Reflecting on Judaism

Because I was actively and continually involved in various aspects of  Jewish education, both formal and informal, for the past 50 years or so, it was with great interest that I read and re-read the Chief Rabbi’s latest book, “Will we have Jewish Grandchildren".
 
In Chapter 2 he describes the crisis of continuity.  In Chapter 3 he hypothesises that, in the past, Judaism predicated its survival on education and the transmission of identity. In Chapter 4 he tests this hypothesis and chooses three critical junctures in our history.  It is on these three turning points upon which primarily I wish to comment.
 
The first turning point chosen by the Chief Rabbi occurred at the time of Ezra.  Certainly Ezra taught Torah and the Oral Law as it had developed up to that time.  But he also took far more drastic action.  For reasons which are not quite clear to me but which at the time must have been compelling, he also transcribed the Torah from ancient Hebrew characters to square Hebrew characters and he marked the Torah to indicate those words about which there was some doubt.  Nehemiah, his contemporary, appears to have raised no objections to Ezra`s actions, which today almost certainly would have been considered contrary to Halachah.
 
The second turning point occurred at the time of Johanan Ben Zakkai, who started the Yavneh Academy and taught Torah and the Oral Law as it had developed up to that time.  But he too took drastic action by revoking the law of Sotah because he considered it inequitable.  He also started a trend which today too would be considered contrary to  Halachah.  His pupil, Rabbi Akiva, collected and arranged the Oral Law by subject.  Judah Hanasi, the son of Rabbi Akiva`s colleague, Rabbi Gamliel II, codified the Oral Law contrary to the teachings of Halachah in order to ensure that it was not forgotten.
 
I submit that these examples illustrate the length to which our great Rabbis went to ensure Jewish continuity.  I can think of only one Orthodox Rabbi of recent times who was prepared unequivocably to suggest radical innovations to ensure Jewish continuity.  However, few of the “Nehemiahs" of today attended his funeral when he died recently.  I refer, of course, to the late Rabbi Eliezer Berkovitz.
 
In his book, “Not in Heaven" Rabbi Berkovitz clearly sets out his proposals and suggestions.  The Chief Rabbi encapsulates them in Chapter 6 of his book, “Crisis & Covenant" when he wrote “Its natural environment (Halachah) is that of a self-governing nation in its land, and its natural form is that of a fluid system of two elements; a fixed written Torah recorded in the mosaic books, and a constantly adapted oral Torah that adjusts to new situations as they arise.  The essence of the Oral Law is that it is not written down."  When reading Rabbi Sack`s analysis of Rabbi Berkovitz`s views, I felt that he was not unsympathetic to them, but I could be wrong.

The Chief Rabbi quotes Josephus as having said that, should any one of our Nation be asked about our Laws, he will repeat them as readily as his own name.  I doubt whether today we would find many, even among Roshei Yeshivot, who could emulate them.
 
The third turning point arose currently, following the Holocaust and he suggests that the Yeshivot and the Hassidim are our potential saviours.  I think that it is too early to tell, but, if his statement is correct, why is he worried about Jewish continuity?  Just like Ezra, let them concentrate on teaching and like Johanan Ben Zakkai, let them raise disciples.  But, of course, they are not teaching like Ezra and they are not raising disciples like Johanan Ben Zakkai.   With the exception of Yeshivot, such as Hesder Yeshivot and Yeshiva University, most Yeshivot are ultra Orthodox and segregationist and, as he quite rightly points out, it is only in recent times that ultra orthodoxy has been triumphalist.  (I realise that the description “Ultra Orthordox" is a subjective one, but I use it as I believe it is used by Rabbi Sacks.) 

I can think of no period when ultra orthodoxy has survived for any length of time.  I have no doubt that the founders of the post Holocaust Yeshivot were sincere when they set out to re-establish themselves in the manner which he describes and I also have no doubt that many of their disciples are equally sincere.  I would, however, suggest that other reasons for their phenomenal growth includes the fact that, post war, there has been an extended boom period when many people made vast fortunes and considered it proper to finance Yeshivot for various reasons.  This gave those who wished to opt out of the wear and tear of normal life, the opportunity to do so.  In Israel there is an additional reason, as students attending Yeshiva are excused army service.  Should the time come when money is tight and army exemption is removed, it will be possible to ascertain within say ten years just how many serious students remain.
 
