The very kind and gracious words said about me here this evening were intended, I am sure, to gratify me and make me feel happy. Yet their effect has been just the opposite. I feel more embarrassed than honored. When the famous Chassidic Rebbe, Reb Chaim Sanzer, the "Divrei Chaim," one day traveled through some of the cities where he was known and loved, he once took his son along with him. In one city the reception accorded him was particularly warm, and the compliments (which, it so happens, were richly deserved) flew fast and thick. They praised him as the Rashkabehag, as the greatest saint and scholar of his day, etc. When they had left, Reb Chaim's son noticed that his father had a fallen look on his face and was by no means happy. When his son pressed him for an explanation, Reb Chaim replied with a story: You know that the honors and salutes accorded a general are much greater than those given to a colonel. It once happened that a general was recalled by his headquarters by his superiors to undergo a court-martial. When he entered, he was given the general’s salute. The verdict was against him inside the room, and he was found guilty and demoted to a colonel. When he left, the guards, not knowing of the decision, again gave him the grandiose general’s salute. Only then was his heart pained and pierced to its core. My very dear friends, you have given me a general’s salute, and I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I have not reached a colonel’s rank. Your words only make me that much more aware – painfully so – of what is expected of me. Would that I could deserve the panegyrics of the speakers and the distinguished guests and the honor given me by all of you that have come today. Nonetheless, I am grateful – deeply grateful – to all of you: speakers, officers, family members, distinguished guests, and neighbors. I can, at this time, do no more than promise that I shall devote all of my energies to deserve your praise. And if I may continue that military …

I am pleased to meet so many wonderful people. I’ve learned to like you so much that I will not speak too long – I no longer give long speeches because of my throat; once, listeners threatened to cut it short for me. The essence of my message is this: we must accept a sense of responsibility – אחריות. The origin of the word is a puzzle to philologists. The Geonic scholar R. Nathan of Rome (author of the Arukh) explained it as follows. In halakhah, there is a distinction between real estate and chattel: real estate is considered property which has אחריות, whereas chattel does not. This means that debts incurred before the sale of real estate can still be collected from that property, even if it has been sold or gifted, whereas the same is not true for movable property. אחריות, then, is rooted in permanence – because real estate endures, it can serve as a source of responsibility; chattel, being temporary, cannot. The relationship between אחריות and אחרית (future or outcome) works both ways – we are able to exercise responsibility when we believe in the endurance of our commitments, and we create endurance when we exercise responsibility. The question, then, is how are we to fulfill our אחריות to the great heritage of Judaism entrusted to us? First, we must have faith in the אחרית of Orthodox Judaism. The past always seems better than it was – there is a tendency to over-romanticize. We have always been a minority: Moses and the Levites, the prophets surrounded by idolatrous contemporaries, the Pharisees as one of twenty-four sects, the Geonim – queried whether tefillin must be worn by non-rabbis – R. Tam, who delayed affixing a mezuzah for ten years, Maimonides’ letters to the Sages of Lunel, the Netziv's pessimism about his generation. American Orthodoxy thirty years ago was deceptive – much of it was inherited habit, sentiment, and nostalgia from Eastern Europe. Had those Jews lived today, most might not have remained Orthodox. By contrast, the present American-bo…

