Post by Admin on Dec 27, 2013 12:38:47 GMT
by Yisrael Kashkin
The comments were intended to concern the draft of Haredim to the IDF, but they spoke about so much more. Recently, a Haredi spokesman for the English speaking public commented in the Yated Ne’eman that participation by young people in the Israeli Defense Forces is not problematic just because it may drive some people completely away from Torah observance (in his view), but because it leads some to be non-Haredi. He said, “Even those who remained shomer mitzvos were given a new identity that was antithetical to true Torah values and a true Torah lifestyle.” While the statement is either exaggerated or illogical in its reference to an halachically observant person whose identity is somehow simultaneously ‘antithetical to true Torah values,’ it only hints at the names of the specific groups. The part about not being Haredi we learn later: “By spending our initial years in the environment of the yeshivos hakedoshos, we are able to imbibe and attain the social identity of the chareidi community, which is the ideology and life of true Torah commitment.”
As a person who identifies himself generally as Litvish and only Haredi in certain respects, I find the comments unsettling; although I would react similarly no matter which camp was held up as being uniformly superior and the sole owner of truth. Still, I see something useful in the comments, namely, their candidness. The words reflect what some in the Haredi community believe that they practice the authentic Torah Judaism. I have felt this on countless occasions such as when I simply walk into shul on a weekday wearing a brown raincoat and a cap. I participate in the same minyan as those with black hats and they otherwise know nothing about my life. Yet, I feel that I face disapproving stares that question the authenticity of my Torah observance.
I have had similar experiences when I let it slip to my Haredi friends that I visited Yeshiva University for shiurim. The looks of discomfort are as unmistakable as if I had said that I visited a nightclub for mixed dancing. No, rather, I went to hear a lecture on ribbis (I’m careful not to say ribbit) from one of the most distinguished talmidei chachamim in the world. Goodness gracious, R’ Shimon Shkop, R’ Shlomo Polachek, and R’ Chaim Heller were on the RIETS faculty at YU along with numerous other legendary scholars. Is there a problem?
On many occasions I have received more than looks. “That book is controversial” I heard said about books citing a statement or two from the Talmud or Rishonim that fail to conform perfectly with the conventional Weltanschauung. “The rabbis condemn that place,” I heard said about all sorts of fine Orthodox institutions (and people, some of them giants) that have done all kinds of good for the Jewish nation. To which I asked, “Which rabbis? The ones you respect because they condemn it?” I learned too late in life that Hashem does not actually select community leaders and announce His choice to the nation, not in our era. Rather, to a large extent we each choose our respective leaders and do so often based on our own sensibility and on name recognition that sometimes hinges on a person’s proclivity for extreme statements. It’s not so different from secular politics where money buys air-time and air-time produces votes and policy. The lines become drawn and we find ourselves in or out.
More telling (and pernicious) than the looks and comments is the aitzah, the advice, usually volunteered. I know a couple who considered moving to Cleveland. They looked at the various neighborhoods: University Heights, Cleveland Heights, and Beechwood. Their Haredi friends pushed them towards the Haredi enclave of Cleveland Heights. It’s an automatic response, an impulse. There was no discussion of housing whether for price, condition, or availability, commute to work, neighborhoods with similarly aged children as theirs, or shuls with rabbis that might appeal to them. None of that was discussed. Rather, from start to finish ran a paternalistic pressure to go Haredi as if it’s the universal solution for all problems for all people. Any attempt to explain the complexity of the decision and reasons for choosing the more mixed communities (where numerous other Haredim reside) was met with that ever familiar disapproval of even a hint of any other approach to Torah observance.
The disapproval traverses the groups like dominoes. The guy at Satmar frowns on the guy at Lakewood who frowns on the guy at Ner Yisrael who frowns on the guy at YU who frowns on the guy at Chovevei Torah. (The disapproval in the reverse direction is not nearly as sweeping or intense.) Each domino knocks down the next in line until there’s nothing left but a pile of tiles. One is tempted to shout: It’s all good. Stop knocking. Stop disapproving. We’re a tiny group up against 7 billion people who live in a manner increasingly, radically opposed to ours. Can we afford to split our ranks even further?
Satmar frowns on Lakewood? I once asked a Hasidic man to whom I was giving a ride a series of questions to gauge the Hasidic view of the Yeshiva world. I asked his opinion of R’ Moshe Feinstein. He said, “He was good, but if he was Hasidic he’d be better.”
