There is definitely authenticity in the Shakh’s approach, but also a lack of self-awareness.

Rabbi Michi,

How do you interpret the song’s title?

In my opinion these are two sides of the same coin. For me, as someone who is very self-aware, it is difficult to be authentic. I tend to suspect myself of promoting agendas. It took me years to get rid of those guilty feelings, and of course there are those who accuse me of that to this day. Maybe they are right, but I do not dig around inside myself. This is an attempt to return to the Shakh’s unconscious authenticity, after you have already become aware. It is like returning to confident faith after wrestling with doubts and questions of heresy.

Excellent question
Quite surprising that I had not thought of it at all.
It could express that the principle conveyed in the poem )the two-way takeover( is fundamental, something like the whole Torah on one foot.
One can see in it a domineering kind of study, like a brutal rape carried out quickly and violently, on one foot.
Or perhaps there is a statement here that the two feet are me and the Torah together. Therefore I am always on one foot )as the song says: without you I am half a person…(
I do not know.

An excerpt from an article on her site titled “Soft Rabbinate”
 
“
Since I wrote these things, many years have passed, during which I learned and grew wiser, mainly from experience.
My relationship to halakhah has changed over the years. Even today I do not define myself as a ‘halakhic person,’ yet I definitely see myself as religious, that is – a woman for whom her Jewish daily practice is required to express her beliefs and commitments toward God and humanity. My roles as a rabbi do not require me to issue halakhic rulings, and in cases in which I am nevertheless asked to do so, I choose the path of shared study with those who turn to me, study of halakhic and other sources, which enables them to choose their own path; and I not only refrain from imposing prior rulings, but also try to allow the questioners to exhaust their own understanding of the sources and chart their path themselves”

In short, pseudoscience in the flesh

Was the last paragraph omitted? (“A last look at my Hasidic homily”)

It appears for me

I generally do not agree with Tamar’s method of learning or with her sources, but the way she describes things here is very far from being nonsense. In my opinion this is exactly what an Orthodox halakhic decisor is also supposed to do (except that his “study” and his “sources” will probably be different). I discussed this in the third book of the trilogy, which will come to light, God willing, soon.

You ask that this poetic sentimentality not be criticized, but I finished reading the column dizzy and nauseated… Since there is nonetheless an important idea here, I will try to formulate it in plain, matter-of-fact language.
Any idea or content can be formulated in defined and clear words so that no doubt whatsoever is created in the listener’s/reader’s mind as to its meaning (for example, a business contract between people is generally done this way, in order to prevent arguments and claims by any of the parties).
By contrast, there is the possibility of expressing oneself in an ambiguous way, or alternatively in a way that implies more than one facet (both with respect to the definition of concepts and with respect to the arguments themselves). When a text appears in this form, one must consider all the possibilities implied by the text and decide which of them the poet intended.
The decision will be made both on the basis of the meaning of the text and on the basis of various reasonings and probabilities, and of course it is quite difficult to determine definitively the way and manner in which one should choose the true meaning (and it is not always possible), therefore anyone who expresses himself ambiguously should know the implications of doing so.

Now a few comments.

1. What is the point of choosing texts, or expressing yourself in texts, that are ambiguous or multivalent? Why not get straight to the point in clear words and defined concepts? Suppose you know how to be careful to avoid word-salad, but why choose a winding path when you can walk the king’s highway? (What added value is there in this besides sowing confusion?)

2. What is the point of doing this through a text from which it is evident, both from it and from its author, that they are not in the business of clear and matter-of-fact concepts, and that her whole approach to Judaism and in general is to adopt ambiguous formulations lacking any clear meaning?

3 . What is your position regarding the Reform? It is obvious that their interpretation does not hold water in matters of halakhah. So why give her a platform?

4. Is your position regarding women issuing halakhic rulings like that of Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who thought that women can both sit in judgment and testify, and are fit to do anything for which a man is fit? (As I understood it, he argued that the halakhah that disqualified women from all of the above and the like was speaking about times that have passed, and they have no force today.)

I tried to hint at the accusations against you. And indeed there is something unresolved about you, because on the one hand you have self-awareness, but on the other hand you can commit conceptual rape in a very brutal and unconvincing way (in my opinion, of course—but this opinion of mine is itself the truth), while claiming that “a forced reading of the language is preferable.”

WA
I did not ask that nothing be criticized. Everything can be criticized. But nonsense like yours is not criticism; it is merely incendiary babble.

It is not true that everything can be expressed in prose and in a sharp way (your own words testify to that), and therefore sometimes a poem does it better and more powerfully. In my opinion this poem does that excellently. If you think all the poets of the world (including some important Jews whom I assume you also appreciate) just did pointless unnecessary things, I disagree. See my columns on poetry.

What is the Reform interpretation of halakhah? Could you give a few examples and explain why they do not hold water? Only please, with clarity, as you know how to do so very well.

I have not been privileged to understand what this discussion has to do with my position regarding women’s halakhic rulings. What has the sabbatical year to do with an omelet?! It does not suit you, as someone committed to clarity and straight thinking. Apparently you simply wrote a poem here…
But since you asked: there is absolutely nothing in the world preventing women from issuing halakhic rulings. As for sitting in judgment, this is a dispute among the Rishonim, and certainly where the parties accepted them, it is possible. And as for testimony, indeed it is generally accepted that not, and I am not sure even about that. Now you can move on to the stoning stage. Good luck.

Indeed, although I did not invent the claim that a forced reading of the language is preferable, I certainly adopt it within reasonable limits (in my opinion). In any case, I would be happy to see examples.

1. I did not say that there is no value in poems, only that I do not accept that there are ideas that cannot be expressed clearly and sharply without resorting to effusions that, in my view, only distract. (On the contrary, give me an example of an idea that a poem expresses better, including this example.)

2. A text that can be interpreted in opposite meanings (like this poem) does not have much value in my eyes.

3. Why do we need to discuss specific examples of the Reform method? Is it not obvious that in every ruling they completely diverge from the texts that constitute the sources of halakhah?

4. My question about women indeed is not directly related to the matter, but your position on the issue interested me, since I see that you relate with such great respect to a female Reform rabbi, whose ideas, as I understand it, have no Jewish content whatsoever—certainly not halakhic.

As someone who champions endless clarity and opposes ambiguity, surely it did not slip your notice that the statement that their interpretation of halakhah does not hold water (in your previous message) is really not identical to the statement that they diverge from the texts that constitute the sources of halakhah (in your current message).

Incidentally, in principle Reform is not halakhic Judaism at all, so it is somewhat difficult to speak of their interpretation of halakhah. But I assume that in your view there is no need to know the subject in order to express emphatic opinions about it.

I must tell you that in light of the emphatic certainty you displayed, I would have expected from you a bit more clarity and sharpness, and certainly precision. There is hardly a sentence in your words that is clear and unequivocal, and a substantial portion of them are downright distorted (including distortions of my own words). And I have not yet mentioned the failed reading comprehension you demonstrated, or the shaky arguments you raised here.
I have no choice but to conclude with a recommendation: first correct yourself.

I support you, wa; I do not see nonsense or bluster in what you wrote.
Michi, regarding the Reform, you ask wa to bring examples of their interpretation in halakhah that does not hold water,
are you really serious?
You have a defensive pattern (quite irritating): when the claim is a general claim that stems from a general impression (as, for example, regarding the Reform’s “interpretation” in halakhah), you ask the claimant to provide a concrete example, and then one of two things happens: either he will not provide one and then the discussion ends, or if he does provide an example then you begin to enter into hair-splitting pilpul with him that drains all the sting out of the claim. Usually all the sting in these claims comes from the general impression formed in the claimant.

As for the article itself, it is hard for me to extract the subtle point you are trying to express, because there is an overly explicit erotic tension throughout the article. Moreover, the fact that this erotic discussion is taking place between a male “rabbi” and a female “rabbi” is nauseating (to my taste); it felt like Torah study in filthy places. In short, I do not have the patience to sift wheat from so much chaff.
Two comments,
1. To whom is your site addressed?
If I understand correctly, you want to change the religious and halakhic discourse in the religious/Haredi world,
You have nothing that distances your target audience more than an erotic discussion of a Reform text. Even if there may be important things in this article, you have lost their attention.
2. The psychological relationship between Torah learners who sit and discuss together is deep. I can understand a man and woman who have no personal relationship between them discussing or studying together a technical profession, but a man and woman who have no personal relationship between them studying Torah together as study partners seems to me a contradiction. Perhaps this is one of the reasons women did not study Torah throughout the generations; men could not bring them into their personal circle,
Your article is a good example of why women cannot study with men.

I see this is a waste of time… It is a phenomenon I have encountered here quite a bit: the moment a certain comment seems to you (emphasis on you) fanatical, you do not respond substantively, but do everything in your power to ridicule and distort it.
As I understand it, I did not write a single vague statement, and if indeed that was the case I would be happy to clarify my words and stand behind them. I have no problem at all first correcting myself, and it would be better if you did likewise and responded substantively to the claims I raised.

Sorry, but your fanaticism against anything that appears fanatical in your eyes is unbearable—to the point that every rabbi (such as Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef) who sins in this way receives from you torrents of contempt, while a female Reform rabbi who writes ambiguous, erotic texts devoid of any substantive meaning, and moreover about sacred matters, receives from you such “etrog treatment” as an ordinary person could only dream of.

