This August, the weekend of the 8th, to be exact, will bring one of the annual highlights of the Klal Yisrael activities of the Council. The Annual Unity Shabbaton brings together Jewish adults from across the denominational spectrum for a Shabbat of prayer, study, and good food.
The proven format for the weekend includes three Rabbinic presenters, who both lead sessions in parallel Shabbat afternoon, and share a panel discussion on Parashat Hashavua on Shabbat morning, provide an educational and engaging platform for a series of discussions about Judaism and Torah.
There are parallel prayer services, conducted in both an egalitarian and Mechitzah environment, so that all attendees are comfortable during Tefillah.
Read more about the upcoming Shabbaton and see how to register at our website, http://www.synagoguecouncil.org/shabbaton.htm. Hope to see you there!
We plan to add more material here with this posting and to provide an area for participant comments.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Friday, December 5, 2008
Limits of pluralism
Controversy highlights challenges for liberal Orthodox school
By Ben Harris · December 2, 2008
NEW YORK (JTA) -- A liberal Orthodox rabbinical school's response to the controversial action of one of its graduates highlights the challenge facing progressives in the Modern Orthodox community.
Rabbi Darren Kleinberg participated this summer in a mixed-denominational beit din, or religious court, in Phoenix, where he runs an adult education organization. Kleinberg, a 2005 graduate of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, was approached by a couple who had adopted a child they planned to convert under the auspices of a female Conservative rabbi. Though he knew his participation in the beit din would not grant the conversion Orthodox legitimacy, Kleinberg still agreed to participate in the conversion ceremony because he felt close to the couple.
Chovevei Torah issued a statement distancing the school from Kleinberg's action. The Riverdale seminary had considered declaring that it could no longer recognize Kleinberg as an Orthodox rabbi.
"This violates the standards and principles of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and YCT categorically rejects this action," said the statement, published in October on several blogs. "Rabbi Kleinberg's statements and actions should not be assumed to be representative of YCT's positions and principles."
The Kleinberg episode illuminates the challenges facing Chovevei Torah, which as an avatar of so-called "open Orthodoxy" occupies a fragile perch at Orthodoxy's left-wing frontier. The institution, founded by the Orthodox activist Rabbi Avi Weiss, repeatedly has been a target of conservative elements who charge that the school has drifted beyond the Orthodox pale.
Established to foster a less insular, less exclusivist and more intellectually open brand of Orthodoxy than its mainstream competitor, Yeshiva University, Chovevei Torah has had to perform a delicate dance to preserve its Orthodox credentials.
"I think Chovevei is trying to move the community forward, but it has to be concerned that if it goes too far, too fast that its graduates will be jeopardized," said Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, the founding president of Michael Steinhardt's Foundation for Jewish LIfe and a leading liberal Orthodox rabbi. "I think they're doing their best to protect their students."
Since its establishment in 1999, Chovevei Torah has struggled for acceptance in the Orthodox mainstream. Some Orthodox synagogues that considered hiring Chovevei Torah graduates as rabbis have been pressured not to do so.
Weiss applied to the main centrist Orthodox rabbinical group, the Rabbinical Council of America, to have Chovevei Torah accredited as an Orthodox rabbinical school, but said he pulled the school's application when the process become too arduous.
Instead, Weiss and another liberal Orthodox rabbi, Marc Angel, founded the International Rabbinic Fellowship in an effort to provide an institutional umbrella for Chovevei Torah rabbis and to advance a more liberal rabbinic approach to a variety of hot-button issues.
Weiss has been an outspoken critic of the mainstream Orthodox rabbinical establishment, which he says limits the discretion of local rabbis in rendering decisions on halachah, or Jewish law.
Yet even Weiss, who has placed the liberalization of conversion standards at the top of his reform agenda for Orthodoxy, would not countenance Kleinberg's cooperation in a mixed-denominational beit din.
"There are limits and there are standards," Weiss told JTA. "And participating in a non-halachic beit din violates those standards."
Kleinberg long has been Exhibit A in the conservative Orthodox case against Chovevei Torah, which has graduated 43 rabbinical students. He has written articles that Orthodox critics charge border on heresy, such as suggesting that the concept of Jewish chosenness be revisited and that the Bible portrays God as imperfect. And he participated in a panel discussion about the film "Sentenced to Marriage," a scathing critique of the Israeli Orthodox Rabbinate's grip on civil matters of marriage and divorce.
