כריתת ברית חדשה עם אבינו שבשמים – נאום בישיבת־הפתיחה של הכינוס העולמי של ארגוני בתי־הכנסת והקהילות בירושלים – מכל קצווי־תבל באנו לאכסניה נכבדה זו בכדי להפגין גם את מרכזיותה של ארץ־ישראל בהשקפת־העולם שלנו, וגם את חיוניותה, ערנותה והתעצמותה של היהדות־הדתית בתפוצות. אבל לא רק לשם הפגנה, בחינת "ברוב עם הדרת מלך", באנו, אלא גם לטכס־עצה בחינת "אשר יחדו נמתיק סוד". אמת נכון הדבר – הרבה הישגים נכבדים יש לזקוף לזכותנו: רשתות של בתי־ספר כל־יומיים, ישיבות ובתי־כנסת מפוארים, חיים ציבוריים דתיים, ואורח חיים דתי בקרב רבבות בני עמנו, עמידה במערכה בלתי־פוסקת נגד מכלול כוחות שליליים שהם בעוכרינו, ובעיקר נגד זרם ההתבוללות ונישואי־תערובת. אבל לא באנו לכנס זה לתקוע בחצוצרות תעמולה ולהסתפק במחמאות הדדיות. אם יהיה לדיונינו כאן ערך ותועלת, עלינו לדבר בגילוי־לב וללא צביעות מנומסת. מי שעיניים פקוחות לו לראות את מצבנו היום, יזדעזע למראה הסיוט הנורא של התנכרות יהודים ליהדות עד כדי ירידת דור שלם לטמיון ושל ריסוק הזהות היהודית גם בארץ – וקל־וחומר בחו"ל. תסלחו לי על כך שאיני ממתיק את האמת המרה. עלינו להודות קבל־עם־ועדה על האמת הנוראה שבימינו נמצא כל העם כולו באמצע תהליך של שואה איומה – שואה רוחנית חשאית – שהקרבנות "מתנדבים" אליה להקריב את עצמם על מזבחה. זכינו למדינה ריבונית, אבל בעיית היהדות העולמית טרם באה על פתרונה. באנו אל הנחלה, אבל עוד לא אל המנוחה. שואת־הגוף, נוסח פורים – "להשמיד להרוג ולאבד את כל היהודים" – נסתיימה לפני כחצי־יובל שנים. אולם שואת־הנשמה היהודית, נוסח חנוכה – "להשכיחם תורתך ולהעבירם על חוקי רצונך" – היא בעיצומה. גל של עם־הארצות מציף את קהילותינו, מבול של זימה ונישואי־תערובת ושטפון של התנכרות והתכחשות עובר על ראשינו. אם במעט־מה הצליחה היהדות האורתודוקסית להתבצר ולהתחזק – אין זה פוטר אותנו מלדאוג ולהצטער ביגון מר, עד דכדוכה של נפש, על סכנת אבדון של חלק הארי של המוני העם. אנו שהיינו עדי־ראייה בשואה הראשונה לחטא הדממה ופשע האדישות – אנו באנו לכאן להצהיר שלא נוותר אפילו על נפש אחת מישראל, שלא יידח ממנו נידח. באנו להתייעץ בצוותא כיצד לעמוד בפרץ, כיצד לעצור את המגפה הרוחנית הזאת, כיצד להתקיים ולהמשיך ולהתאושש לקראת חיים יהודיים שלמים יותר.

