“Mitzvah culture,” tefillah groups, and the Conservative synagogue

written for a class on Jeffrey Gurock’s Orthodox Jews in America

It occurred to me that while some European immigrants were moving to what was then Palestine, the less-committed ones were those coming to America. So although America was likely a catalyst, the lack of observance among these immigrants “began well before they actually considered taking that first step toward America” (95). They were interested in political freedom and religious equality, not necessarily religious expression. The next wave of immigrants, escaping the war, were not especially motivated by those things, to say the least. (I think a person’s characterization of these immigrants can say a lot about him; for example, from Joseph Telushkin I learned that they were completely neurotic, compared to the less-observant normal/baseline previous immigrants.) Having come in during a period of contentment did not bode well with those already in America, and so it began.

It is not very hard to see that the possibility of feminism being the next contentious development in Orthodoxy is consistent with its history of internal dissonance. It is not surprising that feminism is being blamed for the ills of Jewry, nor that it is called a “chillul hashem” (289). Lately, the battle is being fought over women’s tefillah groups, but the problem could just as easily have been the mixed choirs or mixed seating that previously characterized conscious or unconscious splits from Orthodoxy. With that as a precedent, those who predict another split due to the feminist issue could very well turn out to be right.

Different groups have taken care of this issue in different ways. For example, Lincoln Square Synagogue began a kind of “resocialization process” meant for baalot teshuva (251). Although it is Modern Orthodox, its program is meant to emphasize “women’s role” in Judaism, which actually turns out to be relevant for the many women who “return to Judaism” out of a search for stability and family rather than for egalitarianism. The same language was actually used in this process as was used in the ultra-Orthodox Beis Chana house, also designed for baalot teshuva. (I recommend Lynn Davidman’s book as a sociological look at women baalot teshuva in both environments in the early 90′s. The two groups are really very similar in rhetoric and ideology.) Those who prefer this process would reject the opposition as perpetuating a “mitzvah culture” that doesn’t regard Judaism as a complete lifestyle, “women’s role” and all (258-60). There are “two flavors of people,” male and female (280). Specific halacha not required (also, specifical personality traits not required, apparently). “Halachic values,” such as unity of weltenshauung, are essential, rather than “halachic details.”

Interestingly enough, these words were used to argue against feminism and women’s tefillah groups (288). On the surface, it is easy to agree that the “values” of egalitarianism are driving such women, which may be true for less developed groups, but for what it’s worth, groups such as Shira Hadasha and Yeshivat Maharat (related to Hebrew Institute of Riverdale) have halachic sources and authorities available from which they derive their decisions. In fact, I might argue that they rely heavily on “halachic details” rather than “values.” In those groups that define themselves as “traditional,” one will not likely find “because it’s more fair this way!” as an argument, as one might find in Conservative sources.

Because technically nothing bars women from being rabbis but public acceptance of the title “rabbi,” a variety of programs have started to allow women to become more educated to the point where they could, in theory, be qualified to make halachic decisions. In the realm of niddah and other marital concerns, rebbetzins have been doing this already without training (283). It ends the “anarchy,” as a Rabbi Neumark once said while considering ordaining Reform women in a 1922 discussion. (“Women are already doing most of the work that the ordained woman rabbi is expected to do,” he writes, “but they do it without preparation and without authority.”) This makes me question the real seriousness of this “training,” but I suppose it’s a start.

"the practice of women praying is permitted"

As these two groups duel, strange things get said, such as “the practice of women praying privately is permitted, if not encouraged under Jewish law” (275), said by Gurock himself, or Soloveitchik concluding that although women may be permitted to pray in a group (not a minyan, mind you) only after they have fulfilled “lengthy philosophical criteria” which would be admittedly impossible “even for men” to fulfill (285). Women are treated as a special interest group now (302), and although this may have taken place before, now that it has the attention of everyone, women cannot do much of anything out of the ordinary without it possibly being seen as some kind of insurgency.

I’m not sure how secure the parallel is, though, between those already in America who were “less observant” and the “devout newcomers” (51); and between those for or against feminism. Something happened, which Gurock briefly mentions but doesn’t explain, around the 60′s and 70′s that led many people to see Orthodoxy as a viable alternative once again. Somehow, it was revitalized, and it was out of this that the women’s “movement” in Orthodoxy took place, as opposed to being a consequence of sacrificing observance for acceptance or Americanization. Of course, feminism is criticized as bringing “the ways of the gentiles” into Judaism, but in a way if it came about differently than did other changes (such as mixed seating), perhaps the outcome will be different as well.

Similar to how different groups deal with feminism, I thought the rabbis’ and official synagogues’ reactions to nonobservance may have had something to do with the synagogue-based culture that seemingly dominates today. For example, “rather than speaking sternly of halachic violations, the message was that it was just poor etiquette to behave inappropriately in public religious settings” (155). This is characteristic of the Conservative movement, which “did not criticize [congregants'] personal patterns of observance” (203).

When halachic observance is turned into “urging” and “insisting” solely for the sake of others in the synagogue, it implicitly encourages that kind of surface-level observance to remain inside the synagogue. After a few generations, I would be surprised if this conduct was not said to be characteristic of the Conservative movement. Indeed, “all that Conservative rabbis asked of their members was that they be regular worshippers” (203). With the idea that getting to and participating in the synagogue was of primary importance, the “driving teshuva” made perfect sense. However, with this idea also inherently comes the idea that observance is a “choice,” not something I’m sure some Conservative leaders would admit or appreciate, but in any case the “religious voluntarism undermines rabbinic authority,” also characteristic of the Conservative movement.

Basic Rashi Notes on פרשת בראשית

In 3:3, Chava says “Of the fruit of the tree which is in the center or the garden God has said: ‘you shall not eat of it and you shall not touch it, lest you die.’” That tree is supposedly the Tree of Knowledge, but the tree that’s actually “in the center” is the Tree of Life: “also the Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden (2:9)”, Rashi says: “In the center of the garden.”

In 4:15, God says “Therefore, whoever slays Cain! After seven generations he will suffer revenge.” Why is Lemech so worried about having killed him, even though he definitely knew about The Curse? More importantly, why does he tell his wives to heed his voice (4:23), Rashi says: “to comply with me regarding conjugal relations.” Not cause he was worried about how they thought about his morals. Oh, no. It’s not his guilt that’s keeping him up at night. Lemech is saying “I’m blind! I killed a man! Still, I am a man and I have needs! Don’t deny me for seventy-seven generations!”

5:24. Guess who was the first one described as being kal b’daato? (Well, besides women in general…which is ironic because Rashi says “women are light to be persuaded, and they know how to persuade their husbands” (3:15). It doesn’t make sense to me to be “light in mind” and still be able to persuade others easily. Shouldn’t all husbands then be equally persuadable? Logically speaking.) Anyway, it’s Enoch. Rashi says: “Enoch walked…He was a righteous man, but light in his mind, so that he might regress to doing evil.” I guess that’s not so interesting, but it’s one of those phrases that I suspect aren’t understood by most people who throw it around. Basically, it’s not just for women. That is all.

There is some wisdom at the end of parashat bereshit. (Or, as ArtScroll writes it, and as I’m probably going to start saying just cause I see it on every page, “parashas bereishis.”) Anyway, God reconsiders having made man on earth, and he was pained in his heart (6:6).