I have seen this taken to ridiculous lengths in kiruv yeshivot where young Jews were driven from observance due to the portrayal of observance as being equivalent to Haredism. I know of numerous individuals who embraced the divinity of Torah and the yoke of mitzvot despite being raised as atheists. This is quite an accomplishment. Yet, they stumbled on the insistence that they cease all secular studies, dump their childhood friends, drop their hobbies, and develop a posture of general hostility towards the entire society from which they came as well as to other groups in Orthodox Judaism. I had expected to enter yeshiva and hear impassioned theological debates concerning the authority of the Oral Torah and heard rather senseless and destructive quarrels about college, classical music, and Charles Dickens.
I know of many instances where men were pressured to abandon their career plans and stay in 'learning' indefinitely and the women to embrace a life of poverty. One young man asked a Rosh Yeshiva of a mid-sized institution in the New York area how he’d buy medical insurance if he didn’t have any money. The young man was told, “You don’t need medical insurance. The community will take care of you if you get sick.” The mindset was so alien to these young Americans, seemed so absurd that their whole picture of the Torah as a “tree of life” with “ways of pleasantness” crafted by a wise, loving God crumbled before their eyes. The Haredi approach, though it may be right for many, was wrong for these people.
Less tragic but plenty disturbing are the myriad cases of people who stuck with observance but did so awkwardly, painfully ? square pegs forced into a round hole. They did not feel at home with Haredism. They did not feel normal. Oftentimes, they lost touch with the best parts of themselves, resulting in a Torah observance that, as one man described it to me, seemed to be conducted by a stranger. Such a state of being is not conducive to successful Torah observance or life management.
How could measures that some may deem well-intentioned lead to such painful outcomes? We learn early in the Chumash that the blurring of God’s commands with human additions to them was a primary cause of the very first sin in history:
“And the woman said to the serpent, "Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden God said, "You shall not eat of it, and you shall not touch it, lest you die.'" (Genesis 3:2-3)
She added to the command; therefore, she came to minimize it. That is what is stated (Prov. 30:6): “Add not to His words.” (Rashi on Genesis 3:2-3)
R’ Samson Raphael Hirsch explains that God had prohibited only eating from the tree. Adam rightly created a rule against touching it so that he and Chava would not come to eat from it. However, “Adam erred therein that he transmitted the touching of the tree with the eating hereof as being equally forbidden by God.” Says Rav Hirsch:
They [the Sages] warn us not to exaggerate and to set the fence too high, lest it fall in and destroy the plants it was placed to protect. God had said: “as soon as you eat of it you will die”, but she said, quite untruthfully, that God had said “touch it not or you will die.” The serpent caught at this falsehood. It pushed Eve against the tree, and then said: “see, you have not died by touching it, so you will also not die through eating it”. (Beresheit Rabbah 19 and Avot d’Rebbe Natan) They warn us never to lose sight of the origin and the importance of these “fence-laws” ordered by Jewish conscientiousness, always to keep in mind that they are man-made and not God-made, not d’orita, only as long as we remember this do they serve as as warning and protection. If we forget that this is their character, then transgressing them will just lead more easily to transgressing the real God’s law too. (R’ Hirsch on Genesis 3:2-3)
Adam needed to tell Chava that the decree against touching was not the essential mitzvah. His omission left her to see the fence as equivalent to the mitzvah and this lead to dangerous confusion. How much more so is it wrong to equate a style of observance with observance itself.
Contemporary man is superficial. We tend not to judge a man by his deeds but by his look and his club membership. And when I reference the person’s “look”, I refer not to the compliance of his clothing with halacha or ideals of humility, modesty, or distinction from the nations but to style. Black is good. Brown, somewhere along the line, became bad.
Brown was not a problem in Lakewood at the time of R’ Aaron Kotler. As R’ Aaron Rafekket has testified, when he was in Lakewood the bochurim all dressed differently in all kinds of colors and styles. Only Reb Aaron donned a black hat. Said R' Rafekket, "Even the old mashgiach, Reb Nosson Wachtfogel, wouldn’t dare wear a black hat." (Interview in Jewish Press, Aug. 2012) I once wore a conservative brown tweed jacket to a Shabbat table and was castigated by the host, a rabbi, who told me not to wear it because people would think badly of me.
When I was first becoming frum decades ago I was overjoyed to learn that Judaism gave a person so many activities in which to participate. One of the key moments for me was a conversation I had with a Lubavitch shliach in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He asked me if I knew the definition of a mitzvah. “A good deed,” I told him, reflecting my reform Jewish background. “No,” he said excitedly, “It’s a commandment from God.” He eyed me nervously as though expecting a fight. “That’s great” I told him to his apparent surprise, “I always wanted to know what God wanted.”
