A Look at Judaism and Jewish Identity: Part II (Column 337)

With God’s help

Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.

At the end of the previous column I was left with several puzzles. I described two talks by the Reform rabbi Buchdahl and said that, upon hearing them, a few reflections came to mind which together create an apparently insoluble limbo: 1) The content of her remarks does not look like Judaism, since these things could have been said verbatim in a (liberal) church or in a lecture to secular audiences (one must remember that Judaism is also a religion. We’ll discuss Jewish nationality later). These are universal values and insights that have no uniquely Jewish connection. 2) Surprisingly, the claim that this isn’t Judaism is not tied to her liberalism or even to her Reform identity, since synagogue talks by Orthodox rabbis—and even by staunchly conservative rabbis with messages entirely opposite to hers—could also be delivered in a (conservative) church. Those too, in my view, are not Judaism. This limbo leads us to wonder what Judaism even is (and not necessarily “who is a Jew,” which is a derivative question). The question is what distinguishes Judaism and can serve as a criterion or litmus test for belonging to it.

To deepen and sharpen the difficulty, let me recall what I wrote there: I fully agree with her that Judaism (as distinct from Jewishness, i.e., belonging to the Jewish people) cannot be defined on an ethnic–racial basis. The term “Judaism” is supposed to include some content or value basis and that is its essential part. But what is that content? From Buchdahl’s words one could ostensibly conclude that, in her view, it consists of commitment to moral values (opposition to racism, etc.). But I assume even she does not mean to say that anyone who opposes racism is a Jew, or that someone who supports racism is not a Jew (to say that every non-Jew, as such, supports racism is itself racist, and likely even Buchdahl would not accept that). I emphasize that I am not speaking of Judaism in the ethnic sense (which in her view does not exist at all). My remarks concern the content–essential plane of Judaism.

I cited there a passage from Buchdahl in which she explains that, for her, Judaism is entry into Jewish commitment and the Sinai covenant, but she does not spell out what that means. If so, we shift the puzzle from the question “What is Judaism?” to “What is included in that covenant that defines it?” In other words, it’s unclear what the convert’s declaration means: “I accept upon myself a Jewish commitment,” or “entry into the covenant.” And again, this question is directed equally at liberals, conservatives, Reform and Orthodox. No discrimination here.[1]

Because this point recurs again and again in discussions of Jewish identity, I wish to devote this column to sharpening it further. The issue touches on defining Jewish identity in general, but I’ll begin by examining secular Jewish identity, since discussing it sharpens the points I want to present even more. At the end I will return to the Reform identity that Buchdahl presents and try to examine the question of what differentiates it from the secular identity. Ultimately I’ll try to reach conclusions regarding a definition of Judaism—if only Orthodox—that actually holds water.

I want to open the discussion of secular Jewish identity through a 2004 debate between Kobi Arieli and Assaf Inbari. Some of you have surely heard me mention this debate more than once, since I have used it on several occasions to sharpen methodological points about reading and critical thinking. Here, though, I will distill their words and arguments on their own terms.

Kobi Arieli on the Shavuot Night Study at “Alma”

In 2004 the religious journalist Kobi Arieli wrote a column in Ma’ariv about Tel-Aviv Shavuot-night study events held at the pluralistic (secular) beit midrash “Alma” and at the Reform “Beit Daniel.” Instead of describing them I will bring his words verbatim:

There’s a common thread to these two Shavuot nights, north and center, that makes them, to my taste, infuriating: the lack of authenticity. The light fakery. The game of “as if.” The transparent trendiness. The adolescent, non-binding fashionability.

Both, Beit Daniel and Alma alike, speak of a Jewish experience. It may not be stated explicitly, yet a sweet whiff of “alternative” fills the air whenever a nicely designed Alma brochure is opened at a café corner. A Jewish alternative. I can do nothing but grasp my ancestors’ old craft—don a blunt, condescending zeal, as only a Haredi who studied in yeshiva knows how—and declare that this pseudo-religious Tel-Aviv scene, of readings and revolving tables, of “new readings,” “tikkunim” and narratives, not to mention the Reform and Conservative fringe scene, is pure gavava in the Talmudic sense. It may be Israeli culture, it’s certainly a kind of art, but Judaism? Not in this lifetime. Don’t let them fool you.

Nothing will help anyone. For the Jew in the Jewish state, where an overwhelming majority of stores don’t sell chametz on Passover, a Jewish experience is an elementary matter of connecting to one’s personal, familial, and national self. A Jewish experience for the Israeli Jew is like the texture of gefilte fish for an Ashkenazi or the smell of hilbeh for a Yemenite. True, not everyone experiences this regularly at a reasonable level, and it’s true there are those who perhaps never experienced it at all; be that as it may, even a one-time Jewish religious experience entails an inner connection to the collective genome, a tiny shard of which dwells in the heart of every Israeli Jew. What sense does it make, then, when one does try to experience it—to do so in such an alien “language” and framework, so estranged, so foreign?

