RJJ Newsletter - Torah Leadership

Throughout our experience as a people, Torah leadership has been crucial to our spiritual well-being. Torah leaders inspire and give us direction. They transmit the teachings they received from their great teachers and apply them to new questions and situations. They are our link to the past and together with those whom they inspire and lead, they are guarantors that are our exalted heritage will be transmitted to new generations. They are, in short, indispensable, an irreplaceable resource which if deficient results in a diminution of what our community can accomplish. Because of their vital role, their learning and their elevated personal qualities, we are obligated to respect those who are recognized as Torah leaders.

In the lines that follow, I discuss certain aspects of Torah leadership in the present period in this country. While I shall touch on problem areas, my fervent hope is that I shall not deviate from the obligation to honor and respect those whom we accept as our leaders. We have been witness to their important achievements.

It is not possible to prove what might have happened had events not proceeded as they did. Yet, it is clear that American Orthodoxy would be a lot different today had our community not been molded and led in the post-Holocaust period by a remarkable group of Gedolei Torah, men of genius, spiritual nobility and wisdom. We all know their names. All were born in pre-Holocaust Europe and many were refugees who had escaped the destruction of European Jewry. They planted the seeds for the exciting development of religious life on this continent.

The Holocaust also foretold the unveiling of a bleak development. The customary channels of transmission of Torah leadership were destroyed. The outstanding people who came here gave us a multitude of blessings. What they could not do is quickly repair the process of Mesorah that has been an essential element throughout all of Jewish history. The point was made by Rav Yitzchak Hutner, ztl, the eminent Rosh Yeshivah of Chaim Berlin, who suggested that it ordinarily takes ten generations for greatness in Torah to take root and fully blossom in a new place of religious Jewish settlement. Even as we were enveloped in the sanctity and glory of truly remarkable leaders, we knew that there would be a day when the sun would set. Although we continue to be nurtured by the example and teachings of these men and their memory remains a presence in our lives, in a communal sense we are orphaned.

In all corners of American Orthodoxy there is a deficit in Torah leadership. In the yeshiva world which is central to the lives of many who will read what is written here, there is presently no towering leader. At most, there is a collegial arrangement involving a small number of men of much virtue and learning. That they are not equal to their predecessors should not be material because there is the fundamental hashkafic principle of "Shmuel b'doro." What is material is how our present leaders interpret and fulfill their roles.

There is nothing that the Roshei Yeshiva who are our key leaders can do to reverse history. They can, however, attempt to prepare for what lies ahead by providing guidance to the next generation or two of Torah leaders through processes of shimush or apprenticeship, such as they experienced in their relationship with the great Torah leaders of the previous generation. Unfortunately, scant - if any - attention is now being paid to this responsibility.

While our Torah leaders cannot alter the widespread and understandable, albeit at times lamentable, practice of relying on the authority of eminent Gedolei Torah in Israel, they can provide leadership regarding certain developments within the yeshiva world that are clearly within their zone of authority. A primary example is the tragic and costly decline of Torah Umesorah - the National Society of Hebrew Day School, the one organization that inherently Roshei Yeshiva have responsibility for. The Torah leaders of the previous two generations rightly regarded Torah Umesorah and the day school movement as the primary instrumentalities of kiruv, as the centerpiece for the building of Torah in North America. Torah Umesorah's decline has taken a huge toll, as is evident in the frightening enrollment decline in kiruv and immigrant schools.

We see in this development how costly it is when a Torah leadership arrangement predicated on collegiality breaks down because there is no single leader who is accepted as transcendent and the participants in the collegial arrangement too often do not agree on how best to proceed.

As important as are these and related developments, what may be most costly is the absence of what may be termed management skills among our senior Roshei Yeshiva. They are all over the place, sending out letters for individuals in crisis, at times without having sufficient details, speaking too often and traveling too much, attending too many events and, in an important sense, being too available and too easy to reach. Advances in communication allow for quick access, while the automobile is regarded as an adequate answer when Roshei Yeshiva plead that they cannot attend this or that event or occasion.

As a result, they are more likely to be reactive than proactive, which is to say that they are more likely to be led than to lead others. They forfeit control over their primary resources of time and space. Although in an immediate sense their formal responsibilities are limited because generally their yeshivas are small, these men are always super-busy.

