Avoiding the comforts of extremism

May 3, 2011

Sometimes the middle path is perceived as that which is noncommittal and lacking passion.   But in the realm of religion the opposite is true.  It is moderate positions that require more passion and commitment because they tend to be less black and white and thus harder to balance.  Extreme ideas in contrast are easy to grasp and hold onto.

Within Judaism, especially within more traditional arenas, there is disagreement regarding to what extent one should put up isolationist walls as a bulwark against western culture for fear of it compromising one’s religious values, or be open to outside people and ideas.

Sometimes those who form more extreme insular communities are seen as more pious.   In truth though, every stricture, every religious piety comes with an equal and opposite religious compromise not as readily apparent.  For instance, the more isolated and protected a community is the more they may retain their exclusive religious values, but at the same time their religious values will be less able to impact the outside world and thus less able to render them a “Light unto the nations” or as God put the Jewish mission to Abraham in the book of Genesis, “A blessing to all the families of the earth.”

Rabbi Marc Angel makes this point well in a recent article about Passover in the Jerusalem post http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=217325 in which he writes that true religious life is balanced, not veering to the side of “ice” or skepticism and hedonism, nor toward the side of “fire” or religious passion that expresses itself as fanaticism and isolationism.

Yet it is hard to stand for moderation and balance, it is much easier, and I would add more sexy, to take extreme positions.   The extremes of “ice” or of “fire” are less complex and at the extremes we are prone to see ourselves as self righteous, a position that, while locking out others, usually makes us feel pretty good.

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Posted by Hyim Shafner

The French Emperor’s Burka: When Liberalism Leads to Close-Mindedness

April 13, 2011

It is ironic when liberalism generates, instead of open-mindedness and acceptance, limitation of others’ free expression and denial of their rights.   France, I think, in dictating the limitations of what Muslim women can wear, has unmasked its liberte et egalite and shown it to be something else entirely.  The French Emperor, it seems, is wearing no clothes.  Liberty and equality that in the name of French secularism does not allow religious freedom are just prejudice and fear masquerading as secular values.

 

Rabbi Abraham Kook, the first chief rabbi of modern day Palestine (pre-state Israel) in the 1920’s, and father of modern day religious Zionism, understood that even in a religious context all things, even those usually deemed as anti-religious, can have value.  For instance, atheism, he said, has an important voice and place.  When others are in need, we must be atheists and not rely on God to help, not attribute the pain of others to divine justice, but jump in to assist, feeling the full burden of others’ needs as if there were no God for them to rely on.

 

I think secularism, too, has its place.  To be deeply religious, the tolerance and viewing of others’ religious values is of paramount importance.   If God is one and infinite then there are many keys to the kingdom.  When caught up in our own religious views (be they spiritual, or in the case of France, secular) it is hard to appreciate the take others might have on the big questions, i.e. God, people, the good, the universe.   But to have religious depth and not just self-righteousness, we must hear and appreciate the views of others, even if we do not accept them.   Ironically, the more we know about our own religion and the more secure we are in our observance and faith, the more we will be able to tolerate and learn from other’s views.   It makes one wonder how secure the French secularism that Sarkozy has touted really is (http://www.france24.com/en/20091112-nicolas-sarkozy-burqa-france-religion-muslim-secular-france).

 

The Talmud says that Jewish law follows the one who states the opposition’s opinion first and only then his own opinion.  Such a person’s view is truly informed and thus more likely to be correct.   When blind to another’s world view, it is easy to be right.  But if we first look through the eyes and values of another and only then commit to our own values, our own opinions will be more true and just.

 

How ironic that France, birthplace of revolution and freedom, in unmasking the Muslim woman, has donned its own cultural blinders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted by Hyim Shafner

Heaven and Heck

April 4, 2011

When I was a Rabbi at Washington University it was common for students who were not very knowledgeable about Judaism to ask me, “Rabbi, Judaism does not believe in Heaven and Hell right?”  I am not sure where this seemingly widespread impression came from, but my flippant answer was always, “No, but we do believe in heck.”

In the Five Books of Moses, the Biblical books of Genesis through Deuteronomy, there is no mention of heaven and hell.  There are proscriptions of earthly punishments, for violations of interpersonal as well as ritual law at the hands of a court, as well as earthly punishments from the Almighty (holding back rain, defeat at the hands of our enemies, exile from the Land of Israel) directed toward the entire Jewish nation for not obeying the Torah, but nothing is portrayed beyond our physical world.