There’s an embarrassing dissonance in the way this scene has managed to penetrate the fabric of cultural life and settle on the free niche of the yearning for Jewish-religious culture. Multiculturalism is fine for the individual and the society alike. On the other hand, when it comes in an illogical mix, it’s not multiculturalism but a tasteless pose game. You can have family life with a Moroccan rhythm and tempo while savoring European art with refined delicacy; you may break into a Middle-Eastern dance on a table at a sing-along while conducting your economic life with communist austerity. What you absolutely cannot do is live your entire cultural and spiritual life like a Levantine reserve soldier, sun-seared from barbecues, and at the same time experience your religious feelings in the very particular way a double-chinned prig in the Reform community of Boca Raton, Miami, Florida does. It’s not real, it doesn’t work, and it’s not us.

Let’s not bluff. As a platform for cultural dialectic, the Book of Ruth, with all its storytelling qualities, is no more than an okay text. What makes it a great, eternal, enchanting light is the formative meaning that deep-rooted Judaism pours into it.

Haredi intellectuals in the generation before mine risked their lives over the polemic surrounding the academization of the Bible and Talmud. I, of course, grew up in a cultural environment that rejected it utterly. But that’s not the point: go tell my father that 5,000 intelligent people in Tel-Aviv went on Shavuot night to hear Einat Fishbein and Ilana Hammerman talk about trafficking in women, and were convinced they had just done a Shavuot night study vigil. He won’t understand what you’re talking about.

There is only one authentic Judaism, which also fits the collective Israeli genetics, the language, the life-rhythm, and the truth. Yes, it’s in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem, in Efrat and Har Bracha, in Kiryat Sefer and Netivot—what can you do. It’s also a bit annoying and, unfortunately, not always welcoming, but anyone who wants it knows the way. I know it sounds awful, but whoever wants culture, fun, girls, and sympathy—let him go to Alma. Whoever wants Judaism—let him come spend Shabbat with us.

So why was Alma packed on Shavuot night? Because everyone goes to Alma—Alma, Alma—and everyone goes to yoga—yoga, yoga—and all the women moved to low-rise jeans and now returned to high-rise, and everyone’s into retro, and everyone’s into Kabbalah, and everyone’s interested, and everyone’s so spiritual. Bye. I’m going to throw up.

There are several themes in Arieli’s sharp critique, but I will focus here on one central point: What is Judaism? Arieli senses (as I do) that what goes on there is not Judaism, but in my opinion this is equally true of the synagogue talks by various rabbis, Reform and Orthodox, that I described in the previous column.

I think Arieli was imprecise in describing his feelings. Beyond the fact that his father likely wouldn’t understand Arieli’s own Jewish world either, in my assessment something entirely different disturbed him (and even if it didn’t disturb him, it does disturb me). I ask: What would we say about a Shavuot night study at the pre-military academy in Ali, where the Book of Ruth is studied and used to derive insights about conservatism and modesty, about self-sacrifice and devotion, about the institution of the family, about the duty to serve in elite IDF units, and the like? Would that count as Judaism? In my opinion, no. As I noted at the start of the column, all those messages could arise in a church study or a secular conservative group’s study of the Book of Ruth. And still, that wouldn’t be Judaism. Judaism is not defined as a set of liberal values, but neither is it defined as a set of conservative values. I’ll go further: liberal Jews are not less Jewish than conservative Jews. That’s not the determining parameter. In short, my intuition applies as well to the rabbi’s talk at the synagogue Arieli himself attends. And we return to the question: So what does determine Judaism?

Assaf Inbari’s Response

Assaf Inbari is a writer and man of letters and thought—broad-minded and fascinating. I have read quite a few of his books and articles and was definitely impressed. He deals extensively with Judaism, and in particular with secular Judaism. His (predictable, it must be said) response to Arieli’s words was published in Ma’ariv about a week later. His remarks touch on our topic only indirectly, but to complete and sharpen the picture I will bring them as well. There are tones of offense and comments about Arieli’s condescension and manner of discourse; I will ignore those here, for what matters to me are his arguments about what Judaism is:[2]

“There is only one authentic Judaism.” And that one, authentic Judaism is, of course, your Judaism. “Go tell my father,” you write, “that 5,000 intelligent people in Tel-Aviv went on Shavuot night to hear Einat Fishbein and Ilana Hammerman talk about trafficking in women and were convinced they had just done a Shavuot night study vigil. He won’t understand what you’re talking about.” Your father won’t understand? Give him some credit. If your father knows “the one, authentic Judaism of the Sages” better than you do, he will understand very well that a contemporary discussion of the Book of Ruth in Tel-Aviv in 2004 is no different from the midrashic study of the Book of Ruth in Tiberias and Pumbedita two thousand years ago, or in Ashkenaz, where the “Yalkut Shimoni” was compiled in the Middle Ages. “It is my intention to convert,” Ruth says to Naomi, according to a midrash in Yalkut Shimoni, “but it is better by your hand than by another’s. When Naomi heard this, she began to lay out the laws of converts for her. She said to her: My daughter, it is not the way of the daughters of Israel to go to the theaters and circuses of the gentiles. She said to her: ‘Where you go, I will go.’ She said to her: It is not the way of Israel to dwell in a house that has no mezuzah. She said to her: ‘Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God.’ Had you lived in the generation of the authors of that midrash, you would have complained that they are forcing upon the “one, original-biblical Judaism” meanings that have no basis in the Bible. Were there “laws of converts” in the period of the Judges? Were there Roman theaters and circuses then? Were there mezuzot in the tents of Judah? The Sages, using the biblical scroll, dealt with the problems that troubled their time; with current affairs. They were troubled, for example, by the danger of being seduced by the charms of the competing Roman culture (just as many of us today are troubled by the mass culture spread by the United States), and they used the Book of Ruth to discuss that danger. The midrashic, contemporizing use of the Bible was the Sages’ pattern of ideological discourse. Had you continued in their way, you would be treating a topic that disturbs today’s peace of mind in light of the sources. Say, trafficking in women.

