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| Moshe Kurtz |
I do not normally post articles that have been published
elsewhere. The vast majority (by far) of material published here is original.
Including the occasional guest contribution. As a matter of policy I reject virtually
all pre-published submissions even if I agree with what they say.
Today’s post (first published in the Times of Israel) is a
rare exception to this policy. Moshe Kurtz, a rabbinical student at Yeshiva University, has written what I consider a profound and insightful analysis of what is happening in the world of Modern Orthodoxy. It
is a bit longer than what I normally post here, but it is well worth reading and deserves as wide a distribution as possible.
It follows in it’s entirely.
It is an odd but recurrent reality that two schools of
thought that bear diametrically opposed value systems will reach the same
conclusion. Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, despite being an outspoken opponent of
early Zionism, once wrote (Koveitz Ma’amarim, p. 161) that he hoped the
founding of the State of Israel was the beginning of the ultimate redemption.
He posited that Jewish history is full of dark times followed by a redemption
commensurate with the difficulty of the challenges that preceded it.
Rabbi Wasserman contended that until now the Jews have
always suffered through exiles designed by other nations, but today the Jews
find themselves in an exile created by their own brethren, the Jewish State –
certainly the redemption that God has in store must be the final one!
Ironically, Rabbi Wasserman’s opposition to early Zionism
led him to the same eschatological aspiration shared by contemporary religious
Zionists: The founding of the State of Israel is a harbinger for the End of
Days.
This example is not the first or last time that two
diametrically opposed Jewish schools of thought disagreed fundamentally yet
agreed functionally.
We live in a time when Modern Orthodoxy is arguably forming
a schism both institutionally and ideologically. For the purpose of this
article, I use the term Right-Wing Modern Orthodoxy (RWMO) which includes the
Right-Wing and Centrist Modern Orthodox establishments as one category, and
Left-Wing Modern Orthodoxy (LWMO), which includes Liberal and Progressive
Modern Orthodox establishments as the second.
I aim to change the way we think about Jewish
denominationalism, and to argue the potentially upsetting, yet logically
compelling truth, that Right-Wing Modern Orthodoxy and Left-Wing Modern
Orthodoxy are fundamentally two diametrically opposed ideologies that
merely give the appearance of forming a spectrum within one sub-sect
due to similar functional policies. Hence, RWMO and LWMO, even when they agree
on many practices, do so based on irreconcilably different value systems
The crux of my assertion is that within the vast spectrum of
Jewish denominations ranging from Reform to Orthodox there are only two
possibilities. One is either rooted in a fundamentally Western/secular ethos or
fundamentally traditional values; everything in between represents a departure
from one of the two baseline norms. Hence, Reform Judaism is both fundamentally
and functionally rooted in secular moral values, whereas on the other
extreme, chareidim are both philosophically and functionally
traditional in their moral outlook.
Granted, neither of these statements are newsworthy.
However, what do we make of this strange animal known as Modern Orthodoxy – is
Modern Orthodoxy fundamentally traditional, just with some progressive
tendencies, or is it essentially modernized but tries to reconcile it with
halachah and traditional strictures?
My thesis is that both sides of this chakirah (dichotomy)
are true, just for different types of “Modern Orthodoxy”. I argue that RWMO
fundamentally values a traditional social model as the norm, albeit with
deviations, while LWMO looks towards progressivism as an ideal state of
affairs. This disagreement is the underlying point of contention causing a
profound lack of understanding, and at times strife, between the Right-Wing and
Left-Wing Modern Orthodox communities.
To move from the abstract to the practical, I would like to
introduce a sub-dichotomy of egalitarianism vs. traditional gender roles as a
proxy for the larger debate:
Take the innovation of Yoatzot Halachah and Maharats in
recent years. One could view the two innovations as almost arbitrary points
along a spectrum where certain rabbis feel comfortable drawing a line for
women’s leadership. Some are comfortable ordaining women as full members of the
clergy, whereas more conservative leaders only wish to delegate them
(pseudo-)authority in the area of hilchos Niddah.
I want to argue that these innovations aren’t superficial
phenomena of simply choosing where to draw the line – these are carefully
deliberated choices based on each form of Modern Orthodoxy’s perceived ideal
norms.
Here are the parameters for my theory:
(A) Each school of thought has a perceived norm or
point of departure.
(B) Each party will only depart from that norm when there is
a compelling reason to do so.
(C) They will only depart until the point that is
necessary to satisfy the compelling reason of departure.
Now let us apply these rules to the Modern Orthodox
controversy over women’s leadership:
(A) LWMO’s point of departure or baseline assumption is that
men and women should have equal roles.
(B) They need to deviate from that norm due to the compelling reason to adhere to halachah.
(B) They need to deviate from that norm due to the compelling reason to adhere to halachah.
(C) They will permit women to become rabbis because they
will only deviate from the egalitarian norm as much as necessary – and as long
as there is a way to find halachic justification they will utilize it to limit
the deviation that was undesired from the onset.
(A) On the other hand, RWMO’s baseline assumption regarding
gender roles is traditional in that men and women have differentiated roles.
(B) They find a compelling reason for women to become
Yoatzot, to assist women in ways that men are not capable.
(C) They limit the authority to hilchos niddah (and
even within hilchos niddah) since there is no necessity to deviate further
from the baseline assumption of differentiated male-female roles.
Note, that I don’t believe that the positions of Yoetzet or
Maharat inherently belong to divergent ideologies – rather, it is the
argumentation used to advance each respective position that is reflective of
disparate values. Also, it is not the case that RWMO rabbis are unaware of
sources to permit women in Torah leadership beyond Yoatzot – rather they see no
compelling reason to innovate and depart further beyond that point. Therefore,
any further innovation would be perceived as being influenced by
secular/liberal priorities rather than traditional Torah values.
