"Open" Orthodoxy?

[metis]

First of all, not even all Orthodox theologies of Torah can be reduced simply to "inerrant and completely divinely inspired." It can be and often is more complex than that. And your divisions completely ignore Conservative Judaism and its wide spectrum of theologies and attitudes toward Torah and halachah-- to say nothing of its nuanced and flexible approaches to equality, and to science and history, and its open-minded approach to interfaith dialogue.

Rebbe Nachman, it's true, was visionary in understanding the emotional components of emunah and tefillah, especially in regard to teshuvah-- the lev in Breslev. And his emphasis on channelling hitbodedut into emunah and practice is rivalled only by Reb Levi Yitzchak's teaching on hitlahavut. But Rebbe Nachman would not have advocated anyone to transgress halachah, or to attempt to dispense with it altogether, or to try and move beyond it as a structural framework for keeping the people Israel together and giving them paths through which to focus the emunah and practice that their passion generated. Nor would he, who taught and wrote with exquisite thoughtfulness and wide-ranging brilliance, have consigned intellect to mere dogmatism.

It is a false dichotomy to present Jewish life and observance as either emotional or intellectual, just as it is a false dichotomy to present it as either joyful or halachically observant.

The set of goals laid down on the Aleph website are laudable, but wholly vague, both in general and in avoiding discussion of methodologies, formats and boundaries (save to note that it hopes to transcend them), and so forth. And the result is not only an effective chaos of what the vision of Renewal is (one acquaintance of mine is Orthodox, and claims the mantle of Renewal in essentially a neo-chassidic practice of prayer coupled with aggressive social justice work and thoughtful interfaith dialogue; another acquaintance of mine is nominally Reform, and claims the mantle of Renewal in her meditation practice, which includes mantras and chants that honor foreign gods, ownership and use of small idols she "venerates," and in her adoption of Native American dances and chants-- which also mention and call upon foreign gods-- into her prayer practice), but a de facto chaos of Judaism.

In practice, if not in ideal theory, Renewal sets no boundary to separate interfaith dialogue from careful syncretic borrowing from outright syncretism from simple avodah zarah. That is the chief error that my dear friend and teacher Reb Zalman (ztz"l) made, though I would be the first to acknowledge that he made it from all the best motivations. I think that he himself, having so utterly and completely internalized Jewish traditional practice and liturgy, and having such a sweeping mastery of Tanach, Talmud, Midrash, Halachah, and Kabbalah, forgot that most Jews did not have the background of traditional upbringing or the education and skills in traditional literature that he did, to keep them grounded in Jewish identity and tradition. And in his wholly laudable desire to seek the face of God in other people and in other traditions, he forgot that there is a difference between meeting companions upon one's journey and delighting to find that the stranger is not so strange after all, and stepping off of the path that is the dedicated way of one's own people and onto other paths that belong to people of other identities. Sharing wisdom and learning from others does not need to mean becoming other oneself. And the only way to prevent that is to guide and shape people's positive desires for renewal and reinvigoration of our own way with boundaries to preserve our identity while still valuing and appreciating the identities and ways of others.

Renewing Judaism is a good idea. So is recognizing the value and wisdom of other religions and cultures. And so is promoting equality, social justice, and the acceptance of science and history. But there are ways to do those things with thoughtfulness, carefulness, and an eye toward balance and the self-integrity of tradition and Jewish People. When those things are disregarded, or dismissed as dogmatism or intellectualism or stodginess or whatnot, or when they are offered as mere suggestions that anyone can take or leave in whatever degree pleases them, the coherence of Jewish identity, tradition-- of Judaism-- disintigrates. And what, in the end, is then being Renewed?

And I thought I was being wordy?

Anyhow, I didn't intend to get into an essay on complexity, that which obviously you're better equipped to handle, but was trying to communicate the general approach and where it was coming from and why. I didn't ignore the Conservative branch but included it as one of the reform branches.

My statement on Nachman was not obviously meant to be any kind of thorough biography, and I certainly wasn't proposing that he taught an abandonment from halacha. Nor did I create a "dichotomy" but, instead, tried to deal with a difference in emphasis that Renewal does that tends to be somewhat of a different approach from orthodoxy.

If a person uses Renewal to justify their polytheistic beliefs, they have abandoned actually what Renewal teaches, so one shouldn't be judging a book by its cover or an entire movement because there's some that take off on tangents.

One can keep an identity without being insular, nor do I feel comfortable somehow believing and professing that those of us in Judaism have all the answers. One studying other religions and maybe stealing some of their ideas to me makes sense. Are we to be so arrogant and insular that we strut around thinking we have the answers and pooh-poohing all other religious, or even secular approaches (I'm not referring to you, btw)?

