Home Home / Emerging from the Cave, Part 2: The Par…

Shul Bulletin

December 9, 1966

Emerging from the Cave, Part 2: The Parable (1966)

Modern Orthodoxy & the Charedim
View The Text

This content is currently available in its original PDF format. As we expand the library, we plan to add a text version as well.

RELATED CONTENT

Shul Bulletin

Emerging from the Cave, Part 1: Two Ways (1966)

Ever since the Emancipation, religious Jewry has suffered a constant attri­tion. This deterioration in numbers and intensity of commitment has been most noticeable the past two or three decades. How have we reacted to it? What ought be our policy? Several tendencies are worthy of mention. The first is the way of despair. One contemplates the unfavorable circum­stances and merely posts an obituary notice. But nothing is done; one goes about the old ways without any change. In the face of hopelessness, fear drives one to dull, mechanical repetition. Thus, heavily endowed American Jewish organ­izations continue in the same rut, repeat the same tired formulae, and chant the same irrelevant litanies. They bravely fight anti-Semitism, while Semitism is dying within them. They are heroic partisans of “the wall of separation” between Religion and State, at a time when Religion is being drained of its vital sap. Today's “liberals” often fight yesterday’s battles; it is a sign of despair in today’s campaigns. They have given up on tomorrow.There is a second tendency. There are some who maintain a stubborn refusal to yield, who have high resolve and persistent determination to continue on the highest level of Judaism, but in ever-shrinking circles. Theirs is the gesture of withdrawal, of isolation, of a conscious and conscientious ignoring of the rest of the world, of all other Jews. The prize they want to capture is “tomorrow”; the price they are willing to pay is “today.”As between these two attitudes, I would much rather choose the second. 1 do not for one moment believe that the Jewish people and the Torah will ever disappear. If I were faced with the choice of totally embracing this world or totally rejecting it — I would reject it. Our civilization, never let us for one moment forget, is the one which sired an Auschwitz and other such illegitimate obscenities; it is a civilization which, without any affront to its conscience, produced a Hiroshima. Our culture is neither…
Modern Orthodoxy & the Charedim

Shul Bulletin

Emerging from the Cave, Part 3: The Reconciliation (1966)

What does the Talmud mean to tell us in this parable of the cave? R. Simeon and R. Eliezer are the symbols of the gedolei Yisrael of all generations. They recog­nized the rot and the decay of their contemporary civilization and hence preferred to retreat into their own enclave of Torah and piety. They would not pollute the pure spirit of Torah and piety with the corruption of the world. When they did ventuie forth to meet the rest of the world, they were dismayed. Their own standards had grown during their isolation, while the rest of the Jewish world had remained static. Everywhere they turned their fiery gaze, the institutions they beheld were “burned” — they saw through them, they reduced the pretense of “normal” life to ashes. They had honed their own spirits to a keen edge, so they could not tolerate people engaged in their dull, regular, profane pursuits of business or professions or universities — anything, indeed, but the Yeshivah, the Beit Ha-Midrash, the Kollel. From that vantage point, the rest of the world was, indeed, nothing!Rut — the bat koi calls out: this can destroy the Jewish world! Back to your cave! With an attitude of this sort, you are not yet ready to venture into the wider community. Neturei Karta may be fit for Meah Shea/rim, but the rest of the Jewish world cannot live this way. Such attitudes are dangerous, precisely because they are too holy, too remote, too demanding. Jewish society cannot abide such a perspec­tive — and God wants to save His world even as He wants His Torah to prevail.But then R. Simeon and R. Eliezer leave their cave again and are finally reconciled with the world. They learn that Judasim can survive outside the cave, even in the Roman environment.How are they reconciled? How are we — who consider Torah absolute and modernity relative, who yearn for the beauty of pristine pure Jewish life and fear contamination and pollution in our semi-pagan technological society — how are we to be reconciled with the rest of the wo…
Modern Orthodoxy & the Charedim

Shul Bulletin

Emerging from the Cave, Part 4: The Old Man (1967)

It is easy enough to point to religious youth and the growth of day schools and Yeshiva University. True, these are the symptoms of a revival. But without a special kind of attitude by the mature generation, the elders of our community, our whole enterprise is doubtful. Hence, the Talmud tells us: the giants of Torah who emerged from the cave beheld a most remarkable sight — an old man in the dusk of his life, the Friday night and the twilight of his career, was racing and running. Where to and what for, old man? Preparing for a new Shabbat! Carrying that which will make Torah sweet, which will endear Yiddishkeit to all! When questioned closely as to why he had two myrtle branches, his answer was illuminating; one for zakhor, remembei-ing, and one for sha- mor, observing. The old man not only perfonns the commandment to remember; he not only entertains ancient memories, espouses a religion of murky sentiments, and recalls faded glories. No! It is true that there are hosts of noble memories worth cherishing, but the old man at the dusk of his life also affirms shamor, “Observe the Sabbath!” Guard your heritage for the future, transmit Judaism to a new generation, prepare for posterity. The old man does not despair, does not give up and return to the womb of yester-year’s memories. He is oriented to a future which he wishes to sweeten and to adorn today. His Shabbat is not a relic of the past, but a symbol of the future.That old man’s indomitable optimism is something we dare not fail to learn. It is a source of optimism for us that we have progressed beyond the experimental stage, that there are already some of us in this country who have reached full maturity and have survived with their Judaism intact despite their willing encounter with contem­porary society. But this mature generation must also be sufficiently motivated to provide for the future, for shamor. If it will do so with sweetness and not with bitter­ness; if it is confident and working and striving, ev…
Modern Orthodoxy & the Charedim