The Big Sort by Bill Bishop follows the phenomenon of the sorting of America into communities made up of like minded people with similar religious, political and social views. The also traces  some of the outcomes of this phenomenon including extremism and lack of the  ability to build consensus.

The book reminded me of an article written by Rabbi Howard Joseph on how the Netziv fought against Orthodox separation for the non orthodox community. Use link below to get to the article. http://www.edah.org/backend/JournalArticle/joseph.pdf

In many ways the Orthodox community in America has undergone a “sort” of our own as many orthodox communities and shuls are almost entirely made up of ortrhodox families etc.  While there may be some diversity among the types of orthodoxy, by and large, most of our communities are, by a large margin,
orthodox.

Personally, I think this is a bad thing. I prefer the old version of American Orthodoxy of “the shul that I do not go to is Orthodox” or as Dr. Jeffery Gurock has written about, the Non Observant Orthodox.

On an obvious level, I want as many people in Orthodox Shuls as possible, davenig and learning Torah. Modern Orthodox shuls are best suited to present Orthodoxy in a relevant and meaningful fashion to the non orthodox. It could be that the reason why that Chabad and Aish Hatorah have cornered the market on outreach is because modern orthodox shuls simply are unwelcome places for the non observant.

By the way, I think that the Chabad/Aish Hatorah model of shuls and centers that only or mainly cater to balei teshuva not the best way to go. It is sometimes hard for those folks transition to regular shuls.

There is another reason why I want the non observant in orthodox shul. Frankly, I think they make Orthodox shuls better places. One example of this is the fact that the presence of the non orthodox forces us to reconsider our attitudes towards the non observant.  It is no secret that many orthodox Jews speak disparagingly about the non observant. The presence of any group of “others” in our midst, over time, leads to greater understanding and thoughtfulness towards that group.

Anecdotal evidence tells me that there is more sensitivity towards non observant Jews from the sectors of the Orthodox community that regularly interacts with the non observant in a religious setting.  It should be noted that when I speak of sensitivity, I am referring to real concern and respect for the person and their views as opposed to “loving” the non observant because One sees them as a kiruv target.

Finally, there is much that orthodox shuls can gain in terms of Torah from the non observant. Bishop points out that one of the downsides of “sorting” is that sorted populations keep hearing their viewpoints reinforced, leaving no room for intellectual, political; or religious rethinking and clarification. People in that situation tend to get lazy and there is no need to defend positions. Such a life is safe, but without intellectual vigor.

Many non observant Jews do not come with the pre-existing notions, embedded ideas, or understanding of Torah and Judaism that the orthodox do. The questions and challenges posed by the non orthodox who do not take certain things for granted forces the orthodox to formulate clearer and more coherent understandings of Torah.

There is more to say on the subject, but I will leave it as is for now.

All in all, “sorting” is bad for the Jews.

I would like to go a bit farther.  I think it’s important we have women’s voices expressed in Jewish leadership, Jewish teaching and in guiding the Jewish people because women have a unique voice. Over half of the human population is female.  Isn’t it possible that if we only hear the voice of men in Torah and in leadership that perhaps we are missing something very basic?  Perhaps the way that Devorah led the Jewish people was not the same as the way Moses led the Jewish People?  Maybe both voices are essential in order to have a complete whole.

If such an approach requires leniencies then those are the places that leniency is appropriate.  As my colleague Barry Gelman has written http://morethodoxy.org/2009/11/10/being-machmir-stringent-about-being-meikil-lenient-%E2%80%93-rabbi-barry-gelman/ and as I have written http://morethodoxy.org/2009/07/31/the-importance-of-leniency-and-the-leniencies-that-come-from-being-strict-by-rabbi-hyim-shafner/ leniency can be a very important halachic factor and indeed a stronger one than strictness.   Indeed, often stricture creates leniencies we have not intended.

