Pareshat Ki Tetze

This week's paresha has more laws than any other, touching on a vast array of topics with little apparent order. This mishmash is, I believe, intended to engender confusion and agitation; to stimulate the natural inclination towards order and categorization. Once that inclination has been awakened, it becomes easier to note that there does seem to be some pattern to the laws here presented: they mostly address that very topic, insisting upon our cooperation in the establishment of an orderly society with clearly defined categories, or in a few cases reminding us of the exceptions that limit even our ability to set limits.

Much of Jewish thought, in particular legal thought, depends upon the identification of distinctions and similarities to find the order in creation. We are not merely observers in this process, but active participants in making creation orderly, and so these categories can be prescriptive as well as descriptive. However, we also need to recognize that division and definition are things that apply only to the created world; God is a perfect, transcendent unity. Thus, transgressing boundaries has an aspect of holiness, but in a way that is incompatible with the material world. So we see that when the produce of a mixed field is prohibited, it is prohibited with the language of kedusha. So we see that shatnez is prohibited, but required for the clothing of the Kohen Gadol, the hangings of the mishkan, and allowed for the sake of the mitzvah of tzitzit. Tzitzit are a physical representation of this idea of clearly defined boundaries with an element of holiness that transcends them. However, if we go beyond those gedarim in a way that we are not given explicit license for, we transgress against the holy rather than sharing in it. This sort of transgression is incompatible with created existence, as Nadav and Avihu found, and the elders who were led astray by Koraḥ. The mishna that accompanies this week's paresha is masechet Gittin, focusing mainly on the laws of divorce. Few subjects in Jewish law are as fraught with this need for clarity in categorization, with blurred lines and uncertainty leading to agunot and mamzerim, real human tragedies.

Aside from tzitzit, where does our paresha divert from setting down subject after subject that must be assigned to its proper place, and remind us to remember that gevurah must always be balanced by ḥesed? The place that seems clearest to me is the treatment of the ger, the yatom, and the almanah. These three groups, strangers/converts, orphans, and widows, are the classic recipients of ḥesed. What do they have in common? They are unsupported, cut off in some way from the general society. According to the Rambam, when two converts marry, their children retain the status of convert until they marry into the broader population or until enough time has passed that the status is forgotten. Without the bonds of family, they lack a proper place, and so room must be made for them beyond the boundaries of propriety. In a strict sense, the gleanings of our fields might be seen to be the same as the produce harvested on the first gathering, ours by right. However, we revoke that right for the sake of ḥesed. Not only with grain, symbolizing basic sustenance, but also with regard to wine and oil, joy and luxury, we make a space for those who have none by strict right and say that only that can be called unperverted justice. Compared to the laws of tithing for the poor and leaving the corners of the fields, which are taught elsewhere, the laws of gleaning make this point especially clear. The space that we leave in this case is dependent on our own limitations. While we partner with God to impose order on chaos, some things get left out or left behind, and that too is part of the way the world functions.

Shabbat Shalom uMevorakh!

Pareshat Shoftim

First of all, welcome back to my blog. I will try to keep up with weekly posts on the paresha with some reference to Seder haMishmarah, but I am happy to intersperse with other topics if there are any that interest you.

So, let us begin:

What does it mean to live in a Jewish state? A rather contentious topic in this place and time, and among those who have a connection thereto. Conversion courts challenging the rabbinate; state security cracking down on splinter groups of radical religious Zionist revolutionaries; demographic concerns over the non-Jewish population; the relationship between an ethical tradition that has been shaped by millennia of galut and the exercise of power; etc etc. I won't address that question on a philosophical level, but this week's paresha and the accompanying readings in Seder haMishmara come to describe the traditional answer on a structural level. Here we see the description of the biblical system of national governance, from the basic theory in the Torah to the practice in Divrei haYamim to the developed law in Mishna Sanhedrin. Four roles are laid out before us.

I will first discuss the king, because his role seems most difficult to me, and seemingly also to the tradition, which takes a rather ambivalent view of malkhut and allows for a kingless society while insisting on the other institutions of government. One might think that the king's role is as military leader, given the prominence that military decisions take in the descriptions of the kings later in Tanakh, but here we find not like that. The laws of the king are given here, and shortly thereafter we turn to laws of war and the king is nowhere to be found. Rather, we see kohanim and shotrim, the latter connected at the beginning of the paresha to the rabbinic courts. Not only that, but the foundational military experience of the nation, the conquest of Eretz Yisrael, must precede the appointment of a king. 