I did not distort anything you wrote, and yes, my intention was specifically to discuss the Reform’s halakhic interpretation (and they do have one, since they do not deny halakhah and religious commandments), and to say that it does not hold water and has nothing to do with the original halakhic text. (It is the same statement in my view, and you understand exactly what I mean.)
Please do not divert the discussion, and please analyze the Reform halakhic interpretation of the sources of halakhah.
It is a shame that you are so non-objective when it comes to the Reform.

I see that a little help with reading comprehension is needed, so I will not stand by idly. My comments are between + signs

You opened with the following message:
An excerpt from an article on her site titled ‘Soft Rabbinate’
”
Since I wrote these things, many years have passed, during which I learned and grew wiser, mainly from experience.
My relationship to halakhah has changed over the years. Even today I do not define myself as a ‘halakhic person,’ yet I definitely see myself as religious, that is – a woman for whom her Jewish daily practice is required to express her beliefs and commitments toward God and humanity. My roles as a rabbi do not require me to issue halakhic rulings, and in cases in which I am nevertheless asked to do so, I choose the path of shared study with those who turn to me, study of halakhic and other sources, which enables them to choose their own path; and I not only refrain from imposing prior rulings, but also try to allow the questioners to exhaust their own understanding of the sources and chart their path themselves”

In short, pseudoscience in the flesh

+And I ask: what here is nonsense? You did not explain. There is a description here that, in my opinion, is the correct method of ruling even for an Orthodox rabbi (with respect to the Reform, who are not really a halakhic movement, it is not really clear to me what a halakhic inquiry means. But that is not connected to what is said here). So you seized upon a passage that really is not worthy of criticism and declared about it, without any reasoning or basis, a sweeping and foolish proclamation. And this after you claimed about her words (!) that they are pseudoscience. Here she made a completely clear claim (which is probably why you oppose it), but instead of objecting and explaining, you make a declaration that has no connection and is not relevant to the passage in question.

Moving on. Your next message was:+

You ask that this poetic sentimentality not be criticized +I absolutely did not ask this+ but I finished reading the column dizzy and nauseated. +Here is more fanatical and non-substantive bluster+ Since there is nonetheless an important idea here, I will try to formulate it in plain language.
Any idea or content can be formulated in defined and clear words so that no doubt whatsoever is created in the listener’s/reader’s mind as to its meaning (for example, a business contract between people is generally done this way, in order to prevent arguments and claims by any of the parties). +I already wrote to you that this is baseless nonsense, and when I later asked you whether all poets are, in your opinion, wasting their time, you answered no, but only claimed that there is no idea that cannot be expressed in prose. So it is still not clear to me why, in your view, poems are needed at all. Entertainment? Why did Israel sing at the sea? Could they not have told the Holy One, blessed be He, in clear words what they wanted (thank you very much for saving us from Pharaoh and splitting the sea for us. What need is there for all these vague flourishes open to countless interpretations?). Why should the Holy One, blessed be He, have to infer their intention from several possibilities?! And in the Song of Ha’azinu, could Moses not have told us in a prosaic way what he wanted? But beyond the fact that you are wrong, here too you have no arguments, only an unsupported declaration.+
By contrast, there is the possibility of expressing oneself in an ambiguous way, or alternatively in a way that implies more than one facet (both with respect to the definition of concepts and with respect to the arguments themselves). When a text appears in this form, one must consider all the possibilities implied by the text and decide which of them the poet intended.
The decision will be made both on the basis of the meaning of the text and on the basis of various reasonings and probabilities, and of course it is quite difficult to determine definitively the way and manner in which one should choose the true meaning (and it is not always possible), therefore anyone who expresses himself ambiguously should know the implications of doing so. +So I offered my interpretation of the poem, and in my opinion it is entirely reasonable. Do you have another interpretation? I would be happy to hear it. But you apparently prefer declarations to arguments.+
Now a few comments.
1. What is the point of choosing texts, or expressing yourself in texts, that are ambiguous or multivalent? Why not get straight to the point in clear words and defined concepts? Suppose you know how to be careful to avoid word-salad, but why choose a winding path when you can walk the king’s highway? (What added value is there in this besides sowing confusion?). +And I, the little one, wonder what this comment adds to what you wrote above? Are you repeating it again? Is this a refrain in a poem you are writing? Is a refrain a substitute for arguments? So far I have still seen nothing in your words beyond vague, unreasoned, baseless declarations.+
2. What is the point of doing this through a text from which it is evident, both from it and from its author, that they are not in the business of clear and matter-of-fact concepts, and that her whole approach to Judaism and in general is to adopt ambiguous formulations lacking any clear meaning? +Where did you see this? She wrote a poem. Do you know a poem that is more unequivocal? Or are you once again simply repeating here your principled opposition to poems? I may be an idiot, but not to that degree. Would it not be preferable, instead of three consecutive declarations saying the same thing, to offer some scrap of reasoning in favor of the matter? Especially when this is a critical message about lack of clarity and ambiguity. Regarding prose, unlike poetry, I also agree that it ought to be clear and reasoned—but your prose is worse than a poem.+
3 . What is your position regarding the Reform? It is obvious that their interpretation does not hold water in matters of halakhah. So why give her a platform? +On this I already commented that you contradict yourself in your next message. You give no example, and not for nothing (I explained why). Nor was I dealing here with giving a platform or with the Reform interpretation of halakhah. So how is this relevant to the discussion I conducted?+
4. Is your position regarding women issuing halakhic rulings like that of Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who thought that women can both sit in judgment and testify, and are fit to do anything for which a man is fit? (As I understood it, he argued that the halakhah that disqualified women from all of the above and the like was speaking about times that have passed, and they have no force today.) +I already asked how this baseless piece of nonsense is connected to our discussion. Perhaps I am fiercely opposed to women issuing rulings? Why did you not ask me about the color of my shirt on this occasion? The knight of clarity has the answer.+

After I answered, you continued:

1. I did not say that there is no value in poems, only that I do not accept that there are ideas that cannot be expressed clearly and sharply without resorting to effusions that, in my view, only distract. (On the contrary, give me an example of an idea that a poem expresses better, including this example.) +I already commented on this nonsense above.+
2. A text that can be interpreted in opposite meanings (like this poem) does not have much value in my eyes. +I already commented that you did not bring an alternative interpretation of this text, but only declared that one exists.+
3. Why do we need to discuss specific examples of the Reform method? Is it not obvious that in every ruling they completely diverge from the texts that constitute the sources of halakhah? +On this contradiction I already commented to our master, the knight of logic. It is obvious that they diverge, and they do not even pretend not to diverge—so what? And what has that to do with our discussion? Who said they do not diverge? [This is unlike your previous statement that their interpretation does not hold water]+
4. My question about women indeed is not directly related to the matter, but your position on the issue interested me, since I see that you relate with such great respect to a female Reform rabbi, whose ideas, as I understand it, have no Jewish content whatsoever—certainly not halakhic. +Since you do not know her ideas, your opinion about them does not carry much weight. But regarding your curiosity: the color of my shirt tends toward green. If there are more curious questions, I would be happy to be of service.+

And you concluded with the following message:

I see this is a waste of time… It is a phenomenon I have encountered here quite a bit: the moment a certain comment seems to you (emphasis on you) fanatical, you do not respond substantively, but do everything in your power to ridicule and distort it. Have I now clarified my position satisfactorily? +As I explained here, absolutely not. It was hard for me to make your comment look more ridiculous than the ridicule already inherent in it.+
As I understand it, I did not write a single vague statement, and if indeed that was the case I would be happy to clarify my words and stand behind them. I have no problem at all first correcting myself, and it would be better if you did likewise and respond substantively to the claims I raised.
Sorry, but your fanaticism against anything that appears fanatical in your eyes is unbearable—to the point that every rabbi (such as Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef) who sins in this way receives from you torrents of contempt, while a female Reform rabbi who writes ambiguous, erotic texts devoid of any substantive meaning, and moreover about sacred matters, receives from you such “etrog treatment” as an ordinary person could only dream of. +Incidentally, what is your opinion of the ambiguous and erotic texts of the Song of Songs, and of Hazal and the Zohar, and of love poems by the Rishonim?
+I did not distort anything you wrote+, and yes, my intention was specifically to discuss the Reform’s halakhic interpretation (and they do have one, since they do not deny halakhah and religious commandments), and to say that it does not hold water and has nothing to do with the original halakhic text. (It is the same statement in my view, and you understand exactly what I mean.) +Ah, they do not deny it? That is really news to me. And not only do I not understand what you mean—you yourself do not understand what you meant. By all means, explain the connection between the two statements and why they do not contradict each other.+
And now for a real gem:
Please do not divert the discussion, and please analyze the Reform halakhic interpretation of the sources of halakhah. It is a shame that you are so non-objective when it comes to the Reform. +The one who led the discussion to the Reform interpretation is you. Check the messages. So now you ask me not to divert the discussion to the Reform interpretation of halakhah? And in general, so far I have not yet seen a discussion here… [A discussion, at least as I understand it, requires arguments and reasons. In your case there was not even one such thing, so for now there is no discussion, only digressions from it—but this has always been the way of blustering fanatics]+

In general, I have no interest in defending the Reform, nor anyone else, and contrary to your words I did not do so anywhere here. But I definitely do have something against fanaticism, because it is stupid and blustering. What can I do? Everyone has his weaknesses. There is mainly one thing that annoys me more than stupidity, and that is emphatic stupidity (= fanaticism).
And regarding clarity and reasoning: before you demand it of others, you still have a great deal to learn about it (also from Tamar), so first correct yourself. I think I showed that very well here.
If you think comments like yours will lower the Reform’s standing, you are mistaken. That is exactly what builds them up (Orthodox fanatical stupidity that attacks instead of discussing and reasoning).
And as for Yitzhak Yosef, indeed there is no comparison. He and the institution at whose head he stands desecrate God’s name, and therefore it is not right to give him honor. Whereas the Reform, and certainly Tamar, are not corrupt—they simply think differently from you (and from me). Therefore they and their views do deserve respect, like every person.

