Yehudi Hilchati

End of this blog

2008-06-23T13:39:00.003-05:00

After a few weeks reflection on this, I decided to start a new blog that is linked to my real name. I've done that, and have been blogging there for a couple of weeks.

I won't close down this blog completely and may post from time to time on things that are a little to heretical for my non-anonymous blog, but for the most part this blog will be dormant. I haven't forgotten about the results of my poll - I will be posting them here soon. (The problem is that surveymonkey doesn't allow for me to download the results unless I become a member, so I have to copy & paste everything and format it so it's readable when I have some time.)

Anyway, thanks for reading and see you around the blogosphere!

Value of Jewish vs. Non-Jewish life

2008-06-03T09:47:00.005-05:00

A discussion on DovBear about the value of Jewish life vs. Non-Jewish life, with some commenters saying that a saving a Jew's life takes precedence over saving a non-Jew's life has inspired me to post an (unscientific) survey on the topic:

Click here to take the survey. All responses are anonymous.

Update: I will be posting the results here in a few days.

Sharon Stone on China

2008-05-28T15:08:00.002-05:00

The actress Sharon Stone recently made an inexcusable comment:

I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else... And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?"

What strikes me as interesting is how similar this is to statements various prominent Rabbanim have made, ascribing blame for tragedies to the victims sinful behaviour, such as the Hurricane Katrina being blamed on the debauchery that went on in that city (or because America supported Israel's giving away Gaza, depending on who you ask.) Or the disco bombing in Tel Aviv a few years ago was blamed on chilul Shabbat.

And of course, the old favorite, the Shoah was caused by assimilation among Jews.

I think that it's the ultimate arrogance for a human being to think they can know the mind of God, especially when it comes to tragedies. That goes for Sharon Stone and her "karma" too.

Conversion in Israel

2008-05-28T10:50:00.002-05:00

There’s been a lot of discussion lately of the unfortunate decision by the RCA to basically capitulate to the Israeli Chief Rabbinate on matters of conversion, as well as the even more controversial ruling to reverse conversions performed by the Israel Conversion Authority, headed by Rav Chaim Drukman.

First of all, it is important to understand the motivations of the Chief Rabbinate, under charedi control.

When the Chazon Ish ruled that it is appropriate to trust Jews who state their identity as such, there weren't large numbers of potential olim who came from mixed marriages where the mother converted under Reform auspices. There are now. These children are raised Jewish, but do not practice halacha.

By traditional halachic standards, they are not Jewish. yet they come to Israel & claim to be. The Rabbanut, now under Charedi control, is desperate to keep it all straight and to identify Jews properly.

I understand why, in their bumbling, inefficient, and condescending way, they do it. But the ends do not justify the means and far more harm than good is being done, even by Orthodox standards.

(The truth is that ultimately it's all nonsense anyway. Am I to believe that in the past 3000 years no Jewish woman has ever had an affair and then passed off the child as her husband's? Statistically, it's very likely that something like this did happen. All it takes is one European Jewish woman 1000 years ago who did this, and considering the mathematics of intertwining family trees, that would make us all mamzerim today. So the obsession of keeping a pure bloodline is useless.)

Some have called for abolishing the Israeli Rabbinate entirely. I don't think there’s a need for that strong a step, even if it were politically possible. The Rabbinate just needs to become a voluntary institution that serves those who want it. Make it a state-sponsored OPTIONAL service provided to the Jewish residents of Israel. Take away their absolute monopoly on birth, marriage, funerals, kashrut, etc. Let there be a state-sponsored Rabbinate for each major stream of Judaism, available for serving its constituents. And let there be a civil options as well.

Who decides what qualifies as a major stream of Judaism that deserves its own Rabbinate? That's an issue, but not an insurmountable one. It'll get hashed out.

The time to remove the Rabbinate's power is now, before it is too late. Demographics favor the Charedim over the next 25 years and their voting power will block any attempt to weaken the Rabbinate.

This topic reminds me of an incident I experienced. When I made aliyah some years ago, I had a letter from my shul Rabbi. It turned out he wasn't on their approved list. I said that I could get a letter from Rabbi X, of the shul where I grew up instead. It turned out that Rabbi X was on the list of approved Rabbis. The woman in the office, a cute single British girl (I was single at the time too), started discussing with me where the Rabbi could send the letter and whether it could be faxed. We were flirting a little, some light banter, and then she stopped, smiled at me, and said "you know what? You mentioned the name of an approved Rabbi. Don't worry about the letter - I'll just stamp you approved!"

So, officially at least, the state of Israel considers me Jewish because I flirted with an office worker. Maybe that's why the charedi rabbanut cracked down!

Should I blog under my own name?

2008-05-27T10:32:00.003-05:00

I've always been a little uncomfortable with anonymous blogging. But I do it anyway, for the reasons outlined below.

I've written stuff here that I probably wouldn't want my family or some members of my community to know of. Though I'm not a full-blown skeptic, I've expressed enough opinions on the documentary hypothesis and the origins of Judaism to earn the title of "apikores" by strictly traditional standards. I've also written some left-of-center opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian issue that while relatively moderate, would provoke massive arguments with my right wing (on that issue) family if they knew about it. So all in all, blogging anonymously allows me to express my opinions without fear of repercussions.

On the other hand, blogging anonymously keeps me from extending the discourse of this blog to real life. If I blogged under my own name, I'd be able to make the blog simply an extension of my ideas in real life, which I could discuss with people verbally and then simply refer them to my blog. Therefore, I've been thinking about dispensing with the "secret identity" and blogging as myself.

But if I did, I'd probably just start a new non-anonymous blog and just let this one go dormant, with no identifying link between them, for the reasons mentioned above. I just don't need arguments and tension with parents, siblings, and some friends. (My wife is aware of this blog.) The new blog would probably avoid some topics I've dealt with here.

Although I don't have a huge number of readers, over the past 1+ years, I've developed connections to a number of other blogs and have commented in many places, all under the name "Yehudi Hilchati".

So do I leave it behind and start a new blog under my own name and rebuild a readership with no base?

Should I just stay put and leave aside my need to express my opinions under my own name?

Or should I be really daring and go public on this blog and let the chips fall where they may?

Racism in West Virginia

2008-05-14T10:39:00.005-05:00

Hillary Clinton won big in the West Virginia primary yesterday. Not just big, but a blowout, 67% - 26%.

When the rest of the country is at worst breaking even for Barack Obama, how did this happen?

The media has been too timid to say this, but I think it's pretty clear that racism is alive & well in West Virginia. The fact the 7% f the electorate there voted for John Edwards, who hasn't been in the race for months, underscores how many of the people in that state would rather vote for anyone else rather than a black man. And an exit poll showed that half of the voters thought that Jeremiah Wright was an important factor in their vote.

I think one thing this reveals is that lack of education and extreme rural residency are far better predictors of racism than living in a southern state. I hope this doesn't handicap Obama in the general election.

Boycott the Chidon HaTanach?

2008-05-07T09:25:00.002-05:00

Bat-El Levi, 15, from Be'er Sheva is one of the 4 Israeli finalists in the Chidon HaTanach, the international Bible competition for Jewish teens sponsored by Israel. She is also a Messianic Jew who believes in Jesus.

From The Jerusalem Post:

The controversy surrounding the participation of 16-year-old Bat-El Levi, from Beersheba, began last week as a result of a campaign led by the haredi anti-missionary organization Yad Le'Achim.

Yad Le'Achim discovered that Levi belonged to a messianic Jewish congregation. The organization immediately contacted rabbis and other spiritual leaders. Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, a leading religious Zionist halachic authority, called to boycott the quiz if the messianic Jew did not forfeit her participation. His call was joined by other rabbis aligned with religious Zionism, including Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu.

Sources close to the Levi family, who did not deny their ties with a messianic Jewish congregation, said there had been attempts by Yad Le'Achim to dissuade Bat-El from taking part in the competition. A group of activists demonstrated in Dimona when the participants came to the Negev town for a preliminary quiz.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. One the one hand, the Chidon HaTanach has always been the pride of young Jews showing their knowledge of Torah in an international competition. Should that be spoiled by the spectacle of a girl who believes in Jesus possibly winning this thing and becoming a point of pride for Messianic Jews and creating an opportunity for increased openness to missionary activity?

On the other hand, this is a Jewish girl living in Israel who has studied hard and has gotten where she is on the basis of merit. Is it fair to bar her?

High cost of food

2008-04-15T14:33:00.004-05:00

U.S. seeing worst food inflation in 17 years

As if Pesach shopping wasn't expensive enough already! I paid almost $8 for a stick of Haolam cheddar cheese. I think I'll just eat vegetables.

How should an Orthoprax skeptic view halacha?

2008-04-11T11:03:00.003-05:00

XGH posted yesterday on “The Minutiae of Halachah: Insanity or Necessity?”

He examines the issue from the viewpoint of an orthoprax skeptic and divides halacha into 3 categories; Civil, Ethical, and Ritual.

I think that there's a further distinction within ritual law.