Anyway, Rashi says: “He mourned over the destruction of His handiwork. ‘The king was pained over his son.’ This I have written in response to the heretics: A non-Jew asked R. Yehoshua ben Karchah, ‘Do you not admit that הקב”ה foresees the future?’ R. Yehoshua said to him, ‘Yes.’ The non-Jew said, ‘But it is written, And He was pained in His heart [which means God did not foresee the consequences of the creation of man]. R. Yehoshua said to him, ‘Has a male child been born to you in your lifetime?’ The non-Jew said ‘Yes.’ R. Yehoshua asked: ‘And what did you do?’ The non-Jew said, ‘I rejoiced, and I made everyone rejoice.’ R. Yehoshua said, ‘But did you not know that his destiny is to die?’ The non-Jew said, ‘At a time of joy, [we behave with] joy; at a time of mourning [we behave with] mourning.’ R. Yehoshua said to him, ‘Such was the conduct of הקב”ה. Even though it was revealed before Him that their destiny was to sin, and to suffer destruction, He did not refrain from creating them because of the righteous who are destined to arise from among them.’”

Is it just me or does Genesis start out really weird and then gradually gets normal? It’s also kind of sci-fi that the characters still show up later, like there is a Nephilim reference when the spies went into Israel, there’s a Leviathan reference in the prophets I think, and the keruvim reference is obviously in the tabernacle.

A Politically Incorrect Guide to Christians

I’ve learned to become wary of Christians. I was pretty positive regarding them at first, and I thought that “well, although their religion seems pretty off, I suppose they are quite kind anyway and I guess if it’s done good for them, they’ve done some good charity work and stuff so Christianity can’t be that bad, consequentially speaking.” But that was then, and this is now (see above links). I used to think you could be pro-Christian and pro-Jewish, but you can’t. (Because you can’t be pro-Jewish and want to convert all the Jews.) You can “tolerate,” but that’s about it.

So, I found this picture, which is really representative of two things I basically suspect about Christianity. I know, I know, you have nice Christian friends who aren’t like that etc. but this isn’t about your friends, get it? I only know what I’ve experienced. That goes without saying.

Obviously, this picture is for gay rights, but it came from a website advocating the timely idea that “misunderstanding religion leads to homophobic attitudes.” That can be true more often than not, but I noticed that one popular way of showing that Christianity isn’t so homophobic after all is to show that just like shellfish and mixed materials are impertinent and outdated, so too is Leviticus 18:22. I’ve seen this many times. That’s annoying, but I get that they don’t get it. It’s not their job to know that that’s still an actual religion.

The thing that I don’t like is that Christians still want to take what they like out of Judaism and call them their own. My friend recently said “There’s a difference between Torah scholars and Old Testament scholars,” but the problem is when Old Testament scholars try to present themselves as knowledgeable Torah scholars, as if the Torah is theirs for the taking. They learn a couple words in Hebrew and call themselves experts (I recall a professor wishing us a “tova shana”). They try to separate the “cult” from the “ethics,” Judaism is “tribalistic,” it’s “unenlightened” etc. They don’t especially like the Torah the way it is. But they want it the way they want it.

Same for other things: the Catholic group on campus wants to co-host our seder. I have a Jewish friend whose group consists entirely of Christians, and she told me they “jokingly” say anti-semitic things to her like “Oh, do you have a lot of money?” And she is picking up their ideas of how “unethical” Judaism is, by exclaiming how unfair it was to kill the Egyptians etc. We shouldn’t fight in defense. Turn the other cheek! Where’d you hear that, again?

And the Christian groups love setting up debates and panels. They want to discuss our “shared heritage”…but, once we’re all sitting down…hey, have you heard that there is neither Jew nor Greek? Come be one of us! And Christians want to wear the Star of David. Christians want to compare Joseph and David (and basically everyone else) to Jesus. They like having license plates with things like 6 7DEUT on them. They like the idea of Jesus being a “rabbi.” They like the idea of Judaism. They just want it their way, without the Jews.

Out of this comes another similar thing I’ve noticed. There’s a sentiment underlying the text of this picture. It’s like when Christians (or anyone trying to use the Old v. New Testament to argue their point) say things like “the jealous, vengeful god of the Old Testament” or “the god of punishment of the Old Testament versus the god of love of the New Testament.” They are positive about the delineation between the Old and New Testaments, but what is the irony? These statements imply that there are two gods, the one of the Old Testament and the one of the New Testament. If God doesn’t change, how could it be any other way?

Christians have no problem looking at the “god of the Old Testament” with an objective eye, judging, and criticizing, and being glad they’ve got a new one now. They’re not going to say this or anything, but being in that Biblical criticism class with thirty freshmen and a professor who says things like “tova shana” made me realize how nonchalant they all were about it. They talked about stuff the ancient Israelites “used to do,” weird stupid things like tzitzit and tefillin. They tried to pronounce the Name of God with reckless abandon. (Encouraged, of course, by the fact the professor said it approximately twice per class, despite my cringing. Actually, maybe because of my cringing. He was jerky like that.)

And so I started getting the sense that it was all just as well to them, because all that existed in the past, “that god” existed in the past, “that covenant” existed in the past, “those Israelites” don’t exist anymore, and now they have Jesus etc. I don’t think they’d be talking about Jesus with such flagrant apathy and even scorn at times. Even if such a class started out jovial, they’d probably notice eventually what they were doing. But with the Old Testament, it’s OK. Never when I heard a Christian say “Yahweh” did I suppose they were thinking “This is my God I’m talking about.” This insistence on the demarcation between the “old god/old styles/old tricks” and the “new one” seems very dualistic, if not idolatrous. So does praying directly to Jesus or reading the Bible “in Jesus’ name” or doing things “in Jesus’ name.”

So there you have it. And that’s why I don’t do interfaith relations anymore.

The Jewish Catalog review/hagiography

written for a class

The Jewish Catalog is one of the best success stories that came out of the “religious voluntarism” that characterized the post-immigration period. During a time when each denomination was battling a growing ambivalence among its own constituency, this is the book they wish they would have written. It would have been especially relevant to Reform Judaism during the period in which it was decided on the un-divine origin of the Torah, but nonetheless held traditional texts in high regard.

The 60′s and 70′s were a time of increased sense of ethnicity and spirituality, which opened the doors for the possibility of this book. I am quite doubtful such a book would have been very popular in the 50′s. What is interesting, though, is the approach. It is one that may not even be successful today, as it focuses on particulars and we have more non-traditional liberal sources today to follow (i.e. “Debbie Friedman recommends this song…Gunther Plaut recommends that interpretation.”) The soul of the book would be crushed under all the “modern interpretations.”

In the section on the mezuzah, we meet Maimonides, Eliezer ben Jacob, and R. Tanhum; and the laws for mezuzah come from Kitzur Shulhan Aruch, hardly a liberal source. Later on in the section, we even learn about the mizrach. In the section on kashrut, we are warned that “the only thing to worry about [regarding fruits and vegetables] is that insects haven’t invaded your food” (19). Such concerns would not worry the typical Reform congregant today, nor would the list of approved hechshers, including the Orthodox Union, which has the word Orthodox in it. I do wonder whether a Conservative reader would find interest in a similar book had it been written today, although again, it may “seem” to be too Orthodox-leaning, ironically. Likely, though, it would gain most traction in “post-denominational” circles, or even certain “culturally Jewish” circles perhaps. I suppose this was its initial audience as well.