Though the Torah proscribes many punishments for the violation of commandments, in only a few instances does the Bible mention reward for correct actions.  In the case of honoring one’s father and mother (Exodus 20:11) the Bible says, “You shall have long life on the land which God has given you” and for the commandment of shooing away the mother bird before taking her eggs from the nest (Deuteronomy 21:6), the Torah writes the same reward, that “it may be good for you and your days be long…”

The Talmud records an interesting story regarding faith and reward and punishment.   A father told his son to climb a tree and shoo away the mother bird, claiming the eggs for himself.  The boy obeyed and on his way down fell off the tree and died.   The Talmud tells us that Rabbi Alisha ben Avyah, watching the scene of the boy dying while occupied precisely in those two laws for which the Torah rewards long life, gave up his faith in God.  The Talmud then asks, indeed, how do we explain the boy’s death?in light of his fillment of these two commandments?   The Talmud answers that the torah does not mean long life in this world but long life in the next.

Normative Judaism does believe in an after life, usually referred to as Olam Habah, the “World to Come.”  Maimonides railed against the branches of Islamic philosophy in his day (11c) that saw this reward as physical, since the body is put in the ground and only the soul meets its maker.  Maimonides explains that through our actions in this world we cultivate our soul’s ability to reconnect with its Infinite divine source after the body’s death.   What we have done in this world conditions the soul to be close to God or distant from God.

Closeness to the Divine is the ultimate reward; distance from it the greatest punishment.   So we must be clear from a Jewish point of view that though we believe in reward and punishment (with out it, I think, what we do does not really matter) we should not mistake this for a vindictive King in the sky image casting humans into a Dantesque inferno.  Rather our soul in the next world is a natural extension of who we have become in this world.  The development of our moral and religious character which we achieve in the physical world, in a way continues on and “naturally” results in our proximity to the Divine, perhaps the greatest of all rewards and punishments.

In Jewish study and life in general one rarely hears discussion of Heaven and Hell.  I think this emerges from Judaism’s very strong stress on this world, and doing what we should because we are commanded so, not because some non-earthly reward and punishment awaits us.   As the first century Jewish moral work Pirkey Avot, The Ethics of our Fathers (4:17) puts it:  “More beautiful is one hour of repentance and good deeds in this world than all the life of the World to Come, and more beautiful is one hour of spiritual satisfaction in the Next World than all the life of this world.”

 

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Is God in the Tsunami? -By Rabbi Hyim Shafner

March 23, 2011

…After the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake… -I Kings 19:11

“Where is God now? Where is He?…He is hanging here on this gallows” -Night by Eli Wiesel

“The cruelty and the killing raise the question whether even those who believe after such an event dare to talk about God who loves and cares without making a mockery of those who suffered.” -Rabbi Irving Greenberg

The Japanese, I am told, living on one of the most active tectonic faults, feel always that the “big one” can come tomorrow.   I guess all humans, if we are not completely jaded, wait for the big one, though perhaps not actively. Indeed humans have a unique ability to ignore the tragic realities and statistics predicting the disasters that may come. But we all have some deep sense, when we are honest, that life is as transient as things get. Beyond helping the Japanese people by sending funds and supplies, how do we assimilate the tragedy?

 

 

Perhaps we can not.  Only survivors of tragic events can know what it is to be they; for us to make assumptions about such tragedy would be audacious.   So what can we, 10,000 miles from the epicenter think, say, and reflect upon, other than crying for fellow humans, made in God’s image who are suffering so much?  For us as religious people and religious leaders, how do we understand the ago old question which asks “Where is the merciful God we talk about and pray to, now?”

 

 

In the face of tragedy, unfortunately, religious leaders seems to make the news when they take either of two extreme positions.  That God brought about a tragedy to punish us, -Rabbis, Priests and Imams all were quoted after the floods in New Orleans and the Tsunami in Thailand as saying that God brought about these modern day floods for the same reason as those in the Bible, to punish humans for their sins.

 

 

But, as the biblical book of Job instructs, we must not suggest reasons for, or try to make sense of, the suffering of others.  Though we want to make sense of our world and the seeming injustice of it, if we do we make a mockery of humans and God.  In the end God seems to rebuke Job’s friends who suggest reasons for his torment with the words, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world?”