A) Ritual law as applied only to oneself:

"I'm late for work and can't be bothered to put on tefillin this morning"

and

B) Ritual law as it effects others:

"It's almost Shabbat, but the chulent only just started cooking in the crock pot - well, it'll be totally cooked by later tonight, and I just won't say anything to my guests - what they don't know won't hurt them.")

From a viewpoint of an orthoprax skeptic, both scenarios don’t really do any harm because the halachot are man-made and God, if he exists, doesn't care if the beans cooked on Shabbat.

But for a guest who is a believer in the full divinity of the halachic system and of the divine sanction of the chachamim's words, the food in the crock pot is treif because it was cooked on Shabbat itself.

Any skeptic needs to value the system enough so that he respects and fully enables the halachic beliefs of those who trust him as a member of the Orthodox community. That should be the point which determines whether he has a right to claim a place in the OJ community.

For example, there are a couple of hechsherim that are rejected by most of the mainstream OJ community, but that I personally feel very comfortable with. In my opinion, the reason for rejection of those hechsherim is based on nonsensical 100 year old chumrot. So I’ll eat food out under those hechsherim. I’ll even bring it into my house. But if I do, I’ll double wrap it in the microwave, and eat it on paper plates and with plastic silverware.

Why? Because I respect the guests who will come to my house and eat from my kitchen and I won't serve anything that wouldn't be fully acceptable to the mainstream OJ community, even though I think they're being misled on a silly chumrah.

לפני עור לא תתן מכשל

Am I really here?

2008-04-09T10:06:00.000-05:00

I'm more mysterious than I realized!

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-yeh1.htm

I'm still alive

2008-04-07T15:40:00.001-05:00

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth - it's just that my job got really busy the last few weeks. I'll be posting again in the near future, so check back soon!

Barack Obama, racism, and the frum community

2008-03-19T14:58:00.005-05:00

I rarely get angry about politics, but I am getting angry now.

Yesterday, Barack Obama made a speech about race in America that was nuanced, treated the listeners like thinking people, and made important distinctions.

But many in the Jewish community focused only on what Obama had to say about his former Pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

Admittedly, some of the sound clips of Wright’s that have come to light in recent days are disturbing. But Obama isn’t Wright. He made that abundantly clear in his speech yesterday:

“…the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

"As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems…”

But all many Orthodox Jews seem to be able to focus on is that fact that he didn’t reject Reverend Wright himself. No matter that Obama has been a steadfast friend of Israel’s.

Over a year ago, he said:

“My view is that the United States' special relationship with Israel obligates us to be helpful to them in the search for credible partners with whom they can make peace, while also supporting Israel in defending itself against enemies sworn to its destruction,"

Over 2 years ago, he said:

"I flew on an IDF helicopter to the border zone. The helicopter took us over the most troubled and dangerous areas and that narrow strip between the West Bank and the Mediterranean Sea. At that height, I could see the hills and the terrain that generations have walked across. I could truly see how close everything is and why peace through security is the only way for Israel,"

and

"We must preserve our total commitment to our unique defense relationship with Israel by fully funding military assistance and continuing work on the Arrow and related missile defense programs. This would help Israel maintain its military edge and deter and repel attacks from as far as Tehran and as close as Gaza."

In his speech yesterday, he said that Reverend Wright’s comments expressed:

“a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.”

Yet, many Orthodox Jews focus only on the fact that he has a relationship with Wright. Obama's support for Israel doesn’t count. And the fact that much of his speech was an important and honest assessment of race relations in America doesn’t count either. That doesn’t seem to be on frum Jews’ radar.

But that’s not the main reason why I’m angry. Parochial, narrow minded members of the electorate who focus on only their pet concerns have always been there. The Jewish community is no exception.

But the tone taken by many frum commentators and bloggers goes beyond simple concerns. Many specifically evoke Obama’s middle name, “Hussein” as if to point to something sinister and Arabic about him. The blatantly false emails claiming that Obama is a radical Muslim still make the rounds in the frum community. And the fear that many in the frum community have of Obama’s former pastor’s influence on the candidate betrays an irrational fear of Black Americans by many frum Jews.

For far too many frum Jews, black people are still “shvartzas”. They are spoken of distastefully, many times from the pulpits of shtibels and yeshivas. The fear of them and their supposed lifestyles, that they are all “vilda chayas”, committing crime and impregnating women, is rampant. I have heard it from relatives, friends, and Rabbis.

Do I reject those friends, relatives, Rabbis? No, I try to correct them, or simply tune it out. I firmly reject what they say. But I will not cut them out of my lives.

Obama hit the nail right on the head yesterday when he said:

“I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.”

Can anybody who has spent time in the frum community really tell me that he’s wrong?

Here is a collection of Wright’s statements. They are blunt, and some are ignorant & biased, especially the ones about Israel, but do they really rise to the level to cause such hysteria? I see no blatant racism in it. I see no calls of “death to Jews”.

There is an anger towards America, yes. But what do you expect in a county where racism still rears its ugly head in subtle and not so subtle ways every day? Has America really been a land of perfection to black people?

Much of it is simply the way in which it was said. The clips of Reverend Wright have been played over and over again on the radio and TV. And white America fears angry black men, no matter what is being said. It could be a grocery list, and still white America would tense up. But what’s especially disappointing is that that cringing is intensified in the frum Jewish communities of America.

In his speech, Obama, while condemning much of Wright’s rhetoric, also tried to go beyond that and eloquently explained the reasons and background for some black anger:

“Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, ‘The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.’ We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

"Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

"Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

"A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.”

But most of the frum community doesn’t seem to want to understand any of this. Most of them want to focus their growing hysteria on how an Obama presidency will treat Israel, despite Obama’s steadfast support of Israel, in word and deed, over the last several years.

There is a great fear of the “other” in the insular frum community. And black Americans, especially urban ones, are a particularly strong representation of that “other”. Most frum Jews still live in urban neighborhoods that are shoulder to shoulder with lower income black neighborhoods. Many remember the days in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s when old Jewish neighborhoods became more and more black, crime rose, and shuls became churches.

Especially in these urban areas, yeshiva students watched the minority urban youth hanging out on the street corners and formed negative stereotypes that stayed with them for the rest of their lives.

But the old stereotypes no longer hold. Barack Obama is a well-spoken, Columbia and Harvard educated US Senator. But too many frum jews look at him and automatically think “shvartza”. “Will he be good for the Jews? Will he be good for Israel?” And despite all the evidence of his positive views on both those topics, they conclude that the answer is no.

That is why I am angry. Because an affluent frum community, whose members are doctors, lawyers, and businessmen shouldn’t be carrying around such racism in this day & age. We are better than that. Or at least we should be. Especially Jews, who 60 years ago were being loaded into the gas chambers of Nazi Germany simply for being Jewish.

But far too many friends who should know better have sent me emails claiming that Obama is a Muslim, that he sympathizes with Hamas, that he will champion black power and only cares about the black community.

This candidacy was a chance for frum Jews to show that they are above expressing the same kind of discrimination that has followed them for centuries. That they can sympathize and help another community try to overcome the bigotry and inequality as many did in the 1960’s when they marched with Martin Luther King Jr. That they can try to hear the words of Senator Obama yesterday and understand the racism, troubles and hardships that have kept many black Americans from succeeding.

It was a chance for a Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of G-d’s name).

Instead, my community has caused a great Chillul Hashem, a desecration of G-d’s name. We have shown the whole county our irrational fear and dislike of African-Americans. Senator Obama keeps coming back to the Jewish community, again and again, to allay their irrational fears that would never exist for white candidates with similar records. And the whole world sees those fears and that racism.

THAT is why I am angry. And disappointed and embarrassed.

I ask all of you who are reading this; please take a few minutes to watch, listen, or read the whole of Obama’s speech yesterday. You’ll see his attempt to heal, not divide. And listen to the whole thing, not just the part about Reverend Wright. Support Senator Obama in this election or don’t, as your conscience dictates, but do it for the right reasons.

With some effort, we have a chance to do better and make a Kiddush Hashem after all.

New York Times article about a black shul in Chicago

2008-03-17T12:58:00.006-05:00

"Black Rabbi Reaches Out to Mainstream of His Faith"

The above picture looks like they have separate seating but no mechitza. The article says "Beth Shalom’s service is somewhere between Conservative and Modern Orthodox observance"

Their shul website reads:

"our way of life closely resemble those of the modern orthodox with clear conservative and African-American influences. For instance, a lay person would notice that we maintain separate seating for men and women in our sanctuary, but believe in the complete equality of women. We allow travel on the Shabbat (Sabbath) for worship services, and follow a biblical definition of kosher foods that prohibits the eating of pork and certain kinds of sea food but does not require the separation of milk and meat products. However, we do have members who are strictly kosher according to the Halakah."

While I'm impressed with their shul and community & would love to visit some day, the above doesn't really sound Modern Orthodox. But I'm glad to see the article in the NY Times. We need to be more aware of the larger Jewish community that falls outside the narrow preconceptions that many of us have.

Women's ritual roles

2008-03-12T09:37:00.003-05:00

On DovBear's blog, LadyKaye wrote a post on whether women can lain from the Torah in public and discussed the reason given in the Talmud against it, that of "Kavod HaTzibur" (respect to the congregation). She discusses the 2 explanations generally given for Kavod HaTzibur. One is that women were simply held in lower regard. The other was a convoluted apologetic that involved women's educational opportunities (see her post for a full explanation.)

