The perek records the story of Rabbi Yosi ben Kisma, who was accosted by a stranger who asked him, מאיזו עיר אתה? Rabbi Yosi replied, etc., etc. What we have before us is an assertion by Rabbi Yosi that it is better to live among sages than among ignoramuses – among wise men than among fools. Rabbi Yosi disdains all material rewards that might entice him to a spiritually and scholarly less favorable environment. This is, apparently, an unexceptionable teaching. Yet the matter is not quite that simple. Is it really the best policy to pursue in order to assure the dominance of Torah in Israel? If all committed Jews decided to live exclusively in Jewish areas, where kashrut and Torah and tefillah were all assured at the highest level, would this not result in the decimation of our community and in the loss of countless thousands of Jews in the outlying communities? Furthermore, do we not have sufficient examples of great Jews who, by risking an alien environment, succeeded in converting that milieu into great centers of Torah? For instance, we know that Rav left Palestine to go down to Babylon – and almost singlehandedly made that community into a center of Torah for hundreds and hundreds of years to follow. Does Rabbi Yosi ben Kisma then mean to imply that this was wrong? Does he have any alternative solution for the spreading of Torah in Israel? I believe that Rabbi Yosi ben Kisma was not preaching a kind of contemporary retrenchment policy whereby all Orthodox Jews withdraw into one neighborhood and abandon the rest of the community. The stranger who accosted him did not ask, “Where do you live?” He asked him, מאיזו עיר אתה – “From what place are you?” And therein lies the difference. Philo maintained that the pious man is a stranger on earth, for he is intrinsically a citizen of Heaven who is only temporarily here. His real makom is in Heaven. That is, I believe, the meaning of this dialogue between the Tanna and the stranger. What, asked the stranger, is your rea…

This mishnah has a parallel in Chapter IV, where, in the name of R. Elazar HaKappar, we read of three similar qualities that “take a man out of the world” – עין רעה, יצר הרע, ושנאת הבריות. If we accept this parallelism, then “the evil eye” should be understood not in its usual context as a kind of “jinx,” but rather as a sense of begrudging which harms the perpetrator much more than its intended victim. Jealousy – the evil eye – eats away at the innards of the one who is jealous and slowly destroys him, not only psychologically and spiritually, but even physically. יצר הרע and תאווה are obviously related. And the pursuit of honor usually implies a desire to be superior to others – hence שנאת הבריות. But why only these three? And what is the meaning of the strange phrase “take him out of the world”? Should not the mishnah have mentioned three worse crimes – perhaps the three cardinal sins? I believe that the Tanna was aiming specifically at three qualities or dispositions which lend themselves to misinterpretation. The cardinal crimes or the great virtues are simple enough to observe. The blacks and the whites of life are not what make up the “world” – which is for the greatest part comprised of shades of gray. It is rare that, in crisis, we are confronted with clear-cut options: good and evil, right and wrong. Normally, we have to make subtle distinctions; we are faced with paradoxes and ambivalences and are forced to choose amid uncertainty and confusion. This confusion and ambivalence are most oppressive when we deal with ideas and qualities that can serve both the ends of good and of evil, of the right and of the wrong. At such times, not only is there an element of uncertainty as to whether we are using or abusing a certain quality, but there is a tendency for us to submit to rationalization – to abuse a quality and to assume we are doing the proper thing. Since the world is constituted mostly of such uncertainties and such qualities of double nature, when we c…

It goes without saying that it is that common vision of Torah which we call "Centrist Orthodoxy" that unites us here today. But. we ought to bear in mind what Carl Becker, the great American historian, once said. "It is important, every so often, to look at the things that go without saying to be sure that they are still going." I would add the need for intellectual vigilance to this reminder for practical caution by paraphrasing his aphorism: "It is important, every so often, to look at what we are saying about the things that go without saying to make sure we know what we are talking about." In reflecting on some of the foundations of our Weltanschauung, I do not presume to be imparting new information. The task I have set for myself is to summarize and clarify, rather than to innovate. Dr. Johnson once said that it is important not only to instruct people but also to remind them. I shall take his sage advice for this discourse. We seem to be suffering from a terminological identity crisis. We now call ourselves "Centrist Orthodoxy." There was a time, not too long ago, when we referred to ourselves as "Modern Orthodox." Others tell us that we should call ourselves simply "Orthodox," without any qualifiers, and leave it to the other Orthodox groups to conjure up adjectives for themselves. I agree with the last view in principle, but shall defer to the advocates of "Centrist Orthodoxy" for two reasons: First, it is the term that today has greatest currency, and second, it is a waste of intellectual effort and precious time to argue about titles when there are so many truly significant issues that clamor for our attention. In no way should the choice of one adjective over the other be invested with any substantive significance or assumed to be a "signal" of ideological position. We are what we are, and we should neither brag nor be apologetic about it. These days, we do more of the latter than the former, and I find that reprehensible. Let us be open and forthright …