What is at work is the outgrowth of an immense reservoir of goodness among Torah leaders. They have an insufficient capacity to say "no" and they certainly have difficulty turning down any opportunity to accomplish some good. There is what may be referred to as a yeshiva-world culture which dictates that our Torah leaders must nearly always be available, this despite the practice of certain Roshei Yeshiva in the previous generation to carefully control their time and space. Unless Torah leaders overcome, at least in a significant way, this cultural imperative, their leadership capabilities will remain limited.

The culture of the yeshiva world can be contrasted with the very different culture of the Chassidic world, which is the other part of charedi life. Chassidic Rebbes are responsible for a community that may have thousands of adherents and for a network of institutions that serve this membership. Their burden in terms of their immediate responsibilities is far more extensive than that of Roshei Yeshiva. Almost inherently, they understand that unless they control and limit how their time is spent and where they are at, they will not be able to provide the necessary quotient of leadership.

Hence they travel little, severely limit the events they attend, give few speeches, rarely send out letters to solicit for other causes or make public pronouncements. They also know how to delegate responsibility to officials in their communities and to condition their followers to have interaction with these officials. In short, they are focused on their four cubits, at times perhaps too focused. Even on crucial issues, their voice is often heard via a son or dayan or some other subordinate figure. They have, as well, a small army of eager assistants. This contributes to the luxury of being able to decide what they will do and where they will be.

This inward-looking view of their responsibilities may appear to limit their role in religious life outside of their communities. In fact, the reverse is true, for the major Chassidic Rebbes clearly have an impact on religious life beyond the walls of their group.

By attempting to accommodate nearly everyone and to be jacks of all religious trades, American Roshei Yeshiva compromise their capacity to plan and to lead. I cannot think of a single major Orthodox initiative in the past twenty years that has their fingerprints on it. Creative and inspiring chesed activities or recent developments in chinuch invariably are grass root achievements. In the meantime, Torah Umesorah is in crisis, while enrollment in day schools with a kiruv orientation has declined sharply. The tuition crisis that causes hardship in our schools and homes is an issue that the Roshei Yeshiva are aware of and yet these is scant evidence that they are prepared to provide the leadership that is necessary to ameliorate this crisis.

The pity is that should Roshei Yeshiva exert leadership their efforts would be rewarded because they are respected and their messages to us receive attention. Should they urge the religious masses to action, there would be productive consequences. There would also be the beneficial byproduct of involving in fruitful activity younger Roshei Yeshiva and Rabbis from whose ranks ultimately would emerge the Torah leaders of the next generation.

This requires a determination to lead. How do we get our message across to Roshei Yeshiva that we want them to lead?

The Case for John Bolton

Although I do not write about domestic politics in this space, it is necessary to mention that I am thrilled by the election results because it sets the context for my view that organized American Jewry should urge the Senate to confirm President Bush's nomination of John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton has been serving for about a year on an interim basis and unless he is confirmed, he cannot continue in his post after December 31.

With the President and Republicans greatly weakened and Democrats soon to take control of Congress, Bolton's prospects range from extremely poor to non-existent. Democratic Senators have indicated that they will oppose him in the dying days of the Republican controlled Senate. It is also a long-shot that the rank and file of our community will back him, particularly in view of the way American Jews voted on November 7 and our ideological disdain for anything identified as right wing.

Yet, I hope that we will be able to put ideology aside.

The case against Bolton is not flimsy. When he was first nominated, what emerged was evidence that he is abrasive, bullying and a right-wing ideologue, with his fingerprints on Iraq and other Bush Administration foreign policy mistakes. At a time when America's standing abroad is at its lowest point in more than two generations and perhaps even in the entire history of this country, there is much appeal to the argument that we do not need a divisive figure representing us at the U.N. If he could not win confirmation last year, why support him now, especially since the election results powerfully demonstrate strong public disapproval of the direction of our foreign policy?

The difference that a year makes is that in 2005 John Bolton was a job-seeker, while now there is a record of service to assess. From this perspective, the picture that emerges is of a man who is a skilled diplomat and while also a sharp advocate of U.S. interests, is capable of flexibility and even tact. He has been tough on U.N. corruption, both moral and the conventional financial variety, and it is evident that his persistence has contributed to meaningful reforms. With the U.N. playing a heightened role regarding Iran and North Korea, in a difficult environment and hampered by Russia and China, as well as by France and other occasional American allies, he has brought about impressive diplomatic achievements.

