P. & I discuss patrilineal descent & conversion
Anonymous started it in a comment to this post of mine, asking ""If the C movement officially allowed patralineal descent, would you cease affiliation with the movement?"
Then Julie Wiener got in on the act in this New York Jewish Week article, reporting that "Rabbi Robert Levine of Manhattan’s Congregation Rodeph Sholom . . . argues that matrilineal descent, only codified in Talmudic times, was itself a departure from biblical tradition and was a way of adapting to problems of that era: specifically, challenges faced by Jewish women who bore the children of non-Jewish men."
The Punster said he thought that, just as matrilineal descent was a response to a challenge of Talmudic times, perhaps “equilineal” descent--a policy of considering a person Jewish if either parent is Jewish--might be an appropriate response to the challenge of our own time. He's not so sure that he'd leave the Conservative Movement if it accepted patrilineal descent.
I, on the other hand, accept the logic of my first rabbi after moving to New York, which is that policies that affect the entire Jewish community differ from policies that do not. For example, what I serve in my home doesn't affect the whole Jewish community--what my synagogue serves does. The ordination of women and/or gays as rabbis does not affect the entire Jewish community--some accept such ordinations, some do not. But nobody's going to argue that the child of a (straight or lesbian) woman rabbi is not Jewish. The definition of "who is a Jew" does affect the entire Jewish community. If memory serves me correctly, my first rabbi in New York left the Reconstructionist Movement when it started accepting patrilineal descent.
So, on the one hand, it would be consistent with this approach for me to leave the Conservative Movement if the Rabbinical Assembly's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards voted to accept patrilineal descent.
On the other hand, I have a huge problem--if I became Orthodox, I would have to consider the conversions of some old friends of mine to be null and void.
How can I suddenly decide that an old friend, who's been Jewish for over 25 years, who persuaded her husband, raised a secular Yiddishist, to try synagogue (much to the dismay of his mother), whose kids are Jewish day school graduates, who keeps a kosher home, and who has served on her synagogue's board, is not Jewish just because she was converted by a Conservative rabbi?
How can I suddenly decide that another old buddy who's been Jewish for over 15 years, has served as an officer of her synagogue, keeps a kosher home and is more observant than I am, is not Jewish just because she was converted by a Conservative rabbi?
The Punster feels the same way. Looks like the Conservative Movement is stuck with us and we're stuck with the Conservative Movement.
Then Julie Wiener got in on the act in this New York Jewish Week article, reporting that "Rabbi Robert Levine of Manhattan’s Congregation Rodeph Sholom . . . argues that matrilineal descent, only codified in Talmudic times, was itself a departure from biblical tradition and was a way of adapting to problems of that era: specifically, challenges faced by Jewish women who bore the children of non-Jewish men."
The Punster said he thought that, just as matrilineal descent was a response to a challenge of Talmudic times, perhaps “equilineal” descent--a policy of considering a person Jewish if either parent is Jewish--might be an appropriate response to the challenge of our own time. He's not so sure that he'd leave the Conservative Movement if it accepted patrilineal descent.
I, on the other hand, accept the logic of my first rabbi after moving to New York, which is that policies that affect the entire Jewish community differ from policies that do not. For example, what I serve in my home doesn't affect the whole Jewish community--what my synagogue serves does. The ordination of women and/or gays as rabbis does not affect the entire Jewish community--some accept such ordinations, some do not. But nobody's going to argue that the child of a (straight or lesbian) woman rabbi is not Jewish. The definition of "who is a Jew" does affect the entire Jewish community. If memory serves me correctly, my first rabbi in New York left the Reconstructionist Movement when it started accepting patrilineal descent.
So, on the one hand, it would be consistent with this approach for me to leave the Conservative Movement if the Rabbinical Assembly's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards voted to accept patrilineal descent.
On the other hand, I have a huge problem--if I became Orthodox, I would have to consider the conversions of some old friends of mine to be null and void.