“Whoever wants Judaism,” you write, “let him come spend Shabbat with us.” “With us?” Excuse me, with whom exactly? With the Breslover in Safed? With the Chabadnik in Brooklyn? With the students of Mercaz HaRav in Ofra and Beit El? With Neturei Karta? With Baba Baruch in Netivot? With the kollel men of Ponovezh? With a Haredi professor at the Hebrew University? Or does “with us” mean the Arieli family, holders of the “one, authentic” Judaism?

The Haredi and religious public in its varieties is not “one,” and never was. The biblical split between priests and prophets and between the culture of Judah and that of Israel; the Hellenistic split between Sadducees and Pharisees; the Mishnaic split between Hillel and Shammai; the Talmudic split between the Bavli and the Yerushalmi; the medieval split between the Jewish diasporas in Christian Europe and those in the Islamic world; the split between Hasidim and Mitnagdim and Maskilim (who, for your information, were almost all religious and outstanding scholars)—and the 20th-century split of Orthodoxy into various Hasidic and Lithuanian streams, some Zionist and some anti-Zionist—this is only part of the splitting of that “one” religion between the Haredi streams and all the other movements, from Religious Zionist (which, as you know, is also not monolithic) through Conservative and on to Reform.

Every stage in the history of the religion of Israel was revolutionary in relation to its predecessor. The prophetic stage was revolutionary relative to the earlier cultic stage; the institution of the synagogue effected a revolution (prayer as a substitute for sacrifices); and the tannaitic-amoraic beit midrash effected a revolution. You hate revolutions.

Not only was halakhic Judaism of the Sages revolutionary, it also was not “one.” There is no Jewish doctrine; Judaism is not Christianity. Halakhah is walking—creative activity—and as such, it is the opposite of stagnation. In the five hundred years of the Talmudic era, halakhic and aggadic creativity developed with unceasing momentum of creative renewal, amid unceasing, fascinating disputes between the sages. There were different and even contradictory schools. There were rationalists like Rabbi Ishmael and mystics like Rabbi Akiva. There were sages serious to the point of awe and sages filled with a spirit of play. There is no book in the world as alive and polyphonic as the Talmud; no book farther, like the polyphonic Talmud, from your monolithic conception of “Judaism.”

And Jewish creativity did not end with the Talmud. It continued in the Middle Ages with constant change and with unceasing splitting into clashing currents. Is the “one, authentic” Judaism the one presented by Maimonides, Aristotle’s devotee, in the Guide for the Perplexed, or is it the anti-philosophical thesis presented by Judah Halevi in his Kuzari? And how do Maimonides and R. Judah Halevi reconcile with the conceptual world of the Zohar? These are three completely different models of “Judaism,” each different not only from the other two, but from every previous stage in Jewish creativity.

Shall we go on to the Ari? To the Maharal? To Ramchal? To the Baal Shem Tov? To Moses Mendelssohn? To R. N. Krochmal? To Rabbi Kook? To Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik? The Jewish world of the observant was never unitary and rigid. It was always a living tree, with many branches. The rigid, “one” Judaism you presented is a tree cut down and sawed into a log.

I wonder how many of the directions that developed in Orthodox Judaism from the Sages to this day are legitimate at all by your tree-stump view. As for your alienation from the non-Haredi directions of Jewish culture, I do not wonder; I only regret it. If Bialik and Gordon, Agnon and Tchernichovsky are not included in your Jewish world; if Rabbi Kook and all Religious Zionism are not included in your story of Judaism’s development; if in secular Israeli culture you have found not a single literary, artistic, or intellectual work in which the sources of Judaism resound and are renewed—no wonder that a Shavuot night study a-la-Alma shakes your small, shuttered world.

“Everyone goes to Alma because everyone goes to yoga,” you wrote, and proved how shuttered you are; how you fail to distinguish between one secular person and another. Secular people who nurture their Jewish heritage and secular people who nurture their flexibility in a yoga course—this is the same public, of ignoramuses, from your point of view. From the angle of your blindness…

As noted, this response is predictable, and I assume many similar ones are voiced in circles of secular Judaism (the phenomenon of the “Bookshelf” and secular batei midrash). Precisely because it is so predictable and so charming to the ears of a contemporary person, it is worth examining this claim.

