Commitment and Controversy Living in Two Worlds: Volume 6

By Jeremy Rosen

This is the sixth collection of weekly essays on Jewish life that combines a personal religious perspective combined with a Western intellectual tradition. The essays cover topics from religious ethical challenges to history, politics, and culture and to challenge, instruct,
and entertain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798369405529

Jeremy Rosen

Jeremy Rosen is an orthodox rabbi. He was born in Manchester, United Kingdom, and studied philosophy at Cambridge University and yeshivot in Israel and qualified as a rabbi while at Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He has occupied pulpits around the world and was principal of Carmel College, professor at the Faculty for Comparative Religion, director of Yakar UK, and rabbi of the Persian Community of Manhattan in New York.

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JUDAISM

IN THE BEGINNING

We begin the yearly cycle of the Torah starting with Genesis and the Garden of Eden. Such an innocent, idealized world before human beings started to make the wrong decisions. Yet out of the ensuing chaos, something good and spiritual emerges as humans struggle to answer the fundamental question of how to live an ethical and spiritual life.

I do not think all people have to think the same way as I do or understand the text in the way I do. Amazingly, and unlike other religious texts of its time, the Torah addresses everyone—man, woman, and child. It is a document for humanity, not just for priests or rabbis. But there are many ways of reading and understanding the text of the Torah. And by Torah, I mean here the first five books of the Bible, the Chumash, and the five books of Moses, though the word has other wider usages.

One can look at it as a myth in the sense of a fairy story. But many myths usually carry important messages with them for the society and the individual. One can look at the Bible historically, critically, anthropologically, and comparatively. One can construct and deconstruct. Some argue one can look at it literally or at face value, although I am not sure what that means. The mechanism of how it came about and how it was all written down is all theory or faith. But the text is our most ancient and sacred source.

All text needs amplification and interpretation. I understand a statement, a law that says Do not kill seems clear, but there is still room to argue about the difference between murder as opposed to manslaughter, killing for revenge, or killing in self-defense. When it says God speaks, does God speak using vocal cords? Is God’s hand like our hand? Indeed, when we apply any human term to God, does this mean we are saying God is human? Is God’s anger like ours? Obviously not. That is why the rabbis of the Talmud keep on repeating, The Torah speaks in human language (Brachot 31b, Makot 12a, et al).

I can respond to this ancient text in its original language as a magnificent document, perhaps the most important in human history; composed of poetry, prose, legislation, documentation, and exhortation; recorded speech and narratives that document human error and suffering as well as the struggle to come to terms with forces beyond one’s control. I might even detect different styles and usages.

As a Jew, I respond to it on another level as a religious document that is the basis of my ethical and experiential life, a document of an encounter with God and the constant struggle to establish contact and understand how to live a good life. The Torah speaks not as a history book or a science book, though certain aspects of both might be derived from it. I look to it for inspiration and guidance, and sometimes I feel God speaking to me through it. There is something very special in the text that stimulates my spiritual senses, and its laws and rituals reinforce this relationship. We choose the degree of commitment to it, and the evolutions of its laws and customs from the range of texts and customs that have accrued over time.

Particularly on the narrative side, there are so many options. The Talmud says (Sanhedrin 34a) the text has different meanings and (Bamidbar Rabba 13:16) that there are seventy different facets to the Torah. Does this mean all and any explanation is equally valid or legitimate? Not really. After all, Jews and Christians revere the same biblical text, if in different degrees and ways. But on many occasions, we read the same text and come to very different conclusions, as indeed do different rabbis and different traditions within mainstream Judaism. Each one of us who cares should make the effort in his or her own way to make sense of the text. And over the years, this is what has happened. Different people, scholars, saints, and ordinary people have looked at the text, some rationally, some mystically, and some symbolically.

To appreciate it to its full, one needs to savor the words and detach oneself from certain modern notions of how we expect a text to be judged. The Torah includes obvious poetry, such as the Song of the Sea or the final farewell poem of Moses. The boundaries between what we might call poetry and prose are not always obvious. Ancient oral tribal narratives throughout the world used motifs and styles that need to be understood in their terms, not ours. When ancients used the word earth, they could have meant a range of ideas, ground, soil, area, land, world, and universe. All we have is the text as it is. That is the certainty.

I only take issue with those who say these are primitive texts, simply of use only as archaeological, anthropological texts, material to be used to be held up to ridicule.