How can I suddenly decide that an old friend, who's been Jewish for over 25 years, who persuaded her husband, raised a secular Yiddishist, to try synagogue (much to the dismay of his mother), whose kids are Jewish day school graduates, who keeps a kosher home, and who has served on her synagogue's board, is not Jewish just because she was converted by a Conservative rabbi?
How can I suddenly decide that another old buddy who's been Jewish for over 15 years, has served as an officer of her synagogue, keeps a kosher home and is more observant than I am, is not Jewish just because she was converted by a Conservative rabbi?
The Punster feels the same way. Looks like the Conservative Movement is stuck with us and we're stuck with the Conservative Movement.
posted by Shira Salamone at 10:40 AM
36 Comments:
Shira, I was told (I cannot remember by whom) that Jewish law judges a child's Jewishness by its mother because of a very practical reason - you can prove who the mother is, but not the father.
I can not fathom why you regard the alternative to affiliating with the Conservative Movement is to "become Orthdox"- what is affiliation any way? Membership in a synagogue? Calling yourself Conservative? What does it mean. The Rabbi of your conservative synagogue appears to be Orthodox- what is his affiliation? It is a loose term. How about saying you will leave membership in your shul unless it gave up being a part of the "United Synagogue" and working with your friends to do that, rather that thinking you have to renounce and "shun" your friends? Anyway they were converted by a Movement & Rabbis who had a more traditional interpretation of Halacha at that time and those were the conditions of their conversions- it does not suddenly go sour. I have been unconfortably 'affilated' with the Conservative movement for over 40 years, and am pretty sure that the vast majority of the folks I daven with would walk from the Conservative movement if it went patrilineal, as well as would my wife (traditional yiddish secularist she), and my sons (radical as they may be on other issues). It would be the Conservative movement that would fall and be disaffiliated by its core membership. Let Ziegler and the West Coast go one way and JTS and the East Coast and Canada stay the course.
WBM
1) You can't prove who the mother is a generation later, or if you are in a different community in times where long distance communication is difficult.
2) Nowadays with paternity testing you can know who the father is, or at least know who it isn't.
Shira:
R makes up about 40% of affiliated Jews. C makes up another 30%. If C adopted equilineal descent(*) then the majority of the Jewish community would, ipso facto, recognize such descent.
(*)Equilineal descent is a good term because the R movement does not say that the child of a Jewish mother and a gentile father is not Jewish(**). That would be partrilineal descent.
(**) Note that the actual Reform rules are
1) The child of 2 Jewish parents is Jewish
2) The child of 1 Jewish parent and 1 non-Jewish parent is Jewish if the child is raised to be a Jew (and only a Jew - teach your kid that he is both a Jew and a Hindu and in theory R won't accept them(***)).
I suspect that if C does go equilineal, they will do so by blood alone without brining upbrining into it, which means we will have 3 definitions.
(***) I know of more than one child of a Jewish mother and a gentile father who was told they would have to convert before being considered Jewish by the rabbi of their (different) local Reform shuls. In one case the person joined the local C shul, which of course accepted them at once as Jewish, and eventually joined the R shul some years later without a formal conversion.
Shira:
1) Why does changing your affiliation mean you retroactively annul a conversion you recognize? Just because another "movement" wouldn't recognize the conversion in principle, doesn't mean that you can't treat/accept the person as Jewish in practice. In theory, I reject conversions of non-orthodox rabbis. In practice, I consider several people who converted under the aegis of a conservative rabbi to be Jewish. (assuming mikvah, hatafat dam brit if a man, acceptance of mitzvot.)
2) Larry: Thank you for making clear the reform movement's "official" position. I hate it when people get that wrong.
3) Larry: Have to disagree with you, because you're using affiliation to mean "what Jews think." 70% of american jews may say, if asked "I'm reform, or I'm conservative" but for most of them, that has no real meaning. They are really simply unaffiliated. My sister, before she was married, was "reform" in the sense that she was nothing. Now, she's "conservative" because the shul she never goes to is conservative.
And no matter what, I don't care what percentages "affiliate" as conservative or reform, most of them still look at orthodoxy as "real judaism" in terms of standard-setting.