The book’s success is even more outstanding given the level of detail that might lead one today to claim it’s “too traditional” (again, very ironic). It focuses on how to do things correctly over esoteric commentary on “how spiritual it will be if you think about doing it.” Admittedly, it is a self-proclaimed “DIY manual.” “You should have two sets of dishes and two sets of silverware,” it claims. And “you absolutely need sink liners” (23). It only occasionally recognizes denominational division (24). Despite this, it’s quite socially liberal:

If you are female and want to try out a shofar, you might really freak out the seller, who, shall we say, may not yet have sufficiently raised his consciousness. You can dodge the problem by bringing a male friend along. But if you run into any difficulty, remind the fellow that the Shulhan Arukh (Orah Hayyim 589:6) specifically allows women to blow a shofar. (65)

I especially enjoy the timely section on How to Bring Mashiach. Some suggestions include planting a tree (preferably in Vietnam), sing “Lo yisah goy” at West Point while digging holes for trees with swords, “letting the female within you encompass the warrior within you,” and other various useful things (250-1).

The book has endured because, even today, it is one of the few avenues that people who cannot affiliate with mainstream institutions have available to them. It makes a person want to be Jewish, when faced with so many other options. It shows that Judaism is a perfectly interesting and even fulfilling alternative to popular options such as Buddhism or Hinduism or other smaller sects that apparently were popular in the 60′s and 70′s. I especially like it because it serves as a kind of model for a “post-denominational” community, which can do things like build its own sukkah, but do it within halachic guidelines, and without requiring a hierarchical leader. It gives people an ability to be self-sufficient. Moreover, it seems to regard both “culturally Jewish” and “religiously Jewish” groups as one (even in the juxtaposition of illustrations and photographs), so that the potential gap between the two is synthesized. That, particularly now, is essential.

“You were *meant* to be here!!”

I sometimes do things like read The Jewish Catalog and come away feeling like I should have been made a man living in 70′s Boston. Alas, that is not the case. And I think about this often. Everything would have fit into place! This happens a lot. If not that, I’m depressed that I had the “wrong Jewish parent,” or that we were raised with lukewarm religion since my parents never actually picked one, or I’m depressed that I’m tone-deaf, or that I don’t have European dual citizenship, or that I don’t know my family tree, or that I’m not living in 1978, which is a golden era for music as far as I’m concerned.

I’ve been doing this since I was, like, ten, when I once printed out a list of dental labs in New York so that my mom could find a job there and we could move back north and out of Virginia. I was always a go-getter. Maybe that’s why I can’t keep a job, either. But unlike then, when I felt free to go with these whims wherever and whenever, now I have people saying unprecedented stuff like “Maybe you were meant to be here!” Whoa. I can handle arguments like “You should stay here because it would cost too much to leave,” or “It would have sucked living in 1978 because the chances of you not being stuck in the south are still slim, and also if you lived in 1978 you’d be old by now.” Or worse, “You’re getting too old to have these whims.” But you can’t very well disagree with this idea that “Maybe you were meant to such-and-such,” because who can argue?

When I was an atheist, oh gawd, it was so easy. No one said stuff like “Maybe you were meant to be born a woman even though it totally sucks and TMI I don’t understand these ladies who are like ‘omg I’m so glad it’s my time of the month again, it’s a sign I’m not pregnant b”h I’m so thankful for this day’.” It just was. You didn’t have to worry about whether those jerks who think “Women shouldn’t wear menswear” means anything other than “Women shouldn’t carry guns” or worry about jerks who think women shouldn’t carry guns. You knew they were jerks and you knew you were right. And anyway, what did it matter?

It’s probably worse for Christians who think they’re going down if they do something wrong or whatever, but in any case it really inhibits your sense of carefree lightheartedness about life and your actions. It’s a lot harder to just straight up transfer when you think that maybe you ought to stay here for WHATEVER FREAK REASON. When I was an atheist, there were no reasons. I’d move. The only worry would be whether it would look really bad to have gone to four schools, and well if I was an atheist I’d probably still be trying to go to grad school for philosophy, so I might have gone to UVA actually.

Of course there’s always the possibility that what you think you’re “meant to be doing” is actually the safest thing. It would be stupid to transfer (get European dual citizenship, get a sex change, get music training and become a famous musician, convert to Orthodox Judaism, etc.) It also doesn’t make very much sense to think that I was “meant” to have the wrong Jewish parent and live in Nowhereville and go to a school with a self-destructive Hillel and be a radical feminist and still be “meant” to convert to Orthodoxy. Like, WTF. What a sick joke. I really don’t know what I’m “meant to do” or what it’s “supposed to mean,” and I also think that trying to figure it out is kind of naught. Cause you can’t, really.  Well, according to The Jewish Catalog you can. But I’ve been here for a year so far, and I don’t know of anything that happened to me that made me think it wouldn’t have been just as well had Stern College accepted me instead. I mean, I’m getting a full scholarship, and that’s good…but… “meant to”? Similarly, I don’t really see what’s so great about being a woman or living in 2012. I mean, there are some good things I guess, but I would have probably found equally good things in a different situation.

I still think to what my friend said about all that I have. I do have many things. But I am restless. It’s never enough. I don’t like people telling me to “Let go and let God.” How much of that, seriously, is just you “really thinking you should do this thing!!!” or other people telling you they “really know about this subject and really think you should be doing this thing!!!!”

You just don’t know. So F that.

Sounds nice, though.

EDIT: It can backfire, too, by the way. Like, I could be like “Oh, it’s raining today and I can’t go to the minimally-advertised Roommate Fair so I probably can’t live on campus. Guess it’s a sign that I should transfer.” Or, “OK, if I don’t make one more friend during this last semester, it will be a sign that I have nothing good left for me here and it’s a sign I should transfer.” It’s a sign. It’s a sign. Yeah, sure. “Having come to W&M and being given a free scholarship was a sign I should run away with the money.”

Man-Based Religion; or: The Female Pollution

Please note that -ism’s are not confined only to religion. It’s just most noticeable there cause I guess we “expect” more of religion, while simultaneously knowing that they can get away with it in the name of religious freedom and/or tradition.

For instance, we see classism when it’s necessary to be a synagogue member and participate in its various paid events, like Hebrew school, to get any religious rites or recognition. We see racism when the gabbai asks Russian-looking me if I want an aliyah, and doesn’t ask my German-English blonde friend. (I’m starting to see that this could likely be a defense mechanism since apparently so many Christians are flooding Jewish spaces lately trying to connect to their Jesus roots, and are often manipulative about it.)

And we see sexism when 1.) Women are expected from the outset to do less than they are obligated, and (or because) 2.) We see things like this:

180: That semen is ritually unclean and causes defilement. It is in effect in every place and every time. However, now that for our sins we have neither Sanctuary nor holy offerings, we do not need to be careful. Nevertheless, Ezra instituted the rule of ritual immersion…but for our time we have the ruling in the Talmud that the Sages nullified immersion. Hence a man need not refrain now from praying and studying, or even from putting on tefillin, on account of a pollution. Even the practice of washing, the Sages nullified. (But it is praiseworthy to do so.)

181: That a woman with the menses is ritually unclean and defiles others. It is in force in every place and every time.

182: That a woman with a discharge is to be ritually unclean and a source of defilement…the matter of keeping distant from them and their uncleanness is on account of the illness in them, which is greatly injurious to people.

183: That a woman with a discharge should bring an offering when she is healed, etc. This is in force when the Temple exists. (Sefer HaChinuch)

Now, let’s look at this. I know that medicine at that time was probably compatible with the idea that menses is an illness. And TMI, I’m not exactly disagreeing with the previous statement “no woman sees blood of the menses without her head and limbs being heavy on her” (§166). But earlier, the author writes that menses is indicative of an “excess” being present, and same for the uncleanness after childbirth. It’s interesting because the previous theory that I heard came from my Protestant Biblical criticism teacher, who said that niddah was a way of being “hyper-ordered,” so that’s why you couldn’t go near holy (i.e. ordered) things.