And so over the next few months I learned many of the details of what God wanted. There was so much to do and it gave me a yardstick by which to measure myself. Am I good person? Well, it all depends on how I handle the myriad activities of Judaism. We don’t need to resort to group associations. We look at the particulars and add them up.
Now, my math skills are nothing compared to that of the beit din shel ma’aleh and neither are anybody else’s. But when I look at the different camps of Orthodox Judaism and pull out my calculator I get mixed results. I can’t help myself but see different strengths and weaknesses. One group (I won’t say which, OK Sephardim) tends to be more friendly, thus fulfilling teachings to “greet everyone with a pleasant countenance” and “love one’s neighbor as oneself.” By group I mean more of the constituents of that group obviously. Another group tends to be better at kiddushah, i.e., staying away from the world’s shmutz. Another group is better at reminding us to daven for Moshiach. That same group is better at teaching the world about the sheva mitzvot for b’nei Noach. Another group tends to be better at recognizing the individuality of every Jew, thus honoring the Torah’s teaching of people being created in God’s image. Another group tends to be better at awakening the heart with joy and song in the service of Hashem.
Another group tends to be less judgmental, thus honoring the call of Pirkei Avot which says, “Do not judge another man until you are in his place.” As I once heard R’ Yitzchok Kirzner comment, you can never be exactly in another man’s place. Therefore, don’t judge.
One group is much better at honoring the Talmud’s call to “teach your son a trade.” Another group tends to be better at kiruv; another at promoting Torah study. Each has its specialties in chesed.
As for emunah and other duties of the heart, I haven’t a clue who tends to be strongest, as there are appearances of emunah that can be arrogance, public displays, neurosis, or lots of other things. I left the duties of the heart out of my equations. I can’t see into the heart.
And then there are the problems, the flaws, the recurring sins and omissions. Each group has its patterns there as well.
My math leads me to the words of the famous Midrash, “I call heaven and earth to witness whether it be Jew or Gentile, man or woman, man servant or maid servant only according to their actions will the spirit of holiness rest upon them.” (Seder Eliyahu Rabbah 9)
However, today we have people that designate one community as the “true Torah lifestyle”, implying that the others are less true or false. Let us not forget the 70 faces of Torah. Like many baalei teshuvah, I expressed my concerns about cults when first entering the frum world. I was assured, don’t worry, there are 70 faces to Torah, meaning different approaches within the halacha and slightly different approaches to halacha. Sadly, the people who offered this assurance turned out to be some of the most judgmental in the end, having practiced what seems now like false advertising.
Nevertheless, the “70 faces of Torah” is not a bube ma’aseh but a Midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 13:15) and is referred to countless times by our great commentators. It applies not only to today, obviously, but to yesteryear. For example, much ink has been spilled debating the validity of R’ Hirsch’s philosophy of Torah Im Derech Eretz versus that of an Eastern European approach to Torah living. Could it be that one approach was best for Germany and the other best for the shtetl? Many gadolim have explained it that way. In a technologically and politically complex urban society is it really workable for one’s trade to be milkman or, in the recent version of this, to have no trade at all? Can one function in a polite and organized society like 19th century Germany with a hostile approach towards gentiles?
Similarly, would civic service to the society at large make any sense in 19th century Ukraine? Is a Zhid going to run for the Kishinev city council? What college would you have attended in Galicia?
Each approach was crafted for its time and place. None is uniformly better. Each might be harmful if swapped with the other. Yet, we all have heard the view that Torah Im Derech Eretz was an enactment relevant only to the time. While Hirschian scholars including R’ Joseph Breuer and R’ Shimon Schwab disputed this, the outlook prevails and implies that an Eastern European approach, and by extension the contemporary Haredi version of it, is more Torah true, or simply Torah true.