Critique

I’ll start with a methodological remark that will lead us to the point. Inbari employs here a common and irritating demagogic argument that can be phrased thus: “You have no monopoly on ___ (fill in the blank).” He points out that the concept “Judaism” has diverse and varied manifestations, and uses that to reject the claim that a given manifestation is not Judaism. Is a concept that has many and varied manifestations necessarily completely open-ended? Is it enough to point to disagreements among shades and different approaches throughout Jewish history in order to defend the assertion that approach X is also Judaism, whatever X may be? By that logic, those who go to do yoga are also engaged in Judaism. So why is Inbari offended by that comparison? It’s clear he too assumes there must be something common that threads all those fractured manifestations and shades onto the same strand called “Judaism,” and yoga isn’t on it. So what is that common thing, in his view? Without offering a criterion, or at least some characterization, his claim is empty demagoguery.

To be fair, one should note that Kobi Arieli also offers no criterion. He claims Judaism has a scent like gefilte fish that we all recognize, and that this universal sense of smell says that Alma’s or Beit Daniel’s vigil isn’t Judaism. That’s hard, and perhaps unnecessary, to argue with (though my nose says the same). Inbari has a different sense of smell; so what do you claim against him? Are you simply declaring how your olfactory sense is built? It’s hard to accept that such a declaration is worth an op-ed column. There must be a claim in the background. In other words, Arieli too needed to present some criterion when disqualifying something and excluding it from Judaism. He should show why the talk in his father’s synagogue or the Shabbat meal at their home is Judaism, whereas what is done at Alma and Beit Daniel is not.

There’s a sense that dealing with trafficking in women is a universal value. Belgians and Zimbabweans can deal with it and say exactly the same things. Perhaps that explains Arieli’s feeling. But what would we say about a talk whose content is the trait of humility? Surely such talks are also given in Mr. Arieli’s (father’s) synagogue. Is that Judaism? And what about a talk about coping with crises (like Buchdahl’s first talk in the previous column)? Or a talk on the importance of the “Jewish” family? Those are certainly talks often given in highly conservative synagogues. Yet I have already noted that such talks could be given in churches as well. So what exactly bothers Kobi Arieli? Perhaps it really was just his sense of smell. But I ask myself what bothers me—or what is the principled basis for the non-Jewish scent that accompanies Alma’s vigil?

I’ll go further. I think Inbari is quite right to claim that the Sages and the scholars throughout the generations did exactly the same thing. They too extracted values and insights relevant to themselves and to their contemporaries from the sources, even when they are not really there (and I’m putting it gently. See column 52 on derush and pilpul). True. Therefore, we must admit that what they did in that way wasn’t really Judaism either. As I said, my critique is not about the content of the messages—liberal or conservative—but about the very discourse and its methodology. Something in that wrapping does not look like a good criterion for Judaism. This does not mean that Jews don’t do this, or even that they shouldn’t. I only claim that such activity cannot serve as the touchstone that defines Judaism.

What remains, then, is only the claim that Jews extract these values from the Book of Ruth (yeah, right),[3] while others will extract them from the Upanishads, the New Testament, or To Kill a Mockingbird. Hence Buchdahl asserts that her opposition to racism is Judaism, hence Inbari argues that Alma’s vigil, which derives opposition to trafficking in women from Ruth, is also Judaism. Likewise with talk of the Jewish family or the condemnation of homosexuality in the study hall in Ali. I see no other criterion indicating why all these are Judaism. Now I ask you: Is it reasonable that what defines Judaism is merely the text or source from which you extract your value, regardless of the value itself? You may be surprised, but quite a few people will say yes (see more on this in the next column). I really think that one who defines the study of Hasidut or mussar works as Judaism is making the same mistake (at least regarding a significant portion of their content). These are principles not unique to Torah and Judaism, and the only thing “Jewish” is that the sources teaching them are printed in Rashi script. They are psychological, spiritual, and moral principles that, at least for the most part, any gentile can also engage with and see as his own. Therefore none of these can serve as the essential definition of Judaism.

For readers familiar with my view of Bible study, let me clarify that I do not intend here to enter the question of whether such activity can be considered “study,” or “Bible study” (in my opinion the answer is: absolutely not, and again not). That’s not our subject here (I elaborated on it in the second book of the trilogy). Here I am seeking a definition of Judaism. What does that amorphous, vague concept include if so many different and opposing shades nest under it? If both Hasidim and Mitnagdim, both Kabbalah and those who oppose it, both Maskilim and conservatives, liberals and revolutionaries—all are engaged in Judaism, then what is the essential content of that amorphous concept called “Judaism”? And more than that, I ask: what is the touchstone that will serve as a measure to determine what is Judaism and what is not?

Interim Summary

I do not intend to claim that statements like “the Torah or God expects us to oppose trafficking in women,” to support or oppose new family models, and so on, are untrue. All these statements may be true, but they cannot be the touchstone of Judaism. Moreover, in my opinion it is also unlikely that engaging in such topics be considered “Torah study,” but that is not our concern here.

