Renewal of Halakha or the Destruction of Halakha – Part 4 – Torah and Labor Faithful

[Speaker A] Loyal to work, yes, but certainly loyal to Torah. So loyalty to Torah is a platform that encompasses the small and the great alike. For me, yes, this challenge of the fifth of December or the fourth of December or the sixth of December, or the question of rain in Argentina, troubles me greatly, interests me greatly, fascinates me greatly, and occupies me a great deal. And the answer written in the Tosefta interests me on the psychological level, on the research level, and also—maybe no less important, maybe even more important—on the level of analogy from one matter to another, whether in method, not only in application but in method: how they proceeded in order to deal with a challenge of this kind, when they did not know what was happening in the other, different hemisphere. Yes, it really interests me greatly, occupies me greatly, and therefore from my perspective this is really not a small matter at all, but a large and meaningful one, and it needs to be addressed.

[Speaker E] Wasn’t that a question?

[Speaker A] If it wasn’t a question, it was an answer. Fine. Now, an orphan’s Kaddish as opposed to women being called up to the Torah—I think these are two completely different things. On the subject of an orphan’s Kaddish, I also wrote about it; I think I wrote in Horizons, probably a whole sequence and maybe an article. That’s also important. And again I return to my general approach: the precedents then were certainly significant, and I’ll add—I’m not going to get into halakhic pilpul and detailed halakhic analysis right now. I think that an orphan’s Kaddish on the one hand and women being called to the Torah on the other are two entirely different things. There is a difference, there is a common denominator between them, but there is also an enormous difference between them. I’m not going into that now; this isn’t our time for it. As for Reform, I completely agree with what Rabbi Michael Abraham said regarding the need to examine things on their own merits and not based on the people involved, and certainly also with his point that things—challenges, and also responses that came through Reform—can be very important and very good. You know the slogan “the new is forbidden by the Torah”—well, the new is permitted by the Torah. So that slogan is absurd from the outset. Yes, if something new came from Reform Jews and on its own merits it is correct, then it is correct, and if something Orthodox is not correct, then it is not correct. Only one point I would add to what you said: one of the touchstones here is belief in Torah from Heaven. That is a touchstone which is philosophical, true, but it also has halakhic implications. And therefore, on that criterion, things that are derived not only in application but also in their development from belief in Torah from Heaven, with everything that implies, can certainly create tension and differentiation between Reform rulings and non-Reform rulings. But that too requires expansion. One last point before the last one, regarding Jewish law, personalities, and approaches: certainly, certainly it is true that we presented matters as though Jewish law were homogeneous—not at all, not in the slightest. I mentioned this in the course of my remarks as well. Of course there are personalities and approaches and so on within certain boundaries, aside from a few extreme cases. But of course there are personalities and approaches in Jewish law; that is obvious and self-evident. Last point, regarding presumptions: since our time is short, I’ll just give a reference—see the dissertation of Harel Fish. Since—

[Speaker E] Your neighbor too?

[Speaker A] My neighbor too.

[Speaker C] I want people to like me, so I’ll only take twenty seconds. I think the most interesting question—if I may, not as a grade but just in my own personal, subjective sense—the most interesting question for me is the one that was asked there about choosing one’s rabbi. I think there’s a point here that deserves discussion and deserves many panels. Essentially, you pointed to a phenomenon of the democratization of Jewish law, which to some extent makes the precedent-based discussion unnecessary, and perhaps even the discussion that Rabbi Hananelwald raised about halakhic codes and their importance, if any, and maybe even about the whole thing. To my mind this is a truly real, deep, and fundamental question. It is not only a sociological question; it is a question that ought to challenge halakhic decisors, in the sense that the whole idea of the public domain has changed completely. The rabbi is now genuinely available wherever he may be, whereas in the past the rabbi was an authority produced by a society and a place. Today neither society nor place has any significance in this context. So it’s a very, very interesting question, but it opens us up to completely different places. As for everything else that was said—I agree very, very much, I enjoyed it very much, and thank you very much to everyone, and take eight minutes as a gift on my account.