 

 

The other extreme was heard also, that tragedy of such proportion should lead us to question the existence of God, as if the death of one child is less horrific and more explainable.   So what are religionists who believe in a merciful God on one hand and read a Bible of reward and punishment on the other, to say about calamity of such huge proportion?

 

 

In Judaism there is expansive writing about such questions.  In ancient times in the Talmud and in more recent years a vast Holocaust literature and theology has tried to grapple with modern day tragedies of biblical proportion in which often the righteous suffer and the wicked are spared

 

 

One helpful idea, much discussed in modern holocaust literature, is the idea of God’s hiddenness.   That while believing in an infinite God, this does not mean that God is always present, -God’s face as it were, can be hidden from us.  The Bible, following a list of curses and punishments that will befall the Jews if they do not obey the Torah, states, “…and I will hide my face from you on that day.”  To be hidden does not mean to be gone, nor does it mean to be understood, but it does mean that the promise of Divine presence and possibility still exists.

 

Recently Jewish people all over the world celebrated the holiday of Purim.  On this day 2500 years ago a wicked man attempted to genocide all the Jews and almost succeeded, if not for a courageous queen named Esther.   Esther’s name, the Talmud tells us, is hinted at in the Hebrew bible in the words “vaani hister astir panai bayom hahoo”, “And I will hide my face from you on that day (Deut. 31:18)” Esther=Hister-meaning “to hide.”

 

 

The very name Esther, the queen who saves the Jewish people, also refers to God’s hiddenness, and indeed in the entire book of Esther God’s name is not mentioned even once.  And so the scroll of Esther offers the hope that though we live in a world of tragedy, pain, suffering, and injustice, perhaps it is not a world in which God is absent or dead, but hidden.

 

 

In the words of the great 20th century Rabbi, Joseph Solovetchik in his profound book, Lonley Man of Faith: “Who is He who trails me steadily, uninvited and unwanted, like an everlasting shadow, and vanishes into the recesses of transcendence the very instant I turn around to confront this numinous, awesome and mysterious ‘He’?”

 

 

Though God is indeed hidden in our world, even more so at this moment, perhaps it is up to us to reveal the Divine through our actions and response.

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The Pope’s Exoneration of the Jews: A Step Back from Real Interfaith Encounter -By Rabbi Hyim Shafner

March 14, 2011

I was deeply offended by the Pope’s recent book quote in which he freed the Jews from responsibility for the killing of Jesus (I know it’s just a restatement of Nostra Aetate but that was before I was born).   Here is why -consider the following scenario to which, to me, it felt akin:

Suppose in 2011 a white president of the United States wrote that African Americans, after his examination of their biology and history, are not less than human than whites, as many in our country once thought.   Why would that offend me?  Firstly, it’s anachronistic and just not relevant to our world today, secondly, it would seems to imply that had the white slave owners been correct slavery would have been justified, and thirdly, the President is not a biologist and so instead of being considered science or history it would smack of a political agenda.  The only thing such a white President could do that would not seem absurd would be to apologize for the past and shed tears for all that might have been and was destroyed though bigotry and hatred.

I believe that if the goal is better interfaith relations, (which almost all Jewish leaders lauded the pope for in light of this statement last week), then this will not get us any farther on that path.  Real interfaith work requires that we each see the other fully as they are, not as we would like to see them.  Only when we put ourselves in the shoes of those whom we have hated and see the world through their eyes can we learn from them.   Tolerance is easy, especially if the other is a bit whitewashed, but tolerance is not deep or interesting.   Really understanding the other through their own eyes is the first step toward being able to understand them and the world as they see it, only then can true learning from each other begin.

When I was a Rabbi at Washington University, all the clergy would meet together each month.   Evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, and I would sit and discuss students and religious life on campus.  One year we decided to spend some time learning from each other about our individual theological worldviews.  Much of the time the conversation was prevented from becoming truly deep, as we walked on eggshells careful not to offend the other since we valued our friendship and collegiality.   At a certain point though I realized that we would never really respect each other, understand each other, and learn from each other, if we were not willing to truly encounter the other fully.

At the next meeting, I said the following to the most fundamentalist Christian pastor among us, a young man I really did like and respect as a person and colleague:  “Scott, unless we can really express who we are with each other, until you can tell me you think I am going to hell and until I can tell you I think you worship a Jewish heretic, we will never be able to truly break though the armor that protects us from seeing the world through each other’s eyes, and never really learn from each other’s theology.”

