By Paul Shaviv
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| Charedi Rabbonim - image for illustrative purposes only (Ha'aretz) |
I am once again pleased to host another thoughtful essay by
renowned Jewish educator, Paul Shaviv. I have had similar thoughts myself. Although
I do not agree with all of his predictions, I do sympathize with many of them and they are
certainly all worthy of discussion. One thing seems certain. Once we come out of this, the world will never be the same. Will it be better? Will it be worse? Only God knows. - HM
Whenever this crisis is over – may it be soon – there are
likely to be radical changes in Orthodox Jewish community life, both in the Diaspora and in Israel.
Among them may be:
A crisis of
confidence in rabbinic leadership. Disillusion
and anger are being expressed all over the internet and press at the way in
which the leading Haredi rabbis dealt with this crisis. They failed to recognize the initial danger
of the virus, to the point of dismissing it. That failure was compounded by
opposition to cancelling minyanim, schools / yeshivot, public gatherings
etc. When such gatherings did happen –
and they are still happening – no-one seems able to stop them. Attempts to do so were too little, too
late.
The results are that in New York and – especially – in
Israel, the ‘hot spots’ of coronavirus, with accompanying tragedies, are mostly
in Haredi areas. There is considerable
public anger in Israel at the Haredi community.
The anger is fueled by images of
Haredim attacking police, firemen and other officials trying to enforce public
health provisions. There may be parallel
public feeling in the USA, especially in the NY-NJ area. Mayor de Blasio’s threat to permanently close
down shuls and yeshivot who were not complying with emergency orders speaks
volumes.
Like the Orthodox anti-vaxxers, all of these attitudes show
a fundamental ignorance of basic science; a view that “the rules don’t apply to
us”; and an antipathy to the rule of law.
They stem from an awful education system, imposed on our community by rabbinic dictum, and supported by Orthodox political
parties.
Related to this will be the effect of closing shuls and
yeshivot for weeks, and possibly months.
For teenagers who have no experience of unstructured leisure time, the
freedom may be addictive. Will they
uncomplainingly return to an 8:00AM – 6:00PM learning routine? I am not sure. Will their fathers return to daily minyanim? As the WW1 song said. “How will we get the
boy back on the farm after he’s seen Paree?”
Another effect – not at all clear at the moment – will be
the financial consequences to institutions, organizations and businesses.
Pesach observance, especially among the wider Orthodox
community will never be the same. At a time when all shopping is actually very
difficult, the public has looked to see what products they can use that are
permissible without special, expensive Pesach hechsherim. It turns out there are many. But if they are OK this year – why weren’t we
told about them last year? Or the year
before? There is a perception that the
rabbinic authorities have not been at all sympathetic or understanding to the
practical problems of the Jewish family, especially those who don’t live in
major Jewish areas, or who are financially pressured. The commonest plea to the religious
authorities was to permit kitniyot.
There are precedents for this.
It’s not clear how helpful this would actually be (rice and beans would
have been the main purchases) – but the psychological gesture would have been
huge. No-one budged.
The ‘ZOOM heter’ opened another window regarding digital
electronics which will never again be completely closed. Interestingly, this is probably the only
rabbinic ruling in recent years enthusiastically and positively received by the
Jewish public! It seemed to be a real
demonstration of human empathy and understanding to very acute social
distress. (Sephardi leniency towards the
use of electricity on Yom Tov is a well-established principle.) But it was quickly squashed by Ashkenazi
poskim, even if one or two seemed to indicate, grudgingly, that the Sephardi
scholars had a point.
We are living in unprecedented times. They do not compare to wartime, G-d forbid;
but they are imposing novel and disruptive conditions on all of our lives, and
specific disruptions on the Orthodox Jewish way of life which has grown in the
last few decades. In such circumstances,
leadership needs to lead in ways which inspire confidence – at every level
(ve’hamavin yavin!). But the
significant and fundamental adjustments and sacrifices which are being made,
and the unavoidable impact of suffering
and bereavement must leave their impact on all of us.
Things will not return to what they were. What will change?