I have repeatedly distinguished between Torah in the gavra and Torah in the cheftza. There are quite a few contents and values whose study has important value—even important Jewish value. I assume many of us will agree that a Jew ought to oppose trafficking in women and racism (at least in some of its senses). In any case, these are certainly legitimate claims. But in my view, the same applies to a gentile. Therefore one cannot see those values as the foundational basis for defining “Judaism.”

Here I seek the content-based touchstone for the term “Jew,” i.e., what a Jew is and what Judaism is on the content-essential plane (not Jewishness in the ethnic-racial sense): what must occur for me to say that a person or a group is or is not Jewish? From Inbari’s list one can learn that it is unlikely to see any set of values whatsoever as that touchstone. Not a liberal set nor a conservative set. Not Hasidic nor Mitnagdic. Not Maskilic nor “wagon-driver.” Not Zionist nor Haredi. Not right-wing nor left-wing. None of these is a plausible candidate to constitute the touchstone of Judaism. So, returning now to Buchdahl, I again wonder what can define Judaism—on her view and in general.

Secular Judaism Is Necessarily Defined on a Racial–Ethnic Basis[4]

In the previous column I cited Buchdahl’s claim that it is wrong to define Judaism on an ethnic–racial basis, and I wrote that I fully agree. Ironically, it is precisely Inbari—the liberal secularist—who presents an explicitly racist conception: Judaism is anything Jews do. I cannot see in his words any other criterion that threads together the whole list he brought (and it’s questionable regarding Jews who do yoga). From the fact that all the movements and shades he described were Jewish, he infers as self-evident that everything they did was Judaism. Hence Alma’s or Beit Daniel’s vigil is necessarily Judaism. I’ve already explained that his logic implies this is true of whatever Jews happen to do, for he never defined what distinguishes the pursuits he listed.

Surprisingly, his approach is the distilled essence of the approach Buchdahl opposes. Inbari offers a racial–ethnic definition of Judaism: anyone who engages the sources and ideas created by those whose mothers were Jewish is “Jewish” in content. One who writes literature and poetry in Hebrew (and Yiddish), one who speaks of Zionism, of political thought, of moral theories (whose noteworthy trait is that their exponents had Jewish mothers), and the like. It is precisely the sweeping breadth of his definition that leaves us only the racial–ethnic criterion. According to Inbari there seems to be no content limit on “Judaism” and on who is a Jew. What counts is only descent (or your mother).

Incidentally, this is almost a necessary corollary of a secular worldview. Judaism, in its secular sense, cannot be defined on any other basis. No wonder we constantly hear people defining their secular Judaism: “My Judaism is opposition to racism, equality, human and civil rights, peace, being the target of antisemitic persecution (my grandfather was murdered by the Nazis), or using Jewish sources (as inspiration only, of course).” Such empty definitions are unavoidable, since there is no other substratum for defining secular Judaism. If you ask for a content definition for “Jew” or “Judaism,” there is none. There are technical features (speaking Hebrew, reading this or that literature, using certain sources), but none is unequivocal. There are non-Jews who use those same sources, are committed to those same values, and speak those same languages. Conversely, there are Jews who do none of the above—and we would still agree to call them Jews.[5]

Back to Buchdahl

Let us return to Buchdahl. We rejected the possibility of tying Judaism to commitment to moral values. We also rejected the possibility of grounding Judaism in deriving universal moral values from Torah sources. She herself uses other sources as well (as do Orthodox rabbis, of course). Buchdahl also rejects Judaism based on a racial–ethnic basis, unlike Inbari and secular definitions (it is no accident that she is a rabbi, i.e., holds a religious office). It seems that, in her view, there must also be a religious dimension to the definition of Judaism—and in that I agree with her. But for her, that dimension is not the halakhic one. So what is it?

Belief in God is not uniquely Jewish. Moreover, I have often read statistics that many Jews—and many Reform rabbis—do not believe in God. For them, Judaism is a kind of culture and heritage and is not necessarily connected to belief.[6] I don’t know Buchdahl’s position regarding God, but I noticed that He wasn’t mentioned even once in the talks I heard.

Belief in the Sinai revelation (at least as a historical event) is also not a good candidate, for two reasons: many gentiles (Christians and Muslims) believe it happened historically. And she herself apparently does not believe it as a historical event (or at least many of her Reform rabbinic colleagues don’t; this is embedded in Reform theology. Those who don’t believe in God likely don’t believe in Sinai, unless they hold it was a subjective, suggestive vision). So what, on her view, defines Judaism? How is it different from Inbari’s secular definition, which is necessarily racial and ethnic? She contends there is a content-value definition. What is it?