Yeshiva University is exceedingly proud of its alumni, both men and women, in Israel: their idealism, their personal deportment, their families, their professional achievements, and their varied contributions to the State of Israel. I have met our graduates in every part of this country and they are engaged in a dizzying variety of professions and businesses. In all cases, they have given us cause for pride and "nachas."But these accomplishments are, for the most part, personal, the result of individual efforts and successes. What has been missing is the collective voice of the Yeshiva University graduates in the State of Israel.The time has come for Yeshiva University, through its alumni, to become a clear and articulate moral force in this country. Our alumni must become a cohesive group united not only by a common alma mater, but by a comprehensive Torah outlook which, without keeping to any party line, will be idealistic yet realistic, both youthfully energetic and mature, assertive but balanced, and combining enthusiasm with sanity.A wave of extremism is sweeping the world, and America and the American Jewish community have not remained unaffected by it. But the negative results are far more palpable and consequential in Israel for a number of obvious reasons: it is a smaller country; this is a highly politicized and informal society; people here suffer from a low threshold of frustration because of the accumulated military, political, and economic pressures; and the country lacks an established tradition of civility in public discourse.Yet, these are only explanations, not excuses. The situation is too serious to ignore when it sometimes seems, at least to this observer, that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.At times of this sort, we all stand under a holy imperative: do not let the center collapse!What Yeshiva has taught us, both in theory and in practice — the joining of Torah learning and Western culture under the rubric of Torah Umadda; the opennes…

Yeshiva University is exceedingly proud of its alumni, both men and women, in Israel: their idealism, their personal deportment, their families, their professional achievements, and their varied contributions to the State of Israel. I have met our graduates in every part of this country and they are engaged in a dizzying variety of professions and businesses. In all cases, they have given us cause for pride and “nachas.”But these accomplishments are, for the most part, personal, the result of individual efforts and successes. What has been missing is the collective voice of the Yeshiva University graduates in the State of Israel.The time has come for Yeshiva University, through its alumni, to become a clear and articulate moral force in this country. Our alumni must become a cohesive group united not only by a common alma mater, but by a comprehensive Torah outlook which, without keeping to any party line, will be idealistic yet realistic, both youthfully energetic and mature, assertive but balanced, and combining enthu­siasm with sanity.A wave of extremism is sweeping the world, and America and the American Jewish com­munity have not remained unaffected by it. But the negative results are far more palpable and consequential in Israel for a number of obvious reasons: it is a smaller country; this is a highly politicized and informal society; people here suffer from a low threshold of frustration because of the accumulated military, political, and economic pressures; and the country lacksan established tradition of civility in public discourse.Yet, these are only explanations, not excuses. The situation is too serious to ignore when it sometimes seems, at least to this observer, that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.At times of this sort, we all stand under a holy imperative: do not let the center collapse!What Yeshiva has taught us, both in theory and in practice—the joining of Torah learning and Western culture under the rubric of Torah U’Mada; openness to …

