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June 18, 1982

A Return to Sanity: Old-New Directions for Torah Judaism (1982)

Modern Orthodoxy
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Introduction to Zvi Kurzweil's The Modern Impulse in Traditional Judaism (1984)

Orthodox Judaism is an "in" topic nowadays. Respectable journalists devote major reports to it, sociologists analyze it, learned societies invite scholarly papers on it. A movement that, fifteen years after the start of this century, was widely expected to fade away and become a relic of interest only to historians and antiquarians, is, fifteen years before the end of this century, full of life, vigor, dynamism — and problems.The problems largely center on the nature of the Orthodoxy or Orthodoxies that are emerging and their relations to each other. None of them has yet received adequate scholarly attention. The proliferation of "right wing" yeshivot and communities has not been sufficiently documented and, certainly, we do not possess enough competent analysis of this phenomenon. The few articles and works that have appeared are only a beginning, especially if one excludes polemics and apologetics.The story is no different with Modern or Centrist Orthodoxy (the labels are notoriously short-lived and singularly insignificant). Those of us engaged in the enterprise of leading it, fashioning it, teaching it, and elaborating it are too preoccupied, and lack the proper perspective, to see it in its historical setting and to appreciate the continuities and discontinuities in its development.It has remained, therefore, to an Israeli scholar familiar with the European antecedents of the modernist wing of Orthodoxy to lay bare the background and thus illuminate the foreground of contemporary centrist Orthodoxy. Zvi Kurzweil makes no pretenses to comprehensiveness. He could hardly do so for a movement which is very much in flux and which requires not only theological but social historians as well to do it justice.Our author's goals are limited to the ideological roots of the modern impulse in traditional Judaism. This he has done in both a competent and interesting manner, one that will engage the attention of both scholar and layman. Unquestionably, there will be those wh…
Modern Orthodoxy

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Modern Orthodoxy Without Apologies (1992)

1. Bfr spk MO: AJ, & Orthxy in gen; contemplt A-Jy:... or choshech: (a) good nws: mr Tor, highr standrs Orthx synggs, mr ,כשר; day schls; publctns (b) but plenty vry bad news too (+ recessn): (c) CJF ’90 survy: 52% intmrrg! ..React'n? (d) mny soclgsts, J Idrs"? Adapt! Accept! (e) fresh blood... So: bad nws=good nws. avoid probl w phony conversns, patrlneal (ST: Gulf War-no gas mask- "I'm Reform; evrythg optional") (f) time bgin-brth, not > mrrg...-ST: חועלם ‘’rion/slip mountn/hosptal valley)Turn: us Orthx Js:Beset crtcs 8- assaild ill-wshers allsides. W oftn at fault: stratgs nt alwysproductv (Bx:"Who is J" polemic carried ontoo 10ng)/apprchs unreasnbl/senstvty othrsdulld. BUT ...our fundmntl commit't, tht fwhch w stand/by whch live/ready die-holy/precious/ineffbl. & w stand by it w-oapolgies!- we=Orthdx - w-o apologs!- our ‘,!‘אמלנל גרמי, תלממ ר&י firm!n matter deris'n, "cogntv minrty"...Fc: Grt-neck- our resolv homsxlty-abbrtxi not faltrevn if genetc (so is desire all formsimmrlty- our attud role women (tho stll influx)wll nvr turn into totl egaltrnsm offunction in violatn דזלכזה- vlue place humn life wll nvr prmit abideeuthnsia/abortn on dmand/encrgtsuicide- onslaught agnst our views ומ&ורה rm חיwll contnue rlntlssly; bt not falter!-If w blv indeed in חלרל -( השמלם, thtmeans:Torh is means t reach שמלה itself!- anyone whose loylty Tor shaky bee wminorty--t b pitied bee shows: dsn't knowwhr comng fr, 8- whr destny is takg hm/her.For w ar sons of giants. In our veinscourses blood... & let us act th part!-ST. Ch N Bialik/vst NY skyserprs/ ,לל^לקן״&nyxx^|7/T. A.t^yxx^jT 7ןל< e>y 2 >^ל ל^ל ...eithrw reach f sky, byond clouds - or scratchrs& scraprs, blind t glory tht was ours &awaits us; bee can be ours if w havecourage & resolv- so much f Orthxy w-o apologiesFe: Grt-neck2nd:Self-Image MO (Note: didn’t say CO- altho same thng - but avoid sillydebates..MO/CO/Datiim...)- Both aspects: Orthx 8- Mod; so:Noun/Adjctv. we: Mod …
Modern Orthodoxy

Note

Response to The Challenge to Modern Orthodoxy (1984)

Berkowitz makes the same mistake that the Conservative always did – the insistence upon institutional self-definition as if that alone created a legitimacy for a movement. But I see no need for an ideological pushing of the elbows in order to make room for institutional "space." We do not and should not consider ourselves a separate "movement" in the sense that we are different from classical Orthodoxy. We are Orthodox – but with a new-old interpretation. As such, we have no need to rue the fact that "our" people consult "their" Gedolim. The institutional and even ideological differentia must not be mistaken for rigid lines – even though the Right may look upon us with contempt and condemn us to irrelevancy.2 - Berkowitz is inconsistent. In one point he asserts that we have no differences in Halakhah, and in another he resents the fact that nowadays the "Modern Orthodox" do not allow mixed dancing at their weddings...3 - Additionally, Berkowitz mistakes goals and reality, the ought and is. The aspiration of "Modern Orthodoxy" is not to insinuate the trappings of modernity into the Jewish framework, but, identically with the Right, to create a "kehillah kedoshah" in the fuller sense, one in which Talmud Torah takes priority.4 - Where we do differ is in these respects:a) Torah Umada. He is correct in his criticism that we have compartmentalized the two, and that we must make an effort at synthesis which will be meaningful. However, even as we are we are still miles ahead of the Right for whom the entire enterprise of secular study is a bediavad, and legitimized only because of "parnossah."b) Of critical importance is the element of tolerance. We believe that in order for a Jewish community to prosper in a democratic society there must be mutual tolerance and an absence of bigotry. They do not.c) Flowing from this is the question of authority and authoritarianism. As opposed to the movements of the Left, we do believe in authority: that is our whole commitment to Hal…
Modern Orthodoxy