I must say that it is really embarrassing for me to have to respond to these heaps of nonsense.

Yaakov, see my explanations below to the blustering fanatic above and derive abundant holy satisfaction.
As for the question of who my target audience is, I have no answer. I say what I think, and if it seems right to someone, then he is my target audience. And whoever does not—he is not my target audience. Apparently you and WA are not my target audience. I have no problem with that.
In any case, my article is perhaps a good example of why men like you and WA cannot study Torah with women. At least until you emerge from your bubble. That is all.

The Rabbinate is corrupt and the Reform are upright? Apparently some hidden truth has come out.

I remember that when I spent a sabbatical in the USA a few years ago, I was warned about four “kashrut certifications” (two Reform and two Conservative), and I took the trouble to learn and remember their symbols on the packages. What do Reform and Conservatives have to do with kashrut? Well, to our shame and disgrace, Jewish demand for kosher meat in the USA is not sufficient to justify it economically, and this market would have disappeared were it not for Muslim demand. (Meat kosher according to Jewish halakhah is considered “halal” according to sharia, but of course the reverse is not true—“halal” is not kosher.) The Reform and the Conservatives, who eat every abomination with appetite and defiance, discovered the economic potential and established four “kashrut” organizations by exploiting the ignorance of Muslims, who do not distinguish between tekhelet and leek, and between kosher and “kosher.” Is this not corruption? Is this not a desecration of God’s name?

Not only that. The Reform movement is one of the most poisonous spearheads in anti-Semitic propaganda (at times truly Stürmer-like) against the State of Israel and in support of the most murderous terrorist organizations. There is much material on this, but this is not the place to elaborate (see Rabbis for Human Rights, Arik Ascherman, and others). Is this not corruption? Is this not a desecration of God’s name?

Reform has brought upon the Jewish people one of the greatest disasters in its history. The number of souls lost to the Jewish people through assimilation and intermarriage caused by Reform exceeds the number murdered in the Holocaust (statistically verified). Reform is not a “stream within Judaism” but a religion that seceded from Judaism. The Reform movement in the USA decided long ago that it does not require belief in anything—not even in God—as a condition of membership, and not even as a condition for ordination to the “rabbinate,” and it has not refrained from ordaining hundreds of openly atheistic “rabbis.”

To say that the Chief Rabbinate desecrates God’s name, while at the same time defending the Reform, who “are not corrupt but simply think differently from you (and from me),” is corruption (intellectual corruption) in the flesh.

Reform as a movement does not seem corrupt to me (certainly not from what I know of them here in Israel). Like any group or movement, it contains people and actions of all kinds, and you can criticize them, in some cases justly. The Chief Rabbinate (as distinct from Orthodoxy) is corrupt in its very essence and desecrates God’s name.
Incidentally, the ones who brought upon us the “disaster” of secularization were not the Reform, for they did not exist here until about 250 years ago. Therefore, historically, it was Orthodoxy that caused secularization (which of course did not exist as such either. I mean halakhic Judaism). Moreover, in my estimation, even after the two movements came into being, the main cause of secularization was the Orthodox, because due to them and their conduct (incidentally, usually innocently and without awareness), many became disgusted with the religious establishment and with religion as it then appeared, and became Reform. Thus, among other things, Reform was born. I have written about this mistake and this demagogic claim more than once (because unfortunately we repeat it today in many areas). You are accusing the phenomenon of causing itself. Logically, the answer to the question of what caused any given phenomenon lies in the state of affairs before it appeared (and as stated, then there were no Reform). But it is easiest for us to beat on someone else’s chest (because we are perfect, after all).
And by way of a side note I will add that even today I do not know how many Jews we would have lost were it not for the Reform movement. Quite a few are thereby saved, and remain—or at least linger—on that raft instead of plunging straight into assimilation. But that of course requires examination and is very difficult to examine, and I mean only to note it.

Apparently I did not understand your point, because if I understood your argument, it is very strange. It would imply that on the assumption that only someone alive can become dead (I imagine we would agree that there is a difference between a dead body and an inanimate object), then what caused the “phenomenon” of the murdered man’s death is “the state of affairs before it appeared,” i.e., life. I suspect that as a judge you would not exempt a murderer from punishment on that basis.
I do not pretend to be a logician, nor did I come to confront you on that plane, but from my teacher in the course “Introduction to Logic” (the late Prof. Yael Cohen Ben-Porat) I learned about a necessary condition and a sufficient condition. A necessary condition for breaking a window is that it be made of breakable material, but that is not a sufficient condition. The sufficient condition is that someone break the window. A necessary condition for death is life, but to die one needs an additional factor (old age, disease, murder, and the like). In the matter before us: someone who was never religious cannot become secular, and from this it follows that religiosity (Orthodox or otherwise) is a necessary condition for secularization, but it is not a sufficient condition. The sufficient condition is the “something” that causes secularization. Incidentally, secularization was a general phenomenon in Europe and not specifically a Jewish one, so even according to your view it is hard to say that Jewish Orthodoxy is its main cause.
A necessary condition for assimilation is to be born Jewish; the sufficient condition is to marry a non-Jewish woman, and then the question is what factor created the sufficient condition. In principle, one can say that the main factor is a person’s free choice (as he elaborated on this in his holy book “The Science of Freedom,” in its best sense), but there are accelerating and hastening factors. One can count several such factors in relation to assimilation: anti-Semitism, the Enlightenment movement, Reform, and so on. In our day the Reform movement is one of the greatest active accelerators toward absorption and assimilation. The Reform recognize as “Jewish” even one whose father is Jewish (because otherwise their temples would empty out, and what would become of the rabbi’s salary?), and it is an everyday occurrence that Reform rabbis marry Jews to non-Jewish women and Jewish women to non-Jewish men in joint ceremonies in churches with Christian priests, etc. etc.
I gave two examples of systemic corruption in the Reform movement as a movement, not as individuals. I have more, but this is not the place to elaborate. It is important to distinguish between a body with flaws (and there is no body composed of human beings that has no flaws; see the State Comptroller’s reports), and a corrupt body. As someone who worked in auditing for years, I know that this distinction is the clear sign that separates fair criticism from defamation. In the Rabbinate there are flaws, which I do not ignore, but I have not encountered proof that it is a corrupt body (as distinct from other bodies such as the Israel Police, the prosecution, and the court system, which I at least suspect are corrupt bodies, but this is not the place to elaborate).

Indeed, I would not exempt the murderer, but I also would not charge the dead man himself. Something in the circumstances that prevailed beforehand caused the result. My claim is that Reform is the result (= the dead man) and not the murderer, if only because before the death it did not exist at all.
Incidentally, if you read the aforesaid masterpiece, you could see that the concept of cause is not exhausted by a necessary or sufficient condition, but requires a third thing (the physical component—causation). Hanging causality solely on the logical plane (necessary and/or sufficient condition) leads to errors and paradoxes.
And while we are on the subject of confusing correlation with causation, you assume that the reason the Reform confer Jewish status through the father is the need to make a living (who will fill their synagogues). But that is only correlation (when they confer Jewish status through the father, the synagogue fills up). How do you know that this is the cause?
And furthermore, you point to Reform as a cause of secularization and assimilation, but that too is itself a consequentialist consideration. You want “your synagogue” (= the people of Israel) to remain full.
As for the Rabbinate, it seems to me there is no body more corrupt than it. Its very birth was in sin and its activity is in sin. But this is not the place to get into that.

It seems to me that in the current post you are not content with the esteemed company of Maimonides as a heretic, and you are also seeking the company of Moses our teacher, about whom the Midrash says that Israel was jealous of him regarding their wives.

As for the post itself, it seems to me that in the argument about traveling on Shabbat, the rabbi took the side that halakhic ruling is deconstructive with respect to the text, whereas I took the position that ruling is influenced by the truth in the text, which penetrates the decisor and does not allow him to issue a true ruling that is not true. Therefore, in many cases, the rabbi’s own position interests me (as, for example, in the discussion about the Ethiopians), and not דווקא the other opinions that exist.

As for the Reform, I would be glad to see a column from the rabbi (even though the historical story the rabbi tells about the process of secularization and the Rabbinate is, at best, lacking).

