February 13, 2012 | 8:41 pm

Guest Post by Rabbi Seth Winberg Defending Rabbi Dov Linzer’s New York Times Op Ed

Posted by Rabbi Seth Winberg

Follow JewishJournal.com on

Note from Asher Lopatin: Some of the arguments in this article parallel my own arguments challenging Rabbi Shaul Magid’s ideas regarding specific laws in the Jewish tradition.

Guest post from Seth Winberg who received rabbinic ordination at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, and an M.A. from Yeshiva University. Rabbi Winberg is currently Assistant Director at the University of Michigan Hillel.
-
Poor Rabbi Dov Linzer. I am honored to have been a student of his remarkable erudition and emotional sensitivity. Reacting to unconscionable behavior in the name of Torah by some Jews in Israel, Rabbi Linzer’s op-ed, “Lechery, Immodesty, and the Talmud”, appeared in the New York Times late last month. A full analysis of talmudic sources appeared on his blog a month before the op-ed. The upshot of Rabbi Linzer’s argument is that the Talmud “places the responsibility for controlling men’s licentious thoughts about women squarely on the men.”
Professor Shaul Magid quickly responded in an open letter to Rabbi Linzer: “To instantiate your reading of the Talmud would require you to act decisively to abolish all the legal mandates that objectify women’s bodies and put the onus on the men to take full control of their libido and desire.” Rabbi Linzer did not go far enough for Professor Magid in promoting liberal values.

Rabbi Avi Shafran, Director of Public Affairs for Agudath Israel of America, also attacked Rabbi Linzer. According to Rabbi Shafran, Rabbi Linzer exploited the violent behavior directed at women and children in Israel to further his ideological agenda. Rabbi Shafran implies that Rabbi Linzer’s reading of talmudic texts is wrong. But Rabbi Shafran offers no evidence for this claim. Perhaps Rabbi Shafran will soon share his reading of the talmudic sources.

Until then, Rabbi Shafran provides no substantive objections to Rabbi Linzer’s reading of sources. Instead he resorts to name calling. Rabbi Linzer’s ideology, says Rabbi Shafran, is “redolent of the Conservative movement’s early days.” (Professor Magid, the rabbi of a Conservative synagogue, would surely disagree with Rabbi Shafran for two reasons: (1) for Professor Magid, Rabbi Linzer is too Orthodox to be Conservative and (2) because for Professor Magid “Conservative” is not an insult.)

Professor Magid’s open letter to Rabbi Linzer at least provides substantive arguments for us to consider. Unfortunately, the letter contains inaccuracies about halakhah. Let me provide two examples. First, Professor Magid claims that “traditional Jewish law” does not allow women to say kaddish in the presence of men. What “traditional” source says women cannot say kaddish with men? The first halakhic source I know of which condemns women saying kaddish is from the 1600s long after the Babylonian Talmud (see Havot Yair, 222). That source does not mention modesty as a concern. And as Rabbi J. Simcha Cohen has pointed out, Havot Yair’s objection was a minority view at the time in Amsterdam, and he agreed in principle that women could say kaddish in the presence of men.

One need only point to a responsum of the late Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, of blessed memory, to show women may say kaddish in the presence of men (see Iggerot Moshe, Orah hayyim, vol. 8, #12).

The most troubling inaccuracy in Professor Magid’s open letter is about mehitzah, the partition which separates men and women during public prayer. He asserts that the purpose of a mehitzah is to prevent men from seeing women. The more commonly accepted purpose of a mehitzah is to prevent intermingling of men and women in the context of public prayer (see Iggerot Moshe, Orah hayyim, v. 1 #39 and #41, and Seridei Esh, v. 1, #8, p. 19 which reports Hasidic opposition to Rav Moshe’s view). Contrary to what Professor Magid says, the mehitzah is not put up to prevent sight-lines. Professor Magid’s vague language also suggests that the mehitzah is of talmudic origin. In fact, there is no discussion of mehitzah in pre-modern halakhic literature, let alone talmudic literature. (See Rabbi Dr. Alan J. Yuter’s “Mehizah, Midrash, and Modernity: A Study in Religious Rhetoric” in Judaism 28 (1979): 147-159.)

Professor Magid may consider these the quibbles of an Orthodox rabbi. (I do not.)