Twelve years ago, I was invited to address the Orthodox Union Convention in this city on a similar, far-ranging topic. I presented eight principles or suggestions for a strategy – ranging from the primacy of Torah to a non-apologetic attitude to secular studies; from a relevant exposition of Orthodox Judaism to a more significant curriculum for yeshivot; from the right attitude toward non-Orthodox Jews to the importance of teaching hashkafah; from a balanced conception of the Halakhah to our response to new challenges. I am pleased that I personally have had the opportunity, in the past two years, to begin to implement some of these ideas at Yeshiva University. I am not at all surprised that that talk, and its subsequent appearance in print in Jewish Life, did not receive a second thought from anyone else. I am reminded of what Rabbi Israel Salanter used to say: A musar-schmuess is always worth it, even if it results in only one person davening only one Maariv with a bit more kavannah, and even if that one person is – me… “Priorities of the Eighties”: This is not the place or the time for offering a detailed five- or ten-year plan. Such a schedule must be hammered out on the anvil of many minds, and requires the participation of the visionary as well as the pragmatist, the thinker as well as the doer, and is best prepared in long sessions away from the glare of publicity. Instead, let me propose a broad outline of what I consider the truly important problems, principles, and parameters for such a consideration. I operate on one basic premise: that American Orthodoxy is mature enough to examine itself critically without becoming demoralized. So, if I am critical, it is not because I want to be captious, but because the only way to be constructive is to trust your basic health and self-confidence in making suggestions for improvement. Our question, then, is: What must be the priorities of the Orthodox Union, of the entire Orthodox community, as we face the ninth dec…

If one sees large numbers of Jews before him, the Talmudic sages taught (Ber. 58a), he should recite a blessing: “Blessed is He who in His wisdom discerns secrets.” What are these “secrets”? The Talmud explains: no two Jews look alike and no two think alike. It is a divine “secret” how such fiercely independent individuals can pull together as one people. I am moved to recite the same blessing, Barukh Hakham ha-Bazim, as I address this distinguished gathering this evening – some two thousand or more Jews and Jewesses who neither look alike nor share identical opinions, and yet labor together, in unison, for the welfare of our people. That certainly deserves a blessing! My theme this evening is both general and specific. I shall try to trace some of our current problems to a conceptual dichotomy that has been latent for centuries. I shall seek, thereby, to identify two constants that are prerequisite for Jewish leadership and for a viable Jewish community as we move into the closing decades of this century. In his The Great Chain of Being, a pioneering work on the history of ideas published almost 50 years ago, Prof. Arthur O. Lovejoy showed how two ideas conjoined in the philosophy of Plato lived side by side peacefully for about two millennia, only to come into violent conflict with each other as their implications were spelled out over the generations. Even in the realm of ideas, friends can become foes. Compatible ideas can break out into open opposition, and apparently differing concepts can later merge into one. I detect a similar process taking place in the thought and experience of the Jewish people. Two great precepts that lived harmoniously with each other have now become sharpened into two antagonistic forces that threaten to rip apart the fabric of our people. Only a deliberate and conscious effort on the part of Jewish leaders and opinion-molders to establish peace between these ideas – to embrace both of them harmoniously – can restore the wholeness of…