I join Yaakov’s comment regarding the significant discomfort with the explicit treatment of eroticism in the text, and indeed I did not read the article for that reason (when I read things I am uncomfortable reading, I skim onward… here I reached the end of the article and gave up)

.
.
YOU THOUGHT THE TORAH WAS A COMMONPLACE CONCEPT
AND THAT IT WAS PERMISSIBLE TO WRITE A ROMANTIC POEM ABOUT IT
YOU THOUGHT IT POSSIBLE TO INSERT WORDS
ABOUT POMEGRANATES AND FIGS AND A GARDEN AND SHANTI.
.
AND YOU DID NOT KNOW THAT IN AN AGE OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
READERS HERE AND THERE WOULD BE CONFUSED…
LOVERS OF THE GENRE ARE NOT MUCH INTERESTED IN LEARNING,
AND SCHOLARS FIND NO HOME IN SUCH A POEM…

Regarding traveling on Shabbat, you are simply not right. But the last thing I would want here is to return to that same argument about traveling on Shabbat. In any case, as far as I am concerned it has been exhausted to the point of bloodshed, and it is really not a deconstructionist interpretation.

As for the Reform, I do not have much to say. My next column will deal with the concept of a rabbi in its various forms.
I do not recall telling a story about secularization and the Rabbinate. These are two different stories.

And Miriam stood at a distance to know,
And with a surgeon’s scalpel dissected the ark.
A poet who thought that these and those are the words of the living God,
The short-minded cast him out like a carcass to the dogs.

Indeed, it was a romantic poem that was written,
But the puritans here seized it as falsehood.
In the path of Hazal I sought to tread,
But our generation of knowledge had no wish to move in their way.

They struck me, they wounded me, as guardians of sexual morality,
From leopard mountains and lions’ dens.
And what can one say? None of them looked at the foundation [of the male],
And the taste as the essence remained ashamed, hidden, and modest.

Yet Reform and eroticism they found in the column,
And on the path a person wishes to go, he is led.
Recognize now for whom I conceived my hidden foundation of study and Torah,
And they ignored it as though there were no discussion to permit it.

And over all these things I weep like a lion in secret places,
My soul moans and my eye runs down with mighty waters.
When I remember my ideas that sank into the abyss,
Without fish they left her, humiliated down to the nethermost pit.

For Torah is revealed only to the modest,
Yet readers read Solomon’s song and made it into lustful songs.
And I stand beyond the river like one of the Hebrew boys,
And the whole world stands opposite me from the side of the Other.

The craftsman of rock hews for us today a sickle,
And they say to me: Will you reap with this sickle?
And I say: Let it be reaped by neither me nor you,
Better that words of Torah be burned than delivered to the crushed.

That is how I understood it. Clearly the rabbi thinks otherwise, but I also have no interest in returning to it.

I meant the discussion the rabbi is having with Mordechai about secularization and the Rabbinate, in which the rabbi argued against Orthodoxy. I agree that Orthodoxy did not come prepared for the modern change (I wonder whether it could have come prepared). But to blame it for secularization ignores much stronger factors, such as the hostility in the German cultural sphere to the Talmud (David Sorkin expands on this in his book Orthodoxy and the Regime of Modernity), which led to Reform (Germans of the Mosaic faith and not of the faith of Ravina and Rav Ashi), and the dismantling of the communities by the central regime. דווקא regarding the Rabbinate, I see a fine attempt to preserve the corporative structure even under modern conditions. The irony of fate is that afterward the Germans also alienated themselves from the Bible and sent both the Germans of the Mosaic faith and the Germans of the faith of Ravina and Rav Ashi to the crematoria. Perhaps in retrospect it became clear that there is a connection between the books, as the rabbi explains here in the post (self-nullification and autonomy: the Talmud nullifies itself before the Written Torah and yet still has autonomy).

The Nobel Prize in Literature (:

The question is why this hatred of the Talmud arose. Was it because of the ancient book as such, or because of the way it was interpreted and applied in the present.

That was me, Y.D.

One sentence you wrote touched my heart and hurt a bit: the comparison between the level of sophistication in physics and Torah study (I assume the intention is Gemara and halakhic decisors).
As a mathematics student and a yeshiva graduate, I could identify with that feeling. I always thought (and still do) that it was personal and that the problem was me. I do not know whether to be glad that someone else feels this.
But a thought I had nonetheless: can it not be said that by definition the Torah is infinite—that is, in learning a sugya we are not trying to “solve” something mathematically, meaning through a concrete logical process that ends in a sharp and clear definition beyond question (and in mathematics—in a proof), since by definition we are dealing with human reasoning—Tannaim and Amoraim, Rishonim and Acharonim—we are trying to trace a thought process (and sometimes even invent it) and explain all sides. You will almost never hear a conclusion like “and therefore Abaye was right and Rava was wrong” (even if the Gemara itself says so, most learners will try to explain Rava anyway). Such a process is by nature infinite and therefore deeper than mathematics—not purely logical like it, but it can certainly be more profound (as the Hazon Ish said about tractate Beitzah: “it depends how you cook it”).

The truth is that the article and the discussion around it caused me great pain, (without sarcasm)
It pained me that I did not understand the point under discussion in your article.
It pained me that a person like you, whom I think can effect real change in the world of Torah, shares foundational experiences in Torah study with a person whose basic assumptions regarding Torah are different. I am not well versed in the Reform world, and if you want to be exacting with me and say that I do not know them and am merely talking, I will have no answer for you, but I know that they changed the ‘Torah’ and did not change ‘within the Torah’; that entails completely different basic assumptions regarding Torah.
So what can be shared with them?
I agree that Reform in itself is not the cause of secularization and assimilation.
In my opinion it is a form of secularization; it answers needs of Jewish national identity that the State of Israel provides for secular people living in Zion. Abroad it is more significant because there it is the only framework available to the secular Jew.
I fear a new wave of secularization standing at our doorstep. Certainly the faithful Judaism of which you are a part must rise to meet the danger. I place great hopes in you and those like you, that you will know how to provide a true Jewish worldview suited to the new world that is renewing itself at a rapid pace.
Therefore it pained me that precisely you share foundational experiences in the study of the holy Torah with declared Reform Jews.
It pained me that a very basic matter (in your view, and I believe you that it is a basic point), I and people like me are unable to understand because of the erotic form of the discussion. You want to establish our worldview, so the form of the discussion should be suited to us as well. Are I and people like me not entitled to a living Torah of truth?
‘Though you are small in your own eyes, you are the head of the tribes of Israel.’
With great esteem,
Yaakov M.

I know of two answers (which are not necessarily contradictory, but still). One is by the historian and researcher Anat Perry on her blog:
http://anatperi.blogspot.com/2012/02/blog-post_28.html
According to her claim, the rejection of the Talmud stemmed from the Christian belief that rejects any Jewish development after the Bible. According to the Christians, the punishment of the Jews who did not accept Jesus was to stand still, in a kind of eternal exile. The discovery that the Jews were not only standing still but continuing to develop shook them and led them to reject the Talmud. In the link I gave, one can see the connection between German hostility to the Talmud and secularism and the Enlightenment.
The second answer appears in Sorkin’s book to which I referred. According to Sorkin, German Hebraists in the sixteenth century encountered the Talmud and came to the conclusion that it was illogical (a claim that still echoes today among students of religious high-school yeshivot). The one who dealt with this claim directly as soon as it arose in the seventeenth century was the Maharal. According to the Maharal, the Gemara belongs to a separate intellect and not to the natural intellect. In other words, the Gemara belongs to the future, to the World to Come, and not to the present. Jews also belong to the World to Come (they have a separate intellect), and therefore they can study Gemara. Gentiles belong to the present, and therefore they cannot study Gemara. By the way, the reasoning that Gentiles cannot study Gemara was fairly common in Eastern Europe. In a memorial book for the town of Bobruisk there is a story from my grandfather’s uncle about the rabbi who tries to teach the priest to learn Gemara in the sugya of “Reuven and Shimon put their heads into the chimney; whose head gets washed?” with the conclusion being that the priest is incapable of learning Gemara. It is unclear how this conclusion fits with my grandfather’s uncle’s rationalist assumption of the identity of reason across the entire human species.
The problem with Anat Perry’s theory is that Christian hostility to Judaism was fairly broad, and yet it still did not develop into a rejection of the existence of the Talmud and the Jewish people. Christianity also rather preserved Judaism, if only for the Christians’ own interested reasons. It seems that rejection of Judaism characterized the Germans more than other peoples. In England, France, and Italy, liberalism did not demand that Jews give up the Talmud. Some of them secularized naturally or converted to Christianity, but the phenomenon of rejecting the Talmud did not exist. The Maharal’s explanation, on the other hand, requires accepting quite a few assumptions and clashes with the assumption of the identity of reason among Jews and Gentiles alike.
To continue what I wrote earlier, the findings of German archaeology in the Middle East together with the rise of philological documentary theory led to the result that not only the Talmud was perceived as an archaeological artifact, but the Torah as well. The Jews in general were perceived as a remnant of the past that had no place in the present, and that was trying to conceal its distinctiveness by means of universal theories such as liberalism, Marxism, and so on. The Final Solution was intended to solve the anomaly with German thoroughness.