Yes, there are risks associated with all the questioning and how different people may react to their questioning, but what's the alternative? Sooner or later each of us will make decisions on that which we feel is more correct. You've made your choice, I've made mine, others have made theirs. I'm not claiming my choice is right for you and for others, but it's one I've made based on what I "believe" (quotation marks to be explained).

If you can show me where I'm wrong in taking this route, I'd be appreciative. But before you do that, let me plug myself in to this fray as an example, which I'll do in a follow-up post.

Be gentile, I bruise easily.

 

[RabbiO]

Be gentile, I bruise easily.

Be gentile?

My friend, you need to rearrange your skirt. Your Freudian slip is showing!

(Before you say it, yeah, I'm bad.)

 

[CMike]

I heard about "open" modern orthodox Judaism recently, and was wondering if anyone could share any information or opinions on it, Rabbi Weiss, or his school for Maharat.

It's better known as Reform Judaism.

 

[CMike]

So I did a quick search on Open Orthodox and found a website with a very interesting article about Open Orthodox. It is, to put it crudely, Orthodox Judaism without all the stupid bits. Well, without most of the bits I dislike, anyway. It is a movement I can support, even though I am still rooted in the Conservative view of Torah.

It seems to me that it is an outward-looking, expanding Orthodox Judaism, rather than an inward-looking constricting Orthodox Judaism. The more I read about it the more I like it.

The "stupid bits" is what makes Judaism.

 

[metis]

Even though I leave myself wide open for criticism, which is all fine and dandy as I've been married for 47 years and gotten used to it, let me tell you why I really like the general direction that Renewal is taking.

As you're probably aware of, I'm a retired anthropologist. I was raised in a fundamentalist Protestant church that taught about the "evil" of believing in evolution, and I left that church in my mid-20's. To shorten the story, I eventually found my way into Judaism and converted about 20 years ago.

The issue of faith has always been difficult sledding for me because I'm a scientist at heart, and we tend to question just about anything and everything. The basis of science is to search for objective evidence, which tends not to be the same approach used in religious circles-- not to say that they two are somehow incompatible though.

Religion is considered to be one of the "five basic institutions" found in all societies both historically (as far back as we can tell from written records and/or artifacts), and currently. Therefore, I have studied religions found all over the world for many years, but I'm an expert in none.

Each religion tends to teach that it is the more correct one, has a better grasp on what God or Gods is/are, and also better knows what God(s) really expect from us. Now imagine going through roughly 50 years of studying this. Have an effect on me, with strong emphasis on the word "skeptical"? I never met a fellow anthropologist that said it didn't.

So, I struggled, and still struggle to an extent, to make heads and tails of this. Over the last 15 or so years, I've leaned pretty much in the direction of Spinoza, largely because I tend to think that God not only probably goes well beyond our ability to understand Him, but also that there must be something that ties Him into "Nature" (Spinoza's other name for God) itself, with that name being all-inclusive to the point whereas they're inseparable (pantheistic/panentheistic). Maybe we even have a "God gene", as some within my field have hypothesized.

Therefore, I tend to view "God" as more being a question than an answer, thus you've probably on different occasions seen me post "I don't know" a lot, and also "Whatever created our universe/multiverse I'll call 'God', and pretty much leave it at that".

How is this "Judaism" to me? Two reasons. One, is that I feel halacha is important enough to at least try and follow because it does make sense to me and, two, that Judaism is open enough, especially Jewish Renewal, whereas even a heretic and skeptic like me can at least somewhat fit in.

OK, now I'm getting as long winded as a rabbi I know, so I'll stop at this point-- plus dinners ready, and as important as you are to me...




Edited to correct some grammatical errors-- dinner could wait (sauteed talapia in butter, garlic, and olive oil, quinoa mixture, and a fatoush salad). So good!

 

[metis]

Be gentile?

My friend, you need to rearrange your skirt. Your Freudian slip is showing!

(Before you say it, yeah, I'm bad.)

Hey, there are some Jews who do believe I'm a "gentile", so maybe I've accepted it to the point whereas the Freudian slip is less than a slip.

 

[Eliab ben Benjamin]

The "stupid bits" is what makes Judaism.

One more vote for the " Stupid bits ", are they perhaps what we may call Tradition

 

[Rhiamom]

[QUOTE="Levite, post: 4174744, member: 20114In practice, if not in ideal theory, Renewal sets no boundary to separate interfaith dialogue from careful syncretic borrowing from outright syncretism from simple avodah zarah.[/QUOTE]

Yet again another poster expresses much more clearly what I was trying to say. Thank you, Levite.