Likely, Mr. Bush's electoral thumping and lame-duck status will result in an expanded role for the U.N. in the international crises that are already on its plate and those that will unfold during the coming two years. This factor makes the case for Bolton more compelling. I should mention that unlike certain U.N. ambassadors who served under Republican presidents, he has been respectful of an institution that does not always merit respect and he has not been confrontational.

How do Israel and American Jews fit into this picture? For all of its intentions, as I have underscored, the Bush Administration's actions in Iraq have harmed Israel by destroying the Sunni-Sh'ia balance of power and by provoking greater jihadist sentiments in the Islamic world. To help extricate his Administration from the disaster that is Iraq, Mr. President Bush has appointed a study group headed by James Baker whose report is expected in about a month. Baker, a former Secretary of State, has never been friendly to Israel and I regard it as nearly a sure thing that his group will recommend policy shifts that are harmful to Israel's security, such things as the necessity to seek a rapprochement with Syria and perhaps even with Iran, even if this means a sharp shift away from support of Israel.

To make the outlook more ominous still, the cadre of Israel supporters high up in the Administration has been shrinking. From Israel's standpoint, therefore, Bolton's voice is needed, both at the U.N. and in Washington. There is no doubt where he stands. His attitude toward Israel was on display during the Lebanon War this past summer and he was instrumental in scripting U.N. resolutions that were balanced. If I recall correctly, at the time several Democratic senators, I think including Chuck Schumer, said that they might support the Bolton nomination. It now appears that partisan politics will doom his prospects.

If only because Bolton boldly advocates for Israel, we have an obligation to advocate for him. It's in our interest to support him. Over the next two years, world politics will be flush with issues in which Israel has a huge stake. Under the best of circumstances, Israel is often isolated, with the U.S. its only major and dependable ally. It would be harmful if because of timidity or ideology we stand idly by while a public figure whom we can help and who has helped us is abandoned.

Because I do not believe that we Jews have the clout that we often want others to believe that we have, I know that our support of Bolton may not amount to much. Just the same, we ought to do the right thing and make the effort. This effort need not be a public campaign.

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In a column some weeks ago entitled "Aliya and Yerida," I wrote that Nefesh B'Nefesh, the organization that promotes aliya "receives enormous financial support from Evangelical Christians." That apparently was once the case, but no more. Nowadays, only a small portion of the group's funding comes from this source. I regret the error and am pleased to make this correction.

Exhibitionism Is Not Influence

Is the continuing pursuit of AIPAC a rouge operation, the handiwork of a zealous prosecutor who doesn't like the organization and has the FBI at his disposal to act out this dislike, or is it an organized Justice Department operation that has the approval of people at the top? One day we might know. My guess is that what began as a limited investigation has now blossomed into a crusade sanctioned by high Justice Department officials and perhaps the White House.

Whatever the full story, this business has been going on for more than three years and there is no sign of a let-up, as we know from the latest chapter involving Representative Jane Harman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. She's been investigated, apparently because she may have enlisted AIPAC in her effort to chair the committee should Democrats gain control of the House. This is a crime?

Likely, Harman is off the hook. Also off the hook are nearly all whom the FBI has trailed, wiretapped, questioned and investigated in the pursuit of AIPAC. Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, the ex-AIPAC staffers, are not off the hook. They await trial on phantom charges concocted by Justice Department prosecutors, their alleged crime being that they did what hundreds do every day in Washington. Should we be comforted because no one caught up in the AIPAC dragnet has been waterboarded?

What is the American Jewish reaction to the systematic attack against a Jewish organization that has by far more members than any other? We are once more the Jews of silence, not daring to criticize the government and not even curious about how an administration that sends its highest officials to AIPAC events can compile so flagrant an anti-AIPAC record. As for the lobbying group, its spokesman utters the familiar mantra, "we wouldn’t do anything wrong." That's not the issue. The issue is why the Feds are harassing people who have an association with the organization.

In truth, the bad news has not been too bad for AIPAC. The impact on Israel and American Jewry is another matter. After Rosen and Weissman were cashiered by the organization they served with loyalty and were then indicted, American Jews responded by adding substantially to their contributions, the apparent explanation being their belief that the anti-AIPAC crusade demonstrates that their idol is vital to Israel and the Jewish people. The logic may be flawed but the group’s overstuffed coffers are real. AIPAC also eats well when Israel-haters like John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt attack. It is inappropriate to ask whether AIPAC's self-promotion gives ammunition to Israel haters.