Yair Ettinger, in his article mentioned in the previous column, brings several hints in her name toward solving the riddle:

Jews are all those who decided to cast off their lives, flee oppression, and gather in a place where they can be free and serve a God who will redeem them. That is the meaning of being Jewish. And you can join this mission. Anyone can take part in the Jewish memory. If you want to join us, you too must stand at Sinai…

Aha, here a deity is already mentioned (though I’m not sure this isn’t a stock phrase, or perhaps a subjective notion of God). Fine—but she surely doesn’t mean that as a binding and exhaustive definition, since according to it any freedom-seeking Christian or Muslim would also be Jewish. They too want to cast off their lives, flee oppression, and serve a God who will redeem them. I also don’t suppose the place is the determinant (“to gather in a place”), since she lives in the U.S. alongside many secular people and atheists who aren’t waiting for any God to redeem them. Perhaps you’ll say that for Christians or Muslims it isn’t the Jewish God; but then I ask: who is “the Jewish God”? The One who created the world? Who revealed Himself at Sinai? In short, we have again returned through the back door to the question of what the term “Jewish” means. One cannot use it to define itself.[7]

Later in that piece Ettinger adds, in her name, the following:

In America there was a movement called “Ethical Culture.” It was founded by Reform Jews who ultimately wanted to take all the most important universal values of Judaism—like that we were all created in the image of God—and separate them from religion. But you know, it didn’t survive, because if you don’t have the particularity of rituals, of holidays, of the Jewish calendar and a shared language; if you don’t have some of that particularism, then nothing gives it a sticking power that remains.

Here some particular dimensions enter, beyond universal values (“we were created in the image” is of course used here metaphorically, as is customary among secular people, since many in that movement didn’t believe in God at all). Her rationale is that without this, the thing doesn’t survive; that’s hard for me to accept as a substantive argument. Is the definition of Judaism whatever manages to survive? There should be some content definition. What exactly is supposed to survive to be considered Judaism? The question is whether it’s true, not whether it’s conducive to survival. It appears the question of truth doesn’t interest her.

When she does move toward some content definition of Judaism, she adds some religious components: rituals, synagogue, holidays, the calendar, and the like. But even that is hard to accept and even to define. Is Judaism the use of certain rituals? Which rituals? The rituals she uses are not mine. And mine are not those used by Moses our teacher or Rabbi Akiva, or even Rabbi Nachman of Breslov or Rabbi Judah the Pious. In general, it’s hard to accept a definition of Judaism that is based on empty rituals—i.e., on the idea that anyone who performs action X at time Y is Jewish. One is supposed to believe in something or be obligated to something, and that ought to underlie the rituals. Otherwise Judaism is just the performance of some random katas. So I insist again: what is that something—beliefs, values, or obligations—that constitutes Judaism?

The Meaning of Halakhah in the Discussion: What Is “Judaism”?

There is no escaping the conclusion that several commenters to the previous column already noted (those who know my outlook likely anticipated this). The definition of Judaism is commitment to halakhah. That and nothing more. Everything around it (including Inbari’s entire list and more) are frills and flowers at best, but not part of the core. The Sinai covenant to which we are to belong and commit is the covenant to fulfill the commandments of God given to us there. That’s it. No value, belief, insight, or anything else can be part of the touchstone of Judaism (Isaiah III beat me to it here: “Who has preceded Me that I should repay?”). If you check now, you’ll see this commitment is indeed exclusive. No gentile is obligated to it, and even if he feels obligated he is mistaken. If he wishes to obligate himself, he must convert—then he joins Judaism and becomes obligated.

As noted, Judaism is not defined on an ethnic or racial basis, and therefore whoever wishes—welcome. But it entails accepting the yoke of the commandments, and only that. Studies of Jewish history or various worldviews, literature and poetry, Bible, rituals, and other such vegetables are frills and flowers, but not part of the necessary process of conversion. Conversion is the acceptance of the yoke of the commandments. A convert who declares that he accepts the yoke of opposing trafficking in women, inequality, or racism remains a thoroughgoing gentile (even if he undergoes circumcision and immersion). Likewise, a gentile who takes upon himself Breslov-style hitbodedut or Hasidic dancing and daily study of Hasidic teachings, including probing the biblical root of his soul—he too is a certified gentile. Likewise a gentile who takes upon himself the lofty value system of the rabbis of Ali and Rabbi Tau and becomes active and votes for the Noam party—he too is a gentile. In contrast, a gentile who takes upon himself the yoke of the commandments, even if he voices racist and chauvinistic views, and even if he spurns Hasidut and Mitnagdism and whatever else you wish from Inbari’s list—he is a kosher Jew (though in some cases a wicked one).

Of course one can define Judaism differently—say, as the congregation of those who oppose racism or chauvinism, or the congregation that denounces LGBT people and guards a woman’s inner modesty. Definitions of concepts are clay in the potter’s hand. But such a definition is arbitrary and does not fit accepted usage (and, as noted, is also racist and/or paternalistic, as it declares that explicit gentiles are Jews against their will, or alternatively refuses to recognize the Judaism of kosher, declared Jews against their will). Here perhaps enters Arieli’s gefilte-fish sense, for it is clear to any person of understanding (or with a sense of smell) that this definition doesn’t hold water.[8]