A final broader comment about Professor Magid’s open letter. Rabbi Linzer demonstrates a pattern of attitudes (not laws) regarding modesty in the Talmud (not post-talmudic halakhic literature). Professor Magid responds with examples of rabbinic law (overwhelmingly post-talmudic) that he does not like for ideological reasons. Surely Professor Magid realizes that an Orthodox rosh yeshiva is not going to abrogate normative halakhah on the basis of a pattern of attitudes regarding modesty.

Rabbi Linzer is trying to have a real conversation about important values. If Rabbi Shafran and Professor Magid take Torah and ideology seriously, perhaps in the future they will engage in relationship building with their liberal Orthodox colleagues and leave polemics for other situations.
The larger challenge in this discussion is the extent to which the entire conversation is dominated by men. (I am guilty as charged.) I am pleased to see Rabba Sara Hurwitz adding her perspective. I pray that other women—students and graduates of Yeshivat Maharat, the Drisha Scholars Circle, GPATS, and similar programs—will add their voices too.

0 Comments — Leave your comment

Share this post: del.icio.us Digg Facebook Google Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati YahooMyWeb

February 7, 2012 | 11:46 am

Desexualizing Public Space

Posted by Rabbi Zev Farber

Introduction
The story is told (b. Taanit 24a) that Rabbi Yossi son of Rabbi Avin left his teacher, R. Yossi of Yoqrat, in order to study with Rav Ashi. As leaving one teacher for another was an unusual thing to do, Rav Ashi asked him why he did so. Rabbi Yossi son of Rabbi Avin responded: “A man who has no compassion even for his own son and daughter – how could he have any for me?” The Talmud explains:

[Rabbi Yossi of Yoqrat] had a beautiful daughter. One day, he saw a certain man making a hole in a palm-leaf fence and peeping at her. He said to him: “What are you doing?” He responded: “Master, if I have not merited marrying her, will I not at least merit looking at her?” [Rabbi Yossi of Yoqrat] said to her: “My daughter, you are disturbing [God’s] creations, return to your dust, and let men not stumble on your account.”

The story of Rabbi Yossi of Yoqrat and his daughter is particularly chilling. A normal father would have been angry at the man for peeping at his daughter; instead Rabbi Yossi of Yoqrat blames the innocent girl for being attractive. Although the Talmud uses the story of Rabbi Yossi of Yoqrat as an example of cruel and unjust behavior, more than a millennium later this type of thinking has returned to the surface.

Rabbi Dov Linzer and Male Responsibility
It would be redundant for me to excoriate the behavior of the Sikrikim in Beit Shemesh, as many others have already condemned them for spitting on little girls and roughing up opponents. One of the best of such rebukes was by my own teacher, Rabbi Dov Linzer, in a New York Times op-ed, Lechery, Immodesty and the Talmud. However, Rabbi Linzer’s response diverges from many other condemnations of the Sikrikim with a radically different focus for Jewish laws regarding tzniut (modesty).

The basic idea behind tzniut – and I use the term to refer to modesty in the sexual arena rather than humility – is to desexualize public space and interactions between men and women. Rabbi Linzer argues that according to his reading of Jewish law, the Talmud “places the responsibility for controlling men’s licentious thoughts about women squarely on the men.”

Professor Shaul Magid’s Critique
Although the article was well-received by many, a number of critiques have been launched and I would like to focus on Professor Shaul Magid’s critique in Religion Dispatches. Although he applauds Rabbi Linzer’s “anti-misogynist” attitude, Professor Magid suggests that Rabbi Linzer’s position “is actually in conflict with key authoritative texts of the traditions,” and supports this claim with a number of examples. 

Magid challenges Linzer: “To instantiate your reading of the Talmud would require you to act decisively to abolish all the legal mandates that objectify women’s bodies and put the onus on the men to take full control of their libido and desire.” In my opinion, Professor Magid pushes his case too far.