WBM, that's pretty much what I've heard as well. From what I heard, the issue arose because of Jewish women being forced into slavery and/or raped by non-Jewish men. Not a pleasant reason for a major change in approach between the biblical and talmudic eras, but . . .
Max, I wonder whether you're right about the majority of Conservative Jews deserting the movement if it went "equilineal."
Larry, at least the Reform are serious about kids being raised to be of only one religion. I'll give credit where it's due.
"Shira:
R makes up about 40% of affiliated Jews. C makes up another 30%. If C adopted equilineal descent(*) then the majority of the Jewish community would, ipso facto, recognize such descent."
Larry, I had seriously contemplated the possibility that a change to equilineal descent by all non-Orthodox denominations would permanently split the Jewish People, but concluded that it wouldn't happen for one simple reason: As long as the Orthodox community still considers non-Orthodox Jews to be Jews, they can try to "m'karev" us (bring us back to Orthodoxy) or, in the case of a person with a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, convert us. Once they write all of us off as non-Jews, we're lost to the Jewish world--and there so many of us non-Orthodox Jews that the Jewish People simply can't afford to write us off.
JDbub, perhaps your approach is workable: "In theory, I reject conversions of non-orthodox rabbis. In practice, I consider several people who converted under the aegis of a conservative rabbi to be Jewish. (assuming mikvah, hatafat dam brit if a man, acceptance of mitzvot.)" Okay, granted, the acceptance of mitzvot part might be a bit inconsistent from one Conservative convert to another, but people can always change.
Here are some of my own thoughts about trying to accept non-O converts while a member of an O community.
In practice unless the non-O convert is trying to make it difficult (which does happen) this is not much of an issue in day to day life. It isn't your individual decision whether to count the person in the minyan, you can always have mevushal wine when they are guests, etc.
Jdub, I categorically reject the idea that "most [Conservative and Reform Jews] still look at orthodoxy as 'real judaism' in terms of standard-setting." To any Jew, the only standard comes from the Halachos and how you understand it within your understanding of Judaism.
Keep in mind especially that Orthodox Judaism began as a reaction to the Reform Movement; Conservative Judaism began as a reform on Reform. It would be far more correct to say that Orthodox Judaism positions itself as a reaction to Conservative and Reform practices.
It DOES come up... but very rarely... When my grandmother passed away, there way a question of a minyan and saying Kaddish (ignoring the fact that none of her children knew how to say Kaddish). My well meaning mother started counting "men" for a minyan, knowing that I wouldn't count the women, ignoring the fact that most of the men she was counting weren't Jewish (Jewish father, and not "raised Jewish" so not Jewish in Reform eyes either).
We kind of changed the subject. Something similar (issue of counting women) came up with my wife's family in the Shiva House. Someone got rowdy and complained that they were all Conservative, why was the minyan requiring 10 men... ignoring the fact that none of them knew how to lead Maariv and were depending on me to muddle through it, if he wanted to lead Maariv, they could have used there egalitarian minyan.
The few times they had a non-minyan minyan, I simply stood by a door and left the room during parts where a minyan was needed... davining by myself in general (and in an apartment/house, standing by a doorway and walking through it doesn't create a scene.
wow, Tevel, that's an amazing revision of history. Orthodoxy was not a reaction to reform. Before reform there was just Judaism, which was effectively orthodox, even if it didn't have a name. What was Reform "reforming" if not what came before it? For lack of a better word, let's call that Orthodoxy.
You make it sound like Reform is the original and Orthodoxy sprang out of it. That is a version of history I don't think even the most radical reformers would accept.
History is written by winners, so it is unsurprising that there is a dispute on this topic as no one has won yet.
The Reform movement was a response to the opportunities offered by the haskala. Some groups reacted to the opportunities not just by turning them down, but by growing more rigid and separate in response. The Reformers gave these people the name 'Orthodox', which name was eventually accepted by the Orthodox themselves.
Later, as often happens with revolutionary movements, some of the reformers felt the movement had behaved excessively. These reformers founded the conservative movement. It was a move back towards tradition from the base of the Reformers, not a schism from the traditional Orthodox, nor yet a separate break from the Judaism that came before the Haskala.