Michi
This subject touched me; I read the column again and again and the poem again and again, in order to see how the different meanings are grasped within the understanding of the words
I myself have experienced a disconnection from Torah for a long period,
and this article awakened in me a longing for the days when I toiled in the logic of Torah, in addition to your lectures on the sugyot in which I once toiled and which I had come to disdain in recent years, because of the feeling that there is no orderly logical line of thought behind the matters. And now your lessons and your line of thought are helping me reconnect to these things, and even to debate them at the Shabbat table with my wife, my children, and my family members, in order to convey to them the flavor of these matters and the delight of Torah study.
Thank you

He withdraws and weeps that they suspected him. And they withdraw and weep that they suspected someone whose deeds are obscure. Perhaps there is nothing in his heart.

Hello Yaakov.
Words of truth are recognizable when they come from a pained heart. I will try to explain to you why I nevertheless think this is right.
Part of changing the discourse must come through opening outward. Part of the problem is the fixation on what exists—modes of thinking and formulation, basic assumptions, and the like.
Part of that is the attitude toward women and the Reform, and another part is the form of discourse and the willingness to hear from them and learn from them, and not to assume that they are disqualified a priori because of their outlook. From my acquaintance with some of them, the stigmas attached to them are not correct (I am not getting into the history right now, about which I also have doubts. One must remember that the way this phenomenon is presented is part of Orthodoxy’s internal defensive discourse. I have just finished Yaakov Katz’s illuminating book on the history of Israel from the time of its exile until our day, and there he presents things in a historically fascinating and enlightening way).
Beyond that, Hazal themselves used embarrassing sexual metaphors (to modern ears) in their midrashim, and of course so did Scripture and the Rishonim. I think that these metaphors, and poetry and discourse with women and with the Reform, are not invalid, and on the contrary, they are part of the openness required of us in order to effect change. I had many bitter arguments with Tamar, but I learned not a little from her, and in my opinion it is important that this happen more (not necessarily from her, but from the very willingness to open up instead of boycotting).
Also on the moral and psychological level: we boycott them, and afterward come with complaints that they (the wicked) “persecute” us and act against us. By the way, that too was the case historically, and this is part of the Orthodox narrative that I suddenly understood is inaccurate (indeed, not accurate).
As I wrote, and I truly mean it, for me the target audience is whoever the things speak to (and is willing to open up rather than lock himself into his basic assumptions). In my opinion, if you are willing to do that, you will suddenly discover that it really is not nearly as terrible as you felt at first. Not for nothing do I not take upon myself rabbinic positions and the like, because I have no desire or intention to enter into the modes of behavior required in order for my words to be heard. In my view, it is important to say them as they are, and not in order that they be heard. And whoever hears, a blessing be upon him.
Incidentally, on a further look you will see that there is really nothing problematic here. There is a certain erotic connotation, but this really is part of the midrashic-Hazal discourse on this sugya as on others. Today we have developed a problematic sensitivity that closes us off to poetry and literature of this kind, and perhaps in general, and that is a pity. It is part of the genre, and rightly so (provided that the things are indeed done platonically, as they were among Hazal).

Indeed, it is a great pity in my eyes as well that I lost the attention of people (I received here almost no comment on the substance of the matter, and as I wrote, in my eyes this is one of the most important posts I have written). But apparently the generation is not fit. Slowly, slowly. Why should you concern yourself with the hidden things of the Merciful One? Do what you have been commanded…

Many thanks.

Well, this really is a topic that requires a discussion of its own. In general, even if this is true, historical phenomena do not occur because of one factor. Usually it must fall on ground ready to absorb it. I have no doubt that the halakhic Judaism of that time (and also today) was such ground.

I personally also have this problem. It is said very quietly, but it weighs on all those who have encountered physics or mathematics. But it also finds expression (in general) in the character of the people who go to make “careers” in these fields. The most talented people will be drawn much more strongly to physics and mathematics than to the Torah field, and even feel a slight aversion when they see who exactly are the people who do go for a “career” in this field. It does not seem that great talent is needed in order to be a posek, and even a rosh yeshiva (there are not too many ways to test whether a reasoning is correct or not), unlike a mathematician, and this is indeed a disgrace to Torah and its students. And this also relates to the feeling that sometimes gnaws at one (and I know it is not correct) that there is no truth in Torah, in light of the multitude of disputes, and in light of the fact that even in any ruling that is eventually accepted there is no explanation of why the rejected side was indeed rejected. Everything is intuitions and there are no “experiments.” By the way, this is not true with respect to Kabbalah. That is a fully scientific field. Great kabbalists decided disputes (there is a famous example where Rabbi Ashlag said somewhere that the Rashash was mistaken, and so indeed it has been accepted since then. That is, they understand why he erred and what the logic of his words was nonetheless) and explained the errors of those who disagreed with them like errors in mathematical proofs (or refuting experiments in physics).

However, especially after R. Chaim of Brisk, I have an inner faith that Torah really is deeper, and also that in the end, after our explanatory language becomes sufficiently strengthened (I am working a bit on this myself), we will be able, for example, to explain Rava, but also to explain why the application of his words to reality is not correct, for example. That is, that a way parallel to experiments in physics or counterexamples in mathematics will develop, with the same level of power to reach Torah truth. I believe that the Torah (even the external Torah) describes a reality (a spiritual reality), and the laws of the Torah parallel our laws of nature, and the punishments of the Torah for one who violates its laws parallel the cause-and-effect of one who ignores the laws of physics (or of biology, for example. One who bangs his head against a wall or jumps off a building will be “punished” immediately. In biology, one who smokes or eats unhealthily is granted “long-suffering” until the damage reaches him).

All your attempts at cynical ridicule do not especially move me, and in my opinion they illustrate precisely the evasiveness and lack of honesty in your conduct. Everything I wrote was said in more or less clear language, and if there is a place that requires elaboration and reasoning, I will immediately do so (I will not respond to your barbs, even the sophisticated ones that present themselves as an analysis of my words).

You wrote a column that was meant to describe the relation between the Torah student and the text of the Torah, and to emphasize that experience from an emotional perspective and perhaps also from an intellectual-logical perspective (I doubt that).
You chose to do this through an erotic poem written by a female Reform rabbi.
I saw no point in addressing the idea itself, since it is expressed in a vague and insufficiently clear way. Instead, I chose to discuss other ancillary matters that were written in the column, which in my opinion are of great importance, and your opinion about them interests me, and judging by the responses, also a considerable part of your readers.
I wrote about two main topics: 1. Text and its interpretive possibilities. 2. Your overly protective attitude toward the Reform as compared to other bodies/people.

In addition, there were many things that bothered me in the body of the post, but I chose not to get into them—either because I do not see room for discussion in them (that is your opinion, what can be done), or because I do not know them (such as the corruption of the Reform movement, or raising erotic pornography to the level of holiness of Torah study while claiming that Hazal too did this. In my understanding they certainly did not mean it in the way you describe. They saw outward sexuality as something low and not really valuable. I cannot convince you of this, but it seems to me that many people would agree, and by the way there is no such thing as platonic sexuality; platonic love is love without relations, so what do you call platonic sexuality??).

Now to the substance of the claims I raised and repeated several times because you did not respond to them substantively.

1 You ended the post as follows: ‘I hope that beyond the poetic effusions and the erotic connotations, before I am accused of Hasidism, existentialism, inspired learning, and above all contradictions with all my previous rejections of all these things, my hope is that what mainly came through here was the message (and that there is no contradiction).’ And to this I wrote you that whether you like it or not there is great ambiguity here regarding the central idea (in fact no one commented on the central idea of the post), and I suggested that you formulate yourself in matter-of-fact language.
As I understand it, the role of effusions and poetry is to describe emotional experiences of the one experiencing them, and in my understanding only there is their place (also with respect to the poems in the Bible). If your intention was only to describe an emotional experience of the learner, then indeed it is better to do so in the form of a poem and the like. But if this is, as I think, some matter-of-fact intellectual idea (not emotional), there is no doubt that a matter-of-fact report can be given and is preferable to a poem.

2 The core of your words is found (as I understand it) in the following: ‘Those who nullify themselves before the Torah in the literal sense (“literalist conservatism”) are mistaken. They do nullify themselves, but before something that is not the Torah (because their interpretation is incorrect. They nullify themselves before one or another accepted interpretations or precedents, not before the Torah). Those who nullify the Torah before themselves (the “heretics,” or perhaps “Reform,” in the terminology of that article) do not nullify themselves at all, but make use of the Torah. In contrast to both of these, the dialectical synthesis I described here offers a third mechanism (“midrashic conservatism,” in that terminology), of unification between the two sides. In my view it contains a wondrous combination of autonomy and self-nullification. I nullify myself only before what I am convinced is correct.’
That is, there is the text of the Torah/Gemara, etc., which is not formulated unambiguously, and sometimes even in a way where it is clear that the intention is not the plain meaning (the hand of God, the eyes of God, etc.). There is the possibility of adhering to its simplest linguistic meaning; there is the possibility of treating it like clay in the hands of the potter; and you argue that with Torah the way is intermediate: on the one hand we adhere to the text and the ideas in it, and on the other hand in places where it is clear that the meaning is not literal, we explain it according to the eyes of reason (it is hard to set sharp boundaries here, but that is the idea). All this is accepted by me and by most of the house of Israel, and by the way this is a dry, matter-of-fact idea par excellence. Therefore the appropriate formulation is prose and not a poem.