AIPAC's hype is a serious Jewish/Israel problem and we need to have the courage and intelligence to address this issue. Its annual extravaganza is a public declaration that "we are powerful." The participation of high officials and scores of senators and representatives has no bearing on American foreign policy, this despite the multitude of platitudinous declarations of U.S.-Israel friendship. It has much to do with how Jews and Israel are perceived because the message being sent is that this is the most powerful lobby under the sun.

It should not be difficult to understand that exhibitionism is not influence, that most often it is a display of immaturity and lack of confidence. Those who have influence go about their work quietly. AIPAC makes noise to call attention to itself because its large army of mini-machers are more likely to contribute when there is hoopla, when they believe that they are rubbing shoulders with the powerful. According to Newsweek, in mid-September while she was under investigation, Representative Harman hosted a dinner at her home for over 120 "top financial backers" of AIPAC that included a panel discussion with John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, and Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff. The event had no bearing on U.S. policy and everything to do with demonstrating AIPAC's alleged clout to the affluent attendees.

Let's face it. We want AIPAC to be regarded as powerful and then without batting an eye we throw a fit when AIPAC is accused of wielding power. Nor are we willing to ask the tough question of whether AIPAC is worth the cost, whether the message being sent to Americans is that Jews have great influence. The Forward reports that half of the respondents to a Zogby International survey believe that "the Israel lobby" has been "a key factor" in American actions in Iraq and the confrontation with Iran. True, the question was of the "when did you stop beating your wife?" variety. Even so, we should be concerned.

In response to AIPAC's overreaching and exhibitionism we do not need a new group that will take an ultra-liberal, anti-Administration tack along the lines suggested by George Soros. He is a fabulously wealthy man who has never displayed any caring for Israel or Jews. What we do not need is a competing lobby but an intelligent examination of whether our lobbying strategy is an asset or deficit. We need to explore whether AIPAC's perhaps inevitable tendency to provide support for those who are in power may work to Israel's disadvantage, as I believe we have seen in Iraq.

Doubtlessly, AIPAC and its supporters prefer to ignore these questions and it will be business as usual. The group is likely to raise more money and add to its instinct for exhibitionism. It remains, however, that while the band plays on, AIPAC continues to be investigated. This should concern us, not for the sake of an organization mired in self-promotion, but for the sake of American Jewry. I am a strong disbeliever in conspiracy theories, yet when we consider what has transpired over the past three years and also in light of the Jonathan Pollard affair, there are reasons to believe that there is an anti-Israel cabal embedded high up in the U.S. government.

The Minyan on Sixteenth Avenue

In the early 1950s, about fifty-five years ago, a group of teenagers came together in what was known as the Zeirei Agudath Israel of Borough Park, the youth division of the local Agudah that had recently relocated to a two-story building on Fourteenth Avenue and 46th Street. The Agudah davened on the first floor and the Zeirei on the second floor. Nearly all of us were children of immigrants who were hard working parents and though some of us were born in pre-Holocaust Europe, we were essentially boys who liked baseball and other things American. For high school we went by subway to yeshivas in other neighborhoods.

The teens went by quickly and before long there were marriages and additional members, with the minyan growing to about seventy families and undergoing several name changes, including the "Young Agudah" and several locations, settling finally on a modest facility on Sixteenth Avenue where we remain. Our homes were also modest and that, too, remains. Before long, we came to realize that we needed a Rabbi, a man who would inspire and teach and elevate our families. At the time, yeshiva-world shuls, including those of the Agudah, generally functioned without a rabbi. We reached out to Rabbi Yisroel Perkowski, a scholar and refugee who had studied at the renowned Mir Yeshiva in Poland before the Holocaust. He had davened with us during our Zeirei days, before moving to East New York where he was a Rosh Yeshiva or dean at Beth Hatalmud, a top level talmudic seminary that for many years has been located in Bensonhurst. Rabbi Perkowski accepted our request, maintaining his important role at Beth Hatalmud.

Our choice was fortuitous. For about forty-five years our minyan was blessed by a man who forged with us and our families a powerful bond of love, respect and admiration. We responded eagerly to his teachings, his warmth and his ways. In truth, he came to a group that possessed the potential to accept what he offered us. As boys, we were a special group. Rabbi Aharon Kotler, the transcendent Orthodox Jewish leader in the American Jewish experience and the founder of the great yeshiva in Lakewood, New Jersey, had davened with us when he was in Borough Park for Shabbos. Each year, he and Rabbi Moshe Sherer made an appeal for Torah Schools for Israel, the network of religious schools that he established in Israel, and the fellows pledged $20,000 or more each year, an extraordinary sum for the 1950s and for a group that was so young.