So, if he is not there to lead us into battle, perhaps he comes to judge, like Shlomo haMelekh? Again, no. Not only are the courts a separate locus of power, but the king is not even allowed to sit as a judge according to Sanhedrin 2:2. 

Shmuel describes a king who levies taxes and organizes the people for public works and development, but that is a warning more than a promise. 

What is the king required to do? He must write for himself two Sifrei Torah, one of which he carries with him at all times. He must read a particular passage from the Torah to the assembled nation once every seven years. He must lead the fight against `Amalek (I know I just rejected to role of military leader, but the fight against `Amalek is different in kind from all other wars and is often seen as a metaphor for a certain kind of spiritual struggle; perhaps a later post can go into more depth on the particulars of `Amalek as a symbol). He must insist upon his honor in many ways, even to the point of being exempt from certain obligations when fulfilling them would be undignified in some way. He must refrain from amassing personal power and women and wealth.

I would say that I am led to agree with a vort I heard in the name of the Sfas Emes, that the purpose of the king is to serve as a symbol. His powers are extensive, unlike the symbolic leaders of contemporary constitutional monarchies, but those powers are part of the symbol rather than empowering him to exercise them pragmatically. The strictures on the king are meant to ensure that he establish and maintain his own connection to Hashem in the form of yirah, and the powers and honors of the king are meant to transmit to the people that connection of awe and splendour. However, when we are able to make a connection of that form without an intermediary, that is preferable, for a bad king can do great harm. When we relate to Hashem through yirah, we would never say, "Asimah `alai melekh, kekhol hagoyim asher sevivotai." (I will put a king over me, as all the surrounding nations 17:14).

Next we look at the twin loci of the kohanim with their leviim and the shoftim with their shotrim. Here, unlike the kings, there is a clear role. However, we would really like to see two distinct roles for the two groups, and that we lack. There is almost complete overlap between the two, and the midrash in Sifre notes from here that ideally the kohanim and leviim should be rabbis and judges. Both groups are to be in every gate, readily accessible to the entire nation, yet both are also to be established with their highest authority on Har haBayit, seat of both the Sanhedrin haGedola of 71 and of the Kohen Gadol when the Beit haMikdosh stood. Both are charged with teaching and administering the law. Rav Shimshon Rephael Hirsch makes the distinction that the kohanim were the primary guarantors of the Torah SheBiKhtav, whereas the sages kept the Torah SheBe`Al Peh. As noted above, both have a role in leading the troops to war. True, the kohanim also have their role with regard to korbanot, but that is heavily deemphasized in this paresha, blurring the distinction between kohen and levi, in favor of their role as leaders of the people. There is another distinction that comes forth vividly in Mishna Sanhedrin. The rabbinate is intensely meritocratic and open to the masses. Justice and righteousness are pre-requisites for the office, which the Torah cannot extend to kings and priests who hold their position by birth, even when they fail to live up to their ideal types. According to the Rambam, every city with at least 120 adult men would have an established court of 23. Why 120? 23 for the judges, 69 for the three tiers of students who would sit before the court and were all qualified to sit in when called for, two court scribes, two officers of the court, eight so that a case can be held with sufficiently complicated claims and counterclaims among the witnesses to make things interesting for all those legal scholars, three to be involved in collected and distributing tzedaka, a doctor, a scribe, a teacher, and ten more to make minyan while all this is going on. All 92 of the sages would be ranked by wisdom, to know who should speak in which order and who should be called upon to sit in when more judges were needed. (In cases where there was no concern regarding intimidation, the wisest would speak first out of respect, whereas in capital cases they would speak last to ensure that the others would not defer without being fully convinced). There was an opinion that really we would only have courts of 23 in cities with at least 230 adult men, because the judges ought to have serara and we don't find that for less than the sarei `asasrot, the chiefs of tens. But really, that would lead to a town that where only 40% of the adult men were rabbis; outrageous! 

The final form of leadership we see in the paresha is that of the prophets. We see very little about them here beyond the promise that true prophets will come and the warning to beware false prophets. We are told to do all that they say, but not even in as strong language as was used to command obedience to the levitical priests and the rabbis. As we see them in later Tanakh, though, their role seems clear enough. Not really rulers, as they must maintain enough independence to criticize and expose failures on the part of the governing bodies to conform to their requirements. 

