A while back, I wrote a post about how to teach gemara to a crowd of non-Orthodox but seriously committed Jews. One of the points I tried to make is that such a crowd should engage with the gemara on its own terms. Rather than just cherry-pick sugyot and subjects that they agree with, students should be exposed to the whole panoply of subjects, even if they find it strange or even offensive.

What do I mean by that? Well, for starters, there are the many superstitious statements and actions, the outdated science and medical procedures. Then we have the statements and halachot that are disparaging of women* and non-Jews. This is the stuff most of us avoid and with good reason.

After this, we get into all kinds of other rules that seem outdated or unnecessary. Depending on how “liberal” you are, all or even most of the different rules and concepts may seem foreign to you. Indeed, anything that does not conform to a purely humanistic liberal worldview may seem worth avoiding.

I think this is wrong – not just for liberals but also for Orthodox Jews. All of us grapple with problematic issues that come up in tradition, be they moral or scientific. The study of gemara should be a place to air out these problems, not to bury them or avoid them. Better to grapple with the angel like Yaakov than flee and be drowned like Yonah.

I can only speak for myself, but in the fourteen odd years I’ve spent commenting on forums and blogs, I have learned from everyone and every opinion. Even when I vehemently disagreed with a position or belief, engaging it merely helped me shape and strengthen my own. I believe that students of gemara can do the same by dealing with whatever part of it they find problematic.

Gemara study is a wonderful opportunity to discuss, debate and engage every aspect of Jewish tradition, law and belief. It can be a formative experience, in which the student fights, rejects, embraces and molds himself into an entirely new creation, enmeshed in the Jewish experience while all the time refusing to surrender to it entirely.

Rather than silence students who find strange things in the gemara, teachers and Rabbis should encourage just as vigorous discussion of these matters as they would of hezkat habatim and HaIsha Nikneit. Thus, gemara study goes from being of practical value (learning halacha) and spiritual value (Talmud torah) to being of existential value (self-identity and belief).

Disagree? Let me know in the comments.

*I’m actually considering writing a sort of “semi-defense” of some of the more famous of these statements…

“If a religious scholar said that his scholarship was informed by the Jewish dating of Moses, and that he took that to be the 13th century BCE what advice would you give?”

My advice would be “Go for it. A scholar’s identity and passions can, indeed, sometimes be an albatross, and an impediment to good, balanced ssholarship. You will need to be judiscious in your work, and will need to affirm the clear data that do not accord with your agenda. And you mustn’t overstate the findings that do accord with your agenda.

But your identity and your passions can also be a scholarly asset. You will likely be driven to search avenues and develop approaches that are out of the box, that defy the consensus and that break new ground. And if you can present your findings to the wider scholarly community, which may not share your agenda, and those findigns are affirmed, you will have performed scholarhsip good service, precisely from allowing your agenda to drive your scholarship.”

Long-time readers of this blog will be familiar with the work of Dr. Orna Katz-Atar, who argued that Israel was given a tacit “green light” for a first strike by the US, 4 days before the beginning of the Six-Day War. Now Katz-Atar has an article out in the latest Cathedra (Hebrew) which will undoubtedly raise some eyebrows. Here’s a translation of the synopsis (Scroll down the essay until you get to Orna Katz-Atar):

“…On the 8th of June, 1967, on the fourth day of the Six-Day War, the IDF mistakenly attacked the American Spy ship (‘the Liberty’). Israeli and American Commissions of Inquiry unequivocally established that the attack was the result of a series of human errors and not a deliberate strike (IE, with the knowledge it was an American ship – AIWAC), and this determination was buttressed by later researchers and historians of the incident. Nevertheless, the myth that the Israeli attack was deliberate grew by leaps and bounds.

The author wishes to prove that the White House and its head, Lyndon B. Johnson, were the ones who created the myth. The White House decided to cynically take advantage of the tragedy in order to bash Israel and its supporters. This was done from the understanding that repairing relations with the Arab world and finding a permanent (political) solution for the Middle East would require a degree of distancing from Israel and applying political pressure on the country. Accusing Israel of a deliberate attack on the ship was a golden opportunity for the White House to achieve these goals”

These batei din are the target for much criticism in the religious and wider public. The wholesale abolition of the R. Drukman conversions by R. Avraham Sherman and the constant reluctance to punish sarvanei get has done little for the image of these batei din. This is to say nothing of the many ethics violations among dayanim, their refusal to keep a written protocol and other matters.

