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November 24, 1990

Address: The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (1990)

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Speech

Excerpts from Address to National Convention of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (1968)

The facts about our community are rather encouraging. Numerically and institutionally, in terms of youth and influence, we are a significant group in this country. Objectively examined, what binds us together as a distinct entity is our full commitment to the Torah tradition and our openness, at the same time, to the wider culture of the world about us; to use the two dreadfully inadequate words which normally describe us as a distinct movement, we are both “modern” and “Orthodox.” I shall be using these terms only with the greatest hesitation. “Orthodox” is almost pejorative; it implies a stifling and unthinking narrow-mindedness. And “modern” is amusingly pretentious; it adds nothing to the validity or invalidity of a proposition. Jacques Maritain recently referred to this as “chronolatry,” the idolatry of what is newest or latest in time.But while this phenomenological observation is true enough as it goes, it does not go nearly far enough. Merely to describe what we are is not a sufficiently convincing reason for being what we are or for persuading others to acknowledge our rightness and join our ranks. The great problem of modern American Orthodoxy is that it has failed to interpret itself to itself. This failure, which reveals itself in many ways, derives from a remarkable intellectual timidity which we should have long outgrown.One should not be too harsh in judging the past. There were reasons — good reasons — for our apologetic posture. But it was humiliating. In confronting the outside world and those to the left of us, we seemed to be saying that while we hold on to the practices and doctrines of the Jewish tradition, we are really just like everybody else, perhaps even more so. We appeared to be whispering, in unbecoming shyness, that we were not really foreign or dirty.At the same time, we were and still are apologetic — almost masochistically — towards those to the right of us. We send our children to the universities. And we are going to continue to…
Modern Orthodoxy

Article

Is Traditional Orthodox? (1960)

I thank the editor of Chavrusa for affording me the opportunity of offering several alternate ideas on the subject raised by my brother in the previous issue. First, there is nothing world-shaking about the problem of whether the name of authentic Judaism in our contemporary, confused age be called "Orthodox,” "Traditional" or anything else. There is nothing particularly sacrosanct about the name "Orthodox" or any other such appellation. Ideally, our attitude should be that no adjective is the best adjective. We are Jews, and our faith and practice is Judaism, unqualified, uncompromised, undiluted. Once we agree to an adjective of any kind before the name Judaism, we have willy-nilly implied our assent to the co-validity of other "Interpretations" of Judaism. The acceptance of an adjective means that there are many kinds of Judaism and that ours is only one special kind, perhaps the kind with most chumrot. This is a concession we must grant the dissenters, as Wouk calls them. They will give us and forgive us anything and eveiything as long as we grant them a hehksher of equal validity based on the spurious and overworked thesis that there "are many roads to the same goal.” And this is the one concession which, if we grant it, we have lost our very souls, no matter what else we have won.And yet, this too, is no solution. Our numerical weakness, our antagonists' claims to historical authenticity as the legitimate heirs of the past and the nebulous, confused ideas which go into the making of the current consensus, all conspire to make the term "Judaism” as such, fairly meaningless. It, therefore, behooves us to specify who and what we i are. The very fact that we are adjectively J־ different in name can, by means of public education, be used to drive home that,/ we repudiate the "equal validity" thesis and claim exclusive legitimacy as the Jewish faith, authoritarian as that may sound in this age of religious euphoria. If we reject an adjective we may find ourselves b…
Modern Orthodoxy Orthodoxy & Other Denominations

Outline

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