However, when one adopts a fundamentally egalitarian point
of departure, the claim of Left-Wing proponents is very cogent: Why would one
choose to inexplicably draw the line of women’s leadership at Yoatzot when
there are sources to justify and perhaps even encourage full clergy status?
If the goal is to
bring the Modern Orthodox community as close to egalitarianism and Western
norms as possible, then it is indeed unreasonable to forbid full female
leadership in light of sources that can support it.
This formula can be applied to other major points of
controversy between the Left-Wing and Right-Wing Modern Orthodox
establishments, at very least within the area of social policy, if not beyond.
Take another example such as partnership minyanim. Why is it that members of LWMO
have been major proponents of this innovation, while Modern Orthodox rabbis
such as Rav Henkin have concluded that it is beyond the pale?
The reason here is that this new form of minyan runs
contrary to the traditional norm, and RWMO has not been convinced that there is
a compelling reason to introduce a seemingly progressive practice.
Whereas LWMO would desire in ideal circumstances to have a
full egalitarian minyan, they would still need to reconcile it with halachic
sources. Take a look at the partnership
minyan guide provided on Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA)’s
website – the whole premise is founded upon reinterpreting and finding minority
opinions to justify the conduct.
It makes sense according to this formula: The utopian ideal
is equal gender roles, the reason to depart is halachic stricture, and the
limitation is to use the most lenient interpretation of halachah to
minimize the necessary departure from the egalitarian baseline.
The fascinating conclusion that one can draw from this
observation is that if one agrees to my analysis that RWMO’s point of departure
is differentiated gender roles, and LWMO’s is egalitarianism, then RWMO has
philosophically more in common with chareidi Orthodoxy, and LWMO with
Reform than they have with each other!
The reason that we view them as points along a single
spectrum within a sub-denomination we call “Modern Orthodoxy” is because each
party has departed so far from their norm that they meet in the middle on
almost every issue. It is chiefly in the area of social policy that we see a
tear in the artificial binding that holds them together.
But in truth, RWMO is a more modernized form of chareidi Jewry
and LWMO is a traditionalized form of Reform. The ideological rupture has
always been lurking under the surface, and it has only been a matter of time
until it reared its head. To put it in more moderate terms, LWMO is very
similar to the new sect of “Halachic Egalitarianism”, with the one distinction
that while the latter chose the route of “updating” the laws regulating halachic
social policy, LWMO makes a valiant struggle to reconcile both the modernity
and tradition that they value.
(For the reader who is familiar with general communal
programming and events, this theory would explain why LWMO institutions are by
and large more comfortable with collaborating on interdenominational
programming with denominations to its Left, while RWMO leans towards
programming with Orthodox sub-denominations to its right. I do not need to
elaborate on this matter, as a regular reading of Jewish newspapers and
scrolling of one’s Facebook feed can reveal this assertion to be true.)
I want to take this argument one step further and conjecture
that even when RWMO and LWMO agree, it can be for completely distinct reasons.
Generally speaking, when RWMO leaders promote women’s Talmud learning, they do
so to advance Jewish Torah knowledge as a whole. In contrast, LWMO leaders will
generally promote women’s Talmud learning with the (additional) goal of
achieving gender equality. They will both support women’s advanced learning,
but the values that went into that decision are disparate, and at times
diametrically opposed, despite the same result.
Both RWMO individuals and LWMO individuals live in the same
communities, attend many of the same synagogues and are even members of the
same families. Both camps are similar on a functional level, and that
is why they both live together. In my experience, many lay-people have
difficulty noticing, or at least, articulating the underlying difference. The
fact that some refer to the splitting phenomenon within Modern Orthodoxy as a
schism is inaccurate – LWMO and RWMO are two ideologically different sects, and
we are seeing the manifestation of these disparities in present time.
While this double-denomination theory of Modern Orthodoxy
may sound disheartening, I chose to bring it to the public’s attention for two
reasons. Firstly, I think it will enable anyone who identifies with the term
“Modern Orthodox” to think about their ideology in a more nuanced manner.
Secondly, I think this theory has the counterintuitive
potential to decrease strife and friction with the conventional “Modern
Orthodox” community.
In my experience attending a charedi Yeshiva from
childhood through high school, I heard a number of condescending remarks about
Modern Orthodoxy – but, I can attest that most yeshivish rabbis do
not concern themselves with the policies of YU or the RCA that run contrary to
their philosophy of Torah Judaism.
The difference in our scenario is that RWMO and LWMO both
share, and more importantly, claim, the identity and right to shape what
we know as “Modern Orthodoxy”. Thus, for one side to claim that Modern
Orthodoxy is more Right-Wing or more Left-Wing is an attack on the other’s very
identity! Whereas the yeshivish world has the comfort and security of
simply writing off what Modern Orthodox institutions do as something that is
not their own.
Therefore, I would like to make the difficult, yet I believe
accurate, proposal, that we accept the inherent ideological “schism” and begin
to view RWMO and LWMO as two separate sub-denominations, even granting the view
that both remain firmly within the bounds of Orthodoxy. With this model of
thinking I hope that both RWMO and LWMO, or whatever they should be re-titled,
will no longer feel mutually threatened, and that members from both
sub-denominations will interact professionally and cordially while both
remaining clear and resolute in their respective identities.
Update
A response to Moshe’s article by fellow YU rabbinical student, Steven Gotlib can be found in the Times of Israel.
Update
A response to Moshe’s article by fellow YU rabbinical student, Steven Gotlib can be found in the Times of Israel.