What upset me was the way you chose to illustrate these things.
And about that I asked: what is the point of conveying an idea that is essentially analytical in such a twisted way, by means of a poem that you yourself admit you and the author have two opposite interpretations of the same text? And there is no problem stuffing this text with many more meanings and interpretations that would fit no less than yours and the author’s, as is the way of poems (and this is your main criticism of Hasidic studies). If this were an emotional idea, fine. But assuming that it is not, then in my opinion you made a mistake in the way you presented it.

3 My additional comment concerned your overly protective and embarrassing attitude toward a female Reform rabbi (as opposed to lethal critiques of thinkers and ideas far greater than hers). I quoted from her words and from the way she and those like her choose to interpret Judaism and the sources of halakhah (in the second way you hinted at above, which chooses to distort and warp the text and which you too called Reform). If that is not enough for you, here are a few more gems from the site of the Reform movement in Israel. And if that is not enough for you, simply ask the honorable female rabbi whether she refrains from the labors of Shabbat, whether she observes the laws of purity, etc., and confront her with the sources of halakhah, and derive abundant holy satisfaction from her enlightening and sophistic answers.

‘Progressive Judaism sees belief in God and His oneness as the foundation of the Jewish religious experience. Simple faith, alongside inquiry into the essence of divinity and its ways, has accompanied the Jewish person for thousands of years, and every generation has enriched the Jewish attempt to understand “that which stands beyond us.” For many in our generation, the experience of faith, and especially in its traditional expressions, is not self-evident. Like our fathers and mothers, we often sense the existence of the “sublime” and the “incomprehensible,” and yet at times doubt and questions are our main inheritance rather than answers. As progressive Jews, we prefer the experience of wondering and grappling over faith that rejects doubts and questions, and over lives devoid of spiritual and religious searching.’
What can I tell you—a text full of real logical meaning.

And here is another passage that fits Dabadbani’s slanderous words, which sin precisely at the point you raised—that this is a distorted extraction and interpretation of a text.

‘Progressive Judaism, also known as Reform Judaism, encourages the individual to shape a meaningful and serious Jewish way of life, based on personal decision and choice arising from study, and not on an externally binding system of rules and prohibitions. In the spirit of the vision of the prophets of Israel, Progressive Judaism emphasizes the values of morality, social justice, and social responsibility, and encourages the individual to give priority to the voice of conscience and of human reason.
Progressive Judaism believes that Jewish way of life is the fruit of a person’s faith, decision, and choice. We aspire that this choice be made מתוך an ongoing process of study, thought, and spiritual and religious grappling, and מתוך a sense of commitment to the heritage of Israel and to the future of Judaism. Halakhah has an important but not exclusive place in this context. Halakhah is a guiding source, a guidepost, and a source of inspiration, but no longer an external binding source of rules and prohibitions.’

And contrary to your claim, they do see themselves as the true Judaism and as “faithful” to its sources, as appears below, and therefore my criticism of them is correct.

‘Progressive Judaism believes that the secret of Judaism’s strength and power lies in the combination of the heritage of previous generations with courageous engagement with changes in the circumstances of life of the individual and the collective. Progressive Judaism believes that this combination of tradition and renewal is especially necessary in recent generations, and that only through this combination will the future of the Jewish people and of Judaism be secured.’

If you want more examples, trouble yourself to visit their site and derive abundant satisfaction of impurity (support for LGBT and more. Broadly speaking, their religion is based only on morality and on ritual commandments whose whole purpose is the social-communal experience, and therefore they adapt these commandments to those needs. Whatever does not fall under these two is elegantly erased through distorted interpretation).

So how do you explain that the Nation-State Law and the Hebrew Law Law (in the case of a lacuna, to rule according to justice and equity, etc.), the Rabbinate, books of Hasidism, the Kav yeshivot, and more—you criticize in such a devastating way, whereas bizarre, vague texts devoid of meaning, or alternatively severe and forged distortions of the sources of religion, make you melt and flatter them so much, and you present them as just another opinion? Their distortions and vagueness are far worse than all of the above.

4 In addition, I asked from one matter to another on the same general topic: in your opinion, regarding your attitude to women issuing halakhic rulings and the other matters in which halakhah distinguishes between men and women—since one of the Reform’s banners is gender equality in everything—I thought it proper that you clarify your position on the matter as someone who, from what appears here, identifies so strongly with the Reform and their method.

I see here two types of couplehood and approaches to the partner that are being used as a metaphor for a “male” and “female” way of studying Torah (as people conventionally say today, though there is really no such thing), and in both the Torah is the one conquered and the learner is the conqueror.

The classic male learning is the analyzing, penetrating, cold, alienated one, and of course the conqueror who comes from outside (a hint to David son of Jesse); the learning is the metaphor for his attitude toward her and for their relationship (perhaps critically).

By contrast, the female learning is more gentle, containing, and touching, knows how to find the partner within herself, succeeds in identifying. And the ending wants to say that despite this way, in the end he is hers as well, and she too reaches conquest of him, but in her own way.

Eilon, the story about Rabbi Ashlag and the Rashash is simply not true in any way (perhaps only among Rabbi Ashlag’s own students is it accepted to say that the Rashash was mistaken, but that is not very surprising). As someone somewhat knowledgeable, I testify that disputes in Kabbalah are never “decided.” On the contrary, only new doubts arise (and even if I am mistaken about that, on the matter of the story about the Rashash I am absolutely certain. When I read your words I almost burst out laughing, and then I remembered a prohibition whose current form or applicability I do not know).

Thank you, Eilon, for the response.
For my own part, I do not think we will be able to “invent the wheel” and apply scientific-logical methods to Torah study. That is, even if we succeeded in doing so, would the meaning of that not be resolving doubts and deciding among opinions in a way that would basically throw 70% of the Torah we possess into the trash? By definition, this is no longer a “method of Torah study.”
I think that people of a mathematical bent will find satisfaction specifically in studying Tosafot, Maharsha, Maharam of Lublin, and the like, much more than in Brisk-style learning. What is called the Polish style, of sharpness and examining every reasoning according to how it fits another view of that same sage (as the Gemara does: “shall we say Rabbi Meir holds… but did we not learn…”), or according to another part of the saying/ruling under discussion (“but was it not taught in the first clause…” ).
That style disappeared from the yeshiva world because of the difficulty and the level of talent it demands. It seems that the last rosh yeshiva who truly learned and taught in that way was Rabbi Aharon Kotler, of whom it was said that his students did not fully grasp his thinking.
And perhaps herein lies the solution to the troubling feeling. If people feel that studying mathematics requires from them complicated intellectual effort, there is no reason that in studying a page of Gemara they should go easy on themselves and settle for the general level—which, what can one do, really does not put up a true fight against the exact sciences.

I hear you. I also do not think this contradicts the interpretation I suggested. In any case, I am glad that at last a substantive comment has arrived.

Forgive me, wu, but it seems to me that you are missing the point.
A + B. This is not just about learning, but about the experience of the decisor or interpreter (which in Rabbi Michi’s view are pretty much one and the same). That is, about that person who sometimes kneads the Torah according to his will, and sometimes the Torah kneads him until he is unable not to say what it says to him to say. Thus sometimes we see decisors overturning the Torah in ways hard to imagine, and sometimes the opposite: the Torah speaks through their throat. I studied the Hazon Ish in tractate Sukkah on the issue of a support, and I studied the Ramban, and in my poverty it is clear to me that the Ramban spoke about a support and not about a support of a support. But for the Hazon Ish it is clear that the Torah speaks about a support of a support, and anyone who drove a metal nail into his sukkah has a disqualified sukkah—and this despite the fact that all generations drove nails without hesitation. And after the Torah kneaded the Hazon Ish in that way, no choice remained, and generations of Hazon Ish followers build a sukkah without nails. Choose a sexual metaphor or a culinary metaphor—the matter is the same. It is impossible to explain when this happens and when that happens, and therefore all that remains is metaphors.
C. All these issues are not of the same kind. Hebrew Law is a claim whose basic assumptions Rabbi Michi does not accept. Regarding the Rabbinate, as a citizen he has every right to think it is unnecessary (the Rabbinate did not come down with Moses from Sinai), and other citizens have the right to think otherwise. Books of Hasidism are a matter of taste. The Kav yeshivot are terribly boring. … For a mind like Rabbi Michi’s they are uninteresting.
The Reform, by contrast, interest him very much. Precisely because he disagrees with them, this is an opportunity to test whether he has good arguments. Whether he is capable of dealing with them or not. A real challenge is always outside, and for Rabbi Michi the Reform are a challenge.
D. That is not the discussion. You can search the responsa, and it seems to me that someone asked quite recently.

