Q&A: Regarding Conservatism
Regarding Conservatism
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi
A. In an article I wrote, I included the following passage, and I’m interested in what you would say about it:
I’ll illustrate with an example, which I took from Rabbi Michael Abraham, who often uses it. Members of a desert tribe would wander through the hot deserts, dressed accordingly in short, thin clothing. In time, the tribe migrated and happened upon a very cold region, and a dispute broke out among the nomads. Some of them replaced their clothes with suitable winter clothing, simply because they were cold. By contrast, the elders of the tribe and others arose and sought to preserve their customs devoutly and to continue walking around in the dress of their forefathers despite the current climate. Between these two groups, another group formed that, like the first group, adapted its clothing to the climate conditions. But unlike that first group, they said that they were continuing the custom of their forefathers, who adapted their clothing to the climate around them. And just as they wore summer clothes in a hot environment, here one must wear winter clothes.
It is obvious that this is a demonstration of a simplistic division between Reform, Conservatism, and Orthodoxy, which is related to our subject, but we will not deal with that now.
For our purposes, let us continue this example and add a fourth group. This group would place itself in the camp of the Orthodox view that one should continue with the same clothing as one’s forefathers. However, the members of this group argue: you did not understand the clothing of the forefathers. True, physically their pants were short, but in truth they were also long — by the legal fiction of “extend it downward.” True, they did not have scarves, but between the edges of their hats and the hems of their robes there are not three handbreadths — by the rule of “joined gap.” And so on.
B. There is some attempt to establish an institute that will deal with religion and society, etc. Do you know any young people (for now, Haredim) with significant abilities?
Many thanks
Answer
Hello.
A. I didn’t understand the point of the fourth group. How is that different from the midrashic conservatives who adapt the clothing to the weather? One can offer different interpretive homilies to justify the change and see it as a continuation of the tradition, but there is no fundamental difference between them.
B. I don’t know any. You can try looking in the various WhatsApp groups. Good luck. [I assume you know the institutes of Bezalel Cohen and Yehoshua Pfeffer (who publishes the journal “Tzarikh Iyun”) and the like. To me this sounds very similar.]
Discussion on Answer
I didn’t understand even a single word here.
Explain to me in simple words what the fundamental difference is between someone who claims that the tradition says to wear clothing that fits the weather and someone who says that a short garment is long by the laws of “extend it downward.” These are just two different interpretive homilies of midrashic conservatives.
The difference is that the midrashic conservatives are aware of the change and explain it through interpretation. Then one has to discuss whether it is legitimate to derive principles that way and whether this is a correct interpretation. But if that is right, then clearly wearing short clothes really was an adaptation to the heat. And it could also be that even if they have heaters and houses, they still need to wear winter clothing — in order to continue the tradition. Though it could be not, because in the desert they didn’t have air-conditioning, etc.
By contrast, with the fourth group it is completely clear that when they went around in short clothes, those were not actually long clothes by some halakhic continuation. It’s just a cover for a principled decision. So people say to that group: just decide what you want to do.