So, details aside, how would this look in contemporary terms? The bulk of the job of running the country would go to meritocratic courts, mass participation but high standards, with the supreme court taking on legislative powers. A significant minority would serve full time at public expense, while a larger portion of the population would serve without pay while working in the private sector (like jury duty, but requiring a JD, with law school being tuition free). There would be some sort of symbolic figurehead under the tutelage of the courts, with enough actual power to make the pomp and circumstance actually solemn and inspiring, rather than just quaint or entertaining, but generally discouraged from using that power. There would be an active independent press, but stopping short of complete freedom to print whatever unverified nonsense it pleases without itself being held to account.

Sorry for the rambling; I got a late start and don't really have time to edit before Shabbat. Hopefully, as I get back into the habit of writing, the quality will improve. Looking forward to seeing your thoughts, if you choose to share them. Again, feel free to request topics of interest.

Shabbat Shalom uMevorakh!

Jewish conspiracy theory

Sorry for the long silence. I got caught up in reading Worm, a web serial linked to by the author of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Both good reads, if you have too much time on your hands (does anyone ever actually have that problem?).

This topic is not about international bankers or communist revolutionaries. It is more of a followup on the earlier post questioning the mysterious nature of the pre-Talmudic Jewish community in Bavel, raising further questions in the same vein. It is based on a vort I read from Rav Shimon Schwab regarding a difficulty with the traditional timeline. According to traditional sources, the second Beit haMikdosh was built 70 years after the destruction of the first, in the sixth year of the reign of Daryavosh, stood for 420 years, and was then destroyed by the Romans. The destruction incontrovertibly took place in the year 70 CE, which would place the exile at 420 BCE and the rededication at 350 BCE. However, this is not consistent with external evidence. Unlike archaeological questions relating to the yetziat Mitzraim (the exodus) or the conquest of the land, this is not a challenge from absence. Rather, there is solid evidence that the Babylonians did indeed destroy the first Beit haMikdosh, but in the year 586 BCE, and the sixth year of the reign of Darius the Great was indeed 70 years later, in the year 516 BCE. How are we to account for a missing 166 years? Even for those who doubt the truth of revelation or the veracity of biblical events lost in the mists of antiquity should have a hard time accepting that the Jews, with a large and well educated population living in Persia, would have simply been mistaken on such a scale about relatively recent history. It would be equivalent to all the Catholics in America, including academic historians, believing that the American Revolution took place immediately after the founding of Jamestown and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, despite knowing the correct chronology from Columbus to that point. Even before modern archaeology sharpened the question, there are a number of problems internal to the text, and there was some knowledge of classical records that disagreed. Rav Schwab points to a number of commentators who attempt to explain the irregularity of the dates given, generally with extremely unsatisfying hypotheses. His alternative theory is quite intriguing, whether or not you find it convincing. In the book of Daniel, the eponymous prophet is told in a vision to "shut up the words and seal the book," understood as keeping secret something that could reveal information about the Messianic era. There is also a reference in the Talmud to Book of Genealogies, saying, "Since the day that the Book of Genealogies was hidden, the strength of the Sages has been impaired and the light of their eyes has been dimmed." This is believed to be a commentary on Divrei haYamim (Chronicles), which was traditionally written by Ezra shortly after the second Beit haMikdosh was dedicated. Rav Schwab theorizes that there was a deliberate effort to alter the dates and hide books that would reveal the truth in obedience to Daniel's command. He also notes that around this time (early second Temple period), rabbinic Jews switched to the Greek count of years, even on sacred documents, despite the fact that this left them open to ridicule from rival sects, and maintained the Seleucid dates for nearly a thousand years before switching back. Why would they do such a thing? Well, it would be hard to switch a calendar in current use by over a century without anyone noticing... 
The theory is admittedly tenuous, but I haven't thought of a better way to explain the data. What would altering the calendar by 166 years do to hide information about moshiach? Not entirely sure, but maybe I should keep my eyes open when I'm 84 and the seventh millenium starts according to his count. Welcome to the year 5940. Maybe. (If you're into the spooky stuff, the gematria of "the secret of Daniel" is 165. Whether or not you accept that gematrias can be off by one, years certainly can be, as long as the new year dates are different).