Kleinberg says his actions this summer were not contrary to Jewish law and that Chovevei's reaction is emblematic of the narrow approach to halachah that open Orthodoxy was supposed to reject.
At issue here, Kleinberg says, is whether Jewish law requires a kosher beit din -- that is, one comprised exclusively of men, according to Orthodox interpretation -- at the mikvah portion of the conversion ceremony. Kleinberg says it does not and that his action therefore was in line with Orthodox strictures.
However, Kleinberg readily concedes, if he had been asked to participate in a ceremony that went even further, such as one that accepted the testimony of women as witnesses -- which clearly violates Orthodox strictures -- he would have gone ahead anyway.
"The way this issue has been dealt with suggests that the same lines in the sand between Orthodox, Conservative and Reform, between us and them, are still in place," Kleinberg said, suggesting that Chovevei is not more progressive than institutional Orthodoxy on the "big issues -- the issues that validate non-Orthodox rabbis as legitimate rabbis and non-Orthodox movements as bona fide expressions of Judaism."
While Kleinberg is concerned primarily with Jewish peoplehood and lowering barriers between denominations, for his relatively young alma mater establishing clear boundaries may be integral to its success.
"When you have a new institution like Chovevei Torah, then it has a public that wants to know what it stands for," said Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard, a teacher of Jewish thought at Chovevei Torah. "That audience does want to know were the edges are. Because YCT is an open Orthodox yeshiva, they want to know how open are you."
By Ben Harris · December 2, 2008
NEW YORK (JTA) -- A liberal Orthodox rabbinical school's response to the controversial action of one of its graduates highlights the challenge facing progressives in the Modern Orthodox community.
Rabbi Darren Kleinberg participated this summer in a mixed-denominational beit din, or religious court, in Phoenix, where he runs an adult education organization. Kleinberg, a 2005 graduate of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, was approached by a couple who had adopted a child they planned to convert under the auspices of a female Conservative rabbi. Though he knew his participation in the beit din would not grant the conversion Orthodox legitimacy, Kleinberg still agreed to participate in the conversion ceremony because he felt close to the couple.
Chovevei Torah issued a statement distancing the school from Kleinberg's action. The Riverdale seminary had considered declaring that it could no longer recognize Kleinberg as an Orthodox rabbi.
"This violates the standards and principles of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and YCT categorically rejects this action," said the statement, published in October on several blogs. "Rabbi Kleinberg's statements and actions should not be assumed to be representative of YCT's positions and principles."
The Kleinberg episode illuminates the challenges facing Chovevei Torah, which as an avatar of so-called "open Orthodoxy" occupies a fragile perch at Orthodoxy's left-wing frontier. The institution, founded by the Orthodox activist Rabbi Avi Weiss, repeatedly has been a target of conservative elements who charge that the school has drifted beyond the Orthodox pale.
Established to foster a less insular, less exclusivist and more intellectually open brand of Orthodoxy than its mainstream competitor, Yeshiva University, Chovevei Torah has had to perform a delicate dance to preserve its Orthodox credentials.
"I think Chovevei is trying to move the community forward, but it has to be concerned that if it goes too far, too fast that its graduates will be jeopardized," said Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, the founding president of Michael Steinhardt's Foundation for Jewish LIfe and a leading liberal Orthodox rabbi. "I think they're doing their best to protect their students."
Since its establishment in 1999, Chovevei Torah has struggled for acceptance in the Orthodox mainstream. Some Orthodox synagogues that considered hiring Chovevei Torah graduates as rabbis have been pressured not to do so.
Weiss applied to the main centrist Orthodox rabbinical group, the Rabbinical Council of America, to have Chovevei Torah accredited as an Orthodox rabbinical school, but said he pulled the school's application when the process become too arduous.
Instead, Weiss and another liberal Orthodox rabbi, Marc Angel, founded the International Rabbinic Fellowship in an effort to provide an institutional umbrella for Chovevei Torah rabbis and to advance a more liberal rabbinic approach to a variety of hot-button issues.
Weiss has been an outspoken critic of the mainstream Orthodox rabbinical establishment, which he says limits the discretion of local rabbis in rendering decisions on halachah, or Jewish law.