But who couldn’t notice the fact that different things get an emphasis? I don’t know why the Sages nullified immersion. But I find it pretty uninspiring that people are today claiming that women, for example, shouldn’t wear tefillin, because of guf naki, because they “don’t know when they will be niddah,” or because of “other discharges,” when men have no such concern, because of the Sages. Now, for something that no one really knows what it is, how does a ruling by the Sages, to advocate for male leniency, eliminate the need for guf naki, or more specifically, eliminated the need to think of male discharge as ruining a guf naki, when if you ask me seminal discharge seems pretty unclean (and is indeed unclean enough to warrant hand-washing in the AM anyway). Why? I don’t know.

While the author was so prudent to include that “we do not need to be careful because we don’t have the Sanctuary,” it still stands that women during Their Time still just as well “defile others”? Defiling others, I think, has to do with the ritual cleanliness that is connected to the Temple, and during a time when, niddah or not, we are all ritually unclean, what is the purpose of keeping this? I don’t entirely understand the idea of niddah with regard to intercourse either, in the sense that niddah-uncleanness is somehow different from all other types of uncleanness which we don’t worry about due to not having the Temple. But it stands.

It’s even explicit in §183 that a woman brings a sacrifice in Temple times when she has a discharge, and the discharge is connected to the menses itself (§182 ”so the matter remains: after the period of menstrual uncleanness, she has eleven days in which she can become a woman with a discharge. After those eleven days, she can never become a woman with a discharge until she has passed through seven days of menstrual uncleanness”). And so how does it make sense that “we do not need to be careful” about male discharge, but we do need to be careful about female discharge, and it follows then that we also need to be careful about menstrual uncleanliness? And how did it come about that women are therefore barred in some circles from doing certain things during their “pollution”?

In conclusion: If male discharge is connected to ritual cleanliness, and female discharge is connected to ritual cleanliness, and female niddah is connected to female discharge, and ritual cleanliness is connected to the Sanctuary, how does it follow that we no longer need to be concerned with the effect of male discharge on everyday life, but we still must be concerned about female niddah in everyday life? What is different about niddah? Is it really still about “excess” or “illness”? To be clear: I am mostly concerned with the everyday effects of this, rather than the intercourse prohibition during this time. People really do say women can’t read Torah or touch a Torah because of this. Women really did once refrain from praying because of niddah. People really do tell women they are prohibited from tefillin because of a vague sense that “they are unclean.”

Tzitzis sighting in: COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG, VA!

I was just in the bookstore, minding my own business, looking for some new headphones, when all of a sudden I see this guy with a white shirt and black pants and the first thing I think is “that must be an employee. Maybe he can help me find some headphones.” Then I see crazy strings hanging out the sides of his shirt, so obviously I think to myself “Must be some kind of employee’s apron.” So I went on my way.

Back downstairs, near the register, I spotted the same guy! It couldn’t be! But then I got closer. He looked a bit like Rabbi Ham, the Orthodox rabbi/possible Aish rep, so I got in closer (I know you think this sounds creepy but I’m good like that). No! It wasn’t Rabbi Ham! It was just some tourist! And behold, I spotted kippa! And behold, I looked closer and I confirmed, his employee’s apron was tzitzis.

Now, this is exciting to me because remember where I live. Recall that our rabbi once told me “You are the only person in Williamsburg wearing tzitzit.” Here! Here! I thought to myself: Why would orthos choose Williamsburg, VA? Why would anyone? Moreover, why did I put my Rashi sefer away? We needed to bond! I wanted to “accidentally” drop it and be like “oh, b”h it didn’t fall into a puddle,” then the guy would be like, “Oh let me help you” and that would be the beginning~

But alas, I just walked away speedily hoping he would see my WE WANT MOSHIACH NOW pin and then he would feel at ease knowing that others exist. Here. In Williamsburg, VA.

Then I glanced at his friend/wife/lady companion pushing a stroller, and naturally, my delight turned to anguish. Because I can’t just have a happy moment. Because I am a feminist. And being me, I wasn’t depressed about the normal thing. I wasn’t depressed over the stroller. I was mostly depressed because that lady looked so utterly plain that I was quite disappointed in the fact that had that guy not been there, I would have taken her for a regular lady. But seriously, it was so regular. That guy had like a cool uniform. But obviously ladies are too “spiritual” to “need” to wear a white shirt and black pants and tzitzis and the employee’s uniform etc. Just wearin’ a plain grey pencil skirt, no big deal. Men always get to look like they’re a part of something. (I also hate ladies’ business fashions.) Even ladies’ sheitels, the most interesting part, makes hair look SO NORMAL?!?! (Or as my sister would say, “Caucasian.”)

Maybe it was exacerbated by the fact that I’d spent the morning before class ruminating on why ladies are so regular all the time. Like, even in science, they say that psychologically men are more likely to be “at the extremes,” so that’s why there are more men with autism than women, and likewise more geniuses who are men than who are women. They’re just there to take care of babies and people. It’s like when you put my stupid cat somewhere she’ll just lay in whatever position you put her in. A lady’s just like “oh a baby, let me just whip out my maternal instinct.” But men have varying reactions to things like babies. You can never tell. But with ladies, you always know you’re going to get a reaction out of the following things: Dogs, babies, and marriage. It’s just…regular.

And then, cause I’m kind of an asshole just in general, I thought to myself, “I wonder if that lady would even be fun to hang out with. I bet if I was a man I’d hang out with that guy and talk about stuff like the sugya and our bright futures, but if I hung out with that lady, it’d probably be all about lending me some recipes and I’d be like “let’s go daven” and she’d be all “oh, I don’t daven,” and I’d be all “so the daf today, man” (LOL @ me reading the daf) and she’d be all “oh I don’t read the daf” and I’d be like “You are just a regular lady! I can’t relate to you.” I can’t relate to most women, anyway.

But anyway, the whole spotting left me feeling violated. It was kind of horrible seeing actual Orthodox people knowing I was just playing the game. Man or not, I know we wouldn’t have actually bonded over anything. I’d start stuttering and then he’d be like “Are you OK, little Reform girl?” And then they’d go home and have real Passover and I’d go home and try to learn that thing where you remove the chametz with a candle and try not to feel totally lame but do it anyway.

Rava Say Relax

You know, the internet can be a pretty dangerous place. I’m pretty certain most of my readers know by now what I’m referring to, so I won’t recount the details cause I don’t think it needs another trackback. But I’ll admit that I’m naive and never thought something could blow up in such a way. And suddenly, everyone was taking sides! Making accusations! Making statements about how they weren’t making accusations! Even I’m slightly embarrassed by the fact that I’m partially connected to the wreckage by, like, three degrees. My first inclination was, like human nature I suppose, to get involved and argue in the comments and things like that. But as it went on, and as more blog posts were written as commentary, fueling the flames (this one included now lolol)…I started to realize that it’s really, really easy to get off track.

I’d been doing it myself…I’d been doing exactly what people on the other side had been doing; latching onto what I don’t like about other denominations and writing polemical essays based solely on a mélange of found examples. And using unwitting individuals as paradigmatic pawns. And worse, turning a small, semi-private affair into a big public spectacle for no good reason. And as I saw the implosion go down, and I saw how much anger and derision and explicit sinat chinam went into a simple blog post, and I thought to myself “I can’t become this person.”

I know that the writer of that post supposes the “exposure of Orthodoxy” (a common theme) is beneficial in the end, but in that post, into which so much effort was exerted, I saw a kind of coarse hatred and revulsion I’d never seen before, thrust suddenly into the limelight. It’s been really affecting me since it was posted, and not only in all the mitzvos broken in order to tell the story the writer wanted to tell. But because it spun off into such a thing, and because it was so hard not to look.