נכבדה וחשובה זו ולתת לי הזדמנות להפגש עם אחי בני ישראל שבמדינת ישראל. ותודתי נתונה ליושב הראש של הערב הזה על שהוא קבע את הקצוות של התמונה הדתית בעולם של היהדות, ולפיכך הוא כבר נתן לנו את המסגרת שאוכל להכניס בה את הנושא שלי. הנושא בדיוק שעליו אני רוצה לדון הלילה הוא "קוים לדמותה של האורטודוקסיה המודרנית בארהבי, ואז אקדים. ואומר מיד שהשם אורטודוקסיה אינו מוצא חן בעיני כל עיקר, מילה יונית זו מקורה לא פן הכתוב ולא פחזי׳ל אלא מן הריפורם שכינו בשם זה את אלה שלא הסכימו לפרוק את גדרי הדת יחד איתם. לכינוי זה שזכינו לו בדלית ברירה נוסף עוד שם לואי שהוא אף הוא חסר טעם במידה מרובה וזה "מודרני שלאמיתו של דבר איני יודע מה זה פודרני. בכל זאת שני השפות הללו "האורטודוקסיה המודרנית" אם שהם שניהם בלתי מרוצים ורצויים פספנים הם בפידה פספקת את התנועה הזאת של היהדות באפריקה אשר עליה ועל סגנון הייה אני מיחד אח הדיבור הלילה, סוף סוף לפי התלמוד "בתר טעפא אזלינן ולא בתר שמא" אחרי התוכן ולא אחרי השם, ואם השם של התנועה "האורטודוקסיה המודרנית•• איננו כה מוצלח הרי הוכנה אני מקוה הוא רב משקל ורב ערך. נתחיל מן היש המעשי, האורטודוקסיה המודרנית היקימה בארה״ב ומקימת רשת של פוסדות בעלי שם רוב בהי הכנסת החרדים הם פן הסוג שקראנו לו הלילה "האורטו- דוקסיה המודרנית" והם מיוצגים ע"י איחוד בהי הכנסה האורטודוקסיים ואשר הם פן היוזמים העיקריים של בתי הכנסה אשר בירושלים. רוב הרבנים האורטודוקסיים בארה״ב הם פה שכינינו אורטודוקסיים מודרניים ולמעלה ם800 ועד 1000 פהם שיכים לאירגון א צי בנם הסתדרות הרבני□., והם מהוים את הגוף הרבני הכי גדול בגולה. המפעל הכי חשוב שלנו לדעתי, הוא בלי ספק ישיבה אוניברסיטה המהווה רשת של מוסדות אקדמיים החל מארבעה בתי ספר תיכוניים וכלה בבית ספר לרפואה במרכז הרשת הזאת עומדת הישיבה עצמה ע״ש רבינו יצחק אלחנן מסימה של הישיבה הזאת ה□ הם רוב מנין ורוה בנין של מנהיגיה הרוחניים של היהדות המסורתית בארה"ב. 192 המוסדות החינוכיים של הישיבה אוניברסיטה הפזורים על פני 15 בנינים לומדים 500 7 תלמידים ■צל 200 2 מורים כולל ראשי ישיבה מדענים ופרופסורים. התקציה הכולל של ישיבה אוניברסיטה אם באנו בכלל למדוד את כמות המוסד לפי תקציבו, הפקציב של מוסד זה שבראשו עומד מורי ורבי רב שמואל בוגן עולה על 40 מליון דולר לשנה ב…

"אין החבוש מתיר עצמו מבית האסורים." קשה לו לאדם לראות את עצמו ואת המצב בו הוא שרוי כאילו הוא רואה אותם מרחוק, מתוך פרספקטיבה רצויה. לפעמים הוא עשוי שלא להבחין בין העיקר והטפל, בין מה שהוא חשוב ומה שהוא משני. אף אני כשאני ניגש להרצות לבני קהל חשוב זה על האורתודוכסיה המודרנית בארה״ב, יודע אני בעצמי שלא אצליח לפצות את הנושא כדבעי, שמתוך רצוני למסור את הכל אולי אעבור בשתיקה על מה שהוא צריך וכדאי להשמע, כשם שארחיב את הדבור על ענינים שהם אולי פחות חשובים. הנני מבקש מכם איפא לקבל אה דברי כרבי מאיר בשעתו, שתוכו אכל וקליפתו זרק, ואני מחלה פניכם שלא תדונו אותי כמזיד אלא כסוגג מתוך אהבת הנושא הקרוב ללבו.אקדים ואמר מיד שהשם "אורתודוכסיה" אינו מוצא חן בעיני כל עיקר. טלה יונית זו מקורה לא מן הכתוב ולא מחז״ל, אלא כן הריפורמיס סכינו בסם זה את אלה שלא הסכימו לפרוץ את הגדר של היהדות יחד אתם. לכנוי זה שזכינו לו בדלית-ברירה, נוסיף שס-לואי אף הוא חסר-טעם במדה מרובה — "מודרנית." ^'כ־-זיבעני השמות הללו, "האורתודוכסיה המודרנית," #ם שהם שניהם בלתי-רצויים, מסמנים הם במרה מספקת געז את התנועה הזאת ביהדות אפקיקה אשר עליה ועל סגנון חייה אני מיחד את הדיבור הלילה. סוף סוף, לפי התלמוד, בתר טעמא אזלינן ולא בתר ספא — התוכן ולא הכנוי הוא העיקר — ואם השם של התנועה, "האורתודוכסיה המודרנית", איננו כה מוצלח, הרי תכנה רב משקל ורב ערך.נתחיל פן ה"יש" המעשי. האורתודוכסיה המודרנית הקימה ומקיימת באמריקה רשת של מוסדות בעלי-שם. רוב בתי הכנסת החרדים הס מן הסוג שקראנו לו אורתודוכסיה המודרנית, והה מיוצגים ע״י איגוד בתי הכנסת האורתודוכסיים הנקרא בקיצור "יוניון" או "יו", אסר הוא פן היוזמים של הכנס העולמי של בתי הכנסת בירושלים, אשר בו הרציתי אהמול. רוב הרבנים האורתודוכסיים הם אורתודוכסים מודרניים, ולמעלה מ800 םהם׳השייכים לארגון ארצי בשם "הסתדרות הרבנים" מהוים את הגוף הרבני הכי-גדול בגולה. המפעל הכי-חסוב ׳ החלשלנו הוא בלי ספק ישיבה אוניברסיטה, המהווה רשת של מוסדות אקדמי ים,/מארבעה בתי-סכר תבוניים וכלה בבית-ספר לרפואה. במרכז הרשת הזאת עומדת הישיבה בעצמה, ע״ש רבנו יצחק אלחנן. מסיימיה של הישיבה הם הם רוב מנין ורוב-2-בנין על מנהיגיה הרוחניים על היהדות המסורתית בארה״ב. ב תשע-עשרה המוסדות החינוכיים על ישיבה אוניברסיטה הפזורי…

