have to accept.

Those strict standards indeed raise the specter of triviality, that that which is unequivocal is too vague to offer any useful input into what Orthodoxy should mean. I recognize this danger, and plead only that if you stay with me, you will find that I can in fact offer a core that is unequivocal and yet has concrete and far-reaching implications for how Orthodox Jews should focus their personal and communal efforts.

To wit, I can already name five areas of Orthodox life—the experience of halacha, the balance among pluralism, tolerance, and absolutism, the disbursement of charity, the education of children, and the functioning of synagogues—and show how the mission of Orthodoxy we will find in the texts of tradition should alter, sometimes radically, the tone, tenor, and content of Orthodox approaches to those areas. There are others as well, but that seems to me enough to justify the value of finding the unequivocal core mission of Judaism.

The Problem of Entrenched Views

If one problem of trying to capture the mission of Orthodoxy is the worry that it won’t say enough, another is that this model will be, for some readers, too different from the one they already know. One example is the reaction I got from several people to whom I mentioned I was working on this project. When I told them I was investigating the essence of Orthodoxy (as I phrased it at the time), they would say, “It’s clear; Orthodoxy is keeping Shulchan Aruch [or halacha, or some equivalent].”

Aside from the practical difficulty I discussed in the previous post, that few people manage to keep all of Shulchan Aruch in mind let alone observe it faithfully, the answer is also patently untrue. For one thing, Jewish law recognizes and accepts later writers’ amendments or objections to rulings of Shulchan Aruch, such as those of Shach, Taz, Magen Avraham, and the other glossators.

In a fascinating book called ממרן עד מרן: משנתו ההלכתית של מרן הרב עובדיה יוסף, From ‘Maran’ to ‘Maran’: The Halachic Philosophy of Maran [Our Master] Ovadyah Yosef, R. Dr. Binyamin Lau discusses R. Yosef’s conscious and explicit effort to restore Shulchan Aruch’s dominance in Sefardi halachah. This was necessary, though, because many others in that world had accepted other authorities, in particular the Ben Ish Chai. Further, R. Dr. Lau notes that even R. Ovadya himself occasionally rules other than in accordance with the Shulchan Aruch. In addition, and perhaps more significantly, Shulchan Aruch neglects to discuss some important areas of halacha—such as lashon hara, slander and gossip, as well as many faith issues–and, of course, fails to foresee numerous halachic issues that only became relevant over the course of history. (1)

That “Shulchan Aruch” clearly cannot be the central or sum total definition of Orthodoxy (from the most Orthodox position possible) suggests that people who say this mean something more fluid, such as “observance of Shulchan Aruch and its related traditional halachic works, as understood by Orthodox Jews (or their rabbis) today.”

Aside from the vagueness of that version, leaving different stripes of Orthodox Jews too much latitude to pick and choose how to read Shulchan Aruch and which related literatures to consult, it also loses any necessary core that all Jews would share and realize was what was the real point of observing all these laws.

People Already Prioritize

Perhaps as a result of this challenge, many Jews already have an implicit list of core observances that are absolute musts, which might then again lead them to reject any other perspective, such as the one I will build here. In some circles, for example, we find the assumption that observing the Sabbath (although the definition of that term might be breaking down as well) and kashrut, the kosher dietary laws, is the essence of Orthodoxy (such people, I suspect, would deny that Orthodoxy has a mission beyond its’ adherents observing these rituals).

For others (commonly referred to as more right-wing), “true” Orthodoxy requires more, whether in terms of ideology, such as attending a school in which General Studies is downplayed or college is discouraged, or appearance, such as beards, long and/or curly sideburns and black hats for men, long sleeves and skirts for women, or practice, such as abstaining from grain grown after one Passover until the second day of the next Passover.

Such lists fail in that they do not consult sources to set up those priorities. Other than its ubiquity in practical life and the complexity of its laws (which fostered a voluminous literature that came to overtake the rabbinic educational curriculum), there is little to indicate that kashrut, the dietary laws, for example, are central to the religion’s mission. Perhaps such lists came about as shorthand, with the assumption that anyone who observed these practices was clearly also striving for the larger picture of observance the religion desires. Today, though, that implicit framework has often disappeared, so that many now see those practices as defining Orthodoxy, full stop.

