Masorti, Modern- and Ultra-Orthodox

A teenage member suggested the following way of thinking of the difference between ourselves, a Masorti congregation, and our fellows in Modern- and Ultra-orthodoxy. I thought it worth a response.

• Ultra-orthodoxy, they suggested, involved a commitment to Halachah coupled with sexism and homophobia.
• Modern-Orthodoxy, in turn, involved a commitment to Halachah without the sexism and homophobia.
• And Masorti involved none of the above.

Hmmm.

I don't quite see it that way.

Being Masorti – from the Hebrew word for passing down a tradition through generations – requires placing oneself in the unfolding history of Judaism as it engages with tradition and change. Masorti Judaism's greatest scholars have tended to be interested in questions such as this; how has Judaism changed as we have travelled through time and space?

Lee Levine – the great scholar of the 1^st Century Judaism – looks at how Judaism changed from being Temple-based and Cohen-led and became Synagogue-based and Rabbi-led. He claims it’s impossible to ignore the fact that, living around Jews as the Temple falls, are Christians who are meeting in prayer houses led by religious leaders who became religious leaders not simply because their fathers were religious leaders before them.

Saul Lieberman – who studied how the Talmud fused together 500 years of oral argument into elegant, written documents – suggested that it’s impossible to ignore the fact that as the Talmud comes into being, Jews are living in a world heavily influenced by Hellenist (Greek) thought (logic and rhetoric). He shows how understanding the influence of Hellenism on Rabbinic development is necessary to understand how Rabbinic Judaism came to be.

Louis Jacobs asks the questions - how and why did Maimonides come to articulate 13 principles of Jewish theology when such a list had never been a part of Judaism. Never before, in Judaism, had the Aristotelian idea that God was the First Cause, been considered. Never before had Judaism invested such great effort in the claim that Moses was God’s most important prophet. Never before had Judaism claimed that the entire Torah was absolutely perfect; even claiming that a verse like “Timnah was a partner of Eliphaz” was as important as “Hear O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is One.” It’s impossible, says Jacobs, to imagine such a list coming into being were it not for the fact that Maimonides lived in the midst of an Arab society that understood and valued Aristotle, claimed that Mohamed (not Moses) was the ultimate prophet and claimed that every word of the Koran was equally Divine.

So, if you are a Masorti Jew, you understand that there is no such thing as a pure and perfect Judaism. You know that Judaism is continually unfolding and developing as it moves through space and time. And this unfolding rhythm not only explains how Synagogue-based Judaism began, and Rabbinic-based Judaism began and Jewish theology began, but can also how Jewish law - Halacha - unfolds and develops. 

One example; Torah reading. In the first two centuries of the Common Era you would read your own Aliyah yourself. The Talmud is quite clear; if you can’t read your Aliyah yourself, you can’t have an Aliyah. If you only have one person in the Shul who can read, ‘That person stands and reads and sits, and stands and reads and sits … even seven times.’[1]

Over 1,000 years later the Shulchan Arukh puts it a little differently. ‘One needs to protest against one who doesn’t know how to read so they do not go up to read from the Sefer Torah. And if you need one who doesn’t know how to read (if they are a Cohen or a Levi and there is no-one else save them), if when the reader reads for them word after word, they know how to repeat it and read it from the written text they can go up. And if not, they should not go up.’[2] Yosef Caro (who died in 1575) sounds as if he is fighting against the notion that Torah reading could be done by a 'Baal Koreh' - a master-reader, on behalf of other people who don't prepare to read their own Aliyot.

Perhaps you can feel the change coming, as you read the Shulchan Arukh, even as Caro argues against the change to how we read the Torah today. Other Halachic leaders, even from before the time of Yosef Caro, make clear that the other option - having a Baal Koreh - was already an established practice. The Rosh (who died in 1327), explains, ‘The thing we do now – where the messenger of the congregation reads – that is so as not to embarrass people who can’t read.’[3]

Halacha is changing, and the cause of the change simply doesn't seem to be a change in the will of God-in-the-heavens, or a change in our understanding of God's will, revealed at Sinai. Rather this seems to be a story of how human beings responded to different values differently in different social and cultural moments in time. Yosef Caro, the Rosh and every religious leader since, have to make a decision about to whom to offer an Aliyah. Either we can keep a tight hold and only allow people who are properly qualified, or we can take a more inclusive approach and find a way to not embarrass people who aren't perfectly good (after all, who is perfectly good). Caro and the Rosh differ on this issue - that's OK, argument is good. But the Rosh’s position wins out in Synagogues across the world, and across all denominations – including the Ultra-Orthodox.

I could share, literally, thousands of similar stories about the reality of Halacha as a developing, living, organic thing; just like every other element of Judaism. Halacha changes over time and space because of social and cultural influence.

So where does that leave Masorti in its relationship with Ultra-Orthodoxy and Modern-Orthodoxy? 