Another reason that it is important we make room for women in Jewish leadership is that it is just not fair to say to 50% of the population, your talents cannot be used for holiness in every way.  In fact, we find this argument of “It is not fair” in the Torah itself.  “It is not fair” is a valid concern that was addressed by the highest levels of Jewish leadership.

When the Jewish people are told of the mitzvah of Passover some come to Moses and say “We are impure. Our relative has passed away and we have had to bury them, and so cannot bring the Passover offering.  It is not fair!  Why should we miss out?”  Moses doesn’t know what to do when “it is not fair” is in conflict with the law that God has given.   So Moses turns to God and God responds –Let’s find a way; let’s make a second Passover for them.

Later on in the Torah when the Torah tells us that sons inherit the land of their fathers the daughters of Tzelofchod come to Moses, and they say “it is not fair.”  Our father had no sons.  Why should we have less?  Why should the land of our father go to someone else?  Again Moses is not sure what to do when the claim of “it is not fair” is in conflict with God’s law.  Moses turns to God and God says, “The daughters of Tzelofchod have spoken well.” Let the daughters of Tzlofchod inherit him.

What an amazing Torah.  What religion of the ancient world held the concerns of the individual on such a high footing as to take seriously the claim, “it is not fair,” only the Torah which teaches that all humans are made in the image of God.

We are not Moses, but as the rabbis tell us the leaders of each generation must see themselves as Moses in his.  What do we do when the honor of Heaven is at stake?  If we will not get a direct answer from God as Moses did, it is our obligation to utilize halacha and sevarah to find it in the Torah.  Indeed, the Talmud asks why it is that minority opinions are preserved in the Mishna if the law is not in accordance with them.  The answer is that perhaps a court in the future will need that opinion to rely upon and it will be able to utilize it.

Let us take the approach not of closing the doors but opening them.  Let us use our minds to create greater honor of Heaven, not to make the life of Jews comfortable, not to fall into the trap that we are all so afraid of, of becoming a more liberal and permissive movement, but to tweak Judaism so that it can be more open to creating greater fear and love of Heaven.  Maybe the liberal movements such as Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism went wrong in our eyes, but maybe their mistake was not in making more room for people to serve God, maybe it was in losing the passion and commitment among their masses to Torah and Mitzvot.  Let us make room for people within learning, teaching and leading the torah world, let us make more room for the glory of God, but let’s do it without making the mistakes that others have made.

Below is part of the introduction to the book of Responsa entitled Dor Rivii written by Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glassner. The biographical information below a well as the English translation of the text is taken from an article written by Rabbi Yaakov Elman for Tradition magazine, 25(3), Spring 1991, pp. 63-69.

This work serves as an important theoretical basis for some of the practices that some in the Modern Orthodox world innovated. Often the claim again such innovations (women dancing with the Torah, pain blockers administered before a bris, including a mother’s name in a ketubah, double ring ceremony) is that they are not part of the mesorah(tradition) and that 100 years ago they were not practiced by pious Jews. Rabbi Glasner teaches that a Torah scholar “can derive totally new insights which were never [apprehended] before…”

Rabbi Moses Samuel Glasner (1856-1924), an only son of Rabbi Avraham Glasner and a great grandson of the Hatam Sofer through his mother, Raizel (a daughter of the Hatam Sofer’s oldest daughter Hindel), was born in Pressberg, and later moved with his family to Klausenburg, where his father served as rabbi. The younger Glasner succeeded his father as rabbi in 1878, serving in that capacity until his move to Jerusalem in 1923. In Jerusalem, he was involved in Mizrachi educational activities during the last year-and-a-half of his life. …

“For just as in natural science a person produces innovations with his intelligence and understanding based on old principles, so too with the science of our holy Torah. As Hazal say, “if you hear the old, you will hear the new. “The intent is that one who incessantly occupies himself with the Torah that is with us of old and “kills himself over it” can derive totally new insights which were never [apprehended] before; it is in this sense that Hazal said that “the Holy One, blessed be He, showed Moses all that an experienced disciple would in future times innovate [in Torah],”commandments ” [the principle] that from that time [of the completion of the Torah as described in Deut. 31:24, even] a prophet may not innovate anything–this refers only to adding to, or subtracting from it, but permission is given to every authorized court [of ordained sages] to interpret it and derive new laws.