To me, it’s an academic debate. I ask, what works better in the 21st century? Even if Torah Im Derech Eretz was an enactment for the times, have times really changed? Or let me ask it differently, have they changed in a way that makes an Eastern European approach more appropriate? You could easily argue the opposite. The Western World today is incomparably more complex technologically, politically, and culturally. Rav Hirsch published his “19 Letters” before the invention of the postage stamp. One wonders what he’d say about about a moon launch or submolecular engineering. We might need Torah Im Derech Eretz even more than 19th century Germany needed it. In the words of R’ Shimon Schwab:
The approach of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch enables us to educate and produce God-fearing and Torah loyal young men, and righteous and valiant young women. Indeed, this is the “Frankfurt” approach, also known as the “Torah and Derekh Eretz approach.” It is a tried and tested method. It is especially appropriate in this country, at this time, which has much in common with the Haskalah period in Germany during the previous century. (ha-Ma’ayan, 1966 as reprinted in Tradition, Spring 1997)
R’ Schwab wrote these words in the 1960s which was years into the post-war, industrial, technological, liberal period in which we still reside. If anything, the Haskalah-like features of the era have intensified since then. He added the following: “It seems to me that both [i.e., the “Frankfurt” and the “Torah only”] educational approaches are well-grounded in the sources, and both are essential for the continued existence of the Jewish people in our time. So it shall remain until the redemption takes place Then, Elijah the prophet shall come and resolve all problems, including this one. He will decide retroactively whether R. Samson Raphael Hirsch’s approach was a time-bound one, intended only for his generation, or whether it was intended for all generations and all places.” Rav Schwab wrote elsewhere, “But Rav Hirsch also had behind him a solid mesorah from gadolim who showed him the way. From the time of Chazal through the period of the Geonim; the Rambam, the Chachmei Sepharad through the Talmidei Hagra all the way down to his own Rebbe the Oruch L’ner and his disciples. Rav Hirsch had his mesorah. (Selected Speeches, p. 243)
I lack the space here to outline the Torah Im Derech Eretz model for those who are unfamiliar with it, but I can assure you that it is not identical in all its methods to that of the “Torah only” model as Rav Schwab referenced it or to contemporary Haredism. While striving intensely for Avodat Hashem, Torah Im Derech Eretz incorporates the best of secular wisdom, takes a favorable view of job training and gainful employment for the great majority of people, and embraces contributions to the welfare of the host societies in which Jews find themselves. This is not Haredism. Yet, as Rav Schwab explained, it is an approach rooted firmly in Torah sources and the most reliable of mesorot. It is also a path to a “life of true Torah commitment”.
The world today presents Herculean challenges to Torah observance and Haredism is one of several primary responses to those challenges. For many people, it appears to be an effective one. However, Haredi society is not a deracinated shtetl. In the shtetls people married in their teens, spent most of their days working for parnassah, inherited halachic practice from family rather than constructing it from books, and looked to the local rabbi for p’sak. This is not what happens in Haredi society today. There are other differences as well. You could say that Haredi society is closer to the model of the Eastern European yeshivot which had their own cultures, as they were designed for select scholars and not for the masses. (That we have built a model for the many based on a design for the few may be a problem unto itself.) But there are differences from the old yeshivot. Many of those yeshivot allowed more diversity of thought, dress, and life choice than the Haredi yeshivot of today. Certainly, the contrast to Lita is quite distinct as today we have a blend of Lithuanian and Hasidic influences.
Some will argue that the style we find now is necessary given the sorry state of the world. Whether one concurs with this argument or not, he or she would not be off base to consider Haredism a contemporary approach to Torah life. And that’s fine. We have been doing this sort of thing for thousands of years, finding a way to maintain our faith in each golut. However, we need to maintain our sense of history and not project ourselves backwards onto our ancestors, laterally to the entire Jewish world, and forwards onto eternity. Some people who view their version of the Eastern European yeshiva culture as THE Torah true Judaism try to impose that singular lifestyle on the entirety of Klal Yisrael and deem invalid any other styles. That is not fine.
I propose an alternative, namely to look to the many kosher approaches formulated by the Ukrainian, Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian, German, Hungarian, Italian, French, Greek, Yemenite, Syrian, Moroccan, Israeli et. al. Jews of the past. Each had their own gadolim; each has something to say. None is better for all; none THE true Torah path. We don’t live in any of the societies that were home to those people and we live in all of them. The world has become a new kind of cheftza, a object like the world has never seen before, all mixed together like digital packages on an Internet server. We need to utilize all of our resources to survive and thrive.
Many years ago I sat at a Shabbat table with R’ Leib Tropper in Monsey. A new baal teshuvah posed a question. “There are so many different groups in the Orthodox world. I see Yeshiva people and Hassidim and Sephardim and Modern. Which one is right?”
R’ Tropper, bless him, gave the following answer, an answer which I have recalled many times over the years, an answer which still brings tears to my eyes. He said, “Nobody knows.” In my pre-frum days, it would not be shocking at all to hear such an utterance, but I had become quite accustomed to absolutism. R’ Tropper was Yeshivish back then (I don’t know if he would categorize himself now with the new-fangled term Haredi), but he knew what he didn’t and couldn’t know which is which group will respond when all are asked, “Will the real Torah true Judaism please stand up?”
Perhaps we should all remain seated in humility and recognition of our failings. Or perhaps all groups will be asked to stand in recognition of their working in sincerity and love of God and the nation to build community styles that benefit the different Jews in different situations. None was perfect, none the one and only true path, none so much better than the others that we could see with our dim vision.