Under our Rav's guidance, the minyan reached new heights in Torah study, communal service and charitable giving. It is not easy to describe his leadership style because it was enveloped in humility. There is an esoteric religious Jewish theological concept called "Hester Panim," which means that G-D's glory is hidden from us. In perhaps an allegorical sense, this can be understood as referring to how the glory of our religious life is hidden from view. We are ensnared by celebrityship, by what is trumpeted and noisy. We fail to see the grandeur and sanctity of the typical religious Jewish home where modesty and Torah observance and study are embedded, where despite the struggle to make ends meet, there is an abundance of caring about others. What was hidden in the life of our Rav was his wisdom and his stature as a scholar. Even in the yeshiva world, he was not a celebrity.

He would have it no other way. I know but one photograph of him prior to his coming to the United States. It is of the study hall of the Mir Yeshiva which had miraculously found refuge in Shanghai during the dark years of the Holocaust. Our Rav is seated near the rear and all the way on the side. He abhorred being front and center anywhere. About twenty years ago, a delegation of eminent rabbis came to ask that he become a member of the Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah, Agudath Israel's prestigious Council of Torah Sages. They did not have a chance.

As much as his skin, humility was a part of his essence and no more than his skin could it be separated from him. He was entirely happy with what G-D had given him, including a wife of comparable sanctity and seven children. Even in his 90s, he would with a loving smile admonish those who attempted to help him, as when he was putting on his coat. He knew who he was and what he wanted to do. He had opinions and they were always expressed softly, as when he admonished us not to talk during davening, a lesson that we learned well. His speeches were masterly, invariably lasting fewer than ten minutes. He always began in a very low voice, barely above a whisper, for he was doubtful of the propriety of his speaking in a sanctified place.

I never heard him speak a word of English, yet he well understood the world in which we live. As the bond with him became as strong as steel, we knew that we were blessed with a rare treasure. This was a perfect relationship. When guests davened with us, they sensed our pride, but we never boasted because that would be unbecoming.

Over the years, our small group has become smaller. Some moved away and some passed away. Few of our children live in Borough Park because housing is expensive and maybe also because of the American Jewish imperative, "Thou shalt not live near your parents." On a typical Shabbos, the shul is half or more empty. We have now suffered our greatest loss, with the passing during the intermediate days of Sukkos, of our beloved Rav. He was buried twenty-two hours later in Israel and in accordance with his will, there will be no eulogies. If these lines are a violation of his wishes, it is the first time that I have transgressed against his instructions.

The pain of his loss will endure. The boys of the Zeirei are in their 70s and nearly all are grandfathers. More than a few are great-grandfathers. Our ranks will continue to diminish and perhaps one day this remarkable minyan will be no more. Whatever the future brings, we know that we were blessed.

Iraq is a Disaster for Israel

As an undergraduate at Brooklyn College more than fifty years ago, I read "Politics Among Nations," Hans J. Morgenthau's seminal text on international relations. It was the second edition, much changed from its predecessor, as this was a break-out book for Morganthau. He challenged assumptions about U.S. foreign policy that perhaps because he was a refugee from Nazi Germany he had not challenged previously. His target was the moralizing that inhered in the American ethos, the sermonizing about making the world safe for democracy. As an antidote, he advocated realism, a foreign policy based on national interests and even cold calculations.

In fact, Morganthau was a gentle man. Toward the end of his life, in the early 1980's, he and I were colleagues at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. By then, the pendulum had swung away from realpolitics and Morganthau's thesis had lost its glitter. But for a generation, his view of the balance of power was influential in both the academy and government. Of course, idealism was never abandoned as a rhetorical device in the articulation of this country's international goals. During the Cold War, there was coherence between the policy outcomes that were achieved by realistic calculations and those achieved by idealistic calculations because there was a consensus that the Soviet Union was evil and that its aggression must be curtailed via a policy of containment.

Under George W. Bush, foreign policy sermonizing has come back with a vengeance, dominating not only the rhetorical sphere but also the administration's actions. Iraq is the centerpiece and the rhetoric about American actions being predicated on moral goals, such as the export of democracy, exceeds by a great deal what we have experienced under other administrations. The "good guy/bad guy" gambit is used promiscuously to justify what this country is doing in far away places. President Bush believes with full faith that there is an unimpeachable obligation to implant American values in places that have long been alien soil for such values. He believes that deeds aimed at achieving this goal will be rewarded through beneficial outcomes because democracy is contagious.