It was eye opening.   Only then were we able to really lay out what we believed, only then were we able to really present how we see the world and why it is so important to us.  Why we would be willing to die for it.  Only then did we really learn from each other’s vision of the world, religion and God.

If the pope were looking through Jewish eyes he would realize it does not matter to Jews who killed Jesus, and to even talk about it in light of the rivers of Jewish blood that have been spilt over two millennia in its name, is absurd and profoundly offensive.  May it be that we all learn to look through each other’s eyes, to garner from each other’s world views and understandings of the Divine, to come closer spiritually to the Infinite One and to each other.

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On Modesty and Misogyny by Rabbi Hyim Shafner

February 23, 2011

The sexual assault on CBS reporter Lara Logan in Tahrir Square last week brought me to think a bit about the role of modesty in religious countries.   Egypt is a country in which most women are religiously required or encouraged to cover themselves completely.  Yet paradoxically it is also a country in which women on the street, even those who are covered, are constantly at risk of being sexually harassed by men.

The following paragraph is from the Canadian government’s travel advisory on Egypt:

“Women, particularly foreign women, are frequently subject to unpleasant male attention, sexual harassment, and verbal abuse. This often takes the form of staring, inappropriate remarks, catcalls, and touching.”

Trying to make sense of this dichotomy the author of a recent Associated Press article reacting to the Lara Logan case hypothesized the following:

“Harassment is often the flip side of conservative mores. Men who believe women should stay out of the public sphere tend to assume that those seen in the streets are fair game.” If this is so it paints the picture of a perverse and one sided take on the idea of modesty.

It seems to me the role of modesty in religion is two fold.  Firstly, to be modest before God.  Flaunting the body is a kind of haughtiness because it shows we wish to be desired, respected, and approved of, not for who we are essentially (a being made in God’s image according to the Bible) but for something external.  This is the quintessence of hubris, to be lauded for what one has rather than what one does.   The same is true of flaunting one’s car, one’s money, or one’s house.

Secondly, modesty keeps sexual desire in its place.   Spiritual paths all seem to understand that sexuality is one of the most powerful human drives and that, if utilized correctly in specific contexts, that power can produce the holiest of things: the creation of new human beings with divine souls, and the deepest of human connections between two willing people.

While the Associated Press theory above may be correct, it bespeaks a one sided sense of modesty gone awry.   Formulating modesty as something that focuses on women and not upon men leads to only half the population cultivating the important values that modesty should teach, and seems to actually result in an overall lack of modesty.   Delineating a modest society or religion by how its women dress and not by how its men act leads to a bizarre double standard such as that in Egypt: women in extremely modest dress being sexually harassed by men who supposedly buy into the same religious value of modesty, but practice it not at all.

A double standard of modesty is sometimes depicted, (admittedly with out the same violent results) in a county close to my heart, Israel.  There are very religious Jewish sections of Jerusalem where upon entering one sees signs warning women to dress modestly, yet there are no signs warning men to watch what they look at, though there is much written in Judaism’s books of religious law about this very issue.   In fact if one looks in the Talmud, Judaism’s most basic source of tradition and law, or even in later codes of Jewish law one finds almost nothing prescribing  female dress, but much about the care men must exercise in guarding their eyes and speech.

Unless we see modesty as more than just how women dress but also as how we all act then we have facilitated hypocrisy rather than religious humility before God.  As the prophet Micha (6:8) said so long ago, “What does God ask of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”

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The 10th Plague and the Sanctification of the First Born –By Rabbi Hyim Shafner

January 19, 2011

In the past few Torah portions we have been reading of the Jewish People’s Exodus from Egypt.  The 10th plague, the smiting of the firstborn, seems to be the final catalyst which precipitates Pharos’ freeing of the slaves.  Curiously, just after the firstborn in Egypt are killed the Jewish people are told, “…therefore you shall sanctify the firstborn of the Jewish people.”  But why should the killing of Egypt’s first born result in the sanctification of the Jewish people’s first born animals and humans?

Several answers are given to this question by the classical commentaries.   The most basic is that the sanctification of the Jewish firstborn is an act of thanks for sparing them.  This seems strange though, for to give thanks to God, one should bring a thanksgiving offering, not offer up precisely that which was saved.