Some interesting things from the past weeks: during Hanukah, I saw one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen. Brilliant colors complemented nicely by Jerusalem stone. Also weather related, snow is crazy here. Biggest blizzard in over 150 years. Shut down the city completely for the better part of a week. Things are getting back to normal now, but there is still some way to go. A member of the town council came in Tuesday to thank the bochurim for their help clearing streets and sidewalks; when one guy asked if there was more to do, his response was, "Yeah, but we're going to take a break. Maybe we'll do some more on Friday. We're thinking about it." Ah, Israel. Between Hanukah break and snow shutting down the yeshiva, and the temptations of immoderate internet fiction consumption, my sleep schedule got rather thrown off, but I'm working my way back.
Two weeks ago, I had an exciting Shabbat adventure. I was hired with a couple other guys to do a catering gig in Beitar, but we got on the wrong bus (right number, wrong company), and ended up in Ariel. Luckily, a student at the university there overheard us trying to figure out what to do on the busride up, and she set us up with a place to stay and get meals, and we hung out around the dorm-trailers with her and her friends. Aside from a couple olim, not much English in that part of the country, but it was good to practice Hebrew and see the not-quite-secular side of Israel. Still pretty Orthodox by American standards. Our host for sleeping and lunch was pretty interesting as well; one of the evacuees from Gush Katif, about as Dati Leumi as it gets. Gave us some tasty exotic fruits, fresh from his garden. I was surprised to learn that Dati Leumi nusach is Sfard (chassidic), because the government decided that it was a good compromise between Ashkenazi and Sephardi.