IMO every contemporary Jewish movement is a reaction to modernity. The pre-haskala form of Judaism is as vanished as the Judaism governed by the Beit Din Hagadol at Yavneh after the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed.
Larry:
I think you oversimplify. While there are many differences between Orthodoxy in America and Israel and what predated the Haskalah, I think it's erroneous to claim that the haskalah wiped out everything, and Orthodoxy sprang out from Zeus's head, fully formed.
Orthodoxy is a continuation of pre-haskalah Judaism in Europe. Different? Yes, but America in 2009 is different than America in 1899, yet you wouldn't begin to argue that it's a fully different organism.
Also, compare Orthodoxy among Ashkenazim to Orthodoxy among Sephardim who didn't have the Haskalah or Reform. Many, many similarities. To say that Orthodoxy is a reaction to Reform is simply incorrect. Now, to say that Ultra-Orthodoxy (i.e., Hungarian Orthodoxy and it's spread) was a reaction to Reform may be slightly more accurate.
Also, you greatly oversimplify the Conservative movement by saying it's an outgrowth of Reform. While the "Treyfah Banquet" did cause some to leave the Reform movement, you ignore the other aspects of the Conservative movement that grew out of the Orthodox world, such as R. Zechariah Frankel's seminary in Breslau, R. Solomon Schechter (fully Orthodox, yet a luminary at JTS), and many other critical scholars who found homes at JTS who were, in practical terms, fully Orthodox in observance.
Larry, thanks for the link. I appreciate your efforts to make the best of a challenging situation.
Tevel, you said, "To any Jew, the only standard comes from the Halachos and how you understand it within your understanding of Judaism. You might find this post interesting.
Miami Al, your challenge in trying to lead a minyan according to your own count sounds familiar, and for a somewhat similar reason--ignorance on the part of others. That's why I'd like to belong to a congregation of *serious* Jews. I'm sick and tired of being a member of a synagogue in which, years before our membership shrank to 60, there were already less than half a dozen(male) members capable of leading a service, and only half a dozen members (male and female, total) capable of chanting a haftarah. Yes, the cantor has, for years, offered to teach congregants to chant a haftarah, but, to the best of my knowledge and/or recollection, only one adult has ever taken him up on his offer in all the 25 or so years that I've been a member. This isn't rocket science--or Gemara. I find an unwillingness, on the part of adults, to learn something so basic that even a Bar/Bat Mitzvah student can do it rather upsetting, especially when the result is that my husband is practically chained to our local shul, since he ends up chanting the haftorah practically every other week, if not every week.
Larry and JDub, thanks for the history lesson.
As much as you'd like to call simplistic or revisionist, Larry's take is far closer to reality, Jdub. as well, you're the only person here claiming that Judaism sprung whole cloth out of the Reform movement.
I saw that post before, Shira. I thought Katrina's point about wanting to live Judaism was quite apt, save one thing: those folks who want to live Jewish lives already are. How they add emphasis to their Judaism might change, of course.
Tevel, I think you're getting Larry's comment and JDub's confused, but, at this point, so I am. :)
I think there's some truth in Larry's point that "IMO every contemporary Jewish movement is a reaction to modernity." Certainly, the Judaism of the days of the ancient yeshiva at Yavneh are long gone, and surely the opening of higher secular education to Jews at the time of the haskalah/"enlightenment" had an impact on, at least, Ashkenazi Judaism. (Methinks secular education had already been open to, and influencing, the Sefardi Jewish community at that point--I've heard that the Rambam/Maimonides was influenced by Greek philosopy.)
I think there's also some truth to JDub's point that "you ignore the other aspects of the Conservative movement that grew out of the Orthodox world, such as R. Zechariah Frankel's seminary in Breslau, R. Solomon Schechter (fully Orthodox, yet a luminary at JTS), and many other critical scholars who found homes at JTS who were, in practical terms, fully Orthodox in observance." I had completely forgotten about that part of Conservative Jewish history--thanks for the reminder, JDub.