The debate over Iraq has centered on why we went to war, on whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and the like. More recently, as the outlook has become gloomier, the focus has shifted to whether we have made things worse by provoking a brutal civil war and by stirring up the Islamic-Jihadist pot. Inevitably, some of this debate is partisan and also predicated on ideology. Not surprisingly, those who are anti-Bush for other reasons conclude that Iraq is an American foreign policy disaster.

What about Israel? Putting aside partisanship and ideology, how has Iraq impacted on the Jewish state? President Bush has given Israel enormous support and this might be sufficient from the Jewish standpoint. I think not. Prior to the Iraq invasion, I questioned whether the removal of Saddam Hussein's secular regime might be risky for Israel. That question has now been firmly answered. Iraq is an unmitigated disaster, even tragedy, for Israel. The balance of power between the Sunnis who were dominant in Iraq and the Shi'ites who were subjugated in Iraq but are dominant in neighboring Iran has been shattered. Islamic fundamentalism is out of control, with Iran emboldened, as we have seen in its nuclear development program and support of the Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shi'ites in Iraq.

As a further negative consequence of Iraq, the U.S. has too little will, too little military manpower and resources, too little diplomatic mobility and too little support to confront Iran, a country that is a far, far greater threat to U.S. (and Israeli) interests than Iraq ever was. This conclusion is not a matter of partisanship or ideology.

Israel knows the difference between Sunni and Shi'a and its policy makers obviously understood the benefits of Iraqi-Irani rivalry. Israel knew the benefits that it secured from the balance of power that has now been shattered. Israel had to know that ousting Saddam Hussein would result in an expansion of Iran's influence. For all of this knowledge, Israeli leaders enthusiastically supported U.S. military actions in Iraq. So far as I know, neither government officials nor journalists have said that Israel's security has been undermined by Shi'ite ascendancy in Iraq. I was in Israel throughout the Lebanon war and cannot recall a single Haaretz or Jerusalem Post article linking the Hezbolah-Iranian axis to what transpired in Iraq.

What I believe is at work is a bad case of the dialectics of friendship, of the familiar pattern of having more to fear from friends than from enemies, if only because friends are the ones who make demands. Israel has very little wiggle room when it comes to deciding whether to support U.S. actions. In anticipation of what the U.S. wants and as a trade-off for American assistance, Israel's national interests are at times subordinated to what the U.S. expects, even when a realistic calculation of the price that is being paid indicates that it is too high.

What emerges is that Israeli policy-makers suppressed their concerns and subordinated their country's interests to American policy. If I am right, Israel's miscalculations regarding Iraq were far more damaging than Israel's miscalculations regarding Hezbollah, although only the latter have engendered calls for a high level investigation. We do not need an investigation of Israel's policies regarding Iraq. What is desperately needed is reflection on the collateral damage that has occurred. At long last, there should be a courageous confrontation of the vexatious issue of the dialectics of friendship.

If there is any ray of hope in this gloomy picture, it is that Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan are also fearful of the consequences of the shattering of the intra-Islamic balance of power.

Sliding Toward Bigotry

To outsiders, religious groups seem to be undifferentiated masses of adherents. From the inside, there are varying degrees of religiosity and nuances in practices and beliefs that often are not picked up by outsiders, particularly those who traffic in stereotypes, a failing that afflicts some who are allegedly adept in the sociology of religion.

Religious groups also reflect social change, how the external world brings about mutations in the behavior and attitudes of group members. Change can be in the direction of greater or lesser religiosity or concurrently in both directions, a phenomenon that is evident in contemporary Orthodox Jewish life. Among some, modernity results in a diminution of religious commitment, while among others the reaction against modernity provokes the opposite outcome. The Modern Orthodox or MOs especially are subject to this dualism, although it is to an extent true of all sectors of Orthodoxy, as well as other religious groups.

Of the three primary religious paths available to the MOs - moving away from Orthodoxy, stability in religiosity and greater religiosity - successive National Jewish Population Surveys indicate that moving away from Orthodoxy is the most prevalent path. There is much qualitative evidence pointing in the same direction. There is also a high incidence of stability, as is demonstrated by the steady enrollment increases in MO day schools, this despite a) defections from Orthodoxy, b) some movement toward greater religiosity and c) significant MO aliyah. The least likely path for MOs is becoming charedi or fervently Orthodox.

