On passage in Meg. 12a that generation of Purim deserved destruction מפני שנהנו מסעודת אותו רשע: One interpretation has it that the crime of eating it that banquet was נבילות וטריפות. But another one maintains that the sin was one of immorality, זנות. Thus the interpretation of כרצון איש ואיש as, "to gratify the appetite of every man.” According to R. Ylshmael, 18,500 Jews of Shushan participated. If, in the Heavenly account, anti-Semitic destruction comes as a punishment for immorality, then here on earth we can perhaps discern another similar reaction: Intermarriage is a result of punishment for immorality.I feel that a major cause of intermarriage la more a weak family structure than a weak Jewish education. And if the Jewish family is in desparate trouble today, it is largely because it has adopted the life-style of modem society and all its *major norms. Indeed, much to our dismay, Jewish names abound in the list of leaders of revolutionary movements against moral codes, pornography, drug-culture, and ”swinging.” This newfound sexual freedom -- כרצון איש ואיש -- causes bothend of the family and Intermarriage -- and anti-Semitism, as a large population of the United States seaway from both coasts begins to resent what has been foisted upon them.

There is another reason to be dissatisfied with the appellation, "Centrist Orthodoxy." That is, it fails to convey a sufficiently adequate notion of our ideological identity, because it assumes that all others veer to the extremes. Whereas, for instance, Lubavitche considers itself Centrist — it is regularly attacked by Satmar; the Agudah considers itself Centrist — it is the perennial prey of the Neturei Karta wing; and so on. I would much prefer our self-identification as, "Torah Umada," in the same way that the Hirschian Movement referred to itself as, "Torah and Derekh Eretz." Nevertheless, because "Torah Umada" has been used principally to define our attitude towards secular culture, and because we wish to identify with Orthodoxy no matter what the particular adjective, it is best that we remain with the name "Centrist Orthodoxy," despite all its shortcomings. (Note: Consider again whether, indeed, we should accept the name "Torah Umada" and use "Centrist Orthodoxy" as a sub-title or ancillary name.)Emphasize the critical confrontation with our environing culture. Hirsch was an admirer of German culture, and one can hardly fault him for failing to foresee the end product of that culture. After the Holocaust, no sane Jew -- or, indeed, non-Jew — can accept Western culture uncritically. Yet this is a far cry from the strong segregationism of so much of the Right-wing. With them, the dialogue with Western culture has been cut off almost completely; with assimilationists, it is not a dialogue but an embrace. What we affirm is a dialogue — open but critical, willing to learn, but unwilling to accept on faith.The Middle Way. Point out that in moving from "the middle way" in disposition to the middle way in doctrine, I must reaffirm the Rav's view that this is not merely an arithmetic proposition. While such an arithmetic mean can obtain with regard to disposition, with regard to doctrine and tenet . the sum total must be …

The polemic between Center and Right on the proper approach to the non-Orthodox community must be viewed in a broader historical prospective. In normative Jewish society, which obtained from the Talmudic Age through the Middle Ages and until the Emancipation, heterodox ideas and conduct were viewed as aberrant behavior, and treated as such. Even if the bearers of such unorthodox views were organized into a community, they were treated as individuals rather than as a collectivity. Thus, no credibility was given to the Karaites as an organized religious grouping. Instead, Karaites were treated as individuals who had strayed from the straight and narrow path of the Torah, and one took either a hard-line rejectionist approach to them or, as was the case with Maimonides, a more accommodating and accepting approach. In either case, this was an attitude towards Karaites, not to Karaism. It was always understood that such heterodox groups represented deviations from the norm, and that eventually they would disappear by being reabsorbed in the historic flow of main stream Torah Judaism. Hence, heresy as a community phenomenon was simply not considered, and reduced to a simple collection of individual heretics who had no historical staying power.All this was unquestionably true as long as the overwhelming majority of Jews identified with the broad outlines of the Torah tradition. Individual aberrations could then be dismissed as transient phenomena in the history of the faith. All this changed with the Emancipation and the Enlightenment. For more than two centuries now, various forms of heterodox thought and behavior have attracted a great majority of Jews everywhere. Secularism has proved one of the most powerful foes Torah has ever encountered, and it has insinuated itself into the very bloodstream and sinews of the body of Judaism. The quiet give-and-take between Judaism and the environing cultures of the Jewish people, that understated the very real dialogue between Tora…