כבוד בשיא המדינה; כבוד החכם הרב עדין שטיינזלץ; כבוד רבבים ורמי״ם חשובים; כבוד ידידי ר׳ מרדכי כ״ץ ובני ביתו; כבוד חברי ועד השופטים; כבוד שרים ואנשי הממשלה; כבוד דודי – שורי הרב יוסף מרדכי בוימל; כבוד אורחים נכבדים; מורי ורבותי – איני יודע באיזו זכות נבחרתי להציג את עמיתי חתני פרס קרן כ״ץ; הלא הם גדולי ישראל, גדולים וטובים ממני ומוכרים יותר, ובצדק, במדינה זו ומחוצה לה. אך דומה לי שגיליתי פשר הדבר. דרכם של בני אדם הגונים שכאשר שומעים שבחם בפיהם, שורה עליהם שר הביישנות, ומצהירים קבל עם ועדה שאינם כדאים לכבוד גדול שכזה, וכדומה. והואיל ונפשו של אדם עדין סולדת מגאווה פסולה, שאינה אלא גאווה במסווה, טוב לבחור כראש המדברים מי שאצלו אמנם אין הגאווה פסולה, ואינו סוטה כלל מדרך האמת כשאומר בפה מלא, "יודע אני בעצמי שאיני כדאי"... חברי לפרס כ״ץ, הרב שלמה גורן והרב עדין שטיינזלץ שליט״א, תרמו תרומה כבדה והיסטורית להרבצת התורה במדינה זו ובתפוצות. הכבוד שחלקתם להם – מגיע להם, כפל כפליים, על עבודתם, על פעולותיהם, על שפע היצירה שבהם לטובת הכלל, שעבדו ופעלו ויצרו כיחידי סגולה בדור משובש זה. ואילו אני מקבל את הפרס בענווה רבה לא לכבודי ולא לכבוד בית אבא, אלא למוסד הגדול שאני עומד בראשו. ישיבת רי״א – על כל תלמידיה והרמי״ם שלה – אליה מגיעה ההכרה החשובה הזאת, ורק בזכותה אני עומד לפניכם היום. ואם אמנם, לפי שקול הדעת של השופטים, הישיבה היא כיום אי בודד, תקותי היא שתזכה להיות יבשת שלמה של תורה ברמה הכי גבוהה של עמקות וגדלות והתמסרות – תורה שמלמדת ליחיד ולציבור דרכי בינה ומתינות, מה שכינה הרמב״ם "דרך ה׳" – תורה שחובקת זרועות עולם, תורה שאין שום חכמה בעולם זרה לה. אני מנצל הזדמנות זו לברך את האכסניה שלטוב לבו – ידידי הנכבד והנשיא חיים הרצוג – שזה כמה שנים שקיבל תואר כבוד מישיבה אוניברסיטה, ושעיני כל ישראל עליו במשרתו הרמה כשבוטחים בכשרונותיו, בישרותו ובחכמתו. יהי רצון שיאריך ימיו על כיסאו בשלטון, בבריאות ובשלום, וזכות אבותיו הדגולים תעמוד לימינו תמיד. בשמי ובשם חברי, חתני פרס כ״ץ לשנה זו, הנני מביע תודה עמוקה לבעל קרן כ״ץ, ר׳ מרדכי דוד כ״ץ, שגם הוא זכה לתואר כבוד ממוסדנו לפני כשנתיים. שמו הטוב הולך לפניו כאן בא״י, במכסיקו ובארה״ב. כל מי שיש לו עין בצדקה, במוסדות של חסד, ובעיקר בחינוך ובהרבצת התורה…

This fall, my wife and I spent Yom Kippur and Sukkot in Jerusalem. I spoke to many people in stations high and low, and returned with one particularly empty, aching feeling: there are many leaders and many competent people, but nobody who is thinking about all of us. I found people who were thinking of the Army and people who were thinking of Soviet Jewry, people who were thinking of the religious and people who were thinking of the secular, people who were thinking of education and people who were thinking of inflation, people who were thinking of Likud and people who were thinking of Maarakh. But I found no one whose concern covered all Jews, everywhere. This is the principal reason I accepted the very kind invitation to speak on the theme of, "Global Jewish Community---One Nation Indivisible." Let us use the shorter and more pregnant term, hallowed by centuries of usage and resonant with both sacred and national sentiment, Kelal Yisrael---the indivisible global community of the Jewish people. Before such pious sentiments have a chance to act as sedatives and put you to sleep, dimly expecting the usual sermonic bromides about Jewish unity that are the cliches of our communal discourse, let me assure you that I will not at all dwell upon them. They are true, of course---the Talmud’s teaching of Kol Yisrael arevim ba-zeh, that all Jews are responsible for each other; that we must learn the lessons of the Holocaust; and that the State of Israel needs us as its only friends. They are true, but I shall not elaborate on them. Let me ask you to bear in mind that what we take for granted does not necessarily enjoy universal acceptance amongst the Jewish people. We may advocate Jewish unity passionately, but it has not reached the level of a general consensus. Far from it. A scene just forty-four years ago, aboard a BMT train in Brooklyn: Poland had been invaded by Hitler in September of 1939, five months earlier. A twelve-year-old youngster is shouting above the din and …