“Reform the Batei Din”

Those who wish to retain the current system of government batei din argue that all we need to do is put in “the right people”. This means either Religious Zionist or at least like minded black hat dayanim who will rule in the interests of the nation and the oppressed, even if it means taking heat for being a “mekel” or for relying on minority halachic views.

In my opinion, this is a hopeless endeavor for two reasons:

First of all, Charedi legislators from Shas and the Agudah vastly outnumber Religious-Zionist ones. The former are also far more willing to go to war over the present black hat control of batei din and assorted jobs in the Rabbinate. Religious Zionist political power is small and will only get smaller as time goes on and more Religious Zionist Jews vote for the large parties such as Likud. Even those Religious Zionist parties that are in the Knesset spend much more effort on the Land of Israel or social issues than ensuring the appointment of “their people” into positions in the Rabbinate.

Second, even if by some miracle Religious Zionist parties gain more power and influence over the appointment of dayanim and assorted functionaries, there is still the question of the manpower supply. Simply put, there are far, far more “black hat” Jews with semicha and the halachic training necessary to serve as a dayan than religious Zionist ones. This is the reason that Charedim succeeded in “taking over the Rabbinate” – it was always black hat territory.

The primary source of manpower for the Chief Rabbinate and the Army Rabbinate was always mostly from the black hat yeshivot. The largest employers of Charedim in government are these Rabbinates. The only difference between the early decades of the State and now is that the black hats of the earlier generation were generally more moderate. They often saw themselves more as servants of am yisra’el, not just neturei karta. The generation that started penetrating from the 1970s until now was the generation of cultural austritt, of exclusive devotion to the Charedi community and contempt for the idea that anything other than the dry text should decide halacha.

The religious Zionist community simply cannot supply Rabbis that will or even can replace this juggernaut. The chardals, the section of the community most devoted to yeshiva study and halacha, is just as likely to be in sympathy with hard-line Charedi positions as the most strident black hat. The bourgeois community that makes up much of the Religious Zionist community does not value the Rabbinate as a profession as much as engineering or academia. They will not encourage their children to go into this line of work.

People from the liberal section of Religious Zionism – academia, Neemanei Torah Ve’Avodah – are even less likely to contribute Rabbis who can replace the black hats. Alongside the fact that many of them emphasize personal autonomy over that of halachic instruction from Rabbis, few see Rabbis as role models, as people worth becoming. If anything, they value academics – professors from the humanities or from Jewish studies. The language of their articles, rich in western concepts and very poor in Jewish ones, demonstrates as much.

Alternate Batei Din

Another idea that’s been floated around is the establishment of alternate batei din. Tzohar and like-minded Rabbis should set up a competing system of batei din that will provide the services and the justice that the public doesn’t get from the government religious courts.

This is a fine idea, and I happen to support it. Let me address the objections that could arise with regard to this proposal:

There will be no universal system, and no-one will accept each other’s psak.

That’s already happening anyway in the government courts. If anything, the privatization of batei din will lessen the force and power of the hardened black hats. Rav Elyashiv will no longer be able to force decisions that affect the entire country by virtue of the legal authority of the state, just the private Charedi community. If Charedim wish to have higher standards, let them make anyone who wishes to enter their community go through hell (well, more hell than they’re already doing). We should not have to suffer their apathy to the rest of am yisra’el.

This will open the door for non-Orthodox courts.

Doubtful. The only other denomination that has fealty to halacha that might operate a religious court is the conservative/masorti movement, and they’re not very influential here. I’m fairly confident that if the Modern Orthodox/Religious Zionist Rabbis worked hard enough, they would make such courts either unnecessary or marginal.

There Aren’t Enough People

This is true enough. The shortage in moderate Rabbis which I mentioned earlier will still be here with the privatization of courts. I’m open to suggestions as to how to encourage increasing the manpower supply. I don’t think this is a good argument for submitting to black-hat dominated batei din, but it is an issue we’ll need to deal with.

The Black Hats Will Shut The Batei Din Down Just Like They Tried to Kill Tzohar’s Marriage Initiative

First, they don’t have the political clout. The failure of that particular government intrusion shows that enough public pressure can ensure alternative religious services, at least Orthodox ones. Second, such a shut-down would not survive a legal challenge. The Rabbinate has tolerated alternate Charedi batei din of all types for years and will continue to do so for reasons of political expediency. The idea that they can allow the black hat batei din but disallow Religious Zionist batei din doesn’t pass the smell test.

To sum up, the best short-term solution is to set up an alternate, moderate beit din system to bypass and dilute the power of the Rav Elyashiv run beit din.