Yet even Weiss, who has placed the liberalization of conversion standards at the top of his reform agenda for Orthodoxy, would not countenance Kleinberg's cooperation in a mixed-denominational beit din.
"There are limits and there are standards," Weiss told JTA. "And participating in a non-halachic beit din violates those standards."
Kleinberg long has been Exhibit A in the conservative Orthodox case against Chovevei Torah, which has graduated 43 rabbinical students. He has written articles that Orthodox critics charge border on heresy, such as suggesting that the concept of Jewish chosenness be revisited and that the Bible portrays God as imperfect. And he participated in a panel discussion about the film "Sentenced to Marriage," a scathing critique of the Israeli Orthodox Rabbinate's grip on civil matters of marriage and divorce.
Kleinberg says his actions this summer were not contrary to Jewish law and that Chovevei's reaction is emblematic of the narrow approach to halachah that open Orthodoxy was supposed to reject.
At issue here, Kleinberg says, is whether Jewish law requires a kosher beit din -- that is, one comprised exclusively of men, according to Orthodox interpretation -- at the mikvah portion of the conversion ceremony. Kleinberg says it does not and that his action therefore was in line with Orthodox strictures.
However, Kleinberg readily concedes, if he had been asked to participate in a ceremony that went even further, such as one that accepted the testimony of women as witnesses -- which clearly violates Orthodox strictures -- he would have gone ahead anyway.
"The way this issue has been dealt with suggests that the same lines in the sand between Orthodox, Conservative and Reform, between us and them, are still in place," Kleinberg said, suggesting that Chovevei is not more progressive than institutional Orthodoxy on the "big issues -- the issues that validate non-Orthodox rabbis as legitimate rabbis and non-Orthodox movements as bona fide expressions of Judaism."
While Kleinberg is concerned primarily with Jewish peoplehood and lowering barriers between denominations, for his relatively young alma mater establishing clear boundaries may be integral to its success.
"When you have a new institution like Chovevei Torah, then it has a public that wants to know what it stands for," said Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard, a teacher of Jewish thought at Chovevei Torah. "That audience does want to know were the edges are. Because YCT is an open Orthodox yeshiva, they want to know how open are you."
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Who is responsible for Jewish continuity?
Continuing another discussion from Friday night at the last shabbaton....
There are probably at least as many reasons to changes Jewish laws as there are laws. But besides the changes themselves, I believe the motivations for the changes are also important. I'll give a respectful hearing to a proposed change to halacha based on a feeling that the present system give unethical results. I'll listen to a change that says that the underlying reason for a halacha has been disproven (e.g., prohibiting mixing meat and fish).
But I'll reflexively reject almost any halachic change proposed for the purpose of "ensuring Jewish continuity." To my mind such changes confuse the means of Jewish life with the ends. According to traditional understanding, Israel has a contract with Hashem. We keep following the halacha, and in exchange, Hashem ensures the Jewish people will survive. This halacha need not be static - I'm not saying all change is ruled out. But the change to halacha should be done by halacha means and for appropriate meta-halachic purposes. To change halacha to promote Jewish continuity means trying to own both sides of our contract with Hashem. This strikes me as both inappropriate and ill-advised.
Halacha is a system that is meant to show us the way we should live. We should change halacha because we sincerely think we've found a better way to live, not to game the system.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Mitzvot, how many we do and how we think of ourselves in relation to others
At Friday night dinner during the Shabbaton we had a discussion about how we refer to our own practice, especially when around someone that we perceive as full observant or "much more observant" than we are.
I'm always fascinated by how Jews determine who is "really observant". It seems to hinge almost exclusively on being shomer shabbos and kosher in and out of the home (and assumption made based on those 2 facts and how the person is dressed). So people regularly at the shabbatons talk to me about how they are not "really" observant. I assume that everyone knows that there are 613 mitzvot and that no one person can do all of them. One of my favorite sayings from the late Lubuvitcher Rebbe is that "there are Jews that do mitzvot and Jews that do more mitzvot". There is no such thing as a Jew that does no mitzvot. And frankly, I've never met a Jew that did all the mitzvot they are obligated in perfectly. Most of us are doing our best and all of us have mitzvot we are, or need to be, working on. I regularly refer to some mitzvot as "I'm not there yet" even if at this point in time it is so low down on my priority list that it does not get a bullet point.