Well, on the one hand, we are friends. At least we should be friends. And all Jews are bound up with one another, so I don’t want to be too rude, but …

This is the story of Ultra-Orthodoxy. They, just like Reform, just like Masorti, are responding to social and cultural change. When Modernity arrives, and Jews are given the opportunity to study in Universities where they might even learn how the Bible itself has a history and a development, the leaders of Ultra-Orthodoxy say, “No thank you.” They don’t want any of the offerings of Modernity. They want to put up a big wall and refuse to allow modernity in. They will even say that “Anything new is forbidden as a Torah rule.”[4] But that approach is radically new – never before had Judaism claimed that anything new was forbidden just because it was new. No Rabbinic Jew is recorded as suggesting that we should live as if the Temple had never fallen! Saying, “No,” to modernity is just as much a response to modernity as saying, “Yes.” 

Claiming that they are doing nothing new (even if that is demonstrably nonsense), Ultra-Orthodoxy claims they are the only people keeping Halacha. But protecting an unchanging thing isn't Halacha. Halacha develops! [6]

Ultra-Orthodoxy declines to respond to new ways of thinking about gender and sexuality because they are stuck in a view of Halacha that is not the reality of Halacha. 

This leaves Modern Orthodox. My friends who are Modern Orthodox have a problem. They want people to think that they are doing things ‘properly’ – actually that’s what the word ‘orthodox’ means, literally – one right way of thinking about things. And it turns out that the people most Modern Orthodox Jews trust to judge whether they are doing things properly are Ultra-Orthodox. That means that even if Modern Orthodox Jews know that Halacha evolves, they have to be incredibly careful about doing anything about it. Because if they look like they are accepting that Judaism can change, they are in danger of crossing any one of thousands of red-lines the Ultra-Orthodox draw. And if they do that, they will find themselves excommunicated, or cursed or … there’s lots of really nasty language used. Again, the question of who should get an Aliyah will serve as a very good example of this issue. 

The Talmud[5] says that the reason women don’t have Aliyot is because it would be a disgrace to the honour of the community. 

Well, that makes some sense if you know that, in Talmudic times, the person having the Aliyah had to read it themselves (which I do), and if you assume that men are more important than women (which I don’t!). If you know this and accept that, then you would surely only want to offer Aliyot to men, and you would surely only give an Aliyah to a woman if there weren't enough men around who could read properly, and that would indeed be very embarrassing - for the men. But if you live in 2020, and you reject any claim that men are more important than women, then you have to believe that NOT giving Aliyot to women would be a disgrace to the honour of the community. That's why almost all Masorti congregations give Aliyot to women.

But giving Aliyot to women is a red-line drawn by the Ultra-Orthodox. That means that a person who identifies as Modern-Orthodox has a choice. They can quieten down and fall into line, or they can say they disagree with the Ultra-Orthodox conception of what Halacha truly is and risk excommunication. Most fall into line. Only a few, like Louis Jacobs, and the founders of New London Synagogue, have the courage to walk away from that whole system to pursue Judaism as they believe it truly is. Most Modern-Orthodox Jews believe the same things most Masorti Jews believe, but they don't want to say it too loudly, for fear that they will be told they aren't Orthodox at all. I can't help but wish all these Masorti-believing Orthodox-affiliating Jews would be bolder, and come and help make Masorti communities stronger. 

Most people identifying as Modern Orthodox wish to respond to new ways of thinking about gender and sexuality, but they are not willing to disagree with how the Ultra-Orthodox control who gets to say how Halacha should react to change. 

Here’s the big problem that faces Masorti. 
It takes too long to explain why we think we are right. There are simpler answers out there, and there are less courageous answers. But that doesn’t mean we don’t accept Halacha, even as we respond to new ways of thinking about gender and sexuality.

Here's the tricky thing. Not much of this much determines who is right in these divergent ways of relating to Halacha and modernity.  That's partly because it's not clear how to judge what 'being right' means. It might be that the Ultra-Orthodox view that concentrating efforts on keeping modernity away from Halacha is the best chance Judaism has of ensuring a Jewish future; with lots of kids and a willingness to exclude anyone who threatens conformity. It might be that Modern-Orthodoxy is right that walking a thin line between accepting change and not threatening the red-lines set by the Ultra-Orthodox will best guarantee a Judaism that can survive in a rapidly changing society. But I've never really been persuaded by arguments that the right kind of Judaism is the one that results in the most number of people committed to that view of religion. I know that numbers are important, but if the goal is to have the largest number of followers of one particular brand of religion, or another, maybe we should all become Muslim?

---

[1] Tosefta Megilah 3:12

[2] Shulchan Arukh OH 139:2

[3] Megillah, 21a 3:2

[4] A famous saying of the Chatam Sofer.

[5] Talmud Megillah 23a. I have a full treatment of this issue here. http://rabbionanarrowbridge.blogspot.com/2014/10/my-responsum-on-women-reading-from-torah.html

[6] The best article on this is Michael Silber’s The Emergence of Ultra-Orthodoxy: The Invention of a Tradition, available here https://www.academia.edu/1829696/The_emergence_of_ultra-orthodoxy_The_invention_of_a_tradition