Thus, whoever has due regard for the truth will conclude that the reason the [proper] interpretation of the Torah was transmitted orally and forbidden to be written down was not to make [the Torah] unchanging and not to tie the hands of the sages of every generation from interpreting Scripture according to their understanding. Only in this way can the eternity of Torah be understood [properly], for the changes in the generations and their opinions, situation and material and moral condition requires changes in their laws, decrees and improvements. Rather, the truth is that this [issues from] the wonderful wisdom [and] profound insight of the Torah, [which teaches] that the interpretation of Torah [must be] given over to the sages of each generation in order that the Torah remain a living force with the nation, developing with it, and that indeed is its eternity. In this way may we understand correctly the wording of the blessing “Who gave us a Torah of truth and implanted in us eternal life,” which the Tur interprets as follows: “a Torah of truth” refers to the Written Torah and “eternal life” refers to the Oral Torah (Orah Hayyim 138, see Shulhan Arukh thereto).

[The author of] Midirash Shmuel on Ethics of the Fathers (chapter 1, s.v. “Make a fence for the Torah”) makes the same point in this way: “And therefore [the Tanna] says that this Torah was handed over to Joshua to do with it as he wished, making right left and left right according to the time and place [R. Glasner's emphasis]; in all this it is his, to do with as he wishes, and so too was it handed over to the Elders, etc. and this is one of the reasons that the Oral Torah was not written down but given to the Great Court to do with as it wished [R. Glasner's emphasis].”

When they contradict that which was [accepted as true until then, their new interpretation becomes the true one [for their generation]; so have we been commanded by Him, may He be blessed, that we “should not depart from the thing (the sages of that generation) tell us either to the right or left” –even if they uproot that which was agreed upon until now. This too is what they intended when they said “Both these and these are the word of the LivingGod . . . .”

Finally, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Below is a quote from Rabbi Glasner as to how halachik innovators were treated in his time. “If one man be found who wishes to remove the thorns and weed the [garden], he is adjudged a rebellious elder, and, God forbid, as one who cuts down the shoots” [= a heretic]. In this way the land is filled with hypocritical flattery in which [each one] suppresses [his sincere] opinions because of the power of those who are willing to use force and intimidation against whoever opposes them”

All that has been said about the scandal emanating out of Brooklyn and Deal, N.J. is true. Yes, it’s time that (especially) Orthodox schools and communities focus our educational attention on instruction in ethics. Yes, we have to make sure to distinguish between Judaism – which teaches honesty and uprightness – and individual Jews – who too often shamefully neglect these teachings. And maybe even yes, we should be outraged over this Chilul Hashem, though frankly I’ve begun to doubt whether there is much left of God’s name to publicly desecrate any longer. Having conceded all of this, I still believe that the main issue is not being addressed, that of root causes.  

Everyone seems to be scratching their heads about why scandals like these are occurring with such regularity in our community, given how ostensibly learned and religious the main players are. A huge part of the answer, I think, lies in the basic strategy for confronting modernity that most segments of the Orthodox community adopted in the 19^th century, and still intensely practice today.

 Given the choices of exploring the wider world that the dawn of modernity made accessible to us, but risking the dilution of our values and our numbers, or doing everything possible to shut out that world and its inhabitants in the name of preserving out precious inheritance, we have massively chosen the former. We have generally chosen to minimize or altogether avoid meaningful contact with the ideas, the books, the cultural trends of the wider world (though we seem to have recently absorbed its materialistic tendencies and its styles in music). And this policy has in turn necessitated our minimizing or altogether avoiding meaningful contact with non-Jew people and non-Jewish society.  It is the norm in most of our Orthodox communities that outside of commercial or professional contexts, adults have no significant personal relationships with non-Jews, and children have no such relationships period.