NEXT: Rabbinic licensure

I’ve mentioned before that the gemara is not structured like an ordered, logical text. Rather, it is more like an informal protocol of hundreds if not thousands of separate discussions, debates and comments on every aspect of Jewish life and thought. Even more importantly, it is a world of discussion in which almost thousands of people both known and unknown participate, whether in the gemara itself or in commentaries of subsequent generations.

At its best, gemara study is so much more than just decoding text or understanding arguments on a superficial level. It demands constant rigor, scrutiny and criticism. You could get away with simply reading most stories in the Tanach without having to dig deep. The gemara would never allow such laziness. If you wish to reap the benefits of gemara study, you will have to work hard.

What’s even better is that gemara study encourages one of the most important drivers of innovation and intellectual development – conversation. As Steven Johnson points out, ideas and innovations do not come from isolation and sudden brainstorms. Rather, they come from constant interaction with other ideas and concepts, what Ridley calls “ideas having sex”. At least in theory, the chevruta culture in the yeshiva can be highly conducive for developing and sharpening the mind.

Some have argued that the presence of so many opinions in the gemara means that the gemara is “pluralistic” – that there is no one way, or that all ways are the same. This assertion is a classic example of the kind of superficial thinking that doesn’t fly in gemara study. If Hazal truly thought that “all opinions are equal”, if they believed that it doesn’t make a difference, then the gemara would not exist. It is simply not possible to understand the energy, passion and time which individual tana’im, amora’im and others dedicated to proving the correctness of their position and the falsehood of other positions if they believed elu va’elu in the sense endorsed by pluralists.

Gemara is not pluralistic in the sense that “all opinions are equal”. It is diverse, in the sense that all are invited to bring their opinion and prove that it is the truth. There they must contend with others who are no less convinced of the same. To be sure, there are rules of the game – rules of evidence, of certain common assumptions about the Torah, God and Judaism. But beyond that, everything goes – yet this need not lead to mutual shunning and exclusion. Yeshiva is one the few places where a chevruta can debate an issue day in and day out, yet remain the best of friends.

It is one of the great tragedies of Jewish intellectual life that so many have buried their real disagreements in the name of a saccharine and superficial unity. As Dr. Benny Brown pointed out in Akdamot, vigorous debate on what it means to be Jewish can strengthen, not weaken, the fate and unity of the Jewish people. Passionate debate about what it means to be Jewish means that people care about being Jewish and how Jews should conduct themselves. Such debates strengthen the attachment and interest of Jews in Judaism, because all the disputants feel they have a stake in the game.

Properly done, gemara education can instill in the student an appreciation for the importance of conversation and debate. It can show them the importance of interaction with people for different views and opinions as a method for sharpening one’s mind and strengthening one’s own commitment to Jewish life. This is something that gemara does better than any other subject.

NEXT: The Devil is in the Details, or Why the Small Stuff is Important

A few years ago, I worked as a desk jockey for a graduate department in Bar-Ilan for minimum wage. After a few months, I had done a good enough job that two of my superiors agreed that I should be paid more per hour. However, when I went to the person in charge of budgets, he told me it wasn’t possible.

Why?

Because a collective agreement ensured that all students are paid the same, regardless of how well they perform their job. I had no incentive to work harder or better anymore.

This discovery helped me let go of my previous moderate liberal beliefs in favor of a more conservative/libertarian attitude.

2) Here’s some advice for all you reporters and academics out there:

Drop the objectivity act. Please?

The only thing objectivity – the demand that people PRETEND to be neutral – does is drive the bias underground and make it that much more insidious. Instead of making people be honest about what is opinion and what is fact, it forces everyone to argue that it’s all fact. Worse, since material is presented as completely objective, the reader is lectured to rather than being allowed to decide for himself or herself whether your argument holds water.

So put all your cards on the table – be honest and open about your biases. Do your best to present the other side(s) in a fair manner, but don’t pretend you don’t have an opinion.

So down with pseudo-”objective” reporting and scholarship. Here’s to biased, but honest discussion of the facts and their causes.

Hi,

I’ve been following this discussion with much interest. All sides have made good points.

I wanted to add my own thoughts as someone who deals with the reality of being a “late single” Orthodox Jew.

1) Why is the focus almost exclusively on the woman’s gratification, with no discussion of the male side of the equation?

I thought that the point of marital relations was that both sides look to please each other and make them happy, not just obsess about their own needs, important as they are.