I admit I have an agenda. I have dedicated my life to trying to teach a commitment to the Torah that includes other wisdom and tries to avoid being judgmental, although that doesn’t mean I cannot express preferences. I have inherited and affirm my loyalty to the rabbinic approach to the Torah in its variety and complexity that allows for disagreement once certain essential positions are accepted. I use it as my primary ethical source, though not the only one. The Torah, combined with the Talmud, is the core and the foundation of our nation, our tradition, and our culture. That is where it begins.

OLD AGE

Shakespeare’s famous description of the stages of humanity is in his play As You Like It. Human beings go through seven stages from infancy to old age, dotage, and death. The last scene of all that ends this strange eventful history is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. In King Lear, Regan mocks her father Lear: O, sir, you are old . . . You should be ruled and led, by some discretion that discerns your state, better than you yourself.

Of course, the dreaded Alzheimer’s has made us all painfully aware of diseases that target older minds. We do get weaker in body, memory, and mind. It is expressed so beautifully in the liturgy of the High Holy Days, when we ask God not to abandon us in our old age as we get weaker. And the Mishna (Avot 5:25) says, At ninety, you are bent over (or your mind wanders), and at 90, you might as well be dead.

The Bible reiterated the moral and religious obligation to respect and learn from one’s elders. Rise before the hoary head and respect the aged (Leviticus 19:32). Almost every English translation I have come across varies. Here are three examples: The Art Scroll, In the presence of an old person shall you rise, and you shall honor the presence of a sage. The Jewish Publication Society, You shall rise before the aged and show deference to the old. And Steinsaltz, You shall rise before the grey beard and show deference before the elderly. But this does not mean one must be enslaved or bullied by them.

There is a tendency to shunt the elderly off out of sight and out of mind. Retirement sounds like giving up on life. There is no word in biblical Hebrew for retirement. Indeed, neither was there in English until the sixteenth century, when the word was borrowed from the French for military retirement and much later came to be used as retirement from any job. In different cultures, older people are revered and respected. In Judaism, they hold a very special place in our value system and hierarchy. They are valued for their learning and experience. And if you study the Torah, it is something that goes on and may increase with age and time. This is what gives status, purpose, and meaning in one’s life when no longer employed.

The Hebrew word for the elderly is ZaKen, which can mean any old person, a grandparent, an elder, the leader of the religious community, or the head or manager of a household. Elders were part of the judicial and educational system initiated by Moses. Later the word referred to those who kept the Mosaic tradition alive during the fractious First Temple period. Finally, it was used for the men of the Great Assembly and the Sanhedrin. Otherwise, it was simply a word used to distinguish one generation from the next.

Judaism, after the destruction of the temple, was led traditionally by scholars of Jewish law and lore, who debated, voted, and tried to reach consensus on matters of religion and Jewish affairs. There was no idea of infallibility or extending their expertise to areas beyond the commands of the Torah. But there was a strong tradition of going to them for advice, encouragement, and comfort. One looked for various intellectual and moral qualities in such a person. And if one’s teacher was found wanting ethically, one switched to another. The Talmud gives such an example of leaving an academy over rabbinic moral failure (Taanit 20a) and of a highly regarded rabbi who was lacking in humility and sensitivity (Taanit 24a). Moses, the greatest of all our authorities, was known to be exceedingly modest, above all others (Numbers 12:13). He did not arrogate to himself any grand title and was not infallible, although admittedly, he had God on his side. Traditionally, the leadership of the Jewish people was fluid: The heads of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, every man of Israel (Numbers 29:15). One was expected to consult, to look for guidance, to be open to other opinions.

But now Orthodox Judaism has been recast in an almost unrecognizable straitjacket. The lynchpin of this new paradigm is the use of the term Gadol, meaning a great one, used to refer to the primary scholar or leader of different sects and communities within what is called the Charedi world. Some achieve this title through their learning and age, others through their hereditary appointment to the leadership of a Hasidic sect. One is expected to rely on the Gadol for a true and authentic view and opinion, not only on the Torah but also on every aspect of life. And the Gadol can do no wrong or make mistakes.

Current leaders are often in the nineties and are surrounded by caregivers, gatekeepers, and intermediaries who filter what goes in, what is shown, and what comes out in their names. So one does not know how they would react or think if they had other information fed to them. And sometimes different great ones disagree among themselves. Ill-conceived statements from on high often cause anguish among many of their followers, not to mention the outside world. And the leadership has significantly failed in dealing with important issues, discouraging aggression and violent protests and turning blind eyes to abuses of all kinds, as we have seen in the most recent responses to sexual abuse coming ostensibly from some of these distinguished men. Several other recent tragedies have underlined the failure of the leadership to condemn and insist effective measures be taken to prevent recurrences.

