Reflecting on Judaism

Rabbi Nathan Lopez Cardozo is the founder and Dean of the David Cardozo Academy in Jerusalem. Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has described him as having emerged as one of the most thoughtful voices in contemporary Orthodoxy. Most weeks he writes an essay for circulation on the Internet calling them 'Thoughts to ponder'.

This review was prompted by his 'Thoughts to Ponder' 193 which contained the sentence 'Because of this, it has become abundantly clear that there is a desperate need to turn the tide and bring Jewish education back to our young people'.

I wrote to him saying that 'I have in mind your lecture in Natanya when you proposed a return to the teachings of our forefathers and the prophets, in preference to that of the yeshiva and I wonder how the above extract from your essay fits into your proposal. What do you mean by, and what is included in, 'Jewish Education'?' By way of response he kindly sent me his booklet ''The Beth Midrash of Avraham Avinu' and invited my comments.

I have read the booklet several times and am fascinated by it for it seems that it is not only the inadequacy of the Jewish education provided to our young people that is bothering him.

As I understand it, what he is trying to achieve is the separation of the wheat from the chaff in both religious thought and practice. He is very brave to proceed along these lines, for his peers may try to marginalise him, as they marginalised the late Rabbi Professor Eliezer Berkovitz. I hope that this will not stop him. There is so much on which I would like to comment, for he has painted a broad canvas. I have restricted myself to some generalities which I hope will contribute to his new thinking about traditional Judaism by which means he hopes to arrive at a renewed Judaism.

He speaks of two midrashim (loosely translated as 'Schools of thought and behaviour') as being at the core of Judaism, i.e. that of Avraham Avinu for its ethical and moral teachings and that of Moshe Rabenu for its Torah teachings. This was probably correct unto the destruction of the second temple.

I think that he should now speak of four midrashim, these two plus those of the Talmudic rabbis and those of Rambam/Caro who both codified, what should be the flexible Oral Law. There were some 1500 years between Moses and the Talmud and some further 600/1000 years between the completed Talmud and Rambam/Caro. The Talmudic rabbis openly acknowledged that Moses would not recognise their innovations and I doubt whether the Talmudic rabbis would wholly recognise the way our religion has developed since Rambam/Caro, particularly since the emancipation.

Regarding the Torah and the Talmudic rabbis, his colleague Rabbi Natav, the educational director of his Academy, recently wrote:

"The pristine Divine Torah as given to Moshe, is actually sparse in its daily demands upon us. It only legislates a few blessings each day. It tells men to put on Tefilin and gives some general guidelines for our behaviour. It prohibits some situations, most of which we rarely encounter. In addition, it tells us to keep Shabbat and Yom Tov, which to transgress on a Torah level, is not uncomplicated. The vast majority of our religious behaviour, however, is rabbinic in origin. Most of our prayers and blessings were ordained by the rabbis. Kashrut and especially Shabbat are full of rabbinic emendation, which makes them quite demanding. What we do when we mourn and when we get married is almost entirely rabbinic. The picture that emerges is that the rabbis had a conscious plan in expanding the Torah into a system that makes constant demands on our daily and weekly schedules."

From this quotation from Rabbi Natav's writings it is obvious that many practices and thoughts were introduced into our religion, not because they were actual Laws from Sinai but for practical expediency in order to preserve the future. This quotation could easily form the basis and guide for the analysis and new thinking that Rabbi Cardozo is now undertaking.

I write from memory but I believe that Rabbi Cardozo has, on occasion, complained about the codification of the Oral Law by Rambam whilst the late Rabbi Eliezer Berkovitz complained of its codification by Caro, because, they said, they stultified the development of the Oral Law.

It is generally agreed that committing the Oral Law to writing was against the spirit if not the letter of the Torah Law. Whilst this codification was necessarily introduced to preserve Judaism following the destruction of the Second Temple the fact that it still exists, almost unaltered, may lie at the heart of the problem he is now endeavouring to solve. Today's rabbis say that these Talmudic laws can be altered only by a greater authority which to date, they say, has not existed. If so, why were minority opinions included as a basis for future decisions, for the rabbis also imply that there will never be such a greater authority? Recent events have shown that no 'greater authority' is required

Recently, Dayan Lopian of London, single-handed and alone, altered the Oral Law to allow visitors from the UK, whilst in Israel, to observe one day Yom Tov only, and the heavens did not fall. Recently, full orthodox women's Shabbat services, with men present, were inaugurated in Jerusalem. An orthodox rabbi gave Semicha to a woman. Rabbis who were asked about these developments could not fault them halachically. From this I deduce that there may well be many more changes which could be made to make Judaism more relevant and it is probably cowardice on the part of rabbis which prevent it from happening. Too many are too busy looking over their shoulders.