The comments were intended to concern the draft of Haredim to the IDF, but they spoke about so much more. Recently, a Haredi spokesman for the English speaking public commented in the Yated Ne’eman that participation by young people in the Israeli Defense Forces is not problematic just because it may drive some people completely away from Torah observance (in his view), but because it leads some to be non-Haredi. He said, “Even those who remained shomer mitzvos were given a new identity that was antithetical to true Torah values and a true Torah lifestyle.” While the statement is either exaggerated or illogical in its reference to an halachically observant person whose identity is somehow simultaneously ‘antithetical to true Torah values,’ it only hints at the names of the specific groups. The part about not being Haredi we learn later: “By spending our initial years in the environment of the yeshivos hakedoshos, we are able to imbibe and attain the social identity of the chareidi community, which is the ideology and life of true Torah commitment.”
As a person who identifies himself generally as Litvish and only Haredi in certain respects, I find the comments unsettling; although I would react similarly no matter which camp was held up as being uniformly superior and the sole owner of truth. Still, I see something useful in the comments, namely, their candidness. The words reflect what some in the Haredi community believe that they practice the authentic Torah Judaism. I have felt this on countless occasions such as when I simply walk into shul on a weekday wearing a brown raincoat and a cap. I participate in the same minyan as those with black hats and they otherwise know nothing about my life. Yet, I feel that I face disapproving stares that question the authenticity of my Torah observance.
I have had similar experiences when I let it slip to my Haredi friends that I visited Yeshiva University for shiurim. The looks of discomfort are as unmistakable as if I had said that I visited a nightclub for mixed dancing. No, rather, I went to hear a lecture on ribbis (I’m careful not to say ribbit) from one of the most distinguished talmidei chachamim in the world. Goodness gracious, R’ Shimon Shkop, R’ Shlomo Polachek, and R’ Chaim Heller were on the RIETS faculty at YU along with numerous other legendary scholars. Is there a problem?
On many occasions I have received more than looks. “That book is controversial” I heard said about books citing a statement or two from the Talmud or Rishonim that fail to conform perfectly with the conventional Weltanschauung. “The rabbis condemn that place,” I heard said about all sorts of fine Orthodox institutions (and people, some of them giants) that have done all kinds of good for the Jewish nation. To which I asked, “Which rabbis? The ones you respect because they condemn it?” I learned too late in life that Hashem does not actually select community leaders and announce His choice to the nation, not in our era. Rather, to a large extent we each choose our respective leaders and do so often based on our own sensibility and on name recognition that sometimes hinges on a person’s proclivity for extreme statements. It’s not so different from secular politics where money buys air-time and air-time produces votes and policy. The lines become drawn and we find ourselves in or out.
More telling (and pernicious) than the looks and comments is the aitzah, the advice, usually volunteered. I know a couple who considered moving to Cleveland. They looked at the various neighborhoods: University Heights, Cleveland Heights, and Beechwood. Their Haredi friends pushed them towards the Haredi enclave of Cleveland Heights. It’s an automatic response, an impulse. There was no discussion of housing whether for price, condition, or availability, commute to work, neighborhoods with similarly aged children as theirs, or shuls with rabbis that might appeal to them. None of that was discussed. Rather, from start to finish ran a paternalistic pressure to go Haredi as if it’s the universal solution for all problems for all people. Any attempt to explain the complexity of the decision and reasons for choosing the more mixed communities (where numerous other Haredim reside) was met with that ever familiar disapproval of even a hint of any other approach to Torah observance.
The disapproval traverses the groups like dominoes. The guy at Satmar frowns on the guy at Lakewood who frowns on the guy at Ner Yisrael who frowns on the guy at YU who frowns on the guy at Chovevei Torah. (The disapproval in the reverse direction is not nearly as sweeping or intense.) Each domino knocks down the next in line until there’s nothing left but a pile of tiles. One is tempted to shout: It’s all good. Stop knocking. Stop disapproving. We’re a tiny group up against 7 billion people who live in a manner increasingly, radically opposed to ours. Can we afford to split our ranks even further?
Satmar frowns on Lakewood? I once asked a Hasidic man to whom I was giving a ride a series of questions to gauge the Hasidic view of the Yeshiva world. I asked his opinion of R’ Moshe Feinstein. He said, “He was good, but if he was Hasidic he’d be better.”