The meaning of טוב (“good”) in the early chapters of Genesis – where at the end of every segment of Creation we read וירא אלקים... כי טוב – is tantalizingly obscure. What does “goodness,” a term usually associated with moral acts or psychological satisfaction, have to do with the natural order? If, as some maintain (e.g., Maimonides, Guide 2:30, 3:13), טוב here denotes the production of an entity whose existence conforms to its purpose or the successful execution of the divine will, then why, on the final day of the Six Days of Creation – with the emergence of man (Gen. 1:31) – does God declare that Creation is טוב מאוד, “very good”? Is it even meaningful to speak of greater and lesser degrees of success in the implementation of a divine decision to create?Ask ChatGPT The problem becomes more acute in the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Paradise). Before the creation of Eve, we read that Adam's condition was not good: לא טוב היות האדם לבדו, it as not good that man should be alone (2:18). If טוב is a moral or psychological category, the verse is understandable; but then the כי טוב repeated in the creation narrative in chapter 1 presents apparently insurmountable difficulties. And if the טוב of the first chapter refers to the full execution of the divine will, then the phrase לא טוב היות האדם לבדו is problematical, although not insuperably so.The question becomes more acute, however, when we turn to the story of the עץ הדעת טוב ורע (the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil). Man is warned not to eat of this tree, for "on the day that you eat thereof you will surely die" (Gen. 2:17).After the creation of Eve, the serpent ensnares her and persuades her to violate the divine command. But the serpent persists, and informs Eve that "for God knows that on the day you eat thereof your eyes will be opened and you will be like the powerful ones who know good and evil" (Gen.3:5). (Our use of "the powerful ones" follows the Aramaic translator, Onkelos, as opposed to…

I begin on two contradictory notes, one apologetic, the other not only not apologetic but anti-apologetic. The apologetic note concerns my uneasiness in using the term Centrist Orthodoxy, but it is a term which I prefer principally for one reason, which I shall elaborate presently. Critics of the term assume that Centrist indicates that we locate ourselves at some midpoint between orthodoxy and assimilationism, and claim that territory as our religious home. But that is nonsense. Only slightly less absurd is the idea that centrist orthodoxy is the mid-point between Satmar and the few intellectuals who occupy the ground called the Orthodox Left. That is also inaccurate. It is no compliment to our intelligence to imagine that we who declare ourselves Centrist walk around the religious terrain with a yardstick, calipers and a calculator measuring the exact distance between Neturei Karta and Humanistic Judaism - so called - in order to locate the exact middle or centre. We are not, and do not aspire to be ideological geographers or spiritual statisticians who search out the exact centre between right and wrong, religious and non-religioua, mitzva and avera, and settle upon that as our religious goal. It may be wrong, but I submit that our centrism is not really that simple minded and religiously asinine.What of the title we have been called all along, Modern Orthodoxy? I am uncomfortable with that label because it is a combination of two highly infelicitous words. One is arrogant, modern: I'm modern, that makes me better than anyone else in the past. The other is inaccurate because orthodoxy implies ideological blindness and constricted thought, and that is not correct.Of course there are those who say that we should do away with all adjectives and simply identify ourselves as orthodox jews, period. It does away with the whole problem of labels, or it seems to. In fact if we did that that would leave 90 percent of this audience and all those who have come to the Sympos…

I didn’t reveal the title of my talk – “Humility” – to the convention chairman, because if I had, no one would have come to listen. (When I mentioned this to a layman earlier this week, his reaction was: “Good – rabbis could use a talk on that...”) Actually, I don’t intend מוסר but עיון – not to admonish but to analyze, not to preach but to comprehend, not to lecture but to give a שיעור. I have long been fascinated by Maimonides’ theory of the דרך האמצעית, which he elaborates first in his שמונה פרקים בפירוש המשניות and later in his הלכות דעות. Recently, I’ve been speaking and writing about the relevance of his concepts for the contemporary communal concerns that increasingly occupy our attention. This evening, I hope to continue that exploration by focusing on one of the two exceptions to the Maimonidean rule of the Middle Way – namely, כעס and גאוה. For now, we shall dwell on גאוה וענוה, and try to understand them per se – and then apply them, if possible, to our own situation.2 Maimonides' Theory of Humility: ...The case of Moses/Aaron/Miriam: והאיש משה ענו מאוד מכלהאדם אשר על פני האדמה and later (in רבי לויטס איש יבנה אומר מאוד מאוד הוה שפל רוח (אבות פ״ד שתקות אנוש רימה. .My Four Questions on Maimonides:a) is it true? Does שפלות of Moses imply that he was an ignoramus? Is Humility supposed to conflict w Truth?b) is it psychologically desirable? One need not applaud the efforts of 2nd -rate psychologists ... professional mission to turn people w injured psyches^accomplished narcissists ... terrorize relatives/ w new-found egos, i-o apprect tht cumulative wisdom of psych’ll inquiry has yielded valid insight that i-o t function properly, one must hv strong sense of self/feelg of self-worth.: As parents, do we desire to raise our ch w feeling of extreme lowliness/crushing inferiority/exceedingly weak self-image?? גמ׳ מגילה דף ל״א ע״א, כל מקום שאתה מוצא גבורתו של הקב״ה שם אתה מוצא ענוותנותו c) what ofנה וגס׳ סוף סוטה: משמת רבי בטלה ענוה, א״ל ר׳ יוסף לתנא d) How can …

