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June 5, 1997

The Multi-Stressed (1997)

Modern Orthodoxy Passionate Moderation The Rabbinate
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Centrist Orthodox Judaism and Moderationism - Definitions and Disederata (1989)

Critics of the name “Centrist Orthodoxy” assume that it indicates that we locate ourselves mid-point between Orthodoxy and assimilationism and claim that territory as our religious home. That, of course, is nonsense – such an implication would effectively be tantamount to abandoning Torah Judaism in favor of some compromise of basic principles. Only slightly less absurd is the idea that Centrist Orthodoxy is the “center” between Satmar and the few intellectuals who presumably constitute the Orthodox Left. It is no compliment to our intelligence to imagine that in the name of Centrism we advocate walking about the religious terrain with a yardstick, calipers, and a pocket calculator, measuring the exact distance between Neturei Karta and “Humanistic Judaism” in order to locate the exact middle or “center.” We are not, and do not aspire to be, ideological geographers or spiritual surveyors who search out the exact point between right and wrong, religious and non-religious, mitzvah and aveirah, and settle upon that center as our religious goal. Centrism may be wrong-headed, but it is not that spiritually simple-minded or religiously asinine. Whatever one may think of the term “Centrist Orthodoxy” and its merits relative to “Modern Orthodoxy” or “Dati Orthodoxy” (a designation that has much to commend it) or no name at all, what it says is something vastly different from the infantile inference I have described. I begin with these prologomena about our identification not because I attribute any significance to it per se, but because the name does indeed indicate a definite point of view, and that is the question of moderation which I take to be so fundamental a characteristic of our hashkafah that we can rightly refer to it as “moderationism.” Of course, one of the difficulties with this self-definition is that the crown is claimed by many pretenders. Most religious movements in our contemporary Jewish community consider themselves moderate and can point to rival posi…
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Radical Moderation (1988)

A wave of extremism is sweeping the world. America and the American Jewish community – to say nothing of the Israeli community – have not remained unaffected by it. Indeed, the pressures of a resurgent extremism affect every facet of our lives – political, social, religious, educational. In this dangerous climate we must ourselves become radicals and reassert our Centrist position with all force and vigor. What Yeshiva University has taught – the joining of Torah learning and Western culture under the rubric of Torah u’Madda; openness to the environing culture; ahavat haTorah plus ahavat Yisrael; the appreciation of tolerance and the abhorrence of bigotry; a critical but loving commitment to the State of Israel – all this is a deliberate philosophy of life, not a compromise foisted upon us. In the language of halakhah, this approach is le-khatḥilah and not be-diʿavad. As a le-khatḥilah we must project ourselves as the standard bearer of moderation in Jewish life. We must stand not only for Torah u’Madda – a broader and more comprehensive vision of Torah as expressed in a particular curricular philosophy – but also for sanity and for moderation; for the conviction that Maimonides’ “middle way” applies not only to personal dispositions and character traits, but also to communal conduct and public policy; for an appreciation that life is filled with ambiguities and complexities and resists black-and-white simplism.We of the Centrist community are often chided that our policy of Centrism and our philosophy of moderation contain implicit hidden dangers. This is true; the study of worldly culture can sometimes lead questioning young people astray. An openness to non-observant Jewish neighbors, or to non-Jews, implies that they are as human as we are, and that can sometimes have a negative effect on our attempt to maintain our traditions. Agreed. But all life is dangerous, and unless one is determined to raise one’s child in a hermetically sealed Skinner box, safe from ge…
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The Spirit of Elijah Rests Upon Elisha (1994)

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…
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