I'm afraid over dinner I got on my hobby horse and gave a lecture on using new/different terminology. One can refer to themselves as traditionally observant or one can refer to themselves as non-traditionally observant. According to the Chafetz Chayim, in the book "The Consice Book of Mitzvoth" the mitzvot that can be observed today include 77 positive mitzvot, 194 negative mitzvot, and 26 mitzvot contingent upon the land of Israel. Quite a number of the mitzvot include human interaction with other humans. I suspect if most of us went through the list of mitzvot we would find that we keep more than we thought we did. Hence, just because one is not orthodox that does not mean one is non-observant it simply means one is non-traditionally observant.
So what do you all think? I'd love to hear thoughts.
Written by Malka Esther Lennhoff
I'm always fascinated by how Jews determine who is "really observant". It seems to hinge almost exclusively on being shomer shabbos and kosher in and out of the home (and assumption made based on those 2 facts and how the person is dressed). So people regularly at the shabbatons talk to me about how they are not "really" observant. I assume that everyone knows that there are 613 mitzvot and that no one person can do all of them. One of my favorite sayings from the late Lubuvitcher Rebbe is that "there are Jews that do mitzvot and Jews that do more mitzvot". There is no such thing as a Jew that does no mitzvot. And frankly, I've never met a Jew that did all the mitzvot they are obligated in perfectly. Most of us are doing our best and all of us have mitzvot we are, or need to be, working on. I regularly refer to some mitzvot as "I'm not there yet" even if at this point in time it is so low down on my priority list that it does not get a bullet point.
I'm afraid over dinner I got on my hobby horse and gave a lecture on using new/different terminology. One can refer to themselves as traditionally observant or one can refer to themselves as non-traditionally observant. According to the Chafetz Chayim, in the book "The Consice Book of Mitzvoth" the mitzvot that can be observed today include 77 positive mitzvot, 194 negative mitzvot, and 26 mitzvot contingent upon the land of Israel. Quite a number of the mitzvot include human interaction with other humans. I suspect if most of us went through the list of mitzvot we would find that we keep more than we thought we did. Hence, just because one is not orthodox that does not mean one is non-observant it simply means one is non-traditionally observant.
So what do you all think? I'd love to hear thoughts.
Written by Malka Esther Lennhoff
Monday, August 4, 2008
Am I Keeping Kosher If I Eat (dairy or veggie) In A Non-Kosher Restaurant?
Posted by Alan T.
This question came about during this year's (July 2008) Unity Shabbaton when Marilin Lipman and Rabbi David Paskin asked me if I think I'm keeping Kosher when eating in a non-Kosher restaurant. Evidently, they had a wager on my response, and to Rabbi David's surprise, my answer was "Yes, absolutely."
This is a challenge that many of us Kosher keeping non-Orthodox Jews face in modern times (and some Orthodox friends as well). As I see it, there are gradations of Kashrut. Some people keep Kosher at home, but not outside the home. And, many others, myself included, will eat dairy or vegetarian or selected fish items in non-Kosher restaurants. Others, of course, will only eat in Kosher restaurants. And still others will eat cold items, such as salads or fruit, in non-Kosher restaurants.
I realize that, to some people, I am simply not maintaining Kashrut. And that's fine. But to me, I am consciously making a decision not to eat non-Kosher meat outside the home and to ask about certain foods which may be questionable (onion soup, for example, which almost always has a beef or chicken stock).
If Kashrut is about intention and a set of values, as I believe it is, then I always have proper food consumption according to Jewish law at the forefront of my mind. As I've told my kids on many occasions, keeping Kosher is a tangible way for me to express my Jewishness. That I choose to eat veggie in non-Kosher restaurants or have only one dish-washer in my kitchen in no way diminishes the fact that I truly believe I am a Kosher-abiding Jew. I am eager to hear what you have to say. Let the discourse begin!
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Neat site for Torah learning and asking questions
Check out Revach L'Neshama (a different kind of news...). In English, the title means "a respite for the soul". You can find it at http://www.revach.net/. The site was designed for teaching about Torah, including short pieces on the Daf Yomi, Shabbat and parsha, philosophy and practice. You can even post questions using the "Ask the Rabbi" menu.
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