I have seen this taken to ridiculous lengths in kiruv yeshivot where young Jews were driven from observance due to the portrayal of observance as being equivalent to Haredism. I know of numerous individuals who embraced the divinity of Torah and the yoke of mitzvot despite being raised as atheists. This is quite an accomplishment. Yet, they stumbled on the insistence that they cease all secular studies, dump their childhood friends, drop their hobbies, and develop a posture of general hostility towards the entire society from which they came as well as to other groups in Orthodox Judaism. I had expected to enter yeshiva and hear impassioned theological debates concerning the authority of the Oral Torah and heard rather senseless and destructive quarrels about college, classical music, and Charles Dickens.
I know of many instances where men were pressured to abandon their career plans and stay in 'learning' indefinitely and the women to embrace a life of poverty. One young man asked a Rosh Yeshiva of a mid-sized institution in the New York area how he’d buy medical insurance if he didn’t have any money. The young man was told, “You don’t need medical insurance. The community will take care of you if you get sick.” The mindset was so alien to these young Americans, seemed so absurd that their whole picture of the Torah as a “tree of life” with “ways of pleasantness” crafted by a wise, loving God crumbled before their eyes. The Haredi approach, though it may be right for many, was wrong for these people.
Less tragic but plenty disturbing are the myriad cases of people who stuck with observance but did so awkwardly, painfully ? square pegs forced into a round hole. They did not feel at home with Haredism. They did not feel normal. Oftentimes, they lost touch with the best parts of themselves, resulting in a Torah observance that, as one man described it to me, seemed to be conducted by a stranger. Such a state of being is not conducive to successful Torah observance or life management.
How could measures that some may deem well-intentioned lead to such painful outcomes? We learn early in the Chumash that the blurring of God’s commands with human additions to them was a primary cause of the very first sin in history:
“And the woman said to the serpent, "Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden God said, "You shall not eat of it, and you shall not touch it, lest you die.'" (Genesis 3:2-3)
She added to the command; therefore, she came to minimize it. That is what is stated (Prov. 30:6): “Add not to His words.” (Rashi on Genesis 3:2-3)
R’ Samson Raphael Hirsch explains that God had prohibited only eating from the tree. Adam rightly created a rule against touching it so that he and Chava would not come to eat from it. However, “Adam erred therein that he transmitted the touching of the tree with the eating hereof as being equally forbidden by God.” Says Rav Hirsch:
They [the Sages] warn us not to exaggerate and to set the fence too high, lest it fall in and destroy the plants it was placed to protect. God had said: “as soon as you eat of it you will die”, but she said, quite untruthfully, that God had said “touch it not or you will die.” The serpent caught at this falsehood. It pushed Eve against the tree, and then said: “see, you have not died by touching it, so you will also not die through eating it”. (Beresheit Rabbah 19 and Avot d’Rebbe Natan) They warn us never to lose sight of the origin and the importance of these “fence-laws” ordered by Jewish conscientiousness, always to keep in mind that they are man-made and not God-made, not d’orita, only as long as we remember this do they serve as as warning and protection. If we forget that this is their character, then transgressing them will just lead more easily to transgressing the real God’s law too. (R’ Hirsch on Genesis 3:2-3)
Adam needed to tell Chava that the decree against touching was not the essential mitzvah. His omission left her to see the fence as equivalent to the mitzvah and this lead to dangerous confusion. How much more so is it wrong to equate a style of observance with observance itself.
Contemporary man is superficial. We tend not to judge a man by his deeds but by his look and his club membership. And when I reference the person’s “look”, I refer not to the compliance of his clothing with halacha or ideals of humility, modesty, or distinction from the nations but to style. Black is good. Brown, somewhere along the line, became bad.
Brown was not a problem in Lakewood at the time of R’ Aaron Kotler. As R’ Aaron Rafekket has testified, when he was in Lakewood the bochurim all dressed differently in all kinds of colors and styles. Only Reb Aaron donned a black hat. Said R' Rafekket, "Even the old mashgiach, Reb Nosson Wachtfogel, wouldn’t dare wear a black hat." (Interview in Jewish Press, Aug. 2012) I once wore a conservative brown tweed jacket to a Shabbat table and was castigated by the host, a rabbi, who told me not to wear it because people would think badly of me.
When I was first becoming frum decades ago I was overjoyed to learn that Judaism gave a person so many activities in which to participate. One of the key moments for me was a conversation I had with a Lubavitch shliach in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He asked me if I knew the definition of a mitzvah. “A good deed,” I told him, reflecting my reform Jewish background. “No,” he said excitedly, “It’s a commandment from God.” He eyed me nervously as though expecting a fight. “That’s great” I told him to his apparent surprise, “I always wanted to know what God wanted.”