I thin there's no question that it's the lower regard for women that accounted for Kavod HaTzibur. Women were deemed inferior. That's OK, since most of the world deemed women inferior at the time the halachot were written & codified. (Mishna & Talmud.)

Actually, Judaism was more respectful of women's rights and status than the surrounding society. They were deemed inferior, but not property. Since the episode of B'not Zelafchad in the Torah, Judaism has had a tradition of working within the halachic system to make things better for women as times demanded.

Unfortunately most of the Orthodox community today has forgotten the elasticity of halacha. Women who can be CEO's, doctors, lawyers, and college professors in the outside world are relegated to sitting behind the mechitza and taking no public role in tefilla.

It is no longer OK to treat women as inferior by appealing to outmoded ways of thinking that happened to find its way to some halachic standards.

Shuls like Shira Chadasha & Darkhei Noam have taken up the ancient tradition of stretching (not breaking) halacha to enable women to expand their roles. It's a shame that most of the Orthodox world has created only one innovation - the concept that halacha cannot change.

Reporting child abuse

2008-03-05T12:03:00.002-05:00

Emes Ve_emunah on reporting of child abuse in the Orthodox community:

http://haemtza.blogspot.com/2008/03/dropping-ball-on-child-sex-abuse.html

Important reading. I can't agree with Harry M more.

How about this for a label?

2008-03-03T13:24:00.003-05:00

Not that I really care much about labels anymore. I'd rather be without them. Though I've been toying with "Post Orthodox" lately.

But for entertainment or thought value, how about "Evolved Orthodox", or "Evolvodox"?

Sderot, Ashkelon, and Israel's future

2008-02-29T13:12:00.006-05:00

Israel is almost certainly planning a full-scale military action in Gaza in the very near future. Given the rockets that have been falling in increasing numbers on Sderot and the rockets that are now falling on Ashkelon, it’s about time.

I can’t help wonder though, why it took Ashkelon being shelled for this decision to be made. I guess residents of a more affluent city (as opposed to lower-income Sderot) have much more power in the flawed democracy that is the Israeli government.

I understand Israel’s hesitancy to attack till now. There will inevitably be many deaths of innocent Palestinians and aside from the moral tragedy of that, it never plays well in public world opinion. Will the military action really stop the rockets? Furthermore, what happens after Israel is done with the military operation? Do they stay? If not, won’t the missile attacks just begin again? But staying means a reoccupation and control of the daily lives of over 1 million civilians who hate us. That’s not ideal either.

Israel has never had easy solutions to its problems. But its ultimate responsibility is the safety of its own citizens. And that trumps Palestinian deaths, world opinion, and future difficulties. It’s not an easy road, but the residents of Sderot and Ashkelon deserve to live in normalcy. The responsibility of Israel to its citizens is particularly compelling because this is the Jewish state, where the threats aren’t just to a particular town but existential to the entire country. And its citizens are mostly Jews, who need this safe haven less than 65 years after our people were on their way to extinction. That goes for Jews around the world as well. We need Israel.

On the other hand, we have the demographic threat to Israel. How do we stay a Jewish county? So Sharon had a brilliant plan to unilaterally give up Gaza. What happened? They started shooting at us. How do we maintain a Jewish country while maintaining its safety?

Maybe Sharon had the right idea, but implemented it wrong. Maybe Israel needed to leave Gaza. And maybe Israel will need to leave Yehuda & Shomron (the West Bank) as well, and since there isn’t really a reliable “peace partner”, Israel should take these steps unilaterally, redrawing the borders to annex Gush Etzion, Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel and similar settlements.

Where Sharon made a mistake in Gaza though, was withdrawing militarily at the same time as the civilian withdrawal. Troops could have stayed, but redeployed now that they wouldn’t have to guard the Israeli citizens who lived there, which was probably most of their job. Their only job now would have been to maintain Israel’s safety. They could have prevented most munitions from coming into Gaza and prevented most rocket attacks, without having to deploy in the middle of major population centers.

They can do the same much easier in the case of Yehuda & Shomron. There’s a large land area in which Israel can deploy in the most strategic manner, without having to guard civilians. It will make their job much easier and won’t be as emotionally taxing to soldiers. Their main mission will be to prevent Hamas from taking over there as they did in Gaza.

How long will the army have to stay? I’m not sure. But Israel can give political autonomy to the Palestinians, and as a viable, peaceful Palestinian state arises, they can eventually give them security control as well. But Israel will still have to maintain some level of military presence there for a long time.

Notice that I’m still using the terms “Yehuda & Shomron” as apposed to most advocates of withdrawal, who use “the West Bank” so as to delegitimize the Jewish claim there. I do no such thing. I think that Israel has a deep historical & religious connection to this land, and even under international law the issue is murky, if you go back to the Balfour Declaration and other early documents of the British Mandate era.

I have a sister and brother-in-law who live in a settlement in the Shomron. It’s a beautiful place and my nephews & nieces are growing up in a wonderful environment. To imagine that place destroyed and Palestinians taking over the land is incredibly painful to me.

But Pragmatism must rule. Actually, it’s pragmatic idealism. Most Jews are idealists in the sense that we want Israel to exist and to be a Jewish state. If we stay in Yehuda & Shomron, that ideal is in danger. So as painful as it is to leave, to uproot communities that have existed for over a generation, to walk away from the heartland of our ancestors, we probably have no other choice. And we’ll still have the amazing existence of a Jewish state after 2000 years.

The mistakes in Gaza should serve as a guide to the future. Plans must be made very carefully. The settlers shouldn’t be demonized. Rather than temporary housing, plans for new communities can be made in the Negev and Galil. The idealistic Zionism of the settlers should not be quashed but rather redirected to settling the parts of Eretz Yisrael that we can keep.

How did I get here? I started by writing about a military operation in Gaza and then all my thoughts poured out. I’m not going to solve all of Israel’s problems in one blog post, I guess.

May peace come soon.

Shabbat Shalom

Happy Birthday Yehudi Hilchati!

2008-02-28T09:32:00.005-05:00

This blog is one year old today! My first post was on February 28, 2007. The blog has evolved a little, in purpose and philosophy, but the biggest change over the past year is that I finally have some readers :-). Not many, but enough to get some comments. Tell your friends! Go ahead, we’ll make more…

I’ve simplified the blog description from the long winded statement about Yahadut Hilchatit to something more succinct and probably more accurate as well. (I’ve placed the old description here, if you want to read it.)

Too many blogs in the J-blogosphere have a combative tone. One thing I’ve tried to do here is to keep the tone civil & respectful, even when discussing issues where I have strong disagreements with others. I think that for the most part I’ve succeeded.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Feedback is appreciated!

Labels revisited

2008-02-26T12:36:00.002-05:00

My last post prompted two commenters who wrote that they dislike labels. I'm not huge on labels either, for a number of reasons, including the pigeonholing of people and the fact that I don't really fit into a label myself.

But they can sometimes be useful, sort of as a rallying concept around which people can gather. I'm advocating "Hilchati", not as a set of dogma, but a large tent under which people can identify with one another.

Maybe label is the wrong term. Instead of defining the full person, it can simply be an aspect, such as "Yes, I have some Hilchati notions and ideas." It doesn’t have to encompass one’s whole identity, but can be used as an indicator, to whatever percentage the individual chooses.

Can Modern Orthodoxy be defined?

2008-02-20T13:35:00.002-05:00

Gil Student tries to pin down what Modern Orthodox people believe (though he mixes the terms “Modern Orthodox” and “Centrist Orthodox”.)

The problem with that is that it's much easier to define people fairly accurately by a label the farther to the religious right they are. Charedim have specific hashkafot in place for the various groups, and complete adherence is expected of members. Centrist Orthodoxy is a little harder to pin down onto a range of individuals and by the time you get to "Left Wing Modern Orthodoxy" or "Open Orthodoxy", there's not much of a party line and the mass of individuals represent quite a spectrum of beliefs.

Personally, I like it that way. It forces people to get to know one another as individuals instead of projecting a label on them.

In defense of the Upper West Side

2008-02-15T10:41:00.005-05:00

I am tired of hearing about the supposed “shidduch crisis” and am even more tired of hearing it being blamed on the singles culture of the Upper West Side.

I met my wife on the UWS, in my early 30's. In my experience, most of the singles on the UWS do eventually get married and most of those within their childbearing years.

There seems to be a tendency for the Yeshivish and Centrist Orthodox communities to lament the "shidduch crisis" among their 20-something children who worry about the color of a boy's shirt or where their parents went to camp. Then those communities turn around and suddenly blame it all on the singles culture of the UWS.

The UWS singles have the healthiest attitudes I know in the Orthodox community. They don't reject potential spouses for nonsensical reasons like family backgrounds and they're not focused on having a boy sit in kollel instead of supporting his family. They don't care if the potential spouse's parents are rich and they don't date when they are far too immature for it. However, all of those things ARE practiced by the dating culture of Flatbush, Passaic, and Lakewood.