The Unesaneh Tokef prayer, a most awesome prayer, is said during the High Holydays, and I imagine that many stand in fear and trembling when reciting it. This is one of the principal prayers stating that God decides who will live and who will die, and the manner of the death, during the coming year and it prays that God will inscribe us for a good and healthy year.

However, if one thinks about it, one may come to the conclusion that the contents of this and similar prayers are contrary to the clear statements, written in the Torah, which gifted Man with absolute Freewill, i.e. freedom of action. It follows that God does not intercede with, or influence, a person's freewill decision, neither the timing nor the means, should Man decide to commit murder.

We have a choice. Do we accept what the Torah teaches us or do we believe the prayer allegedly written only some 1000 years ago?

Nowadays, when this prayer comes around, I find it difficult to recite because of the clear statements in the Torah. At one time I thought that I was alone within the orthodox community who felt like this. I have since asked other members of my community with whom I am friendly and was surprised to learn just how many feel as I do.

I am reminded of the advice of a well-known rabbi who once wrote to me saying that our liturgy does not necessarily reflect our theology.

Having read the writings of the Rambam and Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, as discussed in my essay 'God's Thirteen Attributes', it could well be that their understanding of this and similar petitional prayers is not too far removed from mine. I realise that some prayers are a substitute for sacrifices, but all of them? Is this kind of prayer, which were mostly absent till post temple times, and which proliferated with the advent of the printing press, written often by poets and mystics, still relevant? Where do we find the prayers written by our rationalists?

Is this aspect of prayer not something which Rabbi Cardozo should also include in the new thinking which he hopes will renew our religion and bring it back to the basics of Avraham and Moses?

It was exciting to read that Rabbi Cardozo will be introducing the writings of 'heretics' into his Academy's curriculum for he takes the view that differing thoughts, introduced by serious Jewish religious leaders are, and always have been, essential. By way of contrast, in one of his regular e-mail letters, Rabbi Jeremy Rosen, the son of the late, great Rabbi Koppel Rosen, tells of his experience trying to find a place in a serious yeshiva. He could not find one willing to accept him because he had received a philosophy degree from Cambridge. He was finally accepted on the understanding that he kept his philosophical thoughts to himself and thought only those which the yeshiva taught him.

Whilst allowing non-authentic thoughts into his academy, Rabbi Cardozo does mention that many non-authentic practices have crept into our religion and these too require consideration. He does not specify them. That is a pity for I am curious to know which they are. I could name several but will discuss only one. But perhaps, for Rabbi Cardozo, discretion is the better part of valour.

The Torah commands 'Honour your parents'. I have read the details, prepared by our rabbis, explaining how this mitzvah should be fulfilled. It provides guidance, which only a saintly child could attain, including that of not upsetting them. Yet today, when a child from a kosher home goes to yeshiva he is often told that he must eat only glatt kosher, even at home. The parents, whether they admit it or not, often feel upset by this suggestion and the questioning of their time honoured kashrut standards. Even if they agree to comply, the hurt caused does not match the guidance 'Honour your Parents'. So why upset parents unnecessarily? Parents have no obligation to honour their child as the rabbis expect them to do. Immoral blackmail. Why?

Rabbi Cardozo distinguishes between Aggada and Halacha. To Aggada he attributes the moral and ethical principles which underpin the Halacha. But Aggada also includes many other matters such as unlikely historical stories and fairy stories which have no place in the serious Aggada to which he refers. When rabbis insist that such stories are facts, Judaism is ridiculed and suffers.

As mentioned above, Rabbi Cardozo painted a broad canvas in his booklet but there is one element not included. It is the standing of our religious leaders. He has said in the past that the secular Jew is not as secular as we make him out to be. He is very often traditional. Nevertheless, in a poll undertaken in Israel recently, trust and respect for our religious institutions come bottom but one. I have my view why this is and I doubt whether Rabbi Cardozo's view would differ greatly from mine. Without respected and trusted religious leadership his efforts may prove to be in vain.

I wish him good luck in his endeavours.

Woolf Abrahams

August 2006.