[Speaker D] And now we want to hear from the person who brought us all here, Dr. Meir Roth. He is a physicist and computer scientist, worked for many years at IBM in data communications, served as chairman of Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah, and in that role founded the journal Gilayon De’ot. He wrote his doctorate on the halakhic thought of Rabbi Professor Eliezer Berkovits, and by that merit we have this book, and we’d like to hear from you in conclusion of the evening.

[Speaker E] I think we can give up the microphone. If the audience passed the questions to us through the microphone, then I’ll pass my message through the microphone too, though in my opinion it distorts the voice. I’ll try to begin with your question, which in my eyes is the most practical and most important question: where is the spirit? Where is that spiritual intensity in religious life? That’s the question that troubles us. Formal Jewish law interests us much less. That’s the truth. I’ll try to begin with two personal stories about how I experienced Berkovits. About twenty-five years ago I happened to be at Nehalim Yeshiva on a Sabbath. There was a groom’s aliyah to the Torah, and what can you do—the yeshiva was full, so they put us in the library. Now, I have this sort of disease: when I’m in a library I start scanning the books. And for the first time I came across Faith After the Holocaust. I confess my sin today: my prayer was very, very weak, because the whole time I was struggling with myself to keep reading Faith After the Holocaust. And I read and read, and I said, wait a second—this is something different. There’s no apologetics here; there’s integrity here. What captured me in this reading was the feeling that this is a person who doesn’t feel obliged—doesn’t feel obliged to defend everything accepted in Jewish tradition. He does not owe a defense for all that. And from his perspective, the Holocaust is exactly a Job-like situation. And we remember Job, where Job is the most rebellious and problematic figure. And in the end, what happens? “You have not spoken rightly”—all the apologists—about him the Holy One, blessed be He, says, He calls everyone and says, “You have not spoken rightly as My servant Job has.” So I said, ah, there is something here—some kind of integrity that also rests on what is written in the Book of Job. That’s one story. The second story: I spent many years working on the doctorate, everyone knows that situation, and I had a neighbor who also did a doctorate at an older age. Every time he saw me coming out of the door of my house, he would pester me with the same question: tell me, have you reached the mid-doctorate crisis yet? Tell me. I said, what is that? He said, you get to the point where you’re sick of it, there’s no hope, everything you did was already done, you’re not innovating anything. So I waited and waited for this crisis, and fine. I think the experience of reading Berkovits—which I tried, with my limited ability, to convey—I say, I’m some dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant—I try to convey to the reader that formal Jewish law is not the spirit of the matter. True, there is no choice; we can’t abandon Jewish law to whims, that’s clear. But the spirit of the matter—as you say, or as was discussed in First Source—what is religiosity today? Going to synagogue on the Sabbath, maybe hearing the Torah reading, maybe talking in the middle, and going home. That is not spirituality. There is nothing spiritual in that. And you are right that if all our goal here is only to find leniencies in Jewish law, that is not spirituality; there is nothing spiritual in that. And one of the things I became convinced of myself—and I hope I’ll convince others too—is that there is here a worldview that accepts Torah from Heaven, but on the other hand claims that Heaven forbid we should not be moral, that Jewish law cannot be immoral. I think that is something—now, of course one can debate what morality means, I know the matter is not so simple. But I felt that his Torah, or his approach, presents a spiritual world and not a world of formalism. A world of outlook, of worldview, that is not so common. I know that many times I sit at the university: the lecturer is a God-fearing man, everything is fine, and now he compartmentalizes and comes to philosophy as though these were two different things. It turns out that when he deals with philosophy he is a philosopher, and when he goes to synagogue he is religious. That is roughly what I encounter. The question is whether it is possible to find some common plane between human thought—which apparently has kernels that advanced humanity, or maybe didn’t, but certainly has kernels of spirituality—and Judaism. It is clear that if this compartmentalization exists, and Leibowitz is the most classic example of compartmentalization, where on the one hand