I’ve been agonizing about this ever since I was made aware of it in a private e-mail. It has since became the topic of various newspaper articles and blogs. It is about a clash of a principle with an act of common decency. The principle is one which I support, that of not giving any public recognition to heretical movements in Judaism. And the common decency involves how to handle the suffering of a grieving father. Should common decency transcend that principle for one brief moment?
Last week Reform Rabbi, Michael Boyden was denied an opportunity to say a Kel Maleh Rachamim for the fallen soldiers at the annual ceremony for fallen soldiers, Yom Hazikron.
What makes this particular incident remarkable is that Rabbi Boydon lost his own son, Jonathan, in 1993 in a military operation to save soldiers who had come under fire in Lebanon.
I cannot imagine losing a son at all. The pain of it is so difficult that my mind blocks out such thoughts. It refuses that emotion to enter my consciousness. That emotion is too painful to contemplate even for a moment. I suspect the same is true about any loving parent. It is in that spirit that I cannot comprehend the actions taken by the Yad Labanim Board, a committee that commemorates fallen soldiers. They asked Rabbi Boyden if he would be willing to be called up to say a Kel Maleh without being referred to by his title as a Rabbi. He refused.
I certainly understand the reasons for refusing to refer to him that way. The Reform Movement is heretical. And that was cited as the reason for denying Rabbi Boyden this simple kindness.
I agree that we shouldn’t recognize heretical movements under normal circumstances. But was this really the appropriate time to do so? Was denying a grieving father to commemorate his son, who died heroically trying to save Jewish lives an appropriate moment to stand up for this principle? Was this really so wise?
I don’t think so. This should have been an exception. Any parent who has children alive and healthy and lives in a country whose soldiers are committed to their safety should understand this. Giving this Rabbi his moment was the morally correct thing to do. Calling him up Rabbi Boyden, a still grieving father (does the grieving ever end?) would not have destroyed Torah Judaism at all. It would have instead been an act of Ahavas Yisroel. The time for battle against the Reform Movement should have been saved for another time, another place. This was not about a heretic being given a platform to preach. It was not about grantig them legitimacy. It was about common decency and respecting a grieving father’s right to memorialize his son without suffering the indignities of being denied a title which he believes he earned.
One can certainly understand Rabbi Boyden’s refusal to participate in this way. And the cost in ill will this generated is far worse than any principle that is being upheld at a particular moment.
And it makes it a bit more understandable why Rabbi Avi Shafran had the experience he wrote about at cross-currents. While I accept what he writes, as a defense and explanation, I also understand why this perception persists.
Rabbi Shafran refers us to an article written in the Jerusalem Post wherein Dr. Jonathan Schorsch (son of former Chancelor of the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary Ismar Schrosch) blames Orthodox Jewry itself, for the hatred often encountered by them from Jews of non Orthodox denominations. He says that we are lacking in Ahavas Yisroel and cites “personal experiences of Orthodox Jews insulting him and the Orthodox refusal to accept the Jewish legitimacy of non-Orthodox theologies”.
Proclaiming an individual’s beliefs heretical while professing to love and accept him as Jew will seem contradictory and hollow to an individual whose entire persona is fused with his beliefs. This is easily exacerbated by an event such as that which took place with Rabbi Boyden. Such events tend to speak more loudly than all the explanations to the contrary, valid though they may be.
Rabbi Shafran goes on to correctly condemn words of hatred expressed by some in the Torah world:
"some of what Dr. Schorsch recounts is deeply disturbing. If, indeed, Orthodox Jews seized on the fact that his father is a chancellor emeritus of the Jewish Theological Seminary to berate Dr. Schorsch, that was uncouth, indeed downright rude. And if, indeed, one of his woman friends was assaulted by haredim for carrying a sefer Torah, all I can say is that haredi leaders have explicitly condemned and forbidden any such reactions to even intentionally provocative public displays of that sort."
He then shows that indeed there is tremendous Ahavas Yisroel in the Orthodox world and extols all the various Chesed organizations that never discriminate between Jews of any kind of any belief… or even no belief for that matter. But it does not answer the problem of perception created by what happened to Rabbi Boyden.
If we in the Torah world want to win friends and influence people, this is not the way to do it. And all the explanations in the world won’t help, because actions speak louder then words.