So if people choose to stay single longer on the Upper West Side, at least they're not spending time in some bizarrely artificial dating environment and at least they're not being pressured to make bad decisions by parents and mentors who are worried about "keeping up with the Goldbergs."

Instead of feeling lonely and isolated for many years in a community where they are an object of pity and subtle disrespect, thank G-d that UWS singles have the opportunity of participating in a culture that values them as mature adults and gives them a sense of community and belonging.

The Orthodox singles of the Upper West Side have high shul attendance, sit on the boards of those shuls, invite each other to beautiful Shabbat meals where the zmirot go on and on, and go to Torah classes in huge numbers. They have very rich Jewish lives, far more so in my opinion than 24 year old women who live in their parents’ houses and panic because they’re not yet married.

There may indeed be a "shidduch crisis" of sorts, but is entirely artificial and it has nothing to do with the Upper West Side. Rather it is the skewed mentality in Centrist and Yeshivish Orthodox circles of pushing 22 year olds to get married while at the same time putting artificial unethical and un-Torah barriers in their paths to do so.

I admit, it is sad that some older Orthodox singles on the Upper West Side have not yet met the right person to marry when they’ve reached their forties. But the system there is still FAR healthier than the warped sensibilities of Flatbush.

Hitler and comedy

2008-02-13T15:06:00.000-05:00

In the last few years it’s become more and more acceptable to use Hitler as a comedic figure, in skits and youtube videos. What surprises me is that many Jews, (usually in their teens or early 20’s) think this is funny. A popular Jewish blogger whose site I read often recently posted a link to one of these videos.

Maybe it's just me, but I find using Hitler for humor extremely distasteful. The man was the epitome of evil in the last century and the murderer of most of our people. When I was a kid we spoke of Hitler in hushed tones, sort of in a negative reverence. The utter and stark reality of what he did relegated him to a place below parody & humor. I've found his evolution into a comedic figure in the last few years something that takes away from the horror of what he and Nazi Germany did.

Sex and the single Modern Orthodox

2008-02-13T14:31:00.002-05:00

There’s been a lot of blogging lately on Israeli Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger’s psak forbidding single women from going to the mikvah.

According to the Jerusalem Post:

"It is absolutely prohibited to allow a single woman to immerse herself in a mikve," wrote Metzger. "And it is an obligation to prevent her from doing so."

I find the second part of that statement especially distasteful.

But this issue has been discussed to death the last few days on Jewish blogs. I want to make a peripheral point.

On several blogs, in posts & comments, I’ve seen the sentiment that one of the reasons that Modern Orthodox young men & women are having premarital sex is because of a culture in the community that is accepting of people being single for years and that the culture is what has to change.

(First of all, there’s far less of this going on than people firmly ensconced in the Centrist Orthodox community think. The Upper west Side is not a den of iniquity. But admittedly, a significant minority do engage in sexual activity outside of marriage.)

I feel that there is already enough stigmatization of older singles in communities where most people are married. They are subtly treated as less worthy and less "grown up" than married people, irrespective of their actual worth as individuals. Thankfully there are communities where this is less so, and communities such as the upper west side where singles can feel like full fledged members of their communities.

Just because some are concerned about premarital sex, that concern is not nearly a good enough reason to turn back the clock and re-infantilize those singles who happen to have not yet met their zivugim.

That touches on the whole issue of the supposed “shidduch crisis” but that’s another post.

Gifts in the yichud room?

2008-02-13T12:56:00.002-05:00

Harry Maryles blogs about the new "minhagim" of gifts for chatan & kallah at weddings, as well as more & more lavish weddings, and the takanot that some rabbanim have issued to limit the spiraling expenses and social pressure.

I totally agree with him. Thankfully my wife & I got married in our early 30's and did not socialize with the young couples who have this mindset. We did not give each other gifts in the yichud room. Neither did most of our friends. The attitude of many of these young people, especially the brides, seems to be more excitement about this paraphernalia than the marriage itself. As soon as the first dance is over, the girl's friends all huddle around her giggling while she proudly displays the jewelry she got from her groom in the yichud room.

Is it still a minhag for the girl's parents to get the boy a shas? The truth is, most people who have those big expensive sets of shas rarely use them. They use their old beaten up gemaras from their yeshiva days. What's the point of the big shas? It's just for show.

Comments on other blogs

2008-02-13T12:53:00.001-05:00

I comment quite a lot on other blogs. Sometimes the comments are pretty long. It occurs to me that where appropriate, I should post those comments here also (adding an explanation of context) to make this blog a little more lively. Stay tuned!

Race vs. Ethnicity

2008-02-08T14:37:00.000-05:00

As the presidential primaries heat up more & more, the fact the Barack Obama is black is focused on more & more.

Or is he? He’s the son of a pale complexioned mother from Kansas with American ancestors that go back over 200 years and a dark complexioned father from Kenya. (His family tree.) But “race” has so divided us that it’s an integral part of identity, especially in America.

But the fact is that there’s no “black” race and no “white” race. There’s a marvelous patchwork of people who are all shades of color and who come from thousands of different genetic and social backgrounds.

That’s why I almost never use the word “Race”. I prefer “Ethnicity”. Race separates us from one another by some arbitrary biological line. Ethnicity implies your country of social group of origin. It’s something that influences your identity but doesn’t define it. You may join an ethnicity, even if your DNA doesn’t match, such as converts to Judaism.

Of course, as long as there’s racism, it’s dangerous to ignore those definitions fully, lest we ignore the racism itself. But we can still look forward to a day when skin color is no more divisive than eye color.

Single motherhood in Orthodox Judaism

2008-02-06T11:02:00.000-05:00

I have 2 female friends who are Orthodox and single, one in her early 40’s and one in her late 30’s. The former recently had a baby and the latter is pregnant.

It’s a tough decision to become a single parent, but other than that, I see no reason why that decision should be stigmatized by Orthodox Judaism. These women are opting for artificial insemination. While there may be some halachic issues, they’re not an insurmountable barrier. These women felt their biological clocks ticking and decided to go for it. They're both successful professionals who can afford to do this financially and they have support systems of friends.

Instead of this being something that is talked about in hushed tones, the Orthodox community should relax its obsession with the supposed “singles crisis” and create an environment where such decisions are celebrated rather than looked down upon.

How about an organization to help older single Orthodox women with this decision? If bringing children into the world is such a Jewish ideal, why not assist women to do so rather than closing off all choices other than perhaps marrying the wrong men because they’re so panicked about their biological clocks? This organization can help them financially, create support systems so they don’t have do do this alone, and guide them through any halachic problems and the process of artificial insemination.

I know a number of Modern Orthodox women who have mentioned over the years that if they reached, say, age 37 or 40, they would take this route. But now that they have reached this age, they’re not taking that step. It’s one thing to talk about it when you're years away from making that decision, but another entirely to make a move that they know will be looked down upon by most of their communities and even many of their friends.

Why should irrational community pressure keep potential mothers from enjoying that aspect of existence and bringing Jewish children into the world? I think it’s time for the Orthodox Jewish community (or at least the Modern Orthodox community) to make a sea change in the way this issue is approached.

*Update @ 2/6/08 12:43 PM:

GoingGoingGone pointed out that there are many reasons aside from community pressure that a single woman would shy away from this path. I just wanted to clarify that I wasn’t advocating this for all single Orthodox women near 40, just saying that community pressure and stigmatization shouldn’t prevent those who are ready to become single mothers.

Happiness is...

2008-02-05T10:06:00.000-05:00

This article reports on a new school of thought within the mental health field: Happiness is overrated. According to several researchers our society has stigmatized sadness so much, labeling it “depression” and something to be treated, that we have discarded the value of sadness as a healing and creative power. Happiness, they say, has become an all-consuming passion in western culture.

I think it depends on what you define as happiness. In a consumer culture such as ours, people define happiness as getting everything they want. If things are lacking within their lives, the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of whatever we perceive as lacking. I would go so far as to say that the extreme pursuit of happiness is the very cause of much of the unhappiness. If your goals are always to attain something else then you always feel something missing. (Not to mention the issues that accompany the obsession, such as debt and destruction of relationships.)

If we view happiness as satisfaction, contentment, and acceptance of one’s lot then it becomes so much more attainable. That kind of happiness is within everyone’s grasp.

As Ben Zoma said in Pirkei Avot, (4:1) :

“איזה הוא עשיר, השמח בחלקו”

“Who is rich? One who is happy with his lot.”

Good articulation of my thoughts on hashkafa

2008-02-01T13:19:00.000-05:00

I started reading this blog recently. While most of Levadi’s posts are about being frum, female, single, and over 30, (the stated topic of the blog,) this post really caught my eye. She articulates some of my own feelings on the topic of having questions about the veracity of traditional Judaism but still being theologically comfortable with an observant or Orthodox lifestyle.

Some quotes from her post:

“The truth questions in Judaism don’t bother me terribly. Rabbinic Judaism can be meaningful without being entirely true.”

“I’ve seen that everyone has doubts, and just moves past them and finds meaning and purpose where they do exist.”