I would like to suggest the following answer along more physiological lines.   When individuals are together in a life-threatening circumstance in which some people survives and others do not, the survivors often ask themselves why they survived.  They were often not more worthy than their neighbor, not smarter, or more careful.  What can result from this is not just guilt on the part of the survivors but, especially given the seemingly often random nature of who survives and who does not, a sense of hitchayvut or obligation.  A sense that they were saved ‘for a reason’ and thus a feeling of need to make their lives more meaningful, deeper, and perhaps more spiritual than they would have been otherwise.

I think this may be why the Jewish people are not commanded to sanctify their firstborn.  Had this act been one of thanksgiving the Jewish people would be required to sanctify the firstborn as a kind of sacrifice.  But instead the firstborn are not offered by people but naturally and of necessity rendered in a state of sanctity which, as the Torah states, results directly from the act of the slaying of the firstborn of Egypt.

The Israelite who is saved while their Egyptian neighbor is killed, is, as a result of the seemingly random, non-merit based nature of the universe, propelled to make greater sense of their survival and their life, to sanctify their life and to come closer to the Source of all the grand complexity.

Many years ago I was in an accident which I survived and my friend did not.  Later I expressed my sense of survivor guilt to a rabbi I knew.  “Why me?” I asked.  “I was no more righteous than my friend who died.”

I have never forgotten the rabbi’s response: “We, all the living, feel guilty, for we all are the survivors.”  Indeed he was right.  The very fact that we are alive should, in this existential sense, propel us to see ourselves as survivors and to make greater meaning of our lives, to become closer to the Divine and to feel in this way, sanctified –obligated in special work, bearing an extra-ordinary sense of obligation.   We, the living, are all the survivors and must own up to our sense of sanctity and obligation.

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Were our Avot and Imahot (ancestors) perfect? Did they keep the whole Torah? –By Rabbi Hyim Shafner

December 15, 2010

Often we limit the Torah. We project our own ideas onto it –what we already identify with, ideas we think the Torah should be teaching us. Sometimes we feel the Torah cannot defend itself or be of value as it is, thus we fashion seatbelts for it that, I think, ultimately detract from it.

 

One example is how we see our Avot and Imahot.  (I won’t even go into the Artscroll illustrations of the Avot wearing schtriemlach.)  Instead of taking the Torah at its word, we remake the p’shat (textual meaning) of the Torah into descriptions of the Avot as perfect tzadikim (righteous people).  In fact, it often seems that a majority of the stories the Torah chooses to tell us of the Avot in Breishit are just the opposite- stories which depict midot that we would not consider refined.

 

I am not saying the Avot did not make the right decisions in the situations they were presented with; in some instances they perhaps had little choice but to choose the lesser of two evils.   I am saying that we should take care in claiming they were perfect, indeed the Torah, for its own reasons, which no doubt are right, did not choose to paint pictures of our Avot as perfect, but rather as sometimes lacking in midot.

 

A second important point- I am not denying that if read on a halachic/lomdishe level or on a kabalistic level, the actions of our ancestors cannot be justified- they can.   I am asking the question of whether the Avot as presented to us in the p’shat (and the Torah must be readable on its p’shat  level) are perfect.   Some obvious examples: Sarah throws her son out of the house for playing/laughing, Yosef’s brothers plot to kill him because they are jealous of him, as the Torah clearly states.  Yaakov and Rivka lie to Yitzchak, their blind father/husband.   Noach, the only person called a tzadik in Breishit, turns to drunkenness immediately after being saved from the flood,  etc.   (There is one interesting exception to this trend which is Yosef.  After he grows up, he attributes everything to God, puts God at the center always, and humbly puts himself in check in order to give to others.)

 

The notion that our ancestors were righteous and kept the whole Torah is taken as p’shat by our day school-educated children.  After all, if they are our examples, how could they be anything but superhuman tzadikim?  The idea that they may not be seems, instead of rendering our Avot more accessible as role models for us,  to deeply threaten people’s faith.

 

The Torah has many faces and many understandings and to see the Torah as black and white, to say it has one explanation, is to remake it in our image instead of letting it teach us.  Torah is holy and Divine and can protect itself.   It does not have to fit neatly into the theological molds we make for it within our religious comfort zones.  Instead , we must let the Torah challenge us to think outside the box.  Perhaps our Avot were not perfect and there is much to learn from this.

 

There are actually conflicting notions in Chazal (our rabbis, may their memory be for a blessing) in regard to the question of whether our ancestors kept the Torah.