 Our strategy of consciously building insular societies has achieved some remarkable results. A century ago, who could have believed that the US would become the home to one the largest, most developed and institutionally successful Orthodox communities in the world? We have to credit our strategy of insularity in large measure for this. And while we have also paid the price for our insularity in many ways (we are probably the religious community that positively impacts the least on our wider society’s pressing social and economic ills), the price that is most embarrassing is the too-frequent involvement in illegal activity.

 What’s the connection between the two? There is a subtle mind game that we need to play in order to justify our insistent insularity. We, and our children, do encounter non-Jewish people and non-Jewish families in the simple contexts of everyday living- in stores, in parks, at medical and dental offices. And most often, they are nice people. They aim to be helpful, are frequently intelligent and cheerful, and have nice families. And the questions occur to us and to our children: Why then do we draw such impermeable social lines between us? Is there anything so wrong with they way they live? In order then, to justify our strict insularity, we cultivate a somewhat vague – and usually benign – sense that the others, outside of our world of Torah and Miztvot, are somehow lesser. They are – and hear the word as I’m writing it – goyim. And as such, it must be that our way is better than their way, our God is better than their God (we avoid even having to deal with this issue by consistently substituting “Hashem” for “God”), and our communities are holier than their communities. That’s how we justify our decision to keep ourselves socially and intellectually at arm’s length. And with only one more step, this mindset moves from being overly simplistic but benign, to being very dangerous. That step? That our Laws are better than their laws, and not only better, but are the only laws that really matter. After all, what ultimate significance could goyishe laws have? Of course the justification for the strategy of insularity need not produce such a dismissive attitude toward secular law. But as we’ve seen over and over again, it frequently does, and this price of the strategy of insularity gets paid on a regular basis.

 The solutions before us are straightforward. They are either to find a more sophisticated and honest way to understand and explain why we choose our social and intellectual insularity, or to embrace all that is good and valid in God’s wider world, not only without compromising our own religious integrity, but as an expression of our religious integrity. The latter is of course more challenging. But as the headlines are screaming to us, it is the path whose time has come.

My first post on Morethodoxy, entitled “Openness and Passion,” outlined what I perceive to be an important process in living the Torah, being able to adopt the strengths one finds in each community and in the so many different approaches to mitzvoth and Torah, even if they are not our own primary practice. Custom is a powerful thing in Judaism, but sometimes stolidness can be spiritually detrimental.

I think that for many people, Jewish and not, prayer has become a recitation of words.   Several frum (observant) people who take davening (prayer) seriously have commented to me, “I like learning Torah and find it meaningful, but I just can’t relate, beyond the level of fulfilling an obligation, to tefilah (prayer).”

The Talmud (Berachot 32b) tells us that the Chasidim Harishonim, the Ancient Pious Ones, used to wait an hour before prayer (to prepare), pray for an hour, and take an hour after prayer (to recover?;  to return to this world?). They did it three times a day, and in fact the Talmud says we are obligated to do this also.

This prayer system does not sound like ours.  We rush in, pray to fulfill our obligation, perhaps concentrate a bit on its meaning and before whom we are praying, and finish.   It does not take us an hour to prepare or in fact any time to come down.  I am not, God forbid, criticizing the many Jews who are sincere about prayer and make great sacrifices to pray with a minyan at correct times or on their own.  I am no expert at or Tzadik in regard to prayer.  But I think that the Talmud’s ancient method of prayer may have been entirely unlike ours.