When you’re online, it’s too easy to start naming names and saying things like “I know I shouldn’t say this, but…” “I’m saying this because this information will help expose the general practice,” or “So-and-so shouldn’t have said thus-and-so, he shouldn’t even talk cause he once did this-and-that.” I was appalled by how many people spoke lashon hara while simultaneously claiming to be against someone else’s lashon hara. I know I’m no better, and this whole affair was probably the primary reason I decided to start trying to study more. Cause, frankly, I’m wondering if THIS post isn’t lashon hara.

Someone made a wise comment on the importance of tznius in these kinds of situations, and not throwing your business and your gripes out into the street at the expense of others. Even if you’re entirely in line technically (which according to my current read, sefer hachinuch, I believe I am when I criticize Reform cause I feel it’s bringing people away from Torah but not always so I admit I have to think about that too), you still have to ask yourself: Are you embarrassing someone? Are you causing someone distress? Are you publicly shaming someone whom you know won’t heed your well-intended suggestions? Are you publicly shaming someone who is like a tinok shenishba and doesn’t know any better? Is this a chillul hashem; are you making Torah look bad? Is what you’re saying actually helping anyone? I think one reason that post affected me so much was because I know–honestly–that I’m not above that kind of spiteful rhetoric quite yet, though I suppose I thought I was. I thought there had to be something that sets apart my actions from someone who doesn’t feel guided by mitzvos.

And also, when you say stuff, I recently realized, there are larger considerations. When you publicly denounce something the “Orthodox” do (needlessly, that is), obviously you never know what lost soul is hearing what you say and thinking “You’re right, Torah sounds dumb and outdated.” That’s one reason I really dislike when rabbis tell their congregants things like “Don’t listen to Rashi, he was into magic.” “Urim and tumim, that was put in by the priests so they could tell people what to do.” “It’s OK if the mezuza scroll isn’t kosher, *some people* are just neurotic and will pay $50 extra for one.” “Gemara is just nitpicking.” “Don’t read that; it’s Orthodox.” Do you think that will get people to want to learn Rashi; into being interested in urim and tumim; into being likely to have a kosher scroll; learning Gemara?

But I also know, as far as I’m concerned, that I’ve also been drawn into the indignant observer role, and it’s good for some things, but it’s also pretty consuming. You can spend your time gawking as others go down in flames or you can spend your time improving yourself. Just like how you can study Torah and use what you know to denigrate others, or you can use it to save the world. Pick one.

“Rava said in Berachot 17a, “The goal of wisdom is repentance and good deeds, so that one should not study Torah and Mishnah, and then despise his father and mother because of their ignorance…”

Hanging Out With Rashi series: I. Preliminary thoughts

I can’t help but compare this to the Torah study at the Recon synagogue. Every time I read something, I think about what they would say it means. So obviously, all you have to do is read the first line and already the first word has a problem, which I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. But I’m just imagining if the people at the Recon synagogue found out the first word is a construction, they would probably say “oh, translation error. Scribal error.” My Protestant Biblical criticism teacher, not surprisingly, would say “scribal error” for sure, as well. But behold, look what happens when you don’t go that route, which is a really easy route if you ask me, you get something like this. What happens what you don’t say “oh scribal error”? Three pages of answer.

Lol “scribal error”…

There is Another Way

Last summer, I wrote this innocent post on how I felt about people who were 1.) Brazenly breaking halacha with reckless abandon, and 2.) Converting with no intention to ever keep the mitzvot.

Then I came to my little pop. 6,000 school and witnessed this in the flesh, an entire community, indifferent, blasé. Then as our Hillel leadership turned over for the year, word got out that some people on campus really were interested in more religious programming. Some people weren’t happy with Hillel having come to be synonymous with Laser Tag and free pancakes. And I regained hope. The new Religious Affairs director began starting out Hillel Shabbat dinners with “the blessings,” which is a small but mighty beginning.  They also let the Orthodox rabbi back on campus, who brought an online college-based Aish program with him, and online I can see that a lot of the participants in that program are AEPi party central guys. (Next week’s program is supposed to be “Who ~really~ wrote the Torah?!” They are truly ambitious.)

Meanwhile, this past year I’ve been trying to understand my fellow students. I never tried to understand those Reform Adult B’nai Mitzvah convert people last summer. I was surprised by how laid-back I was in my post last summer, maybe cause the situation wasn’t really close to me, and anyway I figured “oh, they’re all old, let them have their fun/religious fulfillment.” But this is different; it’s my school and people my age and people who are really–just like me, actually–on the cusp of being able to go either way, depending on the circumstances. When I first came here, I was pretty observant. Then I stopped and had a couple of months of introspection. I started to see how easily anyone could get by being unobservant.

And then a couple of days ago I got a flashback of being at the Student Activities Fair when I first started art school in Chicago. Seventeen. I’d moved to the city to be a musician and perhaps a theater major. My identity was bound up with being an atheist. My only goals were to make “cool” (in Chicago this means hipster) friends and get inspired to write some great songs. My heroes included such towering figures as Lou Reed and Man Ray. So when a friend and I wandered past the Hillel table, I glanced. I’ll admit I glanced. I just remember not wanting to be seen being interested in the Hillel table. I didn’t even stop to see if there were free things. Religion, especially Judaism, was entirely embarrassing. When someone asked me in high school if I was Jewish (“you look Jewish”), I said “my dad is.” It was just not a very interesting topic. (It’s like in middle school when I was too embarrassed to let people know I was part Russian or Lithuanian.)

So when I think back to that, I can understand how a lot of people are probably approaching our Hillel and our programming. Most of those kids are probably Seventeen Laura, not Twenty-One Laura. And even the ones who are interested in the religion part are not nearly at the level of Twenty-One Laura, who concurrently reads Sefer HaChinuch, Rashi, and a book called “Guide to Halachos Volumes One and Two.” When I was seventeen, I didn’t want to hear about God or covenants or prayer. (I was too enlightened for that. I enjoyed such things as making fun of Leviticus, reading Nietzsche, and liking the Documentary Hypothesis.) I would have liked to hear about how Judaism was different from Christianity, how hella punk it was when you think about it, or how and why it could be a real alternative to the other worldviews I was considering at the time, including such classics as Buddhism and Existentialism.

I think I would have been open to the details once I was into the general idea (actually, I think that’s how I started getting into it when I was nineteen), once I decided it was a good idea. All I really wanted was a real, stable lifestyle. I would have been prepared to do the same for Buddhism or Existentialism. I mean really, my first semester in art school I started considering theatre and playwriting a sort of lifestyle. I wanted something I could give to, you know? I think people are looking for that, even if they can’t put it into words. Everyone’s looking for something, and they don’t think they can find it in Judaism, and when you aren’t or fear calling yourself religious it’s just impenetrable, and so they don’t try.

And so when you present Judaism as a bunch of rules, particularly if you present them as an optional array whose sole purpose is to make mankind ethical and/or happy, it doesn’t look like a stable lifestyle for someone like Seventeen Laura. I wanted to pick one thing; I didn’t want to think “oh, lighting candles, that is so spiritual, bringing in metaphorical light to my household.” I was more ready to think “Judaism doesn’t make me believe in a person who is a god, it doesn’t make me love my enemy, it stands up to enemies, and those boring stories about the desert somehow have merited layers of commentary–why is that?” I would only think halacha was important after I decided the whole thing was worth doing.

***

There’s a way Judaism can make sense without seeing it from the traditional viewpoint. You can find something in Judaism without being interested in the traditional commentaries, the more intricate laws of kashrut, or Hebrew; and without worrying about the stranger things like brachos over rainbows and chalitzah and hagalah and aggadah.