he is willing, how shall we put it, to even bear the heading of being immoral and everything is a matter of obedience—never mind that even he was not faithful to his own method, as I presented; even he himself was not so faithful to it, but that doesn’t matter—and then there is the moral man, who is, as he says, atheist and cosmopolitan and all that. So what is it? Are two souls running around inside you? A cosmopolitan soul and an obedient soul? So where do you build spirituality from? There is no spirituality here. At best there is a formalism of religion. And one of the things I felt, at least throughout the process—and that is why I never reached the mid-doctorate crisis—was that the more I advanced, the more I felt the spirit blowing through him: how one can also use Western thought, also critique it—that is what exists—also critique it at its weak points, and nevertheless build some religious world that makes use of the best of human thought. Of course the problems will always be there and always exist, and it is very difficult to learn how to solve them, but I am not at all sure that this question, for example, of whether one really says “grant dew and rain” outside the Land of Israel—whether that is really a problem that needs to trouble us—it does not trouble me at all. But what does trouble me is people who come to synagogue and daven—if you know what davening is, that sort of thing—is this service of God? Does anyone notice this? In Berkovits there is a very serious treatment of this question of intention, of acting with intention. So I don’t know if I managed here to convey my message in a few words. I hope that first of all people will begin to read, and that they won’t have a mid-reading crisis, a mid-book crisis, because I admit that the chapters—perhaps I should give a bit of guidance—the first part, which is the building blocks, has a bit more formalism in it. So if there is a little attentiveness and patience, and people reach the central parts of the worldview—what is Jewish law? It was said here, people spoke a lot about Jewish law, but they did not define what Jewish law is. I think he has a very, very original definition of what Jewish law is. What is practical force? What is actual implementation? I’ll just give one small thing. Every practical halakhic ruling—the Holy One, blessed be He, is testing the halakhic decisor, as it were; it is a test, and he stands in the test. I have never heard such a definition from anyone. All these things—I hope that, as they say, when you get used to them and arrive at them, my reward will be if our religious lives truly acquire some more spiritual character than mere davening. That’s what I say. Of course, first of all now, a few thanks. First of all I need to say Shehecheyanu, yes, but there’s a halakhic problem here, yes? Can I say Shehecheyanu over the fact that there is a new group here? But then certainly: “who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this time”—you have no idea how happy I am to say that, even without God’s name and kingship, because I checked the Jewish law and saw how complicated and difficult it is. That’s fine; I feel good even saying it that way. I also want to thank Shmuel Shetach, who truly pushed and helped Meir Kraus. I want to thank those on whom I dumped the burden: Rabbi Tzachi, Rabbi Michael Abraham, Rabbi Yair Agmon, and the moderator Rachel Shapracher. And you already stole a little of my thunder: there are two people here very dear to me, without whom I would not have made it here. First and foremost, my dear wife, who accompanied me in my suffering and in my joy. This is a joint enterprise of both of us, and not just something where I wanted to check off an obligation because I had to. The second person is Tzvi Roi, who accompanied me—it is hard to describe—he accompanied me on every word I wrote, made comments of all kinds, and sometimes argued with me about the matter. I have no words for his help, and I’m very happy he is here. Last but not least is this wonderful audience, for whom it was truly worth driving all the way to Modiin. At first—just one more little story—I tried, with my limited strength, to organize a launch evening at Bar-Ilan. After two weeks of coordinating with this one and that one and that one, suddenly someone remembered that actually he had a wedding at that time; suddenly someone else said, no, no, look, you have to finish by nine because I need to pick up my child from… I remember that on a certain date I said, enough, it’s over, I’m not doing a launch event. The next day, exactly the next day, Meir Kalach—call it providence—Meir Kalach calls me and says, look, everything is fine, I arranged it for you, just tell me that you agree to the date. I said, wow, from Heaven. So I really agreed, and I’m very happy that we came here. I think there is a wonderful audience here, and thank you very much.