A Reframing of the Conversation
Rabbi Linzer’s op-ed paints with a broad brush and was surely not meant as a full articulation of Jewish law. To clarify matters somewhat, I would like to offer my own reframing of Rabbi Linzer’s position. [To see Rabbi Linzer’s own articulation of his position in different words, see his blog post on tzniut. See also R. Aryeh Klapper’s excellent article on tzniut in Text and Texture for a distinct but related take.] Jewish law wishes interactions between men and women in the public sphere (i.e. non-marital interactions) to be de-sexualized. If men feel aroused as a part of their normal interactions with women it is the responsibility of the men to control this. The Talmud is aware that it is difficult to predict what may stimulate a man’s sexual thoughts. This fact motivates statements like that of Rav Sheshet (b. Berakhot 24a), for example, that staring at a woman’s little finger can be like staring at her fully unclothed. As Rabbi Linzer aptly points out, this is not a requirement for women to wear gloves, but a requirement for men to note when their minds are wandering in the wrong direction and fix it. 

However, the above paradigm applies to ordinary interactions, i.e. interactions that are not meant to be sexual. I do not think that Rabbi Linzer’s claim that women are not responsible for men’s lewd thoughts applies to situations where women may actually be sexualizing the atmosphere on their own. Men also have a right to ask for desexualized public space. Even secular law is aware of this fact, which is why there are statutes against public indecency. The question becomes: What kind of behavior sexualizes the atmosphere? It is with regard to this question that, I feel, Professor Magid and Rabbi Linzer are speaking at cross purposes.

Tzniut as Sociologically Determined
By its very nature, what sexualizes a given environment is sociologically determined. Although there is no discussion in the Talmud about “laws of tzniut,” the Talmud does list certain behaviors as “provocative” in the context of divorce and fault.  A terrific example is found in the Tosefta (t. Ketubot 7:6).

If [a woman’s husband] makes a vow that she must allow any man to taste her cooking, or that she must fill up and then pour out garbage, or that she should tell random men intimate details about her life with him – she may leave and [her husband] must make the ketubah payment, since he has not behaved with her in accordance with the law of Moses and Israel (dat Moshe ve-Yisrael). 

Similarly if [a man’s wife] goes out with her hair exposed, she goes out with her clothing in tatters, she behaves arrogantly with her slaves, maidservants or the neighborhood women, she goes out to weave in the public marketplace, she washes or is washed in the bathhouse in the company of random men – [if he decides to divorce her] she leaves without her ketubah payment, since she has not behaved with him in accordance with the law of Moses and Israel (dat Moshe ve-Yisrael).

The text deals with one type of fault that violates a marriage: humiliating one’s partner through his or her behavior. The list of a wife’s inappropriate behavior is clearly not meant to be exhaustive or objectively determined. I believe this applies to other iterations of this list as well.  In Talmudic times, a woman going out with her hair exposed or tattered clothing would have been sexualizing the environment around her with her public display, which is why a husband can call such behavior “fault.”

Halakha may be timeless but society changes; what may have been considered sexualizing behavior in one society may be considered harmless in a different society. Thus, a modest woman living in Saudi Arabia may not feel comfortable wearing a polo shirt in public, whereas a modest woman living in a Western society would. Furthermore, if a man from this same Western society were to complain that he finds women in polo-shirts erotic, we would have every right to tell him that this is his problem; it is he who is sexualizing the environment. 

Context Specific Modesty
In fact, modesty can be context specific within the same society. A woman who wears an ordinary bathing suit to the beach is not sexualizing her environment; this is how women on the beach dress. However, if this same woman were to wear the same bathing suit to the office or the supermarket she would absolutely be sexualizing the environment. What constitutes innocuous behavior versus erotic behavior is extremely context specific and the question is where to place the bar.

Speaking for myself, it seems to me that telling modern religious girls and women that they may not wear regular T-shirts or regular-fit shorts because their knees and elbows sexualize the environment is misguided.  In fact, I believe making such rules accomplishes the opposite; the rule actually sexualizes the woman more. By telling young teenage girls that they are being provocative even when they aren’t trying to be, we may unwittingly make them feel sexualized even during their normal interactions with men – exactly the opposite of what halakha is trying to accomplish.

A Conflict in Values
The challenge for modern religious men and women is that we live in a culture where a “modest amount” of sexualizing of the environment is not considered problematic. Although most of us live in societies where public nudity or sexual expression is prohibited, Western society does condone a certain amount of conscious public sexual display, especially in dress.