But embracing all those things, especially the strange parts, all of it, is an entirely different experience. It’s definitely different to read the taryag mitzvos and being interested in how “beis hamikdash mitzvos” were re-interpreted to be applicable today, than it is to read those same mitzvos and say “look at all these inapplicable mitzvos, look at all these unimportant, disposable bits.” I’ve done it both ways, and although I still liked Judaism when I looked at it from our modern haskalah perspective, it was nothing compared to what it’s like when you take the whole thing as one indivisible concept. When you go from one to the other, your whole mind shifts. It’s quite frightening.

So I can’t be bitter about the people I’ve known who don’t believe in all of it. How can you demand belief?  I feel sort of bad for them because they don’t know what’s out there, whether because they intellectually can’t make a leap or because where they are in life (or even fear) prohibits it. After all, those people in the Reform B’nai Mitzvah class I wrote about last summer were just following what they believed Judaism was. And moreover, when I was nineteen, seeing the story of Noah as “two separate sources, one priestly source” was the only way I could read it with integrity at the time. At the time, I was just glad I’d found a way I could read it.

I was talking to one of my non-Ortho friends the other day, and she said she was jealous of me because it’d be so much easier if she could just accept Orthodox belief. Instead, she finds she has to question every piece of halacha and the authorship of Torah. I used to think it must be really easy to be non-Orthodox, but I can see what she means. I have the original text message I sent to her; I kept it because I thought it captured my sentiment pretty well:

“I can imagine [our rabbi] saying how unreasonable it is to believe in sinai. But like if you’re reading torah with the mindset that’s how God actually wants you to live etc. that is so fucking amazing it makes up for the inconvenience of being ortho.”

Then we read Ex. 28:17 in Torah study class, reading about the four stones on the ephod, and some commentator (it was Etz Chaim, so it was probably Hertz or something) said the four stones correspond to four types of Jews: the ones in the swamp of despair, the ones who are kind and do good things but don’t really have a great divine relationship, then the ones who do have a pretty good relationship, then finally the ones who are so in touch with God it’s like how can they even leave their house. And then it said at some point everyone is at one of these stations in life, and everyone will leave that point, and for everyone else it is equally so.

I know personally I’ve been in the swamp of despair, when I thought it wasn’t worth it anymore, and I’ve been on top too, when it seemed like I just always did everything right and God was throwing unicorn dust on me 24/7. But I realized that you never know when you’ll be back down or up again; so how can you judge others there? Or those who are still in Plato’s cave and haven’t realized there is much more beyond Hertz and Plaut commentaries? You’ve been them. I mean, I know enough to get out of the cave but I wouldn’t even consider myself out in the sunlight yet.

That was right before spring break. Then I started learning Torah myself (to be specific I’m starting with taryag mitzvos), and it was like a lifeboat. I decided that if I could finally get it just from the four stones on the ephod, maybe I should keep looking in the same place for answers. It will save you from drowning in the world of relativism and wondering what makes someone a ‘good person.’

You don’t have to rely on a syncretic amalgamation of secular ethics, Christian ethics, received platitudes, and a bit of Jewish tradition as well. There is another way. And, I think, if you stop at the surface conception of Torah (i.e. “lashon hara is just another word for gossip; it’s no more detailed that that”), it’s like you’re going to be stuck in between dreaming and awake forever. You’ve only gone halfway. Layer after layer, wall after wall. There is always more, there is always more after.

Wise words are wise series

What is Reconstructionism? with Rabbi David

LOL @ no one reading my last post. You guys are bad Catholics.

Here is an interview with Rabbi David Katz of our Recon synagogue here in Williamsburg. He didn’t want me to publish it in the school paper, because he thought he sounded bad, but I think it sounds perfectly fine. This is verbatim, by the way. I think it gives it a spontaneous air.

What is Reconstructionism?

There are two answers. Answer one: It’s somewhere between Reform and Conservative. Answer #2 is generally speaking it’s where practice level is closer to Conservative but social-political attitudes are generally more Reform and progressive. It’s generally sociopolitically progressive. Usually progressive people who are interested in holding on to practice and finding ways to revalue traditional Jewish practice. Instead of saying, “These things are alien to me as an American, so let’s just not do these things,” so that makes services shorter, because too much is too much. Right, instead it’s prioritizing particularism as something that makes you unique. “Let’s do all this stuff because it’s neat and it’s part of our heritage.” And the things that bother us or we have a conflict with, let’s see if we can understand it. And if we can’t, let’s see if we can change it.

Originally Mordechai Kaplan was working for a lot of people for whom intellectual integrity was something they needed. They didn’t want to say “King of the universe” if that wasn’t a concept that worked for them spiritually. It’s something about the divine presence, I’m not looking for monarchy. That would have been more relevant language 200 years ago.

Would you say change is an internal demand or something external like “This isn’t convenient”?

It depends. I don’t know if I would have accepted that answer 20 years ago. Part of me would have said, “How come there can’t be absolutes?” What are the limits? The truth is, you kind of know them more as you get older. You can sense this is too far or this is too much. But that’s hard to structure communally. In the original Reconstructionism High Holy Days prayer book, he got rid of Kol Nidre, and it didn’t stick, people didn’t like it, so he put it back in. It’s a balance of intellectual integrity and tradition.

One of the things Kaplan said, ultimately, “Judaism is what Jews do.” And this is truth; this is what happens whether it’s something that is good, bad, or indifferent; and that’s why Judaism has survived this long. It’s why a relative minority continues to thrive and exist, where other cultures haven’t. Judaism isn’t inherently inflexible. It isn’t inherently monolithic.

There have always been different movements and different ways of experiencing it. So this has always been done. So it ends up being a balance of internal and external. One of the things Reconstructionism also does is emphasize community, and it emphasizes working together with community. It de-emphasizes some of the autonomy, like Reform does, like “Eh, do what you want.” The Reconstructionist practical reality is “You do what you want, but I’m assuming you’ll have a reason and you thought it through.” I eat poultry and dairy together, and I can tell you why, and it’s really simple. I have my own version of kashrut and I can explain why I do it that way; and all of that together makes my life better, and other stuff didn’t.

Kaplan had this thing about behaving, believing, and belonging. This was kind of a sociological analysis of religion. These are the different ways you can connect with religion. Behaving is what Conservative Judaism emphasizes. The meaning comes from having a boundary like that that you’re strict about, 6:23 [candle-lighting] you know, hechsher or no hechsher. Intellectually, I understand the value of the boundaried life, it doesn’t work for me. Reform in its purest form emphasizes believing. Ethical monotheism, you know, the world should be a better place. It emphasizes the prophets; be better, do better. Reconstructionism emphasizes belonging. Here’s the community, you’re drawn to Judaism, and ultimately it’s so much about community.

Judaism doesn’t sustain itself at the very least. Trying to live a Jewish life alone doesn’t work. At some point you give up., because it’s about community. So belonging comes first in the Reconstructionist vision. And you give of yourself into the community. You’re gonna give your idea and your vision, and your expertise and your interest. This is where you get communities where some people are into tzedaka or social action, and some people are into prayer and some are into study, because human nature actually is that we express spirituality in a number of ways. If ‘King of the world’ turns you off, you might want something else.

Interview Series: Father John David Ramsey, W&M Catholic Chaplain

Is it important for the Bible to be historically accurate?