An added issue is the involvement of religious parties in the government of Israel. It is a moral disaster because it encourages corruption and uses religion as a political tool. The Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah, Council of Torah Sages, the Gedolim, is the voice of the various religious parties with everything that that implies. The hope was they would protect the interests of the religious communities in the secular state, which they have done but at the cost of alienating everyone else and encouraging confrontation and corruption.

The confrontational mentality of religious parties in the Israeli political system also explains why so many of the Charedi voices of dissent are coming from those scholars who have an American, rather than an Israeli, political background. They have experienced the outside world and are less negative and are more sensitive.

The bright light is now, at last, we are seeing signs of change coming from within the Charedi world from below. In many areas, extremes are being disregarded. Thank goodness, other and younger authorities are beginning to speak out and offer more nuanced responses. In some cases, they are actually standing up to the old guard.

I once had a conversation with an Indian friend, who gave me the secret to the success of his family’s company. As one generation began to lose its cutting edge or grew out of touch with new developments and situations, they would be elevated to a position of noble seniority, in which all outward authority and power were maintained ’til the very end. In practice, a younger and hungrier generation began to take over the reins of the business. And in many cases, it worked well with minimum disruption.

On the other hand, I have seen great, successful family businesses collapse when the hungry younger generation, impatient with the constraints of their seniors, undermined the whole structure. And there have been many cases where the older generation just stubbornly refused to change altogether with dire consequences. I believe the Charedi leadership would do well to learn from these examples.

And this leads me back to the idea of old age and the gerontocracy of religious life typical of all forms of autocracy. Empires have fallen, and we have lost temples through the inability of leadership to pursue humane policies or see the weak points of their societies. The achievements of the Charedi world are enormous. They have restored the primacy of passionate commitment to the Torah and raised the level of learning above previous eras. However, we need more religious leaders prepared to be open to other perspectives and admit the faults of a system that has bad points as well as good ones. If one is not prepared to modify what is not working, then the whole of the edifice is in danger of crumbling.

TALMUD ON A

DESERT ISLAND

One of the longest-running radio program series on the BBC is Desert Island Discs. It began in the year of my birth, 1942, and is still running, Desert Island Discs - Wikipedia. A very wide range of people is asked to imagine they are shipwrecked on a desert island and have to choose and talk about their eight favorite pieces of music and a favorite book to take with them. It was usually entertaining and instructive, and I often thought about what my choices would be. But I found the process very frustrating. At least in music, literature, and art, there are so many different genres.

My world was and is a multitrack world. In literature and music, let alone philosophy, I have very different interests and experiences. Years ago, they used to call it a Catholic taste. I would have to switch from one culture to another to accommodate the specific requirements of the program. This wasn’t a challenge for me alone. Many people have been brought up in dual cultures or more and are much richer for it. But wrestling with choice, I developed a profound dislike for the whole issue of having to choose favorites, politicians, leaders, rabbis, colors, sounds, books, movies, even sports because there were always so many candidates, it became impossible to select only one.

Who was the greatest anything? The greatest Jew? The greatest American? The greatest Briton? The greatest tap dancer, fisherman, clown, or crook? Take music. If classical, would one want to pick just one of the great classical composers? Or at the other end of the spectrum, jazz or pop music? Even when it comes to colors, there are several I like, and which one I would choose would depend on mood. And the same goes for artists. And as for books, fact or fiction? English, French, or Russian? It is a mug’s game, a party trick, but a very frustrating and inaccurate one. I dismiss and disregard all these lists of the best, the most famous, and the most successful. Who says so? Certainly, when it comes to the Jewish world, most such lists, of rabbis or leaders, are far removed from reality.

To play the game, if I were asked, I would choose the Talmud. And that might be a brilliant choice for a desert island because it is so vast. And I am not sure the researchers would know enough to disallow it on grounds of size. Leaving the BBC program out of it, there is no other book I know of that contains so much and, incidentally, one that has exploded in popularity over the past fifty years. The Talmud is like a sea one immerses oneself in.

The Talmud, written or compiled over a six-hundred-year period, is an amazing encyclopedia of Jewish law and