My pagan friend is odd; she seems to regard HaShem as a masculine and feminine duality. I believe there is Kabbala teaching to support this, not that I have investigated. She worships only a feminine goddess though, which is either a pagan deity or the Shechinah, depending on how you look at it. She refuses to accept a masculine aspect to her deity. IMHO, this makes her plain and simply a pagan. I am interested in what others think.

She herself struggles with her faith, I think, in particular now that she is figuring out that her daughter, who she never taught as much about Judaism as even lighting Shabbat candles, is not going to have her coming baby circumcised if it is a boy. She will not have Jewish grandchildren because she did not raise her children to be Jewish. They will be raised strictly as pagans. And this bothers her, but she wants to lay the blame on Judaism rather than herself. I pray for her regularly.

 

[Rhiamom]

The "stupid bits" is what makes Judaism.

Really? How do you know what I consider to be the stupid bits? I truly did not think that social isolation, denigrating secular education, denial of science, and hating non-Orthodox Judaism was what made Judaism. Apparently you disagree? Or perhaps you did not bother to search on the term Open Orthodox and read the article on the website to which I was referring, and responded based on your own stupid assumptions?

 

[Rhiamom]

One more vote for the " Stupid bits ", are they perhaps what we may call Tradition

See my response to CMike.

 

[Levite]

While I wouldn't characterize it as "Orthodoxy without the stupid bits," if the Open Orthodox shoe fits...

Open Orthodoxy, contrary to some astonishingly ignorant opinions, is neither heresy nor Reform. It is the truest inheritor of the mantle of the original Neo-Orthodoxy of thinkers like the Shadal, Shimshon Refael Hirsch, Azriel Hildesheimer, and David Tzvi Hoffman. If great Orthodox thinkers like them, or like the Sridei Esh, or Chaim Dovid Regensburg, or Eliezer Berkovits were alive today, they would be Open Orthodox.

In the rest of the Orthodox world, Torah im derech eretz is getting pretty thin on the ground-- especially the derech eretz part. Open Orthodoxy is the last serious remnant left of a strong, vibrantly justice-oriented, passionately spiritual, halachically open and flexible Orthodoxy, in the face of a rising tide of charedism that aims for a black and white clad Jewish People under the Chatam Sofer's motto of "kol chadash asur min ha-Torah."

 

[rosends]

Really? How do you know what I consider to be the stupid bits? I truly did not think that social isolation, denigrating secular education, denial of science, and hating non-Orthodox Judaism was what made Judaism. Apparently you disagree? Or perhaps you did not bother to search on the term Open Orthodox and read the article on the website to which I was referring, and responded based on your own stupid assumptions?

I don't consider myself Open Orthodox but I don't espouse some of the things which you ascribe to non-Open Orthodox Orthodox Jews. So how does that work. I clearly don't have the "stupid bits" but I'm not "Open Orthodox." The four items you list were part of the defining ideal of "Modern Orthodox" just a few years ago.

 

[CMike]

Really? How do you know what I consider to be the stupid bits? I truly did not think that social isolation, denigrating secular education, denial of science, and hating non-Orthodox Judaism was what made Judaism. Apparently you disagree? Or perhaps you did not bother to search on the term Open Orthodox and read the article on the website to which I was referring, and responded based on your own stupid assumptions?

And that isn't Orthodox Judaism.

I got to a small Chabad synagogue. In the row in front of me there are about five doctors, primary and specialties.

Behind me there are more doctors, we have several neurologists, opthamtologists, shrinks, geriatric doctors.

We also have pyscists, lawyers, a female anestheologist, and so on.

Our little Chabad synagogue is probably one of the safest places to be in case of a disaster.

Obviously your understanding of Orthodox Judaism is very poor.

In fact I had a bad nosebleed issue Friday. I had to go to the ER. One of my friends from the small Chabad synagogue was an ER doctor there when I came into the ER.

It's greatest that you rely on the extreme leftists to define Orthodox Judaism. Keep up the great work

 

[CMike]

While I wouldn't characterize it as "Orthodoxy without the stupid bits," if the Open Orthodox shoe fits...

Open Orthodoxy, contrary to some astonishingly ignorant opinions, is neither heresy nor Reform. It is the truest inheritor of the mantle of the original Neo-Orthodoxy of thinkers like the Shadal, Shimshon Refael Hirsch, Azriel Hildesheimer, and David Tzvi Hoffman. If great Orthodox thinkers like them, or like the Sridei Esh, or Chaim Dovid Regensburg, or Eliezer Berkovits were alive today, they would be Open Orthodox.

In the rest of the Orthodox world, Torah im derech eretz is getting pretty thin on the ground-- especially the derech eretz part. Open Orthodoxy is the last serious remnant left of a strong, vibrantly justice-oriented, passionately spiritual, halachically open and flexible Orthodoxy, in the face of a rising tide of charedism that aims for a black and white clad Jewish People under the Chatam Sofer's motto of "kol chadash asur min ha-Torah."

