Talkin’ ‘Bout Open Orthodoxy Part I

“Don’t think you’re gonna get a rock show. You were warned, this is an acoustic evening.” -David Thomas of Pere Ubu

So, I feel like I’m getting some sensory data telling me to “be more positive” in my approach to “why I’m converting with so-and-so.” Perhaps that’s true. But perhaps I can only be so specific and subjective, because what experience have I had with this so-called Orthodox community, anyway? (Still, big deal, you think Orthodox people don’t talk just as much about the liberal denominations without knowing anything about them? At least I’m objective.) For all I know, it might be just like our Conservative synagogue with separate seating and velvet kipot. Nonetheless, I have been using the measuring stick of my previous Conservative synagogue, because our rabbi was pretty strict and—all things considered—if I were to trust one Conservative rabbi with a conversion, it would probably be him.

Anyway, how am I supposed to say “I like such-and-such denomination because it, as a whole, has consistently and without fail treated me thus-and-so”? Impossible. You all know this.

That being said, I’m going to keep making claims about things which I have no real personal experience with. That’s called academia. Look, I learn this stuff all day in school, and you want me to keep it inside? Never! Luckily, the subject matter in my classes is such that if I happen to read, say, Avi Weiss’s publication on Open Orthodoxy, I can easily use it in an exam essay. Which I did. I was quite inspired by what I wrote. In fact, I recommend the article for anyone who wishes to fine-tune their position on what separates Modern Orthodoxy from the Right, if you don’t know these things already. Since it was written, so I PRESUME, during the very birthing pangs of Open Orthodoxy’s inception, it still primarily covers what today would be called Modern Orthodoxy as well.

I thought it might be good to outline a few ideological concepts that are theoretically keeping me from other waves currently going down in this ocean we call Judaism. My last post was pretty accusatory, I suppose, so just think of this as a sequel.

I know you people think that when I talk about Orthodoxy, I’m talking about these yeshivish people who don’t have TV’s and who think that it’s an aveira for women to read the megillah,* and while I also hate TV, this is untrue. I know that there is even a diversity within Modern Orthodox practice, and I won’t even begin to try to choose one given the situation, but that day will come. I know that Avi Weiss and Marc Angel are allegedly fringe figures or something, not sure why, but I’m quite comfortable in my belief that they aren’t being heretical—or worse, non-Orthodox! Let’s talk about why.

*(Apparently, even YU has women’s megillah readings.)

Kodesh ve-chol: There is a question of whether secular things can ever be made holy. For the right, there is a definite and unalterable distinction. It’s like two worlds. And to combine them would mean a disordered world. “Hol is studied to better understand the kodesh,” Weiss writes. It seems common-sensical to me that the rabbis thought otherwise. Maybe not; maybe things like chemistry and medicine were only considered good insofar as they help to understand the will of Torah. But if secular things—and most things are secular—are only to be studied to understand the will of Torah, then what do you do with the will of Torah, anyway? Where does all that “understanding” go? What are you understanding? What does the Torah will you to do—if all secular is going in, but Torah can’t go out?

I tend to think that the rabbis thought otherwise because I’ve read Jacob Neusner:

…For the rabbinic rule raises purity to a level of consciousness and importance without parallel in the ordinary life of Jewry in pre-Talmudic times, introduces purity and impurity into every aspect of the common life, above all, into the everyday meal.

The answer is that the Talmudic rabbis are heirs of the Pharisaic group which flourished one hundred fifty years before the destruction of the Temple in 70. And the Pharisees’ interest in purity was one significant part of their legacy to the post-70 rabbis, the continuators. Invitation to Talmud, p. 20

I always figured this was, you know, the whole point. I don’t know if I’d use those words per se, but this was my understanding.

Of course, if you stop making the distinction altogether, you come up with things like listening to Protestant Biblical criticism, which doesn’t care who they kill, to get answers about the decidedly un-Protestant Torah.

