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Shul Bulletin

January 13, 1967

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

Modern Orthodoxy & the Charedim
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Emerging from the Cave, Part 2: The Parable (1966)

However, fortunately, we are not called upon to make this tragic choice between the ghetto and the wasteland. We are not restricted to the two options of either “Neturei Karta” or assimilation. This contemporary dilemma is at the core of the famous story of the cave, related in the Talmud (Shabbat 33b). R. Simeon bar Yohai and his son R. Eliezer made slurring remarks about their contemporary Roman civilization. By an indiscretion, they were found out and condemned to death. They fled and eventu- ally hid in a cave, where they were forced to spend some twelve or thirteen years. During this time they lived on nothing more than carobs and water. This long interval was spent by them in growing spiritually, in the study of Torah, and, according to tradition, in achieving tremendous mystic insights which were later incorporated in the book Zohar. After the end of this period, they were told that Caesar was dead, and it was safe for them to leave their hiding place. When they emerged, they saw people — their compatriots — occupied in the normal business of living: planting, reaping, buying, selling. They were shocked: Is there no one who studies Torah all his days? Wherever and whatever they looked at was immediately consumed by fire! At which a bat koi, a Heavenly voice, issued forth and exclaimed: “Have you left your cave only to destroy My world? Return to your cave!”This they did, remaining in the cave another twelve months. Then another bat koi called forth: Leave your cave. The two scholars left, and, surveying the scene about them, were again deeply distressed. R. Simeon said to his son: apparently you and I are the only ones left; the two of us shall have to continue Judaism by ourselves. But then something remarkable happened: it was Friday afternoon, just before the beginning of the Sabbath. They saw an old man rushing, and carrying in his hands two bunches of myrtle twigs. “What are you doing this for?” asked the two scholars. He answered: li'khevod shabbat, I …
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

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Emerging from the Cave, Part 6: The Challenge (1967)

Orthodox Judaism in our generation is beginning to emerge from its cave. It must never reject that cave entirely. There will and always should be some who will guard it and prefer to live in it. G-d bless them. But, as R. Simeon and R. Eliezer learned 1800 years ago, that cannot hold true for the entire people of Israel. To insist upon it is to diminish the Jewish people and particularly the Jewish State. If there are those who prefer this type of existence, then the divine voice commands them: return to your caves, and do not impose your wish upon the community. As a people we must leave our self-contained caves and risk the great perils — and they are many and tragic — of attempting to live the life of Torah in the wide community, joining the rest of the world in the daily pursuits of all mankind, and endeavoring to be mekadesh shem shamayim be-rabbim, to sanctify the Name of G-d in public.Our G-d-ordained duty is to bring the trei medanai assa, the two myrtle twigs of Judaism, to the entire world; to offer all Jews and all mankind the sweetness and pleasantness of Torah; to challenge them both to recall the glories that were and prepare for those that yet will be; to inspire teshuvah u-maasim tovim wherever we are; to look confidently towards what destiny is yet to bring us; to acknowledge the mitzvot as our most precious and most beloved possession.Then indeed we shall be able to live out our lives Jewishly and beautifully and meaningfully, and in dignity and respect and pleasantness.
Modern Orthodoxy & the Charedim