"those folks who want to live Jewish lives already are. How they add emphasis to their Judaism might change, of course." Tevel, I would say that my "Jewish life" is a work in progress.
While R. Frenkel and R. Schechter are interesting historical footnotes in this discussion, they are not really relevant. It's unlikely Frenkel would ever have considered himself "conservative". His distinction was purely theoretical -- embracing the "scientific" study of judaism and its critical analysis, along with the positive historical approach to that analysis. At that point, and even slightly later with Schechter, there was no more meaningful difference in observance. Its only in the last fifty to sixty years that we see the critical analysis approach used for quantum leaps in halachka.
"It's unlikely Frenkel would ever have considered himself "conservative". . . . At that point, and even slightly later with Schechter, there was no more meaningful difference in observance."
Thanks, Steve. I hadn't really thought of that. It may very well be true that, early in the formation of Conservative Judaism--perhaps before anyone thought of it as a separate denomination--the folks promulgating these views weren't distinguisable in observance from those whom we'd now label Orthodox.
Two comments:
1) Recent posts include lots of assumptions about “how Jews observed” prior to the Reform movement’s innovations. It’s really not clear: there were so many Jewish communities, in different countries, with various levels of literacy, over many centuries. Other than specific halakhic rulings about specific questions from specific community leaders, there is no documentation that can lead to sweeping conclusions about our ancestors’ observance patterns. To say “everyone was basically Orthodox” is simply wishful thinking from one group of Jews whose theology doesn’t allow them to recognize that Judaism evolved.
2) Even if matrilineal descent was a reaction to a particular phenomenon, it has now been “on the books” for many, many centuries. That has legal power.
I think that it is fair to say, that the Judaism our fore-bearers didn't follow has little to no modern equivalent...
The Judaism our ancestors routinely violated didn't look a THING like Modern Orthodoxy (with education, involvement with the neighbors, and Shabbat observance), it certainly didn't like a thing like Yeshiva Judaism with it's Jewish houses of learning, and the Hassidism wouldn't invent their new religion for a few centuries.
Do Ashkenazim and Sephardim have similarities? Where the practices overlap, there was no doubt a pre-Enlightenment Judaism that followed it. However, Orthodoxy, with it's tomes of rulings and stringencies certainly didn't exist back then, you needed the events of the Enlightenment to spread Jewish learning.
The Judaism of Europe from that era? A hidebound, superstitious lot, busy making rulings in each town to buy peace with the nearby gentile ruler. Lot's of poor farmers relaxing on Shabbat at the end of the week, with a few rich butchers who have worked with the local Rabbis to control the meat market.
The white washed world of Jdub, a wholesale invention by the 20th century Yeshiva world.
Note: causes given for the first exile includes not keeping Shmittah years. Jews routinely and communally violating Tanakh and Halacha? Predates the codification of the Mishnah... not an invention by the Reform movement.
"The white washed world of Jdub, a wholesale invention by the 20th century Yeshiva world." That's rather bluntly put, Miami Al. Do you really hold the 10th-century Yeshiva world responsible for creating a false impression of pre-World-War-II observance?
Er, 20th-century.
Do you really hold the 20th-century Yeshiva world responsible for creating a false impression of pre-World-War-II observance?
A case can certainly be made. Here's an excerpt from an edah.org article:
The late Rabbi Shimon Schwab presented the most effective exposition of this view:
There is a vast difference between history and storytelling. History must be truthful; otherwise it does not deserve its name. A book of history must report the bad with the good, the ugly with the beautiful, … the guilt and the virtue. …It cannot spare the righteous if he fails, and it cannot skip the virtues of the villain.
[End Rabbi Schwab quote. Article continues]
And this, of course is the problem. Only a prophet, speaking in God’s name, says Rabbi Schwab, has the right to record the embarrassing truths of history. Citing the example of pre-Holocaust Germany, he points out that a factual history would have to report uncomplimentary things about the community and its leaders. This would violate the prohibition against lashon ha-ra and, furthermore, would serve no ethical purpose. Instead of the naked truth, he proposes that we teach our children “the good memories,” tell of the good people, their faith, honesty, charity, and reverence for Torah – not their inadequacies and contradictions:
Every generation has to put a veil over the human failings of its elders…that means that we have to do without a real history book…. We do not need realism; we need inspiration from our forefathers in order to pass it on to posterity.