Hannukah

This might be rather long. Bear with me. Hannukah is not a straightforward holiday at all, reflecting deeply ambivalent traditional Jewish views toward Greece and its culture.
On the one hand, there is respect. Yavan, the eponymous biblical ancestor of Greece, is seen as the greatest inheritor of the blessing of Yaphet, Noach's son, wherein it is prophesied yapht Elokim l'Yaphet (God will enlarge-materially/enlarge-intellectually/beautify Yaphet). Rav Hirsch takes that further, seeing the Greeks as some sort of partner with the Jews, preparing the way for the second portion of the prophecy, that God/Yaphet/that-which-God-bestows-on-Yaphet will dwell in the tents of Shem. Sorry for the slashes, Hebrew is hard to translate. The wisdom of the Greeks is acknowledged, at least with regard to observable matters; on at least one occasion, the rabbis of the Talmud acknowledge that the Greek view seems superior to their own. Perhaps most astonishingly, Greek is said to be the only language other than Hebrew that can be used to write a kosher sefer Torah.
And yet, there is the other hand. Greece is one of the four empires of oppression, putting the imposition of Greek culture and law on a par with outright slaughter of the entire nation as threatened by Persia in the Purim story, or with the destruction of the Beit HaMikdosh as executed by Babylon and Rome (with distinctions between them that I won't go into now; maybe a future post can compare the rest of the empires). Of the four, Greece is characterized in the vision of Daniel by a four-headed, four-winged leopard signifying its particular ferocity and that it will cover the entire world. Fierce and world-spanning even in comparison to Rome, mind you. In the vision of Nebuchadnezzar, Greece is the copper belly, loins, and thighs of the statue. I haven't been able to find a satisfying explanation of that symbolism, so I won't really address it, but feel free to speak up if you see a way that it fits. Most relevant to Hannukah, in the second verse of bereishit, Greece is identified with choshech, darkness.
How can we reconcile these views? First, I think it is important to note that Hannukah was more a civil war amongst the Jews with Greek involvement than a simple revolution. The Greeks did not interfere with Jewish religious practices until the Hellenized Jews asked them to. So, the struggle and the victory was not really against the Seleucid empire, it was against something wrong with the Jewish people. Surely, though, if Greek culture and wisdom are good things in themselves, they are also good for the Jews, no? Here, I would like to bring in Rav Matis Weinberg, who wrote about the connection between the Hannukah story and the two weekly Torah portions that can be read therein. Rachel and her sons, especially Yoseph, are traditionally associated with the material world, wealth, and aesthetic beauty, just like the Yavan. According to a number of commentators, this is the real reason that the brothers sell Yoseph into slavery. Simple jealousy and hatred are seen as such severe sins that they would disqualify one from founding and leading a tribe in Israel, so there are many attempts to discern other motives. According to this view, the brothers are concerned that Yoseph's concern with such worldly matters would poison the Jewish people, especially if he were put in a position of leadership as Yaakov seemed to plan. However, they were clearly mistaken. The dangers that they see in his future all fall on Yehuda, their chosen alternate, rather than on Yoseph. Promiscuity: compare Yoseph's conduct with eishet Potiphar to Yehuda's with Tamar. Intermarriage: according to the midrash, Asenat is in fact Jewish, Dina's daughter by Shechem who followed Yoseph to Egypt, whereas Yehuda clearly marries a Canaanite. Materialism: Yoseph is noted for his scrupulous honesty handling enormous wealth, whereas Yehuda's wife is only identified as the daughter of his business partner, implying that he married for business concerns. For those who were worried, have no fear, Yehuda will redeem himself next week. The parshiyot therefore serve to avoid over-learning the lessons of the holiday, just as we read Yeshayahu's denunciation of hypocritical fasting and prayer on Yom Kippur and Kohelet's denigration of celebration on Sukkot. However, this is a call for balance and moderation, not negation of the main point. Compare Yoseph to that other Jewish interpreter of dreams who rose to power over a foreign land, Daniel. Here, we see a reversal. The descendants of Yoseph have gone confirmed the brothers' fears about their materialistic, assimilating, community-destroying tendencies, breaking the bulk of the tribes off into the northern kingdom, leading them to idolatry and sin, and completely disappearing in their exile; whereas Daniel, the descendant of Yehuda, has found the balance point that eluded his ancestor in last week's paresha and mirrors Yoseph almost exactly in holding fast to his values despite integrating deeply with Babylonian society, thereby saving the Jewish people.
How does all this help us understand why Greece is darkness and Hannukah is light? Here, I turn to Rav Zadok HaKohen Rabinowitz, a chassidic rabbi from Poland whose writings I have never read and am therefore probably mischaracterizing. Greece is not inherently darkness, contrasted with Jewish light. Rather, Yavan is meant to bring light and beauty to the world, but Greece as an empire was not fulfilling its function. To function correctly, Greek aesthetics, reason, and materialism must be in service to the moral teachings that they are not equipped to provide. Yaphet must dwell in the tents of Shem, ancestor of the Jews. When balance, order, and priorities are lost, the potential for good becomes evil. Darkness is the absence of light, not a light-sucking black cloud. When the Hashmonayim revolted, they were rectifying Greece, not destroying it. The last bit of pure oil that they found was the kernel of what Greece ought to have been all along, before they corrupted the bulk of their light-giving potential and went dark. According to Rav Zadok, it was only in the aftermath of Hannukah that the oral law was able to reach its full flowering, davka (specifically/only) because of Greek influence.
This is too long to push it too much further, but if you are interested and have access, check out Rav Hirsch's analysis of the Menorah in paresha Terumah. He connects it to ruach (spirit), and if we look at Shem, Yaphet, and Ham as corresponding to neshama, ruach, and nefesh respectively, then that dovetails nicely with my reading, and provides a lot of detail about what Yavan's proper role might be. But wait! that Menorah has seven branches, we are dealing with eight (the shamesh davka doesn't count, that's why it's there). Six (not mentioned, but makes seven and eight easier to explain) represents expansion in three dimensional space, right-left-forward-backward-up-down, ie material completion. Seven adds the center point, signifying the spiritual component allowing true completion, as seen in Shabbat among other places. Eight thus represents transcendence, going beyond the bounds of nature, as seen in brit milah, shemini atzeret, and other places. When Yavan is brought into the tent of Shem, when his spiritual gifts and capacities are sanctified such that we can even write a sefer Torah in Greek, there is something of that same covenantal transcendence.

Sorry for the length and disorder, hopefully that made sense anyway. Some of it may be building on or toward something that I thought about but forgot to include or left or for space purposes, but I don't expect to have time to edit properly before Hannukah, so if it doesn't make sense, ask.

Not too much news around here since last post. We had a wonderful wedding Thursday night, on a hill overlooking the scenic and historic town of Yericho. Among the honorees were Rav Matis Weinberg, mentioned above, and the chief rabbi of Sweden. I spent Shabbat with some Rutgers alumni, including an old daf yomi chaver. Did some experimental research into Jerusalem geography on the way back, and the results briefly had me off the derech, but I wasn't too late for D&D. There was a tiyul today to Ir David, but I woke up an hour after they left, so that gave me time to write way too much about Hannukah instead.

