In Defense of Orthodoxy…Again April 19, 2007

You have wearied the Lord with your words, and you say, “How have we wearied [Him]?”-By your saying, “Every evildoer is good in the Lord’s sight, and He desires them,” or, “Where is the God of judgment?” - Malachi 2:17

While I am the first to admit that there are lamentable shortcomings in the Orthodox World, and the bitter lack of ahavas Yisra’el not being the least of them, some things are just not justified and only serve as fodder for anti-charedi prejudice. Haredi Jews are the one group of Jews, it seems, that it is always kosher to diss in any and all forums, and the one group that people seem loath to defend. Once someone raises the banner of Torah, they apparently lower the banner of their own dignity.

Jonathan Schorsch, an instructor of Jewish Studies at Columbia University, graced the pages of the Jerusalem Post today with a piece so melodramatic it seems to seek to evoke pathos with the same efficacy as syrup of ipecac. Putting non-Orthodox clergy squarely into the “victim” category, Schorsch’s article is symptomatic of the same anti-haredi spin I hear far too often in Jewish media:

Why many Jews might feel the Orthodox do hate themBy JONATHAN SCHORSCH

OK before we even get past the byline, the title already sets up the dichotomy which is going to play through the rest of the piece: “the Orthodox” vs. the “many Jews”. Yidden, go to your corners.

I vividly recall sitting in a shiur years back at a synagogue one Shabbat afternoon. The rabbi, a man from Iran who got his ordination at Yeshiva University, followed a digression that led him to proclaim, to shout, really, that it would be better to be a Christian than a Conservative or Reform Jew. He cited as support Rabbi Moshe Feinstein’s teshuva that an Orthodox air conditioner repairman may not enter a Conservative or Reform synagogue even if only to repair the equipment. It is forbidden, went the logic, to enter a place where one knows a priori that there is no kedusha.REMEMBER one motz’ei Shabbat when I heard a lecture by the head of a very liberal Orthodox organization. He insisted throughout on the importance of not drawing lines between Jews. Afterward, during the informal conversation some audience members had struck up with him, it turned out that some lines were, indeed, critical. He said, for instance, that a Conservative rabbi should not be given an aliya at an Orthodox synagogue.

Why? I asked.

Because one cannot be sure that when he says the blessing (no mention was made of women rabbis) that he has in mind the same idea of God. Astounding narishkeyt! Does anyone really believe that the Baba Sali and Yosef Soloveitchik held the same idea of God?!

This “narishkeit” (foolishness) was apparently so astounding that Mr. Schorsch didn’t even bother to look up what the man was quoting.The JTS, the main seminary for Conservative Judaism, contains on its website guidelines for how to introduce highschoolers to the Documentary Hypothesis, an intellectual theory that the Torah, G-d forbid, had multiple human authors, none of whom were a Divine Entity. In other words, this institution is teaching that four guys, who lived at various times, wrote the Torah, and not G-d(Rachmana litzlan). This, in the eyes of Maimonides (whose 13 affirmations of faith are repeated in various forms in synagogues throughout the world) and according to at least one Talmudic opinion, constitutes heresy, kefirah. It renders he who holds this belief a kofer, a denier of the Divinity of the Torah.

To say that “not giving rabbi X an aliya” is an action equatable with anti-Semitism, racism, or any other sociological division is preposterous. This is an action, essentially, which has nothing to do with “denominational lines”, it is simply a statement of faith. The bottom line is that the Orthodox rabbi was calling up people to read from a holy, G-d-given text, whereas the Conservative rabbi may see himself as being called up to hear words from a text written by four ancient Israelites.

A non-Orthodox rabbi once told me that what he liked about Judaism is that there were no “loyalty oaths”, that one could believe whatever they wanted and it still be “Judaism”. One could see how such a viewpoint would not jibe well with those who see the Talmud as being Divine, halacha/Jewish Law as being Divinely guided, or those who see the Hebrew Scriptures as a Divine text.

The Torah Jew says, “I believe with perfect faith that the Torah given to Moses is the same one in our hands”, this man believed that Moses may or may not have ever existed (ch”v).

What Schorsch is in effect saying is that the exhortations of the Code of Jewish Law, of the Talmud, of Maimonides should be “bent” or (chalilah) “done away with” when it comes to belief (update - Ed.). He would like for belief in the Torah to be optional to be called up to read from the Torah (update). Schorsch takes offense at the mention of “behavioral observance” — i.e., that one’s behaviors are in line with halacha — but how else should his Shabbos guest’s parents, the “prominent Orthodox rabbi” and (most likely) his rebbitzen, have framed the distiction?

His actions were in line with halacha, but his heart may or may not have been, so the parents of his Shabbos guest (update - Ed.) tried to gauge this fact. Perhaps a better choice of words (not perhaps, I’m sure it was) was in order, but his host wanted to ask: “Do you believe as we believe, that G-d wrote the Torah, that the Torah is from Heaven, that Moses was the prophet of all Israel, that the Messiah will one day come, that the Holy Temple will be rebuilt?”

To this, Schorsch took offense. This, in my opinion, has nothing to do with Orthodox Jews or Orthodoxy.

His problem is not with Avi Shafran. It seems that he is placing unfair double standards on Orthodox Jews — if some Jews (update) see Jewish Law as being this flexi-code as malleable as liquid cellophane, surely the Orthodox Jew I’m staying with must! Surely these “principles of faith” aren’t “set in stone”! — and when his standards prove to be unjust, we see articles like this.

Those who are more advanced in Torah would do well to withhold their condemnation and condescension from those who are still taking their first steps in it or even have yet to take any toward it.

Obviously, and with this I agree wholeheartedly. Anyone acting negatively towards the newly observant Jew will have to answer for it in the Next World.But let’s make no mistake — to the Torah Jew, some things are Torah beliefs and some things aren’t. And the twain are not going to meet any time soon.