It is important to understand that Jewishness in the “ethnic” sense is also defined on this basis. It is easy to get confused when one sees that Judaism’s attitude to the secular is to treat them as Jews even though they do not conduct themselves as Jews (by this definition there is no essential difference between them and any gentile), while gentiles—even if they wish to convert and believe in the Torah—are not Jews so long as they have not converted. Seemingly this means our definition of “Judaism” is ethnic. But that is an error. First, they can convert despite their different ethnic origin. Beyond that, the definition of Judaism is commitment to halakhah, not halakhic conduct. Jewish conduct is conduct in accordance with halakhah. But note that the definition of Jewishness (that is, who is a Jewish person, not who behaves like a Jew) is determined by who is obligated to halakhah (even if he himself does not acknowledge it), not by who behaves according to halakhah. Jewish conduct—that is, Judaism—is obedience to halakhah. Jewishness, by contrast, is belonging (even if not conscious) to the group obligated to halakhah. Here runs the fault line between Jewishness and Judaism. A Jewish person can behave in a non-Jewish manner. If he does not in fact behave so, then he is a sinful Jew (a Jew who does not fulfill his obligation)—i.e., he is Jewish in the ethnic sense (in the sense of Jewishness) but his conduct is not Jewish (there is no Judaism there). That obligation, of course, comes either on an ethnic basis (born to a Jewish mother) or on the basis of conversion, but the definition of “Judaism” is not ethnic (the definition of “Jewishness” is partly ethnic). Therefore, as Buchdahl claims, and contrary to Inbari, ethnicity is not essential to Judaism (and not even to Jewishness). In other words, Jewishness does not define Judaism; rather, Judaism defines Jewishness.[9]

To my understanding, there is no other content definition of Judaism that holds water. My disagreement with Reform and secular people (and also with many Orthodox who do not see Jewish identity as constructed exclusively on halakhah) is not a debate between two positions. I don’t think there exists any other position that holds water. The definition of Judaism is necessarily religious and is founded solely on halakhah—there is no other. The phrase “secular Judaism” is, in my view, an oxymoron—not merely an erroneous conception—and this a priori, even before hearing all the proposals to fill it with content. Of course one may propose national definitions of Jewishness, as with any other people. Here I am dealing with Judaism as a religion, not as a nation—with values, not facts. I will discuss the connection between these two distinctions, and their meaning, in the next column. But first, one more important remark.

Judaism in the Gavra and in the Cheftza

Several times in the past I have distinguished between Torah in the gavra and Torah in the cheftza (I elaborate on this in the trilogy’s second book). Torah in the cheftza is “Torah” in a very narrow sense compared to common usage—namely halakhah and its interpretation, and nothing more. Torah in the gavra is “Torah” in a very broad sense: any study of human, intellectual, cultural, and moral value, and so forth. This includes literature, psychology, philosophy, various scientific fields, Hasidut, Bible, mussar, Jewish thought (yes, all of these. There is no difference between studying Kant and studying the Guide for the Perplexed, or between studying Hasidut and reading Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and so on. See the second book). The upshot is that studying these subjects can count as “Torah” if done to enrich your halakhic/Torah world, but it is not Torah in an objective sense. If you engage in it and it does not contribute to you, in my view it is a valueless pursuit (bitul Torah), unlike halakhah and halakhic analysis.

Engaging in areas of Torah in the gavra is, of course, not unique to Judaism. All these areas are studied and taught by gentiles as well. Moreover, their contents are not “Jewish.” Morality, literature, science, and philosophy are by definition universal. I do not judge a scientific or moral claim by the criterion of whether it is “Jewish,” but by whether it is true and worthy. My gentile colleague will do the same. Therefore such study can have great value (perhaps no less than Torah study), but it is not Torah in the cheftza (not Torah in the objective sense). So far my claims in the second book of the trilogy.

Here I wish to add a point relevant to our matter. Defining “Torah” by domains of Torah in the gavra is logically ridiculous. A definition is supposed to contain the features unique to the concept defined. One cannot define “human” by the criterion “has a nose,” though that is true, because other creatures have noses as well. Likewise, it’s incorrect to define Judaism via engagement in Hasidut or Bible, or adherence to certain moral values (liberal or conservative). None of this is unique to Torah and Judaism, and therefore it’s wrong to base the definition of those concepts on it. For some reason, people think that if some pursuit is important, it must be “Torah” or “Judaism” in the constitutive sense. That is simply not true.

Returning to Buchdahl and Inbari (and likely also Kobi Arieli), this is the point on which I disagree with them. Inbari’s list does not offer a definition of Judaism because it rests on an ethnic criterion. Some of the groups on his list are, in my view, indeed “Judaism” in the content sense—but only because they were all obligated to halakhah (those that weren’t are groups of Jewishness only in the ethnic sense. They contain Jewishness but not Judaism). Secularism, kibbutz socialism, Hebrew literature—these are not phenomena that belong to Judaism (content-wise) but at most to Jewishness (because they were done by Jews). As for Buchdahl, my disagreement is that she and her peers are not committed to halakhah in any way. It’s not that they offer a different interpretation (like the Conservatives). There is simply no commitment to halakhah in any sense. There are rituals they themselves decide upon (influenced by our tradition) as cultural folklore, not as something binding. It is mainly a cultural recommendation, not a value content. In addition, there are values there, of course—like anti-racism and equality—but these are not Jewish values (though God does indeed obligate us to them, in my view).