And best –

“Personally, it’s enough meaning for me to follow a religion with proven roots in the Second Temple period, adapted to the new stateless reality. Monotheism, Egypt, Sinai, migration to Israel, creation of a kingdom, and the First Temple period clearly have some connection to what came later, but as we read in Ezra and Nechemia, we lost much of the tradition. Aggada and midrash created a tradition which exists as reality for us, regardless of what actually happened. Irrespective of where it came from, we do know that Torah’s not in heaven, and we rely on the judges in our days, not in any other days.”

I like to delve into the questions more deeply than she does, but it’s to learn and understand more about the historical and theological basis for my religion, not to shake the moorings of my belief system.

Nice post, Levadi!

Israel goes Electric

2008-01-22T12:03:00.000-05:00

Cool news from Israel. Hopefully it's not just PR and will actually happen.

Israel announced, yesterday, a partnership in which a massive infrastructure for electric cars will be built over the next few years - see:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22783747/

The most innovative part is this:
(from http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9854591-54.html?tag=nefd.top)

Project Better Place, Agassi's organization, will try to build 500,000 electric service stations in the country, according to the organization. At these stations, attendants will swap out depleted batteries and put in fully charged ones. This saves the several hours typically required to charge a lithium-ion battery pack made for cars.

Send in the (kosher) clones

2008-01-17T12:05:00.000-05:00

It looks like the FDA has ruled that meat & milk from cloned animals is OK for sale in the US.

I accept that they are probably safe to eat. But we don't know for sure. And what bothers me is that such products won't require labeling identifying them as being from clones. Why do I have a feeling that the big bioagricultural firms are behind this? It's certainly not in the consumers' best interests. Yet another example of massive corporate influence in Washington.

Contrast this with the European Union's approach to the same issue. They have similarly concluded that such foods are probably safe. But they're holding off on final approval pending further study. And even if approval does come, they'll most likely require labels.

A lot of this has to do with pressure from the public. Why don't we have the same pressure here? Do Americans really care so little about what they put into their bodies? (I'll probably post on that issue, especially in the Jewish community, in the near future.)

As a vegetarian and a kosher consumer, I probably don't have to worry about this for a long time. Or maybe I do! Will milk from cloned animals be finding its way into New Square products? Haolam cheese? How will we ever be able to tell?

What kind of skeptic are you?

2008-01-14T15:49:00.000-05:00

A comment on my last post got me thinking:

There are 2 types of skeptics hanging out in this zone of the blogosphere.

Skeptic type #1:

I only believe what is proven by empirical evidence. There is no logical reason to believe in god or any divine source to Judaism, especially since one can trace the entirely social development of superstitious belief in gods or god in various cultures. Plus, in light of modern science, archeology, and historical research, the divine revelation and many other events related in the Torah could not have happened.

The definition of a rational human being is one who bases belief on observation. I am such a rational being. It would make no sense for me to believe in something intangible like god. That is outside the realm of empiricism and therefore does not exist.

The entire basis of Judaism is riddled with inaccuracies and ancient misconceptions. The Torah is clearly not divine. Therefore, the entire basis of the religion is a myth.

Skeptic type #2:

I believe in God and Torah. It may be that my belief is due only to the fact that I was taught to believe from an early age, yet still, I feel something deep within me that tells me there’s a God and that the Torah has divinity.

However, in light of modern science, archeology, linguistics, and historical research, I realize the Torah, i.e. the 5 books of Moshe, could not have been written by God and the events contained within could not have happened the way they are portrayed. I must accept that, or throw rational analysis out the window.

But I still feel a deep spiritual connection to the Torah and to Hashem. Yes, I know that I have no empirical evidence, but this is another kind of knowing entirely. I KNOW that Hashem exists. I KNOW that the Torah has divine elements, at least as much as the other parts of Tanach do, which even fundamentalists believe were written by people.

So I begin to piece together my Judaism. I look at the documentary hypothesis and see honest human beings cobbling together a document from a combination of prophecies and divine inspirations. I see Ezra presenting this document to the people of Israel and of their building a religion based on it. I see a religion that has evolved but held fast to its basic identity for over 2 millennia. And as I begin to understand more & more how Judaism really came to be, I appreciate its beauty more & more.

I definitely fall under #2. But I certainly respect those who fall under #1 and I understand why so many of them have such a hard time being happy in their relationship with Judaism.

#2 skeptics, if they are successful in reconciling ideas, can have a rich and fulfilling Judaic life.

Where do you fall? Do you think my definitions are faulty? Is there more of a spectrum in between?

Happy with my Judaism

2008-01-11T15:36:00.000-05:00

Reading about the struggles of so many to find a balance between their Orthodox lifestyle and their skeptical outlook, I feel lucky.

I'm pretty happy & comfortable where I am. I'm a quasi-skeptic who is happy with an observant lifestyle (with some social innovations) and finds divinity in what is probably a human-written Torah.

I've always been fascinated with the ancient origins of Judaism. Now the human story of creating this religion actually is making it more meaningful to me than when I thought it was given as a complete product by Hashem.

One always takes more pride in what one builds oneself. As a nation we can take more pride in what we or our ancestors built ourselves rather than it being handed to us all finished.

Racism among Orthodox Jews

2008-01-09T11:45:00.000-05:00

Racism in the Orthodox community is something that I’ve long been deeply disturbed by. I’ve been thinking about it a little more lately, due to posts like this and comment threads like this.

I had a fairly straightforward realization the other day; if a Jew is racist, if he has a bias against an ethnic group solely due to skin pigmentation, then he has absolutely NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER to complain of anti-Semitism. Period. He can't have it both ways.

Oral vs. Written tradition

2008-01-03T10:00:00.000-05:00

I went to Yeshiva day schools K-12. I started studying Gemara (Talmud) in 5th grade and accepted as a given that what I was told, that Torah She-ba’al Peh (the oral tradition) was given along with Torah She-bichtav (the written Torah) at Har Sinai and that it was a parallel revelation meant to explain the obscure language of the Torah itself.

Except for occasional classes, I’ve neglected studying Gemara since my early 20’s. Instead, I concentrated my Torah study on Tanach on the one side, and pure Halacha on the other. Recently I’ve begun to go to a weekly gemara shiur again and it’s amazing how my perspective has changed. Since the last time I studied gemara seriously, I’ve grown much more questioning about the origins of Judaism in general, and have read up more on history and philosophy of the ancient world.

In this light, the gemara seems to me to be much more of a struggle between two ancient traditions and the challenge of reconciling them.

One was text-based and one was halachically based. Once the Torah was “rediscovered” in Ezra’s time, where he reassembled the Torah from the various texts that represented the various interpretations of divine revelation, the form of the Torah was mostly fixed. By the late 2nd Temple era, that text was assumed to be of entirely divine authorship by the majority of sages (though not by all, a point that is often overlooked today.)

Yet there was an oral law in existence as well. Torah She-ba’al peh consisted of the various laws that had coalesced over the previous centuries based on a combination of divine revelation, interpretation of various divinely inspired texts, and pragmatic traditions of an ancient agrarian society.

The problem was, it had come to be an authoritative body of laws and interpretation in its own right and that body did not match the now accepted-as-divine text.

Now two varying traditions were both claimed as divine. One was text based. The other was mostly law based, but with aggadic traditions as well. If they were both divine, how could they conflict with one another? Therefore the Talmud emerged, a diary of centuries of intricate reinterpretation to force the two traditions to not be in conflict. Every extra letter or ambiguous phrase in the Torah was claimed as evidence that it meant or implied something somewhat different or sometimes even opposite, its plain meaning.

Wherever a Mishna or Braita made a particular halachic or aggadic claim that seemed to conflict with the Torah, the phrase “Mina Hani Mili” or simply “Minalan” or similar was employed in the Gemara. “Where do we know this from? What scriptural proof is there for this claim?”

The Gemara then painstakingly analyzes the text of the Torah to find the proof, whether it be an extra letter, a repetition of something somewhere else in the Torah, or a particular turn of phrase. It is very hard to believe that the text of the Torah so often meant something other than what it plainly implied.

I don’t consider it a waste. The amoraim engaged in this beautiful dance and laid a framework for the future of Judaism. I wonder of they all really believed that the 2 traditions were both really fully divine and absolutely needed to be reconciled, or if it was simply a pragmatic way of formulating a religious tradition that would be accepted by the masses by calling upon the accepted text to bolster practices already widespread, even if they had their own doubts.

In any case, I reject the modern scholarly assumption by some that the laws were made up later than the text of the Torah itself. It makes no sense for those forming a tradition to come up with halachot that clearly contradict the accepted base text of Judaism. The halacha, albeit perhaps in an earlier form, must have been extant already.

From that point, it is a short leap of faith for me to believe that there is a divinity in much of the halachic system, through some form of revelation, just as there is divinity in the Torah (see previous post.) And to me, that makes Judaism all the richer and more meaningful.

The Documentary Hypothesis

2008-01-02T11:54:00.000-05:00

First of all, I have to admit that I haven’t really studied the DH in any great depth, so I can’t speak with firm authority on its validity as a theory.