It has nothing to do with Orthodox.

It's similar to Jews for Jesus defining what Judaism should be.

 

[Levite]

It has nothing to do with Orthodox.

It's similar to Jews for Jesus defining what Judaism should be.

You're embarrassing yourself. Seriously, that actually makes me embarrassed on your behalf.

 

[CMike]

You're embarrassing yourself. Seriously, that actually makes me embarrassed on your behalf.

That's very sweet.

I'll stick to what I said.

 

[Levite]

That's very sweet.

I'll stick to what I said.

Though I doubt it will make any difference, since to date, it never has, I will once again suggest that prior to spouting the most simplistic and abrasive form of whatever party line comes out of YU or Agudas Israel or Chabad or wherever it is you're picking this stuff up, you might wish to actually read some of what the Open Orthodox rabbis are writing, and some of their teshuvot, and try-- as novel and taxing as it might seem to be-- to think carefully about what you read and actually make an informed response.

 

[Rhiamom]

And that isn't Orthodox Judaism.

I got to a small Chabad synagogue. In the row in front of me there are about five doctors, primary and specialties.

Behind me there are more doctors, we have several neurologists, opthamtologists, shrinks, geriatric doctors.

We also have pyscists, lawyers, a female anestheologist, and so on.

Our little Chabad synagogue is probably one of the safest places to be in case of a disaster.

Obviously your understanding of Orthodox Judaism is very poor.

In fact I had a bad nosebleed issue Friday. I had to go to the ER. One of my friends from the small Chabad synagogue was an ER doctor there when I came into the ER.

It's greatest that you rely on the extreme leftists to define Orthodox Judaism. Keep up the great work

And had these professionals not got their secular education before becoming Lubavitch Baal Teshuvot they would probably not have these degrees. The late Lubavitcher Rebbe was quite opposed to advanced secular education for all but a few. You also are implying that Hasidic Judaism is the norm for Orthodox Judaism. It certainly wants to be, but it isn't.

Lubavitch is the least inwardly focused of the Hasidic sects, and I have great respect for them. In fact, I have visited the nearest Chabad location and spoken with the rabbi there at some length. We seem to understand each other, and he agrees with me on the subject about which we spoke.

 

[Rhiamom]

Though I doubt it will make any difference, since to date, it never has, I will once again suggest that prior to spouting the most simplistic and abrasive form of whatever party line comes out of YU or Agudas Israel or Chabad or wherever it is you're picking this stuff up, you might wish to actually read some of what the Open Orthodox rabbis are writing, and some of their teshuvot, and try-- as novel and taxing as it might seem to be-- to think carefully about what you read and actually make an informed response.

Yes. I bothered to search, and read something about Open Orthodox before commenting on it. I am very favorably impressed. All the negative comments I am reading are based on imaginary issues, not anything factual about Open Orthodox. How hard is it to look something up so you don't make a fool of yourself?

 

[Levite]

I don't consider myself Open Orthodox but I don't espouse some of the things which you ascribe to non-Open Orthodox Orthodox Jews. So how does that work. I clearly don't have the "stupid bits" but I'm not "Open Orthodox." The four items you list were part of the defining ideal of "Modern Orthodox" just a few years ago.

The thing is, Modern Orthodox isn't what it used to be. Fifty years ago, when the Rav was at YU (and chavrusa'ed on a regular basis with Saul Lieberman from JTS), and when Regensburg and Berkovits were at Skokie, and when nobody could tell which side of the movement divide Heschel fell on, and when Reb Zalman was still a progressive Lubavitcher, Modern Orthodoxy pushed a lot of boundaries.

There were still many Modern Orthodox shuls at that time that had no mechitza, or the merest token separation in seating. There were serious Modern Orthodox rabbeyim who were advocating for social justice-- including supporting civil rights and opposing the war in Vietnam, who were thoughtfully considering issues in hashgachah and shechitah, who were grappling in sophisticated ways (for their time) with bioethics, who were trying to find innovative ways to bridge some of the most important halachic issues dividing the movements, like conversion and aginut. There were serious Modern Orthodox rabbeyim who learned with non-Orthodox rabbeyim, who advocated welcoming and not judging non-Orthodox Jews, who were interested in interfaith dialogue.

But Modern Orthodoxy has gotten less and less Modern, and more and more subservient to charedi influence and authority. It's not that there are no more truly Modern Orthodox Jews left outside Open Orthodox, it's that they are increasingly few and far between, especially in my generation and those that have come after.

When I encounter such Modern Orthodox Jews, like yourself, I find them an altogether unexpected delight. I wish I encountered them more.