Happy Hannukah and Thanksgiving and any other celebrations you may or may not practice! Even if you aren't celebrating at all, happy days stam!

Bavel

Sorry for the long hiatus. It can be hard to find time to write between study and sleeping and... that's pretty much it, actually. I'll probably get something up about Hanukah soonish. Any topics of particular interest for subsequent posts?

I recently read the Iggeret of Rav Sherira Gaon, one of our earliest sources for the line of transmission of the Torah Shebaal Peh (oral law), and it has left me with a lot of questions, mostly about the Babylonian community prior to the Amoraic period (when the gemara was written).

Here is what I know about it: while there may have been some presence earlier, the bulk of the community formed through a series of exiles in the early 6th century BCE, mostly of the educated populace and political class. In exile, they prospered, and although they were allowed to return after the Persians conquered Babylon in 538 BCE, most did not. As far as I can tell from Rav Sherira Gaon, it seems that the centre of Jewish scholarship may have stayed there, despite the departure of the anshei haknesset hagedola (men of the great assembly). He claims that most of the zugot (pairs, leading scholars of the proto-Mishnaic era) were Babylonians who made aliya to lead the court in Jerusalem. It is possible that there were not great schools in Eretz Yisrael until Hillel and Shammai, last of the zugot, founded their academies. For the next two hundred years or so, the Babylonian centre is clearly secondary, but not entirely quiescent. He describes activity somewhat parallel to the compilation of the mishna and tosefta going on in Bavel, with the baraita collection of Mar Shmuel being of comparable quality to the tosefta (if you need a glossary for that sentence, skip it for now, ask me later). Philo describes it as large and wealthy, but doesn't say much.

So, basically I am frustrated by the paucity of sources. I suppose I would mainly focus on three categories of ignorance. First, we have none of the output of that time, and we don't even know what is missing (except, I suppose, the baraitot of Mar Shmuel and the mishna of Rav Nissim). Presumably, a centre of scholarship of that scale and duration produced a lot of important Torah, and it would be nice to have access to some of it. Second, I would like to know something about the cultural exchange that occurred there with non-Jews. Comparisons of Judaism to Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are pretty much in their infancy, as though the only significant point of contact with the rest of the world was the western one with Greece and Rome. Third, the political situation was quite interesting. Before Hanukah time, Mesopotamia was one of the most important provinces of the Seleucid Empire, the Syro-Greek antagonists in Judea, and right around then it passed into Arsacid hands, a local Persian dynasty that ultimately split the Seleucids with Rome. What degree of contact was there between the Jewish communities in this time of flux and revolution? Were the Jews of Bavel also oppressed by the Greeks? Did they have a role in the end of Seleucid power there?

Anyway, if anyone is interested in a career in archaeology and looking for a period to study, keep it in mind. Also interested in wild, groundless speculation, if there is any on offer.

Yeshiva life goes on. We had a shabbaton down south a couple weeks ago, which was very nice. Lovely hiking, Sephardic food. I found out that hail is surprisingly painful, and its aftermath is surreal on a warm, sunny afternoon in a desert town with piles of ice lying here and there. I also got to play a bunch of chess and go, which was enormous fun.
One of the rabbis' sons was married, so I got to see a Sephardic wedding. The dancing was very confusing. They seemed to be dancing in concentric circles more or less like Ashkenazim, albeit with different rhythm and footwork, but the circles ended up not being closed or concentric or stable in any way, and I kept finding myself on the edge of the dance floor and no longer holding hands with anyone no matter where I started or what I did. So I enjoyed the wine and called it a night.
Thursday, a few of us (mostly D&D crew) went to a medieval festival in the old city. Started off underwhelming, cheesy costumes and not much use of the fantastic medieval scenery, but there were a couple parts that really tugged at my heartstrings. There was a craft fair, and the potter there reminded me of my late teacher, Ursula Kaplowitz. In terms of midot (character traits), I can't think of anyone else outside my family who had a greater impact on me, modelling patience and kindness like a saint with every student, no matter how rambunctious or inattentive. Then there was a station with music and space for dancing, and I had a hard time with that, too, but in a good way. Basically, I have to get married. If they had played a waltz, I might have started crying.