This certainly provides halachic cover for any sort of re-imagining of pre-churban Europe you can imagine.
Reading the novels of Shalom Aleichem also give a hugely different picture of pre-churban urban Poland and rural Russia than we get from contemporary Orthodox sources.
Larry, this attitude accounts, may I assume, for the ban against Making of a Godol, a factual book about the lives of, among others, the author’s own father?
Shira, absolutely. You might also consider it the source for the ban against Slifkin for printing lashon hara about Mother Earth. :>)
:)
Larry, thanks for the link. I disagree with the Rabbi, we DO need realism. Inspiration is important, it inspires one to dream about what one could be. When becoming observant, the story of Rabbi Akiva always spoke to me, who reached adulthood unable to make a simple Bracha (blessing) who became the leading scholar of his era... I liked to think of him as the first BT religious scholar. :)
However, inspiration is wonderful, and fables and myths are important to any culture. They motivate children and inspire adults, that is VERY important.
However, when you look at a community like observant Judaism, there are real people making real decisions about real children. You can be inspired by myths, but you need to base decisions on reality. Two generations raised on the whitewashed world of pre-WW2 Judaism has led to a series of economic decisions that are heading towards catastrophe, and nobody is ready to confront them, because they claim "this is always what it was, there must be a way." You can reach for ideals, but you must deal with reality.
I fear that Orthodoxy has hit it's high water mark. It built a committed observant world the Jewish world has never seen before, but allegiance to economic myths have it heading toward a cliff, an avoidable cliff if the leaders had real historical records to follow instead of myths.
The generation that called for white washing the past NEVER dreamed of a world with 2 million Shomer Shabbat Jews, so it wanted myths to encourage their children. We now have more Shomer Shabbat Jews than probably ever before, and no clue how to build a society for them, out of allegiance to a non-existent ideal.
Miami Al
I'm coming from the same place you are. My teachers taught me that Avraham Avinu, Moshe Rabbenu, and all our other great ancestors were great human beings who had flaws. Avraham jeopardized Sarah twice to avert a potential threat to his own life. Moshe Rabbenu had what we today would call an anger management problem (perhaps caused in part by his great humility?).
When I learned these stories I said to myself "My ancestors were great, but they were flawed. I'm already flawed - I'm halfway to being Avraham Avinu, even at my age!".
I've talked with day school and yeshiva educated people about how the Avot can be role models for them, when the Avot were described as being at a level they have no chance of attaining themselves. It isn't as big a problem from them as it for me apparently - most of them thought that while Avraham was far holier than they could ever be, they could still learn from his life lessons they could apply on their lower level.
Larry and Al, I think it would be reasonable to say that Judaism cannot survive without *both* inspiration and realism. The trick lies in finding a good balance, probably more toward the inspirational for the young kids and more toward the realistic for teens and adults.
Shira, you're 100% on target.
As a child, we learned about George Washington and the Cherry tree... Young George cuts down a tree and is confronted about it, he admits it saying, "I cannot tell a lie, I did cut down the cherry tree." That story, which never happened, is part of the American mythos about the "father of our country."
As a teenager, you learn about General Washington and the sacrifices he made to keep his troops fed, with boots, etc., and the struggles.
The inspirational story helps children, but reality is never black and white.
In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Christopher Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue. He wasn't seeking discovery, he was looking for a financially beneficial trade route, and his actions brought plague, death, and enslavement upon the inhabitants. As children get older, more details serve a purpose.
Holy and perfect Avraham Avinu is important for little children to understand the goal. The story of his father's idol shop is a cute story to tell children. However, the realities of his struggles is a better example for adults.
I think for the Day School kids, they are being truthful that they have lessons to learn, but I think by learning immortal men instead of real men, they don't appreciate the risks and sacrifices. The childish view of history that has been chosen appears to me to create a scared and nervous Jew, worried about the outside world, because they only see the good, not the bad.