2) An issue that isn’t discussed enough here are the ridiculous expectations of sex one gets from the popular media. Anyone watching TV or movies on even a semi-regular basis would get the impression that anything less than mind-blowing relations is bad.

This could have dangerous consequences for the stability of many marriages, especially if the husband or wife thinks that the main purpose of marriage is this perpetual sexual bliss. The same is true if any one spouse thinks that their happiness, however subjectively defined, is the sole criterion for whether a marriage deserves to exist. Such a marriage would not likely survive the inevitable slumps and lows that come with being with the same person for several decades.

3) Sex is not just about physicality, it’s also about the foreplay and the attraction during times when there is little physical contact. There is a whole literature on the internet and in books about increasing the other side’s attraction through things like increased confidence, methods of conversation and so on. Perhaps Nidda could be a time for increasing those parts of the attraction.

I think it would also behoove educators to familiarize themselves with this literature and not just with the specific instructions on sex itself. May I recommend the following for a start (this is mostly for men, I’m sure Elana can recommend good books for women):

The Married Man Sex Life Primer 2011

Avi Woolf

What is a Chief Rabbi?

A Chief Rabbi is a government-appointed official – nothing more, nothing less. There are chief Rabbis of the country, of cities and of regional councils, in much the same way that there are mayors and policemen in them. The Chief Rabbi is in charge of the religious clerks and bureaucrats below him in the same way the police chief is in charge of his policemen.

The Chief Rabbi is responsible for the oversight of certain legal public services such as marriage and divorce, conversion and maintenance of religious places in his legally defined area. As the head of the government office in his area, he also appears at ceremonial events on a local, regional or national level and gives a speech.

Those who complain about the biased way in which judges are chosen in this country are invited to read the process by which Chief Rabbis are elected. There they will see that the majority of people on an electing committee are Chief Rabbis or other such functionaries who are part of the religious bureaucracy.

Like all other government departments, the Rabbinate is susceptible to political influence and patronage. It is no secret that many Chief Rabbis and functionaries thereof are elected not based on merit, but on their political ties to powerful religious politicians and leaders. The old party of Mafdal was no different in its desire to put “its” people in key positions in the Rabbinate. Anyone who doubts this is invited to learn of the underhanded manner in which Rav Shlomo Goren and Rav Ovadia Yosef, both genuine Torah giants, were elected.

This alone should put the lie to the idea that the Chief Rabbi is somehow ‘independent’. He is merely not dependent on the public and frankly cares little for it. No, the Chief Rabbi is merely beholden to others – to the government and politicians who write his check, to the cloistered yeshiva who taught him Torah and to the principles and rules of his chosen bureaucratic institution. If there are Chief Rabbis who genuinely see themselves as public servants, they are the exception – they are true Rabbis in spite of the office of the Chief Rabbi, not because of it.

II.

There are two primary justifications for the existence of the Chief Rabbinate aside from ceremony: services and kiruv levavot. It fails miserably on both counts.

As a government monopoly staffed by bureaucrats, the Rabbinate suffers from no real competition or need to become more efficient and user-friendly. It is no accident that many Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Jews eschew Rabbinate services or do everything they can to bypass it. This is true in terms of kashrut, marriage and everything else that does not require the official stamp of the Rabbinate. For individual Orthodox Jews of all stripes, the Rabbinate is the last place to look for religious guidance or services.

What of kiruv levavot? Certainly, there were many who were hopeful that the Chief Rabbinate would be a great unifier, an institution that would bring Jews closer to Torah and Mitzvot. Indeed, much effort is expended to ensure that ‘public-friendly’ Chief Rabbis are appointed in various locales.

The truth is vastly different. I can scarcely think of a religious institution that has done more to make Orthodox Judaism and Orthodox Jews more repulsive and noxious than the Rabbinate. Whether it’s the indifferent and obtuse clerks or the ‘chumra-only’ dayanim, the Rabbinate could not have done more to make religion disgusting if it had been openly funded by Richard Dawkins.

In my opinion, the Chief Rabbinate does not deserve to exist in its present form, as a large government bureaucracy enjoying a monopoly on so many crucial religious services. The ceremonial functions which Chief Rabbis provide can either be provided by private Rabbis and Roshei Yeshiva, or by a much smaller office of a National Chief Rabbi, a sort of ceremonial Religious President.

But what of the services it provides? More on that in later posts.