The fact of our attendance here this evening is nothing else. The very fact that we have come to listen to something about Yahadus, to take counsel together about any aspect relating to our Jewishness means that we want to remain Jews within the context of Western society, where for the very first time in the history of our people it is possible to opt out of the Jewish people without the stigma of conversion and betrayal. Never before was it possible for a Jew simply to vanish from his Jewishness without shmad – that free ticket of admission into higher Gentile society. When therefore we gather – and whenever we gather – to declare that we want to remain Jews and we are not choosing the option of disappearing and vanishing, we reveal a sense of responsibility for our Jewish heritage. It is that term and that concept that I should like to speak about this evening. Responsibility – what does it mean, what are its sources, and how is it discharged? First let me say something which may appear to be rather self-evident – and that is that responsibility means the ability to respond or to answer. The prerequisite for responsibility is the awareness that we are being questioned. Jewish responsibility is the response to a summons, to a challenge, to an interrogation. Jewish life lived responsibly is a reaction to a questioning G-d. We live under a question mark that comes at us – from Above. Ever since the first Divine question was directed at our first forefather and the Ribono Shel Olam said to Adam HaRishon, “Ayekah? Where are you? What are you going to do with your life?” – that question became enshrined in mankind’s conscience. And when man decides to answer that question, or at least to entertain it, at that point we have achieved responsibility. Chazal in the Midrash maintain that the word “Ayekah” – aleph, yud, chaf, heh – by rearranging its vowels, reads “Eichah.” And it tells us that when man fails to entertain the Divine question – “Ayekah? Where are you? What …

Second part of the "Judaism Confronts Secularism" series in which we are trying to measure Judaism's response to the challenge of secularism, the dominant mood or mode of modern man which. Secularism, as we pointed out last lecture, two weeks ago, tends to bypass religion not by opposing it, but by privatizing it, making it a private concern, by trivializing it almost, saying religion deals with the other world, with matters of the spirit. Go, do it if you wish, but as modern men, our concern is with this world, with the body, with the real world, with the sensate world. And therefore Judaism is off in the corner, or rather religion is off in the corner. We showed that this whole secularist trend was a reaction against Christianity, classical Christianity which tended towards an otherworldliness. In other words, stemming from an ancient religion or movement, Gnosticism, which tended to bifurcations, to breaking reality into two’s and into dualities. This world and the other world locked in eternal combat; they are antagonistic. Christianity therefore chose the other world. This world is only a shadow of the other world. Whereas secular man says: let religion take care of the other world, we are concerned with this world. The same thing with the bifurcation or the split of body and spirit. Christianity opted for spirit; secularism doesn’t knew what you mean by that. It opts only for body, for material, for trying to forge an ethical existence in a real material, physical world.We showed too, in the last part of our talk, that there was also a split as to whether to take an ontological view, which means, on the one hand whether we look for ultimate questions, to a weltanschau-ung, to a general worldview, or do we focus on specific, operational, functional problems^ and we said that Christianity tended towards looking at faith problems, ontological, philosophical problems, from a very broad perspective and rarely brought this wide view down toIf it did, religious prac…