I imagine a prayer that takes an hour of preparation and an hour to come back is one that is highly meditative.  Kavvanah, the intent that is required in Jewish prayer, is sometimes understood as just understanding what the words mean or knowing that one is standing before the Almightily, but I think the Talmud here is offering us an important tool that reaches beyond the standard level of kavvanah in Jewish law.  Perhaps prayer is not supposed to be just saying words.  Perhaps prayer and the kavvanah that was seen in the time of the Talmud, as a prerequisite for prayer (one did not pray for three days after traveling according to the Talmud since we might lack concentration, Aruvin 65a), is something much more.

Judaism contains many spiritual tools that are often ignored if they are not part of our own personal or community’s customary practice.   There is a tradition of meditation in Judaism.  Clearly when it comes to prayer there was something deeper going in the Talmud that we have lost.  Even latter in Jewish history we have for instance Rav Nachman of Breslov’s instructions regarding prayer and meditation.  That one should go to the forest, preferably at night, and there speak to God in one’s own words (Torah 52).

I think we must reclaim some of Judaism’s spiritual tools.   In the Orthodox community we sometimes, in our punctiliousness, (and probably in reaction to Reform Judaism) allow the ma’aseh hamitzvah (the act of performing the mitzvah) to overshadow the inner kavvanah (intent), and the perhaps the telos of the mitzvah -connecting with God.

Let us be open to taking a closer look at the spiritual tools that exist within Judaism, even if they are not our own or those of our immediate community or custom; even if they feel foreign.  I would even suggest that sometimes there are Jewish spiritual tools that have become inaccessible or lost to us, such as meditation, and that it may take learning them in a non-Jewish context that has cultivated them well, in order to readapt them into Judaism.

The discrepancies between the story of the spies as narrated in Shlach, and the way that the story is retold in the first chapter of Dvarim are significant and numerous.  They include (but are not limited to):

(1)   Whose initiative was it to send the spies? (God’s or Israel’s?)

(2)   What was the nature of the spies report when they returned? (Negative or positive?)

(3)   Who chastised the people when they depaired of being able to enter the land? (Caleb or Moshe?)

Every major parshan (exegete) addresses these discrepancies, each in his own way. I often wonder whether Abarbanel’s effort in this arena contributed to his commentary on humash being banned (or its use highly discouraged) in many quarters of the Orthodox world.

Abarbanel’s alleged heterodoxy here begins with the general observation that he makes about the first several chapters of Dvarim. Abarbanel states concerning these chapters, that “Moshe himself spoke them”, and that it was only through a subsequent Divine decision that they were included in the Torah (see pages 11 and 12 in the standard edition of Abarbanel on the Torah). He proceeds from this premise of human (albeit the greatest of human prophets) authorship of these chapters, to explain the genesis of the discrepancies between the telling and the retelling of the spy incident.

In Dvarim,  Abarbanel teaches that as Moshe is offering the first of several farewell addresses to the children of Israel,  he seizes his prerogative as leader and teacher to knowingly and deliberately alter the details of the original story. Knowing that the Israelites he is now talking to were by and large not present at the time that the event unfolded, Moshe is concerned about what might happen if “they would hear the truth of the incident as it actually occurred” (p. 21). If they were to know that in fact it was at God’s initiative that the spies were sent, the people would say, “why did God place an obstacle in front of the blind?”. And if it were revealed that it was in response to Moshe’s own questions (“Are the people mighty?”,  and the suchlike) that the spies said what they did, then the people would  “complain against Moshe, contending that he too caused the [38 year] delay”  in entering the land. The dissent and tension that would result could be terribly destructive to the people’s relationship with God and Torah, and might even trigger an additional generational delay. So Moshe adjusted the story, for the people’s own spiritual benefit at that moment.

Abarbanel continues to systematically solve many of the other discrepancies using similar tactics, and the reader is encouraged to take a look at the balance of his commentary. But I want to return at this juncture to a memory from 1981, when my sister reported to me that Abarbanel’s commentary had mysteriously disappeared from the shelves of her prestigious Jerusalem Seminary, now to made available only upon special request, and under the supervision of one of the rabbis. This passage of Abarbanel’s commentary was one of those that immediately leapt to my mind.