The Catholic perspective on the Bible is that there are intrinsic to the nature of a holy text, multiple layers of meaning. If you think about it this is true of many forms of literature—for example, you can read a play of Sophocles or Shakespeare and you can read it for its historical interest. You can learn a lot about Elizabethan or Greek society by reading those plays, and that’s interesting and helpful and positive knowing all of that for fully engaging the play. But people still perform Shakespeare’s plays or the Greek tragedies because there’s more to it than that, that there’s something in those texts that speak to us as human beings. If you apply that the the Bible, texts understood to be given to us by God through human hands, and through the inspiration of those texts, they provide the guideline for Christian living.

What that means is that the historical aspect is very important. From a religious standpoint, what matters as well is the fact that God continues to speak through these texts. So when the gospel writers were writing their gospels, they were certainly aware of historical facts, but they were more interested in drawing out the deeper meaning of Jesus’ life. There were layers of meaning, and the writers weren’t trying to write a modern biography. They were trying to elucidate what happened in Jesus’ life as they understand it after his resurrection.

Is the Old Testament essential?

It’s absolutely essential. For Christians, it’s not just the first 3/4ths of the Bible that you get through to get to the good stuff. Everything about Christianity is completely rooted and participates in the Old Testament story. When we speak of an old and new covenant it doesn’t mean “old” as in “we can forget that.” It means that the old covenant has been taken up in Christ and made new. And the parameters have been expanded, and there’s this new universality to it. Christians understand that Christ is the fulfillment of everything that has come before. The New Testament attests to that fulfillment in Christ. But it’s not new in the sense of leaving the old behind.

So would you say the New Testament is showing how the Old Testament was fulfilled?

Exactly. It’s an interpretation and understanding of the Old Testament in light of Jesus.

Is it important for the Old Testament to be historically accurate, like the Exodus or Genesis?

Sure, but in almost the same way as the New Testament’s historicity. it’s important to remember that the New Testament was written over a period of 50-60 years. the Old Testament was written over a period of probably six to seven hundred years. So what happens is that there is a process of editing and amending the documents of the Old Testament over time so they continue to expand in meaning, like someone gives you a text and says “This is what happened,” and as they keep experiencing the presence of God in their midst, they can add more layers of understanding. It’s simply harder to investigate the historicity because of lack of historical evidence after more than two millennia. The historical quality is very important, but Catholics do not believe that it must be absolutely accurate in a modern, historical sense.

It’s like treating a poem like a physics textbook. The creation accounts in Genesis are poetic expressions of the true way that God created the world. You know, the Big Bang theory and all of that is a scientific explanation of the same thing. I find them complementary. Some of our Protestant brothers and sisters say that you should read Genesis like a science textbook. For Catholics, it was never meant to be read that way. It’s true, because it’s revealing true things about who God is and how He loves human beings. But the point of those stories is not a scientific account of creation. The point of those stories is that God created out of love, and that He created unique human beings as an object of His love.

What challenges are facing Catholicism?

That’s a good question. I think you can sort of see it in two sets of things. One is an internal challenge, growing in holiness and growing in faithfulness. The Catholic Church on every level is made of human beings, quite capable of failing and sinning and doing the wrong thing. And in the last few years with the sex abuse scandal—it was proportionally a small number of priests, but that’s still completely unacceptable—the fact that some figures in the Church hid it, it was hidden by some people, caused great damage; a great sin that caused great damage to the Church. But Christ is larger than that. And it’s a challenge that we need to face and do continue to face. Not just that issue, but any time there’s something in the Church that isn’t Christlike, that needs to be brought to light. If you read the Scriptures, the Church has always been a mess, but its a mess that Christ has chosen to be with, to work through, to draw to himself. So the holiness of the Church has to do with Christ being there, helping us to be holy, not because we’re always the best of people. But there’s that, the ongoing struggle internally.

The other thing that the Church is facing is that we’re in a time of growing secularism—and secularism doesn’t just mean non-Christian; it means unreligious in any way. That means that many, many people think that science and what’s here now is all we need, “I can figure it out for myself, I don’t need any notion of God” and they think that if there is—if there were—no God, it would be fine. I think it would be depressing, you know, but you could do that. But what we find and what a lot of religious people see is that the world is becoming more and more materialistic, more disinterested in transcendent good, transcendental notions of truth and beauty and love. So we’re becoming very turned in on ourselves, very here and now, and very uninterested in anything beyond ourselves in terms of the transcendental realm. And that’s destroying our humanity, because we’re more than that, we’re more than just materialist consumers. And this is not just a Christian view: in world culture, this is one of the rare times when there’s been a decreasing interest in any religious impulse at all.

So the Catholic Church, which believes that knowing God and loving God and being loved by God is essential for a beautiful human life, the challenge for us as Catholics is to live out on every level a witness that says God is loving, God is good, and He has beautiful things for you, and He has true freedom for you.

The Catholic Church, especially among people who don’t care for the Church, they say it’s restricting; you have to check your mind at the door; that you are not allowed to think; and A. that’s absolutely untrue, and B. when I was a college professor I used to tell my students, “Go be a Zoroastrian, go be anything, but don’t be a secular humanist because its so boring.” And it really is! It’s terribly constricting in terms of imagination in a way that Catholicism or Judaism or Islam is not. When you accept a transcendental realm everything takes on a transcendental beauty, a meaning beyond something just sitting there.

Science and the Catholic Church. People say, “What about Galileo?” Well, that was a bad moment. The Catholic Church has always been pro-science, but pro-science with God.

I’ve always thought of it as ‘Science tells you what, but religion tells you why.’

Exactly. That’s exactly the traditional distinction.

I guess we should talk about CCM [Catholic Campus Ministry]. Is it hard to engage students?

It’s really not. We probably have about six to seven hundred people involved in some level or another. There’s no demand—nobody’s forcing the students to go to Mass; to be involved in things. CCM has so many different aspects, from outreach to missions trips to the liturgy to fellowship meals and all that sort of thing, that it reaches far more people than is obvious. Many people come because they were involved in their church as Catholics growing up and its just a natural step to be involved. And it’s student-run, so students know they have a role here. Other students come after a year or two years, and do the typical college thing and don’t become involved…but then they realize something’s missing. Many of our students are also involved in service or campus life, but they find something here that is essential. So we don’t have to work to get students’ interest. We always try to do things that will draw people in…

But you don’t have to program to get people in.

No. Obviously our programming is oriented toward students, but we’re not sitting around wondering how to get people involved in the sense that it’s a problem. We want more people involved because we want more people to experience this joy, but not because we’re starving for new members.

What’s a day like for you?

Half the time I’m at CCM, and half the time I’m the associate at St. Bede. So I split my time. But a typical day here: there’s Mass every day that I’m here, and confessions most days that I’m here. And we have staff meetings for the CCM staff…but the great majority of what I do is meet with students, students who want to come by once or on a regular basis, who want to talk about their faith or grow in faith. Or who need somebody to talk to, and outside of Mass that’s the thing that I most love.

I so respect college-aged people because you’re living in a world that’s a little overwhelming, especially W&M students. I admire their openness, their tenacity, their willingness to ask questions and ask hard questions. So I have so much respect for the students in general. I feel very privileged to be able to do that.

Is it what you expected it to be?

Yes, because I’ve been involved in ministry with young people for many years. I just became a priest two years ago, but I was involved as a college professor and other things before that. But there are no surprises in that way. But when there were surprises, they were pleasant ones, like how really seriously young people take the questions of life, and how honest they are, and that sort of thing.

When did you know that you wanted to become a priest?

That’s a long and complicated story. I’m actually a convert. I became Catholic in 2000; I had been United Methodist before that. I was very active, and my parents were very active in the church. I still love the Methodist church, but I ultimately found there was a sort of freedom and fullness in the Catholic faith that really drew me in; that was richer than what I had experienced before that. I became Catholic when I was teaching at Hampden-Sydney College. And not very long after that, I realized God was saying you can be a priest if you want to. And I did want to. Being a priest allows me, since I’m called to that as a priest, to meet and be with people and bring the fullness of what Christ offers the Church to people in a very direct way, and that’s very compelling to me.