The most Jewish way to begin this historic conference is, appropriately, with “thanksgiving” – to the Almighty שהחיינו וקימנו והגיענו לזמן הזה. Now, that is an interesting ברכה. Two of the three verbs are self-explanatory: שהחיינו, He let us live, despite all persecutions and material obstacles. והגיענו, He allowed us to reach this day, overcoming all cultural, spiritual, and psychological pressures on us. But most interesting is the middle verb: וקימנו, usually translated as "He let us exist." But if we already say that He let us live and reach, why is it necessary to add "exist?" It has been suggested that the word is a halakhic term. וקימנו comes from קיום, and in the Halakha the word for affirmation or authentication of a שטר or document is called קיום שטרות, whereby witnesses testify to the authenticity of the signatures on a document. Hence, וקימנו means, "He has justified and authenticated our approach, our mission, our דרך.* For the last 50 or more years, savants and sages, sociologists and social philosophers and community "machers," have predicted the imminent demise of Orthodox Judaism and the disappearance of Orthodox Jews as a significant part of the North American Jewish community. But we are to say, "We are here!" By the grace of the Almighty, וקימנו, He has, through history, vindicated our essential outlook, and so we are very much alive if beset by problems, very much vigorous if more than a bit contentious. And what greater reason to thank Him than for legitimating who and what we are. And, indeed, it is appropriate to ask two questions, to which I intend to address myself this evening: First, who are we – we who have convened and are participating in this conference? And second, what do we want and why have we gathered here at this juncture of our history? Who are we? First, we are Jews; and we are joined by a common history and common national and ethnic experiences to all other Jews, as partners in what the Rav זצ"ל has called the ברית גורל, t…

There is a bitter-sweet quality to this celebration. On the one hand, there is a sense of joy when, at this impressive quadrennial Chag Hasemikhah, we initiate a new group of Rabbis into their roles as congregational Rabbis and educators. On the other hand, this is the first such celebration in my memory, since my student days, at which our two great luminaries, The Rav and Reb Dovid, of blessed memory, did not grace the occasion with their presence. In a sense, both the joy and the sorrow speak to the same theme – the transferring of spiritual authority from one generation to the next, the passing of responsibility for the entire mesorah and Thrall leadership from teacher to student.Permit me, therefore, to refer you back to an incident in the early history of the Jewish monarchy, when the prophet Elijah invested Elisha as his disciple and sue-cessor, as related in I Kings, chapter 19. It is a chapter which is itself worthy of study and also serves as a metaphor for your Semikhah at this juncture of our history.Elijah had just gone through a soulsearing experience. Having challenged the prophets of Baal, confronted their royal supporter, Ahab, and therefore earned persecution by the infamous Isabel, Elijah finds himself distraught, in to-tai despair, having given up hope that his people are ready for their mission as the am Hashem. He is so filled with grim fore-bodings and feelings of inadequacy that he wants to die. God instructs him to stand at the mouth of the cave, where He reveals Himself to him. Elijah learns that God speaks to him not in the howling winds or the raging fires or the savage earthquake, but in the sound of gentle stillness, i.e., in patience and sensitivity. God then gives him three very specific commands: to anoint Hazael as the new king of Syria, Yehu as the new king of Israel, and, last, “Elisha, son ofShaphat, as a prophet in your place.”What does Elijah do? Does he proceed to follow the divine instructions exactly as they were given, nam…