In Defense of Orthodoxy…Revisited April 30, 2007

In my previous post, I vented what I was feeling inside regarding what I felt to be an unfair double standard placed on Orthodox Jews. We are supposed to compromise our beliefs and observances to be more “modern”, more “with it”, more “accommodating”, and, quite often, if we dare say words like “must” or “supposed to”, we’re accused of being overbearing sticks-in-the-mud.

One commenter said, as a result of reading my post, “I didn’t know that (perfect faith) was a prerequisite to not being treated like (crap).” Reactions like this always lead me to scream the same anguished yelp, “Why don’t people realize that I’m not advocating this?”

Who would advocate people being treated like crap. “Not giving someone an aliya” is not a blanket permission to treat someone like crap, all I was implying that, by not giving a Conservative rabbi an aliya, the person wouldn’t necessarily be halachically in the wrong. For treating someone like crap, however, someone would be halachically in the wrong.

The Shabbos guest should politely decline, the aliya can easily be passed off to the rabbi’s son/brother/gabbai. There is no reason necessarily for a halacha-based difficulty to turn into an interpersonal issue. And this is beautifully demonstrated by today’s In the Trenches blog on the JPost site. First Mr. David Harris brings up the Rav Mordechai Eliyahu quote. Then:

And in the second incident, Micky Boyden, a Reform rabbi who moved to Israel and lost a son serving in the army in Lebanon, had his invitation to chant (k)El Moleh Rahamim at the local commemoration for Israel’s war dead rescinded by the local council in Hod Hasharon after some…threatened to disrupt the solemn ceremony because he is Reform.Forgive me, but are we nuts? An ordained rabbi leaves Britain and moves to Israel with his family. His son makes the ultimate sacrifice for his adopted nation. And yet local officials…deny him the opportunity to lead a prayer at a public event in connection with Memorial Day.

(I’m going to overlook the potentially anti-haredi overtones in the article.)The previous post referred to simple actions like not giving an aliya. Here is someone not being refused a religious honor, but the congregation being told, “if you give this guy this honor, we’re going to bring the ruckus.”

There is a big difference between the two, and I hope that such a distinction is readily apparent.