And so over the next few months I learned many of the details of what God wanted. There was so much to do and it gave me a yardstick by which to measure myself. Am I good person? Well, it all depends on how I handle the myriad activities of Judaism. We don’t need to resort to group associations. We look at the particulars and add them up.
Now, my math skills are nothing compared to that of the beit din shel ma’aleh and neither are anybody else’s. But when I look at the different camps of Orthodox Judaism and pull out my calculator I get mixed results. I can’t help myself but see different strengths and weaknesses. One group (I won’t say which, OK Sephardim) tends to be more friendly, thus fulfilling teachings to “greet everyone with a pleasant countenance” and “love one’s neighbor as oneself.” By group I mean more of the constituents of that group obviously. Another group tends to be better at kiddushah, i.e., staying away from the world’s shmutz. Another group is better at reminding us to daven for Moshiach. That same group is better at teaching the world about the sheva mitzvot for b’nei Noach. Another group tends to be better at recognizing the individuality of every Jew, thus honoring the Torah’s teaching of people being created in God’s image. Another group tends to be better at awakening the heart with joy and song in the service of Hashem.
Another group tends to be less judgmental, thus honoring the call of Pirkei Avot which says, “Do not judge another man until you are in his place.” As I once heard R’ Yitzchok Kirzner comment, you can never be exactly in another man’s place. Therefore, don’t judge.
One group is much better at honoring the Talmud’s call to “teach your son a trade.” Another group tends to be better at kiruv; another at promoting Torah study. Each has its specialties in chesed.
As for emunah and other duties of the heart, I haven’t a clue who tends to be strongest, as there are appearances of emunah that can be arrogance, public displays, neurosis, or lots of other things. I left the duties of the heart out of my equations. I can’t see into the heart.
And then there are the problems, the flaws, the recurring sins and omissions. Each group has its patterns there as well.
My math leads me to the words of the famous Midrash, “I call heaven and earth to witness whether it be Jew or Gentile, man or woman, man servant or maid servant only according to their actions will the spirit of holiness rest upon them.” (Seder Eliyahu Rabbah 9)
However, today we have people that designate one community as the “true Torah lifestyle”, implying that the others are less true or false. Let us not forget the 70 faces of Torah. Like many baalei teshuvah, I expressed my concerns about cults when first entering the frum world. I was assured, don’t worry, there are 70 faces to Torah, meaning different approaches within the halacha and slightly different approaches to halacha. Sadly, the people who offered this assurance turned out to be some of the most judgmental in the end, having practiced what seems now like false advertising.
Nevertheless, the “70 faces of Torah” is not a bube ma’aseh but a Midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 13:15) and is referred to countless times by our great commentators. It applies not only to today, obviously, but to yesteryear. For example, much ink has been spilled debating the validity of R’ Hirsch’s philosophy of Torah Im Derech Eretz versus that of an Eastern European approach to Torah living. Could it be that one approach was best for Germany and the other best for the shtetl? Many gadolim have explained it that way. In a technologically and politically complex urban society is it really workable for one’s trade to be milkman or, in the recent version of this, to have no trade at all? Can one function in a polite and organized society like 19th century Germany with a hostile approach towards gentiles?
Similarly, would civic service to the society at large make any sense in 19th century Ukraine? Is a Zhid going to run for the Kishinev city council? What college would you have attended in Galicia?
Each approach was crafted for its time and place. None is uniformly better. Each might be harmful if swapped with the other. Yet, we all have heard the view that Torah Im Derech Eretz was an enactment relevant only to the time. While Hirschian scholars including R’ Joseph Breuer and R’ Shimon Schwab disputed this, the outlook prevails and implies that an Eastern European approach, and by extension the contemporary Haredi version of it, is more Torah true, or simply Torah true.