Consequently, not all clothing worn in our society is, in fact, appropriate for religious women. Plunging necklines, skin-tight outfits or dresses with thigh-high slits are designed to sexualize the environment to some degree. This may be considered appropriate in secular society but not for modest Jewish women. Although it goes unmentioned in his op-ed, I trust Rabbi Linzer would agree with this point, which is why I believe Professor Magid’s challenge goes too far. Of course halakha still has what to say about women’s, as well as men’s, public comportment.

The Need for Tolerance
Undoubtedly, we live in complex societies wherein people of different religious beliefs and values must get along. Even if halakha forbids certain types of dress, the religious man has no right to attempt to force this “dress code” on anyone else, and certainly not to use violence and other scare tactics. Just as the Talmud rejected R. Yossi of Yoqrat’s warped perception, we reject our own modern manifestations of it. This is self-evident and axiomatic. It has been agreed upon by the vast majority of religious Jews who have commented on the recent abhorrent behavior in Beit Shemesh, and need not be belabored here.

Conclusion
The important contribution of Rabbi Linzer’s piece – and my own – is to encourage our community to consider how the burden of desexualizing the environment has fallen completely upon the shoulders of women over the years. This burden has contributed to the disempowerment of women in the religious Jewish world and, ironically, has sexualized them even more. When women are held liable for every male sexual fantasy, they inevitably become nothing more than sex objects. This is the ultimate violation of tzniut and is not the fault of Talmudic law, but of the skewed perception of it in our times.

Rabbi Zev Farber, Atlanta

0 Comments — Leave your comment

June 24, 2011 | 12:35 pm

Are We There Yet…? Rabbi Barry Gelman

Posted by Rabbi Barry Gelman

Are We There Yet…?- Rabbi Barry Gelman
June 24, 2011
Are We There Yet….?

Is our Judaism something that causes us to aspire to certain goals or does it cause stagnation and the belief that one has arrived at their final destination.

Yehsayahu Leibowitz points out that it is not a coincidence that the word “holy” appears at the end of last week’s Torah reading, Parshat Sh’lach and at the beginning of this week’s Torah reading, Parshat Korach. For him, the two uses of the word is meant to focus us in on the different ways it is used.

At the end of Parshat Sh’lach, the Torah states: “So that you remember and perform all My commandments, and become holy to your God.” Leibowitz stresses that this verse represents an aspirational approach to holiness in that the purpose of the Mitzvot is to help a person achieve holiness.

Korach, on the other hand hands declares: “…the entire assembly – all of them – are holy.” What Korach is saying is that holiness is a given and exists simply by virtue of the fact that one is a Jew.

On one level, Korach’s claim of innate holiness is empowering as it bespeaks a special status and perhaps a desire to live up to that rank.

Leibowitz, on the other hand, warns that such an approach cheapens holiness, as it need not be earned. It also leads to laziness and conceit as one may then claim that there is no work to be done on character and /or relationship development.

Living life as if one has already reached the pinnacle is the Korach way, as opposed to God’s decree to live life in constant aspiration of doing more and being better.

This idea is especially true in the area of personal character traits. Alan Morinis is his book, Climbing Jacobs Ladder, teaches the following about the goal of mussar practices. “ It assures us that we are not condemned to live forever with every aspect of the personality we happen to have right know, but that we can make changes that will set free the radiance of our inner light.”

The idea of aspiring for more is an important way to view the development of Halacha. For example, Eliezer Berkowitz in his book, Jewish Women in Time and Torah, distinguishes between stances that the Torah tolerates and those that the Torah aspires to. More recently, this approach has been adopted and expanded by Rabbi Nachum Rabinovitch.

Their claim is that some of the laws within the Torah itself are not the “end of the road” since they represent positions that are tolerated by the Torah due to historic realities while rabbinic legislation helps Halacha get closer to the ideal position.  For details of Rabbi Rabinovitch’s application of this idea go to – http://tinyurl.com/5vngcg

God had to show that Korach’s approach was doomed to moral, ethical and even legal failure. It was an approach that could have only left the Jewish people, and anyone who accepts such an approach, stuck and stalled in their present condition. Perhaps the punishment of being swallowed up by the earth was God’s way of showing that Korach’s approach was the equivalent of getting stuck in the sand, with an inability to move forward and aspire to even greater heights.