The OTD percentages are quite high, probably because they are told of the gentile world from those that know nothing of it, and when they get out there, they learn that the world isn't filled with evil goyim out to convert them, which undermines their entire education to date.
Al, I think that, in the long run, the Jewish community pays for not telling the (whole) truth about the Jewish and general worlds. One has to be able to trust what one has learned and the persons from whom one has learned it. Otherwise, why continue to be a part of the community?
Shira, I think we need to be careful about how the whole truth is exposed. This is actually easier in the liberal Jewish communities - you can say "Yes, there were these distasteful things said by great scholars and rabbis, but we don't believe them anymore". That is harder to deal with in the O community, where there is a great deal of reluctance to criticize those who came before us.
Specifically, when you expose the whole truth, frex, of some of the nastier halachot of Jew/Gentile relations you have to be sure to show a) there were other contemporary views that opposed the nasty ones, b) the nasty opinions are not considered the valid ones today by our authorities, c) perhaps give some of the context which makes such rulings understandable, if still not acceptable.
" . . . in the liberal Jewish communities . . . you can say "Yes, there were these distasteful things said by great scholars and rabbis, but we don't believe them anymore". That is harder to deal with in the O community, where there is a great deal of reluctance to criticize those who came before us."
So I've noticed, Larry. That's one of the reasons why I’m not Orthodox. As I've said, I'm a blunt speaker by nature--I call them as I see them. To be honest, I'm not the least bit fond of the concept of "yeridat ha-dorot," the so-called decline of the generations, the notion that the scholars of previous generatons were superior to the scholars of current times. The dorot, generations, of Talmudic times couldn't rule on technology that didn't exist in their day, nor can anyone avoid being influenced by the current that surrounds him/her. (Hence, the sexism of many of our sacred texts, coming from eras in which women's inferiority was considered so natural that an egalitarian approach would never have occurred to scholars of those times.) I see no reason to value the opinions of ancient rabbis automatically over those of current ones. I'll take Rav Riskin (an advocate of Women's Tefillah Groups and the education of women as Jewish scholars) over Rav Sheshet ("Rav Sheshes said: Why did the Torah count outer ornaments with inner ornaments? To tell you that anyone who looks at the small finger of a woman is as if he looked at the obscene place." [Berachos 24a]--quote copied from here) any day.
Oops, missed an explanatory link: Women’s Tefillah (Prayer) Groups.
I've written a few times on the Decline of the generations. The linked post is the easiest one to find, as the others were on other people's blogs and livejournal communities.
The current generation of gedolim seem to me to be working very hard to show that the doctrine of yeridot hadorot applies to them, :<(
Larry, thanks for the link. One of the interpretations of yeridat ha-dorot that you list reminds me of one of my rabbi's jokes: "Rashi didn't have to learn Rashi."
I think one can argue yeridat ha-dorot both ways--on one hand, it's difficult to learn all Jewish sacred texts in depth because there's so much more text than it was in Akiva's time, but, on the other hand, the breadth of knowledge of the later generations would be quite breathtaking to the earlier ones, if they could see us now. Isn't there a midrash about Moshe Rabbeinu/Moses our Teacher being granted the privilege, long after his death, of sitting in on Rabbi Akiva's (or another sage's) class and having no idea what they were talking about, but being glad that the students attributed what they were learning to him?
"The current generation of gedolim seem to me to be working very hard to show that the doctrine of yeridot hadorot applies to them, :<(" How sad that that often seems true.
Shira, the story of Moses and Rabbi Akiva is one of the more complex aggadot in the talmud, IMHO. Depending on where you choose to stop reading the aggadah the point of the story is entirely different. It could be a story about the fundamental inability of man to understand Hashem's plan, or it can be a lesson in either the power or the limitations of the sages in understanding/defining halacha.
In addition, like the story of the oven of Akhnai the lessons learned vary wildly depending on the preferences of the reader.
So, Larry, the interpretation is all in the eye of the beholder? Who'd-a-thunk? :)
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