 

שמות רבה (וילנא) פרשה ל

מגיד דבריו ליעקב חקיו ומשפטיו לישראל לא עשה כן לכל גוי אלא למי ליעקב שבחרו מכל העובדי כוכבים ולא נתן להם אלא מקצת נתן לאדם ו’ מצות, הוסיף לנח אחת, לאברהם ח’, ליעקב ט’, אבל לישראל נתן להם הכל

 

According to this opinion in the above Midrash, Noah kept seven mitzvot, Avraham eight, and Yaakov nine.  That’s it.

 

Here we see the radical opposite Midrash brought in the Talmud.

 

תלמוד בבלי מסכת יומא דף כח עמוד ב

אמר רב: קיים אברהם אבינו כל התורה כולה, שנאמר +בראשית כו+ עקב אשר שמע אברהם בקלי וגו’. אמר ליה רב שימי בר חייא לרב: ואימא שבע מצות! – הא איכא נמי מילה. – ואימא שבע מצות ומילה! – אמר ליה: אם כן מצותי ותורתי למה לי? אמר (רב) +מסורת הש”ס: [רבא]+ ואיתימא רב אשי: קיים אברהם אבינו אפילו עירובי תבשילין, שנאמר תורתי – אחת תורה שבכתב ואחת תורה שבעל פה.

 

According this piece of Talmud, Avraham kept not only the written Torah but the oral tradition and even rabbinic fences such as Eruv Tavshilin, a rabbinic commandment that was put in place to allow cooking on Yom Tov for Shabbat, which according to most, is probably only a rabbinic limitation itself.

 

But how are we to understand this opinion that our Avot kept the Torah, when indeed it was not yet given?

 

The Nitivot Shalom explains how we can understand the Midrashic idea that our ancestors kept Torah, even if it was not commanded to them, as follows (Hakdamah 3):

“With regard to all things we must ask not only is this permitted or forbidden by law but is it “Good in God’s eyes.”  Even if there is no clear source in the Torah from which to infer what is good or bad in the eyes of God, the human soul can teach us the truth of it.

It is in this way that we can understand that which the Midrash says, that Avraham fulfilled the entire Torah before it was given.  For if it was not yet given, how did Avraham know it?  One could say he knew it through Ruach haKodesh, the Holy Spirit, but in truth he knew it through the meaning of, “You shall do what is good and right in the eyes of God.”

This means we must do what brings us close to God.   How do we know what that is (if one does not have the Torah as Abraham did not, or if it is not all written in the Torah)?  The human soul can teach us how.  The soul within us that is a true part of God above can sense what is good and right in God’s eyes, and, conversely, what will make us distant from God.  This is how Avraham fulfilled the entire Torah before it was given.”

 

The Nitivot Shalom here is saying that through the human soul and conscience, we can intuit what is good and right in the eyes of God.   This is how Avraham understood the Torah and by extension, since we all have a Divine soul, so can we.   We must not only keep the laws but go beyond the letter of the law to do what is good and right, with the holy, though perhaps less than perfect Avot as our guides.

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Rediscovering Prayer –by Rabbi Hyim Shafner

November 4, 2010

Perhaps I speak only for myself but I think generally we have lost the concept of prayer.  The upside of prayer in the Orthodox community is that we do it often.  But this is also the downside.  As a result of the commonness of our prayer I think, at least for me, prayer often can become the saying of words, the recitation of formulas, the fulfilling of an obligation.

 

The gemara (Berachot 29b)has an interesting instruction for prayer that may help us:

“Rabbi Eliezer says: One who makes their prayer fixed (kevah, which prayer should not be) their prayer is not beseeching/prayerful (tachanunim).   What does “fixed prayer” mean?  Rabbi Yaakov the son of Rav Idi said in the name of Rabbi Oshiyah, (a fixed prayer is)“anyone who feels their prayer to be something which must be carried” (Rash”i- as an obligation to be fulfilled), The Rabbis say, “Anyone who does not pray in words of tachanunim” (Shulchan Aruch- tachanunim is like a poor person asking for alms in pleasant language), Rabah and Rav Yosef said together, “(a prayer is called fixed) If one is not able to say something new in it.”

 

It seems from the Talmud there are 3 factors in making prayer what it should be (in fact some achronim say that one who prays kevah,  a prayer which is fixed, has not prayed at all (Elyah Raba, Magen Giborim, et al).  To review the three factors in the gemara above which make prayer what it should be are:

  1. How we feel about the prayer.  If we see prayer as a chiuv, an obligation to be fulfilled like other mitzvoth, instead of as a conversation with God.
  2. The language with which we pray. If we read words from a book, instead of speaking like one person to another in nice language and tone.
  3. If we read the siddur and do not say anything new in each prayer.