Were you especially interested in working with students?

Oh yes. I have a very academic background. I was a classics major in Davidson College. And then I did a Master’s of Divinity and PhD in Theology at Duke, and it was through that that I became interested in the Catholic Church. And I have another Church degree called a License in Sacred Theology. So my whole life has been sort of academic; I’ve always loved being in environments that are about the life of the mind and asking questions and seeking answers. So I love everything I do—I love being at St. Bede and working with people of all ages, but I think my background and interests have suited me for this kind of environment. which is why I was put here by the bishop. And I really love it.

How has your worldview changed since this whole experience?

Becoming Catholic and all of that? I think it’s both opened my eyes to the real brokenness of the world, and the yearning that people have for something more. The yearning people have for peace and love and beauty. Therefore also, and this is the even bigger thing that has changed, I’ve come to see much more clearly and much more richly, and how intimately God is present in our lives and how passionately He loves each one of us and He wants to draw us into the freedom of our humanity.

Folk v. Elite, Recon, and the Training of American Rabbis

Here is some light reading I wrote for my independent study, based on “The Religion of American Jews” and “The Training of American Rabbis” by Charles S. Liebman, found in Understanding American Judaism, edited by Jacob Neusner (1975).

I was unsure of the role of folk and elite religion that Charles Liebman portrayed in this essay on the subject. At first, I thought folk religion was meant to represent a perfectly viable alternative to elite religion, which itself has the sound of an inaccessible and undesirable option. This wouldn’t have made much sense to me, since I tended to effortlessly substitute “folk religion” with “unonservant people” or “secular events” throughout the essay. More accurately, it seems to refer to the customs rather than the laws of a religion. (Or to use a recent example in my life, substituting a Purim play for the megillah reading.) However, my reading seemed compatible with Liebman’s brief definition of folk religion as a “set of errors shared by many people” (29).

I couldn’t help but notice, then, that what may or may not have been intended as a remark on Reconstructionism’s validity seemed as such when combining definitions. Liebman describes it as an “elitist framework of folk religion” (45), which seems hard to disagree with. I think Reconstructionism might be a good case study in a “purely folk” religion in that sense. It might be similar to the first wave of immigrants’ practice of a kind of secular “Yiddishist” Judaism, only with its liturgical context changed immensely and its ideological changes that were necessary to (attempt to) sustain such a folk religion.

I would have liked an elaboration on the concept of the folk religion as a “set of errors,” since it seems to me that legitimization of the customs of a religion as a real alternative to that religion in its entirety is absurd. Such a characterization implies that folk religion comes about due to a kind of mass misinterpretation of the essential elements of a religion (in Liebman’s example, kosher becomes “kosher-style,” a meaningless version of kashrut). He notes that the lack of takeoff from the movement may likely be due to the fact that most Jews would rather “deceive themselves and others about the nature of their faith and commitment” (50), rather than accept an institutionalized form of their nonobservance (which itself says a lot about the validity of Reconstructionism). It makes sense, then, that more Reform than Conservative rabbinical students are interested in Kaplan, since Reform has already abandoned the law (52).

The Reform Hebrew Union College is a good example of this reformulation, in fact. Reform Judaism is referred to as a “way of life” (257) at the school, unlike YU, where Orthodoxy is taken for granted, and JTS, where “academic freedom” serves as ideology (246). It is easy to suggest that Reform is its own religion entirely (259). This is supported by the suggestion that some may envision a Reform Judaism with “entirely new consensual or authoritative symbols” functioning as replacements for the Shulhan Aruch and Talmudic codes (260)!

Meanwhile, JTS experiences its own problems regarding its method of teaching and its curriculum. Its use of textual criticism as a method of teaching Talmud in its rabbinical courses is stunted by the fact that the amount of knowledge it would take to master such a method is more than most graduates attain (248). However, this method is still considered ideal as it reduces ideological divisiveness to focus on philological analysis rather than overall message (247-8). Therefore, rabbinical students are socialized to appreciate institutional survival and the value of scholarship over religious ideology, which is consistent with the character of Conservative Judaism (244). Ironically, more than a superficial amount of knowledge may no longer even be necessary, as the texts will likely only be retained as having a “broad symbolic meaning” to most of the rabbinical student’s future congregants (262). I wonder if JTS itself carries a separate ideology from Conservative rabbis who have been “on the field” for a long time (249).

It was also interesting to me that students were similarly ill-prepared in Orthodox institutions. “Unsystematic and irrelevant” courses at Hebrew Theological College lead students to feel unprepared, and “encourage students to enter the congregational rabbinate” in lieu of functioning as viable halachic authorities (234). Yeshiva University’s rabbinical program also lacks a comprehensive education, with students learning only one part of one section of the Shulhan Aruch (236)! I wonder if this widespread deficiency has the effect of ensuring that rabbis as well as congregants remain subsistent on the current congregational model, as both lack proper education. Perhaps this lack of practical textual study is a remnant of the idea that students learn all they need to know by regarding the world from a “purely secular perspective” (261).

And then I asked myself, “Should I go to the megillah reading tonight?”

I am home. Which means that I have a couple of choices: go to the Conservative synagogue for the megillah reading, go to the Reform “temple” for the megillah reading, or stay home. Let’s weigh these options. My natural inclination is to stay home. I get traumatized pretty easily, so remembering my year at the Conservative synagogue and how at the end I was getting really annoyed with the fact that literally everyone there was either over 40 or under 13, and that I knew I didn’t really fit in. I’m not a member, and so it’s just weird. Also, I don’t know if the rabbi likes me. I parted on good terms last time I saw him, and I don’t want to come in and ruin it. Yeah, it’s like that.

Also, I’ve been away for a while and so much has changed there. The rabbi had another baby, and I know that a lot of the membership has probably changed. I’d feel like I was crashing their party, and I’d have no one to sit with anyway. Like everyone else would be having fun and stuff and I’d just be sitting there alone. Or worse, I’d be invited to sit with someone who remembered me from when I used to go…but then they’d be with their friends/family and I’d feel like a charity case. I went last year, and even the fact that I knew almost everyone and had been basically a (non-dues-paying) regular didn’t soften the fact that something just wasn’t quite right.

I could go to the Reform one. My first inclination is to say no way, and I don’t really want to go to a Reform one, because then I’d be sad that I was missing the Conservative one…or more accurately, I’d be missing my memories of the Conservative one last year. But it wouldn’t be that bad. At least that rabbi likes me.

Oh wait, I just looked and instead of a megillah reading there’s a “dinner and shpiel.” Yeah, OK. I should have known.

I’m probably not going to go anyway.

A friend just recently reminded me of all the good things I have in life, which is true, I do have many things. I do have a full scholarship to study Jewish Studies at a good school with an Aish rep presence and at least three rabbis to talk to. But I’m so restless, obviously, and sometimes you just want to be able to say “Of course I’m going to the megillah reading! I know those people; I have friends there!” Let’s be real; I’m not a part of the “synagogue community” either here or in Williamsburg. You know what’s interesting, though? I do feel like I have a community, it’s just not a “prayer/synagogue community” and I think that’s why I keep telling my above-mentioned friend how much I hate when people (usually Reform converts?!) tell me I’m going to be “joining the Jewish community.” Like I told her, I’m not “joining” anything. I consider whatever conversion I have to be halachic only. I don’t understand this “joining something I’m already in” concept.