Da’at torah: I finally learned what this means. And when I did, I chortled. And that’s not a good sign in case you’ve trying to be Right, because allegedly this is a belief that was asking to be contested in an article on Modern Orthodoxy. In means, in effect, that the gedolim should be counted on for things like weather patterns and worldly knowledge and so on. I don’t believe this for one second. Mostly because—and this is politically incorrect—you think they’re getting college educations? All they know is Torah. That can go a long way, obviously, but Torah knowledge isn’t going to help with, say, astronomy. And hey, maybe Torah has an answer about astronomy, but I wouldn’t trust someone to tell me without first consulting an astronomer and then going back and safely saying, “Hey, you were right all along.” I say this because there are a lot of Talmudic statements that have since been refuted by science. And the rabbis came up with some very intricate scientific theories, too. I wish I could think of some at the moment. I trust the rabbis with the information they give knowing what information they had. That, I think, is the best you can ask. What I’m saying is: The rabbis aren’t infallible, and I don’t think to believe so makes someone heretical or not Orthodox. Decisions can be pretty set in stone, but no person is infallible.

Other denominations: Some on the Right believe that Jewish souls have more value etc., but I think this is a very warped view of chosenness, and is probably why reformers wanted to get rid of this perfectly valid concept. Likewise, some believe that it would be useless to even try to outreach to the lost causes of non-Orthodox Jews. Weiss calls outreach to non-Orthodox Jews an “encounter” from which Orthodox Jews can learn, which I don’t entirely agree with (mostly because I have become completely exhausted trying to associate to the lost cause Jews on my campus, and I don’t feel like I’m “learning” much at all). But Modern Orthodoxy is famous for its outreach efforts (LSS anyone?), and attempts to “come down” to the level of the unaffiliated or unobservant Jews they target. Pragmatically speaking, it’s good to attempt to reverse this old “there are almost no Jews left” thing that’s going on…but also, we don’t need any more divisions. Ignoring entire categories of Jews is just not very nice.

It doesn’t mean you have to pretend that you accept their practice as legitimate, of course. Why do you think outreach exists? I don’t entirely agree with the idea of an “encounter,” because that sort of implies that the two (say, Orthodox and Reform) people are going to leave basically where they began…both still confirmed in their own practices. The idea of outreach, even Modern Orthodox outreach, is to gently show the person what Orthodoxy has to offer, not to “learn from what Reform has to offer.” You don’t have to refuse to associate with other Jews in order to be clear that you find their denominations illegitimate.

Overall, it doesn’t sound very radical to me in theory. Weiss is explicit that this is not Conservative Judaism. I suspect that the controversy started when he ordained Sara Hurwitz and that news spread. As far as I know, the criticism of that was not that she was performing forbidden ritual functions, but the title itself. She’s since changed the title and formed a yeshiva about it. I sense that Weiss and HIR are controversial just for being known as being controversial. They have women’s tefillah groups, but women don’t read for men. That sort of thing. (Weiss wrote a very source-heavy book on the subject, which got some criticism from the right obviously. I haven’t read it yet.) Many Modern Orthodox moves get criticism from the right, though.

An “Open Orthodox” rabbinical institute formed in 2008—the International Rabbinic Fellowship—which garnered some opposition, most often the claim that it’s drifting ever-farther away from normative Orthodoxy. After all, it already has its own seminary and ordinations too! This is unfounded. First of all, I don’t think anything resembling the RCA will come of this. Indeed, the mission statement itself asserts the “right, responsibility and autonomy of individual rabbis to decide matters of halakha for their communities.” Next, do you know how the RCA got formed? It was formed in 1935 by young American-trained rabbis who were tired of the domination of older, less accommodating European-trained rabbis. How did the Rabbinic Fellowship get formed?:

Angel, who is a past president of the RCA, said he was particularly troubled by the growing notion that thinking and decisions about making rabbinic law were privileges reserved for a few eminent authorities, and by the idea that communal rabbis were supposed to make peace but not think — an attitude that he says has pervaded the RCA.

“The way they’re organizing themselves is around some rabbinical authorities — which are very few — and the rest of us are supposed to be sheep,” he said. [Forward]

Change is good when it is essential.

Next: “Why isn’t this Conservative Judaism, again?“