Part of my challenge in these posts, then, will be to advance an argument so well-founded that it finds its way past the defenses of those who already know the mission of their Orthodoxy. In one sense, this is a challenge of rhetoric and argumentative technique, of presenting supporting sources so well that they elicit a reconsideration of long-held ideas.

The Risk of Giving Offense

But there is another element to my project that bears mentioning. Some of the ideas I will present here make many Orthodox Jews uncomfortable, especially in their encounter with the modern world. No matter how much textual support I offer, some of the truths I find may be those that people do not want to know, regardless of their accuracy.

The past decade has given us a practical example of this attitude. In 2001, Prof. David Berger, a respected Jewish historian, published The Rebbe, The Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference, a book that claims that many adherents of that movement believe their late leader, R. Menachem Schneerson, may yet return from the dead and serve as the Messiah. I personally have seen ads and videos in which some have equated the late Rebbe with God.

Professor Berger argues that such beliefs are heretical, meaning that one who holds them cannot be considered part of observant Judaism. If he is right, other Orthodox Jews would have to adjust their interactions with those Lubavitchers. They could not, for example, eat meat killed by ritual slaughterers who held such beliefs, and would have to tiptoe around other issues such as joining them for communal worship.

Few have accepted his thesis, and they may have good reasons. Some dispute his claims about theology, arguing that traditional Jewish sources do allow for the belief that a man who had declared his Messianic status could die and yet come back as the Messiah. Others contend he exaggerates the problem, that only a fringe hold these views, and there is no reason to taint the movement for the excesses of radicals. Either response, if correct, justifies acting differently than Professor Berger advocates, and I am not here to adjudicate among them.

What is relevant to our discussion, and greatly troubling, is that neither, in my experience, characterizes the attitude of the Orthodox community at large. Instead, most Orthodox Jews are uninterested in Berger’s claim, seeing theology as no reason to rend communities apart. It also seems likely that Chabad’s outreach work, the unfailing friendliness of their representatives, and the convenience of their centers in out-of-the-way places strengthens the resistance to seeing them as anything other than full members of the Orthodox community.

This might be the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference to which Berger refers, and would, perhaps crop up here as well. Experience suggests that many people faced with convincing arguments for a truth different than the one they have known will ignore those conclusions, continue to live as they always have, and be irritated with whoever suggested their way of life was lacking in any way. That I recognize this likelihood offers a strong reason to refrain from engaging in this project—if the picture of Orthodoxy I find here turns out to be off-putting or out of sync with what even Orthodox Jews are prepared to believe and accept, it is perhaps better left unsaid.

I am sympathetic to that perspective and struggle with the dilemma. I will note here ideas and practices that have fallen out of favor in many circles of Orthodoxy. Jews who have spent years and tremendous energies keeping to the Orthodoxy they have been taught or developed on their own will be upset at being told they (or the communities in which they reside and to whose standards they have adhered) have lost sight of the religion’s mission and most essential interests. (2)

I plan to move forward anyway, not out of any pleasure I derive from meting out this distress, but because I believe the truths I will share here are too important, too basic, and too explicit in tradition to be allowed to languish unattended. I do not recall ever speaking or writing with the desire to cause upset (although I have often done so, to my repeated and great chagrin), but I have sometimes, and will here, write in the recognition that some will take umbrage at my words. The costs of not doing so are, to me, too great to do otherwise.

Next time, we will quickly review one last set of objections, the widespread claim (at least in intellectual circles, but rapidly spreading to the general Orthodox populace) that there are no underlying ideas essential or necessary to being an Orthodox Jew. Once we dispense with that, we can also already next time move on to the question of what will qualify a source as unequivocally establishing a central aspect of our religiosity, and then we will be fully on our way. Until next time.

(1) R. Moshe Feinstein highlighted this as leaving room for rabbis such as himself to contribute to the halachic literature. For a discussion, see R. Harel Gordin’s interesting, מקורות הסמכות של ההלכה: עיון במשנתו ההלכתית של הרב משה פיינשטיין, The Sources of Halachic Authority: An Analysis of the Halachic Philosophy of R. Moshe Feinstein, דיני ישראל כ”ה (תשס”ח), Dine Yisrael 25 (2008), 1-39.

(2) I find this attitude in interesting contrast to mSukka 2;7, where Beit Shammai’s recollection of their visit to R. Yehoshua b. haHorani was that the Rabbis told him he had been improperly fulfilling the mitzva of Sukka his entire life; they apparently thought that was information he would be grateful to have.