This last direction is the subject of "Sliding to the Right," the new book by Samuel Heilman who has been fixated for quite a while on the prospect of a charedi take-over of Modern Orthodoxy. The book is an expansion of a Heilman lecture published last year in "Contemporary Jewry" (Vol. 25, 2005) under the title "How Did Fundamentalism Manage to Infiltrate Contemporary Orthodoxy?" What follows is a nasty picture bereft of the slightest feelings of empathy or understanding of the nuances that abound in Orthodox life. In Heilman's distorted telling, Orthodox Jews are in the Dark Ages or rapidly heading in that direction, as they are engulfed in a sea of fundamentalism, a term that he uses promiscuously in his obsessive determination to assign negative characteristics to these Jews.

As an antidote to Heilman's concocted conspiracy, it's worth reading Aaron Rose's, "The Haredim: A Defense," published in the latest issue of Azure. Rose is an ex-charedi.

Heilman's main fixation is not with charedim whose life-style he describes in stereotypic fashion without any appreciation of their differences or career and educational paths. He is most exercised over the MOs who are betraying Modern Orthodoxy by becoming less modern, although in dress and numerous other behaviors they are quite distinct from charedim. This change arises from sinister - meaning fundamentalist - forces that conspire to move MOs into the charedi camp. As with all conspiracy theories, Heilman's is constructed out of a daisy chain of circumstances that exists largely in his mind.

His starting point is the MO day school where charedi teachers bring "their ideological baggage." Once inside, they import "a worldview and ethos that conflicted with that of modern Orthodoxy," seeing "their presence in the day school as evidence of the ideological weaknesses and flaws of the modern Orthodox worldview" and instilling "in their students many of the values and ideas of the yeshiva or even the contemporary hasidic world. In effect, these people were agents-provocateurs who came from one segment of the Orthodox world to influence another by undermining many of its acculturationist values ... One of the reasons why they were willing to step out of their enclaves and into the defiled domains of the day school," was that this allowed them to promote "a haredi, fundamentalist message."

To be generous, this is nuts. These are teachers in co-educational schools who do not set the curriculum or ambiance, schools where Zionism and modernity are constantly on display. As with teachers everywhere, some have an impact. But agents-provocateurs? If Heilman would approach his subject as a sociologist and not as a polemicist, he would at least ask how is it that far many more MO students abandon religiosity.

The conspiracy continues with a year or two of Israel study after high school. If you think that young men and women go to Israel because of their love for the Jewish State and yearning to be there, you have it wrong. In Heilman's conspiratorial mindset, anxieties that predate "a more reactionary Orthodoxy, led increasingly to the practice of sending day school graduates for a year or two" to yeshivas and seminaries in Israel.

There is no allowance for the possibility of students or, as likely, their parents deciding to move somewhat away from modernity without embracing fundamentalism. There is no recognition that they may be rejecting what Rabbi Saul Berman has termed "the debasement of the low secular culture in America." There is no allowance that MOs have come to appreciate the glory of Torah study, in part as a consequence of ArtScroll's magnificent publications which Heilman describes as having a "haredi outlook." There is no acknowledgement that a bit more religion might be a good thing.

Heilman concludes his description of the new Orthodox dystopia by comparing Islamic schools and yeshivas, something that he has done in previous writings. The comparison is odious, even morally obscene, in view of the suicide bombers and other evils attributable to the former. This does not curtail a writer who concludes his nasty polemic by writing that the "new Orthodox fundamentalist guardians of the faith could turn out to be its jailers."

Indeed, Heilman has reached a point where he is the prisoner of his own fantasies and falsehoods.

Whither Modern Orthodoxy

Religious groups that are defined by distinctive practices and beliefs are fascinating social organisms. To outsiders, the group's adherents are invariably viewed as an undifferentiated mass, as a collection of people who think and act alike. Inside of the group, there are distinctions and nuances that can beget sharp theological disputes. The Sh'ia world exemplifies this reality.

That world is huge, consisting of tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of Moslems. All of world Jewry is, as I suggested at least a generation ago, less than a statistical error in the Chinese - and now also the Indian - census. The Orthodox are a small part of world Jewry, according to demographers about 500,000 in the United States. Yet, there are four major groupings of American Orthodox - Centrist, Chassidic, Modern and Yeshiva-world - and that's not counting Chabad or the Sephardim. There is also a dizzying array of subgroups, as, for example, the many Chassidic sects. There's more. Satmar, the largest sect, is divided over theology and not merely over succession and control. There is a splinter group which claims that mainstream Satmar has become lax in its religiosity.