I come here this evening with a troubled heart to speak as an Orthodox Jew about a concern that unites all of us, namely, those issues that disunite all of us from each other. The predictions of an unbridgeable and cataclysmic rupture within the Jewish community leave all of us deeply distressed. They serve to agitate all of us who love and care for and worry about our Jewish people and its future. The twin issues of Jewish identity — the question of conversion — and of Jewish marital legitimacy — of proper gittin (divorce) and, in their absence, subsequent adultery and the blemish of mamzerut (bastardy) — should give us no rest. The non-marriageability of a significant portion of the Jewish people with the rest of am Yisrael is too horrendous to contemplate — and yet we are forced to do just that, lest our fragile unity, such as it is, be shattered beyond repair. At the same time, we have to retain a healthy skepticism about such projections. Samuel Goldwyn used to say, "Never make forecasts, especially about the future." Prophecy is a risky business, especially if it is based upon statistics. Moreover, while it is good to be alerted, it is not healthy to be panicked. Such excessive alarm sometimes leads to medicines which are worse than the disease. Disaster is not inevitable. Even if we are told that it is, then, as Justice Louis Brandeis once said about inevitability, "I am opposed to it." Hence, we have to try our very best, within the limits of our integrity, to promote unity and to oppose the seemingly inevitable disaster that looms before us. Now, let me repeat that phrase that I just used — "within the limits of our integrity." I am here, amongst fellow Jews, to do what I can as an advocate of enhanced Jewish unity. But, no honorable person can afford to dispense with his integrity. The issues are too critical to permit us to gather in a Jewish equivalent of the old "interfaith" meetings in which warmth substituted for light, and good fellowship for genui…

My pleasure in addressing you at this occasion is enhanced by my personal friendship for "Rabbi Joe" Ehrenkranz. We first met when I a High School freshman... Was a different world then: Hardware = hammers and wrenches; Software = not in dictionary; To Be Gay = to be happy; Grass = something you mowed; Coke = something you drank; Pot = something you cooked in; Reagan = an actor, not a President; North = a direction, not a lieutenant colonel — although in both instances magnetic...During all these historical, societal, cultural changes, he has remained essentially the same in his personality, character, and values.Permit me a few remarks on the crisis of our people in our times. In two days — Shiva Asar be'Tammuz, initiating "Three Weeks" of mourning, culminating in Tisha be'Av — destruction of two Temples, First in 568 BCE; Second Commonwealth came to end in 70 CE. (importance of Temples in national Jewish life). Since 1948, our era often referred to as ThirdCommonwealth.Why the Destructions? Rabbis of Talmud (Yoma 49a) probed beyond obvious military, political, and economic factors and located basic problem in realm of morality. In each case, moral fiber of people was weakened beyond repair, but each had a different moral cause that precipitated the churban. First Temple — avodah zarah, idolatry. Second — sin'at chinam... And they proved to be historically correct and morally insightful and relevant. But — also scary! Reason? — because my analysis of events and intuition into our current predicament leads me to frightening thought that we are today guilty of both: I am gripped by the fear, danger, and scandal that we may be responsible for both idoaltry and baeless haterd!Fist is avodah zarah, the paganisn of modernism. We have assimilated not only into the common ignorance of Jewish sources, texts, and faith; we haver also worshipped at the shrines of contemporary idolatry. Consider them well. For instance, what Frances Bacon called "the idols of the market place…

When I was first invited to speak at this Convention, I was unsure of what topic to choose. When I asked the conveners what I should speak about, they gave me two concise answers. First, they said, "speak about 30 minutes." Second, they recommended I speak about "The Responsibility of Leadership in the American Orthodox Community." I shall cheerfully make every effort to accomodate both wise suggestions. The truth is that this theme has engaged and fascinated and worried me for a long time. And I have come to a rather surprising yet significant conclusion which can be summed up by saying that, in addition to and above all else, leadership requires the taking of risks – not only political and financial and social and psychological risks, but also moral risks.There is a remarkable statement by חז״ל which is quoted by Maimonides in his פיה"מ לאבות פ"א מ"ט, although our texts do not carry this dictum as he cites it. It reads: כל מי שהציבור ממנה אותו פרנס מלמטה נקרא רשע למעלה. "One who is appointed to a position of leadership by the community here below, is regarded as wicked up above." A similar thought occurs in the Zohar (III, p.24a). On the verse אשר נשיא יחטא, "if a prince (i.e., a king, a leader) sins," the Zohar adds two words, ודאי יחטא, "he most certainly will sin!" You cannot be a פרנס or a נשיא without being considered a רשע or a חוטא.What a strange thing to say--and what a deterrent to public service on behalf of the community! Granted that some leaders abuse their positions and that others may be neglectful of their duties, is that a reason to say that al 1 leaders are regarded by Heaven as רשעים or חוטאים, as evil or sinful? Do we not bear enough burdens, and is there not enough to discourage us without this added onus placed upon us by the Talmud, the Zohar, and the Rambam What the Rabbis meant, I believe, is this: Leadership involves making hard decisions--or better: dirty decisions, choosing between alternatives neither of which is perfect or clean or p…