Another reason for believing that the ultra orthodox are unlikely to be our saviour is suggested in the “Golden Tradition‿ by Lucy Dawidowicz.  She describes what happened during the Haskalah period, when Yeshiva students were not allowed to read secular books.  They defected in droves from Jewish practice and they were not the “fourth generation Jews" as discussed by the Chief Rabbi.  I doubt whether human nature has changed much since the period she describes.   With Lubavitch recommending that no Jew should engage in further or University education and the Hassidim not allowing their children to read Encyclopediaes, how long will it take before their present society also begins to disintegrate, quite apart from the reasons which the Chief Rabbi gives for their past marginalization.
 
Chapter 9 argues that Jewish continuity requires education, a coherent strategy and wide coverage in order to try to retain every single Jew.  This strategy must then include those secular Jews as described in Chapter 5 of “Crisis & Covenant" who see themselves as bound to a people but not to its Laws.  It must also include those Jews whom Rabbi Berkovitz described in that wonderful and moving paragraph on Page 4 of his book “Faith after the Holocaust", in which he writes, “Many who were there lost their faith.  I can understand them.  A Hell fiercer than Dante`s was their lot.  I believe that God himself understands and does not hold their loss of faith against them.  Such is my faith in God."   I am sure that Rabbi Berkovitz would also have wished to include the many thousands of Jews who suffer their own private and personal tragic “holocaust" as a result of which they too have lost faith.
 
(I would like to digress for a moment to suggest that we Jews are unjust to God.  We preach Free-Will but teach Divine Providence.  Our prayer books are full of personal petitions requesting that God intervenes in various kinds of situations.  Then, when bad things happen to good people, they have been conditioned to assume that it was the result of the Hand of God and then sometimes (often) lose faith, whereas a high proportion of those bad things happened only as a result of someone’s Free-Will behaviour)
 
The Chief Rabbi does not indicate the kind of education he would wish to provide for those secular Jews, young and old, who see themselves as bound to a people but not to its Laws.  As a child, I attended the JFS which was precisely as he describes it, and, from age 10 till 14, I attended the Etz Chaim Yeshiva.  I was brought up in an Orthodox environment and Rabbi Hertz`s Chumash was not then, as now, damned by faint praise by some, even within the United Synagogue.  I believed, and still believe, that Judaism is a clear rational and wonderful faith and I was keen to help disseminate its values to others.  Looking back, I can liken the spiritual environment then to that which I imagine might have prevailed at the time of Bet Hillel.  A phrase which Alan Sugar used and which was repeated at the opening ceremony of the Redbridge Jewish Secondary School might be appropriate: “Relaxed Judaism".   By relaxed Judaism, we are all still referring to Orthodox Judaism and not the Reform or Conservative concepts.
 
Today the religious environment appears to be a mixture of Bet Shammai and The Esseens; severe, mystical and an apparent constant search for additional prohibitions.  Can I be alone in finding the present environment very discouraging and might it not also explain in part the current disaffection from Judaism both in the Golah and the Yishuv?
 
Rabbi Sacks`s suggestion that Rabbi S.R.Hirsch was the one sage proved wrong, may be questioned.  If he were wrong, how much more so were the leaders of the Yeshivot and the Hassidim.  Rabbi Hirsch could not foresee Germany`s future barbarism which was to take place 100 years later.  The leaders of the Yeshivot and the Chassidim in the 1930s did not wish to acknowledge Germany`s barbarism which was then current.  Today, the U.K. has a Chief Rabbi who is a product of Rabbi Hirsch`s philosophy “Torah im derech eretz", as indeed were many of his predecessors and as are many thousands of observant Jews in the Sciences, Arts, Professions and Commerce.  The leaders of Yeshivot and the Chassidim brought about the almost complete destruction of their followers by waiting for the Messianic era which they continually, and always incorrectly, foretold.
 1994