 

Since we are different every day we must in our conversation  with God, insert words of our own.  This should be done, the poskim say, in the middle 13 berachot of the amidah.  In at least one beracha and some say in all of the berachot, we should speak to God about and ask for what we personally and our people and world generally need at that moment.

 

I personally have found that numbers 1 and 2 are hard to control but 3 is more doable.   It is hard to pray 3 times a day without feeling it obligatory, hard to see God as a personal Deity in conversation.  But I find that by beginning with number 3, in my very small way, that numbers 1 and 2 sometimes develop.   Try it.   Next time you daven, in each of the middle 13 berachot of the amidah talk to God about what you need pertaining to that blessing just before the chatimah, the ending of the paragraph.   Talk to God about what the world and Jewish people need.  If you can do it in Hebrew that’s great but English is ok too.

 

This mode of beseeching, of seeing God as a parent from whom we request what we personally need rather than an infinite Deity before whom to laude, is the real path of Jewish prayer, as the Talmud said long ago.  Don’t worry about it taking you too long to daven, it will become something that at least sometimes you will look forward to and will change everything.

 

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Posted by Hyim Shafner

Does Orthodoxy Change? -by Rabbi Hyim Shafner

October 19, 2010

(The following is a message I wrote to my congregation and was also printed in the most recent newsletter of the Chicago Rabbinical Council (CRC).)

Recently several Orthodox congregations that have embraced wider roles for women within their synagogues have been in the news and the subject of much internet banter.   Two come to mind.  First,  “partnership minyanim,” in which women lead sections of the prayer service on behalf of the entire congregation — sections that one is not halakhically obligated to say.  Thus, it is argued that women may lead these sections.  And in Riverdale, New York, a woman was recently granted the title Rabbah, feminine for rabbi. The argument put forth by supporters is that much that a rabbi does, such as teaching and counseling, may be done by a woman, according to Jewish law; of course, those tasks that may not be done by a woman would not be performed by such a female Orthodox rabbi.  Therefore, the argument goes, we should give women a voice within Jewish leadership, in this way.

Where does Bais Abraham, perhaps one of the most diverse and embracing Orthodox synagogues, stand on these issues?  In approaching such decisions we must realize we stand on the shoulders of giants.  One such giant is my predecessor and rabbi of Bais Abraham for over 40 years, Rabbi Abraham Magence, Zt”l.   He taught us the beauty of every person, Jew or non-Jew. He taught us to make enough room for people to become as fully inspired as they can, to embrace everyone, no matter their level of observance, and to recognize the image of God in each person.  When asked if women could hold their own service, one practiced within the bounds of halacha, omitting sections that require a minyan of men, he replied, “Why not?”  I think what Rabbi Magence meant by this was that if the law does not forbid it and women will be inspired, who are we to forbid it?  As the Talmud says, “Just because it has not been done before does not necessarily render it forbidden”  (Mishna Ediyot 2:2).

Certainly much does change in Jewish custom and law.  For instance, 75 years ago, a rabbi who gave a sermon in English instead of Yiddish would have been widely criticized, whereas today it is the convention.  In the past, Orthodox girls did not publicly celebrate becoming a Bat Mitzvah, yet today it is quite common in the Orthodox world.  In the past, women often ignored the Code of Jewish Law’s proscription for them to pray daily and say Grace after Meals with a quorum of three women, where as today these holy actions are commonly practiced.

On the other hand, I would call for some caution.  We must be careful not to implement change without proper forethought as to how things should change.  Orthodoxy believes that though we are all made in the image of God, no matter our gender or religion, this does not mean we are all the same.  Men and women have unique voices and to ignore each gender’s distinctive vision and potential contributions would be a loss for Judaism.

While Bais Abraham embraces change that can lead to a more profound and passionate observance of commandments and study of Torah, we are wary to not lose the strengths of Jewish tradition in the process.  May we merit navigating the waters of change with deep respect for our Divine tradition and the consideration of congregational dignity, along with respect for personal strengths and diversity.  We are, and I’m sure will remain, an open, inspiring, loving, and diverse Bais Abe family.

 

1 Comment | Jewish Thought | Permalink
Posted by Hyim Shafner

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