To D

Fortunately for you, you did not burst out laughing. I made my claims as someone who is also a bit “knowledgeable” (a funny expression. If one does not understand what the kabbalists are talking about, there is no point talking about “knowledge”). I do not know you, but I assume you speak from a scholarly point of view occupied with mapping, classification, categorization of systems, and so on. One who is occupied with understanding naturally tends toward unification. Well then, scholars of Kabbalah do not understand their right hand from their left in Kabbalah. The search for truth does not occur to them at all, including whether there is such truth at all—that is, the existence of spiritual worlds and their nature. They are professors of philosophy. Their relation to kabbalists is the same as that between “mathematicologists” who know no mathematics at all and deal with its sociology and history (there are really no such people; it is impossible to deal with this without knowing mathematics) and mathematicians. Indeed, it befits Rabbi Ashlag and his students, “glorious and fitting is the exalted one,” to make such a claim about the Rashash. Not everyone who opens and studies a book of Kabbalah is a kabbalist. Only one who makes the effort to see with his own eyes what it is talking about there (and merits that, what is called spiritual attainment). Well then, the famous example of unification is of course the holy Ari in relation to the earlier kabbalists on the issue of circles and straightness, and see in the introduction to Etz Chaim. And I am not at all bound by the scholarly democracy in which everyone who writes a book on Kabbalah indeed understands. There is, by the way, a famous story (in the writings of Rabbi Ashlag) about Rabbi Ashlag’s meeting with the people of the kabbalists’ yeshiva Beit El (I think), who admitted with complete seriousness that they did not understand a word of what they were studying, and furthermore seriously claimed that there is nothing for human beings to understand in these matters, and astonishingly even claimed that the Ari himself did not understand what he was talking about. And you still want, in the name of some pluralism, to claim that they are forbidden to say this. The decisions I am talking about are among those who understand. And I am also allowed to claim that the majority do not understand if that is what I understand and know.

Contrary to your assumption, I am not a scholar at all, and I entirely accept that in Kabbalah there are correct and incorrect opinions and one should try to arrive at the correct one. I said “somewhat knowledgeable” because I did not want to say “very closely acquainted with the people involved.” I agree that it befits Rabbi Ashlag (and especially his students) to explain that the Rashash is mistaken, but it is absolutely not true that there is some specific point at which it is agreed that the Rashash erred because Rabbi Ashlag said so. I do not rule out the theoretical possibility that this could happen; I am only saying that factually it is not true.

This is a poem about couplehood, not about learning. The metaphor for couplehood is Torah study. The first part describes the approach of her husband (former husband? Is she divorced?) who is an ignoramus that tramples and has sex. His metaphor is the gentile who wants to learn the whole Torah quickly on one foot. By contrast, she is “the righteous one, foundation of the world.” For her, relationships are slow, deep, gentle. Her metaphor in learning is similar. It is only a pity that in the metaphor of learning she seeks to find herself instead of God. Apparently in couplehood too she is not seeking to find her husband but herself. In fact she is not so different from her husband.

A second reading that is very complimentary to her: this is about a dialogue with God. In the first part she addresses God. God כביכול tries to conquer her by means of the Torah. He transforms her through the Torah into part of the Torah, into being His. In the second part she describes that in fact she defeated God. She found herself, she brought herself to the learning. The Torah became hers; she conquered God.

1 After the rebuke in the later post, I really wondered how the words of Hazal and the Song of Songs did not bother puritans like us, whereas what appears here did. I will allow myself to point out a difference: as an incidental description, the poem is described as “erotic and brutal.” If so, unlike the Song of Songs, which focuses on intimacy and love, here there is an element of distance and brutality, which in my opinion allows the feeling of puritan discomfort to take over, because there is no positive emotion to which the images are channeled (in my opinion, that is the psychological explanation for the feeling of disgust among homophobes). Or perhaps the description here is simply more graphic than most existing sources (perhaps there are a few that are even more extreme, but after all we really do not study them every day). So that feeling colored all the images that followed. On a more clear-headed view, indeed most of the post makes sense.

2 The post itself indeed distinguishes—or perhaps better, slowly moves—between different aspects of the relation between the learner and what is learned, and in parallel between the giver and the receiver, and in the common imagery of male and female. In semi-kabbalistic literature (I assume also in kabbalistic literature, though I am not versed in it) one can find a very broad treatment of this area. I will mention a few sources that I draw from the source of associations—“A parable of a king who had a daughter who was dear to him: he called her ‘my daughter,’ he called her ‘my sister,’ and he did not stop loving her until he called her ‘my mother’”; in Chabad there are many discourses that mention the verses “A woman of valor is her husband’s crown” and on the verse “Behold, the Lord creates a new thing on earth: the female shall encompass the male,” concerning the complexity in the relation between these two factors.
The post certainly illuminates several interesting points, but it is not clear to me whether it has any conclusions.

3 The complexity of physics relative to Torah—really interesting. Two lines of thought came to mind immediately upon reading. It may be that if Torah required the exertion and investment of learning physics, it could not be the heritage of a people but only of individuals. The second direction is that perhaps the goal of Torah is different, and in Torah study there is much more weight given to intuition—the Torah is much more like a legal system than like a system of natural laws. Therefore the intuition of good and evil is much more appropriate than the laws of physics, and it is also supposed to develop such abilities—and therefore there is much more weight in the direction of intuition and not in the direction of scientific proofs.

In the place where penitents stand… 🙂
There are already 50 comments, and it seems to me that this is the first one among them that deals with the topic of the column.
1. I do not see anything brutal or graphic here in the description.
2. It definitely does have a conclusion, and unfortunately no one has commented on it at all until now. My claim is that, contrary to the accepted dichotomy between self-nullification before halakhah (= Orthodox) and nullifying halakhah before ourselves (= Reform), the truth is something that combines both: I am entirely nullified before halakhah, but what halakhah says is what I identify with (interpretively and conceptually). And this is by no means a return to the Reform approach in different words. That is the whole sting of it. Those who nullify themselves before the text in the first way also generally do not notice that the nullification is in relation to a particular interpretation of it. The question is whether this is their own interpretation or that of others. In the note I clarified this a bit more, and said that the practical difference is whether you will arrive at conclusions that do not seem right to you and still implement them or not. In this respect the first and third modes are alike, unlike the second mode.
Therefore in the essence of my words here I was actually saying something very sharp against Reform. But who noticed what I said instead of how I said it?
3. Regarding Torah versus physics, your first remark does not seem right to me. Physics too can be learned at several different levels, and so can Torah. There is no principled obstacle to there being a Torah intended for singularly gifted individuals, while others learn it at their own level. (And perhaps there is such a Torah, and only I, not being singularly gifted, have not encountered it?)
I completely agree that there is a difference between the fields and therefore it is not right to compare them. Any human engagement in human fields is not like physics and mathematics, and apparently this is essential. A more relevant comparison might be to the social sciences, law, or psychology, and there, in my assessment, Torah has absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.
Beyond that, Torah study has advantages that other fields do not: I mentioned that the Torah builds something in us (it is relevant). Beyond that, it ties together several fields into a complex and wise web (and open, not mathematical), in my opinion. One can receive/create from it (see section 2) a fuller and more coherent worldview. In my next column I touched on “Da’at Torah” in the non-mystical sense, and that was what I meant. To that, in my opinion, there is no parallel in other fields (as far as I know).
But however that may be, I do not think Torah needs to be wiser or harder than other fields. It may cause discomfort, but in my conception of it that is not essential.

Hello David.
I now saw your message again and noticed that my reply somehow did not go through (I answered you immediately). Please see the main points in my reply to Moshe below (6.8 at 22:31).
Incidentally, I heard the saying about the egg in the name of R. Chaim.
And regarding R. Aharon Kotler, I do not think there is greater depth there. There is greater complexity. I also heard that the length of the lectures made it hard to follow him.

This is a response to a response to a response; I do not know whether you will tunnel under to me and this will be recorded as a comment, etc., or whether it will remain as a reply to myself

1 I was referring to the quotation:
“When I, as a man, read the poem, I actually identify with it very much. After I read the poem I sent Tamar the following words:
‘Precisely the erotic-brutal dimension that there almost is in the poem with regard to the learner’s relation to Torah’”.
That, at any rate, was the feeling I had from reading.

2 What a shame. I actually liked the hesitation and the poetic dimension that moves slowly and leaves impressions, and suddenly everything has to jump to conclusions—am I Reform or not, for or against, supporter or opponent or Hasid.
In my opinion, this complex process of working through, in which the roles of giver and receiver change back and forth, is too complex for us to be able to diagnose it, certainly more complex than we can even judge it.
It is of course true that at the stage of decision I fully accept the statement that the important principle is that the learner accepts the conclusion of the text as he understands it, and since his way of understanding differs from others’ way of understanding, it is hard to say (though there are halakhic conceptions like this) that every understanding of the text is the right and original understanding.
The Ran’s well-known words are known, that the Torah was given to us to study and to decide, even if otherwise would be said in the heavenly academy. But few notice that he sees this as a deficiency and not an advantage—he notes that because of their negligence in Torah study during their lives, even while sitting in the heavenly academy they were not convinced that what the Holy One, blessed be He, said was true. This statement went through several transformations (the introduction to Ketzot HaHoshen, etc.), and only at a very late stage is it presented as an advantage.

1. What I wrote was that the poem describes an erotic dimension that is almost brutal. I did not say that the poem is brutal. The description in the poem is actually very gentle.
2. You are repeating what I wrote. That is the essence of the commitment I described. And of course it comes to exclude the other two models. Even a complex statement excludes something, namely it excludes the simplistic models. If you are looking for statements that exclude nothing, you will find only statements that say nothing.