There is of course, nothing heretical about the passage. Ramban takes a similar approach to much of Dvarim, and the Zohar regards all of Dvarim as the work of Moshe. (See Dr. Yaakov Elman’s fine article, “The Book of Deuteronomy as Revelation: Nahmanidies and Abarbanel”) Why then is Abarbanel treated as if he is radioactive in many places?  He is a victim of the progressive closing of the Orthodox mind that has ensued now for several decades, as we have been sniffing out and snuffing out any idea, philosophical or exegetical that might intersect in any way with contemporary academic or literary or critical methodology. This fear of the larger world of biblical scholarship has narrowed our options, smothered our creativity, and has led even to the dismissal of classical voices (Don’t make the mistake of citing Rambam concerning the existence of angels, or Rashbam concerning the Biblical day starting in the morning rather than in the evening).  Our children come home from day school with the same tired “divrai Torah” year after year, presentations which usually amount to little more than a cute “vort” or a gematria. This is a not only a terrible shame in terms of our ability to creatively engage our study of Torah and Nach, though this by itself is bad enough. But beyond that it has contributed to Orthodoxy’s being simply unattractive to the vast numbers of our co-religionists. If we are reflexively unable to engage in anything that smells even remotely like modern study of the Torah , how much could we possibly have to say to a Jew who thoroughly lives in the modern world? 

Abarbanel and so many others belong back on our shelves, in our schools, and in our conversations. And we Orthodox Jews belong at the forefront of dynamic, creative, and even broad-minded study of our most sacred texts.

For instance, if an intermarried family wanted to be part of our shul would we let them?   Where would we draw the line?  Could they have a family membership?  An aliyah?  Could the non-Jewish spouse if it was a man have peticha (opening the ark) or gelilah (rolling up the torah), honors  that do not technically require one to be Jewish but might, for many Jews, feel like giving tacit approval to someone, all of whose actions the torah may not approve of?   What about fears of legitimating what others are doing and unwittingly putting our approbation on things we do not think are in consonance with Torah, such as driving on Shabbat, gay Jews and their partners, Jews who do not keep kosher or pay their taxes?  Should we welcome all of them?

Often we can not have both.  I believe we must err, in an extreme way, on the side of welcoming.  I learned this from one of my long time mentors and teachers, the saintly Rabbi Abraham Magence.  Rabbi Magence was the rabbi of my shul for 35 years before he asked me to take his place.  I was his congregant for 8 years while I worked at the Hillel at nearby Washington University and davened at Bais Abraham.

No matter who walked into our shul, Bais Abraham, Rabbi Magence hugged them, and truly loved them.  A non-Jewish homeless person, an intermarried person, or a Jew convicted of crimes.  I will never forget that our first week in St. Louis 13 years ago Rabbi Magence invited myself and my wife over for dinner with one of the pillars of the shul and his wife.  This pillar was a humble man who spent many hours fixing parts of our (at the time) crumbling shul building with his hands.  I saw the man in shul after that every Shabbat, he always received aliyot, and was treated like any other member of the shul.

It was only years latter when this man’s wife passed away and I asked if he needed me to do anything for the funeral when he answered that he did not since his wife’s priest and her church would be taking care of it.  I was amazed and pleasantly surprised.  I think  Rabbi Magence, and probably Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Bardichev, would have composed the following blessing.  “Master of the Universe, how wonderful are your people Israel, even though this man’s wife was not a Jew, in fact a committed Christian, this does not stop him from coming to shul, loving G-d and serving the Jewish people.”