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…

I have been asked to share with you my impressions of the impact on the Jewish community in general, with specific reference to my community and my institution, of the now famous or infamous statistics concerning the 52% out-marriages contained in the recent population study by the CJF. The most shocking thing about this news is that anyone is shocked at all. In our bones, we all knew that it was coming—indeed, that it was inevitable. We were reluctant to talk about it without rhetorical disguises and semantic convolutions, because it was bad for our communal business, because we were tired of "crying wolf," and because we were apprehensive about the consequences.But so deeply disturbing is this latest revelation about the decline of the Jewish community, that the times will permit nothing less than utter frankness. We must all be civilized, of course, but learn to speak to each other without the kind of courtesies and sensibilities that cramp our style and cause us to be less then honest with each other.Harsh words, I know. But the bitter truth is that our Jewish community still has not absorbed the extent or meaning of this catastrophe. The forces of denial are already rallying: the CJF statistics will be questioned, vested interests will assert themselves, and we will try our damndest to shoot the messengers. More articles and books will be written declaring that maybe, really, intermarriage is good for us, that we must not submit to pessimism, that we are panicking prematurely, that "Gott vet helfn." (A remarkable paradox: those with the least faith in a Deity suddenly discover that we can rely on Him even if He does not exist...) And maybe worst of all, yet another commission will be formed, another study launched, and another conference called. And life will continue as usual, as it—life—ebbs away from the American-Jewish community.Even now, some of us are reaching to the psychological medicine chest for some palliatives and have grabbed the most available no…

I have often wondered: Why is there such an elaborate festival of Hanukkah to commemorate the re-dedication Temple in Jerusalem, yet nothing to celebrate its original construction? Why eight full days for rebuilding and not a single day for the original building by King Solomon? I suggest that the answer is this: re-doing is far more arduous than doing; it elicits less inspiration, there is no drama, almost no thrill, and a painful absence of applauding audiences and cheering crowds. The Rabbis of the Talmud put it succinctly: קשה עתיקא מחדתא — the old is more difficult than the new.But it is precisely because it is so much more thankless, because it appears so much less rewarding, that it is considered as or more important, and hence more praiseworthy, than the original doing. Because the Macabbean effort at rededicating the Temple was less dramatic and impressive than Solomon's initial construction that we remember Hanukkah annually to the accompaniment of candles and song, prayer and pomp.That is, at core, the message of renewal, although it is also called by a variety of other names, all of which essentially boil down to the same thing —reinventing, recreating, remaking, restoring, reprioritizing, rebuilding.Voltaire (in his Philosophical Dictionary) partially recognized the truth of this idea when he wrote:Men who are occupied with the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exercise of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create.Although I thank Monsieur Voltaire on behalf of our Albert Einstein College of Medicine for his accolade for physicians, I say that he was only "partially right" because it holds true not only for medicine but, as well, for a host of other disciplines which help mankind in its quest for renewal. Moreover, it is not only "almost as noble as to create" but, I submit, more noble.That is what Hanukkah teaches us: to recognize …

Permit me to begin with an expression of genuine regret for violating elementary decorum by discussing matters inappropriate to the happy occasion which brings us here this afternoon – but my excuse is that it would be far more inappropriate to ignore unpleasant and threatening facts that stare us in our collective face, that loom before us in all their frightful ugliness. The 60 years of RCA covered the most critical years of Jewish history. Of us it might be said, to paraphrase the Midrash on Noah, that ראינו שלשה עולמות – עולם בחורבנו, the world of Holocaust; עולם בבנינו, that of growth and State of Israel; and now, the third – עולם תלוי ועומד בין זה לזה – that of doubt, decline, and disillusionment. We are members of an organization that was born just as the demons of destruction were beginning to stir in all corners of Europe. The second period was one in which we participated in the halcyon post-war days as Americans took to building shuls and as the great migrations from Europe replenished our ranks, as day schools and kollelim and mikvaot were being erected all over the country, and as the Rav זצ״ל was teaching and speaking with unparalleled genius, as RCA became a powerful and significant actor on the stage of American Jewry. And, לדאבוננו הרב, we now witness the deep distress of Judaism as secularism rises, as the non-Orthodox movements grow further and further away from Torah and tradition, as intermarriage and assimilation increase here and even in Israel – which, in addition to being engulfed in Jewish ignorance (some 88% do not know the עשה״ד, about 40% cannot name any of the Patriarchs, and some 20% haven't heard the term חמשה חומשי תורה) – now has to put up with a virulent form of Jewish anti-Semitism called "Post-Zionism." It is a world of self-doubt and hesitation and trepidation – not exactly a great time to be a rabbi. A Besht parable (recorded in the writings of his disciples) tells of a king who appointed four ministers over his treasury, all …