0 Comments — Leave your comment

March 3, 2010 | 5:50 am

Modern Orthodoxy’s Parallel Universe - Rabbi Barry Gelman

Posted by Rabbi Barry Gelman

Modern Orthodoxy’s Parallel Universe
Modern Orthodoxy’s identity crisis is manifested in compartmentalized living. It seems that many in the Modern Orthodox camp live their lives and at other times live their Jewish lives. Often the two do not resemble on another.
Here are a few examples.
In our daily lives we are committed to equality and embrace the idea that women should have all the professional and social opportunities that men have. When it comes to our Jewish life we often revert to a pre-modern approach wherein we decline to offer women religious opportunities no barred by halacha. In our secular settings we are perfectly happy to listen to a women give a lecture, but many cringe at the thought of a women delivering a Dvar Torah in shul. Consistency would demand that we either embrace the later or refrain fro listening to women speak entirely.
In our work places we interact with non Jews all the time and we accord them respect and treat them as equals. Often when talking about gentiles in the Jewish context the tone and language change and the most radical approaches to gentiles an Jewish gentile relations are accepted.
Another area is in the realm of Torah study and understanding of Jewish law. For the most part, we live a life on nuance and recognize that there is often more than one way to approach a question or solve a problem. However, when it comes to Torah study and more so when it comes to halacha, many in the Modern Orthodox community expect that there is only one approach or answer to a given question. This may stem from the growth in popularity of Daat Torah, that the great sages of the day have the single and ultimate answers to everything. Perhaps some Modern Orthodox Jews have Daat Torah envy.
The problem with this approach is that Modern Orthodoxy, at its core, recognizes that there are often a multiplicity of approaches to a given question and that more than one answer can be legitimate
These are a few examples of the parallel universes that many modern orthodox Jews live in. It seems to me that the modern orthodox lifestyle has been adopted and championed without much thought about the underlying ideals of Modern Orthodoxy. We embrace the Modern Orthodox license to watch television, attend the opera and read philosophy without coming to terms with some of the important ideological underpinnings of Modern Orthodoxy.
This “double life” cuts to the very definition of Modern Orthodoxy and raises an important question. Is Modern Orthodoxy as practiced today in America based on a series of high ideals that lead to a certain lifestyle or is Modern Orthodoxy simply the decision of Jews to live a convenient lifestyle while essentially adopting chareidi philosophical positions?

0 Comments — Leave your comment

August 5, 2009 | 11:09 pm

The Rabbinate 101

Posted by Rabba Sara Hurwitz

I recently got a taste of what it would be like to have my own pulpit, to be the rabbi of my own shul.  My esteemed colleagues Rabbis Avi Weiss and Steven Exler were on vacation, which left me in charge.  Alone.  In a 850-family shul. 

Of course, as soon as everyone left, there was suddenly a funeral to officiate, a shiva to run, a bris to lead, and Shabbat services to orchestrate.  I did it all, and the craziest thing is that no one batted an eyelid.  It just seemed natural. 

From this whirlwind experience I gained an even fuller appreciation of the deep and far-reaching modes of activity that constitute the rabbinate.  And if I could distill the one common ingredient in these tasks it would be presence.  Showing up.  Reaching out and making personal connections with individuals. 

This point was driven home to me in two distinct ways.  When an adult son of one of our members died, they called the shul asking to speak to one of the rabbis. So I dropped everything and went to sit with them, navigating the family through the complicated hospital bureaucracy and funeral arrangements. Towards the end of the day, as I broached the topic of who would be officiating at the funeral, explaining that I could find a male, more traditional looking rabbi, she looked at me as if I was crazy.  Of course you should do it, she said.  By the end of the week, she was telling anyone who would listen (between her moments of grief) that I was a rabbi.

And on the other end of the life cycle, I was asked to advise on and coordinate a bris. I showed up at the couples’ home, explained the bris ceremony, and envisioned with them how the service would be run. By the end of the conversation, it was hard to imagine the day without my participation.

You see, until recently, I assumed that lifecycle events were closed off to me as a woman in a rabbinic position.  People associate these events with male rabbis.  But as I officiate at more and more of these ceremonies—in sadness and gladness—I realize that gender is less important to members of my community than simply being present, engaged and building a relationship.

That is what being a rabbis is about.  That is the rabbinate 101.

(Since I wrote this post, two additional members of our community have passed on.  It’s been a busy couple of days).

0 Comments — Leave your comment