Old and New

I have spent most of my time on this blog thus far discussing what Judaism means to me now. Perhaps it might provide some useful context to say where I came from. Supposedly, in kindergarten I spent a fair bit of time trying to convince my Orthodox Christian friend that Christianity was wrong and my secular Israeli friend that there was a God, but my memory of that time is rather hazy, so I will focus on what emerged in high school and mostly remained until I started to become religious.

I developed a somewhat elaborate historical theory that I will call the "assimilation pump". Basically, I divided the Jewish world into the Orthodox and everyone else, with a necessary role for each. The Orthodox served to preserve the cultural values, traditions, and possibly genetics that foster rigorous study, intellectualism, and creativity, but at the cost of being constricted to a narrow sphere that consumes all their energies. The non-Orthodox would take those benefits and apply them to secular culture at the cost of removing themselves and their descendants from the continuity of the Jewish people. In times of persecution, this would take the form of a few individuals who explicitly reject Judaism and thus gain access to the broader society. In better times, this would take the form of a brief yet brilliant flourishing, which gradually fades as they go further and further from the culture that enabled it and more and more assimilate out (slowed by a steady trickle of ex-Orthodox), until persecution inevitably kicks in again. At that point, the situation reverts to a more bifurcated state, where those who are insufficiently committed to endure persecution or exile for the sake of Judaism would abandon their vestigial ties, speeding up assimilation, whereas those who are sufficiently committed would be mostly Orthodox and some few that would be driven to join the Orthodox for lack of any other viable community. I am not sure how reconcilable this theory is to a theological view of history. Perhaps when we fail to find the correct balance that allows for synergy between productive enterprise in secular areas and a life of Torah and mitzvot, then God turns to this mechanism to allow the Jews to pursue our task. The progressive Jews do the heavy lifting of having an impact on the rest of the world, and the more cloistered forms of Orthodoxy preserve the means by which that impact is accomplished and supply the next round of progressives when these ones assimilate away. Still, rather than accept such a situation and choose which half of the task most appeals, I think that it is incumbent upon us to continue to strive for the balance, even if it is difficult. Torah im derech eretz.

That will do for now. Maybe I will talk about other things I used to think at a later date.

I have been struggling with my sleeping habits, leading to a lot of missed shacharit (morning prayers) and even some missed classes, so I am now trying to follow Rambam in countering an extreme with an extreme. Ideally, my sleep schedule is now 10:30-5:30. If you see me online between those hours, 3:30-10:30 Eastern, tell me to go to sleep.
In other news, I just went to my first wedding since being here, with another to come Monday night. Both strangers, but one is an alumnus and the other a rabbi's son, so the whole yeshiva got invitations. I love weddings.
Also, D&D is up and running and going well. Due to theological concerns of a couple players, we are in a godless world, lending the party cleric a certain aura of mystery. I play a human warlock, raised in an island village run according to a mix of anarcho-socialism and Confucianism that I haven't really thought through. Strict father, many siblings, mother taken by slavers early in my childhood, so I ran away at 14 and lived by my wits until discovering my powers at 17. We also have an elvish cleric and his ninja bodyguard, hailing from a mysterious enclave in distant woods, a halfling swashbuckler with a salty past, a dwarvish fighter with a thick Russian accent who just wants to go home and bury his uncle Piotr (hopefully dwarf corpses, being so stonelike, do not decay?), and a human wizard with all the pompous uselessness that only level one wizards can provide. We were all taken by slavers with some sort of connection to the sinister empire that rules most of the world, and in two sessions have almost managed to meet each other and form a proper party. Feels good to play again. Interestingly, all our spellcasters seem based on some archetype from the Orthodox world -- I'm clearly off the derech, our wizard has a certain whiff of the ba'al teshuva about him, and the cleric seems like a sheltered chassid. Perhaps the greater surprise is that the other characters are not.

Shabbat Shalom!

Maran

On Monday, I joined some 800,000 other people in the streets of Jerusalem to pay final respects to Rav Ovadia Yosef. Amazing to see such a crowd, drawing from all kinds of religious Jews, many in tears. Several times, I was literally carried by the mass of people. At one point, I lost my sandal, and could not stop -- let alone turn around -- for almost two blocks, at which point I waited for a lull in the flow and went to retrieve it. I think my favorite part was during one of these crushes when a man next to me, barely able to shift his arms, decides to pour a drink for his rabbi. Anyway, hard to think of anyone more worthy of such an outpouring. Born to in Iraq to a poor grocer, he parlayed a superlative memory, combined with creativity, flexibility, and vision, to become the most respected Sephardi posek (legal decisor) in centuries, and arguably the greatest living scholar of halakha in the world by the end of his life. Astonishingly, he accomplished this by sheer weight of genius despite openly resisting the prevailing zeitgeist of the hareidi world that greater stringency equals greater scholarship and holiness, and often contradicting the established authority of revered past poseks like the Ben Ish Chai. Baruch Dayan Emet (blessed is the true judge).