“There are seven things that characterize a boor, and seven that characterize a wise man. A wise man does not speak before one who is greater than him in wisdom or age. He does not interrupt his fellow’s words. He does not hasten to answer. His questions are on the subject and his answers to the point. He responds to first things first and to latter things later. Concerning what he did not hear, he says “I did not hear.” He concedes to the truth. With the boor, the reverse of all these is the case.” – Ethics of the Fathers 5:7

If you’re from the Modern Orthodox community, then you are probably aware of what is known as the “flipping out” scenario. The script is almost always the same:

Young 18-year-old Ploni Almoni graduates high school and leaves the warm embrace of his parents and community to learn for a year in a yeshiva in Israel. There Ploni is exposed to Rabbi Firebrand, a fiercely Charedi educator. Rabbi Firebrand does everything he can to get Ploni to change up his casual wear for a black hat and matching attire. He either rails against the Modern Orthodox life or solely advocates his own worldview. At the end of the year, Ploni has learned the lesson and become completely “black hat”.

The truth is that this sort of thing can happen just as much at a university as at a yeshiva (Someone even wrote a helpful e-book on the subject). The only difference is that while Rabbi Firebrand preaches Charedism, Professor Firebrand preaches some form of modern ideology on the left end of the political spectrum such as socialism, progressive liberalism, feminism and post-colonialism. Professor Firebrand will rarely acknowledge the existence of contrary views, and if he does, he will do so only to ridicule them and anyone who holds them.

My point is that the danger of becoming the worst kind of “recent convert” is an age thing. High school students and graduates – people like you – are often highly impressionable. Many of them mistake adopting the exact opposite view of their parents with being a genuinely critical and reflective adult. What they end up doing instead is becoming just as rigid and unthinking as the people they attack.

So how do I avoid this scenario, you may ask?

First, follow the advice of Prof. Maghen as quoted above: learn about yourself. Examine and flesh out your own positions, honestly acknowledge the existence of doubts, questions and contradictions even if you completely reject them. Decide which opinions and values are core to your being and which are less critical. This way you will only truly have to wrestle emotionally with a few key things rather than see every disagreement as an attack on your person.

Second, learn to read as many views you can on any subject, whether online or elsewhere. Just because Professor Firebrand doesn’t acknowledge the existence or legitimacy of contrary opinions doesn’t mean you have to do so. Regularly attend debates at a university debate club or watch youtube debates between people presenting different points of view.

Lastly, internalize and follow the advice given in the second quote. Learn to treat other opinions with respect and understand that only you decide whether or not to accept something. No-one is forcing you to do so. Carefully and patiently follow the advice on how to debate and discuss things, even if your counterpart is incapable of this. This is as true of a professor as it is of anyone else.

Even if you “lose” a debate with someone, it does not mean that you are permanently wrong – there may have been information or evidence that both of you missed. Your life and beliefs should not hinge on any one discussion or class, even if it is a debate on your core values.

If I may bastardize a known Jewish phrase:

No-one ever died from a contrary answer, as long as they knew they could question it.

Tip #7: Live within your means

There are quite a few methods to learn a gemara text. Pilpul. Pshat. Brisk. Telz. These methods all serve as effective if partial tools for deciphering the maze that is gemara. What all these methods have in common is the assumption that the study of gemara is primarily about logic and all that is missing are the right tools to decipher this logic.

The crux of gemara study is one long effort to understand the arguments and evidence of each and every disputant. What are their assumptions? How strong is their evidence? Who wins the argument, if anyone? What can we learn from this argument beyond the immediate context?

There will be those who will scoff at the above. Is not pilpul the height of empty mental acrobatics? Is gemara not full of klutz kashyas, bad logic and forced arguments?

Well, yes, gemara has that too – but that’s part of its beauty. Gemara is not a perfectly edited, carefully constructed argument. It is a huge conversation with thousands of discussants. Like all conversations, it contains good arguments and bad, not to mention different forms of argument and many worldviews. Studying gemara is far closer to logical arguments and debates in the real world than anything you’ll find in a sterile book.

Life is messy. None of the methods of learning mentioned above can be anything but partial because reality does not conform to any one system of logic. Logic of any kind is exact and tidy. Reality is messy, chaotic and unpredictable. Gemara is what happens when the two forces collide.

A master of gemara, someone who truly grasps what I have just said, will not just understand gemara. He will internalize both the importance of logic and its limitations. He will learn both intellectual power and humility. He will learn a lesson far more important than any hiddush or hilluk. He will learn that there is more in Heaven and Earth than is contained in any human system of thought.

That’s a lesson worth absorbing.

NEXT: A culture of conversation, not diktat