But my gut feeling, based on a light examination of it, is that much of the DH is speculation. The specific attribution of particular parts of the Torah to different authors seems somewhat arbitrary and less than purely scientific. There seems to have been an orthodoxy established (if you’ll pardon the word) since the 19th century dividing up the Torah into these various hypothetical authors, and very little has changed in the DH since then.

However, that’s just my opinion of the answers that the DH posits. Its questions are extremely valid. The inconsistencies, lack of archeological and geological evidence, anachronisms, are all strong contradictions of its word-for-word divinity. And as such, it seems unlikely that the Torah came, whole cloth (or parchment) word-for-word, directly from God. It seems that there were very likely several different human authors. The DH is simply some intelligent speculation on who those authors might have been and which of them wrote which part.

The DH also usually comes with an assumption that since the Torah is not what traditional Judaism claims it to be; an exact dictation from God, then that means that God had no part of it, if there is a God at all.

I believe that despite its human authorship, the Torah is at least divinely inspired. Call it what you like – prophecy, ruach hakodesh, etc. There’s too much in there that strikes a deep chord with me and with millions and millions of others throughout history. (Yes, I know that’s unscientific, but I’m talking religion here, not science.) There was some kind of divine revelation, whether at Mount Sinai or elsewhere. That revelation may have been a single event, continuous, or punctuated, but there was something. Various authors wrote down their interpretation of that revelation, incorporating their own bises and knowledge of their own times, and Ezra later combined it into the Torah that we know today.

Again, this isn’t scientific by any means, but things like the fact that the Torah was far more compassionate than contemporaneous societies, the story of creation that seems to eerily fit our current models of cosmology (if you read between the words), and many other things help me see the divine in the Torah.

Stay tuned - tomorrow I'll post on Torah She-Bichtav vs. Torah She-Ba'al Peh

Answers to a couple of recent comments on Faith vs. Evidence

2007-12-31T12:38:00.000-05:00

My answers to a couple of comments on this post -

Anon:

I wasn't trying to give you a hard time for posting anonymously - sorry if it came across that way.

You're right - perhaps the word "retreat" is a poor choice. But I do not believe in rejecting empirical evidence because my religion claims it must be wrong. If I had always lived in caves and my religion had taught me that the sky was green, and I had always believed that, what would happen if I came to the surface and saw that the sky was blue? There would be 3 choices.

1) The sky isn't blue, despite the evidence of my own eyes.

2) The sky is green; therefore, my entire religion is wrong.

3) The sky is green, therefore my religion was wrong about this particular point. That doesn't invalidate the rest of the religion.

My beliefs would fall into the 3rd category. I love Hashem, I love Judaism. I am forced to concede that Judaism had it wrong on some counts, but that doesn't mean I reject it all.

You say that science is accelerating. But it cannot disprove an intangible. Science can never disprove my belief in God. Nor can science disprove that the Torah is, at the very least, divinely inspired by God and that there was some sort of revelation. This holds true even if the Torah was written by humans at a later date than is traditionally believed. If I choose to believe that many of the historical events and characters in the Torah are "true" only symbolically or allegorically, science cannot disprove that.

So, in answer to your question on what I believe that cannot be changed by scientific evidence: I believe in God and that the Torah is divinely inspired and that Judaism is an outgrowth of that Torah. I believe I am bound by the halachic system because we were commanded by God to create a process based on his revelation that resulted in said system of laws.

None of this can be disproved by science, so I am confident that I never need give up my basic beliefs.

David G:

I'm actually not really struggling with the conflict between science & Torah. I'm pretty comfortable with the middle ground that I carved out. I am fascinated by the challenges and possible solutions, but I don't feel my basic belief system is in danger.

Has the Democratic Party moved to the left?

2007-12-31T11:53:00.000-05:00

I usually don’t comment on politics on this blog, but in this political season, and with politics being my version of sports, I guess it’s inevitable.

In this Jerusalem Post op-ed piece, Jonathan Tobin decries that the Democratic Party, by veering sharply towards the left, has forced people like Joe Lieberman to turn to the republicans and endorse John McCain. Tobin repeats the usual claim of the right that the Democratic party has become soft on terror and is now controlled by the radical anti-Israel pacifist left and that people like Lieberman have no choice but to lean towards the “responsible” foreign policy of the Republicans.

"At places like Huffingtonpost.com and other sites where the MoveOn.org crowd congregate, the comments range from the scatological to the purely anti-Semitic. At such places, hard core anti-Bush and anti-war sentiments are the coin of the realm, and hostility to Israel and its perceived influence on American foreign policy is rampant. The notion of a Democratic Party that aggressively defends America's interests abroad as vigorously as it fights for liberal causes at home is treated as an absurdity in this quarter."

The truth is, by needlessly attacking Iraq, mismanaging the war, torturing prisoners, and abrogating international treaties, Bush created the opening for the lunatic fringe of the left to gain so much of the voice of liberalism. If he had continued to responsibly prosecute the war in Afghanistan and not attacked Iraq and embraced unilateralism, the radical voices of the extreme left wouldn't be nearly as loud or carry nearly as much weight in the media.

That being said, it is exactly that focus by the media on the MoveOn.org crowd that gives a skewed impression of today's Democratic electorate. The vast majority of Democratic voters is fairly middle of the road and abhors the tactics and shrillness of the extreme left. But they recognize that the war in Iraq was a costly and useless error and they are anxious to move back to normality. Lieberman doesn't recognize this truth and therefore gravitates to the right. He left the Democratic party behind when he chose to support the wrong war.

The one Democratic candidate for President who really represents the fringe left that many seem so frightened of is Dennis Kucinich, and he is polling in the low single digits. Most Democratic voters are supporting mainstream candidates like Clinton, Obama, Edwards, etc. All of them supported the war in Afghanistan and have consistently expressed strong support for Israel. So in what way has the Democratic party abandoned the center? Only by the standards of those who support this wasteful and illegal war in Iraq.

More on Faith vs. Evidence

2007-12-27T12:35:00.000-05:00

Anonymous left a comment to my post "Faith vs. Evidence" on Dec. 24.

I started typing a comment in response, but decided my point merited a new post.

Anonymous wrote:

"Great blog. I came across it accidentally, but well thought out and thorough posts.

"Anyway, I don't think your generalization in the 2nd paragraph holds. I came from a pretty religious family, from an early age as I can remember I always valued logic and reasoning more than blind faith.

"But anyway, on to your statement that "There is nothing in the documentary hypothesis to force me to reject God's existence". If you are accepting scientific reasoning, as your post seems to suggest (e.g. you are refer to documentary hypothesis, which is a scientific construct), then you are going about it from the wrong angle. Extraordinary claims required extraordinary proofs. Thus, you have to prove God's existence rather than wait for someone else to disprove it. Otherwise, I could just say that there is nothing in the documentary hypothesis to force me to reject the existence of exquisite set of Fabergé eggs traveling in orbit of Jupiter.

"Moreover, as far as adjusting belief to fit empirical evidence... Sorry, either you believe in God or you do not. Adjusting your belief based on the soup du jour makes the belief invalid."

Anonymous:

Thanks for the comment.

What I was saying is that I am NOT basing my entire belief system entirely on rationalism. I am both a rational being and a religious one.

I come from a belief in God & Judaism. That, I admit, is not a rational belief. It is a religious one. I don’t advocate for that position based on a reasoned understanding of the evidence. I feel it emotionally, in a way that has nothing to do with empiricism.

On the other hand, I also view myself as a rational being. I am confronted with evidence about the natural world and of history and archeology, evidence that was not available to earlier generations.

So I am forced to retreat. But it does not mean that I must throw out all of my religious beliefs, but simply to acknowledge that some of them may have been based on myth and legend. Does that mean the entire foundation of my belief in Judaism has crumbled? I say no.

I concede the points I must, based on incontrovertible evidence. For instance, archeological and geological evidence clearly proves there was no worldwide flood in ancient times. Does that mean that I have to throw out the baby with the bathwater?

No! There are many ways to understand the flood tale related in the Torah. God meant it allegorically or symbolically. Or maybe there was a massive flood and it seemed like it covered the entire world and the Torah was given to humans in language they could understand. Or perhaps the Torah was written by humans, but it encompassed a measure of divine revelation.

Many of the dogmatic beliefs of Judaism were formulated much later than biblical times, and many of those even later than Talmudic times. So what if one part of dogma is proven to be untrue. There is enough richness of tradition to reach back and find a different explanation from antiquity that allows my belief to stand.

Modern Orthodox communities

2007-12-25T21:29:00.001-05:00

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how much of the formerly Modern Orthodox community has been leaning to the right, religiously.

The problem is much more pronounced in the big communities where the Orthodox population is dominated by the Ultra Orthodox. The MO in those areas seem to take their cues for everything from the Charedim. Kashrut, education, etc, are all run or organized by Charedim and the Modern Orthodox just use the services provided by them.

I live in a small community that is most decidedly "out of town". Because there are only a handful of Charedim here, the MO rabbis and lay leaders and members of the community all step up to the plate and manage the Vaad Hakashrut, run & teach in the day school, manage the eruv, invite modern speakers, etc.