As one of Rabbi Magence’s children told me so correctly, “People think he was lenient with halacha.  Just the opposite was true.  He was machmir (strict), but more so in the realm of laws between us and others than between us and G-d.”   Indeed when the two realms are in conflict, laws between us and others and between us and G-d, I have no doubt we must be machmir (strict) on the bain adam lichavero (those between us and other people) and lenient on the one between us and G-d.  Abraham our ancestor did this when G-d was talking to him and he saw three people, nomads in the distance, and he left God to welcome them.  As Rabbi Magence used to say, “Those three people Avraham saw were not Jews, there were of course no Jews or monotheists other than Abraham, those three men Abraham left God’s presence for were idol worshipers.”

Rav Moshe Feinstein uses this logic at times in his response also when commandments between us and God are in conflict with those between us and other people.  In a tishuvah I was recently learning in which Rav Moshe was asked is a convert can be a certain type of communal leader he makes the point that in halacha the power we are allowed to give converts over the community is limited.  Rav Moshe then writes that we must consciously be lenient on the Torah’s commandment of “mikerev achecha” (which limits power given to a convert) since the Torah also commands “lo tonu et ha’ger,” “do not pain the convert.”

Stay tuned over the next few weeks as I will examine what I think our (Morethodox) attitudes should be with regard to non-Jews, intermarried Jews, gay Jews, Jews who do not keep kosher, and Jews who cheat on their taxes.

Shabbat Shalom,

Hyim

In subtitling our blog “Exploring the Breadth, Depth and Passion of Orthodox Judaism,” I think we aim to overcome the limitations that labels impose.  To see Jewish life not as it often is seen today as a linear spectrum from insular to open, tolerant to judgmental, committed to uncaring; but with the complexity and subtlety that “divarim sh’omdim b’rumo shel olam,” things upon which the world hangs, require.

Moving away from labels and defined Jewish groupings can help us be open to the treasures within each Jewish community that can help us serve God, while identifying the weaknesses of each community or theology and setting those aside. 

For instance, the strength of more insular “Charedi” Orthodox communities is their passion.   One learns a lot of Torah when it is undiluted by time studying about the world in a university; one is little influenced by the beckoning of secular society’s evil inclination if one is wholly separate from it.   Payer in Charedi circles, especially Hassidic ones, is often passionate, focused and fervent.  We must learn from these strengths and adopt them.

On the other hand there are the weaknesses of more insular Orthodox communities.  They can not benefit fully from the wonders of Gods universe since they do not study about them in depth (which Maimonides says brings us to love God).  They can not fully welcome the Jewish people into Judaism since their welcoming is only on their own terms.   They can not fully be a light unto the nations since their interaction with “the nations” is minimal and often rejecting.  

Modern Orthodoxy’s strength lies in its openness to the things listed in the paragraph above and its attempt to synthesis that openness with Torah.   But its weaknesses are many.   There is a widespread lack of passion in prayer.  To be present in a Modern Orthodox synagogue during prayer is sometimes to wonder who people are conversing with, God or their neighbors.  The Kiddush club, a phenomenon which afflicts some modern orthodox synagogues on Sabbath morning in which members leave the service to drink alcohol and eat a meal instead of listening to the full Torah service.  

I would propose that Morethodoxy be a philosophy of taking the ochel (the edible) and leaving the p’solet (the shell).  Of integrating both, breadth and depth, openness and passion. 

Let us be passionate in Torah study, and open to all tools possible in pluming its depths, from biblical criticism to kabbalah.   

Let us be passionate in prayer, and open to studying the works of Rabbi Nachaman on utilizing meditation and nature to find God, perhaps even open to learning from non-Jewish instruction about kavanah, and a thousand years of eastern meditative practice.   

Let us be passionate about protecting our children and ourselves from the materialism and superficial values so prominent in the wider culture, and open in the extreme to all our brethren the Jewish people and to our cousins the non-Jewish world.   Let us be so passionate about welcoming and loving others that the homeless person who wanders into our house of worship feels like one of us.  

Let us be passionate about connecting to God so that there is no idle chatter in our shuls, and open, even in the middle of prayer as Abraham was, to any new person that walks into shul.