Guest Post by Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer
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| Rabbi Bechhofer |
Orthodoxy
across its entire spectrum is in upheaval. One must go back to the triple
pincer challenge of Reform, Haskalah and the Emancipation to find similar
turmoil. Then, however, because of the state of civilization at the time,
cataclysmic catalysts took longer to have an impact and the responses could be
formulated and implemented over a longer period of time, affording some measure
of the leisure of contemplation and analysis. Today's civilization compacts,
and therefore devastates all the more. We are all reeling.
But we are
in a crucible, at high, rolling boil. It will take time – I do not know, of
course, how long, but I suspect much less than the seventy-five or so years it
took us to successfully adapt to those challenges of the early 19th century.
I do not
foresee, at this point in time, that my generation – those of us who came of
age in the 70's through the 90's or so – will be the heroes who successfully
contend with the elemental forces at work. We were not brought up to be heroes.
The two generations
that preceded us were heroic – in maintaining Torah through tribulation and
tragedy, in fighting off the new challenges of secularism and Conservative
Judaism, in establishing yeshivos and kollelim as axiomatic and widespread
institutions.
When we came
on the scene, there was – and is, to be sure – more of the same to accomplish.
But it takes the form of another community Kollel in Chicago, another yeshiva
in New Jersey, another Bais Yaakov in Monsey, an alternative community in
Atlanta, another program to get Ba'alei Battim to learn, another lomdishe sefer
on Bava Basra, etc.
We were also
rendered timid – sometimes indirectly, sometimes directly – by the pioneers who
preceded us, who were our Rabbeim and Roshei Yeshiva, our Rabbonim and the pillars
of our community. They were men and women of vision and idealism, and we were
along for the ride, and were given to understand – again, implicitly and
explicitly – that we were to follow. They had more than enough creativity and
leadership, and those were not our jobs.
There are so
many clear manifestations and ramifications of our failure to overcome that
timidity and passivity, the real and imagined limits and limitations in
intellect, in spirit and in accomplishment.
The Internet
has given us – somewhat belatedly – the ability to gripe and snipe together, to
grumble and complain – but social media will not help us in the long run, but
hinder us, as we mistake blog postings and Facebook comments for agents of
growth that require the concrete rather than the ephemeral, the interaction of
souls rather than their typed statements, the power of conclave rather than the
curious notion of virtual reality.
We are
outstanding at kvetching. We are utterly incompetent at doing.
Rather, in
the absence of some major metamorphosis in my generation's collective
heart-and-mindset, we are relegated to the role of any sandwich generation. We
can and must maintain streams of thought, perspectives and influences of
earlier times, to serve as a resources for the generation that inevitably will
arise someday to bring redemption to Orthodoxy.
I, personally, try to keep
figures and writings that have moved me, at the disposal of our society, lest
they be forgotten, compelling some future culturally primitive generation to
reinvent a more deficient and imperfect wheel. This keeping of the flame is, in
itself, an important mission. Especially when the seething cauldron might, at
any moment, boil over and extinguish the flame. And thus we too will have
played a role in bringing that redemptive time to pass, howsoever long this
period of epic turmoil persists.