One cannot build a definition of Judaism when its touchstones are non-essential and non-unique features—even if we think they are correct and indeed required of every Jew (and of every human). Buchdahl offers a definition of Judaism built only on subjective components (Torah in the gavra) without the unique, objective components (Torah in the cheftza—halakhah). We might call this “Judaism in the gavra.” It is akin, in my view, to defining the touchstone for personhood as having a nose or kidneys. I’m willing to accept that these are correct values, even important Jewish traits, and I also think that any Jew ought to adhere to them (at least some of them, in some interpretation), yet he ought to adhere to them as a human being, not as a Jew (every Jew is also a human being).[10] Moreover, one who does not adhere to them is, in my eyes, still a Jew—perhaps a wicked one—not a non-Jew.

Finally, I’m sure some readers will feel that all this is somewhat trivial. I disagree. Ask those who haven’t read these columns, and even if they are Orthodox they will usually tell you there are values that are essentially Jewish and that these constitute Judaism. It’s common to think (and I too agree) that the performance of commandments comes to express certain values. Therefore people don’t tend to see the very performance of commandments as Judaism.[11] The rabbis of Ali will explain that a conservative family, discrimination against women, restricting the steps of homosexuals, orderly study of the “white Shas” (the writings of Rabbi Kook), and being a brave commando in Sayeret Matkal—this is the essence of Judaism; while Buchdahl, in contrast, will say that fighting racism and for equality is Judaism. Each loads Judaism with his own values and then thinks this is Judaism’s essence. My main claim is that they are all making the same mistake. Hence I must stress again that my words are not about the content of the talks and the nature of the values proposed as touchstones of being a Jew, nor about whether I agree or disagree with those values. I reject the definitions offered by liberals and conservatives, Reform and Orthodox (at least most of them),[12] Maskilim, writers and poets, secular and Haredi alike. So who said I’m not egalitarian?…

[1] Don’t worry; I will get to halakhah later.

[2] Copying the text involved many distortions which I tried to correct. If needed, you can compare to the original.

[3] I do not enter here the painful question of whether this can really be derived from the Book of Ruth. Hint: absolutely not. We all understand that those studying at Alma brought with them opposition to trafficking in women from home and did not extract it from the scroll. But it’s not only Alma’s learners; this is true of all Bible study. This of course leads us into the endless debate about whether one can learn anything from the Bible (hint: no), and whether anyone ever drew from the Bible a message he didn’t already accept (unless he came to attack).

[4] On this issue and on Jewish identity in general, see my article here.

[5] Someone sent me a link a few days ago to this discussion:

https://103fm.maariv.co.il/programs/media.aspx?ZrqvnVq=IDLKDL&c41t4nzVQ=FJF

Here there’s an argument in which the journalist Ben Caspit fails to answer the question “In what way are you Jewish?” He is, of course, one hundred percent certain he is Jewish, but he doesn’t really manage to offer a rationale and basis (apparently by virtue of Kobi Arieli’s sense of smell). In the end he manages to offer something: for him, the matter of chesed (loving-kindness) passes genetically. This is a strange criterion, both because it is racist and because it is detached from reality (certainly in our day). I would have liked to confront him with the question of whether he thinks there are no gentiles in whom that gene is embedded, and even whether he thinks Jews have it more. I very much doubt it. In any case, note that the only thing he manages to present is a genetic–racial definition (he could, of course, have claimed he is Jewish because his mother is Jewish. That criterion is far more persuasive, except that it concerns Jewishness rather than Judaism. He too understood there must be a content dimension in defining “Judaism”). And that is exactly my point.

[6] On this, see a (tendentious) review on the Ratio site here.

[7] Though this loopiness is very common in discussions of Jewish identity. Think how many times you’ve heard someone say: In my eyes, a Jew is anyone who perceives/defines himself as a Jew (and the punctilious add: none of you has a monopoly on Judaism).

[8] Some readers will surely ask whether there can be correct and incorrect definitions. Seemingly a definition is arbitrary. Well, no. See column 251 and also column 108, and many more.

[9] A paraphrase of Buchdahl’s remarks cited in the previous column, regarding the relation between race and racism.

[10] This reminds me of my article on Israeli law, where I explained why extracting universal laws from halakhah into Israel’s statute book is not “inserting Jewish law” into the statute book (to the extent this has any value at all; in my view it doesn’t). Those laws are not unique to Jewish law and are not extracted because they are part of halakhah but because they suit the Israeli legislator. See my remarks there.

[11] I too do not view observance done without commitment—à la Ahad Ha’am (who saw the commandments as a cultural instrument)—as Judaism. I speak of observance out of obligation to God’s command.

[12] Those who believe “there is gold under the tiles,” in the words of my friend Nadav Shnerb (who also mentioned this in a comment to the previous column and elaborated more in this thread on the Azach”H forum). The claim (at least mine) is that indeed there is gold there, but it is not what defines the act as a mitzvah and us as Jews.