There are also distinctions among the Modern Orthodox. An ultra-modern wing differs substantially from other Modern Orthodox on feminism, relations with the non-Orthodox and how to respond to modernity. Its leaders include Rabbis Saul Berman and Avi Weiss, respectfully the founders of Edah and Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. Despite the errant and endless kvetching of Samuel Heilman that the Moderns are a threatened species whose young are being subverted by charedi teachers, the reality is otherwise. My censuses of Jewish day schools indicate significant growth in the Modern Orthodox sector, an impressive development in view of the number of Moderns who have made aliyah.

As summer arrived, Rabbi Berman announced that Edah would close, a shocker in view of its ability to attract attention and funding and, more importantly, participation in its events and activities. While key Edah projects are being incorporated into Chovevei Torah where Rabbi Berman will direct continuing rabbinic education, it is unlikely that things will be the same.

In a thoughtful front-page article published in The Jewish Press explaining why "Edah is electing to wind down," Rabbi Berman wrote, "we didn't see the need for the Jewish community to bear the burden of yet another Jewish institution." This admirable sentiment should be emulated by other Jewish groups, notably the large number that for all practical purposes have long been dead.

Less admirable is Rabbi Berman's claim that Edah followed in the path of notable Orthodox Rabbis, including Rabbis Samson R. Hirsch, Jacob Ettinger and Azriel Hildesheimer and that these and other Orthodox leaders provided "the halachic and hashkafic antecedents" for the major ideological positions of Edah. This is a total historic distortion, a claim that doesn't have even a wobbly leg to stand on. Rabbi Berman should make his case without relying on what is bogus.

If, as he writes, it was not Edah's "purpose to criticize other Jews," the group did a terrific job camouflaging its intentions. Edah's well-advertised slogan, "The Courage to be Modern and Orthodox," was a deliberate jab at mainstream Orthodoxy. It takes little or no courage to be modern. It takes, at times, much courage to be distinctive in dress and appearance and to maintain a strictly Orthodox life in a society that is mired in Rabbi Berman's appropriate phrase, "the debasement of the low secular culture in America."

Edah's conference sessions frequently exhibited the bad habit of targeting mainstream Orthodoxy, even as tolerance and a welcome mat were the message to the non-Orthodox and those who openly deviated from halacha. My main peeve concerns sessions dealing with day schools where the refrain was the imperative to rescue Modern Orthodox schools from the pernicious influence exerted by charedi teachers. There was not a word of empathy for these men and women who toil with dedication and at low pay in the essential field of religious Jewish education. There was only criticism and the foolish notion that these teachers dictate the curriculum and character of the schools.

There was scant inclination to practice diversity and tolerance by inviting Orthodox speakers who might offer a different opinion on feminism, education and other topics on Edah's agenda. About the time that Rabbi Berman made his announcement, Rabbi Nati Helfgot, a top-flight scholar and star on Chovevei Torah's faculty, defended the school against criticism published in Yated Ne'eman, the yeshiva world's main newspaper. This resulted in a powerful response from the paper's editor who compellingly documented Chovevei Torah's hospitality toward those who advocate anti-halachic positions.

Orthodoxy is not what ails American Jewry. Modernity is. The impact of modernity is inescapable and, to one extent or another, all of Orthodox Jewry faces the problem of how to integrate elements of modernity while also shielding against that which is harmful. While strategies differ, the major parts of Orthodoxy have by and large established boundaries. The ultra-Moderns as represented by Edah have not. In the mindset of the ultras, too often Orthodoxy places second to modernity.

Modernity and the low secular culture that accompanies it are dynamic forces that constantly widen the gap between what society tolerates and what religious Jewish law allows. This reality has added to the predicament of Edah and the ultra-Modern Orthodox. The embrace of modernity can fill a conference hall, fed in part by Conservative traditionalists, but it cannot fill a Jewish home with sanctity.

Thatis why many Modern Orthodox rejected Edah. Unless the ultra-Modern Orthodox define the limits of modernity, there is a good prospect that, as has been anticipated for some time, little will separate them from the Conservative traditionalists who are unhappy because their movement has drifted far away from any traditional moorings.