To me, it’s an academic debate. I ask, what works better in the 21st century? Even if Torah Im Derech Eretz was an enactment for the times, have times really changed? Or let me ask it differently, have they changed in a way that makes an Eastern European approach more appropriate? You could easily argue the opposite. The Western World today is incomparably more complex technologically, politically, and culturally. Rav Hirsch published his “19 Letters” before the invention of the postage stamp. One wonders what he’d say about about a moon launch or submolecular engineering. We might need Torah Im Derech Eretz even more than 19th century Germany needed it. In the words of R’ Shimon Schwab:
The approach of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch enables us to educate and produce God-fearing and Torah loyal young men, and righteous and valiant young women. Indeed, this is the “Frankfurt” approach, also known as the “Torah and Derekh Eretz approach.” It is a tried and tested method. It is especially appropriate in this country, at this time, which has much in common with the Haskalah period in Germany during the previous century. (ha-Ma’ayan, 1966 as reprinted in Tradition, Spring 1997)
R’ Schwab wrote these words in the 1960s which was years into the post-war, industrial, technological, liberal period in which we still reside. If anything, the Haskalah-like features of the era have intensified since then. He added the following: “It seems to me that both [i.e., the “Frankfurt” and the “Torah only”] educational approaches are well-grounded in the sources, and both are essential for the continued existence of the Jewish people in our time. So it shall remain until the redemption takes place Then, Elijah the prophet shall come and resolve all problems, including this one. He will decide retroactively whether R. Samson Raphael Hirsch’s approach was a time-bound one, intended only for his generation, or whether it was intended for all generations and all places.” Rav Schwab wrote elsewhere, “But Rav Hirsch also had behind him a solid mesorah from gadolim who showed him the way. From the time of Chazal through the period of the Geonim; the Rambam, the Chachmei Sepharad through the Talmidei Hagra all the way down to his own Rebbe the Oruch L’ner and his disciples. Rav Hirsch had his mesorah. (Selected Speeches, p. 243)
I lack the space here to outline the Torah Im Derech Eretz model for those who are unfamiliar with it, but I can assure you that it is not identical in all its methods to that of the “Torah only” model as Rav Schwab referenced it or to contemporary Haredism. While striving intensely for Avodat Hashem, Torah Im Derech Eretz incorporates the best of secular wisdom, takes a favorable view of job training and gainful employment for the great majority of people, and embraces contributions to the welfare of the host societies in which Jews find themselves. This is not Haredism. Yet, as Rav Schwab explained, it is an approach rooted firmly in Torah sources and the most reliable of mesorot. It is also a path to a “life of true Torah commitment”.
The world today presents Herculean challenges to Torah observance and Haredism is one of several primary responses to those challenges. For many people, it appears to be an effective one. However, Haredi society is not a deracinated shtetl. In the shtetls people married in their teens, spent most of their days working for parnassah, inherited halachic practice from family rather than constructing it from books, and looked to the local rabbi for p’sak. This is not what happens in Haredi society today. There are other differences as well. You could say that Haredi society is closer to the model of the Eastern European yeshivot which had their own cultures, as they were designed for select scholars and not for the masses. (That we have built a model for the many based on a design for the few may be a problem unto itself.) But there are differences from the old yeshivot. Many of those yeshivot allowed more diversity of thought, dress, and life choice than the Haredi yeshivot of today. Certainly, the contrast to Lita is quite distinct as today we have a blend of Lithuanian and Hasidic influences.
Some will argue that the style we find now is necessary given the sorry state of the world. Whether one concurs with this argument or not, he or she would not be off base to consider Haredism a contemporary approach to Torah life. And that’s fine. We have been doing this sort of thing for thousands of years, finding a way to maintain our faith in each golut. However, we need to maintain our sense of history and not project ourselves backwards onto our ancestors, laterally to the entire Jewish world, and forwards onto eternity. Some people who view their version of the Eastern European yeshiva culture as THE Torah true Judaism try to impose that singular lifestyle on the entirety of Klal Yisrael and deem invalid any other styles. That is not fine.
I propose an alternative, namely to look to the many kosher approaches formulated by the Ukrainian, Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian, German, Hungarian, Italian, French, Greek, Yemenite, Syrian, Moroccan, Israeli et. al. Jews of the past. Each had their own gadolim; each has something to say. None is better for all; none THE true Torah path. We don’t live in any of the societies that were home to those people and we live in all of them. The world has become a new kind of cheftza, a object like the world has never seen before, all mixed together like digital packages on an Internet server. We need to utilize all of our resources to survive and thrive.
Many years ago I sat at a Shabbat table with R’ Leib Tropper in Monsey. A new baal teshuvah posed a question. “There are so many different groups in the Orthodox world. I see Yeshiva people and Hassidim and Sephardim and Modern. Which one is right?”
R’ Tropper, bless him, gave the following answer, an answer which I have recalled many times over the years, an answer which still brings tears to my eyes. He said, “Nobody knows.” In my pre-frum days, it would not be shocking at all to hear such an utterance, but I had become quite accustomed to absolutism. R’ Tropper was Yeshivish back then (I don’t know if he would categorize himself now with the new-fangled term Haredi), but he knew what he didn’t and couldn’t know which is which group will respond when all are asked, “Will the real Torah true Judaism please stand up?”
Perhaps we should all remain seated in humility and recognition of our failings. Or perhaps all groups will be asked to stand in recognition of their working in sincerity and love of God and the nation to build community styles that benefit the different Jews in different situations. None was perfect, none the one and only true path, none so much better than the others that we could see with our dim vision.