The Song of Songs is full of metaphors. And they sought to suppress it too.
This poem writes clearly, and does not wrap it up.
ALWAYS PENETRATING LIKE THE FIRST TIME
.
Romantic it is not.
Perhaps that is part of the reason for the opposition.

The question is when can we rule according to our own understanding? Suppose we have supporting evidence but not compelling evidence—can one rule on that basis?

By the way, Michi, is Tamar related
to the wonderful writer Emshalom

To David

As a mathematics student, I am amazed at you. This is not about inventing the wheel but about a natural development in the understanding of Torah. I for my part believe that every field of inquiry ought to reach such a level of scientific precision and truth as physics, and not only Torah. First of all, if someone errs in halakhah, that does not mean his words are not Torah, and certainly not that they are in vain. Not even one percent of the serious bulk of Torah (that is, of the great Torah scholars) will be thrown in the trash. What will be thrown away are things of a low and childish level. Not mistakes. Mistakes are a good thing. Because in fact in science we seek something far beyond discovering the truth. We seek understanding. That is, why the truth is such, and why reality (Torah reality or physical reality) is as it is. Imagine that someone today would investigate the steady-state theory. This is a theory that competed with the Big Bang theory as an explanation of the phenomenon of galaxies receding and their recession velocity increasing in direct proportion to their distance from one another (Hubble observations—more precisely, of the initial conditions of this phenomenon; Hubble observations are explained in the Friedmann model of Einstein’s equation of general relativity for a universe filled with matter). Experiment decided in favor of the latter, but we still do not know why precisely it is the correct one and not the former. We do not yet have understanding. Understanding will develop within the framework of developing a deeper theory of nature, which we will reach precisely by understanding these two theories, and through it we will understand why one is correct and the other is not. When I speak of a deeper theory, I mean something in the sense that the Big Bang theory will be an approximation of it within the limits of our universe or in its initial conditions, like the relation between Newtonian mechanics and relativity.
The same is true, by the way, in mathematics. Is a conjecture proven false by a particular counterexample abandoned? No. We will try to understand what was wrong in it. We will seek understanding of why it was not correct. The same if it was correct. The important thing in proving a conjecture true is not the certainty we achieved but the insight the proof will give us. A proof that does this in the clearest way wins the title “an elegant proof” or “a proof from the Book.” And the relation between a regular theory and a deeper theory in mathematics is, for example, like the relation between calculus and functional analysis or differential geometry. That is, the former is a more specific result of the latter under specific conditions, and the latter is more general. As, for example, the generalization of the Newton-Leibniz, Stokes, and Gauss theorems (the divergence theorem) into one theorem—the generalized Stokes theorem for differential forms with the wedge product (one of the most beautiful things I have encountered in my life). What I want to say is that in every serious theory that has a certain mass of internal consistency there is a point of truth, even if under the narrow conditions of practical reality it is not correct. More precisely—not applicable. And the greater truth is the inclusive truth in which all the serious theories proposed are housed. The same is true in Torah. And there you have the secret behind “These and those are the words of the living God, but the halakhah follows the House of Hillel.”

What I am talking about is, on the contrary, a unification of all the existing Torah while pruning all the garbage (all the abridgments and anthologies and the like. Only pure quality). I am not talking about a “method in Torah study.” I am talking about the future of Torah study as a whole. About something enormous in scope. No more Briskers, pilpul, and Sephardi halakhah study. I am talking about turning Torah into a science, so that halakhic decision-making will stand to its theoretical study as engineering stands today to physics and mathematics. And I have not even begun to talk about how the study of Aggadah relates to all this (and there is a connection).

This is too general a question. The question is what the alternative is: against the Talmud nobody has authority. Against all the other sages, anyone can (and in my opinion also should), provided he is qualified. See the Rosh on Sanhedrin ch. 4 sec. 6 and much more. See my article here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%90%D7%95%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%94-%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%9E%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%91%D7%A4%D7%A1%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%9B%D7%94/

By the way, regarding what you called the Polish style, I too was always very bothered in my yeshiva studies that I never saw anyone who even addressed that aspect of things. They study many methods on every sugya and find logic in each one, but never even tried to see whether behind the view of the Rashba or the Rambam on different issues there is a connection (usually this is considered “scholarly,” with a contemptuous pronunciation). I heard about the last rosh yeshiva of Volozhin, Rabbi Shapira, who learned in that way and they called his approach “according to his own method.” And also about Rabbi Margaliot, who had a photographic memory and literally remembered what every Amora or Tanna said in every place. But for some reason this is considered a curiosity and is not taken seriously. And regarding the Rishonim there is nothing to talk about. I would expect, for example, that Yemenite Dor De’ah people who rule according to the Rambam in all his ways would develop such a thing, but I have not heard of it.

Rabbi Michael,
I read the column several times, because with you it is always complicated and one has to peel apart all the layers and understand all the terminology—“nullifies himself before the Torah,” for example—which gets resolved in an answer to a brave questioner and not a weakling like me. In any case, it is good that we were scolded, puritans that we are—here is a reason why one needs a spiritual teacher. The truth is that as someone relatively new here, I did not dare comment on a subject that apparently also ignited emotion and imagination. The metaphor was too graphic for me too, but on repeated readings I understood that it was not as bad as all that, and I admit that one of the reasons for my silence was also, among other things, the shock at what I mistakenly perceived as a rabbi. And the rabbinic figure indeed suffers from a degraded image, at least among what are called secular people. When I read the following column I also understood why you juxtaposed them. One of the things I take from here—I take a lot, but remember nothing 🙂—is that the study of Torah is not like other study in the sense that it changes you; after such study you want to be a better person. I read the poem you wrote in response to Miriam. Moving and beautiful; perhaps after all the whips and scorpions it was worth it.
Thank you for the privilege.
Ariela

With God’s help, 26 Av 5778

The poetic engagement with the learner’s psychological relation to his Torah is in itself interesting and important. However, in my humble opinion, the gap between what emerges in study and the decisive ruling stems from the development of Torah study in the direction of understanding the rationale, logic, and halakhic grounding of every position.

When I understand in depth why Rashi said this and why the Tosafists thought otherwise, why the Rif and the Rambam held thus and why the Ramban and the Rashba interpreted otherwise—the decision becomes harder, since “these and those” both make sense and fit the sources. When the choice is not between “right” and “wrong,” but between plausible and more plausible—the decision is harder, and in most cases one truly does not decide between the methods, but rather uses rules of decision in situations of doubt. One tries a priori to find the “path agreed upon by most decisors,” while in questions of Torah law one is more concerned about stringent opinions, whereas in matters of rabbinic law there is more room to rely in pressing circumstances on a minority opinion, and so on.

Thus a separation is created between study, in which one tries to understand all the methods without aspiring to decide, and halakhic ruling, which focuses mainly on deciding according to practical considerations in cases of doubt.

With blessing, Shatz Lavinger

Eilon, in order to develop such a method, you first have to create the conceptual world and apply tight axioms to it. You will have to chart “algebraic structures” and determine which categories include what and whom. I do not think such a task is inherently possible.
We are not dealing with quantitative entities and the relations between them, whose whole essence is their belonging to a set with one operation or another (after all, the elegance in mathematics you will generally achieve in the language of set theory).
Go gather all the statements, rulings, questions, answers, doubts, and build fields and vector spaces with operations that define precisely all the elements of the set.
But how will we know which element belongs to the set in the first place? And whether a given operation is reversible? (For example, the Ramban will determine that in one specific case an analogy between verses is learned one from the other, and in another case not, and the Rashba will disagree with him—so what about the other cases? Who decides?) Every such “construction” is arbitrary by its very nature—exactly like mathematics, except that at least this one has been proven effective in relevant calculations *for us*.
The arbitrariness in Torah will yield at most something resembling the Malbim’s 613 principles in Torah VehaMitzvah (an impressive and magnificent structure, but one that does not really solve and explain everything; its advantage is its internal coherence). Your method will be consistent, but only after a great deal of arbitrariness in formulating the axioms and in constructing the structures and operations.

Hello Ariela.
I am glad to read your response. Do not hesitate to comment. The Torah was not given to ministering angels. 🙂

Shatzel, this is indeed the description of the existing situation, and over this I weep. Analytical ability emasculates the ability and willingness to decide (as in the well-known story about R. Chaim who sent his questions to R. Simcha Zelig, and as is known, once he sent a question to R. Yitzhak Elchanan and asked for an unreasoned answer; these matters are ancient). Therefore one arrives at halakhic technology instead of decision. And whoever invents a rule gains the upper hand, though those very rules too originate in primordial chaos (that is, the nothingness that is not).

Rabbi,
This is one of your most interesting and enlightening columns. The analysis of the poem and the struggle between your interpretation and the truth and the author’s intention were nothing less than amazing and awe-inspiring.
It also helped me a great deal to understand the relationship between interpretation of the Torah and conservatism.
And let us conclude with “part of his praise” regarding the poetic poem he wrote in the comments on this post, which were sheer delight.
Admittedly there is not much value (if any…) to my compliments, especially since the rabbi does not know me, but I could not refrain from commenting on this article (post, in the foreign tongue).