In the big communities the MO look to the UO for all their community building, by default, and end up thinking about themselves the way the UO think of them - that Modern Orthodoxy is just "Orthodoxy lite" instead of something dynamic and beautiful in its own right.

If anyone’s looking for a truly Modern Orthodox community, I advise you expand your search to more geographically diverse areas. I’d be happy to give suggestions to anyone who’s interested. You can email me at yehudi.hilchati@gmail.com.

Faith vs. Evidence

2007-12-24T12:14:00.001-05:00

Is there any evidence for believing in Hashem & Judaism other than faith?

It depends on one's starting point. Someone who was raised in a secular humanist household and whose identity is invested in secular humanism will undoubtedly see no reason at all to accept any sort of higher being or revelation.

On the other side of the coin are many of us who are starting from a point of faith in God and faith in Torah MiSinai.

We don't have this faith because we have deduced it from logical processes. Rather, we feel it deeply, in a way that is not subject to logic or rationalism. It's a different kind of belief, not based on empirical evidence. We simply KNOW.

Being intelligent individuals raised on modern western rationalism, we confront evidence that the Torah is not what traditional Judaism claims it to be.

What do we do? Rather than throw out all of our deeply held beliefs, we must modify them to fit the empirical evidence.

That is, emunah still has a place in our thoughts and hearts. It's still the place where we start from. We simply must adapt aspects of our belief to the incontrovertible evidence that we are faced with.

I don't claim to speak for everyone who comments and posts on this and like minded blogs. But I think most think as I do.

Coming from a firm belief in God, I see no need to jettison that belief. There is nothing in the documentary hypothesis to force me to reject God's existence.

The traditional views about the text of the Torah are another thing. I cannot, based on what modern scholarship presents me with, accept that the exact text of the Torah, word for word, was given to Moshe at Har Sinai.

Does that mean I must accept the conclusions of the DH? Certainly not. Much of the DH is simply intelligent speculation. The evidence requires me to modify my thinking somewhat. But it doesn't in any way prove the nonexistence of God or that no part of the Torah has its source in divine revelation.

I guess in the end part of it does come down to blind faith. But if we were only interested in what can be proven by logic, then this topic wouldn’t be so popular in the blogosphere.

Comments on XGH

2007-12-14T09:36:00.001-05:00

I've been spending a lot of time (probably too much time) on XGH's blog. He's now decided to close down, but I've written a lot of comments there over the last few months. I'm in the process of gathering up those comments and I'm going to post many of them here in the coming days. So stay tuned!

Entertaining hashkafic doubts

2007-10-29T12:24:00.000-05:00

Another comment that I posted on XGH's blog:

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I also entertain skeptical thoughts but here's the two facts which ground me:

1) I believe in Hashem. How to define Hashem? The standard way - an omnicient and omnipotent entity who created the universe (ir, in some way, IS the universe.) I leave out whether this entity exactly matches whet is depicted in Tanach for the moment. Call him a nondenominational God.

2) I believe in Judaism. That is to say, I believe in the process. Rabbinic Judaism is mostly man made anyway. What we practice today would be virtually unrecognizable to Jews at the time of, say, Shlomo HaMelech. So for anyone, 90% of believing in Judaism is believing in the process of Judaism, the give & take of interpretation of the Torah.

As for the other 10% - well, I have doubts, but I figure my belief in Hashem and in the process of Judaism is enough grounding so that I can explore my doubts about whether parts of the Torah were written by humans, or whether individuals in Tanach actually exististed, or if there was ever really a great flood that ecompassed the world, in relative theological comfort.

God and authenticity of Judaism

2007-10-18T10:33:00.000-05:00

On his blog, XGH often stuggles with God's existence and with the truth of Judaism. Here is comment I wrote to one of his recent posts - I ended up rambling a little:

Seems to me that you struggle with 2 questions and that you need to examine each in a different light:

1) does God exist

2) if god exists, is OJ true?

Or break it down even further:

If God exists, what kind of God is he? Does he consciously rule the world or is all of existence just a sort of "side effect" of God's being? Or does he take an active role?

If he takes an active role, did he actually command us to do all the things that the Torah lists or is that a human document by people who were striving for God?

Even if it's not a totally human document, what level of input was there by God? Written by God, every word? Written by people interpreting the word of God? Written with ruach hakodesh or divine inspiration?

There's a lot behind the question: "Is Orthodox Judaism true?"

Personally, I believe in God (99% of the time - I think 100% is unhealthy to having an active, thinking religion) and I believe in traditional halacha. But what does believing in traditional halacha mean? That all of Torah Sheba'al peh came directly from God at Har Sinai, or that humans extrapolated it from Torah Shebichtav? There are definitely majorly flawed halachot. If it's a partially human system, then you can accept that some of it reflects the biases of those who instituted those laws (and you work within the halachic system to change them). If it's 100% min hashamayim, seems to me that would imply a flawed God. That's why I think that accepting that the system is partially human created invites MORE emunah, not less.

2007-10-15T11:00:00.000-05:00

The YU Commentator has an article about Young Israel setting a national screening process for all YI shul rabbis.

Here's the comment I posted at the Commentator website:

More top-down homogenization and yet another reason I don't daven at a Young Israel.

I wonder why they're taking this action? I have never heard of a case of a YI hiring a graduate of Chovevei Torah, and I can't think of any YI that would.

Another comment - as a fan of YCT, it disturbs me to see Rabbi Helfgot using the "Torah True" phrase. While I respect Rabbi Helfgot tremendously, this is slightly disturbing. While there's nothing's wrong with "Torah True" in principle, it's become a catchphrase of the yeshivish world to exclude places like YCT, and even YU sometimes. His using the term comes off like a desperate attempt to say to the yeshivish world: "Look - we're one of you! Please acknowledge our legitimacy!"

Asking a Rav vs. deciding for myself

2007-10-02T15:27:00.000-05:00

When I mention to some of my more religiously “right wing” friends that I often decide halachic issues on my own, I sometimes get looks of shock. How could I possibly make a decision for myself? A poseq is the ultimate decisor of all matters halachic!

I don’t know about you, but having someone else make the decisions for me would make me feel like I’m less religious, not more.

Obviously, I’m not advocating doing whatever I feel like and then picking the halachic opinion that most fits my preconceived notion.

Rather, I mean an honest examination of the halachic issues and a decision that makes sense to my own understanding of halacha. Often this will take the form of following one or another existing opinion that seems to make the most sense, halachically.

Here’s an example:

When I was growing up in New York City, there was always some Israeli family or another in the US “for a few years” who would keep only one day of Yom Tov.

(For a quick explanation of this issue, see http://www.jewishmag.com/108mag/twodays/twodays.htm)

Similarly, everyone I knew, if traveling to Israel for chag, kept 2 days of Yom Tov while there, since they lived in the diaspora.

When I was 15, my father took a sabbatical from his university and we spent a year in Israel. Before going, we asked our Rabbi what we should do about Yom Tov and received an entirely new (to me) pesaq: keep one and a half days. That doesn’t literally mean making havdalah and driving after noon of the second day. It simply means, keep the first day as full yom tov, and on the second day it’s ritually chol (or chol hamoed) but without transgressing any of the “lo ta’asey” mitzvoth. (negative commandments).

In practical terms, this means that, on Shavuot for example, on the second day we would daven a regular weekday davening (provided it wasn’t Shabbat) and had no requirement to have a Seudat Mitzvah. But we still couldn’t ride the bus, handle money, turn lights on & off, etc.

As an adult, however, I’ve jettisoned that minhag and now keep “minhag hamakom” (custom of the place I am in). If I’m in Israel, I keep one day, even though I live in the USA. And if I move to Israel eventually, I will keep a 2 day yom tov when spending it abroad.

Why?

My reasoning is pretty straightforward:

The reason that the Jews in Bavel (Babylonia) kept 2 days was because they didn’t know when Rosh Chodesh of that month really was, since that time was set by the sighting of the new moon in Jerusalem. Even with the signal fires, the messages wouldn’t always go through, sometimes because of natural occurrences, sometimes because of Shomronim (Samaritans) deliberately lighting false fires to confuse the dates.

Well, why didn’t they just send a messenger? Well, obviously, a messenger couldn’t make the trip on time. If he could, there would be no need for the much speedier signal fire system.

So what about a traveler who lived in Jerusalem but was spending Sukkot in Bavel? Could he travel any faster than the messenger could have? Obviously not. So to spend Sukkot in Bavel, he would have to have left Jerusalem well before Rosh Chodesh Tishrei. So how would he have had any idea when Rosh Chodesh was declared, any better than those who lived in Bavel year round? No way at all! So he would have had to keep the same 2 days of yom tov that everyone else did there, despite of that fact that most of the time he lived in Eretz Yisrael!

Today we have a set calendar. Even if we didn’t, we have instantaneous communication with Eretz Yisrael. We could get word immediately of the time of the molad (new moon) in Jerusalem. But we commemorate the way it was done in ancient times by keeping 2 days of Yom Tov outside of Eretz Yisrael.