The "Rambam Award" bestowed upon me by Amit Women leaves me both grateful and humbled. One cannot but feel the weight of one's own intellectual, spiritual, and moral inadequacy when his name is linked to the immortal Rambam or Maimonides. Permit me, therefore, to try to overcome this paralyzing inferiority – at least for a short while – by using this special occasion to suggest the relevance to us of Rambam's teaching, specifically in relation to our present holiday, Hanukkah. Here is the cleaned version of the text with all odd characters removed, en dashes with spaces, and typos corrected. Words and phrasing have been preserved exactly as in the original, per your instructions.The Rambam, in his great halakhic opus, the Mishneh Torah, codifies the laws of Hanukkah. The very last of these laws is of special interest:היו לפניו נר ביתו ונר חנוכה או נר ביתו וקידוש היום נר ביתו קודם משום שלום בית... גדול השלום שכל התורה ניתנה לעשות שלום בעולם שנאמר דרכיה דרכי נועם וכל נתיבותיה שלוםRambam is telling us that if one is exceedingly poor, so that on the Friday night of Hanukkah he must choose between buying a single candle for Shabbat or a candle for Hanukkah, or between buying a Shabbat candle or wine for Kiddush on Shabbat, he must choose the Shabbat candle over all else. This is so, the Rambam decides on the basis of the relevant Talmudic text in the second chapter of tractate Shabbat, because the Shabbat candle (unlike the Hanukkah candle whose light may not be used for any illumination or other "profane" purpose) is kindled for the sake of shalom bayit, domestic peace. Without the Shabbat candles, without light in the home on Shabbat, people would fall, trip, get in each other's way, hit into each other, and tempers would flare. A dark home is a home without joy, without peace, without shalom bayit. Even though today we enjoy the kind of affluence which ensures illumination even without the Shabbat candles, their symbolism remains as powerful and relevant as ever. The…

I was uncertain what to talk about… so, bedi’leita beraira, I decided to speak about the actual theme of the Convention: harmony and integrity! Truth to tell, the theme is both timely and timeless – which is a fortuitous phenomenon, because it allows me to speak in abstract generalities without committing myself to any political positions, even if my theoretical views most certainly have practical implications. Thus, our subject is as fresh as next week’s Jewish Press or last week’s Algemeiner, and as venerably aged as any of the hoary polarities or dichotomies in our sacred tradition. Shalom and emet (or chesed and tzedek) each has claims on our attention, commitment, and loyalty – and they often pull in opposite directions. Emet, or integrity, has absolute claims, undeterred by external considerations or societal demands, while shalom, or harmony, insists upon the value of communal happiness, human survival, and mutual accommodation. Another way of putting it: integrity advocates the harmony of ideas, theories, and commitments – while harmony propounds the integrity of man, community, and society.3.The two are not only theoretical constructs, and not only values, they are also dimensions of personality, characterological factors. Harmony is favored by the irenic types, those who clamor for "unity" and are by nature compromisers, while integrity is the catchword of thosewilling to sacrifice anything and everything for "principle," the extremists. The harmony people are generally considered "soft," the integrity partisans--"hard."How do we resolve the conflict? How do we reconcile the divergent claims of שלום and אמת, each of which is itself a divine Name?There are, I believe, two grand strategies of reconciliation that I can discern in our מסורח. Let us call them the Linear and the Circular Strategies.The Linear Strategy admits of one solution only: it is in the nature of a line to allow only one point at any one position; a line implies a hierarchy of one point …