Creating Judaism

This week I had a chance to see the exhibition, “Glass, Gilding, and Grand Design: Art of Sasanian Iran (224-642)” at the Asia Society in New York. The exhibit was particularly interesting in helping to understand the cultural context in which the Babylonian Talmud took shape. I was struck by the (already well-noted) similarity of some Sasanian art and mosaics to those in the Greek and Roman worlds, as well as several motifs that are not to be found in the art of the west. This is well worth a visit before it leaves on May 20.

The other day I taught a Me’ah class on women and gender in rabbinic literature. My choice of readings was, to be honest, somewhat lazy: my article “‘Try to be a Man’: The Rabbinic Construction of Masculinity,” Harvard Theological Review 89/1 (1996): 19-40. If I had prepared better, I would probably have assigned something by Tal Ilan or Ross Kraemer. In any case, the article argues that rabbinic gender assumptions associate “masculinity” with self-control as a prerequisite for Torah study; women were seen as constitutionally unable to maintain self-control, much like children and non-Jews. [Note that Daniel Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, highlights a very different aspect of rabbinic gender construction.]
I was unprepared for the violence of the class’s reaction. They were “appalled,” “disgusted,” and “repelled” at these rabbinic attitudes and the texts that I cited to support the argument. While I steered the conversation to the historical arguments and context, they were - quite predictably, in hindsight - far more interested on what they as modern Jews are to do with these rabbinic texts.

I never have had a particularly good answer to that question. I laid out a series of hermeneutical strategies that others have used: apologetics, historically contextualizing the disturbing passages, ignoring them. On a personal level I struggle with these texts, yet I cannot yet translate my own internal struggle with something that can easily be articulated. Yet while I left the class frustrated at my own inability to do this, I was also excited by the passion with which these adult students encountered these texts. They have been challenged and they too are struggling.

How should a Jew observe Passover now that Jerusalem is in Israeli hands? And who is to say? Some rabbis and their followers want to resume the paschal sacrifice:

This is from Haaretz. I’d love to see them:

A few years ago a new Orthodox Yeshiva, “YCT,” opened in New York in order to promote a more “modern” approach to Orthodoxy. Last week an ultra-Orthodox periodical ran a scathing attack on YCT. A long, unofficial letter was published in response. According to one of the more interesting parts of the letter:

The Hareidi world and the Modern-Orthodox world differ as to whether there should be any interaction between Orthodox rabbis and clergy from the other Jewish denominations. This issue has long divided various segments of the Orthodox community and revolves around the tenuous balance between working together on programs and causes on behalf of the Jewish people and the fear that Orthodoxy is legitimizing heterodox movements and approaches to Judaism. Even within the Modern-Orthodox rabbinic which has generally taken a more liberal approach to this issue there are differences of nuance and perspective on this question. Thus, some Modern-Orthodox rabbis will not participate in joint board of rabbis, but might join together in a occasional lecture series with Reform or Conservative rabbis, while others will not even do that, while still others (especially beyond the narrow confines of the NY area) will join in on joint boards. These issues have bedeviled the community for half a century and there are and always have been various practices within the Modern-Orthodox community. For example, while some talmidim of the Rav did not sit on any joint boards, there were others, also talmidim of the Rav, who did in fact do that and rightfully remained in good standing in the Orthodox community.

YCT Rabbinical School as I understand it, while emphatically rejecting a hard pluralism that comes close to relativism, strongly feels that interaction and cooperation, without blurring distinctions can be beneficial for the greater good of the Jewish people and ultimately spreading the message of Torah to Klal Yisrael as a whole. We are driven by the Rav’s vision of a shared community of fate as well as Rav Lichtenstein’s clarion call some two decades ago which went even further:

With respect to reducing polarization, I am convinced that the best approach does not call for minimizing differences but rather for maximizing community. Basic ideological differences exist and to blur them is both irresponsible and anti-halakhic…We can , however, place greater emphasis upon the factors which without denying difference, transcend it; upon confraternity, upon historical and existential ties, upon essential components of a shared moral and spiritual vision, upon elements of a common fate and a common destiny. We should not only concede but assert that, whatever their deviations, other camps include people genuinely in search of the Ribbono shel olam. (Leaves of Faith, Vol. 2: pg. 360)

We also are animated by the teachings of Rav Kook who dialectically saw some partial truths and kernels of holiness and insight even in movements and ideologies that on the whole were in conflict with the basic world-views of fidelity to traditional Torah outlooks that he espoused. A full-blown treatment of the sof-pluralism of Rav Kook is beyond the scope of these short comments. I would also refer the reader to the excellent articles by Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm “Seventy Faces” in his collection Seventy Faces Vol 1 and R. Shmuel Goldin “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along: An Orthodox Rabbi’s View on Pluralism” in the Edah Journal 1:1 which nicely articulate many of the perspectives that guide us at YCT. In short, the approach adopted by the Yeshiva has very good Orthodox pedigree and is one that while open to critique should not be caricatured or demonized.

A copy of the full letter can be found here.

In Haaretz:

In his book The Jewish Life Cycle: Rites of Passage from Biblical to Modern Times (Yale University Press, 2004) Ivan Marcus argues that prior to the Middle Ages, the line between childhood and adult responsibility - now marked for a boy at the age of 13 as the objective age of legal majority - was much fuzzier. Boys were educated and matured into adulthood gradually, more as a subjective process than an objective event. Only in the Middle Ages did rabbis begin to see certain suggestions in the earlier literature as norms. In the process they ironically prohibited to younger boys who were ready the ability to perform certain rituals, such as don tefillin in their morning prayers.

The shift, which is at least partially attributable to the Christian environment in which these (mainly) German rabbis lived, is fascinating, and raises the question of how and why Jewish communities, or indeed any society, moves to an objective measure of “adulthood.”

Purim is, in many ways, the most peculiar Jewish holidays. Jeffrey Rubenstein, in an excellent article entitled “Purim, Liminality, and Communitas,” published in AJS Review 17/2 (1992): 247-77 unpacks the underlying logic of many of the odd customs and texts associated with Purim. Utilizing a theory developed by Victor Turner, Rubenstein convincingly (and brilliantly, to my mind) shows that the rituals and customs traditionally associated with Purim define a time of “liminality,” lying on the margins or interstices, and thus “characterized by equality, immediacy, and the lack of social ranks and roles.” This goes a long way to explaining the phenomenon of “Purim Torah,” which tends to skirt good taste and anti-nomianism. Thus a “release” is especially needed in Jewish communities in which both strict halakhic observance and rigid hierarchies are the norm. It is interesting to compare such communities (e.g., yeshiva communities) with those of modern American liberal Jewish communities, where Purim might well take on a different function.

More daring, from my understanding, is Elliott Horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Princeton University Press, 2006). I have bought but not yet read it, but it seems to argue that Purim was a festival used by Jewish communities to express their hostility toward the majority cultures (thus dovetailing with Rubenstein’s argument that Purim expresses liminal or fantastic time). From my knowledge of some anti-Christian Jewish piyyutim, or liturgical poems, this makes some intuitive sense to me.