Well, if we’re keeping it the way it was done then, what sense does it make for someone who just happens to live in Eretz Yisrael to keep one day of Yom Tov in the Diaspora? His corresponding traveling ancestor wouldn’t have been able to do so. How is it consistent in any way for him to keep one day while all around him the other Jews are keeping two?

And once we establish that, the converse must follow – a Diaspora Jew should keep only one day in Israel. Otherwise the system has no consistency.

This reasoning isn’t unique to myself – many rabbanim hold this, admittedly minority (but growing) opinion.

Of course, Rav Yosef Karo established the “classical” position in the Shulchan Aruch to keep the same number of days as in the location in which you permanently reside. Therefore, some might ask, how dare I contradict the Shulchan Aruch, the primary authority of halachic practice for most Orthodox Jews today, without asking an established poseq?

That’s why I consider myself “Hichati” and not “Orthodox”. I’m not seeking to overturn halachic norms for the Jewish community; I’m just seeking to make an informed decision about halacha for myself, which makes my Judaism feel much more vibrant and alive. I am not just following blindly; I am taking an active participation in the formulation of my personal halachic lifestyle.

Moadim LeSimcha to all.

Can women read the Megillah for men?

2007-10-02T11:14:00.000-05:00

Recently I started attending a local Gemara shiur (Talmud class.)

The class is studying Tractate Megillah, and one of the first things we discussed was whether women can read the megillah for men.

It seems very clear from the gemara, (towards the top of page 4a), that women can do so, and that men will fulfill their obligation by hearing a woman read.

The gemara says:

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: Women are obligated in the reading of the megillah, for they too were part of the miracle.

Note that it says “bemikrah”, in the reading of the megillah, not “beshmiyah”, in the hearing of the megillah.

However, Tosafot, while acknowledging that the plain text would appear to support that view, then jumps through hoops to work out an interpretation that denies women this right.

I wonder if this is a case of approaching the topic by the standards of the medieval period in which the Tosafists lived with a preconceived notion and then wringing out their desired conclusion through rather convoluted reasoning?

Charedi demographics in Israel

2007-08-21T12:52:00.000-05:00

From Forward.com:

Israel's Hiden Crisis

(http://www.forward.com/articles/11292/)

The article discusses the demographic crisis in Israel - not of Arabs vs. Jews, but of Charedim vs. Non-charedim

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So what to do? Is there a way to get charedim to participate in the workforce & army while allowing them to stay charedim? And what will this do to governmental institutions once the Charedim have that much voting power?

Perhaps what we need is something almost as unlikely as charedim working and serving in the IDF: massive North american aliyah of the non-charedi variety...

New minyan in Washington Heights

2007-03-16T12:49:00.000-05:00

There are a lot of new progressive halachic minyanim around.

The newest one meets for the first time tonight in Washington Heights (Manhattan). Shani Simkovich blogs about it here. The minyan is called Migdal Or and is planning to meet bi-weekly on Friday nights. They will have separate seating, a mechitza, and men will lead mincha & maariv.

The innovation? Women will be leading Kabbalat Shabbat.

You can email them with questions or comments at: migdalor.minyan@gmail.com

They say:

Our mission is to create a warm, participatory environment dedicated to enhancing kavanah (devotion) and forward mindedness in tefillah (prayer), while working within the context of halakhah (Jewish law). Building upon this paradigm, our goal is to foster a spirit of social action within the larger context of Washington Heights. We challenge members to take an active role in their religious expression. This includes, but is not limited to, more participation by all members of the community.

I wonder if this is partially a reaction to the flap over women not being allowed to make post-tefillah announcements at Washington Heights' Mount Sinai Jewish Center?

In any case, Kol Hakavod, and hatzlacha to them with the new minyan!

Who needs labels?

2007-03-10T20:41:00.000-05:00

Why do we need a label anyway? It’s true that labels are constricting, overly simplistic, and tend to pigeonhole individuals & groups.

But a label with a big tent, which allows for a variety of ideas and philosophies, (which is what true Modern Orthodoxy stands for anyway,) allows for a sense of belonging, for community institutions to affiliate and grow, and for individuals to feel like they have a home without trying to awkwardly fit themselves into a group to which they do not truly belong.

2007-03-08T13:02:00.000-05:00

A friend just sent me this article about the experience of Jews of color in the United States.

Aside from the fascination of the article as a whole, one quote by a Jewish African American woman caught my eye:

"In my experience in the Orthodox community, I have found the culture of being Orthodox and Jewish to be deeply tied to a need for conformity."

How true!

Orthodox

2007-03-07T15:13:00.000-05:00

What is “Orthodox” anyway?

Charedim have mostly abandoned the word in favor of “Torah Judaism”. Why should we cling to “Orthodox” so tenaciously?

It is a term that was externally applied. Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch wrote:

"...it was not 'Orthodox' Jews who introduced the word 'orthodox' into Jewish discussion. It was the modern 'progressive' Jews who first applied the name to 'old,' 'backward' Jews as a derogatory term. This name was... resented by 'old' Jews. And rightfully so..."
source: wikipedia article on Orthodox Judaism

Yes, a positive association with the word has been built up over the last century or so, but by this time it has outlived its usefulness.

It’s time to come up with new terms that more accurately reflect the wide variety of Jewish philosophies and practices contained within “Orthodoxy”.

“Modern Orthodox” is a particularly poor descriptive term. It labels a dynamic school of thought within Shomer Shabbat Jews and marginalizes it with a modifier. As if “Orthodoxy” is the real deal, and “Modern Orthodoxy” is simply “Orthodoxy lite”. That’s what much of Charedi world thinks anyway.

So lets pick a label that has a positive connotation without being overly bogged down with adjectives. “Hilchati” is simple, descriptive, and accurate. For those who say it doesn’t connotate anything, within a few years a mental association can be established among most of Jewry.

A new label

2007-02-28T21:35:00.000-05:00

Why do we in the Modern Orthodox community have such a deep need for validation from the Charedi community?

So they don’t accept us – big deal! Do you see Reform wringing their hands because of their lack of acceptance by the Yeshivish world? Do you see Conservative lamenting that Rav Shach never saw their movement as valid Judaism?

The problem is that Modern Orthodox and Charedim share a label: “Frum” or “Orthodox”.

I propose the following: Let Charedim call themselves whatever they want, and if we need a label so badly, we can be “Torah U’Mada” Jews, or something like that.

My suggestion is something even simpler.

“Hilchati”

“Hilchati” Judaism, Yahadut Hilchatit, or Halakhic Judaism, is simple and to the point, as well as having the additional benefit of borrowing from the title of the Rav’s seminal work, “Ish HaHalacha” or “Halakhik Man”, thus having a built-in connotation to a philosophy that much of the Modern Orthodox world prizes and follows.

Once the label of “Hilchati” is applied, Hilchati & Charedi simply go their separate ways. Cooperate where it’s practical and ignore their rants about us the rest of the time. Rav Elyashiv leads that branch of Judaism, not ours.

I acknowledge that they are Shomer Shabbat & Kashrut, but I have deep problems with their Hashkafa. I nevertheless treat them with respect.

They acknowledge that we are Shomer Shabbat & Kashrut, but they have deep problems with our Hashkafa. I hope that they will nevertheless treat us with respect.

So be it. Simple disengagement will allow Yahadut Hilchatit to grow and flourish without constantly looking over our shoulders to see what Charedim think of us.

Why I'll never use Haloscan

2001-01-01T12:00:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to understand what the great appeal of Haloscan is. Why do other bloggers switch to it?

(For those who are scratching their heads, Haloscan is a "free" commenting system for blogs.)

First of all, it's not really free. It claims to be, but then it starts archiving and hiding all comments over 4 months old. How do you get them to show up on your posts again? Simple! You pay them a small monthly fee. Essentially, if you had some really great discussions going on your blog in the comments section of a post, after 4 months that discussion is held hostage until you pay a monthly ransom for it to be seen again.

Furthermore, 3/4 of the time, the comment counter is totally wrong. A post on Joe Blogger's site might have 20 comments, but the counter will read zero. Or it might read 15 comments when in reality there are 128. Someone jumps into a discussion with some interesting and thought provoking stuff, comes back a day later to see if anyone else responded, and sees that it's still at 5 comments and doesn't bother to click the link. Meanwhile, 80 people have responded to his comment but he gets discouraged and never comments again.

And how about comments disappearing? It's been happening even more often during the last few days than usual. There are several comments to Joe Blogger's post. I add one more. I come back 5 minutes later and my comment and the 2 that preceded it are gone. I come back 10 minutes later and there they are again. I come back 20 minutes later and there are no comments at all. I have to hit refresh 20 times before they show up.

And that, my friends, is why Haloscan sucks, and you'll never see it on this blog. The blogger.com commenting system may not be as fancy, but it's reliable. That's what counts.

Old descrition on top of the blog

2001-01-01T09:20:00.000-05:00

Hilchati Judaism, or Yahadut Hilchatit, is a school of thought whose time has come. Rational, critical understanding but with belief in Hashem. Keeping Halacha, but incorporating modern ideals and opportunities for all Jews, irrespective of gender of ethnicity. Hilchati Judaism is beautiful, complex, open, nonjudgmental, and incredibly fulfilling.