Much as I respect him, there is much that I am uncomfortable with as well. I do not speak of his controversial, sometimes inflammatory public statements; I don't understand them, but I trust the extensive record of compassion, broad-mindedness, and social responsibility in his legal rulings above sound bites that, however hard to see favorably, are generally taken out of context and easy to misinterpret, and as such I withhold judgment. Instead, I refer to his overall vision for Sephardi renewal. I will digress slightly before explaining.

I recently read Rabbi Dr Haym Soloveitchik's landmark essay, Rupture and Reconstruction, which induced me to consider yet another dialectic that traditional Judaism seeks to balance: mimetic tradition vs textual tradition. This particular tension is very difficult for me to grapple with, as a ba'al teshuva, because I have little access to mimetic tradition, and so must rely very heavily on text and theory. I do know that consideration of popular practice plays a large role in the Talmud and responsa literature. Perhaps greater familiarity will at least let me have a sense of what is ideal, even if I have trouble putting it into personal practice. This is one reason I am inclined to try to marry FFB (frum from birth), to at least have the possibility for a balanced fusion for my children. The question becomes all the more difficult because the balance has shifted in favor of text and theory in almost every sector of Orthodoxy. Almost certainly, we were too far to the other end of the spectrum before that shift; religious education was not very strong except for the elite and there was some degree of sclerosis, and many were driven from traditional practice by these weaknesses. However, it is hard to tell when we overcompensate, how to judge the proper balance. It seems to me that the best hope is a robust pluralism within Orthodoxy that can provide a living experiment, comparing different ways to combine these sources of traditional knowledge and practice. If, on the contrary, every community suddenly elevates textual authority to complete dominance over mimetic learning, traditions are lost, continuity is called into question, and the experiment loses its comparative power. Of course, there are the Conservative Jews, who swung in the other direction, and the Reform, who abandoned both, but neither provides much additional insight into the ideal.

Maran's overarching project through his life was very much a reconstruction of Sephardic Jewry according to this same pattern. True, he sought leniency in the texts rather than chumra after chumra (stringencies), but he emphatically places the Shulchan Aruch over local custom and received tradition in the name of unity and ideological purity. It is a truism that nothing can uproot the Sephardic traditionalism and inherited spirituality. If anything can, I think it might be this project, if his successors have half his brilliance and charisma.

Further reading, if you are interested:
Soloveitchik's essay (long): http://www.lookstein.org/links/orthodoxy.htm
A pair of fascinating articles on this trend in the Dati Leumi (national religious) world: http://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/datlash-hardal-according-to-rav-shagar/
http://tomerpersicoenglish.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/a-point-about-the-fundamental-difference-between-haredi-and-traditional-and-national-religious-judaism/

Life here is good. One week into the new zman, and classes are great. Gemara with Rabbi Hirschfeld, the rosh yeshiva I have praised here several times, is challenging and interesting, learning the laws of objects that are borrowed or entrusted to another's care. Two hours of daily ulpan provide exactly what was missing last zman. New halakha teacher continues the pattern (four now) that halakha rebbeim are among the most dynamic and gregarious people I've met. Looks like a D&D group may be forming tomorrow. I didn't realize that last Shabbat was an out Shabbat, so I ended up joining a couple of guys going to Karlin-Stolin to trawl for a meal. Within moments of entering, we were shepherded to a host, where we ate with about 30 other bochurim from various yeshivot. Very welcoming, the Karliners, but I don't think I could get used to screaming every prayer. Another exciting event: when in Meah Shearim to purchase my gemara for this zman, I happened to run into two friends from Rutgers, including one that I used to learn Daf Yomi with. They have been in Jerusalem the past year, learning, and just happened to be standing on a street corner as I was walking by. Shocking how often these small-world things happen in Jerusalem. One of the things I love about this place.

Shabbat Shalom l'culam!